Inventing a National Security Crisis
Second lawyers' group says Trudeau government defined national security threats contrary to the law.
Defence lawyers are used to arguing the fine points of the law. Convictions and acquittals frequently turn on a lawyer’s ability to interpret the intent of a particular section of the Criminal Code.
Last month, two organizations representing defence lawyers filed a Closing Submission with the Emergencies Act inquiry. That document does a magnificent job of destroying the government’s position.
When Finance Minister (and Deputy Prime Minister) Chrystia Freeland testified before the inquiry, she placed tremendous emphasis on the economic harm the trucker-related protests were allegedly inflicting on the Canadian economy.
But economic harm is not sufficient to trigger the Emergencies Act. If it were, all sorts of organized labour strikes could be declared national emergencies. Police goons could violently clear picket lines, while union bosses had their bank accounts frozen.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association points out, in paragraph 94 of its own Closing Submission, that “Economic pressure is a common form of protest” routinely used by governments themselves. (International trade sanctions apply economic pressure in order to achieve certain goals.)
Getting back to Chrystia Freeland, in a supremely understated manner these defense lawyers declare her economic arguments to be nonsense. They say her definition of national security is “far removed” from the “specific definition of ‘threats to national security’” cited in the Emergencies Act.
In other words, our Deputy Prime Minister paid little heed to what the law actually says. She invented her own definition of a national security crisis - a definition far removed from what disinterested legal minds consider reasonable.
So according to Freeland's definition, shutting down the economy for 2 years and creating massive debt is a National Security Crisis. Maybe we should freeze her and the PM's accounts.
I just realized how lucky Canada was when P.M. Pierre Trudeau insisted that Canada didn’t allow Nuclear Weapons to be included in the country’s defence arsenal - with the present gang of Liberal Government’s Mental Midgets of Parliament- who knows to what degree of action they may have resorted to if Canadians decided to go along and keep the protest peaceful instead of fighting back as a last stand to defend Canadian’s Freedom!