Why Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act is illegitimate, and why Parliament may vote for it anyway
I was going to write a post about the topic that’s the subject of this post, but it would have taken me quite some time to study the wording of the Act and the wording Trudeau’s government employed when it claimed the right to use it. Instead, I happened across this rather short video in which Bruce Pardy, who is a professor at Queen’s University, explains it clearly and succinctly. So I’ll defer to him:
One of the points I was planning to make, and one that Pardy covers, is how the pernicious “words are violence” managed to morph from the confinement of the absurd “logic” of the leftist academy into the real world of politics and to restrict people’s ability to live in liberty.
Trudeau is bold and shameless. His claim that the truckers and their supporters are white supremacist haters was never supported by facts, but that didn’t stop him because he always knew it was a necessary claim to make in order to seize enormous powers. I believe this was part of his plan from the start, and he used January 6th as the template and then extended it even further.
Tonight the Canadian Parliament will be voting on the Act’s use by Trudeau [emphasis mine]:
MPs will vote on the motion Monday at 8 p.m. ET, and it is expected to pass with the joint support of the Liberals and NDP. The Bloc Quebecois and the Conservatives are against it.
Trudeau’s government is a minority government, formed by a coalition of those first two parties: Liberals and NDP.
If the motion fails, the invocation of the act and its extraordinary powers will be struck down. If it passes they will remain in place until mid-March at the latest.
MPs have been debating the measure since Thursday morning, though the 15 hours of debate planned for Friday were cancelled due to safety concerns as police moved in to remove protesters still blockading the streets outside…
…Ontario Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu said on Twitter Sunday the Liberals should rein their use of the act back in now that the demonstrations appear to be over.
“If it was just about clearing the blockage and not about a power grab and government overreach, the Liberals would rescind these measures,” she said.
…Regardless of what happens with the vote, there will be an inquiry to review its use. A report must be tabled in both the House of Commons and the Senate by next February.
The Senate must also vote on the act’s use, but debate has not started yet in that chamber.
My sense is that the majority of Canadians favor its use. Canada would rather have “order” than liberty. I’m saying this not just because of the polls, but from a perusal of a lot of Twitter comments from Canadians profusely thanking both Trudeau and his deputy prime minister Freeland for “restoring order.”
Of course, that may not be the true picture, because many of the people who are against it may be too frightened to openly declare their position at this point. That’s how tyranny works to stifle dissent.
Jordan Peterson did an interview with Rex Murphy this weekend and one of the things they talked about is how the NDP used to be the party of the working class but now they are the ones that may push this over the top.
Canada doesn’t have a Florida sadly.
Our federalist system has been the only thing saving us from this exact kind of thing the last two years.
neo,
You may very well be right about the average Canadian but I wouldn’t base it on twitter or polls.
Twitter is not real life and polls are increasingly unreliable (were they ever reliable?).
Trudeau’s words are violence. It’s got to work that way too.
Mark Steyn with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibWarHGsZ90
This is really good.
neo correctly observes and gets to the heart of why the majority of Canadians support Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergency Act; “Canada would rather have “order” than liberty.”
While Prof. Pardy’s outstanding analysis astutely points out that words now equal violence, which is a tool to shut down debate and discent.
Predictably, Canadians who support Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergency Act will in the not too distant future be confronted with Benjamin Franklin’s truism; “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
They shall lose their liberty and their safety will depend upon their obediance to their new masters.
I would add that Trudeau is unlikely to be satisfied with just crushing the protesters. Once a complacent Parliament cravenly approves, Trudeau is likely to “strike while the iron is hot” and will use his power to crush anyone who dares to speak out against tyranny.
Dr. Peterson, Ezra Levant, Mark Stein and conservative Parliamentarians had best consider that tyrants often act decisively once they’ve crossed their point of no return.
fantome,
Not so. They are of the Humpty Dumpty persuasion;
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”
Apparently you didn’t get the memo; logic and reason are now “constructs of white supremacy” and therefore illegitimate.
Twitter is not the real world. It’s just a lot of people with time on their hands, an inflated sense of self, and a boulder on their shoulder.
Griffin @ 5:03pm,
physicsguy can back me up here; all the Canadians are in Florida from January through March!
I would like to see the day when Trudeau finds sanctuary in Cuba.
Unfortunately it looks like the collectivist totalitarians are winning.
“We’ll preserve [liberty] for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
— Ronald Reagan
Griffin,
“Hitherto ludicrous Bollywood bridesmaid.”
“Truckulent Trudeau!”
Mark Steyn is brilliant!
Twitter does seem to me to be a Leftist world so it’s use on %100 of a public opinion may not be true.
If the People’s representatives want to throw in with the dictator Canada is screwed for the immediate future.
Mark Steyn lives and works in New Hampshire, a legal immigrant BTW, so I don’t think either Brandon or Brandeau want to mess with him. Wouldn’t be prudent.
It’s good to remember that Canada was largely settled by those who preferred to be subjects, not citizens. Living in that very cold climate, safetyism may be a default position. Also Canada chose single payer Medicine in the 1980s. I suspect that getting your healthcare from government leads to a subservient attitude toward your benefactors.
Rufus, LOL, yep, lots of Ontario and Quebec plates.
More serious: ” I would add that Trudeau is unlikely to be satisfied with just crushing the protesters.”
Viva Frei, today reported that the government, not satisfied with the protestors just leaving, are going after their assets etc.
Mike K; “Also Canada chose single payer Medicine in the 1980s. I suspect that getting your healthcare from government leads to a subservient attitude toward your benefactors.”
Yep. The Canadians are more big government oriented than the U.S. But many of the Canadians (Mostly from BC and Alberta) I have known are freedom loving rule-breakers who tolerate their nanny state, but just barely.
Interesting that these protests were so peaceful but are being propagandized as violent and akin to treason. Had the truckers been burning, looting, and assaulting police; maybe Trudeau’s actions would make sense. Had he gone and talked with the truckers and heard them out, my guess is that they could have settled things peaceably. He’s obviously either afraid of them or is really a tyrant in soy-boy clothing.
If the parliament approves his actions and they go after people’s bank acounts, I think it may lead to actual violence.
“A report must be tabled in both the House of Commons and the Senate by next February.”
Only a year from now… A less than useless provision.
For those with the means, now is the time for Canadians to emigrate but where in the English speaking world is liberty not under assault?
physicsguy,
“Viva Frei, today reported that the government, not satisfied with the protestors just leaving, are going after their assets etc.”
Kill their pets, impoverish and imprison peaceful, law abiding citizens. Seize and indoctrinate their children. What then will they have to lose, given that their lives have been unjustly destroyed?
“If the parliament approves his actions and they go after people’s bank acounts, I think it may lead to actual violence.” J.J.
Back a man into a corner, take away all hope and see what you reap.
Me, I’d be looking for where the most amount of these monsters gather, perhaps Parliament? As any ‘conservative’ who doesn’t resign after Parliament passes approval of Trudeau’s clearly illegal imposition of tyranny and they effectively become a silent partner to tyranny… given that the government has lost all legitimacy.
Then finding an armory where I might acquire some shoulder launched rockets for my retribution… and that’s just for starters.
Cant wait til the next Antifa gathering.
Brendan O’Neill on wokeism as the source of Canada’s new authoritarianism:
“Today the way that ordinary people are buttered up for police battery, marked out as ‘suspect’, publicly branded as deserving of censure and punishment, is through being called ‘phobic’, insufficiently woke. . . . The woke have been at the forefront of depicting the truckers as scum, deserving of violent reprimand. Trudeau got in there early, updating McCarthyism by applying it to the ‘anti-woke’ rather than the anti-West. . . . Wokeness is not just a political irritation. It is not just a pose struck by universities and other institutions that want to appear relevant and cool. No, it is a key component of the new class politics. It is a central ideological wedge between the new elites who justify their rule on the basis of both their managerial capacities and their moral correctness and the working classes who have tired of this patrician form of governance. Wokeness is the means through which the upper classes distinguish themselves from the throng and justify their domination of society and our lives, and, as Canada now shows, it is also the instigator of state violence against those who resist and bristle against this domination. Wokeness is the disguise class authoritarianism wears in the 21st century, and anyone who cares for the rights, equality and liberty of working people needs to make a priority of defeating it.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/21/the-tyranny-of-high-status-opinion/
Geoffrey;
Those Carl Gustaf’s aren’t easy to come by. But you talk a good game. Civil wars tend to be messy. The loyalty of the armed forces is a big deal. Bring on “the tree of liberty needs to be watered ,,,,” or maybe see how the vote shakes out in Parliament?
Don’t fret, Yammer is really in charge here.
“Dogs and cats living together …” it’s all part of his plan.
DButkus:
The latest Antifa/BLM “protest” in Portland ended with an Antifa/BLM shot dead by a homeowner who was also wounded. What they will do to keep in the spotlight. In the police briefing/news conference the Antifa/BLM complained that the Portland Police were complicit in the Antifa/BLM persecution and had failed to protect them from the White Supremacists. No irony there.
Parliament voted this evening to support the Trudeau tyranny.
I wonder what the majority of Canadians will think when the long-term damage this is doing to Canada’s economy and banking system starts to bite. I mean, you really have to be kind of dumb to keep your money in a Canadian bank any longer. The government that can freeze your assets can just as easily seize your assets.
This is going to be one of those slow-motion catastrophes that no one notices today but everyone will see clear as day 30 years down the road. One of the foundations of Western Civilization’s success is high trust levels.
Mike
om,
Talk is cheap, actions count. The action I suggested is when all hope has been taken away and tyranny is undeniable. When they’ve destroyed your life and taken your children away.
The Canadian Parliament “Emergencies Act was approved in parliament on Monday by 185 to 151, with the minority Liberal government getting support from left-leaning New Democrats.”
https://www.denipt.com.au/world/canada-approves-trudeaus-emergency-powers/
Tyranny now reigns to our north. How long till it arrives here?
MBunge,
All basis for trust is now gone in Canada. Those still supporting Trudeau’s actions however still foolishly trust that reality will not affect them. But they shall fully deserve the reaping of what they have sown.
Well Geoffrey we in WA have King Jay, and you have Katherine the Grate. I think Katherine and her minions in Salem are worse, but not by much,
Katherine the Grate? I left Oregon in April of 2021. I currently live in Arkansas.
PS it’s a tossup who’s worst. Arguably, they hand that title back and forth as the whim strikes them.
Geoffrey:
Sorry, I didn’t catch that you had moved from Bend. I have a cousin in Arkansas, and almost went to Harding Collage in
cy, as an undergrad.
Also Canada chose single payer Medicine in the 1980s.
1960s
Canada would rather have “order” than liberty.
So would far too many United States voters, as evidenced by the last election. Weary of “mean tweets”, nightly protests/riots, and the non-stop circus conducted by the activist media in major newspapers and on the air, many voted for the current idiot in office for no other reason than their hoping that things would “get back to normal.”
And just like that, Cabada became another Venezuela. Standby to receive refugees from the north. Come on down, heh.
Wonder if the banks are worried about people withdrawing their money?
Freedom is not the natural state of mankind, but many who have tasted it, will seek it out – as our own immigration history has shown.
@JJ:
“Freedom is not the natural state of mankind, but many who have tasted it, will seek it out – as our own immigration history has shown.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/30/tech/parag-agrawal-profile/index.html
https://about.fb.com/news/2022/01/tony-xu-joins-meta-board-of-directors/
Rightttt….
unless trudeau is removed, Canada is lost. Either this gives him the power he seeks or it is a trial run to see how Canadians and other governments respond. if trudeau is merely voted out w the liberals holding power the next leftist takes this as lessons learned. the only meaningful removal is a vote of no confidence or a new election.
PA+Cat:
“Brendan O’Neill on wokeism as the source of Canada’s new authoritarianism:”
That’s rich. I haven’t read O’Neil in awhile. I have respected his views often when I read him.
But his proud claim of Marxism baffles me. Even worries me, as his fans may hold a different version of Marxism than he seems to.
(I remain amazed by the many proud Marxists in the UK. Didn’t know about them until I came across O’NEIL about 5 years ago. )
In terms of preferring “order over liberty”…Welcome to the Commonwealth pal.
Comment says Emergency Act has passed 185 – 151, their two weeks to flatten the emergency will go on for years like ours.
Good job Canadians, you been taken like us.
Parliaments and Congress always vote for self-interest (profit). They know who hands out the “Loonies” (cash). Empty store shelves and gas tanks MAY matter if the truckers hang tough. Honk! Honk!
Neo wrote “Used Jan. 6 as template & then extended it”
How right you are. I heard someone announce last night that they (in authority … Canadian thugs) will be searching the country for all who were involved with the protest for many months.
To punish.
How awful for that behavior to be America’s latest export.
LGB.
There never is a shortage of jack-booted enforcers to impose a government’s will upon the citizenry.
This time Canada is the venue.
So, ladies and gents, what is about the Canadian personality or culture that enables a Trudeau (or a Putin, Bidet , Maduro, Castro, Hitler, Stalin, et. al.) to impose draconian measures to assert total control; eh?
The Alberta government is suing, but in the face of Parliamentary passage, I don’t know enough about the Canadian system to know if the lawsuit will succeed.
At the very least, Canadians who believe in freedom should move into one of the states which has lifted the mandates. However, the reach of the federal government, based on this power grab, will probably find them there.
The frightening thing about Trudeau’s actions to me isn’t anything it says about Canadians. It’s that Trudeau is following the January 6 “insurrection” scenario, i.e. following _us_. Our republic fell last year.
I notice this this even in the language of some of the most prominent pro-trucker You-Tubers I’ve been watching: Viva Frei and Jordan Peterson. Both say “Oh, the truckers are nothing like Jan 6,” taking for granted that Jan 6 was an “insurrection.” That “MAGA” are extremists.
Trudeau and his ministers were laying down these cards from their first comments on the truckers as Nazis and white supremacists with Confederate flags (that Trump and his supporters are such was proven by Charlottesville, in liberal orthodoxy). How they would track down those Trump supporters financing this from the United States who “should be worried.”
In other words, they are using “MAGA” as a means to paint the situation are one of international terrorism/subversion, led out of the US by Trump supporters.
My friends in Canada genuinely believe this.
I read that in the Canadian Parliamentarian System every party leader has the unilateral power to expell any member from the party who fails to vote the party line.
From what I gather the NDP Party is Canada’s far left party, though I fail to see a difference between them and Trudeau’s ‘Liberal’ Party when it comes to their support for tyranny.
In the debate on support for Trudeau’s invocation of the Act, the NDP leader Singh asserted that the Truckers wanted to overthrow Canada’s elected government. And claimed that the Freedom Convoy’s website stated that goal. Can anyone verify?
A vote of no confidence and new elections would not constitute overthrowing Canada’s governmental system. It’s what Parliament should do, but won’t, alas.
Parliament’s votes was along party lines. That’s no surprise; still disappointing. And then there is this:
Tamara Lich Denied Bail
Why am I not surprised?
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be under the guise of public health.”
• The quote may not be verbatim, but the sentiment is.
• 100% agree with that sentiment – and the facts over the past two years have proven it true.
• When I first read the quote, the comment was made that it was made years ago by a well-known political commentor.
• Have not been able to find the quote but note that it reflects the same understanding of how to manipulate as “White Privilege” does – feelings, not facts – without setting off alarms for many people (until they realize it is too late).
Zaphod, and your point is? Are we being subjugated by a bunch of software Nazis from India? Or?
So Ontario Superior Court Justice Julie Bourgeois stated that Tamara Lich, if convicted of “counciling to commit mischief” could receive a “lengthy” prison sentence.
Apparently, Trudeau’s Canadian government intends to create its own Gulag for political prisoners.
So suggesting and advising that other people committ mischief results in a lengthy prison sentence. Along with a frozen bank account, so that there’s no ability to hire a lawyer… along with any dependents having no means to feed themselves, pay their rent or mortgage or pay the utility bill to keep from freezing to death. Which of course would amount to ‘legal’ murder.
PS. In the interest of full disclosure, my birth mother’s maiden name was Bourgeois and her branch of the family emigrated to New England some generations ago. So I suspect the
Judge to possibly be a distant relation. Much to the family’s shame.
What a dishonest judge, acting as if a lengthy prison sentence for just counseling to commit mischief isn’t cruel and unusual punishment. And whether or not Canada has or has not a prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” justice and basic decency would require that Judge Bourgeois acknowledge it in some manner. Instead, she acts as though its justified, which makes her a supporter of tyranny. And like rabies, there’s only one cure for tyrants.
Tyranny now reigns to our north. How long till it arrives here?
Democrats approve of Trudeau’s actions by a large majority.
65%
It seems that in Canada they have finally found the right people to implement true socialism. Same results will follow as ever before. Shocking how that keeps happening. Oh, Canada.
According to the article Mike K sites, 35% of democrats, formerly Americans, support Trudeau’s tyrannical, criminal actions against Canada’s entirely peaceful protesters.
In doing so, they have declared their support for tyranny, just as those in 1776 who continued to support British tyranny.
They endorse cruel and unusual punishment.
So be it, they are no longer our countrymen.
May their chains rest heavily upon their necks for what they would bequeath to future generations.
Trudeau is either the son of an admirer of Hitler, who tried to keep Canada out of WWII, or the son of an admirer of Stalin, who enslaved a whole country. Thus it is not surprising that the current Prime Minister of Canada is an authoritarian tyrant.
I hope all my Canadian friends and relatives are enjoying his magnanimous protection from the mean tweets that once terrorized them!!
Geoffrey Britain, the article says 65% of Democrats in the survey approved of Trudeau’s actions, not 35%.
@JJ:
The point is that platitudes about immigration and being freedom-loving have zero meaning in the year 2022 and therefore really what is the point of uttering them?
Immigrants in recent decades show up for the easy pickings. They are predators, parasistes, at best a few might be remoras. The natives are blissfully supine slow on the uptake Dodos, Squab…. not something to be proud of. But there’s still hope *some* of them might evolve 🙂
Just like the Irish, Italians, Swedes. Welsh, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Catholics, Jews,
Bigotry and zenophobia (spelling intentionally incorrect) masked with science and pragmatism isn’t original, or new, or profound, Z.