Canda's Emergencies Act explicitly defers to the country's intelligence agancy, CSIS, in determining a 'public order emergency,' and CSIS determined that the Freedom Convoy was not such an emergency. However, the Privy Council used its own definition instead in order to recommend that the Act be invoked.
Memo advising PM to invoke Emergencies Act admitted its interpretation was 'vulnerable': docs | CBC News - Catharine Tunney:
November 18, 2022 - "The memorandum to the prime minister suggesting the government invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history acknowledged its interpretation of a national security threat could be challenged, the inquiry reviewing that decision heard Friday. The Privy Council Office document — entered into evidence at the Public Order Emergency Commission Friday — was sent on the afternoon of Feb. 14.... The government announced its decision to invoke the act just after 4:30 p.m. ET that same day.
"'PCO notes that the disturbance and the public unrest is being felt across the country and beyond the Canadian borders, which may provide further momentum to the movement and lead to irremediable harms — including to social coercion, national unity and Canada's international reputation,' it reads. '"In PCO's view, this fits with the statutory parameters defining threats to the security of Canada, though this conclusion may be vulnerable to challenge'.... Eight months later, the memorandum's author, Clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette, defended her advice....
"The question of whether the federal government met the legal threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act is one of the most important ones on the commission's plate.... Under the law, cabinet must have reasonable grounds to believe a public order emergency exists — which the Act defines as one that 'arises from threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency.' [Clerk of the PCO] Janice Charette told the Emergencies Act inquiry that there is a broader definition of a threat of violence than the one identified by CSIS, and it was this broader definition that led to her recommending the PM invoke the Emergencies Act.
"The act defers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) definition of such an emergency — which includes serious violence against people or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the government by violence. The commission has seen evidence showing the director of CSIS didn't believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security according to the definition in CSIS's enabling law. Charette said she weighed CSIS's assessment but said it was the combination of the economic and public safety impacts of the protests that, in her view, constituted a public order emergency.
"Deputy Clerk Nathalie Drouin — who, before coming to PCO, was the deputy minister at the Department of Justice — told the commission she believed the situation met the threshold. 'The threat had grown beyond the ability to end the blockades in a sustainable and durable way; extraordinary resources were required to clear Windsor, which diverted the blockade to Bluewater, raising concerns about the number of resources available,' said a document summarizing Drouin's interview with the commission in September....
"The document also showed PCO was becoming increasingly frustrated with the police response. Drouin 'recalled losing hope that local police forces in Ottawa and Windsor were capable of executing their operational plans as time went on and no concrete police actions materialized,' said the interview summary.
"The commission has [also] seen an email RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki sent to Public Safety Marco Mendicino the night before the government invoked the Emergencies Act last February. Lucki wrote that she didn't think police had exhausted all available tools to end the ongoing occupation of downtown Ottawa by protesters who had been demanding an end to COVID-19 restrictions. Charette testified Friday that if the head of the RCMP felt the Emergencies Act should not have been invoked, she could have told her."
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pco-emergencies-act-1.6656247
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