Canada's Trudeau government misused the Emergencies Act, writes a Disaster and Emergency Management professor and consultant.
How our federal government misused the Emergencies Act | Toronto Sun - Alex Vezina:
October 23, 2022 - "I’ve talked to a number of senior people in emergency management, disaster risk reduction and business continuity who do high-level consulting on strategies to safeguard the public, about the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 to disband the so-called Freedom Convoy. Not one of them thinks it was necessary or a good idea.
"From a professional emergency management perspective, here is what happened in Ottawa. An extended mass gathering of three weeks occurred, which resulted in a large number of mostly bylaw infractions, which is the responsibility of the local city government to enforce. The relevant public safety response should have come from the Ottawa police, but that exposed some serious problems.
"First, the Ottawa police did not have the resources to manage the hazard. Keep in mind that any large group of people is a potential hazard, irrespective of their motivations. Simply put, the more people there are to manage, the more resources are required to manage them. Second, the protesters included people who had worked in safety operations, with military and police training. This meant protesters could be internally advised on what behaviour was acceptable and what wasn’t. If the protesters didn’t give police genuine reasons for clearing them out then except for the bylaw infractions, they basically weren’t doing anything wrong. That is, before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.
"Toronto handled the situation differently, by using prevention and mitigation strategies, such as blocking protest vehicles from getting to their preferred locations.... Toronto police pre-emptively limited the ability of the protest to grow. Compare that to Ottawa, where there appeared to have been little advance planning with regard to an influx of trucks and other vehicles rolling into the city’s downtown. Once those vehicles were parked and the bouncy castle and hot tub set up, ending the protest became much more difficult.
"Police can forcibly remove demonstrators from an area to protect critical infrastructure for reasons of public safety. That happened with the blockade at the Windsor-Detroit Ambassador Bridge, using Ontario’s state of emergency legislation and an injunction to end the trucker blockade the evening before the Trudeau government invoked the federal Emergencies Act.
"While this may sound counterintuitive, critical infrastructure was not being disrupted in Ottawa. Measures were taken to keep Parliament operating, and many politicians and civil servants were working from home due to COVID-19. Finally, the reduced number of people entering Parliament were able to do so safely.
"From the perspective of national security today, if a government cannot operate while there is a loud but for the most part peaceful protest outside, then either the national security agencies or the government, or both, are incompetent. In these circumstances, invoking the Emergencies Act to end a largely peaceful protest should be an international embarrassment and risks legitimizing protestors’ claims about government overreach. Claiming the Ottawa protest was violent is ridiculous.... In Ottawa, a few people ... waving confederate and swastika flags yelling 'we took over the country,' does not mean they actually took over the country, nor does it mean they spoke for all the protesters.
"Using the Emergency Act in this way to break up a loud and noisy but essentially peaceful demonstration against the government that could have been handled by competent policing and bylaw enforcement, sets a dangerous precedent. It undermines the entire concept of emergency planning and what qualifies as an actual emergency in Canada."
Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp. and teaches Disaster and Emergency Management at York University. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.
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