The Decibel - Why the Emergencies Act Inquiry says Trudeau was right

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Just over a year after the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, an inquiry has found that the Liberals acted appropriately, even though the Act gave them sweeping powers. This report – by Justice Paul Rouleau – marks the end of a commission that investigated the trucker convoy protest, the breakdown in policing and governing that lead to the Emergency Act being invoked.Political columnist John Ibbitson discusses the importance of this report for our democracy, the political winners and losers and what he hopes will be done with Justice Rouleau’s recommendations.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

After careful reflection, I have concluded that the very high threshold required for the invocation of the act was met. I do not come to this conclusion easily, as I do not consider the factual basis for it to be overwhelming. That's Justice Paul Rouleau, the head of the Emergencies Act inquiry. He concluded that the federal government was justified in using the Emergencies Act. It gave them sweeping powers to end last year's convoy protests in Ottawa and at two border crossings. After months of investigations, thousands of pages of documents, and over 230 hours of testimony,

the report said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision was appropriate. We didn't want to have to invoke the Emergencies Act. It's a measure of last resort. But the risk to personal safety, the risk to livelihoods, and equally the risk of people losing faith in the rule of law that upholds our society and our freedoms, those risks were real. Responsible leadership required us to restore peace and order. Today, I'm talking to my colleague, Ottawa columnist John Ibbotson.

He'll discuss what the conclusions of this report mean in a society that remains divided. I'm Maina Karaman-Wellms, and this is The Decibel from the Globe and Mail. John, it's so great to see you again. Thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure. What was your reaction, John, when you first read the report? My first reaction was a big question had been answered. The question was, did the Trudeau government overreach when it invoked the Emergencies Act in order to shut down the protests in Ottawa and across the country? And the answer is no, because it was a failure of policing, a failure of federalism that the government had been brought to that place. But it had been brought to that place and it was justified in acting. And that question, at least for me, is answered. So we're going to get into a lot of the details that you just touched on there. But firstly, I just want to get to the big picture here. I mean, this report is

massive at about over 2,000 pages long. The government spent around $21 million on the inquiry. And the inquiry was, of course, mandated by law. They had to do this. But John, why does this report matter so much? Oh, it matters hugely. Because when a government invokes the Emergencies Act, it assumes, in some ways, almost dictatorial powers. It is able to move without the consent of parliament. It is able to suspend civil liberties. In this case, it was able to freeze bank accounts. And if you're going to do that, if you're going to essentially suspend the constitution or parts of the constitution, even for a very limited period of time, then you have better be able to explain why you are doing that. It is a very big thing. The Emergencies Act has

never been invoked since it came into effect. This is the first time. And we needed to know whether it was an act of overreach on the part of the Trudeau government to do so. And you just said it's, of course, the first time the Emergencies Act was used. So I would imagine that this sets a precedence for future uses as well, does it not? Well, let's hope not. I mean, let's hope that we don't have a civil strife reaching the level where governments feel they must routinely oppose the Emergencies Act. That would be a very bad thing. But one of the good things that came out of this commission is the recommendation that the act be updated and modernized and generally brought up to date. But let's hope this doesn't mean, oh, the Emergencies Act gets trotted out anytime we have a bad day, because that would be a bad thing. Okay, so let's get into this, John. Who are the winners and who are the losers of this report? Well, in pure partisan political terms, the obvious winner is Justin Trudeau.

If the commission had said that his government overreached in invoking the Emergencies Act, that would have been a very severe criticism of this government. So he wins politically in that the commission justifies that very big decision that he and Kaepernick made a year ago. I would say the big loser is Doug Ford. The report says that it was the belief of the federal government and of the city of Ottawa that Doug Ford wanted the federal government to, quote, wear, unquote, the political consequences of the occupation. It's clear that Justice Rollo believes that's true. And I think it was true. I wrote this the same at the time. It's a joke up here. People sometimes say, you know, in such and such a year, I left Ontario and moved to Ottawa. But it's supposed to just be a joke.

The Ontario government is supposed to be responsible for what happens in this city. And as I say, shame on Doug Ford for failing in those duties, and good on the commission for pointing that out. And yes, the commission does get into that, which we will talk about, but let's focus on the Liberal government here first, John. The big question in the report was whether the Liberal government met the threshold of, quote, threat to national security, end quote, in terms of the convoy protests. That was the threshold it needed to reach.

How did Justice Rouleau come to the conclusion that, in fact, the situation had got to that level and these measures were justified? Well, he come to the conclusion that, in fact, the situation had got to that level and these measures were justified? Well, he came to the conclusion that the Ottawa Police Service had failed to anticipate the occupation in Ottawa and had failed to produce a credible plan for ending it. He concluded as well that the Ottawa Police Service was not cooperating with the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP to produce a coherent plan to respond to the occupation. He concluded that the protesters, while largely peaceful, were nonetheless potentially

dangerous to the health and safety and well-being of the citizens in downtown Ottawa. And he concluded that other protests were proliferating across the country, that those protests threatened to get out of hand, and that at any time, peace, order, and good government could be impaired by these demonstrations, and that essentially it was time to use a circuit breaker. And that's essentially what invoking the Emergencies Act meant. It was a circuit breaker that intended to

stop the escalation of protest. And it worked. The protests ended and did not resume. And he did say, though, that he came to this conclusion reluctantly. Why did he use that word, reluctantly? Because peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy. There was no reason why people should not be able to protest vaccine mandates. They had every right to believe that vaccine mandates, social distancing,

the wearing of masks were not necessary public health measures to combat a pandemic, which I believe those measures were. It was a failure of police services. It was a failure of governments that those protests were allowed to degenerate into something that became truly dangerous to the security of the people in Ottawa and to the security of people across the country. That was a failure of policing. That was a failure of government. And it was regrettable that it got to that point. Justice Rouleau also highlighted the role of rising populism that drove us to this place. What did he say about that, John? Populism, which is as old as this country, is a declaration of distrust and discontent

by people in their political elites. It gets worse during times of severe stress. And we were certainly under severe stress during the pandemic. What poisoned the well in this case was the advent of social media over the last 10, 15 years, Twitter and Facebook and the like, which permitted and indeed even encouraged misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories. And the toxicity of these conspiracy theories on social media drove the populist discontent into, the commission concluded, dangerous areas, areas that risked public safety, that

risked peace, order, good government, that potentially risked the lives of citizens, including the politicians themselves. On the populism point, though, I mean, didn't the liberals stoke some of the fire here by calling the protesters a, quote, fringe minority, end quote? Because, I mean, Justin Trudeau acknowledged that phrase directly on Friday when he was asked about it after Justice Rouleau's report came out. Following today's report, do you have any regrets about calling Ottawa protesters a fringe minority? Yeah, I wish I had said that differently.

As I look back on that and as I've reflected on it over the past months, not just freshly from this commissioner's report, I wish I had phrased it differently. So, John, let me just ask you, what role do you think partisanship played in fueling the situation that led to the liberal government invoking the Emergencies Act? Partisanship played a role on both sides. Justin Trudeau, I thought, and wrote during the election, fanned the flames of partisanship by questioning the legitimacy of people who disagree with the government's actions, by suggesting they were racist or misogynist, that they held unacceptable abuse. And the commission report indeed criticized him for those statements. So he bore some responsibility. And again, Pierre Poglia bears some responsibility. The Conservative leader

was running for the leadership at the time of the occupation, identified with the protesters, said he supported them. And he was even down in the streets, of course, right? He was taking selfies with people on the streets of Ottawa. And he has responded with the word freedom, which was their

cry for the Conservative Party. And on Friday, he essentially blamed Justin Trudeau for creating the circumstances that led to the occupation in the first place. This is the hopeless state that Justin Trudeau has created. In Canada today, after eight years of Justin Trudeau, everything feels broken. I think that was going too far. I think it was irresponsible of Mr. Polyev to say those things. But isn't there something to those criticisms, though, John,

that there was some stoking of partisanship on the part of the liberal government? Like, is part of what Polyev was saying, was it partially justifiable? Partially is the operative word here. So, you know, sure, Justin Trudeau should not have used the words he used. But let's remember what the actual circumstances were, what those protesters were protesting. They were protesting measures that were necessary in order to protect society from a deadly virus. Given the stance that Polyev had taken before this report came out politically here, did he have any other choice but to double down on that stance, John? Like, was there any way that he could have reversed course at this point? Well, there's always a chance and an opportunity

to moderate your language. But that's not Pierre Polyev. He never apologizes. He always doubles down. He's very, he's not a Donald Trump. I've said a thousand times he's not a Donald Trump. But he's Trump-esque in his unwillingness to, you know, see both sides of an argument, to compromise. Again, in that press conference, not only did he blame Justin Trudeau for causing the occupation, he blamed the reporter for even asking the question, because the reporter is from CBC. Do you accept Justice Rouleau's findings and do you regret endorsing the Freedom Convoy? Well, first of all, your question was typical of CBC bias again. You forgot to mention what

the report said, which is more of an... So Mr. Polyev is in fact you know criticizing things that aren't true he's accusing justin trudeau of of causing the the the protest when he that's not fair and not true and he's even uh you know undermining freedom of the press in questioning the legitimacy of reporters We'll be right back. In evoking this act, the liberals got some serious new powers here, including increased powers to police forces accounts of people involved in the protests. Justice Rouleau said that he felt this measure was our overriding objective, of course, was to end the illegal blockades in occupation. It was to do so without violence, without anyone being hurt. And the economic measures were a tool that really helped make that happen. John, what did you make of this conclusion specifically from the report? If I had thought there was an area in which the commission might say the government had gone too far, it might have been that area. The commission decided that the threat of funding to the protests was sufficiently severe that this money should have been curtailed. All right, the commission made that conclusion, and I will accept the commission's

conclusion, but it would not have surprised me if he had said that was the one place in which the government went too far. He did say, though, that the government should have included a specific delisting mechanism for people whose accounts had been frozen. Can you just describe what that would refer to, John? I think what he was arguing was that the government should have been working overtime to make sure that the limitations on people's access to their bank account should have been for as few people as possible for as short a period of time as possible and should have been lifted as quickly as possible and might not have been lifted quite as quickly as it should have been. Let's talk about Ontario Premier Doug Ford, because Ford was chastised in this report with Justice Rouleau basically accusing the Ontario government of giving up on the Ottawa region.

Ford has yet to comment on this report. basically accusing the Ontario government of giving up on the Ottawa region. Ford has yet to comment on this report. John, what did the report find in terms of how Ford should have reacted during the protests? Well, it found that the Ontario government did not cooperate with the federal government and with the city of Ottawa in how those protests should have been handled. The Solicitor General did not attend meetings. Premier Ford did not engage with Prime Minister Trudeau or with then-Mayor Jim Watson. And again, only when Windsor was blockaded

and it looked as though the auto industry was going to be seriously affected did Mr. Ford become seriously engaged in the issue. He did not agree to testify at the commission and government officials did not testify at the commission. So he was boycotting the commission just as he was failing to get involved in the protests when they first took place. He was basically absent through the whole thing. Another thing that Justice Rouleau's findings focused on was policing, or maybe a lack thereof in Ottawa. And, you know, we remember how the chaotic response from the Ottawa police led to the police chief,

the then police chief, Peter Slowly, he had to resign. And the NDP has really seized on this aspect of things. Here's what one of the NDP MPs, Matthew Green, said after the report came out. I think demonstrated that the act as it was written never contemplated this type of failure of policing. That there was an inability to write bylaw tickets, make arrests, press charges, and that is what resulted into the descent into lawlessness. John, what did you make of the recommendations for police officials? Well, clearly there had been a tremendous failure on the part of the Ottawa Police Service to anticipate the protest and respond to it. And there may well be new rules and regulations

that should be in place that affect how police service boards interact with police services, how the senior officials within a police service are held accountable for their actions. There was certainly a breakdown in trust within the Ottawa Police Service. It's a real question as to what was going on inside the Ottawa Police Service that it had become so dysfunctional that it could not handle its core functions. So there are dozens of recommendations in this report. John, what would you like to see the federal government do in response to these recommendations? from all parties working together cooperatively to go through the recommendations of the report, decide which ones should be implemented, how the Emergencies Act should be refined or updated,

and should then vote, I hope unanimously, on legislation to amend and improve the Emergencies Act. That would be the best thing that could come out of all of this. Not to be too cynical here, John, but how likely is that actually, right? Given that Ottawa is so partisan, especially now with everyone looking to score political points. It's not impossible. As we saw during the pandemic itself, in times of real emergencies, we can see parties working

cooperatively together as they did in the early days of the pandemic. This kind of fundamental legislation, when and how and under what circumstances might the federal government suspend elements of the constitution in responding to an emergency or an insurrection or a state of war? That's the kind of question, the really fundamental question that should encourage politicians to set aside partisanship and say, let's work on this together. I hold some hope that it might still be possible. Lastly here, John, at the root of things, these protests happen because of really intense divisions in Canadian society. Do you think that this report and the inquiry that led up to it, do you think it's done anything to improve those divisions at all?

Well, at least it has settled the question of whether the government acted irresponsibly in invoking the act. We do have increasing partisanship in our society and we do have increasing political polarization and we do have rising populism. Let's put it in context though. Compared to the United States,

compared to most countries in Europe, compared to most Western democracies, our partisanship is operating at a much lower level. Our divisions and our polarizations are much less severe. That doesn't mean we shouldn't worry about it and act to contain it, but we should not exaggerate the level of partisanship and divisiveness that we have in our society. On

most big things, on most days, most of us agree, and we should try to preserve and protect that. John, it's always interesting to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Hey, it's been my pleasure. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wellms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.