With the one year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy quickly approaching, True North journalists look back on their reporting from the period.
It is easy to forget that the Emergencies Act vote took place after protesters in Ottawa had been cleared and the Freedom Convoy had come to a forceful and abrupt end. Seven days after the historic invocation of the Emergencies Act and two days after police began forcing protesters out of Ottawa, the Emergencies Act went to a vote in the House of Commons. Trudeau – having turned the Emergencies Act vote into a confidence vote on his government was staring his political future in the face. With a slim Liberal minority, Trudeau would’ve lost the vote had he not managed to secure unanimous support from Jagmeet Singh’s NDP.
“The fact that the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act passed a vote in the House of Commons two days after protesters were forcibly cleared from Wellington Street and blockades at border crossings had been cleared for more than a week will serve Canadian history as a shameful example of when politicians put their careers over the interests of the people,” Harrison Faulkner said.
“It’s particularly shameful when the slimmest minority government in Canadian history relied on the NDP – once a political party that prided itself on standing up for civil liberties – to carry themselves over the line in a confidence vote.”
“When Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in 1970, Tommy Douglas, then the leader of the NDP said that Canada would look back on the invocation ‘as a black Friday for civil liberties in Canada.’ In 2022, Jagmeet Singh did not hesitate to approve the suspension of civil liberties for all Canadians over a protest that had already been quashed.”
Parliament approves the Emergencies Act for the first time in history
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act passed a vital vote in the House of Commons on Monday thanks to the parliamentary support of Jagmeet Singh and the New Democratic Party (NDP).
185 MPs voted in favour of the act with 151 against…
