Prominent American political commentator Ben Shapiro has skewered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for invoking the Emergencies Act to deal with peaceful protests across Canada.
“Justin Trudeau (who is definitely not Fidel Castro’s son!) cannot explain the legal basis for invoking the Emergencies Act, but he’s got his finance minister out there announcing that banks can freeze your account without a court order anyway if you donate to the truckers,” said Shapiro in a tweet on Tuesday.
Shapiro declared that Trudeau’s implementation of the Emergencies Act was “tyranny” and “a clarifying moment,” saying that for generations, the left has “promised that if they are handed emergency powers, they will protect citizens.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, Shapiro added, has proven that this promise is a lie because “centralized power often achieves precisely the opposite of its intended purpose.”
“Faced with the debunking of their generations-long promise, the left has two choices: (1) Abandon the faith or (2) burn the heretics,” he said. “Guess which one they’re choosing.”
Shapiro also chastized Trudeau for characterizing the protestors in the Freedom Convoy as a fringe minority.
“This sort of tactic, which Trudeau is picking up from the American left, is likely to be wildly unsuccessful,” he said in an interview on America’s Newsroom on Fox News last week. “Everybody can look at this convoy and see that they are not flying Nazi flags en masse, that these are not radical right-wingers.”
Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history on Monday to give the federal government extra powers to manage the trucker protests.
“It is now clear that there are serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce the law,” he said.
Trudeau said the Emergencies Act would give police more power to break up public gatherings deemed illegal and dangerous, including blockades and occupations.
The RCMP, he said, could enforce municipal bylaws and provincial offences where needed.
The Liberals also announced they were giving themselves sweeping financial powers on Monday.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that crowdfunding platforms would have to register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) under the Emergencies Act. She added that crowdfunding platforms would also have to report large and suspicious transactions to FINTRAC.
“We are making these changes because we know these platforms are being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity, which is damaging the Canadian economy,” said Freeland.
The Freedom Convoy entered its 24th day on Tuesday.
