Trudeau government's use of Emergencies Act violated rights - "Canadians' charter rights were violated and the government went too far in proclaiming a national emergency when it invoked the Emergencies Act to end weeks of pandemic-related protests in Ottawa two years ago, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a decision sure to reanimate the debate over civil liberties in Canada. Justice Richard Mosley wrote that while he has sympathy for the challenges facing the federal government at the time — and is aware he considered the issue with more information than officials had — the decision the government made to declare a national emergency was beyond what was called for."
The left are going to be very upset
Liberal government's invoking of Emergencies Act during Freedom Convoy unreasonable, unjustified: ruling - "Mosley’s ruling stems from four legal challenges by civil liberty groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitutional Foundation (CCF)... Displaying an uncommon level of introspection in a ruling, Mosley admitted that at the outset of the hearing, his view was “leaning” towards the belief that the government’s invocation of the Act was reasonable... “I acknowledge that in conducting judicial review of that decision, I am revisiting that time with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and law than that which was before the (government),” he wrote. But months of time to “carefully deliberate” on the evidence and arguments, as well as arguments by the CCF and CCLA, changed his mind... Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also reacted to the news on X (formerly Twitter) by placing the blame solely on Trudeau. “He caused the crisis by dividing people. Then he violated Charter rights to illegally suppress citizens. As PM, I will unite our country for freedom,” he wrote on X."
Civil liberties are bad when they threaten the left's agenda. They hate freedom, so freedom won't unit them
John Ivison: Emergencies Act karma comes back to bite the Liberals - "Moseley explicitly rejected the idea the threshold to invoke the act was reached, based on the arms cache in Coutts. “The potential for serious violence, or being able to say there was no potential for serious violence, was, of course, a valid reason for concern. But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act, particularly as there was no evidence of a similar hardened cell elsewhere in the country, only speculation,” he wrote. It is clear that Mendicino overreacted. On the 13th, the blockades in Coutts, Emerson, Man., and at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont. were all largely resolved using existing police powers. Also on the 13th, Lucki told Mendicino a new, co-ordinated plan for the protest in Ottawa, involving RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and the Ottawa Police Service, was ready to go. Mendicino was informed by the Mounties, OPP and CSIS that there was no serious threat to Canada’s sovereignty, as the act required as “a tool of last resort.”... The other key difference between Rouleau and Moseley’s interpretations appears to have been that the former placed little weight on the testimony of 20 or so police officers who rejected the idea that they needed new legislative tools, particularly ones that did not add to operational capacity... The biggest difference between the two decisions is that, while Rouleau’s report is gathering dust, Moseley’s ruling is now the law... the decision is likely to end the freezing of bank accounts without clear standards and independent oversight, after Moseley ruled that the Trudeau government “unjustifiably violated Canadians rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure” by doing so... it will make it a lot harder to use the act in any form in future, something that may not have been the case after Rouleau reported. Any government will have second thoughts if it thinks the entrails of its decision-making will be probed in public after the fact... The Liberals responded quickly Tuesday in announcing their plan to appeal, in all likelihood before anyone in cabinet had even read the decision. That’s understandable: they believe Rouleau gave them a clean bill of health. In their eyes they did nothing wrong because how can you have done wrong when you have good intentions?"
Aaron Wudrick: Liberals determined to reject rule of law after Emergencies Act ruling - "Perhaps the most striking thing about the court decision authored by Justice Richard Mosley is how straightforward much of the reasoning is. There is no tortured logic, no obscure line of argument, no abstract reasoning; the principles at stake are easily digestible by lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Justice Mosley does exactly what most Canadians probably expect courts to do: consider evidence; read what the law says; and draw conclusions that, for lack of a better phrase, reflect common sense. Take for example the government’s insistence that the Freedom Convoy constituted a “threat to the security of Canada” — a phrase which is explicitly defined in the Emergencies Act as having the same meaning as it does in Section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act. Unfortunately for the government, CSIS’s official determination was that the convoy did not constitute a threat to the security of Canada. This being a very inconvenient obstacle for a government that wanted to invoke the act, Cabinet simply came up with a new strategy: ignore the statutory requirement that the Section 2 CSIS Act definition be met, come up with an alternative definition that better fits their argument, and make the opposite finding! QED... On issue after issue — the scope of the security threat; the claim that enforcement tools under existing laws being exhausted; the reasonableness of sweeping violations of Charter rights of free expression and against unreasonable search and seizure — Justice Mosley, after looking at all the evidence, disagreed with the government’s assertions. The government’s claims simply did not survive contact with a fulsome evidentiary record. Nor was the ruling only damning to the government’s flimsy arguments. It was also an implicit rebuke to Justice Paul Rouleau, the head of the Public Order Emergency Commission, who made the unnecessary and ill-advised choice in his final report to muse about the legality of the act’s invocation, in spite of the fact that — by his own admission — it was not part of his mandate to do so, and he had not undertaken a formal analysis... what of the political fallout? There is a world in which a government might, when confronted with a court ruling that they illegally invoked and abused the most draconian law on the books, simply accept the ruling with humility, apologize unreservedly for having overstepped, and resign on principle. Clearly, we don’t live in that world: unrepentant as ever, and within an hour of the decision’s release, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the government would be appealing it. This is completely in character for a government that has time and again sneered at the rule of law — e.g. their ethics violations both big and small, the SNC-Lavalin scandal — preferring to comfort itself with fiction that rules are for other people."
Nobody is above the law - except left wingers
The Federal Court's Emergencies Act decision is happy vindication for those who care about the Constitution - "Justice Paul Rouleau released his report following the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings in Ottawa which concluded that in all of the circumstances, cabinet reasonably concluded that grounds to invoke the Act were met. It’s important to emphasize that Rouleau’s mandate as chair of the Commission was to inquire into the circumstances and facts leading up to the invocation of the Act and the “appropriateness and effectiveness of the measures.” Rouleau was not tasked with making a legal determination, nor was his decision binding in law. The Federal Court decision is a formal legal declaration and serves as binding precedent. It is the first judicial exposition of what the text of the Act means and what it does not mean... The decision is important for its swift rejection of the essentially untrammeled deference to the executive that the attorney general’s office argued for in its submissions on the standard of review (essentially, how critical of an eye a reviewing judge should use when reviewing a government decision). Mosley noted the AG’s gobsmacking assertion that extraordinary deference is due to cabinet in reviewing its decision because of its status “at the apex of the Canadian executive.” The AG was essentially arguing for unconstrained executive powers to impose war measures... There cannot be absolute discretion when invoking emergency powers. Like Justice Rouleau, Justice Mosley notes that much of the breakdown that occurred during the Freedom Convoy was attributable not to an actual inability of the Ottawa police to properly enforce the rule of law, but rather to a breakdown in leadership and communications. Here, there is a sharp contrast in judgment... the judge rejected the government’s assertion that loss of trade, or economic harm, could constitute “serious violence.” The main question in assessing the reasonableness of cabinet’s decision, then, is whether “there were reasonable grounds to believe that the people protesting in Ottawa and elsewhere across Canada had engaged in activities directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property.” There was nothing in the record to suggest this conclusion. Intriguingly, the judge presented a possible legislative path for the government to take in response to his findings: amend the Emergencies Act to remove its link to the CSIS Act: “It may be that Parliament will wish to revisit the question of whether the CSIS Act definition […] adequately covers the different harms […]. This Court can only apply the law as it finds it.” That would be a terrible mistake. The Act’s incorporation of an external security standard in place of the CSIS Act was intended by its drafters for exactly a circumstance that would eventually lead to a set of eyes to look for the threat of violence and come up short. It was designed to allow a second set of inputs, dialled into the issue of national security, but without the same political incentives as cabinet, to support cabinet’s conclusion that a national emergency existed... Justice Mosley found the regulations violated the right to free expression, because they captured constitutionally protected peaceful speech. He also found the economic order directing financial institutions to freeze bank accounts and disclose the financial information of any “designated person” (even without any reasonable or probable grounds to believe that person committed an offense) violated the right against unreasonable search and seizure"
Supreme Court undermined by chief justice condemning convoy - "The trucker convoy that protested COVID vaccine mandates in Ottawa in February has been both joyously acclaimed and bitterly criticized. According to an April 9 article in Le Devoir, Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner has added his voice to those who have condemned it. If the account in Le Devoir is accurate, his comments starkly illustrate the degree to which judges feel at liberty to embrace progressive consensus at the expense of judicial neutrality... Wagner characterized the protest on Wellington Street, where Parliament and the Supreme Court are located, as “the beginning of anarchy where some people have decided to take other citizens hostage.” The article reports Wagner as having declared that “forced blows against the state, justice and democratic institutions like the one delivered by protesters … should be denounced with force by all figures of power in the country.” To become a judge means to take on onerous responsibilities. “Justice should not only be done,” Lord Chief Justice Hewart famously said in a 1923 UK King’s Bench judgment, “but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” The Canadian Judicial Council, which oversees the conduct of judges on the country’s highest courts, and which the chief justice of the Supreme Court chairs, states in its Ethical Principles for Judges that “statements evidencing prejudgment … may destroy the appearance of impartiality,“ and so judges “should avoid using words or conduct, in and out of court, that might give rise to a reasonable perception of an absence of impartiality.” In a 2015 decision in which Wagner himself participated, the Supreme Court agreed. “Judges are required — and expected — to approach every case with impartiality and an open mind,” the court wrote, and must be perceived to do so. Traditionally, judicial comment on political matters is regarded as inappropriate. In 2016, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg apologized for making “ill-advised” criticisms of Donald Trump, who at the time was the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. How then are the chief justice’s comments to be explained? At his first press conference in 2018 as the court’s chief, as reported in the Toronto Star, Wagner agreed that his court was “the most progressive in the world,” with a leadership role to play in promoting (progressive) moral values. Wanjiru Njoya, a legal scholar at the University of Exeter and formerly at Queen’s University in Kingston, has strongly criticized the fact that in the modern legal firmament, the range of what is considered reasonable has been narrowed to progressive ideals alone. In the courts and within the legal academy, as she puts it, the dominant perspective “delineates the boundaries of what progressives consider to be reasonable, measured, and balanced interpretations of the demands of justice.” Perspectives falling outside these boundaries, she says, are perversely defined as unreasonable and therefore regarded as not worthy of respect. Through a progressive lens, in other words, impartiality means having an open mind to all reasonable perspectives — but only progressive perspectives are reasonable. Progressivism is the ideology of collectivism, equity, wokeness, safetyism, and the managerial state. COVID has been progressivism’s perfect storm and sweeping pandemic bureaucracy its pinnacle achievement. Yet where the line is to be drawn between individual liberty and collective responsibility is a matter of legitimate dispute. Confidence in the judiciary depends on whether people perceive courts to be genuinely neutral, not merely within a narrow band of progressive consensus but on all matters of controversy within a pluralistic society. Had the chief justice declared the truck convoy to be courageous, vaccine mandates illegitimate, and invocation of the Emergencies Act an outrageous violation of civil liberties, the federal government would justifiably perceive that he had prejudged the case. Instead, his words reflect the government position that the protest was beyond the bounds of civilized behaviour and was properly crushed with state force. The question is not whether his views are correct, but whether they are premature and in the wrong forum. Should any of the Emergencies Act challenges make their way to the Supreme Court, the chief justice will sit in judgment on a dispute about which he appears to have already formed an opinion. Having made his public comments, the chief justice could announce that he will recuse himself from the case to avoid a reasonable perception of bias. However, Wagner is not merely one of many federally appointed judges, but the chief justice of the highest court in the land. His opinion carries influence that cannot be nullified by simple recusal. The harm done to judicial impartiality on the issue of the invocation of the Emergencies Act cannot easily be remedied."
From 2022. In other words, if you disagree with the left, you are not a decent human being because every decent person will embrace the left's agenda
Time to Reassess the Canadian Judicial Council? - "A complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council was recently filed concerning comments made by the Right Honourable Richard Wagner, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC)... Given the public nature of Justice Wagner’s comments, it cannot be said that the complainant’s position is “unsupported.” Justice Wagner’s statements were published openly in Le Devoir. Sufficient time has passed for him to at least clarify his comments to the CJC and to the complainants. Instead, Justice Wagner has doubled down on his criticisms of the convoy using even stronger language; in his annual press conference in June 2022, he referred to the effects of the winter protests as “deplorable,” saying they should “never happen again.”... Chief Justice Wagner is the chair of the CJC itself. As chair, when he is faced with a complaint against his own conduct as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, there must be an open and transparent process to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. The holder of the highest judicial office of the land should be expected to follow the strictest ethical standards. Justice Wagner himself has acknowledged that “we [judges] simply have to hold ourselves to a higher standard” in order to ensure public trust and respect. Indeed, even if there was no preferential treatment or undue influence in the handling of this complaint, the mere appearance of a conflict could compromise Canadians’ faith in the legal system... Under the heading “Judicial Duties,” the Commentary to Part V of the CJC’s “Ethical Principles for Judges,” on impartiality, states that “Judges have a fundamental obligation to be and to appear to be impartial. … Judges should avoid using words or conduct, in and out of court, that might give rise to a reasonable perception of bias” (emphasis added). The document underscores further that “out of court statements by a judge concerning issues of public controversy may undermine impartiality. … The perception of partiality will be reinforced if the judge’s activities attract criticism and/or rebuttal. This in turn tends to undermine public confidence in the judiciary.”"
From 2022
Trudeau cabinet to hear from experts on middle class, Canada-U.S., and housing during pre-Parliament retreat in Montreal
What is an expert in the middle class? Is this an admission that they are out of touch?
Liberal Party on X - "Trump just won the New Hampshire primary, moving him one step closer to the White House – and Pierre Poilievre is ripping a page out of his playbook. Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives are not worth the risk."
Jonathan Kay on X - "Omg is this what our life is now in Canada? Liberals babbling endlessly about a politician in a foreign country"
Ironically, left wingers like to mock their opponents for talking about the US. Even for using supposedly US-specific terms like freedom of speech, even when talking about universal concepts
LILLEY: Everyone is warning Trudeau not to campaign against Trump - "Two top diplomats under Justin Trudeau have warned the PM that campaigning against Donald Trump is a dumb idea... For months now, Trudeau and his Liberal Party have been campaigning against Donald Trump instead of Pierre Poilievre. They have made statements and made social media posts tying the two together and making Trump, and Poilievre, appear evil... Campaigning against Trump when, given current polling, he could win, is extremely dangerous for Canada. The United States is our biggest trading partner, our friend, our ally and our protector militarily. Trudeau and the Liberals are currently poking Trump in the eye when he could be the guy running the White House in less than a year... Trudeau is showing that he’s not only not friends with Trump, but not friends with America if they re-elect him. That may help Trudeau win some votes domestically, but it could have horrible repercussions on our economy. While Trudeau has no problem cozying up to actual dictators, including Iran and China, he should shut up about Trump. He can’t, though, because he’s desperate as his polling numbers fall further still. Some polls show about one-third of Canadians would vote for Trump if they could cast a ballot, meaning that Trump is more popular in Canada than Trudeau is. Trudeau would rather put your job and economic livelihood at risk by attacking Trump so that he might have a chance at saving his own job. That should tell you all you need to know about Justin Trudeau."
Prime Minister Trudeau failed to follow his own advice on temporary foreign workers - "One unlikely source of advice on such reforms might be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself. In 2014, the then-Liberal Party leader wrote a scathing op-ed in the Toronto Star that excoriated the Harper government for the growth of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) under its administration and highlighted the need to “scale it back dramatically.”... Fast forward a decade and the Trudeau government’s own record on the TFWP has failed to adhere to these sensible insights... Under Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, however, the number of temporary work permits has grown dramatically—far outstripping those during the Harper government. In 2015, there were a little more than 310,000 temporary work permits. By 2022, the number had more than doubled to almost 800,000. Partial data from 2023 indicate that there was a further increase last year... He concluded: It cuts to the heart of who we are as a country. I believe it is wrong for Canada to follow the path of countries who exploit large numbers of guest workers, who have no realistic prospect of citizenship. It is bad for our economy in that it depresses wages for all Canadians, but it’s even worse for our country. It puts pressure on our commitment to diversity, and creates more opportunities for division and rancour. We can and must do better."
The Post Millennial on X - "Pierre Poilievre asks Trudeau why is rent going down in the States while it skyrockets under his leadership in Canada. Trudeau says "I'd like to give the leader of the opposition another opportunity to apologise for referring to Ukraine disparagingly as a faraway foreign land.""
Trudeau government may rebrand carbon pricing program - "the federal Liberals were taking a "serious look" at how the Climate Action Incentive Payment was being branded, according to a senior government official, who was not authorized to speak on the matter. The source said there was a multi-department effort weighing a name change for the rebate and examining how to improve labelling from banks across Canada."
When you want to trick people over your shitty policy
The thin green line — where disinformation meets greenwashing | Canada's National Observer - "the Conservative leader laid the blame for higher heating costs on the federal government's fuel charge, or so-called "carbon tax." That claim isn't true. The federal carbon tax is designed so Canadians are reimbursed hundreds of dollars every few months to offset the additional cost of fuel. People with the lowest incomes will actually receive more than they likely paid for fuel. Poilievre's tweets add to the vast swath of disinformation, misinformation and greenwashing designed to hinder efforts to tackle climate change"
Weird how it's "disinformation" when the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that "most households will pay more in fuel charges and GST—as well as receiving slightly lower incomes—than they will receive in Climate Action Incentive payments". Misinformation is basically anything that threatens the left wing agenda
Majority of Canadians want carbon tax dropped or waived for three years - poll - "A majority of Canadians want Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's signature carbon tax to be scrapped or waived for the next three years to make the levy consistent across the country... 42% of Canadians want the carbon tax to be scrapped and a further 17% would like it to be cut temporarily for the next three years, while one-quarter want a freeze in any subsequent increases. Only 15% said the tax should continue as planned with the scheduled price increase next April... Despite the opposition to the tax, some 54% of respondents said Canada should continue to commit to reaching its 2030 emission reduction targets."
From November 2023
Globe editorial: One Trudeau family vacation, three explanations, many doubts - The Globe and Mail - "the bigger issue with Justin Trudeau’s controversial Christmas vacation in Jamaica was not the fact that the Prime Minister was able to lodge his family in a luxury resort for nine nights for free, but that the Conflict of Interest Act allows him and other public office holders to accept undisclosed gifts of unlimited value from friends and family members... questions raised by the Prime Minister’s shifting explanations about how the trip was paid for have put the focus on him instead of the rules. His nonchalance about the public’s perception of his holiday hasn’t done him any favours, either. When asked Wednesday if he thought his gifted accommodations, worth a reported $84,000 in commercial value, might be poorly viewed by Canadians who are tightening their belts, his curt answer showed a disdain for the whole issue: “Like a lot of Canadian families, we spent the Christmas holidays with friends. All the rules were followed.”... Mr. Trudeau’s office has insisted that the federal Ethics Commissioner “was consulted prior to the travel to ensure that the rules were followed.” But any notion that the Ethics Commissioner signed off on the trip is inaccurate... Mr. Trudeau has twice changed his original story about the trip. He first said he was paying for the cost of his family’s stay. Then he said he was staying “at no cost at a location owned by family friends.” Now he says that he and his family stayed with friends, rather than at a location owned by friends. The only part of the story that hasn’t changed is Mr. Trudeau’s statement that he covered the equivalent of the commercial airline cost of their flights to Jamaica (he is obliged to use a government jet for security reasons). So which version did Mr. Trudeau or his office present to the Ethics Commissioner? The public deserves to know. Herein lies more potential misdirection. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics voted this week to call Mr. von Finckenstein to a hearing to answer questions about Mr. Trudeau’s free vacation, and about gifts and travel for MPs in general. But the MPs on the committee voted down a motion from a Conservative Party member calling on Mr. von Finckenstein to produce any and all communication between his office and the Prime Minister’s office about the Jamaica trip... It may be too much to expect a tired Liberal government that appears to be aging out of office to co-operate with the ethics committee on this matter, or any other like it."
Justin Trudeau blames Harper cuts for auto theft issue - ""In the previous government, funding for border security was gutted," he said. "A long tail of cuts like this have hurt the ability of border agents to do their jobs.""
Clearly, there was nothing Trudeau could've done in the more than 8 years he was in power to reverse the damage Harper did
