Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has decided to strike hard.

After more than three weeks of protest against the health measures in progress in the country, he announced, Monday, February 14, the exceptional recourse to a text allowing emergency measures to put an end to the “illegal” blockings of the demonstrators.

"The federal government is invoking the Emergency Measures Act to supplement provincial and territorial powers and deal with blockades and occupations," he said, noting that the military would not be deployed and that new measures would be "limited in time and geographically".

I want to be very clear about what we intend to do by invoking the Emergencies Act, and how this will help us get the situation under control.

If you missed our announcement earlier today, watch this: pic.twitter.com/Xm5mTdU348

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 15, 2022

The protest movement that began in late January in Canada started with truckers protesting against the obligation to be vaccinated to cross the border between Canada and the United States.

But the demands have extended to a refusal of all health measures and, for many demonstrators, to a rejection of the government of Justin Trudeau.

On Monday, Canadian police seized weapons and ammunition and arrested 11 people on the border blockade of Coutts, Alberta, in the west of the country, a crossing point with the United States paralyzed for a week.

In Ontario, the police had managed Sunday evening, after seven days of blockage, to reopen the Ambassador Bridge, which connects the city of Windsor to Detroit, Michigan.

The paralysis of this major border axis had prompted Washington, worried about the economic consequences, to intervene with Justin Trudeau.

In Ottawa, the country's capital, opponents of health measures still occupy the streets of the city center.

Justin Trudeau in the footsteps of his father

For many experts, this crisis is unprecedented.

“There is nothing comparable in Canadian history,” Stéphanie Chouinard, professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada, told AFP.

“For a long time, Canada thought it was immune to this type of revolt that was thought to be reserved for the United States and Europe,” she added.

For Stéphanie Carvin, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and a former national security analyst, this movement “could change the character of Canadian democracy if it continues”.

Indeed, it is only the second time that the exceptional recourse on emergency measures has been activated in peacetime, the last time dating back to the crisis of 1970 when Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the father of the current Prime Minister was in power.

That year, the government had invoked her to send the army to Quebec and take a series of emergency measures, after the kidnapping by the Front de libération du Québec of a British commercial attaché, James Richard Cross, and a Quebec minister, Pierre Laporte.

Richard Cross was released after negotiations, but the minister was found dead in the trunk of a car.

According to John Lindsay, a professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, a specialist in emergency management, its use by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1970 remains "highly contested" today.

The Globe and Mail recalls that even though public opinion supported Trudeau Sr. at the time, "years later, a measured reassessment of events concluded that the suspension of civil liberties to combat a small group of terrorists was excessive".

Radio-Canada also wonders if such a law will change anything in the situation "insofar as three police forces are now deployed in Ottawa and they have been trying without success to dislodge the demonstrators for 18 days from the streets of the capital “and without recourse for the moment to the army as announced by Justin Trudeau.

As Geneviève Tellier, professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, points out to AFP, this decision may also seem “surprising” after months of health crisis: “The federal government has never used the law on emergency measures during the pandemic when he could have".

"This may be more of a question of legitimacy for Justin Trudeau," she adds.

Trudeau's wait-and-see attitude in question

The Canadian population has indeed not failed to criticize the slowness of the reaction of the authorities, in particular on social networks, where the action of the police is strongly questioned.

The various jurisdictions have indeed long passed the buck while the police and the city of Ottawa, who let the trucks settle on the first day, quickly declared themselves incapable of managing the situation on their own.

Many politicians preferred not to intervene out of political calculation.

Doug Ford, the Conservative Premier of Ontario, the epicenter of the protests, feared alienating part of his electorate a few months before the provincial election, experts note.

"After ridiculing all the protesters in the early days of the demonstrations, Mr. Trudeau retreated into a wait-and-see attitude, contenting himself with bringing the Conservatives to trial for their regrettable flirtation with anti-health populism. (…) The federal [power], the City of Ottawa and the various police forces passed the buck on responsibility for the intervention until he declared a state of emergency [in his province, Friday, February 11 , Editor's note], the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, was invisible", summarized the editorialist Brian Myles in the pages of the newspaper Le Devoir.

A rejection from the provinces

Opposition parties have also stepped up against Justin Trudeau's use of the Emergency Measures Act.

"The Emergencies Act section refers to threats to the security of Canada," said interim Conservative Party leader Candice Bergen.

"In this context, does the Prime Minister of Canada believe that these demonstrations are a threat to the security of Canada, and if not, does he not believe who could inflame the situation instead of calming it down?

As the Journal de Montréal reports, Quebec Prime Minister François Legault "does not want" either to see the Emergency Measures Act apply on Quebec territory, a decision by the federal government that would throw "war oil on the fire" according to him.

"We don't think it's necessary and we saw it at the end of last week, in Quebec, the police forces and the Sûreté du Québec manage to keep control and secondly, I think it's time to bring Quebecers together, not to divide them,” he explained during a press conference.

The Premiers of New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have also indicated their opposition to the use of this law.

In fact, the federal government must in any case consult the provinces concerned before declaring a state of emergency recalls Radio-Canada.

Before being implemented, the text must also be examined in the coming days by the Federal Parliament.

And its implementation is very framed, as Le Devoir points out: “The emergency measures are in force for a maximum of thirty days and cannot infringe a whole list of fundamental rights of individuals”.  

With AFP

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