By Tea Lynn Moore

On February 14, 2022, the greatest overreach of Canadian government power took place. On this day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history.

Through the recent Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) hearings, reams of government records were released, resulting in a rare look inside the most powerful public offices in Canada. Thousands of pages of text messages, e-mails, meeting minutes, and hand-scribbled notes detailing ministers’ personal fears, private conversations and comments, not meant for public consumption, were released. Here are 8 things we learned from the Emergencies Act Inquiry:

1. They almost deployed the army — and even considered using Tanks. Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, David Lametti, proposed using the army and even tanks to retake the streets of Ottawa, a stark contrast to the hot tubs and bouncy castles that the Freedom Convoy brought in.

2. President Biden ordered Trudeau to dismantle the Canadian Freedom Convoy. The inquiry revealed that US President Joe Biden demanded Justin Trudeau stop the Freedom Convoy. Biden cited concerns that US car plants had been having around the border as well as his own concerns about the growing support of protesters seen in US media such as Fox News. Biden’s top economic advisor told Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland that if the border was not cleared, the United States would reportedly lose $2.9 billion in trade. Freeland emailed staff stating that the White House was “very worried” that their “northeastern car plants will shut down” if Trudeau didn’t stop the convoy. Three days after speaking with Biden, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to clear out the protesters.

3. Honking is a form of Violence. In response to being asked why the police chief had claimed there was “violence” at the protest, Interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell responded, “honking… is a form of violence.” A few days after making this claim, defenders of the act inflicted violence on the courtroom by playing a video of a cartoon truck honking for several minutes to illustrate the harm. Ottawa witnesses who testified in defence of the act, claim they suffered from “phantom honking” for months after the truckers left and that they felt like they were living in “The Purge.”

4. Hot Tubs and Fireworks are “volatile” Internal documents have revealed that the Ottawa mayor claimed he felt the rally was taking a volatile turn after witnessing “fireworks going off and hot tubs being brought in.”

5. Justin Trudeau suffers from selective memory loss. Prime “Misinformationer” Trudeau lied under oath during the Emergencies Act hearing, claiming he never called the unvaccinated names. In a September 2021 interview, Trudeau told a Quebec television station that the unvaccinated “don’t believe in science and are very often misogynistic and racist.”

6. Freezing funds was always part of the plan. Cabinet members within the Trudeau government had discussed seizing the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy supporters at the time of invoking the Emergencies Act. Shortly after the act was invoked, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland mandated certain bank accounts be frozen under the EA. In total, nearly $8 million in funds from 267 accounts were frozen. Additionally, 170 bitcoin wallets were frozen. Inquiry documents revealed that Freeland was advised by an undisclosed bank that if the people subject to sanctions were labeled “Terrorists”, then the banks could move swiftly.

7. The Deputy Transport Minister wanted to kill the spirit of the Freedom Movement itself. Per Blacklock’s Reporter, Deputy Transport Minister Michael Keenan told police on day 10 of the protest, he wanted the Freedom Convoy crushed because it was the “spiritual source of the protest movement” and is “acting as fuel for the engagement of others.”

8. Both CSIS and NSIA didn’t feel the convoy protest constituted a national security threat under the law, meaning the federal government never met the legal threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act. During the POEC hearings, it was revealed that Canada’s intelligence agency (CSIS) stated they didn’t believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security, according to the definition in the act’s enabling law. Additionally, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser (NSIA) Jody Thomas — along with other officials in a panel — had told commission lawyers that while CSIS did not consider the Freedom Convoy protest to be a threat to national security — a prerequisite for invoking the Emergencies Act — they believed that the definition of a “threat” to security needed to be “reconsidered” to garner permissible use of the Act. In conclusion, the intelligence assessment indicated the federal government never met the legal threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act to clear Ottawa of protesters last winter.