Does Quebec Have A Canadian Version Of The Bastille To House Justin Trudeau?

Canada’s Boy Prime Minister broke that country’s highest law when he applied the Emergency Powers Act to crack down on truckers’ Freedom Convoy to protest his authoritarian pandemic policies. He also committed grand larceny when he seized protestors’ bank accounts. Why is he not on trial for criminal and civil offenses?

In a “landmark” ruling last week, a federal court judge ruled that Justin Trudeau’s “government unconstitutionally and unjustifiably invoked the Emergencies Act in response to ongoing Freedom Convoy blockades” two years ago, the National Post reports. Justice Richard Mosley also noted that the invoking of the act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency, and intelligibility.”

The law, wielded for the first time in Canada, “was used to freeze some convoy participants’ bank accounts,” said the Post, as well as to “compel tow truck companies to co-operate with local police clearing out blockades.” Trudeau also intended “to prevent protesters who had blockaded the U.S.-Canada border in Ontario and Alberta from returning.”

Our friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity argue that Trudeau “instituted martial law police powers.” Citing an authority he had granted himself, Trudeau also “asserted the power to freeze or seize the bank accounts of people donating to the Freedom Convoy.” By no coincidence, “the crowdfunding platform that had been used to send money to the truckers was then hacked and donor details were released,” says the Committee.

It was all done by fiat – there were no warrants issued, and there was no appeals process. The Trudeau government, however, is entitled to file an appeal of the ruling, and of course it will do just that, most likely making a political rather than legal argument.

Anyone who didn’t believe the entire ugly episode was a tantrum of political spite missed the reporting of Rebel News’ Ezra Levant, who tweeted in February 2022 that “Trudeau’s justice minister says that being ‘pro-Trump’ is a factor that will decide if your bank account is seized under their Emergency Orders.” It’s the same justice minister who just resigned, leaving behind, says Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, “a record of Charter violations, censoring free speech, illegal use of the Emergencies Act & crime policies that have unleashed waves of violence.”

Another Canadian journalist, David Staples of the Edmonton Journal, wrote that “freezing the bank accounts of political opponents might well be normal behavior for brutish leaders in shabby dictatorships,” but “to sell such abuse in Canada, Trudeau’s allies had to work overtime to vilify the convoy participants as foreign-funded, white supremacist, FreeDumb-obsessed radicals.” 

The facts cannot be disputed. Trudeau stole the truckers’ property and obstructed the freedom of movement. He acted as a tyrant, crushing rights as if they meant nothing to him. His actions were an obvious abuse of power that he should be held to account for. And maybe he will. Legal scholars told the National Post “the ruling could offer some opportunity to individuals” who were impacted “to launch a civil lawsuit against authorities.”

That would be a mere start, though. Anyone who steals from another, even if he returns what was stolen, even if he’s the top elected government official in a Western nation, even if he bothered to admit he acted wrongly, is still a thief and should prosecuted in criminal court. Let it be a lesson for the next Canadian prime minister or U.S. president who wants to extrajudicially use the power of government to punish political opponents for imagined transgressions.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board