Rex Murphy: Trudeau's wild misuse of state authority

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives at the House of Commons to speak on his invocation of the Emergencies Act, on Feb. 17, 2022. PHOTO BY DAVE CHAN / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

 Are there no hero MPs willing to denounce this gross usurpation of citizens' rights?

The police in Ottawa are already fully engaged in exercising their powers under the Emergencies Act. Parliament was supposed to meet to debate the imposition of the act. Not even in the pale, restricted, sporadic pretence of a Parliament we have been getting the past two years by Zoom. The imposition of the Emergencies Act has been challenged by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

The House of Commons just postponed debating Trudeau’s emergency powers because he is using his emergency powers near the Parliament to clear protesters. "If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried." That’s Canada’s Attorney General, David Lametti. Making an offer Canadians can’t refuse.

Lametti himself cannot believe what he has said. Lametti has dragged the entire financial system into this massive and deranged overkill. And his government has made the deeply democratic right to support opposition to a public measure by making a contribution to it, a justification for freezing a citizen’s bank account. For this we gather on the Hill during Canada Day.

We’ve had some really glorious moments of hypocrisy from the Trudeau regime. But the claim you bring in the Emergencies Act and simultaneously claim the Charter is still operative, especially after its gutting during the two-year COVID period, is the king and glory moment. This government has had its way, and more than its way, during the abnormal and disruptive COVID era. It has gotten far too used to staying away from Parliament, holding back budgets, governing from the steps of the Rideau Cottage, imposing regulations and mandates with limited or no debate.

Condemn the extreme rhetoric being poured on Canadian workers, the talk of terrorists and "Trumpists," the vile talk of "Nazism." Condemn the stubborn, disdainful refusal to talk, to meet, to listen and go for compromise.

Source: Rex Murphy