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Originally Posted by blender
It seemed very clear to me that Trudeau felt that the provincial government wasn't getting the job done. He was firm on the point during his testimony.
GGG, I think you and others are belabouring the point about CSIS requirements not being met when in actuality, the CSIS requirement isn't especially relevant to the invocation of EA. If it was, why would the head of CSIS recommend the Act be used? I think critics of the federal government are looking for something that isn't there.
As I've said before, the onus is on the government to justify their use of the EA, and in this case I believe they have. Does anyone honestly think that the occupation would have been cleared up as quickly without the federal intervention? The efficacy and utility of the federal government's actions here justify the decision.
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I agree with you on the first point Trudeau was clearly frustrated other levels of government were failing at managing the protest. The provincial government not getting the job done is not in the criteria for invoking the EA. It’s that it can’t be dealt with effectively not that it isn’t being dealt with effectively.
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National emergency
3 For the purposes of this Act, a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
(b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada
and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
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The CSIS definition is absolutely relevant to the EA. It’s the definition the EA gives to define what emergencies meet the criteria of the act. The bill that was based specifically does not say any emergency the government feels is an emergency. It lays out criteria that need to be met. The CSIS personal recommendation was two fold that the act should be implemented and it didn’t meet the act. If the government proceeded on a basis that was outside a strict definition then that should be the argument. Their legal advice should be removed from privilege and they should be testifying that they felt the intent of the act was met and couldn’t be hamstrung by outdated legislation. This information should have been presented to the public and the parliament.
To your final point the answer is we don’t know if the Occupation would have been resolved as quickly because the Feb 13th plan is redacted and can’t be compared to the other plan. Also “as quickly” is not the standard for use of the act. I however think we can assume it COULD have been. Ambassador was cleared prior to the act. Coutts had begun arresting an dispersing people prior to the act and a plan from the Ottawa Police was in place that we aren’t allowed to read.
You also have the testimony of the officer making very equivocal statements on if his operation would have been successful without the act.
I hope next weeks expert testimony will shed light around legal interpretation of the CSIS act stuff and whether failure of the Province to act is the same as the inability to act.
Edit: to respond to what Fuzz’s last point of it was time for the protests to end? Sure, but we have a process for that, it’s what they did at the ambassador bridge. Got to court, get an injunction, the police enforce the injunction in a very similar fashion to what they did after the EA.
I’ve been following pretty closely and haven’t seen it but have any government witnesses identified the specific powers they were lacking?