Was the Emergencies Act warranted? Highly-anticipated report coming Friday
Global News
The Public Order Emergency Commission held public hearings last fall and heard from Justin Trudeau and other officials to determine the merits of the use of the Emergencies Act.
The commission probing the federal government’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act in response to last year’s “Freedom Convoy” protests will release its highly-anticipated report on Friday.
The report is expected to be tabled in Parliament around noon eastern standard time.
The commission, headed by former appellate court justice Paul Rouleau, held six weeks of public hearings last fall that heard from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, cabinet officials, police, protesters and Ottawa residents. Several experts later offered testimony on rights and freedoms, social media and other issues as part of the commission’s investigation.
The announcement from the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) comes after it was given an extension on Jan. 31 with the initial deadline of Feb. 6 quickly approaching.
POEC had until that date to submit its report to cabinet, along with a final deadline of Feb. 20 for the report to be submitted to Parliament.
The latter date is the deadline under the Emergencies Act legislation, which required a commission be launched in response to any invocation of the Act to submit its final report on the circumstances that led to that invocation to Parliament and to the public within 360 days of the Act being revoked.
“The commission has requested more time to complete the report, so the (order-in-council) will be amended and the report will not be delivered to government on (Feb. 6). The report will be released by the legislated deadline,” a government source told Global News at the time.
Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022, for the first time since it became law in 1988 after protesters associated with the “Freedom Convoy” blockaded downtown Ottawa and key U.S. border crossings across the country, causing weeks of disruptions to Canada’s trade corridors, businesses and residents in those communities.
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