The Emergencies Act In Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been criticized for invoking Canada's Emergencies Act to deal with the truck convoy protest in Ottawa. Critics claim that, as a peaceful protest, it was not an emergency and that the prime minister overreacted and set a very undemocratic precedent.

The Emergencies Act replaced the earlier War Measures Act. This was a law to be invoked when there was an emergency, including a war, that could not be handled under existing laws.

Justin Trudeau is the son of Pierre Trudeau, the popular Liberal who was prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1984, except for a brief interruption.

What I have not seen in the news is that Justin Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act parallels his father's invocation of the War Measures Act to deal with the so-called October Crisis in Quebec. It was the only time that the War Measures Act had been invoked in peacetime.

In October, 1970, the year before Justin Trudeau was born, the FLQ (in French, "Front Liberation Quebec") kidnapped and murdered the deputy premier of Quebec. The group was seeking autonomy or sovereignty for French-speaking Quebec, which was in mostly English-speaking Canada.

Pierre Trudeau, supported by the Premier of Quebec and the Mayor of Montreal, invoked the War Measures Act to deal with the crisis. This permitted the temporary suspension of normal civil rights. The Canadian Army moved into Quebec and hundreds of arrests were made. This brought about the end of the crisis.

This move by Pierre Trudeau also had it's critics. It likely had the long-term effect of feeding the sovereignty movement in Quebec.

But what Justin Trudeau did to deal with the truck convoy protest reflects what his father did to deal with the October Crisis. This is one thing that I hadn't seen in the news about the issue.