Update (1935ET): The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has condemned PM Justin Trudeau for invoking the Emergencies Act, claiming in a Monday tweet that the Canadian federal government “has not met the threshold necessary” to do so.  “The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” & when the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,” the twitter thread continues.

The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” & when the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.”

— Canadian Civil Liberties Association (@cancivlib) February 15, 2022

Governments regularly deal with difficult situations, and do so using powers granted to them by democratically elected representatives. Emergency legislation should not be normalized. It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties. #cdnpoli

— Canadian Civil Liberties Association (@cancivlib) February 15, 2022

Has Trudeau created a political emergency?

Don’t worry, @JustinTrudeau isn’t “calling in the military”. He is just authorizing banks to unilaterally freeze your accounts on the basis of suspicion alone, no court order required, with legal immunity. I hope everyone realizes how much more dangerous this is than the military

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) February 14, 2022

*  *  *Update (1715ET): As expected, Canadian PM Trudeau invoked sweeping emergency police powers Monday in his latest attempt to stamp out dissent from citizens protesting vaccine mandates and other COVID restrictions. 

“This is not a peaceful protest,” the Canadian leader told reporters in Ottawa alongside top cabinet officials. “The federal government is stepping in because local police authorities have had difficulty enforcing the law,” he said.“This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs and restoring confidence in our institutions.”

Enacting the new never-before-used law gives Trudeau, in effect, martial law control over everything and everyone; and not all of Canada is behind him…

BREAKING: Premiers of Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, and Saskatchewan oppose Trudeau decision to invoke the Emergencies Act on the truckers

— Honkistani Underground Poso 🎺 (@JackPosobiec) February 14, 2022

His first act, it appears, was to choke off any funding for the protesters by broadening its anti-money-laundering rules to cover crowdsourcing sites, threatening them with financing “terrorism”.