The road to democracy must be paved with several speed bumps for those who would subvert.
The Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act against a largely peaceful trucker protest remains one of the most significant civil liberties failures in modern Canadian history. It was not merely a policy misjudgment or a momentary lapse under pressure; it was an overreach that trampled the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ...
(Sidebar: the crappy document written by a communist.)
... divided the country, and exposed how fragile constitutional protections become when political expediency takes precedence over principle.
The consequences were immediate and severe. Protesters were subjected to aggressive policing. Bank accounts were frozen without warrants. Individuals were ostracized socially and professionally. Careers were destroyed. Neighbours were turned against one another. Canada’s reputation as a measured, rights-respecting democracy was diminished on the international stage. And at the centre of it all stood a federal government that chose coercion over dialogue, spectacle over restraint, and force over constitutional fidelity.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber became the most visible faces of this response, dragged through an agonizingly slow justice system that has compounded punishment through delay alone. Years later, their legal battles are still unfolding, underscoring a bitter irony: while ordinary citizens endure prolonged legal uncertainty, those who authorized the overreach remain insulated from consequence.
In January 2024, the Federal Court confirmed what many legal scholars and civil libertarians had argued from the outset. Justice Mosley ruled that the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and unlawful. The threshold for a national emergency, as defined in legislation, was not met. Existing laws were sufficient. The government failed to demonstrate justification, transparency, or intelligibility in its decision-making. Most damningly, the court found that measures such as warrantless financial surveillance and asset freezes violated core Charter protections, including freedom of expression and protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Rather than accept responsibility, the federal government appealed.
That appeal, finally resolved in January 2026, only deepened the indictment. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the original ruling, reaffirming that emergency powers are a last resort — not a tool of political convenience. The court rejected the government’s argument that the lower court relied on “20/20 hindsight,” confirming instead that the legal deficiencies were evident at the time of invocation. Peaceful protest, even disruptive protest, does not constitute a national security threat.
And yet, despite this clear judicial rebuke, nothing of substance has changed.
No minister has resigned. No official has been disciplined. No restitution has been meaningfully offered to those whose rights were violated. No legislative guardrails have been strengthened to prevent a future government from repeating the same abuses. The Charter was breached, acknowledged as breached, and then quietly set aside as an unfortunate but consequence-free episode.
This is the most corrosive lesson of all.
Canada’s constitutional framework depends not only on courts identifying wrongdoing, but on governments respecting those findings and accepting accountability. When illegal actions carry no penalty for those in power, the law ceases to function as a restraint and becomes a procedural inconvenience. Justice delayed may be justice denied for citizens — but for governments, delay often functions as absolution.
Indeed.
Without any resignations or lawsuits or any action to restrain government excess, this was merely a game of "I told you so".
That will not do.
**
Yesterday, the Canadian federal court of appeal unanimously declared Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to have been unreasonable and “ultra vires” (exceeding legal authority. Unlawful).
— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) January 17, 2026
Although it is a good ruling, as far as I am concerned, the justice it provides is… pic.twitter.com/47L3C2GQ1o
Get used to not heating your house or fueling your car:
So, as it turns out, oil and natural gas aren’t dead fossil fuels and the previous Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, which kept insisting they were, was dead wrong.
That blunder is costing the Canadian economy up to $25.6 billion a year and who knows how much more if Canadian politicians don’t get their act together.
Canada should be sitting pretty in the global energy market today because we have vast reserves of reliable energy, presided over by democratically-elected federal and provincial governments, as opposed to dictatorships.
We are the world’s fourth-largest producer and exporter of crude oil, with the world’s fourth-largest proven reserves.
We are also the world’s fifth-largest natural gas producer and fourth-largest exporter, with the world’s ninth-largest proven reserves.
The problem is our lack of pipelines and infrastructure to get these resources to global markets.
As a result, we have to sell more than 90% of our oil exports and almost 100% of our natural gas exports to the U.S. at huge discounts, because they’re our only major customer, costing the Canadian economy an estimated $25.6 billion per year in lost revenue.
We don't have to have our own people arrested by China.
Oh, wait ... :
Canadians have since been informed that our country is now forming a “new strategic partnership” with China, which consists of five pillars, including “energy, economic and trade co-operation, public safety and security, multilateralism, and culture and people-to-people ties.”
You read that right: public safety and security … with China.
Stumbling over his words while making this announcement, Carney said, “This is an area where pragmatic and constructive engagement with China is crucial. Through this pillar, our law enforcement agencies will increase co-operation to better combat narcotics trafficking, transnational crime, cybercrime, synthetic drugs and money laundering. And we will create safer communities for people in both our countries.”
Are Canadians supposed to believe that Carney will wave a magic wand and China will suddenly stop being the primary global source of fentanyl? That Chinese Triads will suddenly stop laundering drug money through Vancouver real estate? That the People’s Republic of China, beguiled by Carney’s charm, will no longer be interested in hacking Canadian telecoms for the purpose of espionage?
What about the overseas Chinese police stations, which are used to influence and control members of the Chinese diaspora and influence foreign officials? President Xi has referred to such political interference activities as a “magic weapon” for the “Chinese people’s great rejuvenation.” And let’s not forget about the kidnapping of the two Michaels.
Does Carney think China’s aspirations suddenly changed following the release of the final report of the Foreign Interference Commission a year ago? He must have read it, because at the April 2025 federal leaders election debate, when asked what the biggest security threat to Canada was, he answered, once again stumbling, “I think the biggest security threat to Chi—, uh, Canada, is China.”
And Carney will hide it all, too:
Federal managers have issued new guidelines for concealing records effective January 26 including permanent deletion of chat posts within 15 days. The policy follows Prime Minister Mark Carney’s election pledge that Access To Information was “quite important.”
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