IT’S NOT SO MUCH INEXPLICABLE AS INEXCUSABLE: Rex Murphy: Trudeau’s inexplicable use of the Emergencies Act must not be forgotten.
The government conceived of the “Bouncy Castles Revolt,” as the insurrection will be known in future histories, as a perfect cauldron of hate. Justin Trudeau, on Feb. 1, recorded in a tweet that, “Today in the House, Members of Parliament unanimously condemned the antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia that we’ve seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days.”
That’s a whole lot of phobias, almost the entire basket, for even a large convoy. And diversified by antisemitism and racism, by the judgment of the prime minister and his cabinet seneschals, it was probably the most threatening congregation of civic vice this country has ever known. It was to the deep thinkers in Ottawa almost an anti-Woodstock. (Minus the folk singers, which was a good thing.)
Of course even as this juggernaut of hate was barrelling across the country, the House of Commons was in recess. Which has been its abiding state these past two years. The Parliament of Canada has become somewhat “optional” these days, a kind of token add-on. Something not essential to the functioning of our democracy, but there just for the odd touch of comfort, or as an intermittent luxury.
Like when you buy a car, and for a few extra bucks the dealer can offer seat-warmers and a sunroof. (My personal favourite would be really flashy wheel rims.)
So it came to be that when Parliament was in its now-customary hibernation, that the Emergencies Act was summoned into its existence and all sorts of powers invoked — not least the deep reach into the bank accounts of the “saboteurs” and “insurrectionists” rolling into Ottawa from the deep wastes of Edmonton, Winnipeg and other points far West and East. Powers also to “seize trucks” and “cancel insurance” and “compel services” and “prison terms up to five years.” . . .
Meantime the “briefest imposition of an emergency state since 1945” must not be left unexplored, and the invasion of so many civil liberties, especially the freezing of bank accounts and the banks’ co-operation in this matter, must not be allowed to dip into oblivion, just because Trudeau dropped the emergency rhetoric almost as swiftly and strangely as he adopted it in the first place.
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