Not justified and unreasonable

A narrow defeat for Trudeau on the Emergencies Act

As victories go, I’ve seen bigger. Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley spends a lot of time trimming the challenge to the Trudeau government’s 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act before he grants part marks to a minority of the applicants. Four of the six applicants didn’t suffer personally from the Emergencies Act’s enforcement, Mosley writes. But two, a retired OPP officer named Vincent Gircys and a retired soldier named Edward Cornell, had their bank accounts frozen, so they get standing. And two civil-rights groups, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation, raised important broader questions that were worth considering, so Mosley let them argue their points too. His ruling is an important setback for the Trudeau government and will make future governments hesitate before recklessly invoking the Emergencies Act.

One wonders where to begin. I’m not a lawyer, though I’m here to tell you I feel pretty good about my quick early analyses of Trudeau’s choices two years ago. Justice Mosley singles out the CCLA and the CCF for their effective advocacy in his court. It’s only fair to let them take victory laps: here’s the CCLA’s response to his decision, and here’s the CCF’s. There will be all kinds of claptrap written about this decision, some of it from people who believe themselves to be friends of this government, so it’s worth emphasizing that this challenge succeeded thanks in part to good lawyering from career civil-liberties defenders who went to fancy law schools and cannot be dismissed, as this government glibly dismisses far too many of its critics, as tools of Donald Trump.