Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will invoke rarely used special measures allowing him to tackle protests that have shut some border crossings and paralyzed downtown Ottawa, domestic media reports said on Monday.
CBC and CTV said Trudeau had told legislators from his ruling Liberal Party that he would use the 1988 Emergencies Act, which allows the federal government to override the provinces and authorize special temporary measures to ensure security during national emergencies.
The act has only been used once in peacetime – by Trudeau’s father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – who invoked an earlier version of the act in 1970 after Quebec separatists kidnapped a provincial cabinet minister and a British diplomat.
The act also allows the government to send in the military but the CBC cited Trudeau as saying he had no plans to do so. Cameron Ahmad, Trudeau’s communications director, declined to comment on the report.
The “Freedom Convoy” protests, started by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, have turned into a rallying point for people opposing the policies of Trudeau’s government, covering everything from pandemic restrictions to a carbon tax.
A six-day blockade of North America’s busiest trade corridor in Windsor, Ontario, ended on Sunday while protests in Ottawa entered a third week.
Several trucks were parked outside Trudeau’s downtown office, along with portable toilets.
Protesters had also shut down smaller border crossings in Alberta and Manitoba last week and, over the weekend, shut down the Pacific Highway border point in British Columbia.
The Windsor bridge blockade choked the supply chain for Detroit’s carmakers, forcing Ford Motor Co, the second-largest U.S. automaker, General Motors Co and Toyota Motor Corp to cut production. U.S. President Joe Biden raised the matter with Trudeau last week.
Trudeau has shown reluctance to invoke the Emergencies Act to deal with previous crises, given the potential political fallout from Ottawa interfering in provincial jurisdiction. He was due to speak to the 10 provincial premiers on Monday.
Ottawa police, complaining they do not have enough officers, have so far largely stood and watched the protests, much to the fury of residents and businesses that have shut down.
Leah West, a national security expert at Ottawa’s Carleton University, said she would be shocked if Trudeau invoked the act because police already had the powers to clamp down on the blockades but were not doing no.
“The issue is a refusal to actually enforce the laws already in place … it doesn’t need the feds to invoke this act to get there,” she told the CBC.
Senior Liberal legislator Judy Sgro, asked about possible invocation of the act, said it was a sad day for Canada.
“You see the impact this is having on our economy? Thousands of people are losing jobs – what would you do?” she said.
Ontario premier Doug Ford, a conservative who has not always enjoyed good relations with Trudeau, told reporters the protests could not be tolerated.
“We cannot have people creating chaos at our borders, interrupting trade with the rest of the world,” he said.
Ford spoke after announcing that Ontario, the most populous province, would this week remove pandemic-related capacity limits on many businesses and planned to remove proof-of-vaccination requirements from March 1.
Removal of vaccine mandates is one of the key demands of protesters who have used trucks to block many streets in downtown Ottawa, much to the fury of residents.
A leak site said it had been given data about donors to the protests after a fundraising platform was hacked.
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