Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that his government would be revoking his implementation of the Emergencies Act.
“The situation is no longer an emergency. Therefore, the federal government will be ending the use of the Emergencies Act,” said Trudeau.
“We are confident that existing laws and by-laws will be sufficient to keep people safe.”
Trudeau tried to defend giving his government overreaching powers and was “the response and necessary thing to do,” in response to the freedom convoy.
A joint committee of MPs will now conduct an assessment within 60-days of the government’s decision to declare a national emergency, as required by law.
Trudeau’s withdrawal of the Emergencies Act comes just days after the House of Commons approved its use – due largely to Jagmeet Singh and the New Democratic Party’s legislative support.
On February 14, the Trudeau government invoked the act, giving it enormous powers. To extend its use for at least another four weeks, the government needed to seek approval from the House of Commons within seven days, or whenever it decided to stop using the Act.
The House of Commons’s passage of the act was currently being debated in the Senate of Canada.
Supporters of the Freedom Convoy have had their bank accounts frozen since the act was enacted last Monday, while police in Ottawa brutally crushed protests over the weekend. Before or shortly after February 14, all border blockades, including those in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario, had been cleared.
Trudeau is the first Prime Minister of Canada to use the Emergencies Act, which was adopted in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act.
