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On Friday’s special livestream, Sheila Gunn Reid, Tamara Lich, and Chris Barber reacted to the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision on the Trudeau government's challenge of the ruling that found the Emergencies Act was unconstitutionally invoked during the Freedom Convoy.

John Carpay, with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), joined the stream to share that the ruling was unanimously upheld, prompting celebrations and even tears. 

He went on to share more about the decision and the JCCF’s role in the lengthy legal process that led up to this point. 

“This was a really important accountability check, that a court said to Prime Minister Trudeau and the federal government, ‘You guys were wrong. You didn’t comply with the legislation, which says that you can only use emergency powers when there is a bona fide national emergency,’” he explained. “So that’s just really, really important for the sake of… slowing down our slide toward becoming a police state, because that’s what we’re on track with right now.” 

Carpay also explained possible next steps, including the possibility of the federal government attempting to take their challenge to the Supreme Court — a possibility which he deemed unlikely. 

“I would say the federal government’s chances of getting this heard by the Supreme Court appear to be pretty small,” he said, “because I don’t know what they’re going to say is some doctrine of law that Canadians are clamouring to get clarity on. This is kind of a one-time decision: Did the federal government comply with the Emergencies Act, yes or no?”