Trudeau Liberals say they spent $2M+ on Emergencies Act legal challenge

The federal government spent over $2 million defending its use of the Emergencies Act against the Freedom Convoy, only for the Federal Court to rule the Liberals acted unconstitutionally in invoking the never-before-used act.

Trudeau Liberals say they spent $2M+ on Emergencies Act legal challenge
The Canadian Press / Adrian Wyld
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government spent $2.2 million fighting a legal challenge against the Liberals' decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, which resulted in a ruling that declared the feds illegally used the former War Measures Act against the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest.

According to a response to an inquiry of the Department of Justice posed by Conservative MP Marilyn Gladue and read into the Hansard record:

The total legal costs, the actual and notional costs, associated with Canadian Frontline Nurses et al. v. AGC, Canadian Civil Liberties Association v. AGC, Canadian Constitution Foundation v. AGC and Jeremiah Jost et al. v. AGC et al. amount to approximately $2,231,000.00.

The use of the Emergencies Act in February 2022 to extinguish the weeks-long, peaceful anti-mandate protest in Ottawa was ruled unjustifiable and unconstitutional by the Federal Court.

According to the ruling by Justice Richard Mosley:

Due to its nature and to the broad powers it grants the Federal Executive, the Emergencies Act is a tool of last resort,

The GIC cannot invoke the Emergencies Act because it is convenient or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces.

Mosely also ruled that the requirement of reasonable grounds to believe that Canada faced “threats to the security of Canada” had not been met.

Justice Mosley explained that a threat to the security of the homeland does not include the “economic disruption that resulted from the border crossing blockades, troubling as they were.”

The costs to fight Canadians in court are not expected to stop, as the Trudeau Liberals plan to appeal the humiliating defeat they suffered at the hands of the Federal Court.

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