00:03:22.260So now that you've had the chance to look through this, I'm curious what your takeaway is.
00:03:27.980Because obviously you agree with the outcome, as do I.
00:03:31.360But the reasoning behind it, do you find it sound?
00:03:34.500And is it based on what you would have hoped as a lawyer it was going to be based on?
00:03:38.340Yeah, so these are very detailed reasons where Justice Mosley goes through not just some of the preliminary matters like standing and mootness, but really dives into the crux of invocation.
00:03:54.660So he gets, he spends a lot of time dealing with whether or not the threshold to invoke
00:04:01.300the Emergencies Act was met, and then he looks at, once finding that it was not met, then he goes
00:04:06.640through the measures enacted under the Emergencies Act, that was the freezing of bank accounts and
00:04:12.280the prohibition on gatherings, and found that those were unconstitutional. So we can talk about
00:04:18.020any of those. He also gave a shout out to counsel. He said that, one of my favorite quotes was at the
00:04:24.320end of the decision and he said that the advocacy was wonderful. And he said in kind of radical
00:04:31.920transparency, he said, when this case started, I was leaning the other way. But for the advocacy
00:04:37.740of groups like the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties
00:04:41.780Association, this case could have very well turned out differently. So to receive that type of
00:04:47.840sort of shout out from the bench, it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.
00:04:53.280I wanted to ask about that, actually, because I've not read as many of these things as you have.
00:04:57.780I've read probably more than it is healthy for a normal person, but I've not really come across
00:05:03.120a judge being that transparent about their own evolution on a case like this, whereas he was
00:05:07.720basically saying, look, at the beginning, I was leaning this way. Is that as rare as it seems on
00:05:12.540the service it is so judges will uh will sometimes if counsel is particularly good or particularly
00:05:18.540bad uh either give a a nice or a mean shout out to the lawyer and say that this counsel
00:05:25.980was was exceptional or this counsel was bad uh you don't want to be the on the bad end because
00:05:32.900well there was one of those in this case too i i saw it was one of the groups canada frontline
00:05:37.580nurses just got a rather scathing rebuke by the judge yeah i i i was there in the courtroom uh so
00:05:44.460i saw what the lead up to this was and i frankly it was pretty well deserved i wasn't surprised
00:05:50.860that there was a some criticism from the bench of that one particular lawyer because he i mean
00:05:55.260his argument started with a discussion about the prime minister wearing blackface which of course
00:06:00.380he did but it's not really there's not really a legal argument uh in that it's more of a just by
00:06:05.580the way yeah anyway yeah it is rare to receive a kudos like that from the bench so we were very
00:06:12.780thrilled to get that i wanted to ask you because one of the things you and i spoke about when your
00:06:18.220a book came out pandemic panic not that long ago was that freedom of assembly is a very
00:06:23.260underdeveloped area of law and i was curious what your take was on on if that's a bit more
00:06:28.860developed now or if that really weighed in in this decision in a meaningful way so justice
00:06:34.940Mosley wrote that there was no breach of the right to freedom of assembly because he said
00:06:41.000the right to freedom of assembly comes with a caveat, which is freedom of peaceful assembly.
00:06:46.180So he was not concerned with the gathering limits breaching that right because he said
00:06:51.880the gathering limits prohibited participating in a gathering that may lead to the, that could
00:06:59.500reasonably lead to a breach of the peace. So he said those gatherings are protected anyway.
00:07:03.220I mean, I do quibble with this because I don't want to say too much because it may be involved in the appeal, but I understand the position that he took because it does have that caveat in the right, but I don't agree with the conclusion that that right was not violated.
00:07:23.140But the important thing to know about the right to freedom of assembly is that it is an underdeveloped right in our Charter.
00:07:30.120There's not very much jurisprudence on the right to freedom of assembly.
00:07:33.720And we wrote in our book that the pandemic presented a number of opportunities to develop a legal test of what constitutes an assembly.
00:07:41.720In this case, there clearly was an assembly.
00:07:45.380The question on whether or not something is an assembly more is geared to whether, you know, private gatherings like a Thanksgiving dinner would constitute an assembly under the charter.
00:07:56.640I think that it would, given that the text of the charter doesn't delineate what the purpose of the gathering needs to be.
00:08:03.760But anyway, that's sort of not what this case was about.
00:08:07.580He found there was no breach of the right to freedom of assembly.
00:08:11.380the breaches were the right to freedom of expression because a protest is an expressive
00:08:16.620event. And he found there was a breach to privacy rights that the disclosure of information from
00:08:24.240bank accounts was an unreasonable search and seizure that was unjustified.
00:08:28.980I wanted to ask about something that follows up on a discussion we started yesterday,
00:08:33.340which was the distinction between this and the Public Order Emergency Commission. And just to
00:08:38.060bring people up to speed here, the Public Order Emergency Commission was a creature of statute.
00:08:42.360It's mandated in the Emergencies Act itself that there must be this review. And at the end of that
00:08:47.540rather exhaustive set of hearings, the commissioner, Paul Rouleau, found that the government was
00:08:53.740justified, that it basically complied with the tests set out in the Emergencies Act. Now,
00:08:58.840the federal court has found the opposite is true, that it was not justified. And I'm curious now
00:09:03.240that you've dug into the decision, where that divergence took place and where, if there was
00:09:09.040like a pivotal point, Justice Mosley disagreed with basically Commissioner Rouleau? So he doesn't
00:09:18.020say that. I mean, it's obvious that he is disagreeing. But I think from what seems like
00:09:25.160one of the key areas of disagreement is on the threshold of threats to the security of Canada.
00:09:32.420And that is not what this case actually turned on. This case turned first on whether or not a national emergency existed, and Justice Mosley found that it did not.
00:09:45.180But the real question for lawyers who are interested in the Emergencies Act is this issue of what is a threat to the security of Canada.
00:09:55.000And in the legislation, the Emergencies Act, that is a term that the legislation says has the same
00:10:04.080definition as given to the term in the CSIS Act, another piece of legislation. And the CSIS Act
00:10:12.560requires there to be a threat or actual serious violence for a ideological or religious or
00:10:21.420political cause. And Justice Mosley disagreed with Justice Rouleau about the flexibility of
00:10:32.300that definition. And Justice Mosley found that that term, because it's defined in the statute
00:10:39.520as having the same meaning as another statute, there can be only one reasonable interpretation.
00:10:45.240It cannot have the myriad of possible interpretations that the federal government has tried to give it, which includes things like economic harm because there were border blockades.
00:10:59.120Justice Mosley found that economic harm is not a threat to the security of Canada under the CESES Act.
00:11:05.560And so it is not a threat to the security of Canada under the Emergencies Act.
00:16:03.860And Justice Mosley described the process for freezing the accounts.
00:16:07.820To quote him, he said, the police just making it up as they went along.
00:16:12.080And then he also found once your account was frozen, there was no process to question the
00:16:19.280determination of why your account was frozen or how to get it unfrozen. So a lot going on there
00:16:25.740that clearly a breach of Section 8 of your right to be free from an unreasonable search.
00:16:31.880And Justice Mosley found that that breach was not a justified limit on your charter rights.
00:16:37.400Were there any of the emergency measures that he defended that he said, you know,
00:16:40.940actually that wasn't unconstitutional? So he said that there was no engagement of
00:16:47.100the Bill of Rights. There was some argument on Bill of Rights. He was not interested in the
00:16:52.060arguments on international law. He found there was no breach of Section 7, which is the right
00:16:57.960to life, liberty and security of person, because he said, well, some people were detained when
00:17:04.780they were arrested. I believe he said they were arrested under the ordinary criminal code and
00:17:10.580their detention was uh was brief so because one because one aspect i was interested in was i mean
00:17:18.560partially for selfish reasons was the way that journalists were uh excluded from even reporting
00:17:24.520on this i mean there were some very i mean this would be something that would probably have to
00:17:27.980come up in a separate case but there were excluded or pepper sprayed andrew well both i mean in my
00:17:33.140in my case pepper spray but but even excluded and you had on the ground some very inconsistent
00:17:37.880decisions, like police saying that you don't have a right to walk down a sidewalk because they've
00:17:43.320decided that this is now an area that they're clearing out. And in my case, I had a couple of
00:17:49.000points where I was threatened with arrest, even though this is the day after the protests had
00:17:53.760been dismantled. But I'm wondering when you look at this from your perspective, and I don't want
00:17:58.580you to give the government ideas here, but the government had committed to appealing this
00:18:02.660basically before the ink was dry and before they had had a chance probably to-
00:18:07.880Well, fair enough. But I'm curious where you think they'll try to dig in on this and where
00:18:12.800you think they'll try to base their appeal. So they can only appeal what are referred to as
00:18:19.380mistakes of law. I mean, you can also appeal what are called mistakes of fact, but that's a lot
00:18:27.060harder. It needs to be what's called a palpable and overriding error. And so there were a number
00:18:31.880of findings of fact in this decision that will be a difficult hurdle to overcome. So on this
00:18:39.320question of threat to the security of Canada, one of the things Justice Mosley found was that the
00:18:46.080only evidence of any threat of serious violence, which is part of the threshold, was in Coutts,
00:18:52.860in Coutts, Alberta, where a number of people were arrested and had firearms. And Justice Mosley
00:18:58.620wrote that while obviously concerning, and of course it is concerning, those individuals were
00:19:06.480arrested before, I believe, before the, they were arrested under the ordinary criminal code. So
00:19:15.180part of the threshold is the requirement that no other law can be used to deal with the situation.
00:19:20.960And clearly these individuals were arrested under the existing criminal code. So the fact that
00:19:27.060Justice Mosley kind of found that the evidence showed there was only one threat of serious
00:19:34.740violence and it was addressed using the criminal law, I mean, that is a finding of fact. The
00:19:43.760government can't now bring new evidence to show there were other hardened terror cells around
00:19:50.400Canada that were a huge threat, they're stuck with that finding. And that can't really be
00:19:57.300overcome, at least not very easily. I think on errors, what they have to focus on is what we
00:20:03.920call as lawyers, errors in the law. And I mean, I don't think there are errors in law in this
00:20:09.840decision. I agree with this decision completely. But based on what Chrystia Freeland said in her
00:20:16.120press conference yesterday. It seems like the government continues to emphasize this notion
00:20:23.180of threat to the security of Canada and the standard including economic harm. So they seem
00:20:31.180set on that argument. But I will say before they can even get to that, Justice Mosley had already
00:20:38.060found that the use of the law was unjustified because he found that there was not a national
00:20:43.020emergency. And that alone was enough to find that the invocation was unreasonable.
00:20:49.320Yeah. And the government's insistence that economic harm even qualifies as all of these
00:20:54.600things under the Emergencies Act, I think is very, very questionable in a lot of ways. I just,
00:21:00.380I wanted to, just before we go here, draw attention to, if you're following along at home,
00:21:04.300everyone, para 308 and 309 of the, I see Christine's following along. She's, I see her
00:21:10.000looking for the monitors there. Basically, what he's saying here is that there was no real
00:21:14.660distinction between people that had a truck that were blocking a border effectively or blocking
00:21:20.340Wellington Street and people that just wanted to stand on Parliament Hill with a Canadian flag and
00:21:24.760stand up for freedom, as is always legal, is a legitimate form of protest. And that was something
00:21:30.220that it came up slightly in the Public Order Emergency Commission, where Commissioner Rouleau
00:21:34.960asked at a couple of points if there was ever an alternative representative. You can continue your
00:21:39.360protest, but here's how. And I appreciated that Justice Mosley did dig in on that, where he said,
00:21:45.020hang on, someone who wanted to stand there as an individual and not block a street was treated the
00:21:49.680same way as someone that parked a semi in front of Parliament Hill. Yeah, so this is in the part
00:21:54.740of the decision that's dealing with charter infringement. So the way the Emergencies Act
00:22:01.140was invoked, the government created regulations, and one of them was a restriction on participating
00:22:07.340in a gathering that could reasonably lead to a breach of the peace or materially supporting
00:22:12.460the gathering or traveling to that gathering. And insofar as the prohibition would stop you from
00:22:24.480sitting in a semi-truck on Wellington blasting your horn, perhaps that might have been okay.
00:22:31.160But this prohibition was not minimally impairing, which is what is required for it to be
00:22:37.440constitutional. It did not, it captured too many people. So yes, it captured the person who had
00:22:44.680been spent three weeks on Wellington Street, which is not, you can't blockade infrastructure
00:22:51.120indefinitely. That we are a rule of law country. You cannot do that. That is not protected
00:22:55.760expression, but it captured that person. But it also captured a person who had a poster that they
00:23:03.400wanted to walk with to Capitol Hill or Parliament Hill and stand on the grass, which is completely
00:23:08.920protected expression. So it captured too many people. It was not minimally impairing, which is
00:23:15.160one of the requirements of a law if it's going to infringe on a right, which this did.
00:23:20.340Well, I'll give you again the congratulations well-earned that I gave you yesterday on the show.
00:23:26.100And now the judge himself has also lauded you for your work, which I hadn't seen yesterday.
00:23:31.740So well done all around on this, Christine.
00:23:33.940I look forward to having you back on as this case proceeds.
00:23:36.660I mean, the best case scenario at this point would be for the court of appeal or the federal court of appeal to say there's no appeal here, right?
00:23:43.540I'm not sure if they get leave to appeal as of right or not.
00:23:47.200but I think certainly if leave is the permission of the court to appeal, I think that they would
00:23:53.700get it. I think an interesting question is if whatever the outcome is at the court of appeal,
00:24:02.120I mean, the timeline that we're looking at is probably six months from now, an appeal could
00:24:06.660be heard. And then six months from now, we might get a decision. So a year until there's a federal
00:24:12.120Court of Appeal decision you're thinking? I think at a minimum. And then when we talk about any
00:24:17.620possible, if there's any possible delays, how close are we pushing it to an election? Because
00:24:22.720I do think if there's a change of government, the desire to appeal this decision will perhaps be
00:24:30.260lacking. Yeah, fair enough. But assuming just that it goes through the normal channels here,
00:24:35.640you've got a hearing under the Federal Court of Appeal, Federal Court of Appeal decision,
00:24:39.620and then potentially beyond that Supreme Court of Canada,
00:24:42.400how long would that add to the timeline?
00:26:24.500I believe it was on the eve of the convoy's arrival in Ottawa, if memory serves.
00:26:28.300and then Pierre Paulyev who famously turned around on the steps on the way into that one
00:26:33.600fateful caucus meeting and said that well in his own way that he was supportive of the convoy and
00:26:39.020wasn't going to let the media malign those who were individual bad actors because he said in
00:26:44.280aggregate this is a peaceful protest. Well Candace Bergen who is now retired from politics had a
00:26:51.380line on X formerly Twitter that was actually somewhat moving. She says I recall vividly and
00:26:57.960with pride when our Conservative caucus made the collective decision to oppose the Emergencies Act
00:27:03.260being used against peace-loving Canadians protesting liberal overreach. We decided in
00:27:08.020that moment that we wanted to be on the right side of history, and that we are. Candice Bergen,
00:27:14.200I have plucked her out of political retirement for the next 10 minutes or so. She joins me on
00:27:19.460the line now. Candice, wonderful to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on today.
00:27:23.800Great to see you again. Thanks for asking me.
00:27:26.560You had, I'll say it was actually quite a moving post you made to social media yesterday,
00:27:31.480where you talked about how proud you were when the Conservative caucus banded together
00:27:36.420and decided to oppose the Emergencies Act.
00:27:39.620And I've made the point in the past that this is not, you could oppose the convoy and also
00:27:43.900oppose the Emergencies Act, although I know many of the people in your party and yourself
00:27:48.280were supportive of this protest and large parts of it.
00:27:51.400But why were you and your caucus so firmly against the Emergencies Act when this first came up?
00:27:58.240Well, Andrew, you have to remember the context of the moments that we were in.
00:28:03.320And you're right. Many of us supported the reasons that the convoy were there, that the people were there.
00:28:09.240Many of those people were our constituents.
00:28:10.880But we also knew that they needed to head off the streets.
00:28:14.820They needed to go home. That was our wish.
00:28:17.740But we wanted the Prime Minister to listen to them.
00:28:20.220That did not seem to be happening. So when the Emergencies Act was invoked, we had to make a decision. And there was a lot of pressure. You'll remember the media, the mainstream media, not all media, but most of the media was saying this was the right thing to do. And we had to support it. And so we came together as a caucus, which is what I find these MPs that I've been so privileged to have worked with, we do so well.
00:28:44.160We came together. We had a really good conversation in our caucus, heard all sides, and we heard, should we support it? Should we be fully against it? Should we ask for an amendment? And, you know, without breaking any kind of cabinet or caucus confidentiality, I can just tell you what an incredible conversation and discussion we had as a caucus back in February 2022, talking about freedom, talking about our constituents,
00:29:13.160and what we needed to do as parliamentarians.
00:29:17.020And we talked about history and where we wanted to be
00:29:19.480when all of this was said and done in five years, 10 years, 50 years.
00:29:24.480And we decided overwhelmingly and we were very proud
00:29:29.160and very strongly supporting working and fighting
00:29:32.860and speaking against the Emergencies Act.
00:29:36.280That history aspect is incredibly important.
00:29:39.060I made the point a while back on my show that, you know,
00:29:41.180at one point, William Lyon McKenzie was a traitor who was in exile. And then you fast forward a
00:29:46.300decade and he's a member of parliament. I mean, things can change. And with the benefit of
00:29:50.000hindsight, even the judge said this in the ruling yesterday, you can get a more full picture of
00:29:54.800things. And that seems to be happening here as well. We're in the moment you had a lot of anger,
00:30:00.000of course, in many directions. But the further away we get from this, that there's this surreal
00:30:04.800aspect when you think, wait, did the government actually freeze people's bank accounts? And that
00:30:10.120was the emergencies act that's what was what they did here so when you talk about being on the right
00:30:14.500side of history I know it's thankless being in politics and you had to bear a lot of the
00:30:19.260criticism from the media and the left for this but I do think you're going to get that in the end
00:30:24.280well you know and that's gratifying absolutely but what I'm thinking about today and my heart
00:30:29.480just goes out to the people the people who are still suffering because they were part of that
00:30:34.420convoy they supported supported the convoy the fact is that the government's position on the
00:30:39.900protesters, most of the media's false portrayal of what happened in Ottawa, have really set a lot
00:30:48.600of Canadians who were not in Ottawa against the protesters. And, you know, I know even when I
00:30:54.360would go home and talk to people and I would say, listen, yes, they need to leave the streets of
00:30:58.860Ottawa, but these people are happy. They are peaceful. You know, you look at the protests
00:31:03.080that are going on right now supporting Hamas and how different those protests are being portrayed.
00:31:09.040trade. And yet people throughout the country were being told that these were violent, hateful
00:31:15.720protests and that the Emergencies Act had to be invoked because they were so dangerous.
00:31:21.500These are the people, my heart goes out to the people who have been lied to by their own
00:31:26.740government and the media, and then the people who are so falsely maligned. So, I mean, I'm really,
00:31:32.780really proud and glad our caucus took the stand that we did. But, you know, we need to learn from
00:31:38.540this, Andrew, and if we don't learn from this, I'm afraid that the whole agenda of wedge,
00:31:45.520stigmatize, and divide Canadians will be won by Trudeau. If we don't learn from this, which
00:31:52.660thankfully I believe that we are, I see what our leader Pierre Polyev is doing and caucus is doing,
00:31:59.320but I do worry about our country as far as the media. You know, I honestly, Andrew, I'm glad
00:32:04.400that you've had me on, I would love to ask some members of the media, you know, I was grilled by
00:32:09.760Evan Solomon. I was absolutely grilled. How dare you not support the Emergencies Act? And how dare
00:32:15.500you support these people? You know, what does he have to say for himself now? You know, how about
00:32:21.100some of the writers in the Globe and Mail, for example, where's their accountability? And I feel
00:32:26.300that unless there is some real reckoning, government will be held to account, Andrew,
00:32:30.880this government will be held in terms of the vote they will be held to account uh at some point
00:32:37.520but there are many people elites academics you know the ottawa bubble we know the ottawa bubble
00:32:44.160so i'm really happy proud that we were on the right side i'm so proud of the caucus that i
00:32:49.280served with incredible members of parliament but we better learn from this you are right i mean the
00:32:55.120media malfeasance throughout the entire protest and i i mean i'd say the entire covet era what
00:33:00.000was quite something. I mean, there was one Globe and Mail reporter that posted online that there
00:33:04.940was a wrecking ball outside Trudeau's office, but it was actually the weight holding the Canadian
00:33:09.600flag there that was, you know, like the size of, you know, my fist or something. And then you also
00:33:13.880had CBC musing that this was all some foreign Russian financed operation. And there hasn't
00:33:20.160really been ever a reckoning, let alone an apology from these people. And I think a lot of folks have
00:33:25.800really expected this could all just be kept in the past well and i guess in what in a sense
00:33:33.360their reckoning has come and that most of the media in canada has lost all credibility especially
00:33:39.100with i would say 40 and under uh they have no credibility and uh and so 40 and under are using
00:33:47.240their dollars to show where where they want to get their news from and it's not the cbc's uh it's
00:33:53.260frankly not the CTVs, probably not the, not none of the mainstream. So I guess there is that
00:33:58.360reckoning. But, you know, I do, I do remain hopeful, Andrew, as much as I'm, I'm frustrated
00:34:03.360as I look back. And I think that there still is a false malignment of actually peace loving
00:34:10.220Canadians who came to Ottawa, asking, just asking for their prime minister to say, I hear you. And
00:34:18.060yes, we are not going to continue with these mandates. There will be an end. And this is all
00:34:23.020we were asking from him, and I know this is what these Canadians were asking for, they were falsely
00:34:27.780maligned. So although I feel a real sense of injustice was done for them, I am hopeful for
00:34:34.720our country. You know, when you speak to people one-on-one, people are good. People in Canada,
00:34:41.200I believe, are genuinely good people. And what they're looking for is leadership. And that's
00:34:47.280what I think we're all hoping is going to happen after the next election. We're going to have
00:34:51.960leadership that will make decisions in the best interest of the entire country, not just to wedge,
00:34:59.340stigmatize, and divide for his own or their own political game. Were you surprised that the NDP
00:35:05.520went the way they did on this? You know, the party of Tommy Douglas, the party that has
00:35:09.860put itself in protests more times than anyone could count. Were you surprised that they ended
00:35:15.080up, I mean, Jagmeet Singh has tried to do a bit of revisionism here and said it was only reluctantly,
00:35:19.420But they were quite supportive of this at the time. And I'm curious if that, when you were in the thick of it there as leader of the opposition, if that shocked you in any way.
00:35:28.240Well, we'd seen Jagmeet and the NDP just placate the Liberals and basically follow along for so long. You know, Andrew, the irony is the Liberal Party has strayed so far from what it was. It is not the party of Jean Chrétien, you know, even Paul Martin, John Manley. It is not the party that most traditional Liberals knew. And I would say the NDP have very much strayed from what they were as well.
00:35:55.080they are not the party of Tommy Douglas. And, you know, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe
00:36:00.060times are changing and we're all changing and adjusting. But the center seems to have moved.
00:36:07.240And the people who thought we were in the center now see that many who were left liberals,
00:36:14.400but more in the center have moved far, far to the left. And then the NDP are, we don't even
00:36:20.700know where they are actually they're they're not they're left but they're not left in terms of
00:36:25.200supporting workers or protesters unless the protesters are protesters that they support
00:36:31.280you know they haven't and I mean that's the other thing we haven't even really talked about
00:36:35.020when you compare the protesters that were in Ottawa in early 2022 versus the protests the
00:36:42.360anti-semitic protests and the hateful protests we have seen gone going on across the country
00:36:49.500in support of the terrorist hamas organization you look at the comparative of the two and the
00:36:57.060media coverage and the government response to the to the two different types of protest
00:37:02.500so what what does that tell you yeah i know that's very well said and this court ruling is i think
00:37:08.620vindication for a lot of people yourself included but it's not the end of the story certainly when
00:37:13.240you talk about the media and the fact that the government has still been unrepentant about this
00:37:17.740So we'll hopefully see a similar reaction to the Court of Appeal and all the way to the Supreme Court.
00:37:22.460But I realize I've plucked you back into the political world here, and I'm so grateful you did it, Candice Bergen.
00:37:28.420We always get people saying how much they miss you in politics, but I hope you're doing well.
00:37:32.460And I thank you so much for joining me today.
00:37:34.780Thanks so much, Andrew. Great to be on. Happy to do it any time.
00:37:39.720That was Candice Bergen, the former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:37:45.020up. Now, one thing I want to make a point of here, and I asked Candace near the end about Jagmeet
00:37:50.100Singh's role in all of this. The NDP has been incredibly weak. No, that was the sentence.
00:37:55.240They've just been incredibly weak. But on this in particular, and that revisionism from Jagmeet
00:37:59.680Singh is kind of fascinating. Here's him saying yesterday that it was only reluctantly that he
00:38:05.340backed the use of the Emergencies Act. From the beginning, we've said we said and we maintain
00:38:11.760that the reason we were in that crisis was a direct failure of justin trudeau's leadership
00:38:16.640and also other levels of government that failed to act to take the the challenge presented seriously
00:38:22.880their inaction resulted in a serious crisis where we reluctantly supported the indication of the
00:38:28.720emergencies uh measures we said that that was uh something that we reluctantly supported
00:38:34.720uh and then uh we also were very open to the ruleau commission and the work and the
00:38:39.600accountability measures to assess whether it was the right decision and what needs to be done
00:38:43.600differently in the future the ruling has been passed down i understand there will be an appeal
00:38:47.840of that ruling and we will follow closely to see the outcome of that appeal reluctantly okay uh
00:38:54.800here's jagmeet singh two years ago when he was announcing his support for the use of the
00:38:59.920emergencies act with the war measures act uh you know then ndp leader tommy douglas said it was
00:39:07.280like using a sledgehammer to create to crack a peanut now of course today in ottawa i mean the
00:39:13.520we we have seen a bunch of aggressions of all sorts but no one has been kidnapped no one has
00:39:19.600died up to now so i guess my question is how will history uh you know remember you as ndp leader
00:39:27.680with this emergencies act um and all the uh entrenches to uh civil liberties right now
00:39:33.280I think it's really important to reflect on the War Measures Act for just a moment.
00:39:38.360The War Measures Act was a sledgehammer, and that's why there were serious problems of its application,
00:39:45.640because it was a very broad and overly powerful piece of legislation.
00:39:50.940That's why it was repealed and a new legislation was brought forward.
00:39:55.980The Emergencies Act is nothing like the sledgehammer of the War Measures Act.