Juno News - The Unjust Invocation of the Emergencies Act？ (Feat. Ryan Alford)

00:00:00.000 hi everybody welcome back to the rupa subramania show here in ottawa it's finally starting to feel

00:00:23.680 like fall and i hope everybody had a wonderful remembrance day honoring all of those brave men

00:00:30.720 and women who fought for our fought in many cases died to protect our freedoms another challenge to 0.99

00:00:38.800 our freedom is in the news in the form of the public inquiry into the draconian emergencies act

00:00:44.960 imposed by the justin trudeau minority government to break up a peaceful civil disobedience protest

00:00:52.800 here in ottawa of course that being the freedom convoy protest from earlier this year now we've

00:00:59.280 talked about the inquiry on the show before but today we're going to dig deeper into what we've

00:01:05.200 learned over the last few weeks about whether the trudeau government actually had a legitimate reason

00:01:11.600 to impose an emergency spoiler alert i don't think so and i've written about this quite extensively

00:01:17.840 uh in my national post columns but i'm not a lawyer so today we actually have a lawyer

00:01:24.320 um uh who knows more than a little bit about the subject uh please welcome ryan alford to the show

00:01:32.320 he's a professor at boralaskan uh faculty of law at lake lakehead university and senior fellow at

00:01:39.760 mcdonald laurie institute he's been following the inquiry pretty closely and i'm really looking forward

00:01:45.760 to his insights and i hope you're too so welcome ryan to the show thanks for joining me and all of

00:01:51.840 our viewers i wanted to first start by asking you ryan if you could give me a summary of what we've

00:01:58.560 learned uh from the inquiry so far uh from your point of view have we learned things from the inquiry

00:02:05.040 that we did not already know for example or has the inquiry perhaps reinforced the thinking that many

00:02:11.040 of us have had uh that the protest was not dangerous was not a national security threat

00:02:16.560 and that the trudeau government um had no real justification for invoking the emergencies act

00:02:23.760 something that has been invoked only the fourth time in canada's history

00:02:29.120 well it's a good question i think that i will give you a perspective from the legal angle because my

00:02:34.800 question was always about whether or not there could be any reasonable basis for invoking the

00:02:40.080 emergencies act and you have to remember that that's a little bit more flexible or perhaps

00:02:44.640 deferential to the government because it's not a question of was there in fact the kind of specified

00:02:50.240 threat but whether or not there was a reasonable basis to think that there was and it was very

00:02:55.040 interesting to hear right away at the beginning of the inquiry the commissioner rule was quite clear

00:02:59.520 on the fact that the government was trying to change the mandate of the inquiry um it's very clear

00:03:05.520 that what the statute requires is a very detailed precise attention to that particular legal question

00:03:12.320 but what the prime minister tried to do and you can see this in the ordering council that set up

00:03:16.400 the commission uh he said well look at all of these circumstances let's talk about all of these

00:03:21.760 things that went on such that we that we ran the risk of losing sight of that very particular legal

00:03:27.840 question and that's the important question because it's about whether or not the government

00:03:31.920 complies with the law we're talking right now about whether or not the convoy violated the laws right

00:03:38.720 in some cases bylaws right right into noise or into traffic or into parking we're talking in this

00:03:45.520 inquiry more particularly about whether the government of canada respected the constitution

00:03:51.760 and to answer that question decisively we have to zero in with very precise focus on this question of

00:03:57.520 whether or not they met the threshold not just of an emergency but of a public order emergency and

00:04:03.280 we've learned quite a lot about that um right away at the beginning a lot of people including me tried

00:04:09.520 to put that question right at the forefront and so sometimes people will be surprised when they see

00:04:14.960 particular loyals i'll just mention uh brendan miller for the convoy he'll often ask this question of

00:04:21.200 whether or not a sort of a four-point question about whether or not there was an attempt by the

00:04:25.760 protesters to overthrow the government of canada whether there was foreign support uh whether or

00:04:31.920 not there was um an intent to align yourself or actually to promote serious violence and you'll have

00:04:40.320 all these witnesses the opp the ottawa police and then lately cesus answering no to each of those four

00:04:48.240 questions what he's doing is he's establishing that the police were telling the government that they

00:04:54.720 didn't think the statutory preconditions for invoking the emergencies act existed so now we're getting

00:05:00.800 closer and closer to the question that the government wants to avoid answering which is

00:05:05.360 how did you form your belief when everybody was telling you that there was no evidence that any of

00:05:11.280 these statutory preconditions have been met how did you form your belief such that you can now say

00:05:16.640 that it's a reasonable belief that in fact the convoy met the threshold for a threat to the security of

00:05:23.120 account of canada such that you can declare a public order emergency interesting so you mentioned

00:05:29.040 something interesting earlier uh very early on in your comments you mentioned something about the

00:05:34.320 government trying to change the mandate of the inquiry could you tell tell us a little more about that

00:05:39.840 well it's interesting because what i think people expected particularly the lawyers law professors jurists

00:05:46.160 would there be a lot of focus on the question of how the government came to this decision

00:05:50.560 but instead we began with i mean think about the first day of the inquiry right you had witnesses

00:05:55.520 talking about how they were being affected by the protest well i hate to tell you but that has

00:06:00.400 nothing to do with whether or not that threshold was met how does that line up with the questions

00:06:05.520 of whether or not there was a threat to the security of canada it doesn't but what you would see

00:06:11.280 in the order and council was a direction to the commission to examine the circumstances i see

00:06:17.280 so now we're talking about all of these things that are really quite irrelevant to the narrow legal

00:06:23.280 issue of whether or not this was a gross abuse of power by the government interesting okay um so

00:06:32.240 you know if if it turns out um that and we were to find out that the trudeau government had

00:06:38.400 no solid justification for invoking the emergencies act what happens next as i understand it the commission

00:06:45.120 report doesn't oblige the government to do anything and i believe they can just put it on a shelf to

00:06:50.800 gather dust if it comes out against them well exactly right but let's just go back to that last

00:06:56.480 question if the commissioner had a very narrow mandate and you saw a report saying these are my

00:07:03.040 conclusions the government was guilty of a gross abuse of the constitution that they were not in

00:07:08.880 accordance with the rule of law and that for political purposes they falsely declared a

00:07:14.720 protectual emergency i think that there would be political consequences for that i think it would be

00:07:20.000 in the forefront of public consciousness that this is a government that is responsible for enforcing the

00:07:24.800 law that doesn't respect the law itself right but the problem is if you have this report which is very

00:07:30.320 wishy-washy which talks about how well there were all these problems and a lot of people were

00:07:35.600 complaining about honking and you know there was sewage issues and the police were very dysfunctional

00:07:42.000 and people in the government didn't agree it's going to get all lost and it's just so much more

00:07:48.080 likely that there won't be the kind of political consequences that should ensue because i think if

00:07:53.200 the report was sharp and pointed people would be saying to for instance to jameet singh how can you

00:07:59.680 be supporting a government that fails to respect the law how if they're willing to to be this

00:08:06.160 disrespectful of the law in extremists right when they're invoking emergency powers that are incredibly

00:08:12.160 powerful it's just so i could just be very pedantic this is the first time we've had the invocation

00:08:16.480 the emergencies act all of the times previous were the war measures act so so to invoke the successor of

00:08:22.640 the war measures act on a pretext how can you trust them how can you work with them why do you want

00:08:28.000 them to be the party of government and um the fact that he said in advance well um even if the

00:08:34.480 commissioner finds that i'm willing to continue when this uh agreement of confidence supply it's it's

00:08:40.080 really remarkable it just shows that they're taking off the table the idea even of political

00:08:44.640 responsibility for something this abject interesting we'll come come to the uh the report and what

00:08:52.560 you know where we could expect potentially uh when all of this is done and dusted but i wanted to

00:08:58.320 ask you about um uh doug ford um and as you know uh doug ford ontario the premier of ontario was

00:09:07.600 summoned to the inquiry but um managed to get out of appearing i believe by arguing that it was a

00:09:12.880 federal inquiry and this is a federal issue so basically in layman's terms it had nothing to do

00:09:18.800 with him um i is that a correct understanding i mean doesn't doesn't it seem that mr ford even if his

00:09:26.160 argument was correct doesn't it come across as if he's using a legal technicality here to avoid

00:09:32.240 testifying for example i mean members of the opp which is part of the ontario government testified

00:09:38.560 and police um are under his jurisdiction we're heavily involved what's your take on this do you

00:09:44.320 think this is a good look uh for the premier that he's opted out after all the man at the center of all

00:09:50.800 of this the prime minister prime minister justin trudeau himself could have presumably wiggled out

00:09:55.600 somehow but i believe he's going to be testifying at the inquiry yes it's a very narrow legal

00:10:01.280 technicality yeah uh ford focused on parliamentary privilege so he said that essentially you can't

00:10:07.520 make me yeah so they're very simple it's you know that the legislative assembly of ontario is sitting

00:10:13.280 i am a legislator by virtue of being an mp you can't make me show up you can summon me but you

00:10:18.560 can't enforce my attendance and yes justin trudeau could make the exact same argument and the inquiry

00:10:23.600 would be forced to conclude that that's correct um i think that ford just doesn't want to be

00:10:28.000 associated with this he's just worried that somehow it will generate bad publicity um it's remarkable

00:10:33.600 again um the fact that justin trudeau is going to show up indicates that he thinks the publicity

00:10:39.040 would be worse if he didn't because that's what drives everything apparently is you know whether or

00:10:43.520 not the the focus groups think that it'll be bad for you or good for you and your uh favorability

00:10:49.040 ratings or or q ratings or whatever the case may be um i i think it's a very bad look for the premier

00:10:55.520 i just think that he's calculating that in the end people will forget that he was even summoned but

00:11:00.320 it's a terrible shame because i think he should have to account for um the decision that he made

00:11:06.400 and also more particularly he should be talking about the discussions that he had with justin trudeau

00:11:11.680 about whether or not there was a basis for the emergency uh that would be very illuminating be

00:11:16.400 very helpful for the commission and he's not doing it um this is uh remarkable that there is this inquiry

00:11:25.520 that is addressing perhaps the most significant constitutional question that we can see presented

00:11:31.760 to a public commission and he's just deciding not to assist with it because of his own personal

00:11:37.440 political fortunes yeah so i mean you said something interesting in all of the correspondence between

00:11:43.520 uh doug ford and the prime minister i mean this is this is stuff that's will it will it ever come

00:11:49.520 to light uh it will we ever learn what what what actually happened i think that we can ask justin

00:11:55.920 trudeau about it so we're depending upon him being candid okay uh i don't feel particularly sanguine

00:12:01.920 about that yeah i think and the worst part of this is we're we're seeing that the the play by the

00:12:08.160 federal government is to diffuse responsibility because again they've used the their power to define

00:12:13.840 the parameters of the inquiry to make it about the circumstances right and then that already muddying

00:12:20.000 the waters quite considerably they muddy it even further by saying well who was responsible for

00:12:24.640 these circumstances evolving the way that they did and it becomes this ridiculous finger pointing

00:12:29.280 exercise when the whole predicate for the inquiry is whether or not the decision that the cabinet made

00:12:36.080 particularly to invoke the emergencies act had this particular statutory requirement met about it being a

00:12:43.120 threat to the security of canada so it's a it's a a muddying of the waters to a remarkable degree

00:12:49.600 that doesn't serve anyone least of all the people of canada who want an answer to exactly that question

00:12:54.720 about whether or not the government respects the constitution yeah i mean about the people of canada

00:12:59.200 i mean do they care about the circumstances or do they care about the letter of the law here um i mean

00:13:04.640 you said something interesting that the prime minister presumably um volunteered i believe uh at least

00:13:10.960 that's what some of the initial reports were saying that he volunteered to testify at the inquiry um and um

00:13:17.120 and you're you're you're you're um you're you're you're saying that it's probably because if he hadn't

00:13:23.600 done so it would have been a bigger public uh pr disaster for him um so you know does what do the people

00:13:31.200 care about do they care about the circumstances all of the honking and all of the inconveniences that

00:13:36.480 people had to endure or do they care about um you know was the law actually followed here

00:13:42.880 well i think it's a question of what we focus our attention on so the real problem with justin

00:13:47.920 trudeau's testimony is that he's going to want to testify as to how he was brave in these circumstances

00:13:54.960 how given you know the fact that nobody else was taking action and ottawa was so dysfunctional the

00:14:00.960 police couldn't get their act together that he had to step up because he's the man who's going to

00:14:05.760 care about the the poor and the downtrodden in this circumstance right um and he shouldn't be able

00:14:12.240 to position himself that way because the question should be did you make an illegitimate decision did

00:14:18.560 you disrespect the constitution and ignore the law but unfortunately it seems as if the commission

00:14:25.680 you've seen that commissioner ruler was a bit uncomfortable with the fact that he's stuck with

00:14:30.400 this mandate but he's he's been saddled with it by the government and there's a real problem and

00:14:36.640 i tried to point it at some of my submissions um here you have the government not merely choosing the

00:14:42.800 judge of their own trial which they did right but just essentially framing the charges against them

00:14:49.040 in a particular way so now it's no longer someone who's charged with murder you know did you commit

00:14:54.240 homicide right as defined by the criminal code of canada but um do we think that you did a really

00:14:59.920 bad thing when you killed someone i mean it'd be really nice if you were charged with murder that

00:15:04.720 you got to turn the charge into that in addition to appointing the judge yeah yeah that's uh that's

00:15:12.320 quite remarkable i mean um you you said something interesting uh a little while ago but uh the justice

00:15:20.080 being a little uncomfortable with the mandate what uh what gave gives you that impression what gave you

00:15:25.040 that impression well you see his statements on the first day of the inquiry when he introduces everything

00:15:30.400 saying well i have to look at the circumstances i've been charged under the ordering council to do

00:15:36.000 this but he said my primary responsibility the primary responsibility of the inquiry is to assess

00:15:42.640 the basis for the promulgation of the emergency so he was fairly clear about how

00:15:48.400 he had to do this he can't ignore an ordering council but he wasn't going to let it become

00:15:54.000 the primary focus and i guess the question is i understand that that's his intention but given the

00:15:59.440 way the media coverage works the way it's been diffused and how the waters have been muddied by all

00:16:04.320 of these relevancies that have been introduced by the ordering council is the public keeping it straight

00:16:10.240 and i think that it's really up to journalists to do that and i have to say i haven't been very

00:16:14.960 impressed with the vast majority of journalism about the inquiry yeah no it's um it's been very tepid the

00:16:21.200 coverage has been extremely tepid and uh and uh and for example the um the that that bit about the um

00:16:28.880 you know let's let's uh um amplify this narrative that the uh protesters are um um you know poses a

00:16:36.800 security threat uh i think this was a correspondence between someone at the pmo and uh the issues advisor of

00:16:44.400 the pmo to the communications director of the ministry of public safety right i mean you would

00:16:49.840 think that this is this is pretty explosive in my opinion but uh but there was hardly any coverage

00:16:54.720 of it in the mainstream media which is extraordinary it's worse than what you're saying because they also

00:17:00.240 said be careful though don't push this extremist angle too far or the protesters will push out the

00:17:07.280 crazies so not only was it a question of framing a media narrative and by the way by recycling notes about

00:17:13.200 january 6th right yeah which the prime minister clearly ran with from his future comments not

00:17:18.880 only that but then saying if we want to continue to successfully label them as extremists we have

00:17:25.040 to be careful that we don't push them too far with that coverage this is machiavellian it is of course

00:17:30.480 i mean i knew this from the get-go like i knew i knew it right from the beginning that uh this is

00:17:36.080 exactly what was happening and in fact i mean this well the story came out the next day on global news

00:17:40.560 yeah that use that exact framing and you see in that exchange between uh marie liz power and 1.00

00:17:45.840 alexander cohen that you just referred to that they say well let's see how these initial stories

00:17:50.080 in global land and there's a story the very next day alex boutillier and rachel gilmore right um that

00:17:58.400 uses exactly this framing claiming that the convoy protesters wanted it to be canada's january 6th

00:18:05.440 a thoroughly ridiculous allegation even if you take at face value this extremist notion they want it to

00:18:10.800 be a failure they want it to be a public relations disaster for them that's what they actively want

00:18:16.240 it was preposterous this is speculate speculation purely but where did this uh where did this idea

00:18:24.240 this framing come from that this was that that we could frame this as a january 6th style event did it

00:18:30.560 come from the government or did it come from the media came from the pmo so oh okay this so that that

00:18:37.600 text exchange predates the um the the global news uh coverage uh by one day yes okay that's that's

00:18:46.240 pretty that's pretty interesting that's pretty damning actually um i mean you know i i don't want to

00:18:53.280 and not only that but the people but the issues advisor the pmo refers to you know asking her bosses

00:18:59.920 right now she's not a secretary in the pmo she's the issues advisor of the prime minister's office

00:19:05.600 so who are our bosses in the pmo yeah yeah well that's extraordinary we'll come come to the mainstream

00:19:11.520 media in in a little bit but i just wanted to ask you quickly uh you know when the inquiry is

00:19:16.800 concluded and the commissioner has submitted his report what what are the next steps ryan uh you know

00:19:23.360 which of the recommendations if any are likely to be implemented into law or lead to a modification

00:19:28.960 of the emergencies act um well it depends on the kind of report that gets issued and what what

00:19:36.480 keeps me up at night is a report that essentially says mistakes were made okay that kind of

00:19:42.560 passivization it's like well you know it fog of war nobody could have been expected to really

00:19:47.920 understand what's going on tempers were running high really there's enough blame to spread around

00:19:52.720 between everybody it was really unfortunate and yes probably you know there was probably some

00:19:58.000 irregularities with the law but you know who am i to say and what have you and then it will just fall

00:20:03.760 flat completely and nothing will come of it um so i think that's becoming less likely given the very

00:20:10.320 good performance of the lawyers at the inquiry so just with respect to yesterday's um the yesterday

00:20:16.080 the day before i'm not sure where um the deputy the former deputy minister of public safety was

00:20:22.240 cross-examined on the basis of the unclassified report oh yeah oh yeah we'll come to that yeah

00:20:28.640 the more we see of this the more focused the report will be and then hopefully we'll have some

00:20:33.120 possibility of right yeah yeah yeah no no i definitely want to ask you about that unclassified cses report

00:20:38.560 um but you know just just uh to briefly just talk about the legacy media just for a second

00:20:44.240 uh you know they played a substantial role in this in this whole mess uh and i've pointed out many

00:20:49.760 many times that the so-called reportage coming out of the of many mainstream media outlets basically

00:20:56.000 was just repeating the government's talking points and we now have an example of that um as you just

00:21:02.160 mentioned the this communication between the pmo's office and someone in the um in the uh public safety

00:21:09.200 minister's office uh and so there was almost perfect synchronization which uh and and and

00:21:15.200 sorry and and global news uh uh with respect to the two journalists that we just you just mentioned

00:21:21.760 there was almost perfect synchronization between what what the media was saying and what the

00:21:25.840 government was saying and there was very little if any attempt by the media to probe if the government's

00:21:31.680 claims were in fact uh correct uh to me this is astounding this sounds like more like north

00:21:37.920 korea than canada well then let me add in one more layer to make it even more dystopian okay when you

00:21:43.200 then see the government citing those reports and in particular uh again on the first day of the

00:21:48.080 inquiry you saw the official explanation um provided by the government to parliament so they're required

00:21:54.080 under section 58 the emergency act to present this official explanation to parliament as to why they

00:21:58.640 invoked the emergency act and the um the key citation for why this met the requirements of section 2c of

00:22:05.600 the ceases act was a cbc news story right so they're they're feeding lines to the media the media is

00:22:14.000 taking them up very uncritically and then these then are used by the government as the very proof

00:22:20.320 of their jurisdictional basis is really shocking yeah i i yeah i mean there's no question there was

00:22:26.720 massive media failure here um uh and and it you know how is it that many of the country's top

00:22:33.600 journalists who played their part in this are not at the inquiry is that because they were not asked

00:22:39.600 or does the commission feel it's not relevant i think there have been requests by certain lawyers

00:22:45.280 representing certain parties to have people from the cbc come um i think the head of the cbc is a

00:22:51.120 relevant witness certainly uh insofar as you're talking about organizations that are only solvent

00:22:57.200 because of money provided by the government they would be bankrupt right well cbc of course receives you

00:23:02.800 know the vast majority of its funding directly from the government but many many other legacy media

00:23:07.840 outlets just can't function without these massive subsidies are being provided and so did that feed

00:23:13.360 into this very deferential coverage i mean i think there should be questions raised about this in

00:23:18.240 particular given the fact that it worked its way back into the government's justifications for what it

00:23:23.200 was doing yeah no it's uh it's it's really quite disturbing i i mean just uh a slight uh diversion but

00:23:30.720 you know i uh wrote this uh story for barry wise on the federal vaccine mandate uh for travel and the

00:23:38.960 cross-examination um revealed that the there was really no scientific rationale for for the mandate and

00:23:46.480 uh when the story came out this journalist at global news um or or when the deputy minister was

00:23:53.200 being was he was at an inquiry and he was asked about the story and he said you know the media got

00:23:59.120 it wrong and this journalist at global news was actually quite excited that the deputy minister was

00:24:04.880 uh you know he wasn't he didn't really have anything substantial to say about my story he was just

00:24:10.640 saying that i that the media got it wrong and she was just excited that the deputy minister was

00:24:15.440 standing up to me i mean it's just so incredibly dystopian you know that journalists are actually

00:24:20.800 excited uh that a government official you know just did they just take what a government official

00:24:26.640 is saying at face value which is quite extraordinary it is and journalism is not what

00:24:31.520 it used to be because that's that story when you have documents you know that are there from within

00:24:37.760 the uh the government that reveal that they're saying one thing to the public and they're saying

00:24:42.160 another thing internally you're informing the public but for some of these journalists who

00:24:47.520 are very closely aligned to the government it's it's almost a bad thing when you lead them to doubt

00:24:53.920 right because it's another real problem with this inquiry and the way it was framed was how they wanted

00:25:00.080 to turn it into um a basis for further recommendations for clamping down on social media because apparently

00:25:07.200 according to you know the government and they're trying to feed this into the inquiry in various ways

00:25:11.600 everyone in the convoy protest was there because of misinformation like it wasn't about them losing

00:25:17.760 their jobs it wasn't about the discrimination that they had faced and they testified about these things

00:25:22.960 right you have their live testimony as to what their motivation is but rather there's this notion that

00:25:27.760 somehow they were manipulated by this sinister process of misinformation right because it's about

00:25:33.520 people coming to the wrong views and now journalism when you it's essentially the notion is well

00:25:40.080 you're doing the right thing but you're doing it for the wrong reason it's that if you inform the

00:25:46.160 public yeah but you know in a way that erodes their confidence in the institutions of government

00:25:53.200 right that's the way it's framed yeah it's always in the institutions of government it's not in the

00:25:57.680 party that forms the government it's not in the officials within that party but rather when you cast

00:26:03.520 doubt on the probity of governmental officials you're now being accused of eroding the institutions

00:26:10.960 of government and you're doing it in a way which is eo ipso misinformation even if what you're saying

00:26:17.040 is correct because it has this nebulous effect of empowering the wrong people and furthering the wrong

00:26:23.760 narratives so really these journalists i think that many of them view themselves as narrative managers

00:26:29.520 ah interesting yeah yeah and there's a social activist component to all of this right i mean

00:26:35.520 they're so sure of uh they're you know there's they're so there's a moral certitude uh with many

00:26:43.280 of them and uh they seem so sure of themselves and that they're trying to change the world and

00:26:49.440 uh it's all quite uh nauseating to be honest with you um but uh you know but some of us are actually

00:26:55.280 trying to do something different here so um but you can spot objective reporting you can see when

00:27:01.200 someone's saying i'm going to present the public with information and they can draw their own

00:27:04.880 conclusions right versus we have to carefully segregate this true information from the public

00:27:10.480 because they might come to a conclusion that's somehow negative for um some sort of grand social

00:27:16.000 calculus of utilitarianism yeah yeah no exactly um so ryan just to could you just explain to our viewers

00:27:23.920 exactly how the commission was established how the commissioner was chosen and whether whether there

00:27:29.280 are any concerns of the commission may uh may not be impartial as it's supposed to be um my own uh

00:27:36.160 opinion so far uh is that commissioner rouleau seems to be playing everything in an even-handed way

00:27:43.120 but i'd love to uh get your take on this right well um so the problem is yeah for the government

00:27:51.440 they're required to hold this inquiry and it was remarkable that the prime minister essentially

00:27:56.160 took credit for what he was required to do by statute namely the issuing the ordering council that

00:28:01.680 established the um the rule commission now the problem that we have with um and i put this in

00:28:07.440 suggestions made for the policy phase um it's it's really hard for rouleau to fulfill his responsibilities

00:28:15.840 when he was appointed exclusively by the government and that's the party that when we strip away this

00:28:20.880 verbiage about the circumstances that he's there to judge right we shouldn't he's there to judge

00:28:27.760 whether or not the government on a pretext committed the a gross abuse of the constitution

00:28:34.480 by you know misconstruing its emergency powers perhaps intentionally and perhaps for illicit purposes

00:28:39.840 right or um i know we should talk about the war measures act in october of 1970 if you want to go

00:28:45.440 down that rabbit hole but um he's appointed exclusively by the government that's a real problem

00:28:52.240 um it shouldn't work that way the way it should work is the parliamentary review committee set up by

00:28:59.520 the emergencies act should have to unanimously agree on the commissioner and then you'd have no question

00:29:05.840 that this is person who can be can be deemed neutral so he's in a terrible position because

00:29:12.400 effectively he's subject to what most people would consider to be reasonable apprehension of bias

00:29:20.640 he's probably he probably is not biased but with the person in the street if you told them well did

00:29:26.080 you know that the prime minister got to pick the commissioner right would say huh that didn't sound

00:29:31.440 right i mean why would we expect that person to be neutral why would we expect somebody who's like so

00:29:36.800 again and the allegation is that you are completely you're you're taking legal process you're taking

00:29:42.960 all of your constitutional responsibilities um and you are perverting right that's the most

00:29:47.680 serious allegation possible so if that's true it seems like the prime minister also wouldn't stoop to

00:29:53.440 appointing a crony or something like this right that's the problem if they're willing to engage in

00:29:58.880 what they've been charged with under the emergencies acts inquiry right it seems obvious that they would

00:30:04.960 do whatever that they would need to do to um to distort or manipulate that process right including

00:30:10.800 what we referred to of the you know the broadening of the mandate um i don't think personally that

00:30:16.480 somebody with a distinguished judicial career like justice rulo would operate in an openly partisan way

00:30:24.080 i really don't think so but i think it's kind of unfair to him that he has to operate under this cloud of

00:30:29.920 suspicion that comes from the fact that the government didn't say well we have the right to appoint the

00:30:34.400 commissioner but we're going to include the parliamentary review committee or or some

00:30:40.400 other political actors in this decision to make it appear more neutral interesting uh well you know um

00:30:48.400 back to that unclassified thesis report that you mentioned earlier um it uh you know it came up

00:30:54.880 during the inquiry uh recently where former deputy public safety minister rob uh stuart yeah rob stuart

00:31:02.800 confirmed confirmed confirmed that ceases advised the cabinet that there does not exist a threat to

00:31:07.840 national security um as it's defined by the ceases act uh since i believe the emergencies act relies on

00:31:14.720 the ceases act to define what a what a threat to national security is this seems pretty damning uh the

00:31:20.960 emergencies act was meant to prevent abuses abuses as could occur under the old wars war measures act uh which

00:31:28.160 was used in peacetime only once by prime minister pierre trudeau uh during the october crisis yet it

00:31:34.320 seems that the emergencies act can also be misused uh what's what's your view on this do we need to

00:31:39.760 reform the act to make it harder for the government to invoke it when there really isn't a threat to

00:31:45.520 national security so there was a great suggestion by uh joanna baron uh the katian constitution foundation

00:31:52.640 i believe she co-wrote the article with christine van guy and also of ccf talking about how when you

00:31:57.920 see this kind of an abuse well the question is well shouldn't it be more difficult for it to invoke

00:32:02.480 because again it's the cabinet's prerogative exclusively that they decide whether or not

00:32:07.440 these conditions are met and then only after the fact do we then get to say is there a reasonable basis

00:32:12.560 if they're found that they've abused it in that way well maybe parliament should be consulted in advance

00:32:18.560 right i mean there's plenty of lead up time in this instance it wasn't as if there weren't weeks

00:32:22.880 of the convoy in ottawa it could have been introduced in normal fashion as a bill within parliament

00:32:28.560 um and maybe that's what should have to be done and people will say well that's going to lead to

00:32:32.880 problems with you know responding quickly well that's the lesser of two evils if the government is

00:32:38.000 willing to abuse its power so openly so i think that would be excellent if we had um some sort of

00:32:43.680 role for some institution outside of the cabinet to verify uh in a way that cesus attempted to do but

00:32:50.400 was ignored and i'll just say this with respect to the unclassified report um so all of the documents

00:32:57.040 that attest to this have all been heavily redacted okay so if it wasn't for the director of ccis

00:33:03.840 telling the commission lawyers in this panel interview this is what i told the government the

00:33:08.960 day before they invoked the emergencies act i'm not sure we ever would have learned of that

00:33:14.000 interesting but i think that perhaps he was worried that the conclusion that would have been drawn

00:33:19.360 particularly because he will also be testifying in camera that's to say outside of the presence of

00:33:25.120 the parties and their lawyers that if the commissioner came to a conclusion contrary to the opp contrary to

00:33:31.520 the rcmp well it must have been cesus that told him so cesus went on the record and said no the opposite

00:33:38.720 we felt that we had a duty to tell them that there was no such threat now here's the problem now after

00:33:44.880 that report came out um yesterday how can the government have a reasonable belief that that

00:33:50.800 threat existed when cesus who has more access to um classified secret information that their

00:33:58.080 specialty is intelligence they're charged under the cesus act with doing exactly this if they said that

00:34:03.920 threat didn't exist how could the government have a reasonable basis to believe that it did

00:34:09.600 yeah well that's that's that's the question right and um you know and i wanted to ask you about the war

00:34:16.320 measures act at one point um you had uh the ndp

00:34:23.280 absolutely disgusted with the invocation of the war measures act

00:34:27.840 but now not so much under jagmeet singh um what what do you think is happening here

00:34:33.520 well i don't think that we have the party of tommy douglas anymore okay so we don't have a party that

00:34:42.240 actually cares about good governance we have someone who's trying to essentially outwoke the liberal

00:34:47.520 party um i mean and fundamentally this is just an unserious person i don't know how people who voted for

00:34:55.760 the ndp under let's just say at broadband would be impressed with somebody who brings this longboard on

00:35:00.880 the private plane and then you know skateboards away on the tarmac right um and and and actually

00:35:07.040 presents owning rolex watches as somehow a progressive act right it's absolutely remarkable

00:35:13.680 yeah um but but for him to pull this 180 and to say the constitution doesn't matter at all

00:35:19.120 like it's completely irrelevant if we're getting what we want out of this government you know whether

00:35:23.680 that's um enhanced dental coverage for children or what have you we just don't care if they abuse

00:35:28.640 their power i think at this point you have to ask yourself have they mutated from being a social

00:35:33.200 democratic party yeah into effectively a socialist party which just you know a la castro would say

00:35:40.160 you know and this is how everybody defends cuba right they say well yeah it's true you have no

00:35:44.000 rights and freedoms in cuba and if you speak your mind you get arrested and thrown into you know prison

00:35:48.560 but look at the health care it's great you know i mean that's if that really is his way of thinking

00:35:54.640 it's no longer a social democratic party um so people just have to be very clear on this right

00:35:59.520 yeah yeah i mean it's interesting you say that i find it extremely ironic that on a range of issues

00:36:04.240 today's ndp um is not standing up either for workers who are supposed to be their main constituency

00:36:10.720 or for the average canadian um they they only seem to be standing up for um guess who justin trudeau

00:36:17.840 uh including his draconian vaccine mandates and his very illiberal use of the of emergency powers

00:36:25.760 what's happened to the left in canada how did they lose their moral compass from my point of view

00:36:30.720 whether whether you agree or not with the the ideology of the old left um i used to find that

00:36:36.400 they they were at least a bit more honest in speaking up for what they believed in uh but all of

00:36:41.520 that seems to have gone out the window what's what's going on in canada's left well it's it's part of

00:36:46.880 a broader international trend um and you can associate this with tony blair and bill clinton

00:36:52.320 right it was called the third way that they decided that the old politics weren't working

00:36:58.480 and largely it wasn't working for them right like having the working class as your constituency

00:37:03.840 wasn't propelling them to political power in part because the working class you know i think it's a

00:37:10.000 it was um someone associated with margaret thatcher who said this she said the working class had spoken

00:37:15.680 and primarily what it was saying is they didn't want to be working class anymore

00:37:20.960 that we're talking about people who aspire to social mobility right so margaret thatcher a good

00:37:25.920 example um selling council houses for people to buy privately right no longer like being assigned

00:37:32.560 your housing by the government you know have your own house you're on the property ladder all of

00:37:37.120 those things most of the people in the working class found that very attractive so the left

00:37:42.000 needed a new constituency the working class doesn't want to be working class in a sense right or they 1.00

00:37:47.280 don't want to be poor at the very least right they want to improve themselves in various ways maybe

00:37:51.360 they're still going to be working for a living but they don't want to be defined by alienation and

00:37:55.680 deprivation the way the left would have it so now um the shift became towards with the third um

00:38:02.240 way towards what they called the brahmin left so the natural constituency now and it's very obvious 1.00

00:38:08.640 in the added kingdom um where they're still really incisal political journalism is what's called the

00:38:14.160 professional managerial class okay it's that class of people with their distinct interests who are

00:38:20.480 looking to the social democratic party to advocate for them so whenever you're seeing you know the ndp

00:38:26.480 or the labor party pushing for more restrictions pushing for more bureaucracy they're actually now

00:38:32.560 advocating for their constituency when they do that because their constituency is the manageriate

00:38:38.880 essentially all of these people who really enjoy the small privileges and perks of being in this

00:38:44.880 administrative cast that has decision making that determines how other people live their lives very

00:38:50.560 that's a very interesting analysis of it yeah that's uh very insightful i hadn't actually looked at

00:38:56.160 it that way but it that that that that that is uh certainly something um worth thinking about um so

00:39:02.720 last question brian i i know um if this was a court of law you wouldn't answer a hypothetical question

00:39:08.960 uh but but we're not in a court of law so i'm wondering how the commissioner is going to rule and um

00:39:15.920 what what sort of um recommendations do you see coming out of this the commission's report

00:39:21.120 i think that if i'm not being optimistic and i'm trying to be a little more pessimistic probably in

00:39:29.760 line with reality this report's going to be a smorgasbord okay and it's going to be a little

00:39:34.720 something for everyone it's going to be just recommendations that kind of refer to everybody

00:39:40.400 that's spread the blame around and allow everybody to say well yes the real problem was this

00:39:46.800 nobody will be completely satisfied and everybody will have something that they can point to you

00:39:52.880 know well actually the salmon was good you know um and all of the recommendations will seem very dry

00:39:59.360 bureaucratic and technical and i think that's a tremendous lost opportunity because what we could

00:40:05.840 have seen was as was clearly envisioned by the emergencies act holding the government to account

00:40:13.280 or whether or not it engaged in exactly what it was accusing other people of having engaged in

00:40:19.120 which is just fundamental disrespect for the laws of the constitution something which is far more serious

00:40:24.000 when the government does it yeah yeah so um well yeah on that note brian i uh thank you for being on

00:40:33.200 the show and uh you know for most insightful conversation i um this was this was this was uh very very

00:40:41.840 enlightening and um and i'm sure our viewers also feel the same way i'd love to have you back again

00:40:48.080 when the inquiry is done and dusted and uh thank you so much for taking the time to be here thank you

00:40:53.920 and my pleasure let's have to run now because i see my colleague is leaving the building but i'm sure

00:40:58.400 we'll talk at some point very soon yeah no thank you thanks ryan thank you so much

Juno News - November 18, 2022

The Unjust Invocation of the Emergencies Act？ (Feat. Ryan Alford)

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