Juno News - October 23, 2026


Trudeau’s Emergencies Act crackdown heads to the Supreme Court

Canada’s debt nightmare is getting worse… Ottawa’s $1.4 billion slush fund EXPOSED

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17 minutes

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156.76

Word count

2,707

Sentence count

91


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 The Liberal government's use of the Emergencies Act to crush the Freedom Convoy protest is
00:00:10.440 headed to the Supreme Court.
00:00:12.500 The federal government is appealing lower court rulings that found its use of the Emergencies
00:00:17.540 Act to be illegal and unconstitutional.
00:00:21.580 Back on February 14, 2022, the government imposed the Emergencies Act to put the brakes
00:00:27.160 on the trucker protest, and to freeze the bank accounts of convoy supporters.
00:00:32.220 Groups like the Canadian Constitution Foundation argued the government's actions were unjustified
00:00:38.160 and won.
00:00:39.580 The federal court ruled the Emergencies Act infringed on Canadians' charter rights of
00:00:45.160 free expression and against unreasonable search and seizure.
00:00:50.500 This post by Christine Van Gein of the Constitution Foundation.
00:00:57.020 The Supreme Court of Canada has granted leave to hear the Emergencies Act case, and we are
00:01:03.100 ready to fight.
00:01:04.940 We've got the best arguments and the best lawyers.
00:01:07.940 Buckle up, everyone, because we're heading to Ottawa.
00:01:12.460 Our guest today is counsel, Alex Serginor of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, coming
00:01:18.380 to us from Toronto.
00:01:19.840 welcome Alex. Thank you, Mark. Pleasure to join you. For those of us keeping score, that's two
00:01:25.280 decisions that have gone against the government. Maybe you could paint a picture for us of what's
00:01:30.820 at stake here as we, I guess, head toward another Supreme Court ruling, the highest court of the
00:01:38.740 land. Yeah, thank you, Mark. Well, first and foremost, I think it is fair to point out that
00:01:44.360 this, as far as I'm concerned, was never going to not reach the Supreme Court. You'll excuse the
00:01:51.160 double negative. This is an issue of such profound magnitude and gravity for all of us in this entire
00:01:58.140 country. So the fact that the court is going to hear it comes as no surprise. But to your point,
00:02:05.400 there are two critical considerations that we're hoping will be addressed, and certainly they will
00:02:11.600 be addressed by the court and they're no different than what's already been decided at the federal
00:02:16.280 court level and then later at the federal court of appeal uh what what that boils down to is
00:02:21.500 rather straightforward uh yes you're quite right in your opening remarks that the invocation of
00:02:26.680 the emergencies act was found to be unlawful or illegal to use uh your word but also unconstitutional
00:02:32.840 as well in its impact and so so long as the court uh the supreme court that is comes to the same
00:02:38.860 conclusion and obviously we hope it will and we will argue that it should reach that conclusion
00:02:45.100 that's what's at stake uh come 2027 whenever that may be what does it say about the government that
00:02:51.180 it's taking this matter to the highest court in the land i mean they've already struck out twice
00:02:59.260 i mean is it because the government wants to set a precedent for its future
00:03:04.220 treatment of these protests? Does that have something to do with its decision to go right
00:03:09.880 to the top? Well, the charitable view, the charitable interpretation would be that the
00:03:18.260 government is exercising its due diligence and doing what it ought to, which is seek clarity
00:03:24.420 on an important legal question. If that's the case, then it's somewhat similar to what happened
00:03:30.020 in 1998 when the supreme court ruled on all of the machinations behind the quebec secession
00:03:37.140 question so that's one way of looking at this the more cynical view would be that the government it
00:03:43.940 really is take is taking the position that no harm was done that both the federal court and
00:03:48.820 the federal court of appeal were wrong in reaching the conclusions that they reached that would be
00:03:54.500 the more uh pessimistic view i myself land somewhere in the middle i can grant that there
00:04:00.340 this isn't an unimportant question as i said in my opening remark but it is it is the case that
00:04:08.100 a responsibly a responsible court uh keeping in mind what was decided below and testing those
00:04:16.580 questions once again should come to the conclusion that this was a ridiculous invocation back in 2022
00:04:23.140 and should set a new standard moving forward
00:04:28.000 about when this should be invoked.
00:04:30.740 And hopefully, for all our sakes, it's not common.
00:04:32.960 We don't want for there to be emergencies,
00:04:34.600 so let's hope it isn't invoked unless there is one, God forbid.
00:04:38.580 But if the government wins,
00:04:40.260 will it undermine Canadians' rights to protest in the future?
00:04:45.960 It depends how they win, Mark, but the answer is yes, it could.
00:04:49.220 If the court finds that the infringements that were found
00:04:52.740 were were actually justified and not unjustified as as was found at the lower court level then
00:04:59.380 that would be a very frightening prospect it would mean that peaceful protesters who got swept up in
00:05:05.700 the really broad overly broad and certainly not minimally impairing measures that the government
00:05:12.900 sought to to take and did take people like that who simply want to wave a flag at at parliament
00:05:18.820 hill and voice support for a political movement whether or not they're even despite a lack of any
00:05:26.420 violent intent on their part those sorts of people ordinary peaceful canadians would be
00:05:30.980 swept up and penalized and could have their rights infringed if that's what the court finds in this
00:05:36.500 case um that's that's just with respect to freedom of expression when we're talking about unreasonable
00:05:42.820 search and seizure as you alluded to earlier and i'll add mark that i think you may have left out
00:05:47.460 that the other infringement that was found was related to what I just said,
00:05:52.060 which was that of peaceful assembly.
00:05:54.540 I mean, as we know, as both courts pointed out,
00:05:57.760 overwhelmingly, it's almost a cliche phrase at this point, mostly peaceful.
00:06:01.860 But truly, in this case, what we saw was a largely peaceful protest,
00:06:06.480 a lot of rancor and noise, certainly, and disruption, absolutely.
00:06:10.220 All of that is a little bit beyond the pale.
00:06:13.720 The concern is people who are voicing their opinions in a free and democratic society in a peaceful way and were swept up in this enormous tidal wave of legal and frankly, frankly, draconian crackdowns from the government.
00:06:29.120 It's scary. The court should find that that the lower courts were correct in their findings.
00:06:33.460 This Saturday, British Columbians have a chance to vote for safer neighborhoods, to vote for
00:06:39.580 health care that works, to vote for repealing DRIPA, to vote for sanity in our classrooms,
00:06:46.060 to vote for jobs, to vote for tax relief, to vote out David Eby and the NDP.
00:06:52.920 It's time for strong, serious leadership. This Saturday, vote Conservative.
00:07:03.460 I mean, this became an international story.
00:07:07.240 There were millions of people around the world who were inspired by the actions of these protesters.
00:07:13.620 And many of these protesters, of course, suffered as a result of their participation.
00:07:19.000 Some of them ended up in prison, charged.
00:07:22.840 They were discredited.
00:07:24.620 They suffered economic penalties, as they were.
00:07:30.660 How important is this, do you think, beyond the legal framework to the people who participated?
00:07:38.060 I know that they must be keeping a close eye on this case.
00:07:41.180 What do you think?
00:07:42.920 I think everybody should keep a watchful eye.
00:07:45.780 And those most directly affected, I'm sure, are relieved in some sense.
00:07:50.460 And probably to a very great degree, they're relieved that not once but twice the court has found that what occurred was unacceptable.
00:07:57.420 so of course they're they're likely waiting with bated breath to see what the court will decide
00:08:03.100 and that's many many months away but certainly all Canadians irrespective of the the degree to
00:08:10.560 which they were involved or not involved or just watching from home we should all be very concerned
00:08:16.480 and and keep a close critical watchful eye of how this all unfolds because remember and I have to
00:08:22.820 emphasize this again and again it's the fact that a there was no emergency and
00:08:28.280 b despite the fact that there was no emergency ever ever established
00:08:34.220 government proceeded nevertheless and and took took broad broad steps and
00:08:41.060 impose sweeping measures to catch everybody in this massive net and we all
00:08:46.820 run the risk of being entangled in such in such a net so to speak if this is
00:08:51.700 allowed to stand yeah i mean we're talking about extraordinary powers here you know you have to
00:08:57.340 have a good reason um of course it was imposed under the war measures act uh during the flq
00:09:05.480 crisis of course years years earlier and then his son imposed the emergencies act but i mean there
00:09:12.920 has to be a sense that you know you can't be cavalier in imposing something like this these
00:09:19.600 are extraordinary powers in a democratic country and you better be sure you know you'd better be
00:09:27.200 absolutely sure that this that you're doing this because in in a sense it's a last resort isn't it
00:09:33.680 it's like well we've tried everything else and there's absolute chaos there's violence in the
00:09:38.800 streets you know there's a real serious threat of uh insurrection here we have to do this and
00:09:45.520 And we've had two courts now that said, no, those conditions weren't there.
00:09:50.380 And pretending that they were, you know, doesn't make it justifiable.
00:09:55.380 I mean, at the end of the day, this is what this is about, isn't it?
00:09:57.920 It's a reminder to government that, you know, you have to be extremely sure that you're going to resort to this particular action.
00:10:05.760 This is not something that you do lightly.
00:10:08.240 and there's a feeling by many that the conditions were not met for the imposition of the Emergencies
00:10:16.500 Act. And Mark, it's not just a feeling on the part of many that the conditions weren't met.
00:10:22.080 Two court rulings, as I have to emphasize again and again, two court rulings affirmed that indeed
00:10:26.840 there was no emergency. And I want to point out, if I may, because you've sparked a thought and
00:10:32.660 it's worth addressing. On the one hand, what's interesting about the rulings up until this
00:10:38.240 point is what we've said this entire time, which is that there was no established emergency.
00:10:44.440 CSIS, for their part, actually informed Cabinet that there was, as far as they were concerned,
00:10:49.680 no serious risk of violence.
00:10:51.140 So that, even though it's not binding on Cabinet, ought to have been concerned and weighed greatly
00:10:58.360 in their assessment and in their decision to cede anyway.
00:11:02.280 The other element here, which you alluded to, I think, is the notion of federalism.
00:11:06.360 We have a division of powers in this country, and the War, excuse me, Policies Act is meant
00:11:13.080 to be invoked.
00:11:14.080 There are certain criteria.
00:11:15.600 One of those criteria is that, as you say, there is no other recourse at any other level
00:11:22.340 at the local or at the provincial level.
00:11:24.500 The idea being that, okay, Alberta, or whichever province you might have in mind, simply cannot
00:11:31.100 exercise the powers it currently has to to address this uh ever evolving emergency and that just
00:11:37.420 wasn't the case it was very clear throughout that uh it never rose to such a threshold and even if
00:11:43.260 it had we'll never know in some sense because the provinces never got a chance to uh flex their
00:11:49.980 muscles so to speak and employ the laws that they have in place to address the the facts uh that
00:11:56.300 were the facts of the situation on the ground so the federalism angle here is an important one too
00:12:01.500 and that's certainly something that we intend to make clear as this moves forward now justin trudeau
00:12:07.180 was prime minister at the time and he certainly had advisors telling him that he should do this
00:12:12.940 people like uh freeland for instance christian freeland and others but mark carty i think has
00:12:20.220 skin in the game too i know we're entering the realm of the political here but he wrote an op-ed
00:12:27.020 in the globe and mail describing the protests as sedition which of course as you know is the
00:12:31.980 incitement of resistance or insurrection against lawful authority and declaring a state of
00:12:37.660 emergency was the right step according to him at the time and he was civilian as civilians he was
00:12:43.740 at that time just somebody expressing an opinion and so i look at this as his own
00:12:51.420 kind of i don't say ego but i mean his opinion at the time having been made public is kind of on the
00:12:58.620 line here a little bit because he's trying to to me he's trying to justify uh having written uh
00:13:05.100 strongly in favor of the emergencies act he's made it clear that he still believes it was the right
00:13:09.740 thing to do how much of this is on carney now despite the fact that he was not prime minister
00:13:15.420 at the time that the decision was made i i would say mark i think it's more appropriate if if
00:13:22.700 you're going to lay this at the feet of anyone and that's not my i take no personal stance
00:13:29.420 on the political point i'm more interested in how the legal debate will unfold but this is really
00:13:35.420 as I said at the outset, I think that Prime Minister Carney is seeing this through to the
00:13:41.700 end, so to speak. And I think that, again, the most charitable view is that this is a matter
00:13:47.460 of national importance. No one would deny that. Everything else would be hypothetical. You could
00:13:52.120 imagine a different prime minister with a different party even taking a similar step. But certainly
00:13:57.160 those comments were made. And all I can say is that COVID, if you stretch your memory not too
00:14:03.200 far back was an extraordinary time uh nevertheless didn't rise to the emergency that were that that
00:14:08.960 never actually occurred but even so i only point that out to say that um emotions ran very hot uh
00:14:16.160 partisanship prevailed in many many corners of the country and at all levels and it was a time
00:14:21.200 of great distrust uh antipathy towards one another and politicians and private citizens
00:14:29.040 we're no exception to uh to engaging in some inflamed dialogue and prime minister karn's
00:14:34.800 comments then i think would fit that definition what happens now will will be interesting to see
00:14:40.560 uh i think he's tailored his comments as far as i as far as i can tell we'll see what the courts
00:14:46.400 have to say how do people find out more about the work of your organization and perhaps they
00:14:53.920 might want to support it well we're uh we're really everywhere we have a ubiquitous uh ubiquitous
00:15:01.680 presence online uh our website is uh the ccf dot ca uh don't just search ccf you'll get the now
00:15:10.880 defunct uh uh party out of saskatchewan in the early 20th century uh to this day i think folks
00:15:17.360 still get us confused. I encourage listeners as well to check out the social profiles of Christine
00:15:26.020 Van Gein, who you pointed out at the beginning, my colleague Josh DeHaas as well. That's D-E-H-A-A-S.
00:15:33.040 Josh and Christine write prolifically on Ox. And we have bulletins. We're really anywhere. So a quick
00:15:40.820 Google will help you and your listeners find us. We do encourage everyone who's willing to donate
00:15:47.240 to the cause we are a non-partisan legal charity and we are donor funded so we we very much are
00:15:53.960 appreciative of the support that we have it's largely grassroots and that's why we take such a
00:16:00.200 what we like to think is a very principled non-partisan stance because again as i said and
00:16:05.960 as i've said throughout these are matters of national importance and what what you do privately
00:16:11.560 in the voting booth um is is somewhat irrelevant in the sense that we should all be concerned
00:16:16.120 about government overreach, no matter what color the party happens to display.
00:16:22.780 Yeah, well said.
00:16:24.080 Alex Sergeron, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:16:26.240 We appreciate it.
00:16:27.500 My pleasure, Mark.
00:16:28.260 Until next time.
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00:16:41.320 Thank you so much for tuning in.
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00:16:46.120 Thank you.