Western Standard - Eva Chipiuk interview on Emergencies Act Inquiry report

00:00:00.000 This is Eva Cipiuk.

00:00:01.300 She was, is one of the Freedom Council lawyers.

00:00:05.000 I'm not going to say Chief Counsel because I got in trouble

00:00:07.340 for that last time, but certainly one of the people

00:00:10.860 who is most recognizable as representing the Freedom Convoy

00:00:15.340 and putting the gears to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

00:00:18.600 on that last day of the inquiry on November 25th.

00:00:22.300 It was a Black Friday.

00:00:23.360 I remember that day very well, but he certainly,

00:00:26.640 he certainly did it well.

00:00:28.240 Ab, but obviously I want to get right to this report

00:00:31.140 coming out last week.

00:00:33.340 Were you surprised it came out on Friday?

00:00:35.980 The, and obviously I'm talking about the Emergency Act

00:00:41.600 inquiry report, it came out on Friday, February 17th,

00:00:44.980 as opposed to, we were hearing, February 20th.

00:00:48.240 Did that date surprise you?

00:00:50.540 Yeah, and you know, great question too, because I go back

00:00:53.980 to what Mr. Rouleau said on the first day of the inquiry.

00:00:57.280 This is meant to be a transparent process so that the public,

00:01:01.020 Canadians really understand what the truth is.

00:01:04.180 And yet we didn't know when the report was coming out.

00:01:07.780 It was a last minute email to the parties.

00:01:10.520 And I actually think we found out about it via the news first,

00:01:14.140 because media said that there was a copy coming out.

00:01:18.140 So like the, how is that transparent?

00:01:21.040 That goes to show whether or not this process was in fact,

00:01:26.440 as we went into it with good faith, thinking it was an unbiased process

00:01:31.680 that was meant to look at the truth, but even just with this kind

00:01:35.280 administrative, administrative, terrible, I can't call it a hiccup at the end.

00:01:42.020 You cannot put parties through six weeks of intense proceedings where some

00:01:51.020 of our clients have been vilified as basically the worst un-Canadian criminal people

00:01:58.520 in all of Canada and not even give us the courtesy of letting us know when the copy of the report

00:02:05.320 is coming out.

00:02:06.120 And then I don't know if you know, David, but what the board ended up doing or the commission

00:02:11.860 was they provided a copy to the Ottawa journalists in person for over two hours.

00:02:20.280 They had two hours to review it and not, no parties that I know of, I can't tell you whether

00:02:26.820 or not the federal government got it in advance at this point, a little bit, I've lost faith

00:02:31.580 in, in, in all of it.

00:02:32.880 So I wouldn't, I would not be surprised if they of course got a copy in advance, just like

00:02:39.080 the Ottawa media party, as some call them, but parties that were really put through the

00:02:46.720 ringer, not even the courtesy of a copy.

00:02:50.480 Yeah, that's, that's, that's terrible.

00:02:52.180 There was a media lockup on, on that morning, much like a budget lockup.

00:02:57.640 And I, I found that to be, once again, it was last minute.

00:03:00.820 Nobody was expecting that to happen.

00:03:03.240 But of course, a couple of days before the report was released, we had the retirement and

00:03:08.300 not the resignation, but the retirement of RCMP commissioner, Brenda Luckey.

00:03:13.160 I thought that perhaps was going to signal something about the report that there was going

00:03:18.760 to be some blame on the police.

00:03:21.220 And, and of course there was from Justice Paul Rouleau, but I thought perhaps that was an

00:03:26.280 indication that Rouleau was going to come down on, on Trudeau and, and on your side in this.

00:03:33.340 And of course that didn't happen.

00:03:34.500 Were you at all surprised with the report's conclusions?

00:03:38.840 Uh, you know, of course, uh, in that it's just, if anybody watched the commission, if anybody

00:03:46.320 watched, um, live streaming of the protests in Onewa, if anybody was there, they know that

00:03:53.280 there, this was the farthest thing from a national security threat you can get.

00:03:58.960 Uh, this was pure incompetence on government levels and police authorities that plain and

00:04:05.400 simple, um, and people should not be vilified and, and criminalized and demeaned and defamed

00:04:14.100 because the government cannot, uh, be competent in their management of Canadians.

00:04:19.580 And it certainly is embarrassing on Canadians for their government, uh, not embarrassing

00:04:26.060 for Canadians themselves.

00:04:27.840 In my opinion, I think the report, because it went so far is, um, I think that the government

00:04:34.280 has overplayed their hand as they did many times in Ottawa.

00:04:38.700 For example, uh, when the police was, were taking fuel from protesters, we saw the reaction

00:04:46.140 of Canadians.

00:04:47.040 They came together and they provided fuel when they tried to freeze assets, uh, Canadians 0.63

00:04:52.340 were pouring in with more cash donations and, and helping out with food.

00:04:56.300 So this is just another overstep by the government.

00:04:59.820 And it is unfortunate for Canadians.

00:05:04.340 I wrote a column the, uh, the day of the report's release.

00:05:09.820 And I said it was appalling that Justice Rulo allowed Trudeau to get away with this.

00:05:16.140 But I found one thing interesting in his comments.

00:05:18.840 And of course, I haven't gone through the entire report.

00:05:22.960 I don't know any journalist that has.

00:05:24.740 We had time to go through the executive summary, basically.

00:05:29.020 And he put his lead, he buried his lead at the very last, like judges are apt to do.

00:05:35.340 But when he finally says, I haven't concluded that in this case, the very high threshold for

00:05:40.780 caution was met.

00:05:42.520 I have, and I've done so with reluctance.

00:05:46.860 So he's saying that he met the high threshold, but the end he says he's reluctant to say that.

00:05:53.340 I almost sensed that there was a, that he really didn't want to say that the government did the

00:06:00.420 right thing, but he felt he had to.

00:06:01.900 Yeah, and I think you went further in that comment too, saying that maybe reasonable Canadians would

00:06:07.840 come to a different conclusion.

00:06:09.700 Well, no, Rulo, that is actually, that was your job to look at the circumstances.

00:06:15.680 It was just such a strange decision or report.

00:06:19.540 It's not a decision.

00:06:20.560 So I want to remind Canadians about that.

00:06:23.040 Um, Rulo was asked to look at the circumstances of what, why the federal government invoked the

00:06:32.840 Emergencies Act, not to justify it.

00:06:35.300 That is not his job to say whether or not he was justified in doing so.

00:06:40.000 So he went further than he needed to, and then kind of backpedaled with some of it.

00:06:45.220 Um, and this is something I heard Keith say, so I'm going to use it going to the 2000 page report.

00:06:50.860 If you want everybody to read a decision or report, you make it five pages.

00:06:54.700 If you want, um, more people to read it, um, and get an understanding for a 20 pages,

00:07:00.100 if you want nobody to read it, you'd make it 2000 pages.

00:07:05.600 Yes.

00:07:06.400 That's, there's a reason it was 2000 pages.

00:07:09.420 Um, and I don't think it takes, uh, you know, too many people to figure it out.

00:07:17.740 I was reading this morning and the Globe and Mail, I think I said,

00:07:20.860 such a copy of this is that, and I found this absolutely astounding that the Globe and Mail,

00:07:26.380 which has really been, I think, over the last couple of years in true to his pocket,

00:07:31.820 came up with an editorial where they say we disagree, for instance, with his conclusion,

00:07:37.740 speaking of Justice Paul Rulo, that the invocation was justified.

00:07:42.620 Now, I found this very surprising.

00:07:44.540 What, what, what did you think about that?

00:07:46.460 Well, again, this is where I'm thinking the government overplayed their hand here,

00:07:51.020 um, going this far with it.

00:07:52.780 And people reasonable Canadians are talking now and saying that this is not reasonable.

00:07:59.260 And I'd like to remind you, David, and I use this in my social media, um, kind of, uh, when I,

00:08:05.820 a while ago, Globe and Mail also had a great editorial about, um,

00:08:11.260 the redaction of the legal opinion.

00:08:14.780 And, um, they really put themselves forward on that saying that we cannot move forward in this

00:08:22.700 process transparently and hold the government to account if the entire legal opinion is completely

00:08:29.100 blanked out.

00:08:29.660 So they, there was an indication that there were concerns with it.

00:08:33.260 I think what's happened in the last two, three years is that, like I said earlier, honest,

00:08:38.220 good work, hardworking Canadians have been vilified so badly by this government

00:08:43.740 that anybody that wants to take a stand just stays back because they don't want to target on their back,

00:08:49.740 um, from this just insane, a demeaning.

00:08:55.740 And I'm going to even say defamatory campaign that they've gone on calling people that have done

00:09:02.460 nothing more than call, ask to hold their government to account, calling them terrorists.

00:09:10.220 That is.

00:09:11.180 So why would anybody take a stand?

00:09:13.180 But I think now people are starting to wake up that this has gone on way too far and gone

00:09:19.580 way too crazy and, and they're going to start talking.

00:09:23.180 Yeah.

00:09:24.060 I, I've noted that the decision has not gone over well in parts of Europe and United States.

00:09:31.740 There has been criticism that Trudeau just got away with this.

00:09:35.980 And do you think that's going to resonate some more?

00:09:40.380 Yeah.

00:09:40.700 Well, so, you know, the, the one thing is he hasn't gotten away with anything, um,

00:09:45.820 because like I said, this wasn't Rouleau's job to decide whether or not the, it was justified.

00:09:51.580 That's for the court to decide.

00:09:52.940 And I know it's unfortunate.

00:09:54.620 There's so many legal processes and I'm with Canadians.

00:09:57.500 It's unfortunate because it ends up being a waste of money for who Canadians, because Canadian 1.00

00:10:03.180 taxpayers are the one that are, are funding the legal defense on the, on Canada side.

00:10:07.820 Um, and you know what, maybe that's something that's starting to start to change.

00:10:11.900 If we're trying to hold our government to account on things like this, maybe, maybe they should

00:10:16.940 be pulling it out of their own pocket instead of relying on good, hardworking Canadians to be 0.94

00:10:21.580 vilified by their own government.

00:10:23.100 Um, so there is a judicial review of the emergent of the decision.

00:10:30.300 So that's still in federal court and that's going to be heard in April.

00:10:33.500 And that's the proper forum for a judge to say whether or not this decision was justified.

00:10:39.900 And, you know, since the federal government has thrown this into the public realm and into the

00:10:46.860 court of public opinion, let's use the court of public opinion.

00:10:50.860 It's more powerful now I've realized than court systems.

00:10:54.140 It seems sometimes it's a lot more immediate and it's a lot cheaper.

00:10:58.540 Um, so if in the court of opinion, public opinion, we win, that's a win.

00:11:04.140 If the world is talking about how unjustified this was and, and the, the rule report was

00:11:11.580 a whitewash.

00:11:12.620 I've heard, I think you use those words and I've heard that already a lot.

00:11:16.780 I think that's a win.

00:11:17.900 And I think we move forward with that.

00:11:19.580 But as you, as you say, though, that there's still the court of public opinion,

00:11:24.140 and you're also saying there's another judicial process.

00:11:26.700 I don't think most Canadians are aware of that.

00:11:28.700 They thought Rouleau's assertions were the final say on this.

00:11:32.860 They aren't.

00:11:34.380 And again, like he said at the beginning is they're not binding.

00:11:37.420 So he only makes recommendations, but a judge is actually going to say whether or not that law was

00:11:42.780 justified, legal or illegal.

00:11:45.020 Basically, the words Canadians are looking for, that's for a judge to decide, not the commissioner.

00:11:49.980 He said it on the first day.

00:11:51.420 This is a truth-seeking process.

00:11:53.980 But that's where I've lost a bit of faith there, David, is if we're looking at a truth-seeking

00:11:59.180 process, you don't provide documents on the last week.

00:12:02.540 You don't redact documents to the extent that they did.

00:12:06.540 That was political theater.

00:12:08.380 And what we were going through, 10 minutes to cross-examine a witness, including Prime Minister

00:12:13.100 Trudeau, that is theater.

00:12:15.340 That is not legal work.

00:12:17.740 And I'm sorry, but I went into this process with good faith.

00:12:22.300 Our clients went into it with good faith.

00:12:24.780 Canadians went into it with good faith.

00:12:27.420 And the government and the commission really didn't seem to deliver.

00:12:32.860 No, that is for sure.

00:12:35.660 Do you think, though, by Rouleau saying that they met the threshold, that this was justified,

00:12:44.700 and these recommendations that he's made to sort of water down the act just a bit,

00:12:49.100 is that going to make it more tenable in the future for governments to use this authoritarian mechanism?

00:12:55.660 Of course.

00:12:56.540 Of course.

00:12:57.100 And this is what Canadians need to think about when they go to the polls, is ask members of

00:13:03.980 Parliament whether you agree with that or whether, if you're in office, are you going to change this?

00:13:09.260 This can all be changed with a pen mark.

00:13:13.340 This is not set in stone.

00:13:15.420 This can change.

00:13:16.620 And I think that, I hope that Canadians, again, have woken up to the fact that if we're going to be

00:13:23.420 so willy-nilly with these kind of draconian tools, we can't keep letting that happen.

00:13:30.060 And we need public officials to stand for Canadians and not for the government.

00:13:36.860 So where do you think this goes from here?

00:13:39.980 If there's anything beyond this next judicial process, is there still work to be done?

00:13:45.100 So much.

00:13:46.300 And I, you know, I'm way more fired up now.

00:13:49.100 This was a little battle, but there's a large war ahead of us here because there is,

00:13:56.620 as you might recall, there's still political prisoners.

00:14:00.620 And I think that we need to put our attention on political, because they're going to continue

00:14:06.540 to be vilified.

00:14:07.500 This cannot happen in Canada.

00:14:09.340 There's a $400 million class action against some of the protesters in Canada that were in

00:14:16.220 Ottawa.

00:14:16.700 That cannot happen in Canada.

00:14:18.860 People have the right to protest.

00:14:20.300 We have to keep fighting.

00:14:21.980 There's a lot of work yet to be done.

00:14:24.060 And I have some really great ideas on other lawsuits that we can launch.

00:14:29.340 So I'm really looking forward to it.

00:14:31.100 And this has just caused me to fuel it up a little bit and get into gear.

00:14:38.940 Well, you always seem to be in high gear, Emma.

00:14:42.700 And I know you're off to Toronto this afternoon.

00:14:45.180 So I don't want to keep you anymore.

00:14:46.460 But let's stay in touch.

00:14:48.380 And as the story continues to unfold, I know you're going to be a major part of it.

00:14:53.180 So Avya Chippia Legal Counsel for the Freedom Convoy,

00:14:56.940 I thank you for joining the Western Standard today.

00:14:59.260 My pleasure.

00:15:00.220 Thanks for having me.

Western Standard - February 21, 2023

Eva Chipiuk interview on Emergencies Act Inquiry report

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