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In February, 2022, three weeks into the protests in Ottawa, police walk through parked trucks to make an arrest on Wellington Street.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
A reckoning of the former Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act in 2022 to quell weekslong trucker protests in the country’s capital is heading to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The top court on Thursday morning said it has agreed to hear Ottawa’s appeal of the case. A hearing has not been scheduled and likely wouldn’t happen before next spring or possibly next fall.
The federal government has twice lost in the lower courts, after legal challenges to its 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act. In January, the Federal Court of Appeal, in an unanimous judgment, concluded that Ottawa’s use of the emergency powers was not legally justified.
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Ottawa asked the Supreme Court in March to hear the case and argued in a legal filing that the lower courts were wrong in their assessments. The federal government cited “extraordinary circumstances” and that it had “acted reasonably in finding reasonable grounds to conclude that a public order emergency existed.”
Ottawa further argued that the lower court rulings “hamstrings governments’ ability to respond effectively to future crises” and “neuters” the Emergencies Act.
The Federal Court of Appeal decision in January, led by Chief Justice Yves de Montigny and signed by “The Court,” was a major judgment that clarified the limits of executive power during intense moments when the political-decision making of the prime minister and cabinet have the potential to overstep the boundaries of the law.
The stakes will be the same at the Supreme Court, as the nine judges look to delineate the boundary between what is reasonable and unreasonable in government decisions made during heated and challenging episodes.