Court rules Liberals' use of Emergencies Act was unjustified, unreasonable

The Liberal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests was unreasonable, unjustified and violated the Charter, the Federal Court has ruled.

In a lengthy ruling published Tuesday, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found that though the Freedom Convoy protests in early 2022 were causing harm to Canada’s economy, trade and commerce, they did not rise to the level of a threat to national security as defined by the law.

Mosley sided with civil liberties groups who argued the Liberal government went beyond its powers, violated the Charter and was not justified in its historic invocation of the Emergencies Act in February 2022.

“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation (of the Emergencies Act) does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified,” Mosley wrote.