Ray McGinnis has been documenting the abuse of power that took place in Canada during the 2022 Trucker Convoy Protest. Earlier this year he joined me to discuss the Propaganda Techniques that were used to discredit the protest movement. His latest article details the truths that came out of the Commission of Inquiry and in particular how the definition of “Emergency” has been stretched to expand state authority.
"On February 14, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act in response to protests across Canada. Based on testimony at a public inquiry in Ottawa into the Act’s invocation, its use could signal an expansion of state authority, and its more frequent use. Government officials cited “bouncy castles,” “unknown interiors of trucks,” “aggressive social media tweets,” “the presence of children,” and the possibility of protesters returning to already cleared borders among the reasons for declaring a national emergency."
Although it is difficult to find out exactly how the Emergencies Act was triggered, it became clear that Trudeau and his National Security Advisor Jody Thomas went against the assessment of the intelligence community and the Ottawa police force who concluded that the Truckers posed no serious threat and had no plans to overthrow the government.
Thomas agreed that the Section 2 CSIS threshold was not met. As it turns out Thomas has a background in the Coast Guard and had no serious expertise in assessing national security threats.
Jody Thomas, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister was the first to testify about having advised the Prime Minister to invoke the Emergencies Act. She agreed the Section 2 CSIS threshold was not met. She agreed there was no espionage, no sabotage, no foreign influence, no serious violence, or threat to overthrow the government. However, Thomas, recently appointed on January 11, 2022, felt it important for the government to “broaden the definition” of what constituted a threat to the national security of Canada. Thomas listed “aggressive social media, honking” – which had almost entirely ceased once the provincial injunction was granted on February 7th – “diesel fumes,” what she termed “a wrecking ball” which was actually a crane with a weight, rumours that some “trucks might drive slowly around an Ottawa school,” and ideologically motivated violent extremists – “IMVE” as threats worthy of invoking the act. [71]
What seems to be increasingly obvious is that Trudeau’s Government actively used propaganda techniques to discredit the movement, that the media was actively manipulating the news and that even when that failed to contain the protest they went into a panic reaction that ended up violating the Canadian Charter Rights. The actions of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland included the freezing of the bank accounts of those who donated to the protestors. Yet there was no basis to justify any of it.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, announced the freezing of hundreds of bank accounts of protesters on February 14. It was made clear in her testimony that none of the funds raised for the convoy involved foreign influence, terrorism or money laundering. Freeland was unsure of the reach of her own orders under the Emergencies Act. “Just got word from our people in Atlantic Canada that our member hotlines are also lighting up in the East with people worried their accounts will be frozen because they donated to or support the truckers. This is not regionally focused. It’s a problem in many parts of the country,” the Canadian Credit Union Association wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister’s office. Internal records show she was not clear what the impact of the freeze actually was. “Here are some issues for us to think about. What have the banks actually been doing so far? We need to be clear on what you need to do to unfreeze your account if it was frozen because you made a donation” to the convoy wrote Freeland.
Trudeau’s actions has given other governments around the world the idea that they can also expand the definition of security and target the personal finances of citizens to enforce unpopular social norms and regulations. For example, unknowingly Canada could have set back the rights of women in Iran for another generation as the Islamic Government recently decided that the Hijab laws will be enforced through indirect means such as freezing the bank accounts of women who violate the dress codes.
What does this say about a prime minister who tried to discredit the protestors for being misogynestic?
Below is the link for the conversation.
McGinnis is the author of several books, notably his work with the families of the September 11 victims and his investigation into the failures of the 9/11 commission.