After curtailing Canadians’ civil liberties for two years in the name of public health, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is suddenly concerned with protecting his citizens’ Charter rights.
The Liberal PM said on Friday, “The Charter of Rights and Freedoms cannot become a suggestion.”
He was referencing Ontario teachers’ bid to strike, which has been hampered as the Ford government passed legislation making it illegal for 55,000 education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees to strike and imposing a contract on them. It includes the notwithstanding clause that allows the legislature to override parts of the Canadian Charter for a five-year term.
When asked if he’ll submit a reference to the Supreme Court over Ontario’s pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause, Trudeau said, “We are considering what we can do.”
But Trudeau suffered an apparent memory lapse of his own actions over the last two years, in which he radically curtailed Canadians’ Charter rights.
He restricted mobility rights, the right to bodily autonomy, and freedom of religion with his coercive vaccine mandates.
Many of the COVID-19 restrictions were implemented by provincial governments. But Trudeau was responsible for mandating the federal civil service, not to mention his severe curtailment on cross-border and inter-provincial travel.
Under his authority, unvaccinated Canadians could not enter the country without a two-week quarantine — a rule that was maintained until the end of September, after #TrudeauMustGo trended on Twitter for days. The rule was maintained long after credible studies questioning the efficacy of the COVID vaccine were published.
And for months, unvaccinated Canadians could not board a plane or train to travel, even domestically, while Trudeau flew maskless around the world.
Perhaps most pertinently, Trudeau denied Canadians their right to protest peacefully when he enacted the Emergencies Act, formally known as the War Measures Act, to forcefully remove and penalize protesters by freezing their bank accounts and crypto wallets.
His decision to invoke that act is being scrutinized now by the Public Order Emergency Commission, which will determine whether Trudeau was justified in using emergency powers to remove the bouncy castles and inflatable hot tubs on Wellington Street. And even now, Trudeau appointed a long-time Liberal donor to determine his fate.
