Pierre Poilievre says Trudeau 'broke the highest law in the land' to 'suppress citizens' after use of Emergencies Act deemed unconstitutional

Conservative Party and Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre applauded Tuesday's decision by Canada's federal court that called the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act as "unreasonable" and unjustified.

Poilievre posted his response on X Tuesday: 

"BREAKING: Judge rules Trudeau broke the highest law in the land with the Emergencies Act."

"He caused the crisis by dividing people. Then he violated Charter rights to illegally suppress citizens. As PM, I will unite our country for freedom."

Freedom Convoy lawyer Eva Chipiuk told The Post Millennial Tuesday, "The truth has prevailed. The decision reinforces what we have said the entire time, there was no national emergency and therefore the invocation of the EA was not justified. This decision also makes me ask the question I have been asking for the last two years, what part of the protest was illegal and when was it found to be illegal. I look forward to someone finally answering that question for the benefit of all Canadians."

Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was unjustified in invoking the Emergencies Act against the Freedom Convoy protest and that it was "unreasonable" to do so.

"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 in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration," Mosley wrote.

Former Conservative Party leader and current Official Opposition House Leader Andrew Scheer also castigated Trudeau on X, posting that Trudeau can no longer "give a lecture of Charter rights."

Trudeau used the act to crush the Freedom Convoy protests that were largely focused in Ottawa and sought to stop the coercive Covid mandates and lockdowns issued by the Liberal government. Thousands of trucks and tens of thousands of protesters descended upon Canada's capital in late January 2022 and were brutally dispersed by the invocation of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022. 

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who ordered the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters and supporters to be frozen, said Tuesday that the Trudeau government is opposed to Mosley's decision and promised to appeal it.

"The public safety of Canadians was under threat, our national security, which includes our national economic security, was under threat," she said. "I was convinced at the time. It was the right thing to do. It was the necessary thing to do."

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation brought the case against the federal government, arguing that Trudeau was overreaching his authority by using the never-before-used legislation and that the Freedom Convoy protest did not meet the legal threshold to invoke the act. 

The Emergencies Act was designed to respond to a "public order emergency" that constitutes a threat to Canada's national security and creates a national emergency.

Mosley said the Freedom Convoy protest did not meet that definition. 

He wrote that he originally "leaned" towards agreeing with the invocation of the act but that time and testimony from participants changed his mind. 

"I acknowledge that in conducting judicial review of that decision, I am revisiting that time with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and law than that which was before the [government]," he wrote.