Emergencies Act inquiry to release final report tomorrow | CBC News

The Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) responsible for looking into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act will deliver its final report tomorrow.

In a news release, the POEC said the report will be tabled in the House of Commons around noon. Commissioner Paul Rouleau will then deliver a statement, which will be streamed on the commission’s website. The release said Rouleau will not take questions from the media or give any interviews.

The commission held hearings for six weeks last fall to look into the Trudeau government’s unprecedented use of the act. The government invoked the act for the first time in the law’s 34-year existence on Feb. 14, 2022 to clear anti-vaccine mandate protests which occupied central Ottawa and blocked border crossings in Windsor, Ont. and Coutts, Alta last year.

The invocation granted law enforcement extraordinary powers to remove protesters and their vehicles from the capital. It also enabled the federal government to freeze protesters’ finances and ban travel to certain areas of the protest. 

The act requires the government to hold an inquiry after its invocation. The hearings heard from over 70 witnesses and the commission tabled thousands of documents from law enforcement agencies, government officials, protesters and others.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified before the commission on the final day of hearings. Trudeau defended the government’s use of the act, saying law enforcement could not address the protest in Ottawa and that he was concerned about what would happen if the government didn’t end the protest.

The Conservatives have criticized the government for invoking the act, saying the legal threshold for invocation had not been met and that emergency powers were not necessary.

Politicians hope report brings clarity

Justice Minister David Lametti said in an interview with CBC’s Power & Politics airing Thursday that he hopes the government will get guidance on the use of the Emergencies Act from the report.

“I’m not going to speculate on what’s in his report tomorrow,” Lametti told host David Cochrane.

“We feel we did the right thing. We feel that we took actions that needed to be taken, and we’ll stand by that.”

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the need to invoke the act represented a failure by the government to deal with the protests.

“I’m hoping the commission will highlight what needs to be done to prevent invocation in the future,” he told reporters in a media scrum Thursday.

“It should have never got to that point. Why did it get to that point, and how can we prevent that? Those are things I’m hoping that the commission will bring to light.”