Feds spent millions defending Trudeau's Freedom Convoy crackdown — and lost
By Christine Van GeynNational Post (Jan. 19, 2026)
A generational civil liberties victory has been upheld. On Jan. 16, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the Trudeau government illegally invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022 in response to the Freedom Convoy.
The
unanimous judgment, which upheld the lower court’s decision in 2024, is meticulous, devastating, and leaves little room for doubt. Future governments facing political turmoil have been put on clear notice: they cannot casually reach for emergency powers to solve a domestic protest.
The case was brought by the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, along with several individuals directly affected by the emergency measures. The court accepted the CCF’s argument that the Emergencies Act was never meant to be easy to use.
The act was deliberately crafted as a response to the abuses of the
War Measures Act, infamously deployed by Pierre Trudeau during the October Crisis in 1970. Parliament replaced that law with one designed to restrain executive power, not expand it. As the Federal Court of Appeal emphasized, “one must not lose sight … of the history of the Act and of the context in which it was adopted.” Parliament, the court noted, “precisely circumscribed Cabinet’s discretion” to
prevent the casual or political use of emergency powers.
Yet that is
exactly what happened in February 2022.
The Trudeau government invoked the Emergencies Act in response to noisy and disruptive protests in Ottawa and blockades at several border crossings. The court
rejected, point by point, the government’s attempt to justify that decision.
To invoke the act lawfully, cabinet had to reasonably believe that Canada faced a
“threat to the security of Canada” — a term Parliament deliberately imported from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act and associated with serious violence. The government attempted to dilute that meaning, arguing that economic disruption and protest activity could qualify.
The court flatly rejected that argument....
CSIS itself had assessed that there was
no threat to national security, and the government invoked emergency powers before a requested alternative threat assessment was completed. The court’s conclusion was blunt: “As disturbing and disruptive as the blockades and protests could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security.”
The government also failed the Emergencies Act’s
“last resort” requirement....
Equally damning was the government’s
disregard for provincial opposition. Most provinces warned that invoking the Emergencies Act would be unnecessary and divisive. Cabinet failed to meaningfully engage with that opposition...
The court ruled that the
sweeping ban on assemblies violated freedom of expression by criminalizing mere attendance at protests, including peaceful expression on Parliament Hill....
Perhaps most chilling was the ruling on the
financial measures. Banks were compelled to share Canadians’ private financial information with police without a warrant, without notice, and without recourse. Financial institutions were effectively deputized as agents of the state and told to “leverage the news” and social media to identify suspects....
This decision now stands as binding precedent. It places real legal constraints on future governments and ensures that the Emergencies Act cannot be repurposed as a political convenience. It restores the act to what Parliament intended: a narrow, exceptional tool, not a blunt instrument against dissent.
The government spent millions defending the indefensible. It lost completely....
(* excerpted; read full article at -
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christine-van-geyn-feds-spent-millions-defending-trudeaus-freedom-convoy-crackdown-and-lost)
