Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act in an effort to quell the protests by truckers and other groups opposed to measures aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. The federal government has never before acted to implement this once-obscure piece of disaster and emergency legislation.
Trudeau has suggested the additional tools the Emergencies Act provides for will allow the federal government to manage situations as they emerge, take extraordinary actions that are time-limited, have specific geographic bounds and deploy a measured use of out-of-the-ordinary expansive governmental powers.
