Tuesday February 15, 2022
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 15, 2022
Invoking Emergencies Act is a last resort but this situation is a failure by police
Many will cheer the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to deal with border blockades and the occupation of Ottawa. They’re fed up with the protests and that’s entirely understandable.
But we will not join the cheering. Federal emergency powers may now be necessary as a last resort, but going that route is a shocking admission of failure by governments at all levels.
This was and remains a policing issue. Right from the start, even before the truckers’ convoy rolled into Ottawa, there were laws on the books adequate to deal with this.
The situation could and should already have been resolved by good intelligence, smart planning and effective co-ordination among police forces.
But in Ottawa, in particular, we’ve seen none of that over the past two and a half weeks. Instead, we’ve seen dithering and buck-passing all round. Indeed, until a couple of days ago, the federal government’s position was that local authorities had “all the tools and resources they need” to deal with the occupation.