The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Ottawa on Tuesday launched a final appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada to defend the former Trudeau government’s 2022 use of the Emergencies Act.
The lower courts have twice ruled against the federal government, concluding that wielding the Emergencies Act to end weeks-long protests was not legally justified.
Tuesday afternoon was the deadline for the federal government to file an application to have an appeal heard at the top court, after its loss at the Federal Court of Appeal in mid-January.
“The proposed appeal offers an ideal forum in which to address these issues of public importance,” the federal government said in its application to the Supreme Court.
In its filing, Ottawa argued that the lower courts had incorrectly reviewed the use of the Emergencies Act, which was deployed in what it called “extraordinary circumstances.”
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The legal filing asserts that the lower courts should have asked whether the government “acted reasonably in finding reasonable grounds to conclude that a public order emergency existed.”
In mid-January, three judges on the Federal Court of Appeal upheld a 2024 ruling from the Federal Court. The appeal court signed its ruling “The Court” to emphasize legal unanimity.
The appeal court judges said that while the protests in Ottawa in early 2022 were “disturbing and disruptive,” they did not constitute an emergency: “They fell well short of a threat to national security.”
The Emergencies Act became law in 1988, and 2022 was the first time it was used. It replaced the previous War Measures Act and, in response, the Emergencies Act included a high bar for its use. The two earlier court judgments have now clearly ruled that former prime minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government failed to meet that strict legal test.