However, Vigneault acknowledged the concept of national security encompasses broader considerations than how the agency defines threats, and that it was ultimately up to the government to decide if the Emergencies Act was justified. Pressed by Miller to identify who told the cabinet there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect a national security threat as defined by CSIS, Stewart said, “Nobody. In its formal written explanation for invoking the Emergencies Act, the government noted the RCMP had recently seized a cache of weapons and charged four people in an alleged conspiracy to kill police at a convoy blockade in southern Alberta. The federal inquiry led by Ontario Justice Paul Rouleau is probing why and how the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act to deal with last winter’s protest crisis. Critics have since argued the Emergencies Act was unnecessary and too heavy-handed, while the government insists it was needed to deal with an economically damaging and dangerous national emergency.

Source: thestar November 14, 2022 18:05 UTC