If Commissioner Paul Rouleau had put his intellect to use in the culinary arts, he would be renowned as the first chef to make the perfect egg, with both a firm hard-boiled yolk and a runny center. This is the same aptitude and inventiveness he used in his mandatory review of the Emergency Act. On one hand, he noted that the “very high threshold required for the invocation of the act was met,” and on the other hand that “many and perhaps most of the protesters sought to engage in legitimate and lawful protests.”
The Liberal government is therefore justified in its use of militarized police in riot gear without name tags, while also validating the Canadians who fit into the “perhaps most” category – those who either supported or participated in the Freedom Convoy and the Ottawa protests – so that they are not shamed or offended by the ruling.
The real challenge for the “myopic group” of ideologues around the Laurentians is that the “small fringe minority” they seem to despise is actually part of the silent majority in this country. This majority is slowly realizing that Canada is becoming difficult to comprehend, with conflicting values on digital identity, the sexualization of children, regionalism, the cost of living, and a rising national debt that could potentially put our sovereignty at risk due to foreign interference.
The weakening of legal certainty is another step towards “rule by law,” which is to say, “fiat rule” in Canada. This is when the law is used to support the dictates of the government rather than protect the rights of citizens. Take, for example, the requirement for the threat of or use of “serious violence” to invoke the Emergencies Act. Commissioner Rouleau expands this to include “substantial interference with someone’s physical or psychological integrity, health and well-being.” This means that one can unintentionally commit serious violence against someone else as long as they feel their “well-being” is being threatened.
Rouleau also implies that Canadians are still nostalgic for the nation and way of life that “used to exist,” which is a bit ironic considering that Justin Trudeau said in November 2020 that the pandemic provided an opportunity for a “reset” and before that that Canada would become the “first post-national state.” This is why deeper reform is needed to ask more questions about the “reset” and what post-nationhood entails.
The fight against this “reset” has already begun, with new groups of Canadians mobilizing around health and civil liberties in search of truth, accountability, and justice. The tide has turned, and it is time for the CBC to send a reporter to Thailand to see what the royal family and government think about the legal protection of Big Pharma.
Canadians have never agreed to a reset, and they do not wish to become a prototype for the transition of this nation state to global governance.