Emergencies Act Case Study

Words: 1249
Pages: 5

In Canadian history, invoking the Emergencies Act has been a measure the federal government has taken on two separate occasions. The first occasion came in 1970 when Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act when a separatist group called the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ) threatened the livelihoods of people in Quebec. The group achieved its mission by blowing up hundreds of mailboxes, which was an act meant to scare or terrorize the public, as well as abducting two prominent diplomats in the Quebec government, Pierre Laporte and James Cross, creating a period of civil unrest in the country. Fast forward over fifty years, and Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act in February 2022 when thousands of protesters marched to Ottawa to demand a change in the country’s measures on COVID-19. …show more content…
As a result of mixed feelings around the act, many political scholars have questioned the use of the controversial act by both members of the Trudeau family. This paper will compare the two times the Emergencies Act was used by the Canadian government in times of hardship and civil unrest, using case studies of the two events to compare and show what occurred before and after the legislation was enacted. Therefore, through the use of the examples and case studies outlined in this paper, we will see if the use of the Emergencies Act was a justified action under the circumstances under which the act became law, or if the invocation of the act was simply a political tactic or facade in the face of rising duress across the