Evidence of meeting #9 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was laws.
A video is available from Parliament.
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
That's correct. February 14 is when the declaration was issued. February 15 is when we took out the orders, and the 23rd is when they were revoked.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
I want to turn to the constitutionality of the economic measures order now, if I may.
As a general proposition, section 7 of the charter and section 8 of the charter have not been interpreted by the courts to generally protect economic or property rights in this country. Is that correct?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
That's our understanding and that's, I think, set out in our charter backgrounder.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
When something contemplates potential imprisonment, we know that the life, liberty and security process is triggered so we have to embark upon analysis under section 7.
But section 7 also talks about principles of fundamental justice, and some of those basic principles are things like arbitrariness or overbreadth. Is that fair?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
That's fair, yes.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
In your view, the powers enacted under the Emergencies Act and the regulations that followed therefrom weren't arbitrarily overbroad because they were tailored to a very specific objective that you articulated at the outset, which was ending the blockades and preventing the formation of new unlawful blockades.
Is that fair?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
That is fair. That's what I said earlier, yes.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
In terms of the targeted objective, in fact there was a very specific targeted objective about those blockades that related to the economic measures order, which was things like providing or making available property that would help maintain the blockades, keep them going, and that's why that was targeted in section 5 of one of the orders.
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
It is and the objective was really to bring an end to them, so to the extent that people were financing the illegal blockades, we wanted to find a way to stop people from coming and—
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
—to stop the financing of those blockades.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
[Inaudible—Editor] that financing, we heard a lot about the freezing of accounts.
It's our understanding that there were about 200 or so accounts that were frozen. The freezing ceases pursuant to the legislation that you have to draft in your department as soon as one's participation in the unlawful blockade ends.
Is that correct?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
That's correct.
The obligation is on the financial institution to cease transactions with designated persons. A designated person is somebody who's participating in one of these illegal assemblies. Once they're no longer participating in the illegal assembly, then there's no longer an obligation to cease transactions.
NDP
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here with us today.
My questions are for Mr. Daigle.
Mr. Daigle, I listened to your testimony and I want to be sure I understood it correctly.
Were you, personally, consulted before the Emergencies Act was proclaimed?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
The Department of Justice and I, in particular, took part in the discussions that led to the Act being invoked.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Who took part in those discussions, apart from you and the Minister of Justice?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
I think there has been testimony that has already explained that there were necessarily discussions in Cabinet. There were discussions among deputy ministers and with the RCMP. I took part in some of them. Generally speaking, that is how it happened. My colleagues also took part in a number of discussions with their clients, whether it was the RCMP, Public Safety Canada, or others.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Do you have an idea of the number of discussions you participated in personally?
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
Personally, I started to work on it very intensively in mid-February, around February 6 or 7, and up to February 23.
Bloc
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
As I explained, the Department of Justice has the role of giving legal opinions to the government.
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Department of Justice
You can assume that a number of legal opinions were prepared...
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Forgive me for interrupting you. I don't want to be rude, but we don't have a lot of time and I need a clear answer.
Did you sign a legal opinion or legal opinions relating to the proclamation of the emergency measures?
