Thank you very much.
To Mr. Julian's point, I thought I had a gentleman's agreement with the committee the last time that was proposed, and that certainly got tossed. I will finish within five to seven minutes, Chair, and thank you.
As I said, the violation of the freedom of expression was not a “reasonable” limit, as Justice Mosley ruled. Those measures infringing on paragraph 2(b) could not be upheld under section 1 of the charter, which allows for “reasonable limits...as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
He found that the measures were “not minimally impairing” in two ways. First, they were applied throughout Canada when they could have been limited to Ontario, and possibly Alberta. Second, there were less-impairing alternatives available that the government was constitutionally required to select over the measures they chose.
He got into the freezing of bank accounts, and he ruled that it violated the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. Justice Mosley also ruled that the measures ordering banks to disclose banking information of persons designated by the RCMP and freezing their accounts violated the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures under section 8 of the charter.
The searches of bank records were not reasonable because they required banks to inform the RCMP if they had any reason to believe someone was materially assisting the protest, when a search normally requires that police prove to a third party on an objective standard, like reasonable suspicion or reasonable grounds to believe, that a crime had been committed before the search takes place.
In paragraph 337 of his decision, Justice Mosley says, “The absence of any objective standard was confirmed by Superintendent Beaudoin, who...acknowledged in cross-examination that the RCMP did not apply a standard of either reasonable grounds or a standard of reasonable suspicion, and all they required was 'bare belief'.” In paragraph 341, Justice Mosley goes on, “I find that the failure to require that some objective standard be satisfied before the accounts were frozen breached s. 8” of the charter.
Lastly, I would note in a brief overview that the search and seizure violation could not be justified under section 1 of the charter either. Justice Mosley found that there was no threat to the security of Canada within the meaning of the act. The act says those words have the same meaning as in the CSIS Act, which includes the threat of “serious violence against persons or property”. Justice Mosley noted that the head of CSIS did not believe that the definition was met. The only specific example of threats of serious violence, as I said previously, was provided through weapons uncovered at Coutts, but that situation was already dealt with by the RCMP using the Criminal Code before any of the extraordinary measures were created.
I wrap up by saying this, Chair. I think it's important that Canadians recognize that this government—although many Canadians felt the same way—had extended beyond lawful authority. They can't change the law to suit their own purpose that's convenient for them. Finally, now a Federal Court has ruled that they did, in fact, extend beyond the confines of the law and they did, in fact, breach the charter.
I think it behooves this committee to look at this issue or come to some agreement on how it would be best dealt with, moving forward.
With that, Chair, I will cede the floor to the next speaker.