Public Safety committee  That is accurate. Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are fundamental freedoms that are indeed protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely, and we know that its predecessor, the War Measures Act, did not have that explicit provision. It's my understanding that it was made explicit in the Emergencies Act to provide that contrast, but I would also offer, as I indicated earlier, that all government actions, from the making of laws to regulations to implementation, are always subject to charter compliance.

Public Safety committee  That is indeed accurate. The powers that were provided through the emergency economic measures order were to freeze accounts, to prevent access to them. They were not seized in any way in order for the government or any other party to take possession of them. They were simply inaccessible for a temporary period of time.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. Seizing has to occur pursuant to authorities to do that. It often results in the person who has seized taking possession, although not in all circumstances. In the case of freezing, it is the banking institution. I would turn to my Finance colleagues to speak more about it in terms of the mechanisms of how it took place.

Public Safety committee  Ontario sought an injunction against a number of accounts pursuant to a provision of the Criminal Code that wasn't available to the federal Crown. I would note that in the case of the protesters we were witnessing, there were a number of injunctions in place, one by private citizens in Ottawa and another by the City of Ottawa, that were not being abided by, notwithstanding there having been court authorization.

Public Safety committee  The authority that was granted pursuant to the order was to freeze. I'll let my colleague from Finance explain what the effects of that were.

Public Safety committee  No. It was not targeted in any way, shape or form at peaceful assembly. It was specifically with respect to the criteria set out in section 2 of the emergency measures regulation.

Public Safety committee  Yes. For the majority of the charter rights, to the extent that there would be any infringement upon those rights, it would need to be reasonable in a democratic society. That's set out in section 1 of the charter. There are a couple that have that proportionality piece built into the establishment of the right itself, like section 7.

Public Safety committee  As we know, the Emergencies Act requires and explicitly states that their must be compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All statutes, all regulations and all government action require compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The assessment of charter rights was that the impact and the objective being sought, which was to stop the illegal assembly, could be remedied by leaving the protest.

Public Safety committee  That I cannot answer. I'm sorry. However, in terms of the orders, we were briefing parliamentarians on February 15 as the orders were made public, and we were quite clear that they had come into effect right then.

Public Safety committee  I can't be putting words in the minister's mouth at all. What I can tell you is the legal effect of the instrument.

Public Safety committee  I'll pass this to my RCMP colleagues, but for the record, I indicated that they would need to leave the assembly in order to have their account unfrozen. I didn't speak to the mechanism by which that would happen.

Public Safety committee  Understood. I will leave it to my colleagues at the RCMP to speak to what actually took place as circumstances unfolded.

Public Safety committee  Unfortunately, I don't have any information as to what went into the provincial determination, other than the facts that were being witnessed by everyone.

Public Safety committee  No, there was no retroactive impact of either the emergency measures regulations or the emergency economic measures order. They came into effect on the 15th. The declaration itself was issued on the 14th, but the effective date for the two subordinate pieces of legislation was the 15th.