Federal Court Victory

Winning battles or Losing Ground in the Fight for Freedom?

A Canadian Federal Court’s finding this week that Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act in February 2022 was unjustified and unreasonable has made headlines in all mainstream and alternative media outlets. Even state mouthpiece CBC’s coverage included quotes from Justice Richard Mosley’s conclusion that the Trudeau government’s decision “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness - justification, transparency and intelligibility” and that ultimately, there “was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act”.

If you are unfamiliar with the background or need a quick refresher: almost exactly two years ago, hundreds of Canadian truckers drove to Ottawa in protest of government overreach related to Convid mandates. Tens of thousands of other Canadians joined them, and remained peacefully in the downtown core of the city for three weeks while crime plummeted and the streets and sidewalks were kept clean of garbage and clear of snow. Food was everywhere and shared with anyone, including the homeless. During this time, Trudeau “contracted covid” and refused to meet with any Canadians at the protest, on the grounds that he did not agree with their goals. After three weeks, he invoked the Emergencies Act, which gave law enforcement “extra powers” to do things like remove protesters from the area and freeze their bank accounts.

As stipulated by the EA, a Commission was later called to investigate and to make recommendations. This Commission, led by Paul Rouleau, found that the federal government had acted appropriately in invoking the EA.

This week, Federal Court judge Richard Mosley arrived at a different conclusion.

Naturally, all freedom-oriented media pundits immediately erupted in cheers of Victory. Viva Frei (God love him) was practically orgasmic in his coverage of the story. Trudeau gets a spanking from the Federal Court! Finally, a legal move in the right direction for Canada!

Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but is it really time to break out the champagne? What just happened here?

The first thing that should be obvious to everyone is that the recent finding by the Federal Court, two years after the fact, states what was obvious from Day 1: use of the EA was unreasonable and unjustified. Whether or not it was “legal”, it was always clearly wrong. As can never be stated enough, legality is not the same thing as morality (the difference between right and wrong). Slavery has been legal. Genocide has been legal. The point is, we don’t need and cannot rely on legislation to inform us of which behaviours are acceptable and which are not.

Let’s imagine for a moment how we would feel if the recent ruling had gone a different way. If you’re really short on imagination, just cast your mind back to last year when the Rouleau Commission found that the federal government was justified in its invocation of the EA in 2022. We all knew then, as we all know now, that the Rouleau Commission was political theatre. If Judge Mosley had reached a different conclusion this week, the general consensus by anyone who has been paying attention would likely have been that the Federal Court is as bought and payed for by the government as was Rouleau. In other words, we would not have trusted it.

Okay, I hear you thinking, but isn’t it good that the Federal Court’s ruling is aligned with freedom and morality? Doesn’t this decision mean that the government will not be able to invoke the EA on a dime the next time around?

Maybe. But since it acted ultra vires (beyond the scope of the law) in the first place, what’s really to stop the government from doing that again, as it pertains to the EA or anything else? Or from simply changing the law? Let’s not forget that among Rouleau’s recommendations was removing the CSIS definition of “national emergency” from the EA requirements.

What is for certain is that the federal government will be appealing the recent Court ruling, and that Canadians will be paying for it through the government-sanctioned act of theft commonly called taxes. Even in his jubilant explanation of events, Viva rightly points out that the federal government will fight this ruling until OUR last dollar. The Rouleau Commission included six full weeks of testimonies and many months of bureaucracy beyond that. How much will it end up costing Canadians for the federal government to fight for their legal right to deny Canadians their actual rights?

Money well spent, I hear you thinking (again). Maybe. If the higher court ruling goes that way (and there is no guarantee that it will). Even if Mosley’s decision is upheld, still, very little would stand in the way of any federal government doing the expedient and dealing with the consequences later. Much later. Like, two years.

Speaking of consequences, what is Trudeau and his Cabinet even facing? Jail-time? Fines? HA! He may not be Prime Minister much longer, as I think the widespread press coverage may be indicating, but with his wealth and special pension, that will just give him more time to go on vacations.

The central question of the Federal Court case was whether the government had met the legal threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act legislation. In the realm of legality, this was a good tactic to take, especially since the facts were so clear. Even so, the case was undoubtedly argued well by lawyers from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation. In the realm of legality, this IS a win.

Back in the real world, however, Canadians will be footing the bill for the appeal process and stand little to no chance of seeing any actual justice for the harm the government has inflicted through the EA measures, the years of convid restrictions, and beyond. Some politicians may get thrown under the bus, but that won’t prevent the bus from driving over any one of us that happens to be in its way.

One of the central legal arguments for why the EA was not necessary in 2022 is that most of the conflicts related to the Convoy were handled using existing laws, meaning that there was no need for “special powers”. Indeed, there are still four men from Coutts, Alberta, who remain incarcerated since February 2022, “awaiting trial” without bail. If law enforcement already has the “authority” to kidnap four men, who don’t appear to have hurt anyone, and keep them in cages for two years on any ordinary day, under what circumstances would they ever need “special powers”?

Outside of court rooms, framing the conversation around what kind of “threshold” does or should exist for giving more “authority” to law enforcement ignores the basic fact that law enforcement don’t have any authority in the first place. In reality, if everyone has equal rights, and you and I don’t have the right to steal people’s money, or kidnap and keep them in cages, nobody else does either, even if they are wearing special costumes. Furthermore, if we don’t have that right, then there is no logical way that we could bestow that right on anybody else. If you’re going to give something away, you have to have had that thing in the first place.

What law enforcement has are lethal weapons. We tend to “comply” with their suggestions under threat of violence. This is not “authority”, but duress. It’s the same with law makers. They don’t have any real “authority”; what they have is a claim to authority and backing by law enforcement, who have lethal weapons. And all of this is paid for by us!

All in all, media coverage of the Federal Court case seems to be suggesting that Canadians should be satisfied with the existing laws of the land, and that Trudeau simply went too far in 2022. Whether it’s from mainstream or “alternative” sources, what this amounts to in simple terms is slave-think.

How far is “too far” when placing the boot on the human face? If we’re only restricted some of the time instead of all the time, does that make us “free”? If rulers taking 100% of the fruits of labour is chattel slavery, what do you call the government taking 30% of your income? Where is the line? Why is it “too far” to freeze bank accounts, but OK to limit our finances through legalized theft (taxation)? Is it possible that over that past four years especially, we’ve been so beaten down that this Federal Court ruling looks more like “up” than it really is?

If freedom is what we really want, we’re going to have to dig much deeper to answer questions like these. On the whole, human laws follow human consciousness, not the other way around. Governments tend to take as much power as we let them get away with taking. That’s why social engineering to get us thinking like slaves has been a tool even more powerful than lethal weapons for the would-be rulers of this world. The illusion of freedom is much more effective at keeping a population enslaved, and not just because there aren’t enough jail cells to hold us all. The more of us who break out of this mental conditioning and see that the Emperor truly has no clothes, the less grip the Powers that Wish they Were will have on our lives.