The word is that the Canadian Senate let him know they weren’t going to pass his power grab, so he does the politically expedient thing of reversing course so he won’t look like the loser he is
‘Trudeau backs down’: Canadian PM revokes emergency powers
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Wednesday that Canada will end the rarely used measures used nine days ago to deal with weeks-long protests that shut some border crossings and paralyzed Ottawa since late January.
“The situation is no longer an emergency. Therefore, the federal government will be ending the use of the Emergencies Act,” he told a news conference.
“We are confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe,” he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s governor-general will formally revoke the emergency measures in the coming hours.
Following Trudeau’s announcement last week, the Emergencies Act was approved by the House of Commons on Monday, but not without opposition.
Invoking the powers was seen by the main opposition Conservative Party and some provincial leaders as overreaching.
The government said that the use of these powers would have a time limit. According to Trudeau, the powers were needed because the blockades threatened the economy and the public and because they helped coordinate the police forces.
“Trudeau backs down,” Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative lawmaker who is running for leadership of the party, said on Twitter. “Thank you to all who fought this abuse of power.”
×
These powers included freezing the accounts of those suspected of supporting the blockades without obtaining a court order.
According to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, the purpose of freezing the accounts was “to convince people who took part in the occupation and the illegal blockades to listen to reason,” adding that the government had already ordered banks to unfreeze the accounts.
The aim of freezing the accounts was Freeland said, adding that the government had already asked banks to begin “to unfreeze these bank accounts.”
Ontario has also ended a state of emergency it declared earlier this month in response to protests.
The protests, which began as opposition to Trudeau’s minority Liberal government’s mandate on vaccinations for truck drivers, were put to an end over the weekend in Ottawa.