By Dori Modney

Published:February 23, 2022

-Lethbridge News Now

 

EDMONTON, AB. — Just 90 minutes after Prime Minister JustinTrudeau revoked the emergencies act, Premier Jason Kenney rose in the Alberta legislature Wednesday (Feb 23) afternoon to state the province will proceed with court action against the federal government’s use of the Act against the trucker convoy protests.

While Kenney acknowledged that governments must have extraordinary powers to deal with “potentially overwhelming situations such as civil war, insurrection, mass violence, disorder or anarchy in a country governed by the rule of law, Canada was not in any of those situations nine days ago.”

Kenney reaffirmed his government’s condemnation of the federal government’s unnecessary invocation of the Emergencies Act and referred to it as an infringement on the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Albertans and all Canadians. He stated the federal government failed to demonstrate that the threshold had been met in order to invoke the Act.

The premier said there never was an emergency that justified the Act’s extraordinary power and he called the lifting of the act a “humiliation” for those who supported it.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association also says it plans to pursue its court challenge of the legislation the allowed the Emergencies Act.

At this time, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says it also plans to pursue its court challenge of the legislation.

In a news release, the association says the courts need to comment on the legal threshold and constitutional issues to guide the actions of future governments.

c. LETHBRIDGE NEWS NOW