On February 14, 2022, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in the country’s history.

The Emergencies Act grants the government and law enforcement extraordinary powers and was meant to be invoked only in the most dire situations. Trudeau’s Liberal government invoked the Act in order to remove peaceful protestors gathered from the “freedom convoy” protest in Ottawa, protesting against COVID-19 mandates. 

Shortly after invoking the Act, the protestors were violently removed by the Ottawa police, leading to multiple injuries among protestors.

New evidence from the Emergencies Act inquiry revealed that the Biden administration told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to dismantle the Canadian Freedom Convoy over fears that the nationwide protests against vaccine mandates would start impacting trade in the United States.

During the hearing, Minister Chrystia Freeland said that Washington was ‘very, very, very worried.’

Freeland emailed her staff on February 10 stating that the US government fears that ‘all of their northeastern car plants will shut down’ if the convoy is not ended within 12 hours.

Freeland also said during testimony that she as worried Canada was ‘in the process of doing long-term and possibly irreparable harm to our trading relationship with the United States.’

Testimony during the public inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act revealed that president Biden called Trudeau on Friday, and “by Monday, the Emergencies Act was invoked”. 

Text messages between Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s deputy prime minister, and Trudeau’s chief of staff Brian Clow showed that Biden and Trudeau allegedly blamed Fox News host Tucker Carlson for the widespread support to the freedom convoy movement.

The Canadian state-subsidized media and liberal politicians repeatedly alleged the ‘freedom convoy’ was funded by foreign donations and international donations, which was proved to be entirely false.