The Emergencies Act Inquiry has brought the events surrounding the Freedom Convoy to the front of people’s minds. People are wondering: why was the far right allowed to terrorize Ottawa and blockade key border crossings for weeks when the state cracks down so violently on Indigenous land defenders? Why was the constant refrain from nearly every official: “not my circus, not my monkeys”? Why did the state go from doing nothing to unleashing a despotic crackdown seemingly overnight?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 to put an end to the right-wing anti-lockdown Freedom Convoy. The United Conservative Party (UCP), in addition to groups like the Canadian Constitution Foundation launched a court challenge on Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act. The Emergencies Act Inquiry began on Oct. 19 to investigate whether Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was justified in response to the Freedom Convoy.
Buck-passing and blame game
As the convoy was occupying the city of Ottawa, one elected official after another found reasons why dealing with the convoy was out of their jurisdiction. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson blamed the Federal and Provincial government for not sending more resources and police. When Mayor Watson requested that Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers intervene, Trudeau said that it was the jurisdiction of the Ontario Provincial Police. Similarly, Doug Ford denied requests for emergency measures, stating it was a police matter. No level of government wanted to take responsibility for the political fallout of dealing with the convoy.
In Alberta, former Premier Jason Kenney and the UCP quietly, but formally requested the federal government intervene at the Coutts border blockade. However, when the federal government did just that, Kenney jumped at the first opportunity to denounce the Emergencies act as “unnecessary and disproportionate”, attempting to end the blockade’s economic damage without losing political support from its participants. In a matter of days, Kenney went from pleading for a federal crackdown to suing and throwing a tantrum about the crackdown! Doug Ford initially egged on the convoy, but as things spiraled out of control, he decided to take a break, and go skiing in Muskoka. While Doug Ford supported the Emergencies Act, he avoided taking any action against the convoy, not wanting to lose their votes in an election year. Now that support for the convoy has plummeted, Ford is dodging testifying at the inquiry at all costs, hoping to avoid dredging up all these pesky details. When Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, Ford and Kenney were happy to have the federal government crack down, at least privately. Publicly, they’ve maneuvered and squirmed to dodge as much political fallout as possible.
Police hypocrisy
Throughout the Emergencies Act Inquiry, Ottawa police and city officials have maintained that the size and determination of the convoy caught them unawares. Both City Manager Steve Kanellakos and Deputy Chief Patricia Ferguson stated that they did not expect more than 1,000–2,000 people who would not stay past the weekend. However, the reports from the investigation tell a different story. By Jan. 21, Chief Ferguson knew that the convoy had raised $3.5 million on GoFundMe and that they planned to stay until all pandemic restrictions were lifted. Similarly, based on emails from the local hotel association, top city officials knew that convoy organizers were looking for rooms for 10,000 people for 30–90 days and planned to “leave their trucks in place, chain them together, and attempt to block all accesses to the city.” The police and city officials cannot feign ignorance. So, what else explains their treatment of the convoy?
Across the country, the police did everything short of rolling out a red carpet to welcome the convoy. In Ottawa, the police showed the convoy participants where to park near Parliament Hill and eventually pushed back counter-demonstrators to make way for more trucks to join. They thought their previous plans for dealing with big crowds on Canada Day would suffice. In other words, they considered it essentially a city-wide block party, and planned accordingly. As the convoy began taking over the Ambassador Bridge, the Windsor police stood by, knowing that they planned to blockade the entire bridge. At the Coutts border, when blockaders decided it was over, police shook hands and hugged the blockaders.
This is further supported by arguments from a lawyer representing convoy organizers, who claimed that members of state security forces leaked information to the convoy itself, specifically its “operations centre”. “There was a steady stream of information and leaks coming from all of the different police forces and security agencies,” including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), and the Ottawa police! According to the same lawyer, members of the convoy who were former members of state security forces, like Tom Marazzo, a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, were able to use their links to obtain information.
Even when the police moved to clear out the convoy, they treated them with kid gloves. It is clear that there was overwhelming sympathy between the state forces and the convoy. Windsor Police Chief Jason Bellaire said it well: “Interestingly, the majority of the protesters to this point have not really been from any anti-police pedigree. It is somewhat cordial.”
However, the police did not take the same approach to counter-protestors. In Edmonton, twenty officers armed with billy clubs cracked down on a small protest of parents trying to block the convoy from getting downtown. In Montreal, dozens of riot police armed to the teeth surrounded and intimidated the counter-protesters—ordinary people who were sick of the far-right terrorizing their neighborhoods. Hugs for the far-right, and billy clubs for the rest of us.
But why did they respond so differently?
Over the course of the first nearly two years of the pandemic, the ruling class in each country were careful to avoid measures which would have too much of a dramatic an effect on profits, with waves of partial shutdowns and reopenings. By the beginning of 2022, the ruling class had failed to contain the virus and had decided on a strategy of “learning to live with the virus”—i.e. remove all pandemic health measures. The convoy’s demands coincided with the state’s desire to remove remaining COVID-19 restrictions and get the economy moving as quickly as possible. We must remember that the state is an organ of class rule that exists to defend the interests of capital. The state can make use of the far right and will never crack down on them completely because they may need to lean on them in the future to crush the left. On the other hand, the workers mobilizing and learning to rely on their own strength could pose an existential threat to the capitalist status quo.
So why did the state crack down?
The weekend before Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, counter-demonstrations were gaining steam. In Ottawa, a group of dog-walkers coordinating on a Facebook page were able to block an intersection and force a convoy of 35 vehicles to turn around with their tails between their legs in defeat. More than 1,000 turned up to take matters into their own hands and stop the convoy in its tracks. Ordinary people had done more to stop the convoy in a matter of hours than the police had done in nearly three weeks. People could feel their own strength and see that they could rely only on their own forces to defeat the far right. Other counter-protests sprung up in Kingston, Edmonton, Montreal, and Winnipeg. Trudeau cracked down in order to cut across the growing momentum of the counter-protests.
Needless to say, Trudeau, who has been trying to paint himself as a fierce opponent of the convoy, cannot say this outright. So, all the top officials have tried to create a smoke screen in order to obscure the reasons for their inaction. The police claim they didn’t know the scale of the protests. Officials pass the buck to every other level of government. It’s a smoke screen meant to hide the fact that the state cracked down not when the convoy wreaked havoc, but only when ordinary people who had begun to deal with the havoc themselves took matters into their own hands. After all, it was only after the first counter-demonstrations sprang up around the country that the Ottawa police had any plan to deal with the convoy at all. The real fears of the ruling class are revealed by their dawdling and hesitancy to deal with the convoy, as opposed to their swift action against the counter-demonstrations.
The waffling and buck-passing we have seen throughout the Emergencies Act Inquiry should come as a warning to the left. The emergency measures were put in place not to deal with the right-wing convoy but to put a stop to the growing mobilization of the left. Trudeau used the Emergencies Act—when people were desperate to see an end to the convoy at any cost—to strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state. He sharpened a knife to prepare to stab us in the back. This sets a dangerous precedent which will be used tenfold against workers. As capitalism plunges into a deeper crisis, the oppressed, youth, and workers are going to fight back, and the Emergencies Act will be a powerful tool in the hands of the ruling class to break picket lines, dismantle demonstrations, and break up strikes. It will be used against Indigenous land defenders, trade unionists, and other activists. We must not lull ourselves into thinking that the state is on our side and would not use these draconian measures against us. The inquiry clearly shows that the state is not neutral, and that state security forces at best were complacent, and at worst were sympathetic with the right wing convoy. Instead, we must arm the workers movement with this foresight. The state will crack down on a mass workers’ movement, and we must be ready to generalize the struggle to defeat the state and any draconian legislation in its tracks.
