Final Report Of Public Order Emergency Commission To Be Released Today

The final report of the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), investigating whether the federal government was justified in invoking emergency powers to suppress the anti-vaccine mandate "Freedom Convoy" protest, has been tabled in the House of Commons.

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act in February last year in the face of a protest movement which had expanded from a trucker rally into a broader movement opposing the federal government's COVID-19 policies.
• The protest led to a shutdown of key border crossings with the US, causing weeks of disruption to trade on both sides of the border.
• Trudeau said at a press conference yesterday that he was confident the report would uphold the “credibility” of his government's decision.
• Trudeau: “We needed to take action a year ago, and we did so in a measured, responsible, time-limited way. I look forward to reviewing the commission’s report tomorrow morning and speaking about it with Canadians tomorrow afternoon.”
• Foreign Policy, describing the move to quash the protests as "one of the largest law enforcement operations in Canada’s history" wrote that the government response "harmed confidence in [Trudeau's] leadership, both at home and abroad."