It’s the last day of the Emergencies Act Inquiry Hearings and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the stand this morning. Trudeau is defending his decision to implement the Emergencies Act to end the weeks long protest in our nation’s capital. The act gave the government temporary emergency powers and tools needed to deal with the situation and to prevent the protestors from returning.

He stated that many of the freedom convoy protesters were opposed to provincial COVID 19 legislations, but it was a federal protest that targeted the federal government and was therefore the federal government’s responsibility to deal with it. According to Trudeau the same amount of anger demonstrated at the protests was reminiscent of tension exhibited during the 2021 Federal Election.

Residents of Ottawa complained that the protestors were disrupting their daily lives and they wanted the Government to take action to put an end to the demonstrations.

Trudeau says while protests are important for our democracy, using protests to demand changes to public policy’s is worrisome, and protestors that refuse to leave until their demands are met is massively disruptive and dangerous.