Hacker News Reader

Comment by pkd | Hacker News Reader

His father used the War Measures Act. This act was enacted to chisel down the powers of the WMA and has never been used since it was enacted.

View on HN

As a Canadian: this response should not be downvoted. It is correct and important. The War Measures Act used during the October Crisis was a different law; the Emergencies Act, which was just invoked, was passed as a response to concerns about civil liberties and abuse of power under the WMA. Temporary laws made under the Emergencies Act are, unlike the WMA, subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

More information on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act

Subject to the charter, subject to the bill of rights, subject to parliamentary review, and mandatory public inquiry afterwards. It's a very sensible law.

Laws made under the act are subject to the charter unless they invoke the non-withstanding clause.

Furthermore, have you read the link you sent? The entire "Provisions" explains while this is way out of line to deal with protesters in Ottawa.

Using it for "Public Order" as Trudeau is doing, was meant to be a tool against:

"The Act references the definition provided in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, which includes espionage, sabotage, detrimental foreign influences, activities which support the threat or use of violence for a political, religious or ideological objective; or those activities which threaten to undermine or otherwise destroy, or overthrow the Government of Canada."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com