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The wiki article you linked specifically says it's for more then war like conditions.

"take extraordinary temporary measures to respond to public welfare emergencies, public order emergencies..."

Totally fair. A better criticism of the government's choice might be whether or not the trucker protest constituted a legitimate emergency.

A court has ruled that it did not:

And a public inquiry, which is mandated by the Act itself when it is invoked, said that it did:

The court's ruling has actual legal effect. The inquiry's conclusion is, well, just somebody's opinion.

One might also note that the invocation was never approved by parliament (it was terminated before the deadline for the Senate to vote on it).