the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has announced its intention to sue the federal government for invoking the Emergencies Act in response to the ongoing protests and blockades, the CBC reports.
"Emergency powers cannot and must not be normalized," said CCLA executive director Noa Mendelsohn, who added that the use of the act "seriously infringes on the Charter rights of Canadians."
The Emergencies Act was invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday in response to ongoing demonstrations against COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates.
The convoy protest in Ottawa has gridlocked the downtown core for more than 20 days, while other demonstrations have blocked international border crossings in Windsor, Ont. and Coutts, Alta. -CBC
Mendelsohn said that reports of "violent, racist and homophobic acts" don't rise to the level of introducing measures which the CCLA considers a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"Protest is how people in a democracy share their political messages of all kinds, whether they be environmental activists, students taking to the streets, Indigenous land defenders, workers on strike, people who know that Black lives matter, and others who oppose government measures of all kinds," Mendelsohn said.
"Not every person may agree with the content of every movement."
Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Thursday that financial institutions have been actively freezing the accounts of people linked to the medical freedom protests in Ottawa, which has left an unknown number of protesters and donors in financial limbo, according to state-owned CBC.
Freeland said that the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies have been gathering intelligence on convoy protesters and their supporters, and have been sharing that information with financial institutions in order to restrict access to both cash and crypto.
"The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen," she said, referring to crypto exchange accounts.
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