Views on Canada’s Emergencies Act show just how deeply divided we are

Views on Canada’s Emergencies Act show just how deeply divided we are

By Shachi Kurl, President

The seasons may be changing, days are longer and warmer, and the streets around Parliament Hill are calmer. But we’re a long way from patching the deep cracks in our society brought into harsh, undeniable blinding light during the occupation of Ottawa.

To wit: ponder the deep and near-even divides over the question of whether the first-ever use of the federal Emergencies Act to send the “Freedom Convoy” home was warranted. For those who endured the noise, fear, disruption, verbal assaults and uncertainty in and around central Ottawa for weeks, the answer to that question may well be “hell, yes!” The good people of the National Capital Region may take some comfort in recent polling from the Angus Reid Institute showing that 80 per cent — fully four-in-five — say after weeks of seeming paralysis from the Ottawa Police Service (and while Ontario Premier Doug Ford appeared to spend most of the crisis staring at his shoes), some action was indeed necessary to see the occupiers off.

But broader consensus on the necessity and the legacy of invoking the Emergencies Act itself remains elusive. And perhaps more troublingly, where it exists it is confined to political silos.

For the rest of this piece, please view it on the Ottawa Citizen’s site where it was initially published.

Image – lezumbalaberenjena/Flickr


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