What Is the Government's Motive?

 

The government is obviously moving to clear the Ottawa protest today.

I wonder if the plan is to present Parliament with a fait accompli before they get a chance to vote down the emergency powers? Perhaps the PM believes that he does not have the votes in the House or Senate to put it through, so he has only a brief window.

It looks like it. Otherwise, what is the rush to do something so unseemly as to take decisive action before the Emergency Act is passed? It is not as though the protesters were going anywhere.

At the same time, if the Ottawa protest is cleared out before the House votes, it will be that much harder to convince anyone that there is an emergency that still needs to be dealt with. So presumably now it will be voted down in any case. Which surely the government would not have wanted to risk if they had the votes.

I wonder—does the government face repercussions for having acted before being given authority? If the Emergency Act is not passed, are they liable for actions they took this week that violated the law and the charter? Will there be a commission, or any independent review?

I do not know. I assume not, or they would not have acted. If so, it is an obvious flaw in the Act.