The effects of last winter’s protests and blockades, tied to their intention to “overthrow” the government, led Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to believe it was necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act, according to his testimony before the Public Order Emergency Commission on Nov. 22.
“The fact that all of this was tied to a politically stated objective to overthrow the government if it refused to reverse course on pandemic policy—and the challenges that were presented to the security and intelligence community and the broader law enforcement community and understanding what the nature of this protest was, and why it was so difficult and challenging to restore public safety—all drew me to the conclusion that we met the threshold,” said Mendicino.
