RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki to talk ‘Freedom Convoy’ at Emergencies Act inquiry

Nov 15, 2022 | 1:04 AM

OTTAWA — RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is expected to testify this morning at the public inquiry into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act last winter. 

Ottawa invoked the act for the first time in mid-February after nearly three weeks of protests against COVID-19 restrictions that had gridlocked downtown Ottawa and inspired border blockades elsewhere. 

The act, which came into law in 1988, allowed the government to provide police with extraordinary powers to resolve an emergency situation, and required that a public inquiry be stood up to investigate the decision. 

Emails tabled as evidence at the Public Order Emergency Commission had suggested that before the emergency declaration, Lucki felt not “all available tools” had been exhausted in the police response to the protests.