'Trudeau backs down': Canadian PM revokes emergency powers
Categories: FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Wednesday that Canada will end the rarely used emergency measures used nine days ago to deal with weeks-long protests that shut some border crossings and paralysed Ottawa since late January."The situation is no longer an emergency. Therefore, the federal government will be ending the use of the Emergencies Act," he told a news conference. "We are confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe," he said.Invoking the powers was seen by the main opposition Conservative Party and some provincial leaders as overreaching.The government said that the use of these powers would have a time limit. According to Trudeau, the powers were needed because the blockades threatened the economy and the public and because they helped coordinate the police forces. According to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, the purpose of freezing the accounts was "to convince people who took part in the occupation and the illegal blockades to listen to reason," adding that the government had already ordered banks to unfreeze the accounts.The aim of freezing the accounts was Freeland said, adding that the government had already asked banks to begin "to unfreeze these bank accounts." Ontario has also ended a state of emergency it declared earlier this month in response to protests.The protests, which began as opposition to Trudeau's minority Liberal government's mandate on vaccinations for truck drivers, were put to an end over the weekend in Ottawa.