The War Measures Act was invoked in October 1970, replaced with the Public Order act in November 1970, which expired in April 1971.
The fed-created bombing attempt was in 1974. Unless the RCMP has a time machine, I don't think the invocation of the WMA or the POA can be blamed on Robert Samson.
> They should certainly not be able to avoid prosecutions because "woops we decided that, on that particular day we'll just ignore the constitution".
The US has invoked martial law 68 times in its history, 29 of them for a labour[1] dispute (The WMA has only been invoked three times, and the Emergencies act, which references the trucker case has only been involved once).
The mechanism for just deciding to ignore the constitution is very similar in both countries[2], but one of them has invoked it a lot more frequently. And, as mentioned a few posts above, government repression doesn't even need any invocation of such acts.
[1] With that frequency, it should be pretty clear as to who the government sees as its real enemy.
[2] In the US, the 2007 National Defense Authorization act even gave this power directly, and unilaterally, to the President, but it did get overturned in 2008. Now, it's largely in the unilateral hands of state governors.
They were caught in 1974. That doesn't mean (and Samson's testimony corroborated that) they didn't plant bombs or fake threats before. Ted Bundy wasn't caught the first time he murdered someone.
> but it did get overturned in 2008.
Thankfully, some still read the constitution.
> Thankfully, some still read the constitution.
Did you miss the second part of this equation, where martial law is still a thing, it can still be declared by state governors, and will happily suspend your rights?
The only thing that happened in 2007 and 2008 was a change to who can declare it.
They apparently got a confession from the alleged murderer (of course, one might question a confession obtained while the suspect's constitutional rights were suspended) but couldn't even place him at the scene of the murder.
And let's be honest, once you admit to planting evidence, there's not a lot of credibility left...
> How far down does this conspiracy theory go, exactly?
People said the same thing about the lab leak hypothesis back in 2020.
> The only thing that happened in 2007 and 2008 was a change to who can declare it.
As with any law, let's see if it stands the test of courts.
> And let's be honest, once you admit to planting evidence, there's not a lot of credibility left...
The most likely and obvious conclusion of this is that they got the wrong guy for the murder, not that they killed him.
> People said the same thing about the lab leak hypothesis back in 2020.
'People' also say smoking doesn't cause cancer, marijuana causes reefer madness, and that Bigfoot is real. 'People' believe and say all sorts of stupid things. You're going to need a better argument.
> As with any law, let's see if it stands the test of courts.
The application of martial law in the US has already stood the test of 68 invocations. How many more invocations are you going to need before you are convinced of the basic fact that the US constitution can and has been suspended during states of emergency?
And you're pointing fingers at Canada for invoking the WMA three times, and the Emergencies act once? [1]
This is a completely ridiculous double standard. Please open your eyes.
[1] When the Canadian CORAF has explicit, clear provisions for when those kinds of acts can be invoked, and by whom?
"No, your honor, we planted evidence on a different black man. No this one we really did find evidence. Just trust us".
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all you have is... Well, not even any circumstantial evidence, it's just conjecture.
They should certainly not be able to avoid prosecutions because "woops we decided that, on that particular day we'll just ignore the constitution". You can't build a truly free country without the rule of law.