And an Act-mandated commission said it was warranted:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Emergency_Commiss...
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rouleau
That is one step removed from Trudeau investigating himself, we're not talking the gold standard of systemic independence here.
The law is a tool for the service of a community, not the other way around.
The thing is, the province wasn't using the powers it had to handle it. The situation was obviously an emergency. You can't just let a convoy of heavy vehicles occupy your national capital indefinitely and say "not a problem, the provincial govt could theoretically handle this"
I'm not sure the Quebec kidnappings would have met the threshold either. There's a strong argument to be made that the law around the emergencies act is a bad law.
The court's finding meant ANY emergency powers would have failed to meet the standard.
They switched to camping in front of the parliament with bouncy castles etc.
The bridge that was occupied in another province was cleared.
I'm really not under the impression that at the time they went in there was any emergency. It was ugly: Peaceful unarmed protesters in pedestrian zones with no trucks in sight were pushed back by squads with assault rifles and loud tear gas grenades. People with assault rifles stormed delivery vans.
The narrative at the time was that of a huge "far right" (what a surprise ...) conspiracy. No proof has ever emerged, it was just an abuse of power of the "left" who were at the peak of their power back then.
Good riddance, Trudeau.
The idea that it was a few days of honking then bouncy castles is nonsense. It was an extended occupation of the downtown of the capital. Endless trucks and other vehicles, many with their wheels removed, back-to-back fully blocking a large section of the downtown for weeks. Yes, honking – and loud truck air horns.
There really was chaos downtown, and not the hand-wringing "poop in the street in SF" type. And a lot of it did have right wing vibes. Examples: A well known café had its large window with a LGBTQ illustration smashed. There was while when emergency workers needed escort downtown because of racist abuse. (I was downtown, I heard and saw a ton myself.) Just incredibly dumb stuff: A soup kitchen was intimidated and raided.
And yes, it was financially supported by the "right", including a lot of American money.
Yes, there was a site with bouncy castles and kids playing, but that's obviously not a problem. There's protest in Ottawa all the time, and it's sometimes inconvenient, and that's life in the capital.
The last straw for me wasn't even the chaos in Ottawa, but the protest shutting down the Ambassador bridge in Windsor. That's really bad. Ontario's auto sector is huge, and the perceived reliability and predictability of the flow of intermediate goods across the border is everything to that sector. Interrupting it has an enormous immediate and ongoing economic impact. (I'm not sure where you get your information, but the bridge is also in Ontario.)
None of that is to say that the emergencies act was the right tool. My fairly uninformed impression is that there were tools short of the act that should have been used.
But it's frustrating seeing disinformation and revisioning like this stand. Please reconsider whatever news sources are providing you with this false information.
But I also think it's not an unreasonable point to disagree on. There are cases where we curtail freedom for emergencies. That's just a fact. That doesn't mean believing in authoritarianism. And, especially early in the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty about how apocalyptic it was going to be.
Flip side, since the mass vaccination has been incredibly valuable, policies that undermine public trust in vaccination hurt us as a society down the line and the bar should be particularly high for them! It's often said the most valuable tool for epidemiology is public trust.
The whole thing was idiotic. There was already a public discussion about when the vaccine mandate for truck drivers was going to be removed. There was plenty of of ground for more useful discussion.
So, to answer your question:
> So you support abusive authoritarianism
Great question, but no I do not. I think the government overreacted (too coercively). The freedom convoy, however was a real problem that needed ending. If that sounds like abusive authoritarianism to you, I'd invite you to share your opinion about traffic signs, prohibitions against cannibalism, and publicly funded hospitals.
Overwhelmingly Canadian's wanted the vehicles removed - I recall no public empathy. If not, there would have been overwhelming public outcry and a follow up larger movement protest that would have called for no-confidence motion in that moment.