On Monday, the Canadian House of Commons voted to further extend emergency powers for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, allowing him to continue a vicious and controversial crackdown on peaceful protesters throughout the country.
As reported by Fox News, the chamber passed the resolution by a vote of 185 to 151, allowing Trudeau to continue unilaterally using the police to violently clear out peaceful protesters under the Emergencies Act. The stunning vote comes even after police had already cleared away the vast majority of protesters in the capital city of Ottawa, as well as reopening most of the major U.S.-Canada crossings that had been blocked by the protesters.
In arguing for an extension of the highly authoritarian powers, Trudeau used the excuse that there were still some protesters outside the capital city who he believes may attempt another blockade. His public safety minister claimed that protesters attempted to block a border crossing in British Columbia. Neither of them provided any evidence to back up their claims.
Some of the most radical members of Canada’s Parliament voiced their support for the ongoing crackdown by police. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the far-left New Democratic Party (NDP), said that protesters “need to be cleared out,” since he believes the protests to be “an attack on our democracy.”
“This is a group of folks who are very clearly connected to the extreme right wing,” Singh falsely claimed. “The organizers clearly have a goal in mind to undermine democracy. That’s something we can’t allow to continue.”
After Trudeau first invoked the Emergencies Act, Canadian police began brutally attacking unarmed peaceful protesters in the city of Ottawa, where protests had been ongoing since late January in opposition to nationwide vaccine mandates. Numerous viral videos captured images of police viciously beating protesters, trampling Canadian flags, and hitting cameras that were filming them. The violence culminated in an incident where horseback officers rampaged through a crowd of protesters, trampling a woman underneath. The video of the incident sparked global outrage and condemnation of both the police and Trudeau’s administration.