Inquiry clears Trudeau's use of emergency powers

STORY: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that within a year his government would issue a comprehensive response to the recommendations made by the commission mandated by law to review the act's invocation.

For weeks last January and early February, the "Freedom Convoy" demonstrations against a wide range of government measures including COVID-19 vaccine mandates shut down Ottawa and blocked some border crossings, leading the federal government to invoke emergency powers to end the protests.

In November of last year, Trudeau was questioned over his decision to invoke the rarely used emergency powers, as the commission looking into the decision heard from witnesses into justifications for its use and events leading up to it.

Trudeau cited the threat of serious violence and local police not having a credible plan to restore order as reasons that prompted him to invoke the act, which has not been used in its current form since it was created in the 1980s.