Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones—who was the province’s solicitor general during the 2022 ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests—says she still sees the use of emergency measures at the time as a critical way to protect infrastructure.
“We could not have blockades that were going to impact our ability to access critical infrastructure or our border communities,” Jones said at an unrelated news conference on Wednesday.
“What we believed at the time, and I continue to see as a critically important piece of this, is we cannot have communities held hostage and not have access to critical infrastructure.”
The brief comments were made in response to a question about a recent federal court ruling that found the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act to shut down protests in Ottawa was “not justified.”
The federal government has signalled it plans to appeal the ruling.
Back in January 2022, a convoy of protesters rolled into the capital, blocking several roads around Parliament Hill and forcing businesses to close. They remained in the area for over three weeks, causing headaches to nearby residents who were exposed to loud noises and, in some cases, unsafe environments.
On Feb. 14, 2022, the government invoked the Emergencies Act for national security reasons, giving them temporary powers to crack down on protesters’ access to funds and impose fines on those who refused to leave.
That same day, Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency to end what he called a “siege” in Ottawa and Windsor.
In Windsor, protesters had blocked access to the Ambassador Bridge, which acts as a commercial link to the United States.
A report released nearly a year later, in February 2023, by the Public Order Emergency Commission found that a lack of collaboration by the Ontario government impacted resources in the early days of the protests, and led Ottawa to feel abandoned by the province.
The report notes that “had there been greater collaboration at the political level from the start, it could well have assisted in ironing out the communication, jurisdictional, and resourcing issues that plagued the early response to the protests.”
On Thursday, Jones didn’t comment directly on the federal government’s decision to appeal the court’s ruling on the use of the Emergencies Act.
“We had ambulances and fire trucks who literally could not go on certain roads, something had to be done,” Jones said. “But I will leave it to the federal government on whether they wish to appeal and how they would do that.”
“I continue to believe that we need to ensure that demonstrations don't impact communities in a very visceral way.”
