(LifeSiteNews) –– People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier told LifeSiteNews that while he is “disappointed” with Justice Paul Rouleau’s ruling last Friday exonerating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act (EA) to crush the Freedom Convoy, he is not “surprised.”
“I have to say, I am profoundly disappointed, but not surprised,” said Bernier in comments sent to LifeSiteNews via email over the weekend.
“Justice Rouleau was hand-picked by Trudeau to oversee the inquiry. We can’t forget that he has a history as a Liberal activist and worked with former Prime Minister John Turner. Is anyone really surprised that Liberals protect their own?” continued the well-known leader.
Continuing in his comments, Bernier characterized the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) as “not independent,” and that it was effectively a commission of “Liberals investigating Liberals.”
Bernier, who has been a strong opponent of COVID-related mandates and himself attended the Freedom Convoy, also said that even if Rouleau had ruled that Trudeau’s actions were unjustified, the prime minister would have remained unfazed.
“We all know that Trudeau would not have resigned even if the Commission had found he overstepped his powers. And that [New Democratic Party leader] Jagmeet Singh would not have held Trudeau accountable by withdrawing his support and forcing an election.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, last Friday Rouleau effectively exonerated the Trudeau government‘s use of the EA – an exoneration that included support for the most controversial measures taken under the EA, such as the freezing of the bank accounts of protesters without a court order.
Counteracting Trudeau’s and Rouleau’s narrative that the protest warranted such extreme action, Bernier told LifeSiteNews about his own experience during the Freedom Convoy.
“I was there. It was a peaceful and joyful protest by patriotic Canadians. There was no justification at all to invoke the Act. It was done illegally, that’s what Justice Rouleau should have concluded if he had done an honest investigation rather than a partisan one,” explained Bernier.
“The inquiry also exposed the opposition, the NDP, Conservatives, and Bloc [Quebecois] as incompetent and incapable of holding the government to account,” he continued, adding “Which is why we absolutely need PPC MPs in Parliament after the next election.”
The POEC was tasked last fall with determining whether the Trudeau government was justified in using the EA against the Freedom Convoy and its supporters.
It conducted a thorough monthlong public hearing from October 13 to November 25, calling forth dozens of witnesses, including Trudeau, many of his cabinet ministers, as well as Freedom Convoy leaders such as Tamara Lich, who was jailed for weeks on non-violent mischiefs charged related to the protest.
The Freedom Convoy gathered in Ottawa in January and February of 2022 to call for an end to all COVID mandates, which resulted in some provincial governments such as Alberta and Saskatchewan ultimately dropping the vaccine passport programs they had in place.
Even prior to invoking the never-before-used EA, Trudeau refused to meet with the protesters or send a delegation to them, and routinely belittled their concerns, famously characterizing arguably the largest protest in Canada’s history as being comprised of a “small, fringe minority.”