The Emergencies Act Inquiry

Well the inquiry is unfolding as I expected.

As each witness testifies the talking heads, both the professionals and the amateurs, cherry pick the testimony that backs up their particular biases and many have already concluded the Inquiry's findings. Of course, we have only heard from some of the victims of the "Convoy" , the city government and law enforcement, who have been collectively engaged in a cover-your-ass operation since they took the stand. 

We still have some of the key players from the "Convoy" to come, who will have to testify under oath and we also have the Federal government representatives, including the PM and some Cabinet Ministers to testify. Then the Inquiry will have to sift through thousands of pages of documents.

In short, the inquiry is far from over. All of the testimony from witnesses has not been heard and none of the evidence has been considered by the Justice conducting the Inquiry and his team.

So coming to final conclusions at this time is pointless. The inquiry will have the final say in a few months.

Some observations:

1. The invocation of the Emergencies Act (EA) was not taken lightly by the government. They would have considered it for some time, including having government lawyers weighing in on the legality of doing so. If those lawyers would have stated that the government would have been on shaky legal ground by invoking it the government would not have gone down that road. All of that would have been documented and it has been entered into evidence.
2. Related to that the Justice running the Inquiry is only allowed to consider the evidence presented to him. Most of the evidence is going to come from the Federal government. The evidence from the Federal government will indicate a pretty compelling case for invoking the EA. The Inquiry will consider the evidence in its entirety. It will not cherry pick from it.
3. The Federal government handed over thousands of pages of documentation to all of the lawyers involved in the Inquiry, including those who would like to assert the government did not reach the threshold necessary in the Act to invoke it. If there was a "smoking gun" showing the government was not justified it would have been leaked by now. The same if true if those lawyers believed that the government held back documents.
4. So far they are only talking to witnesses and those involved in ending the occupation of downtown Ottawa. The Inquiry still needs to examine events that took place elsewhere in the country.
5. Having witnesses being cross-examined makes "cover-your-ass" operations very difficult. Any spin a witness puts on their actions or the actions of their organization is quickly revealed to be just that. I have not watched all of the testimony but I have seen some and more than a few witnesses have squirmed under that cross-examination. 
6. While I know that many would like the Inquiry to expose the Conservatives' role in the "Convoy" I do not believe it will and I have never believe it would. Unless witness testimony or something in the documents points to something which would compel the Inquiry to summon Conservative official to testify they will not testify.
7. If Doug Ford does not testify the Inquiry will only be able to consider the evidence from the Federal government in rendering its decision on whether the Federal government was justified in invoking the EA. See points number 1 and 2 to see what that would probably mean.

While I am not going to conclude that the Inquiry will find the invocation of the EA was justified I am going to say that I would be surprised if it did not. Also, I will not be surprised that the findings will contain all sorts of caveats and nuances because that is what judges do when they render legal decisions.

In the end there will probably be enough in the findings to allow all interested parties to cherry pick what they need to advance their particular agendas.