Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has been under scrutiny since he told the Emergencies Act committee in April that police asked for the government to invoke the act. “The advice we received was to invoke the Emergencies Act,” Mendicino said at the time.
Since then, Marco Mendicino has been trying to clarify his comments, saying the government consulted with police about what powers they needed to end the blockades, and the Emergencies Act was the only way to give them those powers.
Conservatives said the public safety minister has lost credibility over his comments about the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, and they’re calling for him to resign.
“From the beginning, Conservatives have said that the threshold to invoke the unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act was never met and we have repeatedly called on the Liberal government to justify its actions, but they have failed to do so.
“The Commissioner of the RCMP appeared before the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency and confirmed that Canada’s national police force never asked the Liberal government to invoke the Emergencies Act and that existing tools and laws were already available to address the situation.
Trudeau and the Liberals say that police asked for the Emergencies Act. Marco Mendicino says “police told us they needed the special power”.