Ottawa — Shortly after ending the use of the Emergencies Act yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the False Alarm Act for the first time in the nation’s history.
By law, the False Alarm Act is enacted when the Emergencies Act has been used, but then everyone changes their mind about whether it was an emergency situation in the first place.
In this case, Trudeau declared a false alarm because the expansive emergency powers were rescinded only six days after they were first activated.
“The False Alarm Act is the way the government declares, ‘Whoopsie, I guess it wasn’t a national emergency after all. My bad,'” Trudeau explained. “This way, the government gets credit for quickly owning up to a mistake, like a kid who rats themselves out so their punishment isn’t so bad.”
The Emergencies Act was conceived to give the government extensive ad hoc powers in the most extreme circumstances like natural or biological disasters, espionage, extremist violence, coups, international emergencies, or wars. The Act explicitly excludes “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent” that do not constitute “threats to the security of Canada.”
“I admit, we got carried away,” conceded Trudeau. “Loud noises make me really anxious. For example, I can’t drive on the highway with the windows down. That noise! Well, I go right out of my friggin’ mind!
“And that trucker hot tub…holy gross! We were convinced that was some sort of bio-hazard hot zone. I don’t think we were wrong about that part to be honest, but upon reflection it probably wasn’t an emergency.
“I guess being surrounded by rude people breaking the law and acting like entitled assholes for three weeks just made us snap,” Trudeau said. “It was one of those things where it was a huge deal at the time, but looking back we were probably just too stressed out by the whole thing and overreacted. It happens to the best of us.”
When asked if Trudeau would ever invoke the Emergencies Act again to respond to radical activists, Trudeau winked and said, “Just watch me.”