THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS INVOKED The EMERGENCIES Act.... Here's What That Means.

Chandrayee Roy Choudhury, Canada: As anti-vaccine mandate protesters continue their weeks-long occupation of the nation's capital, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet on Monday triggered the Emergencies Act — a decades-old law that gives sweeping powers to the federal government to establish order during a crisis.



The law — which has never before been invoked — gives the federal government substantial short-term powers to deal with a crisis.

The act grants cabinet — Trudeau and his ministers — the ability to "take special temporary measures that may not be appropriate in normal times" to cope with an emergency and the resulting fallout during an "urgent and critical situation."

The law itself defines an emergency as something that "seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians."