The CCF has received countless emails and tweets from concerned individuals who are interested in donating to the legal challenge, but concerned that it could…
The Canadian Constitution Foundation is a legal charity dedicated to defending fundamental freedoms in the courts of law and public opinion. The CCF is one of the organizationsthe federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act on the basis that the criteria set out in the act was not met, and that the orders under it were unjustified violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
These economic regulations under the Emergencies Act were unprecedented in their scope and impact. Section 5 of the Emergencies Measures Regulations states: “A person must not, directly or indirectly, use, collect, provide, make available or invite a person to provide property to facilitate or participate in any assembly … for the purpose of benefiting any person who is facilitating or participating in such an activity.
“I’d love to donate, but I have a family to support and can’t risk my accounts being frozen,” one individual with a PhD in economics lamented via text message to the CCF’s executive director, Joanna Baron. A local Toronto artist namedsaid, “I’m genuinely worried I’m gonna paint the wrong thing and get my bank account frozen. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but sometime in the future.”
The CCF’s challenge, and those of others such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has no connection to the protesters or their organizers. The challenge takes issue with whether the basic statutory requirements required to invoke the Emergencies Act were met, given that the act requires that authorities are not able to deal with the emergency under “any other law in Canada.