The Emergencies Act
INTRODUCTION
When Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in mid-October 1970 in response to a request by Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, I was a grad student in Political Science at McMaster University. Justification was the “state of apprehended insurrection” existing in the province. Some of us posted a petition against its invocation in a hallway near our offices; someone tore it down, and we put it up again. We protested. In fact, protesting was illegal under the War Measures Act, but no one outside Quebec bothered about that. I remember telling people I knew that . . . [more]