Justin Trudeau, in a news conference on Monday, said he was invoking the Emergencies Act, previously known as War Measures Act, which allows the federal government of the country to take "special temporary measures" for a period of 30 days during national emergencies. 

Calling the step a "last resort", Trudeau said, "Right now, the situation requires additional tools not held by any other federal, provincial or territorial law. Today, in these circumstances, it is now clear that responsible leadership requires us to do this."

Image: Screen-grab from CPAC

By announcing the "unprecedented" move, Justin Trudeau has become the first leader in Canada to invoke the federal Emergencies Act, to bring an end to the ongoing anti-government trucker convoy protests that have been paralyzing Ottawa, the country's capital, and its border transport with the United States for the last two weeks in the name of "Freedom Convoy".

“The federal government has invoked the Emergencies Act to supplement provincial and territorial capacity to address the blockades and occupations,” said Trudeau, adding that “These blockades are illegal, and if you are still participating, the time to go home is now.”

Announcing the Emergency measures here, the Canadian Prime Minister told the media conference, "I want to be very clear: the scope of these measures will be time-limited, geographically-targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address. The Emergencies Act will be used to strengthen and support law enforcement agencies at all levels across the country.”

Image: Maksim Sokolov (Maxergon) via Wikimedia Creative Commons

However, ruling out using the military, Trudeau's government has threatened to tow away vehicles to keep essential services running, freeze truckers’ personal and corporate bank accounts, and suspend the insurance on their rigs.

Saying that the government will broaden its anti-money-laundering regulations to target crowd-funding sites that are being used to support the illegal blockades, Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is also the country's Finance Minister, addressed the protesting truckers: "Consider yourselves warned, send your rigs home.”

Canada's CTV News reported that "several trucks” were leaving Ottawa’s downtown core as PM Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to deal with the truckers convoy.

Image: Naomi Mckinney on Unsplash

The "Freedom Convoy" in Ottawa, which had started two weeks ago as a demonstration against vaccine mandates for truckers, has now expanded to a protest against all pandemic restrictions, with a string of blockades reported in Ontario and Alberta, as well as agitations across Canada.

The protests and blockades sprung up at the Canada-US border have been choking trade and traffic between the two nations for the last two weeks.