Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland looks at a Farmers Forum article while cross examined by a lawyer acting on behalf of the Province of Saskatchewan, Michael Morris, at the Emergencies Act Inquiry.
Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum
OTTAWA — In her turn on the public inquiry stand yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland testified that elected officials were not involved in Farm Credit Canada’s customer blacklisting activities after the Trudeau government invoked the Emergencies Act last February.
Under cross examination by Province of Saskatchewan counsel Michael Morris at the Public Order Emergency Commission, Freeland noted a “misunderstanding” about government direction in an internal FCC email published by Farmers Forum and acquired through a freedom of information request.
“The email that is reported on here saying, ‘if the federal government directs us to’ — that is a misunderstanding of how the order worked,” Freeland said. “We were always very conscious that it wasn’t the job of the federal government or the ministry of finance to name specific names or to even know which names were involved.
“The way the order worked … that was to be a communication between law enforcement and the financial institutions.”
The documents acquired by Farmers Forum indicate that FCC compiled a list of 9 names for potential black-listing because those individuals may have supported the Freedom Convoy.
Canadian banks froze a reported 257 accounts of convoy supporters after the invocation of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14. FCC, a federal ag-lending institution, was also subject to the extraordinary measure. The federal government called off the state of emergency Feb. 23, following the forceful removal of protesters and trucks from downtown Ottawa.
Freeland appeared on the second-last scheduled day of the six-week inquiry into the government’s invocation of the Act.
See the exchange between Morris and Freeland in the clip below.
