Justice Paul Rouleau says the Liberal government met the very high threshold for invoking the Emergencies Act to end protests in downtown Ottawa and border crossings last winter.
Rouleau's two-thousand-page report concludes that a series of policing failures and what he refers to as a ``failure of federalism'' led to a situation that spun out of control near Parliament Hill.
He also concludes that most of the emergency measures were appropriate, and says he didn't accept the testimony of protest organizers who said the demonstrations were lawful and peaceful.
"It is regrettable that such a situation arose here, because in my view, it could have been avoided.”
The 2,000-page report calls the "Freedom Convoy" a "singular moment in history" exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as online misinformation and disinformation.
The highly anticipated document is the culmination of more than 300 hours of testimony and 9,000 documents entered into evidence at the commission, which staged seven weeks of hearing last fall.
The inquiry heard from more than 100 witnesses, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several other cabinet members, senior bureaucrats, protest participants, police, and City of Ottawa officials.
The examination was stipulated to take place after the place after invocation of the Emergencies Act, which replaced the War Measures Act in 1988.