(OTTAWA) A federal government lawyer argued Wednesday that the “freedom convoy” movement was still “in full swing” the day Ottawa invoked the Emergencies Act early last year – which therefore justified the use of these extraordinary measures at that time.

Mr. John Provart argued in Federal Court that the idea that protests and blockades across Canada were under control at that time “borders on historical revisionism a bit.”

Lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada are trying to convince Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley to reject the arguments of several organizations and citizens who contest this use of the Emergencies Act, an emergency law never used since its inception in 1988.

Civil liberties groups and individual rights organizations argued this week before Justice Mosley that Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government had failed to meet the “threshold” necessary to use this emergency law.

This law authorized temporary measures, including banning public gatherings, designating safe places, ordering financial institutions to freeze assets, and prohibiting support for participants in the “freedom convoy.”

The government claims that these exceptional measures were targeted, balanced, time-limited and consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.