Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at a special press conference on Monday that he would invoke, for the first time in the nation’s history, emergency powers that will allow him to clamp down on protests that have roiled the U.S.-Canada border at various crossings as well as the country’s capital city, Ottawa, Ontario. While this is the first time the Emergencies Act, which was established in 1988, has been invoked, its predecessor, the War Measures Act, was last invoked by Trudeau’s father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, in 1970 during a period of unrest known as the October Crisis.
