That's a bit misleading, considering it was replacing the War measures act that was even worse. Mulroney's government didn't "create" the law, they just toned down the original (which is also why we don't call it "martial law" anymore but it's in the same vein). And IIRC, the only two PMs in Canada's history that actually enacted the war/emergency measures act outside of an actual war are... the two Trudeaus.
Actually it's funny since Mulroney never used it either even when it could have been justified. He was the PM during the Oka crisis [0], which was a full on armed conflict between the army and first nations nations that also lead to closed bridges & deaths. I can't imagine what we would call that nowadays if we call the truckers insurrectionists, terrorists, etc. I guess they understood the monumental consequences of enacting federal emergency measures liberally back then
(It lasted 77 days, involved at least fully 100 armed militants, blocked 3-4 bridges around montreal for sometimes weeks, killed police officers, involved a literal 5km frontline between the 2 sides and yet Mulroney was very worried about involving the federal government and even more so playing with emergency measures. Even better: the government actually talked with the protestors and didn't treat them like untouchable non-citizen foreign agents. The crisis was solved with negotiations)
Actually it's funny since Mulroney never used it either even when it could have been justified. He was the PM during the Oka crisis [0], which was a full on armed conflict between the army and first nations nations that also lead to closed bridges & deaths. I can't imagine what we would call that nowadays if we call the truckers insurrectionists, terrorists, etc. I guess they understood the monumental consequences of enacting federal emergency measures liberally back then
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis
(It lasted 77 days, involved at least fully 100 armed militants, blocked 3-4 bridges around montreal for sometimes weeks, killed police officers, involved a literal 5km frontline between the 2 sides and yet Mulroney was very worried about involving the federal government and even more so playing with emergency measures. Even better: the government actually talked with the protestors and didn't treat them like untouchable non-citizen foreign agents. The crisis was solved with negotiations)