ABSTRACT
Military operations against civilian populations, including French colonists and the Aboriginal peoples, featured heavily in the early history of Canada. By the late twentieth century, however, Canadian governments had established an international image of a less militarist society than its much more militarily powerful southern neighbour, the United States. Canada’s entire civilian national security apparatus has been transformed since 2001. Like the American Constitution, the Canadian constitutional instruments embody the principles of civil/military demarcation and civilian control over the military. Canadian courts have also recognised the continued existence of the royal prerogative as a source of executive power, encompassing ‘the powers and privileges accorded by the common law to the Crown’. A public order emergency, covered by Part II of the Act, is one that arises from ‘threats to the security of Canada’ as defined by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.
