The commissioner overseeing the Emergencies Act inquiry says Ontario Premier Doug Ford and a high minister have overstated the privilege they take pleasure in as politicians as they fight to get out of testifying at the continuing.
The Public Order Emergency Commission summoned Ford and then-solicitor basic Sylvia Jones final week to testify at the inquiry.
The fee is analyzing the federal authorities’s use of the Emergencies Act to finish the so-called Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa and Windsor, Ont., final winter.
Lawyers for Ford and Jones filed an software for judicial overview in Federal Court final week that seeks to quash the summons, citing parliamentary privilege.
Ford and Jones argue the summons breaches that privilege by making an attempt to compel them to testify.
The commissioner says in paperwork filed immediately that the pair’s judicial overview software must be dismissed.
“The candidates overstate the extent of the privilege in challenge,” the commissioner mentioned in court docket paperwork. “There isn’t any blanket privilege to decline to testify; it’s only a temporal privilege.”