The power to react: review and discussion of Canada's emergency measures legislation.

Almost a century ago Canada implemented the War Measures Act to give the federal government extraordinary powers to deal with the domestic implications of the First World War. The government further expanded and institutionalised these powers through the Second World War, the Korean crisis and the cold war period. Now these war emergency powers are entrenched in both federal and provincial emergency measures legislation and exercised for peacetime disasters. This paper reviews the historical progression of these powers to better understand the original context for their development and to connect past abuses of civil rights under the War Measures Act to the protections and limits incorporated in the current legislation. Then, based on this understanding of where the powers originated, the paper takes a comprehensive look at the powers available across the Canadian jurisdictions. It identifies common groups of powers and discusses regional variations. It concludes with a short discussion on the imbalance between extraordinary powers for response and the lack of a corresponding emphasis on reducing the risks that may generate the need for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]