War Measures Act

The War Measures Act (5 George V, Chap. 2) was a statute of the Parliament of Canada that provided for the declaration of war, invasion, or insurrection, and the types of emergency measures that could thereby be taken.

The act was brought into force three times in Canadian history:

  • the First World War,
  • the Second World War, and
  • the 1970 October Crisis.

Read more about War Measures Act:  First World War, Second World War, The October Crisis, Civil Liberties, Replacement

Famous quotes containing the words war, measures and/or act:

    “Fiddle-dee-dee! War, war, war. This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides, there isn’t going to be any war.”
    —Sidney Howard (1891–1939)

    “Away with the cant of “Measures, not men!”Mthe idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.”
    —George Canning (1770–1827)

    “However great a man’s fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear- headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance—so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival.”
    —Graham Greene (1904–1991)