OTTAWA—Failing to comply with Newfoundland’s COVID-19 restrictions could land you in jail, while other provinces would let you off with a stern talking to.

Prince Edward Island is closing its liquor stores, while Ontario is keep its booze shops open.

Nine provinces have now declared states of emergency in the COVID-19 pandemic. But not Nova Scotia.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shown unease over taking the extraordinary step of granting the federal government emergency powers for the first time since his father did so during the October crisis of 1970.

Asked Tuesday about the possibility, he said the federal government is looking at “other ways” for Ottawa to take action “without having to bring in a state of emergency.”

But the provinces’ patchwork response to COVID-19, and the rising number of cases in the country, may soon mean the prime minister has no choice, said Jack Rozdilsky, an emergency management professor at York University.

“The virus doesn’t respect borders, the virus doesn’t respect forms of government,” said Rozdilsky.

“The virus will spread as it spreads. Is it within the range of possibilities in order to give us every tool we need to prevent lives (being lost), can this perhaps be a very narrow circumstance where portions of the Emergencies Act can be implemented for the first time?”

There is an urgent need for “more overarching direction” from Ottawa, said Goldy Hyder, the president of the Business Council of Canada, calling the country’s “smorgasbord” response to the crisis “too quintessentially Canadian” in respecting provincial jurisdictions.

“If we want to mitigate this health crisis, we have to shut down,” Hyder said. “Let’s not let this thing run away from us.”

Under the Emergencies Act — the successor to the War Measures Act, which was invoked by Pierre Trudeau in 1970 — the federal government can restrict Canadians’ travel, requisition private property, evacuate people from hot spots and take over the distribution of goods.

For instance, Ottawa could convert the Rogers Centre into a temporary hospital. It could press certain people — medical students across the country, for instance — into delivering essential services.

While those powers can be wielded in a crisis, they are by nature anti-democratic. And the decision to assume them is not without risk, according to University of Ottawa national security law professor Craig Forcese.

“Emergency law can actually be quite dangerous. There are many states on the face of this planet who have been in persistent states of emergency for some time — usually political emergencies — and it can be very corrosive of civil liberties and rights,” Forcese said Thursday on A Podcast Called Intrepid, a program on Canadian national security issues.

“I think, going in, we need to be cognizant of the implications of some of these powers for the coherence of our civil society, and the implications especially for vulnerable portions of that population.”

So far, Trudeau says Ottawa already has the powers it needs to properly respond to the crisis. As the country has seen in the past week, there’s a lot the federal government can do without resorting to extreme measures — shutting down Canada’s borders, pushing forward an $82 billion support package, suspending and recalling Parliament.

Colleen Flood, a research chair in health policy and law at the University of Ottawa, said so long as provinces and territories are following the best advice from health care experts in their jurisdictions, the federal government should have little recourse to grant itself emergency powers.

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“What really matters is what the public health evidence is about the spread of the contagion, and if the variability (in provincial responses) is actually causing a threat to other provinces or as the country as a whole,” Flood said.

“If not, the variability is neither here nor there.”

The federal government used the War Measures Act to put soldiers on the streets in Quebec during the October Crisis of 1970, and to allow for the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. Neither decision has aged well.

“We are very aware that the Emergencies Act is a measure of last resort, which does grant extraordinary powers to the federal government,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday.

“We began a discussion of it today, and we are also very aware … that it could never be invoked without consultation with the provinces.”

With files from Heather Scoffield

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