Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Country’s Emergency Act for the first time in response to the continuing locks against COVID-19 restrictions.

Under the law, crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers linked to them, including cryptocurrencies, are now required to register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC). It is unclear at this stage whether the emergency law will affect crypto payment providers in the long run.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday that the federal government was expanding anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules to cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment providers they use.

“These changes cover all forms of transactions, including digital assets like cryptocurrencies,” Freeland said. “Illegal blockades have highlighted the fact that crowdfunding platforms and some of the payment service providers they use are not fully captured under the law. Proceeds of Crime and Financing of Terrorism Act.”

Starting Monday, all crowdfunding platforms and their accompanying payment providers must also report large and suspicious transactions to the country’s financial regulator in the same way that banks are required, Freeland said.

The act, passed into law through the Canadian parliament in 1988, gives the federal government temporary additional powers to respond to public welfare, public order, international and war emergencies.

Invoked as a direct response to ongoing trucker blockades, which have caused major disruption in cities such as the nation’s capital Ottawa, the law is designed to counter “illegal” protests over Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Scenes in Canadian cities include roadblocks caused by large trucks lining the nation’s highways, as well as trade brokers with the US. The lockdowns are also causing supply chain bottlenecks across the country that are impacting Canada’s economy.

Both of them Canadian Trucking Alliance and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters They have condemned the protests. The Teamsters said “this is not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.”

“It is now clear that there are serious challenges to the ability of law enforcement to effectively enforce the law,” Trudeau said during a news conference. Press conference on Monday. “The consequences on their lives, for choosing to continue to endanger the lives and livelihoods of other Canadians, to continue to violate our laws, will only become more extensive.”

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