44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/7/22 9:50:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in tonight's very important debate about a very pressing issue and a very important event that is occurring right outside this chamber and has been occurring for the last eight days or so. I want to thank the member forBurnaby South for bringing in and initiating this emergency debate.
As somebody who came to this chamber as a practising lawyer who had worked in the area of constitutional law and human rights for 15 years prior to first getting elected, let me start by saying that the right of protest in any democracy is sacrosanct. It is fundamental in any democracy. It is protected under section 2(b) of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with good reason. The issue of speech and protected speech is at its apex when talking about political speech. That is the form of speech and it deserves the highest amount of protection. That is entrenched in Supreme Court jurisprudence.
What is problematic, however, is when speech, demonstrations and protest veer into hatred. I do not want to overstate the case. We know that there have been some instances of hatred. Perhaps not all of the protesters are engaging in this, but it does taint and flavour and characterize what we are seeing when we see it on a repeated basis.
What have we seen? We have seen swastikas and we have seen the Confederate flag.
What do those mean? The swastika is obviously a symbol of the Third Reich. It hearkens back to Nazi Germany. It is a very vilifying and detestable manifestation of what that regime represented and what it did to Jewish people, all sorts of minorities, racialized persons, religious minorities, LGBTQ2 communities and people who were Roma, etc. The Confederate flag obviously represents the institution of slavery. We heard very eloquently from the member for Hull—Aylmer how that feels for a person of Black skin, for a person who is racialized. We know how that feels for a person like me, a brown-skinned Muslim man, who takes his place in this House. Those are symbols we do not need here.
It means that what it has devolved into for the people of Ottawa, for even the people who work here in Ottawa, such as me, as we have heard repeatedly this evening, is starting to look a lot more like an occupation than a protest. When protesters destabilize people, when they disturb them intentionally and when they honk horns just to aggravate people, as the member for Kingston and the Islands indicated, the fight has been taken not to the government but to the people and the residents of this city.
That is problematic because it starts to affect people's behaviour. Perhaps that is what is intended here. Perhaps the intent is to put a chill on people's behaviour. It is problematic when a storekeeper cannot open their storefront and a cashier is worried about working at Rexall, and it is problematic even for members of Parliament, for my colleagues and, dare I admit it, for myself. When I went home after the Ukraine emergency debate one week ago, I was concerned for the first time in my seven-year parliamentary career about whom I might encounter at 10:30 at night on the streets of Ottawa. That is not a pleasant place to be in, and that is what, unfortunately, this has been driven to.
The next point I want to make is that it is always important to take issue with policy positions. That is what a democracy is all about. That is a good thing. I have been thankful that at least in the protest outside, some people had the good sense to carve out a lane of traffic for emergency vehicles. That is also a good thing. However, what I have still seen and what I saw last summer, this past fall, this winter and even just yesterday is that the people who drive those emergency vehicles are being targeted. They are being targeted with acts of hatred, acts of violence and acts of harassment. People should not fear wearing their uniform. We talk about the people in uniform who are keeping us safe, and they deserve to be credited.
There are other people wearing uniforms, uniforms that are called scrubs. People who are cautioned about wearing their scrubs in public are the people who have been keeping us safe. They are the people who swear the Hippocratic oath to keep everyone safe, no matter how heinous their attitudes, no matter how vile their positions. The people who keep everyone safe, both the people who are vaccinated and the people who are unvaccinated, deserve our respect, appreciation and gratitude. What some people are foisting upon them right now is exactly the opposite. I am not saying all people, but some people. That has to be stopped in its tracks.
I want to inject a third aspect into this discussion, which is about the notion of trucks being filled with gasoline being parked 50 metres from a legislative building such as the House of Commons I am speaking from. We know, I know, and Muslims know that trucks have been used as instruments of death and terror around the planet. What I am saying here is that we have to question things such as unconscious bias in terms of how we approach parked vehicles loaded with gasoline very proximate to a legislative building. I do not think it is vast speculation or venturing a guess here to say that if those were Black protesters, indigenous protesters—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/7/22 9:55:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, but I would like to finish.
If those were Muslim protesters calling for peace in the Middle East, I venture a guess that perhaps the reaction of law enforcement would not be to let trucks idle, filled with gasoline, for eight straight days outside of the Parliament Buildings. That is some food for thought to inject into this debate.
The last point I want to make, and again I guess I have to speak over the people opposite because they do not want to listen, is that I find that there is an inherent illogic in a lot of these protests—
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- Feb/7/22 9:56:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with regard to the inherent illogic in terms of what is going on outside, I have about six points I am going to make and I will make them quickly.
First of all, the number of federal lockdowns that have been issued in this country in the last two years is exactly zero. They are a provincial jurisdiction. That is the first point.
The second point is that if someone is that concerned about trucking mandates, they might want to take notice of the fact that those mandates are applied across the continent. As the member for Kingston and the Islands rightfully pointed out, there is one that applies to get into the United States, and now there is one that applies to those coming back from the United States.
The third point is that it seems puzzling to this lawyer's mind that if someone's intense philosophical position is that lockdowns are problematic and should be eschewed, then why would someone be causing a lockdown in downtown Ottawa, and by virtue of those actions, preventing the storekeepers from places like Sparks Street, Wellington and the Rideau Centre from opening? It is inherently illogical.
The fourth point is that I find it puzzling that the party of supposed law and order, the party opposite, Her Majesty's official opposition, is doing exactly the opposite in terms of maintaining law and order in this country. What we have seen instead, and I know they are going to start talking because maybe they do not like what I am about to say, is that their interim leader has said to not tell the protesters to go home but to instead make the Prime Minister wear this one. Instead of encouraging law and order and enforcement of the law, they are encouraging exactly the opposite.
What I also find puzzling is that the official opposition prides itself on being the party of fiscal prudence. By the last tally I heard, this “protest” is costing the good people of Ottawa, the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service about $800,000 a day. In terms of fiscal prudence, that is not fiscal wisdom.
I am very impressed that a member, no less a physician, is seeking to heckle me from across the way because he is not happy with what I am talking about.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/7/22 9:58:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I would point out, in terms of a fifth inconsistency, is that the members opposite like to pride themselves on constantly eschewing foreign interference. We have heard this come up in the last 30 minutes.
What I recollect, even prior to my time in politics, was a lot of concern about things such as foreign money flowing into this country with respect to environmental protesters, particularly with respect to the Alberta oil sands. I do find it puzzling and a little inconsistent that there is much less concern about foreign money that has been declared to be flowing into this country right now in support of what these people are calling a protest. That is money coming from Florida and money coming from Texas. I do find that inconsistency a bit puzzling, and it weakens the position of my friends opposite.
Let us get back to maybe some place where we can find a meeting ground. There is some discontent, clearly. Some of that discontent has been fomented in the form of hatred, which thankfully everyone has eschewed in this chamber. I think we could be doing that a little more forcefully.
What I do think we need to do is to get to the stage where we understand that the point has been made and that the notion of taking a city hostage and occupying it, and taking your concern with, perhaps, my government or this side of the aisle and manifesting it and fomenting that kind of protest against a cashier at Rexall, against a storekeeper at the Rideau Centre or against the people in the city who are just trying to go about their daily business and get some rest, has gone too far.
That is when the protest loses credibility and, exactly like the member for Kingston and the Islands put it, normally protesters want to gather momentum. What these protesters have done is exactly the opposite. They have created people who do not see them as credible, who do not see as legitimate and who want them to leave.
The point has been made. I think the time for the convoy is over so that we can get down to the business of producing better policies and better politics within this chamber for this entire nation.
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- Feb/7/22 10:02:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have three quick responses. The first is that no one accused the member opposite or his colleagues of driving the trucks outside.
Ths second point is that attempting to resurrect his interim leader in terms of what she may have said today does not eviscerate what she said last Monday, which is that they should take political advantage of the situation, not discourage people to leave and make the Prime Minister wear this as his problem. That is a matter of record that has been reported by multiple media outlets.
Thirdly, I actually find it quite puzzling that the member opposite, given his vocation as a medical doctor, is not appreciating the simple fact that if people his ilk are afraid to wear scrubs in public and are being told by law enforcement not to wear scrubs in public because they might be targeted, we have a problem generally and we have a problem for those in his profession, whom I hope he would stand up for.
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- Feb/7/22 10:04:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that all three levels of government in this country, municipal, provincial and federal, have their responsibilities.
The actions we took and the policies we implemented were always based on science and on what experts and doctors told us. That is what informs everything. We will continue to follow their advice in this situation.
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- Feb/7/22 10:06:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would simply say to the member opposite that yesterday we had an announcement from the Prime Minister that a table is being struck with respect to leadership from all three levels of government. That is exactly the type of co-operation we need, because we are seeing a situation that is very concerning for the city of Ottawa, all Ontarians and all Canadians.
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