44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/7/22 11:27:25 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I find it fascinating that the member would talk about adding fuel to the fire, when his entire speech about mandates, and the Prime Minister supposedly putting in these mandates that lock down the freedoms of people, is absolutely ludicrous.
The only mandate that the member is concerned about that actually relates to the federal government is the fact that we have to provide a vaccination certificate when we cross the border into Canada, which, by the way, we have to provide if we cross the border into the United States to start with. In order to be travelling back into Canada, we have to have already gone into the United States and shown our vaccination status.
All other mandates related to wearing masks, closing businesses and so forth have been set by the provinces. The member knows that, yet he accuses this side of throwing fuel on the fire.
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- Feb/7/22 12:59:08 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
We already won the election over that one.
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- Feb/7/22 1:44:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I listened to the entire speech, but I will focus on the last couple of words. It is a far stretch to make the claim that the Liberal government has been missing in action.
Over the last two years, the Liberal government has rolled out supports to Canadians during this pandemic, making sure they had the resources they have needed in order to get through it. Will there be more work to do? Did the member identify some areas where people perhaps may have been missed? Absolutely, and I applaud him for bringing forward those stories from his constituents.
However, to suggest that by and large the Liberal government has been missing in action is quite simply false. The government has done a lot more than the Conservatives ever wanted us to do, in terms of helping Canadians through this pandemic.
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- Feb/7/22 1:44:51 p.m.
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- Feb/7/22 4:13:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary gives a much different account than the member for Peace River—Westlock did. The member for Peace River—Westlock said the government was listening to our conversations and recording everything we are doing.
Some hon. member: Are they?
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: As I say this, members from across the way, who wear tinfoil hats, are yelling, “Are they?” The parliamentary secretary made things very clear when he said that this was de-identified information that had been mined for commercial purposes and is used by other apps.
Can the member enlighten me as to why he might think the member for Peace River—Westlock wants to believe these trumped-up conspiracy theories that the government is monitoring everybody's individual conversations?
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- Feb/7/22 5:03:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as we have been talking this afternoon, we have heard a lot of discussion about trust in the manner in which the information is being obtained. I wonder if the member can comment as to whether he believes there might be risks of government listening in on conversations, as we heard earlier from the Conservatives.
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- Feb/7/22 6:50:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened quite intently to the leader of the NDP's discussion in this debate, and I thank him for initiating it tonight. He talked about the actions that have been going on outside and said he condemns the behaviour. I agree with him that certainly a lot has been happening, and it is more than just a few bad apples, as he rightly pointed out. We are seeing instance after instance, and it is not just about one or two bad apples here or there.
He indicated that he was pleased to see the three levels of government coming together. Where does he see that discussion happening? What suggestions does he have for that group? Certainly, he would not suggest that they negotiate, given what is going on and his previous comments. What possible solutions would he recommend that those three levels of government should be discussing?
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- Feb/7/22 7:15:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, very briefly, one of the arguments we continue to hear out there is that it is just a bad apple in the bunch, yet we are seeing incident after incident where there are many bad apples in this bunch that the Conservatives are embracing time and again.
I am curious. Can the minister provide his thoughts on that argument we seem to hear quite a bit?
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- Feb/7/22 7:59:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me get this straight. Days ago, an email is leaked in which the leader of the official opposition stated that the Conservatives should not ask the protesters to leave and should instead make this the Prime Minister's problem. However, now we are led to believe by the member that the Leader of the Opposition is suddenly the one bringing everybody together to come up with a solution. Is that what the member is trying to say?
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- Feb/7/22 8:15:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the primary request that is being made by the leaders of the convoy is that the Governor General dissolve this Parliament and appoint the Senate and the Governor General to form a “citizens of Canada” committee. Does this seem to the member like a group that we can enter into negotiations with effectively?
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- Feb/7/22 8:30:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Saint-Jean for her intervention today. I certainly learned a lot from what she had to say. I really appreciated the personal account she shared about interacting with some of the protesters. I think she makes a really good point, quite frankly, and I think I can learn something from it, such as the fact that there are many different people out there with many different objectives and motivations. Indeed, the member is absolutely right that there are people who have come to this protest quite innocently. I myself have seen families out there walking the streets. It is important to recognize that, and I thank her for that.
The problem for me was when I went to the drugstore and saw somebody confront the store clerk and put a camera in the clerk's face, saying, “You can't force me to wear a mask in here. I have rights”, and blah-blah. Where do we draw the line? How do we figure out how to appease the people who are legitimately not trying to create problems versus those who are overtly trying to do that? I wonder if the member could share her thoughts on that.
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- Feb/7/22 9:34:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time this evening with the member for Parkdale—High Park. Even though the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would like me to speak for 20 minutes, unfortunately it will only be 10 minutes this evening. I note he still has not invited me on the podcast he touts so much when he is in the House. I am still waiting for my invitation. Do not worry. I am not checking my email three or four times a day looking for it or anything.
I am very glad to participate in tonight's debate and am going to take the opportunity to present some facts, because I think facts are extremely important. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and it would be beneficial to put on the record some of the facts.
It has been said once tonight, but I will expand on it slightly, that 90% of truckers have been vaccinated. I drive from Kingston to Ottawa and back to be here, and on both occasions of making that trip since this protest began, I have seen countless truckers working. They are working right now as we speak, travelling up and down the 401, or whatever major highway in the country they might happen to be on, to move goods around our country. Some 90% of truckers are vaccinated.
I believe this protest, this convoy, probably started from a place that was genuinely about truckers and the concerns they had. Unfortunately, we have seen this morph into something else as it has been hijacked by other groups. As was so well pointed out by one of my Conservative colleagues in a tweet over the weekend, whatever the objective was, it has been lost by those who have hijacked the protest. Unfortunately, that is the reality of the situation we are in.
I heard the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and a number of Conservatives talk about these mandates this evening. His words were that these mandates need to end. The mandates that relate to proof of vaccination and the mandates that relate to hospital workers are all provincial mandates. It is ironic that opposition members would encourage protesters in front of this building to protest something that at least in Ontario belongs in Queen's Park, but they do it anyway. As a matter of fact, the only mandate the federal government has in place says that people who cross the border into Canada, including truckers, need to show proof of vaccination. Guess what? The United States of America has the exact same mandate. Before someone has to present their proof of vaccination to a Canadian border officer on their way into Canada, they will need to show it on their way into the United States when leaving Canada. That is the irony of this.
That is the mandate the federal government has in relation to this particular protest. It is where all this angst began, and my concern is that the opposition continues to throw fuel on the fire. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan kept saying “these mandates”. He knows full well that the mandate for truckers crossing the border applies to the U.S. just as much as it applies to Canada.
I heard someone from across the way ask why we should do it. That is the whole point of working with our G7 partners. It is the whole point of working with the United States. It is so we have fairness and equality in relation to what the rules are to move back and forth. That is what makes this work so well.
An hon. member: It's kind of like the rules for your electric car.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: The member brought up my electric car. If he wants, we can talk about that for a while too, but I am not sure why a Conservative would want to do that when we are talking about such an important debate about truckers specifically and what we are seeing out there.
What we are seeing are a number of people who are hijacking this protest. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan said something earlier that I think was a really good comment. He asked why more members of Parliament are not getting out there to talk to those people. He was trying to show an open door. The problem is that this particular protest, although I have no doubt there are some well-intentioned individuals participating in it, has attracted a lot of behaviour that we all would agree is extremely problematic and extremely troubling. Quite frankly, it is behaviour that we do not accept as being Canadian. As an example—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/7/22 9:40:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, where I was going with this is that although there might be some well-meaning and well-intentioned individuals out there, I cannot help but remember that just the other day, when I was in the Rexall at the corner of Metcalfe and O'Connor, I saw an individual who I assume was a protester shove a camera in front of the clerk's face, saying, “You can't make me put on a mask. I have a right not to wear a mask. Who do you think you are?” They brought this fight to the people of Ottawa, to a store clerk who was just working there and doing her job. I could not help but say to the gentleman as I was leaving, “Why are you bringing this fight to her? Your fight is not with her. She is just doing her job.” I trust that my Conservative colleagues and any member of this House would do the exact same thing.
That brings me to the last point that I want to bring up in relation to this particular issue.
For some reason, the protesters do not realize that the people they are affecting the most with this behaviour are the people who live in downtown Ottawa. Listen. I do not know if we should tell them this, but we cannot hear the honking in here. As a matter of fact, someone walking here early in the morning will not hear a single thing. It was the same last week too. We do not hear a single thing in here. We do not. We could almost forget what is happening until we leave, go outside, and see and hear it again.
Meanwhile, all of these activities have been going on. Then on the weekends, when the vast majority of members are not even in Ottawa, these events continue to go on and on.
It is impacting the people who live here. Most protests seek to get more people on board by delivering a message. They seek to find more supporters to come and join their cause. Most protests that come to Ottawa here on the front lawn or the Centennial Flame or Wellington Street do so in a way that is meant to develop a following on the way. Instead, this protest has come here and completely made the people who live here irate over what is going on.
I believe that it is time for this to end. I believe it is time for the protesters to recognize that they have made their point and that it is now time to dispense with the activities and go home.
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- Feb/7/22 9:44:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the member feels as though charter rights are being infringed upon, there is a building about 200 metres from where I stand where he could argue that case. That is where he should take his issue of charter rights being infringed upon, instead of encouraging people to continue honking their horns on the street and shooting off fireworks in the middle of the night in a downtown, heavily urbanized area. He should go to the Supreme Court and fight the case there. That is how we do it in a democracy, not by occupying the downtown core of a nation's capital.
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- Feb/7/22 9:46:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed to hear a member from the Bloc Québécois suggest that we should try to open up dialogue with individuals who have been associated with people who are spreading hate, people who are waving flags with swastikas on them, people who are raiding soup kitchens to feed themselves because somehow they are entitled to that food, people who have been desecrating a war memorial statue, people who have been dressing up Terry Fox's statue. It is not one bad apple but a whole host of problems, and here we have a member from the Bloc Québécois asking why we are not sitting down and talking to these people. They are literally waving flags around that say, “F---” and the Prime Minister's name.
Come on. The member must know that there are starting points to negotiations and to sitting down with people. There are lines that can be crossed, and several lines have been crossed in that regard.
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- Feb/7/22 9:48:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would love to find out the answers to some of the questions the member asked. I would love to see some form of investigation into where the money came from, where the activities were generated and where they started. They are very important, but I am not going to presuppose that I know the answers to those in advance, because that would just make me a conspiracy theorist, which I believe we are seeing quite a bit of from across the way.
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- Feb/7/22 10:31:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, a little over an hour ago, one of the member's Conservative colleagues, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, gave a very passionate speech in the House. Though I did not agree with everything he said, he made it very clear that the blockade going on outside is illegal. As a matter of fact, he posted the video of his speech, and on Twitter he has already received well over a thousand retweets and likes of that.
The approach to the issue being taken by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is very different from what we have seen from the vast majority of Conservatives. I would like to ask this member how he feels about what the member for Wellington—Halton Hills said about this blockade being illegal.
Does he agree that it is illegal?
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