44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 17, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/17/22 10:38:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the first part of the member's speech, I heard his concerns about heated rhetoric and things like that. I am wondering if he can comment on the Prime Minister's comments yesterday regarding one of my Jewish colleague's questions.
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- Feb/17/22 11:15:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I must admit it is hard to follow the member for Battle River—Crowfoot's passionate speech.
Nonetheless, here we are tonight debating, after it was implemented without a vote in the House of Commons, the Emergencies Act. I want to take us back about two years. I remember distinctly the talk was about whether the vaccines would be mandatory. There was a study several years ago at the health committee about mandatory vaccines and it was determined at that study, which I believe was in 2011, that it was unconstitutional to make vaccines mandatory.
Fast forward to 2020, we have a global pandemic and the government is saying that vaccination will be our way out of this, and 70% was the number that was floated around as an appropriate level of vaccination. The Prime Minister assured everyone that it would not be mandatory in any case.
Then we came to the election, and suddenly vaccines were becoming mandatory. The government said on the eve of an election, which the Liberals called in the middle of a pandemic, that mandatory vaccines were going to be brought in. Get the jab or lose the job. I remember Conservatives ran on a mandate that said no mandatory vaccines.
The Prime Minister said some of the most divisive things that we have ever heard a prime minister say. In an interview he asked if we have to tolerate these people. What kind of a question is that? Is that something a prime minister would say? Before he was Prime Minister, he said, “Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. Then, when it suited his political ends, he was suddenly asking if we have to tolerate these people.
I want to talk about the use of the term “these people”. It has been pointed out to me that people have lost their jobs for using the term “these people”. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister did not lose his job over that.
One of those people is a good friend of mine, an RCMP officer. He had had COVID and had an antibody test. It proved he had antibodies, yet suddenly he was being faced with a mandate to be vaccinated or lose his job. He has five kids. He dreamed his whole life of being an RCMP officer. Now his livelihood, the way he feeds his children and pays for his house, is being put on the line because he must get vaccinated with a vaccine that does exactly what his body has done already in giving him immunity to the virus.
That is the crux of the issue. This mandatory vaccine that has been forced upon us. The Liberals say the country is united and 90% of the people are vaccinated, so why would I be worried about the last 10%. One of the things in democracy is that it has always been about the protection of the minority. Otherwise, we would just live in a dictatorship or tyranny of the majority. There is that reason, and the other reason is that, just because 90% of the population is vaccinated, does not mean that every one of them wanted to be vaccinated.
The fact of the matter is that it was after 50% of the population was vaccinated, the Liberals came in with mandatory vaccines. They forced people to get vaccinated. They say they did not force anybody, but they did say people had to get vaccinated or lose their job. That is not selling vaccines on the merits of vaccines. That is coercion, not informed consent.
It is like they are saying to Canadians, “That's a nice job you have there. It would be too bad if something were to happen to it. By the way, we have this nice vaccine over here.” This is an immense coercion taking place on behalf of the government. Then there was the demonization and terrorization, on behalf of the government, of those folks who were not vaccinated.
In some provinces people were not even able to go the grocery store if they were not vaccinated. That is the backdrop for which we have these protests occurring across the country. The Prime Minister knew that. For over a week, we watched the Canadian flag being waved on overpasses and side roads. Everywhere the convoy went, people came out to greet the convoy, and those images were stunning.
The Prime Minister knew the convoy was coming across the country. He had ample time to react, decide what to do, and determine if the mandates were working. We had 90% of the population vaccinated, when the goal was 70%. The number of cases were declining. The week the truckers were coming across the country he could have paused for a moment and reconsidered everything. Deena Hinshaw and Theresa Tam both said that, but for some reason, the Prime Minister could not come to the conclusion that perhaps he should look at that, so here we are.
The truckers came across the country opposing the mandates. Perhaps there is a website that talks about insurrection and things like that, but the vast majority of the people who stood alongside the road waving their Canadian flags, who did not come to Ottawa but who supported it, were not thinking of an insurrection. They were supporting an end to the mandates.
Here we are, entrenched, and using the largest gun in the arsenal, so to speak, the Emergencies Act. While, at the same time, the border crossings and critical infrastructure that were blocked are no longer blocked. We have seen blockades of critical infrastructure before in this country. We saw the rail blockades of early 2020, which created a significant hardship for this country. The propane that comes out of the ground in Alberta and is put onto trains and shipped to eastern Canada to heat homes was not able to make it there.
However, the Emergencies Act was not invoked at that time. I would not have advised that we invoke it at that point, but there was critical infrastructure being blocked. We have seen blockades of critical infrastructure and roads with respect to projects being built in this country, yet I would not advocate for, nor did we see, the emergency measures act invoked in those cases.
We have recently seen the destruction of millions of dollars of equipment in northern B.C.'s Coastal GasLink project, but the Prime Minister does not seem to acknowledge that, nor is he suggesting we use the emergency measures act with respect to that. However, here we are in Ottawa, where I have not heard of any damage occurring to property, but this has been declared a national emergency for which we must use the largest, most powerful piece of legislation we have in this country to deal with this so-called emergency.
I want to talk about the foreign money pouring in across the border that the Liberals bring up time and again. I would first like to know how much foreign money we are talking about. That is an important piece. Since I was elected, I have been advocating for us to look at the foreign money that is coming across the border. We know the Tides foundation has put over $700 million into an anti-oil sands campaign in northern Alberta. It appears the Liberals agree with that, because they have turned a blind eye to foreign money influencing our politics.
However, when the Prime Minister gets a black eye or his polling numbers are being affected, suddenly the Liberals are worried about foreign money influencing Canadian politics. It is about time they are worried about that, but to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians over this so-called foreign money is crazy.
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- Feb/17/22 11:27:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I reject the underlying premise of the entire question. I have a question back to her. Does whatever is happening in Canada rise to the level of needing the Emergencies Act implemented across Canada? It was not used in the spring of 2020 when rail lines were shut down for 18 days and Quebec ran out of propane. It was not used due to the damage that is currently happening at Coastal GasLink. It was not used when the G20 was in Ottawa, or when 9/11 happened.
Does the member really think that the Emergencies Act is appropriate at this time?
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- Feb/17/22 11:29:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is surprising to me. I suppose, since I come from Alberta, downtown Ottawa jobs being more important to the Liberals should not surprise me. However, when jobs in Alberta were being threatened by a rail blockade two years back, there was no mention of the Emergencies Act at that point in time. There was no mention of it. It was business as usual with the government trying to resolve the situation.
I would also point out that, at that time, the government sent out an army of ministers to talk with whomever they could to try to alleviate the situation. The opposite took place in this case. There was no dialogue with the truckers in the convoy as they came across the country. There was no acknowledgement that their concerns might be valid. There not even a second thought to lifting the mandates. The Liberals have inflamed the situation and have completely mismanaged it.
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- Feb/17/22 11:31:18 p.m.
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Madam Chair, fundamentally, this entire situation started when the government put a mandate on truckers to be vaccinated in order to cross the border. The mandates are fundamental to the entire situation we are dealing with today.
I will make no apologies for bringing that up.
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