44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 19, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/19/22 8:40:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Egmont.
It is with sadness that I rise in this House this morning because of the circumstances outside of our Parliament, but with the privilege to bring the voice of our community of Orléans, a community that has sent me once again to the House of Commons in 2021 with the clear understanding of the importance of the public health measures.
We are here today to debate the motion regarding the invocation of the Emergencies Act. This law, the Emergencies Act, was passed in 1988, bringing in new parliamentary oversight through a requirement for compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we invoked it on February 14.
As a society, we need to put this in perspective with the values we all share, particularly democracy and the rule of law. From an Orléans perspective, many people have called in the last 22 days.
After two years of the pandemic, a general sense of fatigue had set in, but thanks to an extraordinarily high vaccination rate, the stress levels of families and business owners were beginning to come down. The hope of returning to some semblance of a normal life was on the horizon. It was palpable.
Then a convoy of trucks decided to overstay their welcome in our national capital. We are now at Saturday, day 23. People, neighbours, family members and residents, when I do my groceries at our local stores, have shared their thoughts with me. They want us to do something.
After working hard with our municipal partner and after the City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency on January 6, the Province of Ontario followed in declaring a state of emergency as well on February 11. We need to understand what our downtown businesses and its residents have endured for the past 23 days.
I was a former business owner in Orléans before politics. As exciting as it was to own a business and be an entrepreneur, it is hard work. We have payments to make, payroll to look after, employees to manage and rent to pay. Business owners in Orléans and in Ottawa are our neighbours and our friends. They are people we have gotten to know, people we have developed friendships and relationships with. It has been hard for them since the beginning of the pandemic.
My heart goes out to the people who live and reside in downtown Ottawa and to the businesses that were expecting to open on January 31. They were looking ahead to happier days. They were looking to do what they love to do. They were hoping to open their businesses. They were hoping to be there for their employees, and I have to say that we were hoping to support them.
I have to say it again: Small businesses are the heart of our economy. I speak monthly with my local BIA, the Heart of Orléans BIA. We know our businesses needed our government's support since the beginning of this pandemic, and we did. We brought in several measures to support them.
I will repeat that January 31 was to be a new beginning for our businesses. It was supposed to be a good day for them, since the provincial Progressive Conservative government here in Ontario was loosening public health measures. Unfortunately, it was not for our downtown businesses.
We have worked so hard for the past two years. We have joined forces among each other for the better good of our communities, our provinces and our country. We have listened to the experts. We did what had to be done to see our loved ones and to protect our seniors.
We were hoping for a return to normalcy at last, but that did not happen for everyone. It was a very different situation for residents and merchants downtown, who were denied this opportunity.
It is because they had to suffer from this illegal blockade, and this is not acceptable.
It is hard for me to explain how I feel about this illegal blockade. For 23 days, we have been unable to enjoy the beauty of the capital, move freely in the streets, socialize with our friends or get to our place of work.
What can I say about the impact of this illegal blockade on the quality of life of the residents, on the health of our students and that of people living with a disability? What can I say about the impact on our social stability, our mental health and our environment?
That is why we are here now. That is why the government invoked the Emergencies Act. We have to put an end to this nightmare.
We are now at a point where the government felt the need to invoke the Emergencies Act to supplement provincial and municipal capacity to address this illegal blockade.
I want to reinforce that the emergency declaration would be for a maximum period of 30 days. These measures are targeted, temporary and proportionate. We are invoking them only after exhausting all options. They will allow the RCMP to enforce municipal, provincial and federal laws; allow the federal government to mobilize essential services, such as tow trucks; give new authorities to law enforcement to regulate crowds, prohibit blockades and keep essential infrastructure open; and provide enhanced power to stop the flow of money supporting the blockades. That is important for the people who are listening here in Orléans to understand.
Let me be clear with respect to what invoking these measures will not do: It will not invoke the military, it would not limit our freedom, it would not limit a peaceful assembly and it would not suspend fundamental rights.
Sometimes when we talk about Ottawa among friends and family, we make comparisons with other capitals or cities, and we sometimes describe Ottawa as a quiet, not too lively city. Well, I can absolutely assure them that today I stand in this House to say that I am looking forward to once again enjoying my quiet city, my quiet downtown, where we can walk with our family, where we can enjoy time with our children visiting a museum, for example, and where we can go to see our loved ones or just have a safe and simple walk in our neighbourhood with our favourite pets.
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- Feb/19/22 8:50:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question because it gives me the opportunity to share what the government has done since the very beginning. We have been in touch with our municipal and provincial partners.
Since we are talking about democracy, I need to share a story with the House. Before entering federal politics, I was a provincial member of Parliament. Every single Thursday, a Canadian of Asian descent went to the grounds of Queen's Park to recite all day long, in a language that I did not understand, his thoughts about the world. As a Canadian, I was proud to listen. I know that in other countries people do not have a chance to do this, and what we have seen here is not a peaceful protest.
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- Feb/19/22 8:52:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. As parliamentarians and as a government, it is not for us to dictate police instructions and operations or what the justice system is currently doing. I will leave that to the people who are better qualified than I am when it comes to the legal process that has been triggered in the past few days. I would just note that the GoFundMe page has stopped supporting the participants of the illegal blockades here in Ottawa, because it became apparent that these people may not have had the best of intentions.
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- Feb/19/22 8:53:49 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very delicate question. From the beginning, we have seen people brandishing hateful flags and encouraging conversations that go as far as to say that the Prime Minister of Canada should die, that he should be killed. I agree with her that in Canada, we must deal with issues involving extremists.
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