44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 19, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/19/22 6:11:26 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I rise today in the House asking the same question that so many of my fellow Canadians are asking: How did we end up here? Across the world, our allies are in shock. I have had friends call me from all over the world asking me, “What is going in your country?” They know that we Canadians are a quiet and polite people. Something must be very wrong for a peace-loving people to rise up, take to the streets and fight for freedom from government mandates and restrictions.
We are here because the Liberal government slowly encroached upon the freedoms of Canadians and because the Prime Minister chose to use hate, fear and division as a part of his COVID strategy. The Liberals want to create a false narrative. They want to convince you that the protesters are terrorists. They need you to believe this so that they can justify the heavy-handed approach that they have taken by invoking the emergency measures act.
Hard-working Canadians are seeking empathy and understanding and listening from the elected officials whose salaries they pay, and yet this Prime Minister clearly refuses to listen to any opinion that is not exactly like his. He has said that those who disagree with him have wrong opinions. That is not leadership. This failed leadership is responsible for the situation with which we are now faced. This protest could have been over at least a week ago without the police intervention that we see now if the Liberals had accepted our motion for them to provide a timetable outlining when Canadians could have their lives back. Even leaders around the world are condemning this Prime Minister's authoritarian move, from British MPs to U.S. senators to Brazilian lawmakers to international authors and journalists. The free world is looking at Canada in shock and using words such as “authoritarian” and “totalitarian dictatorship” to describe our government.
Let me remind the House that it was less than two years ago when the Prime Minister celebrated our truckers as heroes and mobilized a social media campaign to thank them, “Thank a Trucker”. I repeat again that this is not about who is right or who is wrong; it is about who gets to be a part of this conversation, and the only acceptable answer to that question is everybody, every Canadian.
The Emergencies Act is a declaration of a state of national emergency, a blunt-force tool that should only be used when there is a national crisis at hand, when all the legislative and legal powers have been exhausted. Canadians know very well that this Prime Minister did not exhaust all of the options before he implemented this act. Our criminal laws have provisions that will allow for the seizure of crime proceeds, the towing of vehicles, the freezing of bank accounts, and these measures should have been used first.
Conservatives do believe in the rule of law. We believe in peaceful protests and do not support protests that interfere with critical infrastructure, so when the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, the Coutts border in Alberta, the Emerson border in Manitoba were blocked, protesters were asked to leave. The authorities attended and asked them to leave, and they did. The RCMP dealt with those issues efficiently, without a declaration of a national emergency. All critical infrastructures were cleared, and what was left was a protest in front of Parliament in downtown Ottawa. To halt further protests, the Prime Minister threatened to take away drivers licences, seize trucks, freeze bank accounts and outright intimidate lawful protesters. These are the actions of a dictator, and this is exactly what happens in totalitarian regimes.
I have received thousands of emails from terrified people all over the country. One lady who bought a simple T-shirt is afraid her bank account is going to be frozen.
Invoking the Emergencies Act when conditions have not been met undermines confidence in our democracy. This is not the first large protest in this country. We have resolved many other protests without invoking the Emergencies Act, such as Oka, pipeline protests, and in my riding of Haldimand—Norfolk, the Caledonia protests. The Canadian legal system has laws sufficient for dealing with protests. Our FINTRAC system allows for the tracing of funds and the freezing of accounts.
The continuation of the Emergencies Act without clear evidence of a national emergency is a threat to our democracy. I remind this House that when the War Measures Act, the predecessor to this act, was first enacted, many innocent people's lives were implicated, and lives were destroyed as a result. Even defence minister Perrin Beatty, in introducing the act, expressed the generally held view that the War Measures Act was an extremely effective tool as a political device, but as a criminal device was extremely ineffective.
I am a trained lawyer and I have practised law for over 20 years. I have taught law at law school, and as such, I believe in the rule of law. Its application is very important to me. I am now a legislator, so it is also imperative that I be convinced that the laws are properly applied. If we examine the appropriate section of the Emergencies Act, we will see that the reasons for invoking this act are lacking.
The Liberals cite three reasons. We were told, first, that it is necessary to deal with continuing blockades. This is factually incorrect, since all blockades at the border crossings were removed peacefully with the existing laws in place. There is nothing in the Emergencies Act that gives law enforcement powers that they did not have when they removed the blockades at the Ambassador Bridge, at Coutts and at the Manitoba border. With all bridges cleared and the protest been relegated to downtown Ottawa, primarily on Wellington Street in front of Parliament, that situation certainly does not constitute a national emergency.
Second, Liberals used the act to prevent the protests from having adverse effects on the Canadian economy. Again, this is factually incorrect. Canada was experiencing economic insecurity as a result of the adverse effects of the lockdowns and mandates. This occurred long before the protests and the blockades.
The third reason was to reduce the impacts of blockades on Canada's relationship with trading partners. It is unbelievable and not credible that this Prime Minister needed to invoke the Emergencies Act to secure our relationship with our trading partners. Frankly, the United States is our biggest trading partner, and many U.S. governors as well as countries around the world have condemned the Prime Minister's heavy-handed approach.
It is very likely that his actions alone will negatively affect our relationship with our trading partners. It is clear that the Prime Minister is using the Emergencies Act as a political tool to terrorize and punish dissenters by ruining the lives of people who disagree with him. The preponderance of the evidence clearly does not support invoking the Emergencies Act.
Canadians are desperate for hope and are calling for unity. People on all sides of the debate need compassion and understanding. Like it or not, the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for his failed leadership. Guarding our freedoms and upholding our democracy means that we need to have compassionate hearts and listening ears.
The Prime Minister's actions likely will bring the government and our democracy into disrepute. Thankfully, there is a simple solution to this problem. Let us entertain a non-partisan resolution to end mandates, just like many countries around the world, including Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Tanzania, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Together, we could begin to restore our democracy—
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- Feb/19/22 6:22:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my response to that question is that we have legal provisions and mechanisms and laws sufficient to enable law enforcement officers to deal with all aspects of criminality, all aspects of law enforcement in this country, without the imposition of such a heavy-handed act, which should only be used for national emergencies. This situation is not a national emergency.
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- Feb/19/22 6:24:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again I say that I have full confidence in the law enforcement system that we have in place. If there is a problem, as the hon. member has outlined, our law enforcement mechanism is sufficient to deal with it. What should have been done is that all laws should have been exhausted. Our Criminal Code has sections in it to address these issues, and it was not used in this case.
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- Feb/19/22 6:25:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, essentially the director of public prosecutions has sections that he could tap into to address these issues. Section 10 of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act allows the power to be directed and for these types of investigations to be done. We have the FINTRAC system, and there are other mechanisms that were not utilized before the Emergencies Act was negligently invoked.
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- Feb/19/22 6:26:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe section 129 of the Criminal Code could have been utilized to get tow truck drivers to remove vehicles from the streets, so we did have sufficient mechanisms in our criminal laws to deal with that issue. Therefore, the Emergencies Act was unnecessarily invoked.
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