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Feb/19/22 8:05:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. Again, the answer is yes. In the news, we clearly saw a trucker who was part of the blockade here in Ottawa saying that he had to leave because he had received a notice from his bank informing him that if he did not leave the illegal blockade, his assets could be seized. He added that he employs 55 people. It has worked. It will prevent potential blockades from happening in Windsor. We also heard from the Ottawa Police Service and the Windsor Police Service that with these measures, they finally had the ability to prevent—

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/19/22 8:06:39 a.m.
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Order. It is time for questions and comments. The hon. member for North Island—Powell River.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

Feb/19/22 8:06:49 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I hope all of us in the House are taking on the serious responsibility of the decisions we are making here. The member opposite and I have had conversations about both of us being parents to children from the BIPOC community and how worrisome it is. On this planet and in this world in which we live, when we send them out the door, just because of who they are, we do not know that they are always safe. As we talk about implementing this act, I wonder if the member could talk about how we will make sure we are accountable for every step and be rigorous so that we protect all people in this country.

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Hon. Greg Fergus

Feb/19/22 8:07:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I really like about this piece of legislation, and I would like to congratulate Brian Mulroney and his government for having introduced it, is that the Charter of Rights applies to it at all times. It is fixed for a certain amount of time and parliamentarians have to come together to talk about it. I have every confidence because it is targeted, it is appropriate and especially it is time-limited.

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Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Feb/19/22 8:08:22 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves here, this morning, discussing another attempt by the Liberal government to make a mad grab at power, a gross overreach. We have seen it before. We know that the Liberal-NDP alliance have started their heckles because they want to silence me, just like they want to silence people they do not agree with. We know that, at the very beginning of this pandemic, the first thing the Liberal government attempted to do was make a mad grab at power. It wanted the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money and to raise taxes, to tax Canadians as it saw fit, without parliamentary oversight, for nearly two years. Her Majesty's loyal opposition was awake at that late hour, and we stepped up. We stopped that overreach. Here we are, at an early hour on a Saturday morning, in an extraordinary sitting of this place, while the government looks to use extraordinary processes to attack people they disagree with. We heard from the justice minister. He said it on TV for all to hear that, if people have political views that he disagrees with, the government is coming for their bank accounts. If people agree with the justice minister and have the same distaste for the same politicians, maybe this time they are not worried. However, what about the precedent that it sets when a future government that has a different political view goes after the bank accounts of their enemies or people it disagrees with? We, in this place, have a responsibility to safeguard the rights of all Canadians. We have heard a lot of talk about the impact in downtown Ottawa, so I want to start with that. The residents of downtown Ottawa have seen protests and celebrations in their neighbourhoods for years. It is a feature, normally, of living at the heart of Canada's democracy. As of late, it has been anything but. Many of them are now represented in a class action lawsuit against the protesters. I would like to, for the House, share what their lawyer, a fixture in the human rights legal community, has to say about the government's invocation of the act: [This] seriously infringes on the Charter rights of Canadians. That is the lawyer representing the folks downtown in Ottawa. He said: ...I am acutely aware of the trauma experienced by Ottawa residents, I fully agree that the Emergencies Act is a dangerous tool that was not required. Who better to pronounce on the urgency of the situation in downtown Ottawa than the human rights lawyer who is representing the downtown Ottawa residents? Let us talk about the other remedies that have been used to address people as part of this movement. At the Ambassador Bridge, the Windsor border crossing, we saw police of jurisdiction resolve the blockade of our international border. They did it over a two-day period without the use of the Emergencies Act. In Coutts, Alberta, we saw the same result with the existing resources and the existing laws. The police of local jurisdiction there, through police intelligence, identified that there were weapons and ammunition at a nearby site, and they effectively interdicted it without a shot being fired, using the local laws and the local resources. It was not an emergency. We had the greatest public health crisis in more than a century, which the government presided over, and an economic downturn, the worst in a century, which the government presided over. It deemed neither emergencies. We have an opioid crisis where people are dying on our streets every day, and the government does not declare that an emergency. It is not taking extraordinary steps to deal with that. However, it goes back to that power grab and it goes back to a pattern that we have seen with this Prime Minister. Every time that he finds someone he disagrees with, and this is no exception, he dismisses them, he degrades them and he dehumanizes them. This includes millions of Canadians because they disagree with him. He said they hold unacceptable views and they take up space. He said they are mostly misogynists and racists. The majority of Canadians, millions of these same Canadians, have said that any signs or expressions of hate or intolerance are unacceptable. They condemn them and I condemn them. Anyone who commits an illegal act is individually accountable for that, but we have laws to address that. The charges that are being laid in Ottawa are for mischief and “conspiracy to commit”. We do not require an Emergencies Act to deal with these things. We have a public order operation taking place on the streets of Ottawa. It is not an national emergency. However, it sure was a great opportunity for this Prime Minister to do those things that he does best: to divide Canadians. That is not the job of a Prime Minister, and it is a shame that he finds common cause among the government benches and with the third party in the House. History will not be kind to those who approve of this illiberal power grab. That is not who we are as Canadians. Many of the folks who are protesting at different places across Canada, who are raising their voices, are tired. We are all tired of COVID. They wanted a plan. They wanted to know how far until we get to that off-ramp because many of them, including those I have met and spoken to in front of this place, are vaccinated. Some of them are not. They just want to know when it is going to be over. We gave the government an opportunity to present a plan. We asked for it a year ago. We did it again in the last week. The government refused to provide a plan. Meanwhile, those who are following the science, science presented by people like Dr. Moore in Ontario, have signalled when the COVID measures will end in the jurisdictions that they are responsible for. Before these folks arrived in Ottawa or at those other locations in Canada, Dr. Tam, representing the Public Health Agency of Canada, said that the government needed a new plan. We have not heard that from the government, because this is a great opportunity to pit neighbour against neighbour, family member against family member. It is an opportunity this Prime Minister never misses. We are wide awake this morning. We have seen what the government has tried to do and we are here to say that it is not acceptable. It is not our Canada. Folks who want to protest absolutely have the right to do that. Folks who want to use their right to freedom of expression absolutely have a right to do that, and there is a place for that on the lawn of Parliament Hill. The folks who are moved through the public order measures out front, or who have moved on days ago after visiting the seat of our democracy, need to come to the appropriate places to protest, which are the lawns of their city halls and provincial legislatures and the lawn of Parliament Hill, and exercise their rights, balanced with the responsibility of doing so in a lawful way. That is what Canadians do. They do not try to effect extraordinary measures that subvert the regular rule of law and the charter rights that Canadians hold sacred. This Prime Minister knows better. His ministers know better and the back benches know better. Let us find out, when we vote on this, if they are prepared to tell Canadians that this really is a country that respects the rule of law, a liberal democracy. Let us find out what Canada really stands for.

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Mrs. Brenda Shanahan (Châteauguay—Lacolle, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 8:18:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear the member opposite, with whom I served on the ethics committee, talking about a Liberal democracy. There are different tactics that can be used to discredit one's adversary. There is discrediting someone with a constant barrage of insults and slurs. There is distraction, deflection or “whataboutism”. All of these are used to divide people. Which tactic is he using today?

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Feb/19/22 8:19:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I talk about a Liberal democracy because the government of this country is represented by the illiberal party of Canada, it would appear. The tactic I am using today is reminding the government of the foundation of our democracy, which is the rights of Canadians. When citizens are afraid of their government, and that is the goal the government seeks, they have got it backwards. The government should be afraid of its citizens because our citizens hold the power. That is the key to freedom.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

Feb/19/22 8:20:02 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes for his comments. I would like to ask him a simple question. Why was the Quebec government able to control and resolve a similar situation in two days, without using the Emergencies Act?

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Feb/19/22 8:20:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the premier of Quebec was able to effect that result in the same way that Toronto was able to effect the same result as they did in Montreal or in Quebec City, which was by using the existing laws of the local jurisdiction and using their existing resources. That is exactly what could be done here in Ottawa. It is what was done in Windsor, it is what was done in Coutts and it is what is being done elsewhere. We are seeing the government try to confuse Canadians and conflate a couple of issues so it can make an unjust grab at power.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Feb/19/22 8:21:17 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things I really hope we are going to get out of this is a full inquiry into the complete breakdown of law in Ottawa that allowed this thing to metastasize, and the fact that dark money was used from America and the Cayman Islands. These issues have to be fully investigated. I know the interim Leader of the Opposition thought this was a real opportunity to let this thing drag on, and said day after day to go out, meet and talk with the leaders. Chris Barber is a vicious racist who likes truckers as long as they are white. Tamara Lich is a woman who wants to break up our country. I know some of the Conservatives do not have a problem with that. Pat King is a man who talks openly about shooting the Prime Minister of the country. I have never, ever heard a single Conservative stand up and say that those views are fundamentally wrong. There is a problem in our nation when we decide that it is okay to burn down the house of democracy to watch the Prime Minister jump out the window, or to support people who talk about killing the Prime Minister. I want to hear the member condemn that language.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Feb/19/22 8:22:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I condemn it. I also condemn the member opposite's party supporting this grab at power and propping up its coalition partners in the Liberal Party. I am not sure what rationale was given behind closed doors, because we have not heard the rationale. We have laid out very clearly that the laws of local jurisdiction are effective enough. Instead, the government looks to settle scores with its political foes by using an unprecedented power grab, and it is unacceptable.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/19/22 8:23:04 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I feel that the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes may, in rewatching his remarks, regret any sense of equivalency between condemning people calling for the killing of our Prime Minister and the decision made by the NDP to vote in favour of the declaration. The hon. member said that the declaration would allow the freezing of bank accounts for people the government does not agree with. I think I have this right. I am not sure how I am going to vote on this. I really want clarity around what the thresholds are for the government interfering in the bank accounts of anyone. I want to see that clarity. I do not think it is right to mislead Canadians into thinking that this law would allow the threshold that, if someone dislikes or disagrees with someone else, their bank accounts would be frozen. Would the member like to clarify this?

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Feb/19/22 8:24:02 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to the member opposite, the following is a question from Evan Solomon, the host of CTV's Power Play, to the Minister of Justice: A lot of folks said, “I just don’t like your vaccine mandates and I donated to this, now it’s illegal, should I be worried that the bank can freeze my account?” The Minister of Justice responded: If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried. If someone supports Donald Trump, the government is coming after them. That is unacceptable in a Liberal democracy.

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Mr. Adam Chambers (Simcoe North, CPC)

Feb/19/22 8:24:55 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is discomforting to stand here today. It is a sad and dark time for our country. Unfortunately, this does not overstate current events. I have watched with concern the lawlessness paralyzing Ottawa and key border crossings in Ontario and other provinces. Never before has the Emergencies Act been invoked. It has sat on the shelf during some quite challenging moments in our country. Viewed as a last resort, this act gives the federal government enhanced powers in times of crisis. Its justification and intricacies of procedures are being worked through the House for the first time. There is no precedent. Instead, we are making precedent. The arguments we make, the evidence we evaluate and the tone we take will be judged by future generations. Everyone has the right to peacefully protest any government policies. This is a fundamental freedom in a democracy. It protects the rights of individuals to express their views, even when those views are not shared by everyone. While these protests are a fundamental part of democracy, so too is the rule of law. We cannot allow prolonged blockades or barriers that paralyze trade corridors, pipelines, railways, supply routes, ports or urban cores at any time. We are not at liberty to decide which laws should apply in some situations but not others. In a rule-of-law country, consistency matters. It is the foundation upon which legal precedent is built. People who join protests to encourage violence or the overthrow of government undermine democracy, but let us be very clear. Not everyone who has participated in these protests is looking to overthrow the government. Many are looking just to be heard, peacefully. To them I say that we hear them. I hear them. Somewhere along the way, we entered a state of lawlessness, but the answer to lawlessness cannot be more lawlessness. The government is asking us to suspend certain laws to deal with those breaking others. We are being asked to undermine democratic principles to address some who wish to see democracy itself undermined. The threshold for invoking the act is supposed to be high, and quite rightly. This is a temporary law that will give the government awesome and extraordinary powers: powers to freeze assets with no recourse, and to compel citizens to act contrary to their own interests in favour of the state's. In the House, just days ago, the Prime Minister presented a timeline. He held a cabinet meeting on Sunday and a caucus meeting on Monday, followed by a meeting with premiers and finally a press conference on Monday afternoon. Why did it take days for the Prime Minister to address the House, and what evidence has he presented? It is difficult to determine whether the government is justified without adequate information. There were no briefings. No secret intelligence has been shared. Whether it is incompetence or malfeasance is truly regrettable. Why was the committee not struck immediately? Is there evidence pointing to significantly compromised public safety or impending danger? Should that not have been made immediately available to members, or at least a subset representing all parties? If we wanted to take the politics out of this, information would have been made immediately available. Otherwise, a conclusion might be that this was politics. Why do ministers of the Crown opt first to give details to media before the House? Ministers have held press conferences and conducted interviews implying that terrorists are at the steps of Parliament, but have offered the House no evidence. Is it then surprising that Canadians are losing faith in our public institutions? Perhaps it is because the Prime Minister and the government have shown the House and institution little respect. After all, at the beginning of the pandemic, the government proposed giving itself unlimited spending powers for almost two years without the oversight of Parliament. The same government prorogued Parliament to frustrate a committee investigation. To this day, we still have not seen the Winnipeg lab documents that members of the House have asked the government to provide. Forgive me for being skeptical that this move is justified without seeing the evidence. We must not understate the impact of the ability for individuals to have their bank accounts frozen. This will not just be a 30-day impact. It could affect their ability to receive financial services for 30 years or more. Individuals whose relationship with the state has already been strained, if not completely severed, will be further ostracized from broader society. This power must be used sparingly, if at all, and the government has provided very little detail on how it intends to use this power. For example, what is the process through which individuals will be identified? Will these powers be confined to protest organizers, or will they apply to anyone who has shown up to Parliament Hill or donated to the cause, no matter how large or small the amount? What recourse, if any, do individuals have against financial institutions if these powers have been mistakenly or unevenly applied? These powers are not merely incidental. They should not be dismissed, downplayed or underestimated. I approach every decision with an open mind, but the consequences for individuals are too great, and the precedent this sets is too monumental to waive away legitimate questions or concerns. We are setting a dangerous precedent. We should be very careful before we use the awesome power of the state. That this moment is the seminal moment upon which we would decide to invoke a never-before-used act seems disproportional, when there are other actions that the government could have taken. We should be very careful about normalizing the use of a blunt tool in circumstances such as these. If we must consider using the Emergencies Act every time there's a protest that lasts over a certain period of time, we have much bigger problems. In many ways, that the government has resorted to invoking this act is an indictment of its overall handling of the situation. I am therefore left with no reason but to impress upon my colleagues that the threshold has not been met, and as a matter of law, If I am wrong, the threshold has been seen to be met by a court that the government is not justified in its use of the act. While the Emergencies Act is the question before the House today, we should reflect on what has led us here and the lessons we may draw for the future. The hallmark of any democracy is the ability to have reasonable debates with each other about how society functions, but somewhere along the way, we have lost the ability to listen to each other or to consider the perspectives of our neighbours. We are too quick to call something black or white and too quick to demand that each other pick a side. Pro or against, right or left, we leave little room for nuance, reflection or compromise anymore. It should be okay to disagree. I am sympathetic to those who are frustrated with the pandemic and the government's response. Many of us are frustrated. We are frustrated with overly punitive travel restrictions and redundant and confusing testing requirements, and we are worried about losing livelihoods because of making a medical decision. We have seen rules that seem more often grounded in politics than in science. This has left deep divisions in society that will take some time to heal. It has been a long two years, and there are no clean hands in this battle of rhetoric. It is therefore up to all of us to be part of the solution. I am left to consider whether I could have been quicker to call out abhorrent behaviour, or how I could have shown greater empathy to my neighbours. What can I do now to be a positive actor inside and outside of the House? The tone must start from the top. The Prime Minister must be hopeful, because Canadians need to see a hopeful way ahead. Continued hyperpoliticization will only make the situation worse. It is not leadership when a prime minister discounts and dismisses the views of millions of Canadians with whom he disagrees. It stigmatizes, sows division and escalates. We must show empathy over judgment, promote dialogue over silence and prefer persuasion over coercion. We must be looking for opportunities to de-escalate. We need to bring people closer instead of pushing them further away. Great leaders possess the capability of self-reflection. We must acknowledge the possibility that people descended on our nation's capital, or crowded overpasses across the country, in part because of their frustration with being demeaned and marginalized for political gain. It suggests that self-reflection is required. In 2013, the Prime Minister, as the leader of the opposition, said, “The role of the prime minister is to build a stronger country, not make it easier to break apart.” This is a time for leadership. This is the prime minister I would like to see show up for work. Canadians are depending on him.

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 8:34:20 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on the tone of his comments today. It would be a much better reflection on all of us if we continued to seek out the things that we can agree on and tried to solve some of these problems at the end of the day, not make them worse. Canadians are watching this debate. I watched events yesterday, as many of us did. With all of what I heard my colleague say, I heard interim chief Steve Bell, other former police chiefs and RCMP leaders say clearly that they could not have done what they did yesterday, which is only part of resolving this issue, without the Emergencies Act. Did the member not hear the same things that I heard yesterday? Does he not agree that this is an important piece of legislation for all of us to support and move forward?

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Mr. Adam Chambers

Feb/19/22 8:35:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the same press conference yesterday, and what I heard the chief of police say was that it was helpful to have the emergency measures act. I know we like to debate semantics a lot in this House, and I am sure we will for the rest of today and into tomorrow, but something that helps to accomplish something is different from something being absolutely necessary to use. I think that is a significant difference. We will get to the bottom of this. I am sure there will be an inquiry and lots of time to play armchair quarterback, but that is what I heard when listening to the chief of police's response yesterday.

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Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

Feb/19/22 8:35:58 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank my hon. colleague from Simcoe North for his remarks. We may have just heard the most constructive and balanced speech we will hear in this debate. I find this very comforting, and it gives me confidence for the future. I offer my sincere congratulations to my hon. colleague. I would like to hear more from my colleague. Basically, this is about our democracy and the message we are sending to Canadians. I wonder if my colleague could talk about how we should be communicating with Canadians and what message we want to send, particularly through the media. Is the government being selective in that regard? In the current context, is the government using the media, the people and the army for political purposes?

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Mr. Adam Chambers

Feb/19/22 8:36:48 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I say thank you to the hon. member and I look forward to the day when I can stand in this House and respond in the member's first language of French. I hope to be able to do that by the time I leave this place. It is very important for all Canadians to recognize that we have become very polarized in the media. My hon. colleague brought up the media. We can choose which views to insulate ourselves with, but I think it is important for all of us to keep an open mind. At the end of the day, the question is whether the government is justified in using and bringing down the awesome power of the state when perhaps it was possible to use other means. We saw resolutions at other border crossings that had been blocked without the use of the Emergencies Act, and I think the question we must ask ourselves is whether this response is proportional. Is the punishment proportional?

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Feb/19/22 8:38:02 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am good friends with Bruce Stanton, as are many members of Parliament, who was the exceptional member of Parliament for Simcoe North. I would like to say, through you, to the current member for Simcoe North that his speech today displayed the same high level of parliamentarianship that we have come to expect from Simcoe North, and I am happy to say that it continues. I think the member would acknowledge that the people of Ottawa have suffered enormously through this occupation. We have seen thousands of jobs eliminated, small businesses close and permanent injury caused to the residents of downtown Ottawa. The pollution, noise and intimidation have been unbelievable. Given that, there is an importance for parliamentarians to respond. As he said, we have to ensure that our neighbours are taken care of. There have been a couple of proclamations under the Emergencies Act. As one of our colleagues mentioned, the police have said that the measures that were put in place through those two sets of regulations have made a real difference with respect to additional people not coming to the Hill. So far, we have escaped serious injury. Would the member agree with me that the fact that thousands of people were unable to join the call of the convoy leaders to join them on Parliament Hill this weekend has potentially saved lives and certainly saved people from—

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/19/22 8:39:39 a.m.
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The hon. member for Simcoe North may give a short answer.

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Simcoe
North

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