44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 9:17:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I see that tempers are flaring. I will change my question because I want us to get back to the debate.
We are talking about the Emergencies Act, an act that has never been invoked since it was passed in 1988. There is a reason for that. I think that there are other tools that could have been used before we got to this point, which brings me back to my question.
Two years ago, the Wet’suwet’en were protesting the Coastal GasLink project. It did not take long before the RCMP was sent in. There was a court injunction. Clearly, other tools could have been used. There was no need for the Emergencies Act.
What does my colleague think about that?
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- Feb/20/22 9:19:20 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I love the fact that the NDP is trying to paint itself out of the corner it put itself in by supporting the Emergencies Act, when their party was founded on protecting the civil liberties of Canadians. Its members are going against the very foundation of their party by trying to make this whole issue about white supremacy.
My constituents who live around Coutts and were down there are certainly not armed thugs and white supremacists. Did a group infiltrate that movement? Absolutely. Did they do everything they possibly could to purge it? Absolutely. This is a ridiculous argument by the NDP trying to defend the indefensible, which is supporting the Emergencies Act.
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- Feb/20/22 9:21:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a deep honour to stand in this place and represent the people of Edmonton Strathcona.
Today we gather to debate the enactment and bringing forward of the Emergencies Act. It is the enactment of legislation that has never been used before. I deeply feel the gravity and the responsibility of the work that we are doing in this place. I recognize the serious situation that we as parliamentarians, indeed we as Canadians, find ourselves at this pivotal time. I hope that every member in this place has spent time over the past several weeks thinking about our role as leaders in this country and the responsibility we have to make difficult decisions for the benefit of our constituents and for the benefit of Canada.
Before I share my thoughts on the implementation of the Emergencies Act, I want to take a moment, if I can, to acknowledge the staff and the security working on the Hill today. I want to thank all of those who have had to walk across a blockade to get to work. I want to thank all of those who are not spending the Family Day long weekend with their families because they are helping us in the House today, as well as the pages, as my colleague reminded me.
I want to thank the law enforcement officers as well. I walked home from this place last night in the dark, protected by the police officers who held the line so that I could get to my apartment in Centretown, the police who have put themselves at risk today and for the last several days to make the city safe again for the people in Ottawa. I want to thank them.
Finally, I want to thank the journalists, who, in frigid temperatures for days on end, have brought information to Canadians. They have been sworn at. They have been spat at. They have been assaulted. They have been threatened. They have stood on the streets of Ottawa to tell this story every day. That is a cornerstone of our democracy and every Canadian should be thankful that we have members of an independent media that will tell the story and share the information that needs to be shared with Canadians.
Where we find ourselves as a nation is heartbreaking. What we have collectively witnessed over the past three weeks makes it crystal clear just how crucial it is that we do what we can to restore order in our country and to clear our borders of blockades and the illegal siege of Ottawa and the threats and intimidation directed at those who live and work here.
More importantly, as parliamentarians we need to make sure that this cannot happen again. I want to be very clear. I am not happy with where we find ourselves. I am angry that our country has come to this. The deep failures of our municipal and provincial governments and, yes, the failures of our federal government, have put us in a position where we are required to use extraordinary actions to go forward. Today and every day, I use my voice and I use my role in this place, in this chamber, to fix the issues that have led to the use of the Emergencies Act. I will use my role so that it never has to be used again.
We need to take a close look at policing in this country. We have seen obvious, systemic racism across the police force on an almost daily basis. There are far too many examples of unnecessary and excessive uses of force directed at Black, indigenous and racialized individuals and against the unhoused and others who are living in poverty. We have seen vicious attacks on these individuals' bodies and belongings, yet we know that the RCMP can exhibit incredible care and restraint. We have seen it. We saw it demonstrated in Ottawa, in Windsor, in Emerson and in Coutts. We saw incredible restraint and a refusal to act from our police forces play out, not over minutes and hours but over days and weeks.
As I stand in this place, I want us all to try to imagine how it must feel to be an indigenous land defender and watch white blockade members in Coutts, Alberta hug the RCMP. I want us to think about how it must feel for an unhoused person in Toronto who has been brutalized by police to watch the Ottawa police employ unbelievable gentleness with the illegal occupation in Ottawa.
In Alberta, we have a law that I deeply dislike. It was the very first law that was put in place under Premier Kenney: Bill 1, his first legislation. It was so that blockades could not stop our major infrastructure. It was to protect our major infrastructure from being clogged up. However, that law has not been enacted. If we ever needed something that proved to us that Bill 1 was never intended to be used against white people, that it was never intended to be used against the premier's friends, this is proof. That legislation was put in place to hurt indigenous people. It was put in place to stop environmentalists. It was never intended to be used against Jason Kenney's friends, who have shown who they are, who have shown that they are white supremacists, who have shown that they have attempted murder. This is an armed insurrection on the border in our country, and the legislation was not used.
We also need to fully examine and strengthen our federal hate crime legislation to make sure that it can address the white supremacist and neo-Nazi extremism that is threatening our society.
I was happy to second the bill put forward by my dear friend, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, to ban symbols of hate, symbols like swastikas and Confederate flags, symbols we have seen in our nation's capital during the illegal occupation. However, we cannot only ban the symbols of hate; we must counter the radicalization of Canadians that is happening online and over our public airwaves, like the trash radio that radicalized the man who killed six worshippers at the Quebec City mosque, like the online hate that radicalized one of the men arrested in Coutts, Alberta, who was accused of participating in a plot to murder an RCMP officer. According to his father, this man was radicalized online by a far-right extremist group known as Diagolon, a group that seeks to overthrow our government through violence.
The Liberal government has promised to table legislation to stop online hate, and it has failed, as of yet, to act on that. In fact, we see misinformation on our radio waves; we see Russian misinformation happening with CRTC licensing. This is something we can and need to fix now. We have to review and update our money laundering laws to combat the funding mechanisms that fund hate groups and that hate groups use to bankroll their activities. We need ongoing measures to prevent the funding of hate groups, not Emergencies Act legislation. We need ongoing support for that.
As my friend, the member for Hamilton Centre, said yesterday, none of this is new. None of this is things that we have not heard before. We have known that these are things that have to be fixed, and we have not done it. We find ourselves in an emergency situation because those steps have not been taken.
COVID has been incredibly hard for all of us. We have all had to deal with the lockdowns, the restrictions, the protections put in place for years. It has been a challenge.
I am a mother. I have watched my children be challenged and I have seen the things they have missed. I am a daughter, and I have elderly parents whom I worry about every day. I have seen people in our community lose loved ones, and I have seen them lose livelihoods. I have seen the impacts of the opioid addiction crisis, the unsafe drug supply crisis in my province.
However, we do not end pandemics with illegal blockades. We do not end pandemics with sieges and occupations. Viruses do not care if we are done with them; they are not done with us. That is not how it works. The only way to end a pandemic is through public health measures that are based on science. If we allow bullies to intimidate us out of protecting public health, as we have seen in Alberta, we are surrendering to injustice. We are allowing those with the strongest voices, the largest vehicles, the loudest horns to rule. We are capitulating to mob rule, and we are sacrificing our democracy and our own values.
The speaker before me made it sound like this is not what is happening in Alberta. However, we are seeing the worst of it in Alberta. Thirteen armed men are directing our public health policy in Alberta. Think about that for a moment.
Today, we are debating the Emergencies Act to deal with illegal activities that the province and the police forces have not had the will to address, but the government must also address the underlying cause of the alienation that many people feel in our country.
Over the past two decades, we have seen the wealth and well-being of ordinary Canadians decline, while wealth and power have accumulated to the top 1% in our country, the billionaire class. Costs continue to rise. Electricity and heating costs, grocery costs and housing costs are all rising, while incomes are staying stagnant. The urge to lower taxes that has obsessed our governments over the past 20 years may, on the surface, look like a solution, but upon closer examination, it actually contributed to the problems we are facing. Taxes for the wealthy corporations have been slashed dramatically, while the tax burden has shifted to low- and middle-income Canadians. It is not fair, and it is not working.
We have a housing crisis in this country. We have an opioid poisoning crisis in this country. One in 10 Canadians lives in poverty, and more than half of those are seniors. We have more Canadians working more hours with less job security than we have seen since the 1970s. This is not a sustainable plan. This is not a sustainable way for our country to go forward. When a crisis comes along, when a global pandemic threatens the life and livelihood of nearly every Canadian, we should not be surprised that some Canadians start to feel alienated and left out. We should not be surprised that they turn to false prophets and misinformation and turn on those who govern.
In the just over two years that I have been sitting as a member in the House, it is true that we have worked together through this pandemic, but we have not worked together to address the underlying issues, the root causes of the alienation and dissatisfaction that so many Canadians feel now and the sense of hopelessness that pervades.
We do not know when this pandemic will end. No one in this House knows when this pandemic will end. We do not know how many times the virus will mutate. We do not know how many variants still await us or how many waves we may face. Yet, the government has been so anxious to cancel COVID support programs and so hesitant to address the underlying economic and social problems that the pandemic has laid bare and that have led to the sense of hopelessness so many Canadians feel.
We have so much work to do here, together, to create a better, fairer and more just Canada.
We know why we are here today. Ottawa has been under siege. Our borders have been blockaded. Our democracy has been threatened. We have witnessed some of the greatest failures of leadership our country has ever seen. Where was the coordination between the federal government, the province and the City of Ottawa? Why did it take so long for the Prime Minister to act?
So-called leaders, like Doug Ford and Jason Kenney, have completely failed their provinces. They have failed to act, they have failed to lead and they have failed to protect their citizens. They have failed to protect jobs and the economy. They have failed to protect health care workers. They have failed to even address the racism and violence that undermine our democracy.
A government member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in my province joined the illegal blockade at Coutts. Another Conservative MLA in Alberta actually urged police officers not to follow the orders of their superiors. They have encouraged lawlessness. They have taken selfies with extremist leaders.
Imagine what it feels like to be a racialized Canadian and to see the Conservative member of Parliament for Cypress Hills—Grasslands posing with Pat King, proclaiming his support for Pat King, the notorious leader of the convoy, the famous racist, the anti-Semitic and Islamophobic person who told us this thing would not end until bullets start flying.
Imagine what it feels like for people who live and work in Ottawa to not be able to go to their job, not be able to make an income, and to see the MP for Carleton handing out coffee and donuts to those who torment them.
Canadians have had enough of Conservatives playing footsie with radical extremists, with racists like Pat King and violent hate organizations like Diagolon. Canadians are fed up with the mob mentality of the Conservatives, and I would ask the Conservatives to apologize in this House.
I accept the profound responsibility that the Emergencies Act entails. I will do everything I can, alongside my colleagues in this House, to ensure that the government does not abuse the powers granted to it by this act. We and other parties in the House have the power to stop the emergency declaration should that become necessary. We will not hesitate to use that power if the government exceeds the authority necessary to deal with this emergency.
My Canada is filled with kind, caring, intelligent people who care for their community. My Canada has frontline workers, doctors, nurses and health care workers who have literally risked their lives for years to protect us. My Canada has teachers who have worked every day despite all the challenges COVID-19 has thrown at them.
However, it is also very important that we acknowledge and recognize that my Canada also has racists. It also has anti-Semites. It has violent, hateful people, and until we acknowledge that part of our Canada, we will not be able to move forward.
We have work to do in this country, and that task belongs to all of us. We need to work together, even when we disagree, to heal this country. I honestly believe that every member in this place wants a stronger, more resilient Canada.
Despite our differences and the disagreements we have on how to move forward, we must, as Canadians, work together. It is the only way to protect our democracy. It is the only way to protect our freedom.
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- Feb/20/22 9:43:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have two questions. First of all, is the member at all concerned that today's top bar for using the Emergencies Act will become the threshold going forward, that a future government could look upon other protesters or other challenges and invoke the Emergencies Act?
Second, has the member, and other members of the NDP, considered denying the government's use of the motion on Monday, since it will already have been in effect and will have permitted the government to do what had had to be done, but saying that it could go no further and that it needs to end on Monday?
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- Feb/20/22 9:44:29 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member's question is very thoughtful. It is something that I have spent, and I hope everybody has spent, an awful lot of time on. I have deep concerns about using the Emergencies Act because of the precedent it might set. Like I said in my speech, there are steps that we need to take as parliamentarians to ensure that some of the things that are happening in our country will not be allowed to happen again, and that there is a transparent inquiry. We need a public, open inquiry to look at the failures in getting to this place, where we need to put this act in place.
The second question was whether or not we would consider that it has been place long enough and whether or not during the vote tomorrow we would reconsider our support for that. On my part, I will consider that non-stop. As parliamentarians, we have to look at how the act is being used. If it is supported on Monday, it would be enacted for 30 days, but it can be stopped at any time. It can be stopped sooner than that. Parliamentarians, particularly in a minority government, have the ability to stop the Emergencies Act if we need to.
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- Feb/20/22 9:47:07 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I have worked very closely on the ALS caucus. I know her to be an extremely strong member of Parliament.
What I would say, in terms of the policing, is that it was brought forward. It was made very clear by the Ottawa Police Service that they required that additional support from the Emergencies Act. They have told parliamentarians that it was necessary for them to do what they have done.
When I walked to work this morning, it was a very different scenario than it was prior to Monday, when the Emergencies Act was enacted. To say that the act has worked very well, my walk today made it appear so.
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- Feb/20/22 9:49:07 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to give a shout-out to Wyatt Sharpe. He is an incredible young man and an incredible journalist, who is part of the independent media that shares his voice. To be so accomplished so young is quite remarkable.
In terms of this being a minority government and having those additional powers that a minority Parliament gives us, it is true, but it also brings up the concerns that I have about the Emergencies Act being used in a situation where we do not have a minority government in place.
Yes, right now, there is the power of other parliamentarians from the Bloc, the Conservatives and the NDP to ensure that the government does not overstep or overreach. My deep worry, and this is something that I have thought an awful lot about, is what happens if we have a government that is not a minority government.
What will that look like? How do we prevent there being an overreach in that situation?
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- Feb/20/22 9:50:14 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned at the end that she is worried that this may set the bar low and that the precedent has now been set for when the Emergencies Act can be invoked.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is taking the federal government to court, stating, “the thresholds set out in the Emergencies Act, the legal requirements put in place to safeguard our democratic processes, have not been met.”
That is the non-partisan Civil Liberties Association. It has been very clear, in taking the federal government to court, that the legal processes have not been met.
If the member is worried about a future government and whether we have set the bar too low, why would she support the Emergencies Act? Clearly, the critical points have not been met. She is worried about future governments taking advantage of this precedent being set today.
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- Feb/20/22 9:52:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like the previous speech that was given, my colleague acknowledge Wyatt Sharpe. I want to also take the time to acknowledge such a bright young man who is doing great work and pursuing a path in journalism at such a young age and so engaged in politics.
Today’s debate is undoubtedly one the most important debates that I have had the opportunity to participate in since I was elected by the people of Whitby in 2019. The invocation of the Emergencies Act is not to be taken lightly. I do not believe our government has taken it lightly.
In preparation for this debate, I have taken the time to review documents, to reflect deeply on this moment, the situation our country is facing, and the special temporary measures our government has proposed to aid in the enforcement of the law and what is the best course of action. I will say that I have been following the events that have been unfolding across Canada. It has been deeply disturbing to watch as all of this unfolds in our great country. I have been following it closely over the last weeks and I think I really have a lot of the information that I need to make these judgments.
To my mind, the debate today is about whether the invocation of the Emergencies Act is necessary and justified. I believe what we have seen happening does meet the threshold or criteria. More specifically, I will argue that based on reasonable grounds a public order emergency does exist and has existed, that the public order emergency necessitates the taking of special temporary measures that the government has proposed and that these are measures that are necessary because they could not be effectively dealt with by provinces and territories; that the proposed temporary measures are reasonable and proportionate in how they may limit the rights of citizens, and that the consultation, as required in section 25, was indeed carried out sufficiently. An acknowledgement was made by multiple jurisdictions that the current emergency could not be dealt with within their capacity or authority.
I want to say a few words about a public order emergency. The act defines a national emergency as:
an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
(b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada
With regard to a “urgent, temporary and critical situation...that...seriously endangers the health and safety of Canadians”, I think we can all agree that what we have seen across Canada was clearly escalating over time and seriously endangered the health and safety of Canadians. I will say why.
What we saw was a coordinated attempt. It was not an isolated incident or a multiple autonomous isolated incidents. It was a coordinated attempt to illegally occupy Ottawa. There have been attempts to occupy other major cities by the same group, which was centrally organized and had a stated intent to overthrow a democratically elected government. I would add that we should remember that that government was engaged in implementing platform commitments it was elected on. I think that is really important here.
These individuals unfortunately used large transport trucks to purposely disrupt the flow of traffic, impede the progress of other citizens and entrenched themselves in our capital city over weeks. These individuals and their supporters also said that they would not leave until their demands were met. In my books, that is extortion. It is coercion for the purpose of achieving a political and ideological objective. That is not okay in a democracy. It is completely unacceptable.
Certainly, the people of downtown Ottawa experienced a real endangerment to their health and safety. There is no doubt about that in my mind. I think we could talk to almost any individual who lives within the downtown core and they would say that they have been terrorized. I do not think anyone can deny that.
Many people in downtown Ottawa were harassed, from shop owners to workers, families and children. I have heard that people just walking down the street, who happened to be wearing a mask, were harassed. Businesses have been closed and shuttered for quite some time, and we know the Rideau Centre has been closed for weeks.
Schools and vaccine clinics were closed. We saw parties on the streets and fireworks, and horns honked all night long. We saw thefts and attempted arson. We saw the desecration of monuments to our national heroes, and we saw open displays of symbols of racism, hate and white supremacy.
We also saw the targeting of other essential infrastructure, including overwhelming 911 lines, which definitely impacted people's ability to access emergency services in a moment of crisis. We saw the planning for targeting, or potential targeting, of the international airport in Ottawa and even local schools.
These are acts of intimidation. We cannot call them anything else. This is not a peaceful protest. They are acts of intimidation for a political and ideological aim or purpose. These individuals were warned of the consequences of their illegal activity over and over again. Instead of discontinuing that behaviour, they persisted.
This is why I do not have much sympathy for the individuals who are performing these illegal blockades at this point, although I understand that we all need to listen to some of the concerns they express. I understand that. I do not paint them with a broad brush, but at the same time, the illegal activity and blockades that are impeding other people's rights and freedoms are really a significant concern to the health and safety of Canadians.
This has had such a prolonged and severe negative impact on the residents of downtown Ottawa that they decided to organize counterprotests to put an end to the occupation of their city. This is a recipe for disaster, in my book. When people's confidence in the rule of law has been so diminished that they decide to take matters into their own hands, we have got a major problem in this country. We cannot allow this to persist.
We know that participants were organized and became more entrenched. They set up their own sites, they stored supplies centrally and they coordinated through various communication channels. This continued lawlessness, coupled with the unfortunate inability, originally, to enforce the rule of law by the Ottawa police, contributed to the ongoing legitimization of this activity. Consequently, going unchecked, it spread fairly quickly. What we have seen is a spread.
This was encouraged and emboldened by the Conservative Party of Canada, which is utterly and completely shameful, in my book. They were out there serving coffee, taking selfies and pictures with these individuals and basically encouraging them.
What then spread throughout Canada at many different sites was an attempt to block ports of entry, including in Windsor, Ontario, Coutts, Alberta, and Emerson, Manitoba. The list goes on. Many others threats cropped up, which were real, including in Sarnia, Ontario, Fort Erie, Ontario, Surrey, B.C., and others. Just yesterday, there was another protest in Surrey, B.C.
This establishes that the emergency is national in nature. It is not limited to one area or jurisdiction, and it is not over yet. We know that the blockade at just one border crossing, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, would interrupt over $390 million in trade per day. This had the immediate effect of causing a loss of wages and temporary layoffs for workers, as well as revenue losses for businesses. It crippled essential supply chains that provide fuel, food and health supplies, not to mention increasing the inflationary pressures that our opposition has been ranting and raving about in the House of Commons for weeks. It damaged the reputation of Canada as a reliable trade partner, affecting foreign investor confidence. The list goes on.
We all know how closely integrated the economies of Canada and the U.S. are, and how important critical infrastructure and trade routes are to ensuring the flow of essential goods and services. This is all essential to the health and security of all Canadians, which is part of the definition of a national emergency.
Seeing these blockades multiply, target our border crossings and purposely disrupt essential trade is most certainly a critical and urgent situation that endangers the health and safety of Canadians, again constituting a national emergency. I can add the fact that at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta there was a seizure of guns, body armour and ammunition, and that arrests were made and charges laid by the RCMP for conspiracy to commit murder. This also presents a threat to the security of Canada through “acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political or ideological objective”. These individuals, who are part of an extremist group called “Diagolon”, have a political and ideological motivation, and they were willing to use lethal force to carry out their agenda.
Errol Mendes, professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa, said it well. He said:
If you look at what's happened not just in Ottawa but at the Ambassador Bridge and Coutts, Alta. and in B.C., essentially we have a national emergency.
There were threats and credible intelligence that individuals coordinating all of this were also planning to target railway lines, airports and even schools. Just yesterday, we saw another attempted blockade in Surrey, as I have already mentioned, which again demonstrates that this emergency is not over yet.
We also need to consider the flow of funding into crowdfunding platforms to support all of this illegal activity. Hacked data from GiveSendGo that was released showed that 55.7% of the over 92,000 donations made to this so-called “freedom convoy” were made by donors in the U.S., compared with 39% from Canada. This was predominantly foreign-funded. The illegal occupation of our capital city by a group of centrally coordinated individuals who were terrorizing the citizens of Ottawa for three weeks with the stated intent of overthrowing the government, and the targeting of our borders through illegal blockades spreading through the country with far-right extremist elements conspiring in some cases to commit murder, and the disruption of the essential supply chains that Canadians rely on, in fact had the majority of their funding from foreign sources.
Now, I think I am a pretty reasonable person in all of my dealings. I really believe in what I call the principle of sufficient reason. I do not know how any rational judge or person could see what I have just described as anything other than what it is, which is most certainly a public order emergency. I believe that wholeheartedly. This is a crisis that we are in, and it is appropriate to consider the Emergencies Act as a potential way to respond to such a crisis. When we look at the specific temporary measures that have been proposed, I think we need to determine whether those are actually needed, whether they are justified, whether they are reasonable and proportionate and whether they could not be used by any other level of authority in our country. If we look at those proposed measures, and there are five that I would like to talk about, I would maintain that they could not be enacted or used under any other law in our country.
On prohibiting any “public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace”, we have seen that this allows for areas such as downtown Ottawa to be designated as areas where public assembly is prohibited. This can be used for ports of entry and other critical infrastructure. To my knowledge, there is no other way to do that within provincial or municipal jurisdiction. What we have seen occur in Ottawa over the past few days, although it is certainly not something I ever thought I would see in our country, is in my view certainly necessary. We have seen the police and law enforcement professionals collaborate on a level I have never seen before in my lifetime. They have professionally and methodically, with the least amount of force possible, moved people out of downtown Ottawa. This has worked.
The other thing I want to talk about is the need to remove the transport trucks that are being used to create these illegal blockades. Tow truck companies have refused to assist in this matter, some of them because of threats they may have experienced or because of concerns that they would experience those threats, and some of them maybe for ideological purposes. They may not want to support the removal of some of these blockades, and that is fine. The point is that Ontario's Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act authorizes persons to provide assistance, but does not compel them to do so. The Emergencies Act is unique, in that it allows for the compelling of the provision of those services, which are surely needed to get these blockades to come to an end. The tool that makes the difference there is the ability to compel.
Also, RCMP and other law enforcement professionals could be sworn in and allowed to enforce laws at the local level, which we have seen supplement the efforts of the Ottawa police over the past couple of days. These have certainly been effective in mobilizing quickly and putting the blockades and the occupation of Ottawa to an end quite quickly.
Second to last, I want to talk about the shutdown of the flow of funds to the illegal blockades. My understanding is that requiring a comprehensive list of financial service providers to determine whether any property in their possession or control belonged to protesters participating in illegal blockades, and to cease dealing with those protesters, could not be done in any other way. Because of the flow of funds across jurisdictions and the specific nature of our financial industry, this could not be done unless we had an emergency economic measures order as a part of this whole package of tools.
The last tool I will mention is the cancellation of insurance for vehicles participating in illegal blockades. This could not be done without the Emergencies Act, because provincial governments cannot cancel insurance outside of their own jurisdiction. When we have transport trucks crossing the country to come and create illegal blockades in one of our cities, the hands of the city and the province are tied with regard to cancelling the insurance of those vehicles, at least for the time that they are participating in an illegal activity.
These specific measures are proportionate and reasonable. They allow for new essential tools that will certainly enhance our law enforcement services and restore the confidence of the public in the rule of law. We have seen how effective these measures have been over the past days in Ottawa, having cleared the streets. In fact, interim chief of police Steve Bell said on Friday, “Without the authorities that have been provided to us through these pieces of legislation, we wouldn't be able to be doing the work we are today.”
I want to talk very briefly about consultations with provinces and territories. Under the Emergencies Act, there is a requirement to consult with provinces. Those consultations took place and are ongoing. At least three premiers publicly supported the act's invocation, from Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia. They have all said publicly that they supported the proposed, time-limited and targeted measures.
Let us not forget that the report to both Houses of Parliament, called the Emergencies Act Consultations, was tabled on February 16. It provides a detailed overview of the extensive consultations and engagement that took place at every level of government, and across ministries and departments. These conversations took place over weeks and made it clear that federal support was needed. Indeed, we heard calls from Mayor Dilkens in Windsor, who called the protests a national crisis and talked about the economic impact of the border closures. We also heard the Ottawa chief of police on February 2 say this is, “a national issue, not an Ottawa issue—
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- Feb/20/22 10:13:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Whitby gave a long speech that included a lot of points to ponder.
The Bloc Québécois believes intervention was called for. Had there been intervention, there would have been no need to invoke special legislation. However, what is past is past.
Still, we know the far right is on the rise, and the member talked about that.
Now let us talk about the future. The Emergencies Act was invoked without much thought, so where do we go from here? Will the government regularly invoke the Emergencies Act to thwart the far right?
Has my colleague given any thought to a plan for the future?
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- Feb/20/22 10:14:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the Emergencies Act had been contemplated early on in this crisis, people would have a lot more cause for concern, but that is looking backward and the member opposite asked me to look forward.
This is about a time-limited, geographically specific, targeted measure that is reasonable and proportionate. It is not being looked at as something that is ongoing. It is limited, and I believe strongly that our government is interested in and fully supports the parliamentary oversight that is required to ensure that this is used not one day longer than it is needed.
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- Feb/20/22 10:33:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to commend the hon. member because it might be the first time I have heard a Liberal member mention Alberta in the House.
She has to recognize, first of all, that among my constituents, almost universally, the feedback we have gotten back has been opposed to the Emergencies Act. My staff tell me probably 95% of the feedback we have gotten has been people asking me to oppose the Emergencies Act. I would welcome any Liberal member of Parliament who wants to come out to Canada's most populous riding, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. I would gladly give them a tour so they can actually talk to some of the people they too often completely ignore.
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- Feb/20/22 10:37:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the motion before us is a story of a profound failure of leadership. When I was elected to this chamber some 16 years ago and became the member of Parliament for Abbotsford, I would not have believed it if I had been told that I would be asked to approve giving the Prime Minister the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act.
I remember, when growing up as a teenager in 1970, Pierre Elliott Trudeau triggered the War Measures Act to quell the FLQ terrorist threat in Quebec. That crisis had gripped the nation for many months and involved kidnappings, extortion, over 200 bombings, gun violence, robbery and the eventual murder of a Quebec cabinet minister. The circumstances were clear and compelling, implicating the security and sovereignty of our country and justifying the use of this extreme measure.
Fast-forward to today and the circumstances are very different. For two years, truck drivers had been the heroes of the COVID pandemic, risking their health to transport goods and groceries as the virus raged across our nation. For a while, the truckers were the good guys. Then the Prime Minister decided to deprive these heroes of their livelihoods because they chose not to get vaccinated, despite the Prime Minister failing to show any evidence that unvaccinated truckers were significant spreaders of the virus. He made no effort to accommodate these Canadians through the use of other tools like PCR or rapid tests.
The reaction of the truckers was swift. A convoy was organized with the goal of delivering to the Prime Minister one simple message: Do not force us truckers to get vaccinated in order to keep our jobs. We all know the rest of the story. The protests grew and ended up right here in Ottawa, camped out in front of the Parliament Buildings. They were expecting at the very least that the Prime Minister would be open to listening to their concerns, but they were wrong. He was not. It became clear that the Prime Minister was not interested in hearing out his own citizens. What he did do was resort to name-calling. The protesters were the fringes of Canadian society. They were misogynists, racist, science-deniers, un-Canadian. “Do we even tolerate these people?” he screamed. In fact, he questioned whether those people should have any place in his Canada.
In the meantime, residents of downtown Ottawa were rightly becoming agitated. With the incessant honking of horns, shops and malls that had to close their doors and send employees home, major traffic disruptions and misbehaviour by a small number of protesters, life in the protest zone was becoming unbearable. I know. My apartment is within that protest zone.
We Conservatives called upon the protesters to dismantle the barricades and for the Prime Minister to reach out to the truckers. He again refused, not even an olive branch. Instead, during the first week of the protests, the Prime Minister simply disappeared into his cottage, missing in action as a crisis developed. When he finally reappeared, we Conservatives began asking him what steps he was taking to resolve the impasse. After all, he had said that invoking the Emergencies Act should not be the first, second or even the third response.
We asked him what was his first, second or third response. Had he met with the protesters? Would he sit down with the other party leaders to discuss a resolution to the dispute? Had he deployed a negotiating team to resolve the impasse? Had he delivered the additional policing resources so desperately needed by the city of Ottawa? We were met with stony silence.
The answer was obviously, no, the Prime Minister had not taken any steps to address this evolving situation. He even rejected our request to create a plan to roll back mandates, which could have lowered the temperature. For three long weeks, the Prime Minister refused to act and then he did what only autocrats and authoritarian regimes do when faced with peaceful, civil disobedience.
He did what his father had done in 1970. He triggered Canada’s war measures regime, except that this time the circumstances do not, in any way, rise to the level of those present during the FLQ crisis. There have been no bombings in the streets of Ottawa, no kidnappings, no robberies, no extortion or gun violence, no murders of politicians; only peaceful civil disobedience by frustrated Canadians who have concluded that the Prime Minister does not care for them. The Prime Minister had at his disposal all of the tools he needed to bring an end to this protest without invoking Canada’s war measures legislation. Indeed, blockades at the Ambassador Bridge, the Coutts border crossing and in Emerson, Manitoba have all been resolved without resorting to the Emergencies Act. What about the violent rail blockades in 2020, the Oka standoff or the Wet’suwet’en dispute in B.C.? What about the riots in Toronto at the G7 in 2010? The Emergencies Act was not required. Not even the circumstances around 9/11 called for war measures legislation.
The Prime Minister already has the tools to respond to the Ottawa protest. It is just that he chose not to use them. There was no need to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians for exercising their right to peaceful protest or for donating to the cause. There was no need for the Liberal government to suspend the licenses and livelihoods of truckers without due process, simply because they disagreed with his vaccine mandates. It was completely unnecessary and a reckless overreach by the power-hungry prime minister. By triggering extraordinary, sweeping powers under the Emergencies Act, the prime minister has set an incredibly low bar for abrogating the rights and freedoms of Canadians. How do we know that? The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is challenging the Prime Minister’s power grab in court. Here is what it had to say:
The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met.
Further, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association states:
The Emergencies Act is there to address these kinds of extreme threats to Canada, not to protect the economy [as the Prime Minister had suggested].
Emergency legislation should not be normalized. It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties.
Never before in the history of our country has the threshold for triggering martial law been so low and the overreach been so high as with the motion before us. When the story of this monumental overreach and abuse of power is finally written, when historians analyze and dissect why the Prime Minister would invoke martial law powers to quell peaceful civil disobedience, when historians try to explain why Canada’s Prime Minister chose to use a constitutional sledgehammer to “crack a peanut”, as the NDP’s Tommy Douglas once put it, I want to be on the right side of that history. I want my children, my 12 grand-children and their descendants to know that I stood on the side of freedom and that I stood up to a power-grabbing prime minister.
Yes, the streets of downtown Ottawa are now clear, protesters are in jail, truckers are on their way home; bank accounts have been frozen and the lives of many Canadians have been irrevocably damaged by the Prime Minister’s failure to listen and his abuse of the Emergencies Act, but for what? I would ask the Prime Minister how it came to this. This was a mess of his own making. The Prime Minister could have listened and de-escalated. He had the tools to resolve the situation but he refused. That is a profound failure of leadership on his part.
Invoking the Emergencies Act is and was completely unnecessary and sets an extremely dangerous and ugly precedent for the future. For all of those reasons, I will be voting against this motion.
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- Feb/20/22 10:50:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot explain it. I am as befuddled as he is. The Prime Minister says that he needed the Emergencies Act legislation because he did not have the tools, and yet with regard to the simple tools that are providing resources to the Ottawa police, those resources were never delivered by the Prime Minister, as the member has suggested. There was a better way of resolving—
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- Feb/20/22 10:50:50 a.m.
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Qujannamiik, Uqaqtittiji.
This is not just about the Prime Minister's failures. It is about a lot more. It is not just about peaceful disobedience. Questions have been raised about whether other tools could have been used instead of the Emergencies Act. I want to remind the member that in Ottawa there was a court-ordered injunction. Well, these extremists complied for a short term but then proceeded to ignore this legal instrument. Indeed, municipal and provincial state of emergency declarations did not affect the physical entrenchment for the remaining time.
Do the Conservatives not view this situation as an emergency, indeed a national emergency, to prevent more Canadians from being infiltrated by the extremists' ideology?
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- Feb/20/22 10:53:09 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore.
We have reached a critical point, a fork in the road, in the history of Canadian democracy, and that needs to be acknowledged. There is no Canadian exceptionalism. If there is not any American exceptionalism, and we know that is one of the founding myths of the United States in terms of its democracy, it is also true that it is a founding myth of this country. However, that myth has been exposed. There is nothing inevitable about Canadian democracy. There is nothing guaranteed about it. The past few weeks have shown that.
At the outset, before going into my remarks, let me thank law enforcement, here on the Hill, the Parliamentary Protective Service, for all the work they have done to ensure our security, also law enforcement, all law enforcement but especially in Ottawa those who have travelled from London. They have been here and they have been in Windsor in recent weeks. I deeply thank them for their service.
The Emergencies Act is an extraordinary measure, it is true. Introduced in 1988, it has never been used. I heard my colleague opposite's remarks. I have great respect for him. We served on the finance committee together for a time. I have to take issue with many of his remarks, especially when he said that the Emergencies Act confers onto the government martial law powers. That is an extraordinary way to look at it. It is also the wrong way to look at it.
As we know, and as the government has made clear, the Emergencies Act is subject to the charter, it is time limited, and it is geographically focused. On top of that and, interestingly, I have not heard very much from the Conservative Party on this, the act itself was introduced by a Progressive Conservative government in 1988 under Prime Minister Mulroney and under defence minister Perrin Beatty.
The debates on that act are very interesting. People could go back in the Hansard and look at them. Time and again it was emphasized by that Conservative government that the charter is sacrosanct. There was an attempt at that time to ensure that the infringements of civil liberties that had taken place under the War Measures Act in World War I, in World War II and in the October crisis of 1970 would not be repeated.
When I hear my colleagues talk about the Emergencies Act in the way that they do, as martial law or as war measures, there is nothing to that. If we are going to disagree, that is fine, but let us at least agree on a shared set of facts in order to have a meaningful discussion.
For the purposes of the act, I would remind my colleagues, if they have not read the act itself and it sounds as if they have not on the opposite side, unfortunately, that under the act:
A national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it.
Let us break that down to see if that first condition has been met, the “health or safety of Canadians.” For the residents of Ottawa, life has been completely upended in the past few weeks, seniors unable to go get groceries, families unable to take their kids to school and people unable to get to work, among other deep challenges. This is a crisis. Challenge does not even begin to describe what the people of Ottawa have faced.
On top of that, “the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it.” We heard yesterday, very clearly, from Ottawa's interim police chief, Steve Bell, who made it very clear that the Emergencies Act has been instrumental in the success that police have made over the past couple of days in terms of dealing with the challenge of the convoy and everything it represents, and pushing it back.
On top of that, we have the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police who have come out very strongly and agreed with the government's position on invoking the Emergencies Act.
The Mayor of Ottawa made clear, time and again, that his government lacked the resources to deal with the crisis.
The Premier of Ontario has made the same comment. The Premier of Ontario, a Conservative premier, has been very clear that he agrees with the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Under the act, I believe that section 3 paragraph (a), in terms of the definition of what an emergency constitutes, has been met. Section 3 paragraph (b) talks about an emergency being when there is a serious threat to “the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity” of the country.
We have seen several border point crossings blockaded over many days. Borders are about many things. These vital crossings ensure economic security for our country. They ensure jobs for people. When they were blockaded, people could not get to work. They were temporarily laid off. More than that, I think we have to understand borders in terms of sovereignty and security. A country that is unable to control its borders because of a blockade has a threat to its sovereignty in place and a threat to its security in place and a threat to its people's security in place, so for that reason, I believe the condition in paragraph (b) has been met.
The government has elaborated that in the acts there are various ways an emergency is understood. What we have in front of us is a public order emergency. In the act, that is defined as “activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state”.
It is that latter part that is crucial: “achieving a political, religious or ideological objective”. The convoy's organizers had as one of their principal motives the overthrow of a democratically elected government. This was their ideological objective. For that reason I think the government's position that this meets the definition of a public order emergency is exactly right.
I want to put my view on the record on why I think the invocation of the Emergencies Act is quite correct. Let me now deal with some broader issues in the abstract.
First of all, regarding freedom and democracy in the charter, I absolutely agree that these are sacrosanct values that underpin our democracy. The charter is, in many ways, the founding document of Canada, even though it was only introduced in 1982. Many observers have made the quite correct argument that Canada only really became an independent country in 1982, because that is when the charter was put in place. This document, as we know, ensures freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.
Without those freedoms, Canadians are not free. They ensure our ability as legislators to discuss and debate the issues of the day. They ensure the ability of our constituents to stand up and either agree or disagree. They ensure the ability of the press to carry out its work. How tragic and sad it has been to see that journalists have been treated in the way they have been. Maybe I will get to that if I have time a little later.
Crucial to the charter, and the part that so many forget to pay attention to, is that section 1 makes clear there are limits to these freedoms. In section 1, there is a guarantee of “rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
I hear, for example, my colleagues opposite, especially in the Conservative Party, talk about how the government has upended the freedom of Canadians. When I hear convoy participants—and I will not call them “protesters”, because what they did is not a protest; it is more of an occupation—say that the government has violated the charter, it becomes difficult to take seriously that they have taken section 1 seriously. Section 1 makes clear these limits.
During a pandemic the government is quite right to introduce vaccine mandates, which, fair enough, could get in the way of some freedom, but there are limits on that. Peaceful assembly is not what we saw, and there is a reasonable limit in terms of—
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- Feb/20/22 11:04:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague who is just down the road from us in London. I know her and like her, but I do not know where to begin as there are so many things that she said that are outright false.
One point that I think has caught on among the public, because I have had a number of constituents who have asked about it, is the freezing of bank accounts. If there is such a worry that bank accounts will be frozen at will by the government, why is it that only 73 bank accounts have been frozen? Several thousand people came to Ottawa to support the convoy and there have been many donors, but only 73 bank accounts have been frozen.
Charter rights have not been suspended here. The Emergencies Act is subject entirely to the charter. I invite my hon. colleague to read the Emergencies Act. Perhaps she has not.
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- Feb/20/22 11:05:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I got shivers listening to the member's speech because special legislation, in other words, the Emergencies Act, cannot be invoked every time there is an illegal protest.
There are already rules in place in every province for these kinds of events. Consider, for example, the Maple Spring that happened in Quebec 10 years ago. According to my colleague, under the act, Ottawa could have come to Quebec City and shut it down.
That is completely inconceivable. Does my colleague agree?
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- Feb/20/22 11:06:22 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I took special care in my speech to emphasize the importance of the charter. As I said at the outset, the Emergencies Act is subject to it. It is time limited for a period of 30 days. It is geographically focused. If police need those powers, then those extra powers are available, but if they do not need them, they do not need to use them. Therefore, I do not know where the concern of the Bloc and Conservative members comes from when they say there is a threat to freedom and that the government has engaged in overreach here. We heard from the police. They needed the extra powers in order to push back against what was a clear threat to our democracy, and it looks like in the past few days there was success in that regard because of the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
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- Feb/20/22 11:24:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a sad and dark time for our great country. The last two years have been difficult for everyone. Every person in this country has been affected by the pandemic. No one has been exempt. How did we get here? What brought us to this point?
Standing here in this chamber today to debate the unprecedented use of Canada's Emergencies Act is upsetting, to say the least. The culmination of what has happened to our country under the Liberal government's divisive and stigmatizing leadership is tragic. We have seen peaceful law enforcement resolutions that ended multiple unlawful border blockades without the Emergencies Act. Why do we need to escalate to these drastic measures? I will always stand up for Canadians' rights to peacefully assemble and lawfully protest. Likewise, I will always condemn disrespectful, hateful and unlawful conduct. Conservatives have condemned the blocking of critical infrastructure and have called for a peaceful protest.
As the events evolved, the Prime Minister made no effort to de-escalate the situation. Instead, he escalated it by continuing to divide, wedge, stigmatize and traumatize Canadians. Instead of apologizing for his mistakes, he threw fuel on the fire and opted for extreme overreach. Canadians have had enough. At the very least, they deserve a plan from the Liberal government to end the mandates.
It has been said many times this week that the Emergencies Act has never been invoked and should only be used in the most dire situations. It was not invoked for the Oka crisis, not for 9/11, not for the shooting on Parliament Hill, not for the rail blockades or even for COVID-19. Where is the threat to our sovereignty and national security? What proof does the government have showing the threshold has been met to invoke its use now? Neither the Prime Minister nor any of his ministers have answered these questions.
The Prime Minister has said the act should not be used as a first, second or third choice, but we on the opposition side have asked repeatedly what his first, second and third choices were. The question has still not been answered. The government, which currently has immense powers granted by the Emergencies Act, refuses to be clear or accountable to Parliament. How can the government be trusted to show responsibility in answering to Canadians?
The situation has become a spectacle around the world as a result of the Prime Minister's failures. He tries to save face by using the Emergencies Act, a measure of last resort. It is like using a wrecking ball to fix a broken tractor. It makes no sense.
What also does not make sense is a February 17 tweet from Foreign Policy CAN which said, “Canada condemns Cuba's harsh sentencing following the July 2021 protests. Canada strongly advocates for freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly free from intimidation. We stand with the people of Cuba in their aspiration for democracy.” This is a little rich, coming from a government that will not even so much as go out and listen to its own people who have been waiting to be heard.
The government claims that it will not use this piece of legislation to take away freedom of speech or freedom of assembly, but we have come to a point here where people from all over the country feel that they do not have a voice. We are at a point where the government has dropped a sledgehammer and is taking the most extreme action the government can take to silence the voices of Canadians who are simply asking to be heard. Again I must ask what the first, second and third things were that the government did to avoid getting to this place where we are now.
I am not alone in wondering why the Liberal government is so hesitant to advocate the same freedoms for its own citizens that it has asked for Cubans. I know the Prime Minister has said that he admires basic dictatorships. Could it be that they find democratic rights, such as free expression and peaceful assembly, inconvenient when it does not align with their politics?
Real leadership involves listening to people and considering their opinions, whether one agrees with them or not. Real leadership is about making sure people feel heard. The Prime Minister continues to malign and name-call Canadians with whom he disagrees. This is not leadership. Real leadership allows people to write to one's office and say they appreciate that regardless of one's perspective on the mandates, one is open-minded enough to talk to them. Real leadership is acknowledging and owning our mistakes. It is humility, not hubris.
If our Prime Minister had at least attempted to listen to the people who came all the way to Ottawa, we would not be in this situation at all. Canadians came to Ottawa from coast to coast to coast. They spent thousands of their hard-earned dollars and days of their time to be here because they felt that their government was not listening to them. They felt the only way they could be heard was by coming to Ottawa. The Prime Minister has done nothing but divide, wedge, stigmatize and traumatize Canadians for two years. Canadians have seen that. Trust has been broken.
The Conservatives warned Canadians repeatedly about the Liberals' love of power. We have stood against the unprecedented power grabs and scandals since before the pandemic. We said no when they tried to grant themselves unlimited taxing and spending powers without parliamentary oversight. That all happened on a weekend, and here we are on a weekend again, debating another piece of emergency legislation that gives the government overreaching power.
The legislation grants unprecedented powers over Canadians' financial security. I have heard from thousands of residents of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, most of whom have never contacted their MP's office. Simply put, they are traumatized. They are gripped with fear that donating to or purchasing from anything not approved by the government will result in their assets being frozen. They have very real concerns about how the changes brought by the act will impact their finances and their credit ratings long term. They have written me, saying, “My country is falling apart. What do I do?” They are hearing on the news that the Liberals are threatening to freeze their bank accounts if they support an organization they do not approve of.
That is not an exaggeration. During an interview, the justice minister even replied in the affirmative when asked if the banks could freeze the accounts of anyone who donated for not liking the government's vaccine mandates. He said, “if you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating...to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried”.
I would say to the minister that this is not what we are seeing. It is ordinary Canadians, patriotic Canadians, who are having their accounts frozen. It is Canadians who disagreed with an unnecessary and divisive government policy. It is not people donating large sums of money. It is Canadians who donated $20 who are being locked out of their bank accounts. It is those who got a T-shirt or a toque and those who sent money to a peaceful demonstration that gave them hope.
Even though the Liberal government says that the financial measures are temporary, regardless of how the vote goes, the Liberals will bring legislation forward to transition these powers into a permanent power grab. They want to permanently remove judges, who are the gatekeepers ensuring that big government overreach does not happen. The finance minister said as much during a press conference on Monday. He said the move to make crowdfunding platforms reportable to FINTRAC is going to be made permanent. She is also telling the banks to review their relationship with anyone involved in the blockades and report findings to the RCMP and CSIS.
When Canadians look back on this debate in the history books, they will see which of us, and the parties we represent, stood up for their interests, for their freedoms and for ending or enabling the continued trauma brought forward by the Prime Minister's inability to show compassion and leadership and by his power-seeking political games. It is the government's responsibility to stop contributing to the problem and to significantly improve its response to address the damage that is already done.
I encourage everyone to open compassionate eyes, hearts and hands to the burdens our families, neighbours and communities are bearing, and to create for each other the harbour of safety, respect and inclusion that we Canadians are known for. The Conservatives will continue to stand up for the rights and freedoms of all Canadians. We can do this without the government overreaching and using the Emergencies Act. Canadians are clear when they write our offices to say, “I am asking that you vote for ending all mandates, as well as the state of emergency immediately. It is time to follow the medical science and not political science, and do the right thing for the people.” That is why I will be voting against this motion.
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