44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 9:23:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart I rise today. This is a solemn day that will no doubt be remembered by Canadians for decades to come. Given the gravity of today's debate, I believe it is incumbent on all members to speak candidly, earnestly and sincerely.
Today we are debating the Emergencies Act, but before I outline why the invocation of this act is capricious and completely unnecessary, it is best to provide some context to how our country got to where it is right now.
Unfortunately, it is truly clear that Canada is a highly fragmented country facing significant economic problems that put our entire prosperity at risk. Our economy has just experienced significant job losses. We are experiencing an inflation crisis, with inflation at a 30-year high of 5.1%. That has real consequences.
There are people, many Canadians, who cannot afford the bare necessities of life. We have over $1 trillion in debt that will doubtlessly be pushed onto future generations as they pay for our expenditures. Our country is divided. It is divided between west versus east, rural versus urban, freedom versus security and vaccinated versus unvaccinated.
Now our Prime Minister has invoked the Emergencies Act. It is an act that suspends the civil liberties of Canadians such as section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of association, and section 8, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The police can, literally without warrant or warning, seize one's property. They can arrest Canadians for simply assembling.
Never in my life or in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to have five police checks just to get to my office. Never did I expect that in Canada.
The invocation of the Emergencies Act has also given the government the right to freeze bank accounts without judicial oversight. This can create financial ruin by putting an asterisk beside someone's financial credit rating for life. This might mean that a mortgage never happens, or that a son or daughter never goes to university, because of this asterisk.
Why was this done? According to the Minister of Justice, when he was talking to the media, he said that the grounds could be for as little as supporting causes the government disagrees with. This is shameful. When someone's bank account is frozen, they are effectively being removed from society. They may not have money to pay for food to feed their children, for gasoline for their cars to get to work, or for electricity to heat their homes. The government may literally starve and freeze Canadians into submission.
I watched this weekend as protesters were arrested at gunpoint. They were pepper sprayed. Several protesters were trampled by 2,000-pound horses. How could the Prime Minister ever let the situation get this bad? This is not our Canada.
Let us go back and look at what led us to these circumstances. It makes sense to start with the change in tone from the Prime Minister heading into his unnecessary $600-million election. The Prime Minister, based no doubt on polling numbers, made a calculated effort to demonize unvaccinated Canadians and to capitalize on the growing frustration of vaccinated Canadians with the unvaccinated. The choice led the Prime Minister to demean and stigmatize, as the member for Louis-Hébert so eloquently said.
The Prime Minister said they are extremists “who do not believe in science, they’re often misogynists and often racists. It is a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a decision in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?”
That is repugnant. I have sat here listening to Liberal member after Liberal member saying that we needed to de-escalate and bring down the heat. They should start by talking to the Prime Minister.
Also, it was no doubt a part of the Prime Minister's strategy to demonize and exploit cleavages in our society when he decided to implement a 14-day quarantine period on truckers: our heroes who, throughout COVID for two years, when there were no vaccines, went across. They braved the delta variant. They braved the omicron variant.
They were our heroes, and now they are demonized. All we have asked, and all the media and the opposition members have asked, is for the government to show us its math. Instead, we get outdated, irrelevant talking points. We have cost thousands of Canadians their livelihoods for purely partisan politics. This is disgusting.
We presented the most utterly reasonable motion. Our party simply asked for a plan to end the mandate. It was just a plan. The Prime Minister remained defiant, refusing to support the plan. While the rest of the world opens up borders, while the rest of the world eases restrictions, our Prime Minister will not even give Canadians, who deserve hope, a plan for that hope or a plan to return to normality. Once again, the Prime Minister has chosen politics over science and petulance over leadership. This crisis could have been avoided with strong and compassionate leadership. Instead, the Prime Minister chose partisanship over statesmanship and division over unity. This has led us to the current crisis.
The Prime Minister's unnecessary mandate and divisive rhetoric have caused frustrations to boil over. Canadians from across the country began to spontaneously demonstrate and show their dissatisfaction to the Liberal government. Unfortunately, some of the movement splintered into illegal activities, including the blockades at the border crossings at Coutts and the Ambassador Bridge. Fortunately, the provinces were able to resolve these matters peacefully, and they ended with hugs instead of violence.
Here in Ottawa, while many of the protesters were salt-of-the-earth Canadians who wanted to express their grievances, unfortunately there were some who expressed hate. They should all be individually accountable for those expressions. In addition, there were approximately 150 vehicles parked in front of Parliament for over three weeks. Those vehicles disrupted lives. They made it impossible for individuals to go to school or to go to work. They needed to be moved, and that cannot be doubted.
To end this, though, the Prime Minister overreached. He invoked the Emergencies Act. The Emergencies Act is fairly clear and fairly prescriptive. It requires that three tests be met: first, that the public disorder created a threat to the security of Canada; second, that it was national in scope; and third, that the public disorder could not be resolved by other means.
Let us review those criteria, one by one. Was there a security threat to Canada? A security threat would presumably be something extremely significant. A clear example would be the potential use of a nuclear or chemical weapon. Those are security threats to Canada. Another would be a paramilitary force threatening to overthrow the Canadian government.
What we had here were 150 illegally parked vehicles and a mass of disorganized people, some of them who had repugnant views, including the overthrow of the government, but there is no actual intelligence I have seen or any evidence that there was actually the ability to threaten our government. I walked through there for three weeks, and if in fact the government allowed all MPs to walk through these protests and there was an imminent threat to our government, that is the most malfeasance and insecurity our government has ever had.
Second, it is national in scope. Three weeks ago, we may have had an argument about this. When the Coutts and Ambassador Bridge blockades were happening, we might have had an argument, but they are gone. Do members know what? So is the protest in Ottawa. Why has this not been revoked by now? Where is the threat? Where is it? It is clear. It is done.
Third, it cannot be resolved by other legislation. Clearly, it could be and it has been, at the Ambassador Bridge and otherwise. It is true that it would be helpful. A sledgehammer would be helpful to crack a walnut, but it would not be necessary. That is the case here.
Ultimately, this is not about truckers or one's vaccination status. This is about the future of Canada. Do we want a country that is free to dissent? A government that controls the discourse, controls our lives. Do we want a country where environmentalists fear that we are not doing enough on climate change? Do we want a country where Quebeckers can share their request for greater autonomy? Do we want a government where a Conservative can share his contempt for the government? I believe all of these voices should be heard.
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- Feb/20/22 9:34:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be kind and generous and just say that the individual misheard. I clearly said two, and if you check the records you will hear that. If you want to watch the video, it is available. Just watch it, because it is on film. There are two individuals, including one lady who has a scooter or walker, who get trampled by a 2,000-pound horse. I have horses. Let me tell you, that is going to hurt a whole lot, and that happened. You can shake your head all you want, but just look at the video.
I went through it blow by blow. There is not a national security threat that cannot be resolved by other legislation. It is clear. I do not know how else to say it.
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- Feb/20/22 9:36:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. It must be the end of the day, because I am a little passionate. My apologies to the member if I got a little passionate.
I am definitely pro-vaccine. I am proudly vaxxed and I believe everyone should be vaccinated. However, we also need to not demonize people who think differently from us. We live in a free country, and when we demonize people, calling them misogynist and racist, that is not Canadian. That is not our Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her comment. I have enjoyed working with her on Bill S-216 and, if I am not being too bold, walking with her to the House earlier.
I would say that this is an area of study and it is an area where we need to look at these new technologies. Unfortunately, the government has been behind on many things, including reviewing how cryptocurrency works in this context. We need to look at crowdfunding. We need to review all of these topics.
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