44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 9:52:03 a.m.
- Watch
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 10:13:13 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, while I appreciate the member's remarks and take her question in good faith, I patently deny that our government has in any way, shape or form intentionally tried to exacerbate this issue or divide Canadians.
I would also say that it is a delusion that seems to be perpetuated by the Conservative Party that somehow these illegal blockades are peaceful protests. Using transport trucks, occupying cities, harassing people and using intimidation to get one's way is mob rule. That's not how policy is changed in this country. It is not acceptable—
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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 10:16:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really struggle to understand how we can lay blame so indiscriminately on the federal government, when this protest started with a convoy that came across the country. We all knew it was coming, but did the Ottawa police know just how quickly it would set in and become entrenched?
When we look back on this, all levels and orders of government will be able to see where they could have acted more quickly or taken the threat more seriously, but hindsight is always 20/20. To get real, as the member said, we need to look at where we are now and look forward to how we are going to deal with this national crisis. I agree that it is a severe crisis and we need to use every tool in the tool box to get it under control, because the confidence of Canadians in the rule of law—
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- Feb/20/22 10:18:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an area I feel very passionately about and have been troubled by since becoming a member of Parliament and seeing the proliferation of disinformation online and the impacts it has had on people during COVID‑19 while they have been isolated for periods of time. I think many people have consumed a lot of this misinformation or disinformation, and I believe it is incumbent upon all of us, as members of Parliament, to combat this and not lose sight of the fact that our dialogue and debates are supposed to be anchored in the pursuit of truth. If democracy loses sight of that, we are in big trouble, and I think that is what we are seeing today. People are misinformed. I watched the live news coverage on Friday, all day. I could not help but notice and be—
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- Feb/20/22 10:20:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, from what I understand, omicron has changed the whole scenario we are in, so the context has shifted. However, that does not undermine the effectiveness of our vaccines in significantly reducing hospitalizations, severe illness and outcomes such as death. Vaccine mandates are still effective in reducing the spread of COVID‑19, specifically the spread of severe outcomes, and alleviating the burden on our health care systems, which we saw come very close to breaking down completely in the omicron wave. We have to continue this fight. The higher the vaccination rates, the better, and vaccine mandates have been proven in many jurisdictions to push those vaccination rates up as high as possible, which is good for our country and for our economy. I fully believe every Canadian should choose for themselves whether to get vaccinated. If they choose not to do so, that is their choice, but there are going to be some consequences associated with that.
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