44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 7:18:40 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if I could put my monitor half a block behind me and zoom it, I could show the member the barricades that are still up in the Windsor area because the Ambassador Bridge blockade has now moved to city streets. Mohammed could not get to school last week and Joyce, a child, could not get to her doctor's appointment because of the blockade. The blockades have moved off Huron Church Road and are now blocking intersections. People cannot go to work and businesses are closed.
What does the member say to Mohammed and Joyce who have missed school and missed a doctor's appointment? Who is responsible for that, because what has happened is not normal? The blockades are displaced and are now in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada. What does he have to say to Mohammed and Joyce about their lives?
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- Feb/20/22 7:35:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today from the well-travelled traditional grounds of the Three Fires Confederacy represented by the Ojibwa, Odawa and the Potawatomi. It is also an area for the Caldwell First Nation, whose people in the War of 1812 were very relevant to creating freedom for our country.
I have been very disappointed with regard to some of the debate that has taken place. My riding of Windsor West is the route for 40% of the trade per day to the United States, with 40,000 vehicles, of which 10,000 are transport trucks, travelling along this corridor. It is also the spot of an illegal blockade that took place. I do not know why the speaking points of the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois continue to reference things being okay at the Ambassador Bridge. I can tell everyone they are not.
The blockades have moved off Huron Church Road. It is a traditional first nations route in this country as the area was settled first by the French, then by the British. It has now come to the point where the blockade is in the city streets, similar to Ottawa. We have Jersey barriers and blockades as part of our life.
Most people do not know that the Ambassador Bridge is privately owned by an American billionaire. For years, I have fought to get a new border crossing, which is finally happening. My first public meeting was in 1998. The provincial and federal governments, in their wisdom, decided to end the 401 approximately 17 kilometres from the actual border crossing because of jurisdictional wrangling, something we see today between Ontario and the federal government over day care. Ironically, things have not changed much.
At any point in time, a transport truck could turn over or have a spill. It would cost all kinds of money, and cause pain and anguish to businesses and emergency services. It would cause all kinds of different repercussions to the Canadian economy. Not only do we build auto parts here, we also do mining and build other equipment. We are the lifeline and lifeblood of the country, with 40% of Canada's daily trade happening through this corridor.
In fact, right now someone could go on the bridge without seeing anybody and set off a bomb. They could go onto the plaza and do the same, and it would have lasting damage. It is why we fought for redundancy and why I have asked for government solutions. I am disappointed in the government in many respects. Even during this process, I proposed increasing the truck ferry redundancy and having a safe border task force to allow Canadian families to reunite, to take the steam off some of the frustration that we are faced with. We have residents in this community who have not seen their relatives for over two and a half years, who live two kilometres across the river. That is still no excuse for blocking that corridor. That corridor has often had demonstrations, but they have been peaceful and respectful. They have slowed traffic, but not at the expense of other people, their freedoms and their livelihoods.
Earlier today, I mentioned Mohammed, who could not go to school last week, and Joyce, whose doctor could not see her for her appointment because of the Jersey barriers that are here. Again, the Bloc and the Conservatives continue to profess that things are normal. Those individuals and their families paid just as much as anybody else in this pandemic, and now they are being further punished at their expense because other people think that that their freedoms are greater. No. A child should be able to see their doctor. People should not have to go crying to services.
Most importantly, the residents there who are currently losing their jobs do not qualify for extra assistance right now. Who is there to help them? I have asked for reparations like Ottawa got: some money to help the businesses and so forth. I held a press conference in this area, which has had some of the highest child poverty in Canada. It is finally getting a new development, which now is under siege. There are police vehicles. Jersey barriers are up, and it is cut off.
If anyone wants to see the protest that took place, I would suggest they go to Twitter. Jon Liedtke, a journalist, went down there and filmed some of it. It is on Twitter, at @jonliedtke. He interviewed people there. Do members know why some people were there? It was because they wanted their dog to go to a South Carolinian beach. They had not been able to go there for the last couple of years. Other people did it because they were frustrated, because they had lost their jobs. They parked their cars and vehicles in the middle of the street like no one had done before. This is a 10-lane road where people brought picnics, bouncy castles and a whole series of different things as well as their children. Moving that crowd, and the occupation of Ottawa, required extensive police coordination. In fact, we had armoured vehicles down here.
I have never seen, in 25 years of representing this area, armoured vehicles. The last time the bridge was shut down because of a demonstration, it was over the original NAFTA. People were arrested for that.
Meanwhile, during the pandemic, the myth has been that the American border had been closed. It had not been closed. Truckers in my community had been crossing every single day. The numbers were down to 5,000, with 4,000 trucks to every 1,000 vehicles at one point. They crossed every single day until this illegal blockade. That kept this country moving. That kept medical supplies coming in. That kept the jobs open, the ones that were able to be. That gave us revenue to be able to deal with these things. It was only closed by the illegal blockade. That is the only time it happened.
As for the repercussions, Dr. Khahra is in a veterinary clinic right now. We talk about mental health. He cannot get to his clinic. People cannot help their pets right now during a time when people are isolated. I represent people with disabilities, children with pets and so forth. They cannot get to those things right now. Why do they have to pay extra?
They already turned away another convoy. A couple more convoys have come to shut us down, so the threat is not gone. The mayor of Windsor received a bomb threat, for which someone was arrested. That is what is taking place down here. That is what is happening.
If I walk to the end of my street and go two kilometres the other way, the barriers are there. People will not get to their jobs today. The Tim Hortons along the corridor is shut down. It is only open for the emergency vehicles there. Tim Hortons hires from Community Living. It hires from different organizations. It actually gives money to some of the area's schools and some of the area's community groups. It is shut down right now, and it does not have a future. Why does it have to pay extra during the pandemic?
What happens next time? There is no plan right now. I have asked for an operational plan to be supported, not only for now but in the future.
I am as frustrated as every other member of the House with regard to the Prime Minister's treatment of COVID and the way he has handled it. That does not take away my responsibility to do the things that are right for this community and for the country.
I wake up every single day and hope the Prime Minister and every other member of Parliament in this place has a better day, because if I actually get my job done here and I have a better day, and my representatives actually create better lives for people, it will help everybody else. Again, 40% of trade comes through this community.
That is my goal every day. I do not get up to go against whatever is happening in the House. I do not understand this. It has been 20 years that I have been in Parliament. I could not have imagined the divisiveness that is taking place. Somebody has some type of idea. I do not have all the solutions for things, but I can tell you one right now. If we do not do the things that are necessary right now to protect the corridor, the pain will continue.
We get to live down here with the uncertainty. The bridge finally got a new corridor coming into it along the 401. We fought forever to get a new parkway developed so that it is no longer just all lights. There are several traffic lights there, and there are several intersections. We get to live with that over our heads every single day.
To get a resolution to this, a school along the corridor had a Health Canada study with backpacks to monitor children's air quality, because that is how many transport trucks go down this corridor.
We finally got some justice here. We are finally getting a new border crossing. In the meantime, we are going to have to live with the fact that at any point in time, 10 or 12 vehicles, or even two or three vehicles depending on what they want to do, could shut down this corridor.
I have to say that, when I look at some of the protests going on, there are some very legitimate concerns being expressed by Canadians, and so they should. As I mentioned earlier, I have been appealing to the government for a safe border task force, so we can get in front of some of the issues.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I had to fight tooth and nail to finally get somebody from the United States to be able to come to a hospice room to see a dying relative, without stopping anywhere and without ever having left the vehicle. It was only six kilometres away. It took moving a mountain.
I understand the frustrations. I have not seen my daughter for half a year because of COVID restrictions. She is away at school, and because she had a cold, she could not come home for the holidays. That is a minor thing compared with the fact that, here where I represent, people can walk down to the river, look across and see the United States, yet they have not been able to see their relatives.
I do not like the way the government has done some of the testing, or the cost of the testing. Right now, there are rich people who can cross over and see American relatives and their friends and families, whereas there are poor people who cannot, or they have to decide who it is that can go.
That does not give me the right to infringe on other people's freedoms. That does not give me the right to be so unhappy that I can shut down others' prosperity.
If we had a protest that blocked roads every single time in this country, nothing would be—
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- Feb/20/22 7:46:05 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sincere question and the work that we have done before in pushing border issues in the United States. We need more of that in this country.
First, we would need an emergency plan to take barriers down and put them up when necessary, and compensation for businesses in the municipality. Right now, the municipality is on the hook for over $10 million for policing.
Most importantly, we need a safe border task force so we can work operationally with the businesses, residents and people who need connections at the border as they travel. Those are things I have proposed for many years, and I will continue to do that. Those are solutions I believe would be helpful to take the edge off some of the frustrations Canadians are feeling.
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- Feb/20/22 7:47:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the jurisdictional football that people have watched take place with COVID is symptomatic of what I have seen in politics as a municipal city councillor, and it has continued to plague us.
I asked the government to do a vaccination program for truckers, similar to what provinces were doing in advance. The government refused to do that, so there has been no centralization of some of the programs that have taken place, even though the federal government has been presented with solutions. Those are the things we should get in front of. We are always on the defence.
To be frank, we need to stop the jurisdictional wrangling. The Ambassador Bridge sits on a road in the city of Windsor that goes to an interprovincial highway and then goes to the 401. Who is going to protect those roads? Who is going to pay when convoys are still coming here and the mayor receives a bomb threat for taking a stand? These things are not right and they are not helpful, and that is why I support corrective action now before things get worse.
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- Feb/20/22 7:49:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is part of it. It is certainly a reflection. It is also why I have been speaking so repeatedly to this issue: It is because the Bloc and the Conservatives continue to say that things are fine in this corridor, but they are not. I am not being partisan in pointing that out. It is part of their talking points and it keeps coming up over and over again and it is wrong.
I also believe there are other reasons. The financing issue is significant. We will find out later on through a public inquiry, an inquiry that I really want, that there were American-paid protesters in the protest in Windsor. We know that Americans were there. There were all kinds of different influences taking place, and I want a full investigation into those matters. A public inquiry is very important, because it involves not only Parliament but the general Canadian population, and it is accountable more than before. I think this is one of the reasons the Prime Minister did not even want to do this at first, because a full public inquiry would shed some light on a very difficult issue.
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