44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 6:55:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today as a matter of principle and with pride in my past. I began my career as a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces. All I wanted throughout my military career was to defend my country and its values. I can still say today that I am and will always be that soldier, the one who decided that law and order should be a priority for our country, for the safety of Canadians.
I served my country at home and abroad with the Canadian flag proudly on my shoulder. I served with Canadians from coast to coast to coast, soldiers who were proud, well trained and ready to support efforts to uphold the rule of law. I have personally trained and led soldiers in crowd control operations similar to what we have experienced in Ottawa over the last few days. I have been deployed to areas of Canada where the use of force was possible, without the need for the Emergencies Act.
Defending one's country and serving in the military requires unconditional dedication, but I can say that under this Prime Minister, patriotism is taking a beating.
The Prime Minister's legendary irresponsibility and arrogance did nothing to improve matters. That has been our experience for the past 23 days. A situation that should have been a protest became a siege in front of our Parliament because the Prime Minister did nothing to stop things from escalating.
I have also encountered some obstacles since the beginning of this siege. I come here to Ottawa every week to exercise my role as an MP, and I truly understand the people of Ottawa. That is why, on February 4, I personally posted a tweet asking the protesters to leave and clear the streets of Ottawa. They had made their point, and it was very clear to me that this needed to stop. I agreed with that.
Today we are here to debate the Emergencies Act. This shows that the Prime Minister has once again failed to break this impasse. He claims that the only available option to prevent trucks from blockading the streets is to invoke this legislation. However, the measures in this legislation go too far or have simply become obsolete since the day they were invoked on February 14.
I am going to dissect the order that was published on February 14 and on which members will be voting tomorrow. Many members have given speeches over the past two days, but I think we are forgetting to focus on what we will actually be voting on, which is a motion to confirm the invocation of the Emergencies Act, in accordance with section 58, in connection with the order issued by the Prime Minister on February 14, 2022, one week ago tomorrow.
The first part of the order states:
Whereas the Governor in Council believes, on reasonable grounds, that a public order emergency exists and necessitates the taking of special temporary measures for dealing with the emergency;
Whereas the Governor in Council has...consulted the Lieutenant Governor in Council of each province...acting with consent of their respective Executive Councils...
This includes the governments in power and the premiers. There was already a problem on day one, since Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island said no. There was therefore no consent since four provinces were saying no.
The order continues:
Therefore, Her Excellency the Governor General in Council...directs that a proclamation be issued
(a) declaring that a public order emergency exists throughout Canada and necessitates the taking of special temporary measures for dealing with the emergency;
This is how the motion that we must vote on tomorrow describes the state of emergency:
(a) the continuing blockades by both persons and motor vehicles that is occurring at various locations throughout Canada and the continuing threats to oppose measures to remove the blockades, including by force, which blockades are being carried on in conjunction with activities that are directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property...
Maybe this is referring to blockades that were set up before February 14 or that ended on the morning of February 14, because what I just read out did not happen, especially not in Ottawa.
The second point reads as follows:
(b) the adverse effects on the Canadian economy...and threats to its economic security resulting from the impacts of blockades of critical infrastructure, including trade corridors and international border crossings,
All of this was over and done with before the Prime Minister even published the order on February 14.
Then there are other points concerning the economic relationship with the U.S. Once again, it is the same story. The Ambassador Bridge was cleared, the supply chain disruption was resolved and so forth.
Further down, there is mention of the potential for an increase in the level of unrest and violence. Violence is mentioned often in the declaration. Yes, it was very inconvenient for the city of Ottawa, especially when the honking did not stop, but I did not see any broken windows or acts of violence, except for what happened to journalists. If we compare this to protests that we see regularly in Montreal or elsewhere in Canada, where property is damaged and police cars are overturned, no such incidents occurred during the events we are discussing today.
The declaration that we will be voting on tomorrow refers to measures to regulate or prohibit any public assembly: “Regulation and prohibition of public assemblies that lead to a breach of the peace other than lawful advocacy, protest or dissent”. This excludes basic things that most of the people who were there were asking for. I have a hard time understanding that point.
As for the so-called specified area, it was obvious that areas needed to be specified. I was awaiting a more detailed motion, but we never got any details. In the end, all of Canada is covered by the state of emergency declaration. No specific areas where it applied were ever indicated. Everyone knows it was Ottawa, because only Ottawa was left, but from a legal standpoint, we were not informed.
The next point concerns measures to authorize or direct any person to render essential services, such as removing, towing or storing vehicles. Under section 129 of the Criminal Code, the police can ask a towing company to tow a vehicle. That law already exists. This specific element was added to the emergency measures, but it already existed. It was not needed.
As for the financial aspect, the way it was handled is a bit odd. The government wanted to know where the money was coming from, and it wanted to freeze the bank accounts of those who made donations to the convoy, among others. We found out that the government got its information from a CBC news story. The government decided to take action under the Emergencies Act based on that story. There was not even a report from a national security agency or from the Department of Finance. The report was from the CBC. The government cannot just go off of that.
The Minister of Finance said that she has everyone's names. It is like a game where the government is trying to find out who made donations, who they made them to and where the money came from. Is it really trying to find out where that money came from in the interest of national security, or simply for partisan reasons? It is unclear.
There is not much we can support in everything I just talked about, but there may be one thing. Someone said that invoking the Emergencies Act would make it possible to impose stiffer fines and prison sentences. In a really urgent case, we would agree with that, but we are not at that point. The last point says, “other temporary measures authorized under section 19 of the Emergencies Act that are not yet known.” Here we are, seven days later, and those measures are still not yet known, because nothing has been added. There is no new information.
Out of these 11 paragraphs, 10 do not pass the smell test. We will vote on them tomorrow. If only one paragraph of the declaration was inadequate, we would vote against the motion, but 10 out of 11 are inadequate. How could we support this motion to activate the Emergencies Act?
In closing, the popular perception will be that the Emergencies Act allowed the streets of Ottawa to be cleared. That is what the government wants Canadians to think. However, history with a capital “H” will show that it was all a bluff and that only the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois understood that.
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- Feb/20/22 7:05:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am only talking out of one side of my mouth.
When a province asks the federal government for help, as was the case at the Summit of the Americas in 2001, where the RCMP was deployed in large numbers in Quebec City to support the Quebec City police and the Sûreté du Québec, was the Emergencies Act invoked? No, it was not.
It is possible for a province to ask the federal government for help in order to get more officers from the RCMP, for example, or from other police forces, without involving the Emergencies Act. I think that what the Premier of Alberta said was that he wanted help but did not need the Emergencies Act to be invoked.
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- Feb/20/22 7:07:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, from the very first day, what was the truckers' intent? It was to protest against a rule change brought in on January 15 that prevented unvaccinated truckers from travelling between the United States and Canada, even though this had been allowed for two years. Quebec has 9,000 unvaccinated nurses working in the health system.
Yes, the Conservative Party did believe that it was a laudable request. It was open to discussing it, but the government and the Prime Minister wanted nothing to do with it. That was the problem. Naturally, we were prepared to welcome these people who were coming to Ottawa to say that the rule that went into effect on January 15 was a problem for them.
Four or five days later, I tweeted that the protesters' message had been heard, that they could leave and that we would do something else. I did that, and so did other colleagues. Our position is very clear: We never did anything to encourage the siege of Ottawa.
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- Feb/20/22 7:09:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I did tweet that on February 4. I fully acknowledge that I tweeted that, and I still very much believe in what I said. After six days of the occupation in Ottawa, I decided that enough was enough, for me and for the people of Ottawa. My colleagues then also started saying that enough was enough, that they had gotten the message and that the protesters needed to leave.
My party therefore called on the protesters to leave downtown Ottawa, telling them that we had heard their demands. Was I the first to say so? Perhaps, but my party said so as well.
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