44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
Madam Speaker, there is indeed an emergency in this country. Indeed, there are a series of emergencies.
There is the emergency of the family whose 14-year-old daughter has attempted suicide after two years of isolation from sports, social interaction and other healthy activities that sustain a happy and heartful mind. There is the emergency of the federal public servant who, for unrecognized medical reasons, cannot get vaccinated and is now deprived of an income and a job. There is the emergency of the trucker who was hailed as a hero while driving our goods and services across international borders unvaccinated for over two years, who suddenly was declared a public health threat and deprived of his job as well. There is the emergency of the 32-year-old still living in his mom's basement, because under the pretext of COVID, the government printed so much money that it now costs $836,000 for the average house. There is the emergency of the single mother trembling as she walks down the grocery aisle because she cannot afford a basket of affordable goods, because the government has inflated her cost of living. There is the emergency created by the regulatory gatekeepers who keep people in poverty by blockading first nations people from the ability to develop their own resources and blockading immigrants from the ability to work in the very professions for which they are trained and qualified.
These are the emergencies we should be addressing, but instead the Prime Minister has created a new emergency. What is his motivation? Of course, it is to divide and conquer. How did this all start? Let us remember that the Prime Minister suddenly imposed a brand new vaccine mandate on the very truckers who had been free to travel across borders without a vaccine, and he did it at a time when provinces and countries around the world were removing vaccine mandates. He did it to a group of people who are by far the least likely to transmit a virus, because they work and sleep all by themselves 22 hours a day.
Media asked his health minister and his chief medical officer for evidence supporting the decision. Neither had any. In fact, the medical officer said it was time to return to normalcy, yet the Prime Minister, in spite of all these facts, brought in this new mandate to deprive people of their living, because he knew that it would spark in them a sense of desperation. If he could deprive them of their incomes, they would be so desperate that they would have to rise up and protest, and then he could further demonize them, call them names, attack their motives, belittle them and dehumanize them in order to galvanize the majority against the minority.
This must be the political opportunity his Deputy Prime Minister spoke about when she described what COVID represented to the government. The Liberals have attempted to amplify and take advantage of every pain, every fear and every tragedy that has struck throughout this pandemic in order to divide one person against another and replace the people's freedom with the government's power.
At the beginning of the pandemic, it started immediately. The government attempted to ram through a law that would have given it the power to raise any tax to any level for any reason without a vote in Parliament. It tried to pass Bill C-10 to strip away free speech online. Thankfully, Conservatives blocked it from doing so. The Prime Minister's authorities have said they want to track Canadian cell phones for the next five years. Now this, the Emergencies Act, is the latest and greatest example of attacks on our freedom.
Ostensibly, it was meant to stop blockades, which had already ended before he even brought forward this legislation. In Alberta, in Manitoba and at the Ambassador Bridge, those blockades were ended peacefully, in some cases with protesters hugging the police officers and bringing the matters to a successful close, so that goods and services could resume.
Instead, in that context, the Prime Minister brought in a law that not even Jean Chrétien brought in after 9/11 killed dozens of Canadians in a terrorist attack, that not even former prime minister Harper brought in when a terrorist murdered a Canadian soldier at the war monument and came running into Centre Block spraying bullets in all directions, and that not even the current Prime Minister brought in when blockades by first nations were standing in the way of those who were attempting to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline. For the first time in this law's three-decade history, the Prime Minister brings it in to address what he says was a protest in front of Parliament Hill.
Ironically, this power goes beyond any of the protests and/or blockades the Prime Minister claims to want to address. For example, it would allow governments and banks to seize people's bank accounts and money for donating to the wrong political cause. One journalist asked the justice minister if small sums donated, for example, to support an end to vaccine mandates could get someone's bank account frozen. The minister did not deny it. Instead, he said that people who make donations of that kind should be very worried.
To freeze people's bank accounts is not just an attack on their finances but on their personal security. If their bank accounts are frozen, they cannot buy food, they cannot buy fuel, they cannot pay their children's day care fees and, under this law, they can face this personal attack without being charged with a single, solitary crime.
The Prime Minister says that this is time-limited, yet his own finance minister said she wants some of the tools to be permanent. He said it will be geographically targeted, yet his own parliamentary secretary for justice said that “the act technically applies to all of Canada”. The rules apply everywhere and indefinitely.
Finally, there is nothing in the act that limits the kinds of financial actions that could lead to people's accounts being frozen, and if they are frozen unjustifiably, the act specifically bans people from suing either the bank or the government for that unjustifiable treatment, opening the door for people who have nothing whatsoever to do with either the blockades or the protest having their bank accounts frozen without cause.
The Prime Minister says he wants to do this to remove the blockades, blockades that have already been removed. He says he needs these unprecedented powers in order to bring our country's order back to the pre-protest period, although across this country that has already occurred.
I say to the House that I oppose this unjustifiable power grab and, as prime minister of Canada, I will ensure that no such abuse of power ever happens again.
However, I say that we should end some of these blockades. Let us—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/20/22 1:37:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we can remove all of the blockades. Let us remove the mandates and restrictions that are blocking people's livelihoods today. Let us end the blockades on freedom of speech that the government is trying to erect with its online censorship bill. Let us end the regulatory blockades so that builders can provide affordable homes, first nations can develop their economies and escape poverty, and newcomers can actually work in the professions for which they were trained. Let us remove the inflationary taxes, deficits, and money printing so that people's wages can again buy them homes, food and fuel. Let us remove that blockade.
Let us put people back in control of their lives by making Canada the freest place on earth: free to speak, free to think, free to work, free to worship, free to own a home and build one's own destiny. Let us bind up the nation's wounds with compassion and respect and unite our country for freedom.
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- Feb/20/22 1:39:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, am I concerned about the people who have been harmed by blockades? Absolutely. That is why I am so disappointed the Prime Minister caused these blockades in the first place. I am concerned about the businesses that were affected and I am also concerned about the governmental blockades that remain in place today, the attacks on the freedoms of Canadians to have a job, go to work, frequent restaurants, raise their kids and have their kids smile and have that smile seen again. Those are the blockades we now need to focus on eliminating and what I will continue to fight for.
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- Feb/20/22 1:40:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the answer is yes. In addition to taking action to deal with the problems the protesters raised, the Prime Minister could have avoided provoking these protests from the start. He is the one who attacked the jobs of the truckers, public servants and others, even as the rest of the world was lifting these restrictions and vaccine mandates.
Now he can take action to lift these restrictions and allow people to work and return to their workplaces. He should have stood up in the House of Commons to reject this unjustifiable power grab and give back to Canadians the freedom they are entitled to.
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- Feb/20/22 1:42:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, from the very beginning I stated that every single person who acts inappropriately, makes racist comments or engages in unlawfulness or blockades should be personally responsible for their conduct. That is something I would uphold as leader and as prime minister.
I would not tolerate any of the racist behaviour we have seen from the current Prime Minister, whether it is his ugly racist past, the racist manner in which he has treated numerous members of his caucus who have spoken out against him or whether it is continuing to give a billion dollars to the CBC, an organization that 500 employees have said is systematically racist. I will not tolerate any of that racism in my future government.
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