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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/20/22 1:24:46 p.m.
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There is still some heckling going on, and I just want to remind members to hold on. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.

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Mr. René Villemure (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

Feb/20/22 1:24:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kanata—Carleton for her point of view. I congratulate her on proposing a cross-partisan idea. I would like to hear it. I think we got to this point because of a lack of leadership. Nevertheless, I have the following question for the member: Does my colleague think that the Prime Minister should allow a free vote on this motion, as a way of showing leadership?

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Mrs. Jenna Sudds

Feb/20/22 1:25:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is very hard to hear the translation with the talking that is happening across the way.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/20/22 1:25:34 p.m.
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I just want to remind members that if they want to have side conversations, they should maybe have them in the lobby. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mrs. Jenna Sudds

Feb/20/22 1:25:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question. As I said earlier, this is a critical, and arguably the most important, debate that we have had here in the House. I am honoured to be a part of it. I know that we all have Canadians' best interests at heart. I have heard from countless residents over the past three weeks about the impact that this occupation and the threats across the country have had. I believe it is important for all of us to listen, to hear what these residents have to say and to support them. By invoking the Emergencies Act, we have been able to empower our police forces to do the jobs they need to do to ensure safety and security across the country.

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Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

Feb/20/22 1:26:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Kanata—Carleton stated what she believed were the points of law to support the declaration of public order and the various ways in which the declaration was needed in this crisis, including the financial measures in order to curb the dark money flowing in and supporting these illegal activities. I asked her colleague this question and he did not seem to have the answer, so I am going to ask her. It was made clear very early on in the occupation that crowdfunding and cryptocurrency were being used to fund illegal activity and organizers who seek to put in place their own undemocratic government. This was a demonstrated gap in the reporting requirements. Why did the government not take immediate action to ensure the proceeds of crime and terrorist financing regulations were updated to ensure these companies were not exempt from reporting transactions to FINTRAC?

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Mrs. Jenna Sudds

Feb/20/22 1:27:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on the financial measures that are being put in place, I believe we have broadened the scope of Canada's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules so they cover crowdfunding platforms and their payment service providers, including digital assets such as cryptocurrencies. The government is issuing this order, effective last week, so Canadian financial institutions are able to temporarily seize those funds as they are suspected to contribute to the occupations.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC)

Feb/20/22 1:28:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-10

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/20/22 1:36:33 p.m.
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Order. Again, the hon. parliamentary secretary has been here when I have ruled, I do not know how many times today, and I am sure the hon. member who also has been yelling and heckling across the way was here as well, so I want to ask members, again, to please hold on to their thoughts. I will be recognizing them for questions and comments soon. There is a minute and 50 seconds left for the hon. member for Carleton to do his speech. I hope that people will hold their thoughts.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

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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Mr. Chad Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.)

Feb/20/22 1:38:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I heard today many comments that were more to do with a leadership campaign than helping the people of Ottawa and the people from communities across the country who have been impacted by the blockades. Not once did I hear about the city of Ottawa and what the residents have had to face for the last couple of days. This is all about political opportunism. Is the member concerned about helping the people of Ottawa and those across the country who have been impacted by blockades and the occupation?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/20/22 1:38:56 p.m.
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It is now on the opposite side we are hearing the heckling, and I know very well the hon. member for Carleton can answer those questions without any help. The hon. member for Carleton has the floor.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

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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Mr. Rhéal Fortin (Rivière-du-Nord, BQ)

Feb/20/22 1:39:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I share his point of view for the most part. He listed a series of emergency situations that warrant being addressed by the government and rightly so. Would he agree that both this list of emergency situations and the events we have been experiencing on Parliament Hill over the past three weeks are situations that could be resolved if the government addressed these problems immediately, instead of breaking out the heavy artillery, like the Emergencies Act, every time a situation presents a challenge? Would tackling the problem of the protests from day one—especially as they shifted from a demonstration to an occupation of Wellington Street in Ottawa—not have resolved the problem and prevented the use of the act before us today?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

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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Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Feb/20/22 1:41:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Carleton's colleague, the MP for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, appeared in a video with convoy leader Pat King, an avowed white national who is quoted as saying many racist, xenophobic, anti-indigenous and anti-Semitic things, including that the Anglo-Saxon race has the “strongest blood lines” and that unless we fight back, we will all be speaking Hebrew. If he was elected leader of the Conservative Party, would he be willing to kick this member out of caucus or does he support fraternizing with dangerous white supremacists?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

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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Mr. Mel Arnold (North Okanagan—Shuswap, CPC)

Feb/20/22 1:43:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I join fellow members of Parliament in debating the government's invocation of the Emergencies Act and the extraordinary powers of the act that have never been used by any government since the act was created in 1988. As the House debates the matters in front of us today, I believe the responsibility each of us carries individually to our respective constituents and the responsibility we hold collectively to the people of Canada are of extreme gravity. Today, Canada is likely more divided than we have ever been before. This division has grown during a time when Canada has faced not just one crisis but layers of crises and unprecedented challenges. It is within the context of division and crisis that Canadians look to us, their members of Parliament, to focus on the leadership required to start healing divisions and focus on the questions that need to be answered for the government to produce a plan for recovery. As we undertake our work today and any other day, let us not forget for a moment that Canadians are counting on us, all 338 of us, to deliver the leadership that they want and deserve. Prior to the government's official confirmation on February 14 that it was invoking the Emergencies Act, the leader of the official opposition asked the Prime Minister if he considered the protests in Coutts, Alberta; Windsor; and Ottawa to be the “threats to the security of Canada” that section 16 of the act refers to. In response to her question, the public safety minister told the leader of the official opposition that, since the beginning of the blockades, “this federal government has provided law enforcement with all of the resources that they have needed.” It is important to note here that the Minister of Public Safety did not confirm that the blockades represented threats to the security of Canada, the threshold set out in section 16. Rather, the public safety minister confirmed that the federal government had provided law enforcement services with all of the resources they needed. If the government believed on February 14 that the blockades represented threats to the security of Canada, described by section 16, it should have said so, but it did not. If the government had truly provided law enforcement agencies with all of the resources they needed since the beginning, then who needed the resources of the unprecedented powers that the government invoked with the Emergencies Act? On February 14, before the government invoked the Emergencies Act, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was reopened and the blockade at Coutts was in its waning hours before it ended the next day. In Ottawa, the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police had established an integrated command centre with the Ottawa Police Service, three weeks after the blockade began. Within four days of forming the integrated command centre, law enforcement officers in Ottawa were clearing the blockades. All of this is to say that, of all the blockades that the Prime Minister was questioned about on February 14, one was cleared, a second one was coming down and the days of the Ottawa blockades were numbered as law enforcement branches integrated their commands, yet here we are today, in this extraordinary sitting of the House, trying to get a straight answer from the government as to why it insists on continuing to invoke the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act. This is a question of profound gravity because the powers the government has bestowed upon itself, with scant explanation of why, are profound. I am disappointed that we are here today debating this serious question. The fact that this question and many more have not been clearly answered by the government over the past six days should raise red flags for all members. It is incumbent on all members of all parties to insist that the government provides us and Canadians clear, complete and timely answers because our history is stained by instances where individual rights and due process were errantly passed over by powers similar to those we are examining today. The Emergencies Act was created in 1988 to replace and prevent the abuses inflicted under the War Measures Act. The War Measures Act was replaced because its powers had been wrongfully applied by federal governments that failed to reflect on asking and answering essential questions before its powers were deployed on Canadian citizens. These powers were wielded in Canada's World War I internment activities from 1914-20. Although internees were predominantly recently immigrated Europeans, mostly from the western Ukraine, Canadian-born and naturalized British subjects were also interned. Similarly, the powers of the War Measures Act were also wielded in the internment of persons of Japanese heritage, including Canadian-born Japanese Canadians and others during the Second World War. These applications of the War Measures Act raised and continue to raise serious questions of what thresholds of threat to the security of Canada justify the application of powers such as those invoked by the government on February 14. It is up to all of us here in the House of Commons to ensure that we have learned from history, because if we have not learned and if we have not asked the questions and if we have not made informed and just decisions, we make ourselves and Canada vulnerable to repeating history. We are examining the questions before us today because the government has chosen to invoke the Emergencies Act even though two of the three blockades that existed a week ago have been eliminated and the third is all but over. That said, I call on the government to rescind this invocation and turn its focus and the focus of the House to the crises in Canada that persist unabated today. As I mentioned at the outset, Canada today is severely divided, wrapped up in crises and Canadians are counting on us to provide leadership in pursuit of the recovery that all Canadians want and need. Last week, the Conservative motion proposing a reasonable approach to help lower the temperature across Canada by providing Canadians with a specific plan and timeline for ending all federal mandates was defeated. I call on colleagues from all parties to reflect on the opportunity that was missed last week, a missed opportunity to start taking down fences and rebuilding bridges. Canadians need a signal and hope that we are nearing the end of restrictions and mandates. For too long, Canadians have been hoping for a plan to move forward and I am not sure how much longer some can continue to hold on. Over recent months, I have heard from constituents suffering from extreme stress and mental health challenges. Some called me in tears because they are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being confronted because they are unable to wear a mask or be vaccinated due to extreme conditions. Many others have called because they have not been able to spend time with their families and loved ones, and others have called because they have lost their jobs due to the multitude of COVID-related mandates and restrictions. Canadians need unity, not division. Overcoming the crises and unprecedented challenges Canadians face today should start with the members of the House embracing the mantles of leadership, setting aside partisan interests and embracing national interests on behalf of Canadians. United we can learn from our past. United we can adapt to overcome the realities of COVID-19. United we can start reclaiming our economy, help Canadians get back to work and start paying off the national debt. United we can start to restore connections and mental health eroded by two years of restrictions and isolation. United we can rebuild the confidence of Canadians in their Parliament and their country. United we can build a better Canada.

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Ms. Julie Dabrusin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

Feb/20/22 1:53:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I have heard a lot of conversation, particularly from the opposing side, about divisiveness and how we need to create greater unity across our country. In seeking that greater unity, how much has the member been speaking to people and what does he plan to do to help reach out to those people who may disagree with his perspectives? What will he say to reach out to the truckers who are unable to cross the border because of the blockades? They were unable to do their work because of those blockades by people who were illegally blocking our borders. In seeking to overcome this divisiveness, what is he doing to reach out to those people who disagree with him?

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Mr. Mel Arnold

Feb/20/22 1:54:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for asking me what I have been doing to reach out to people who disagree with me. I listen to them. I hear their phone messages. I receive their emails. There have been thousands of them over the past few days and weeks, unprecedented numbers. I read their emails. I listen to their messages and phone them back when time permits. That is unlike the Prime Minister who calls them misogynistic, racist and ignores their pleas to be listened to. That is what I am doing versus what the Prime Minister has done.

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