44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- 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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- 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 1:39:51 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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- 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 1:41:54 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- Feb/20/22 1:55:28 p.m.
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Qujannamiik, Uqaqtittiji.
I agree that we need to see a way out of the pandemic. I agree that we are in need of hope. Inuit, Métis and first nations were given hope by the former prime minister, Stephen Harper, when he gave an apology to former students of residential schools in 2008. That same government, the Conservatives, made cuts to important initiatives like the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
Is this the same hope the Conservatives are aspiring to give to Canadians?
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- Feb/20/22 1:56:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the indigenous connections that I have made since being elected in 2015 continue to build. We have built relationships and have a better understanding of the cultures. That is something I will strive to continue to build as I continue as a member of Parliament and I will continue to push that among the members I serve with here and all members on all sides of the House, so we can build those relationships with our indigenous people in Canada.
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- Feb/20/22 1:56:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have just a short reminder that it is quite offensive to refer to indigenous people in this country and whose territory we live on as “our” indigenous people.
The member referenced a number of emergencies where the Emergencies Act was not invoked. I was here in Parliament on October 14, 2014. There was a horrific event. It was a time when we actually closed Parliament for the afternoon, but not because there was an ongoing threat but because people were traumatized and needed to go home. The reality of that was there was no ongoing threat. It was over that day. It would be the same with 9/11. There was no attack on Canadian soil. There was no thought of an attack on Canadian soil. There was no threat to the security of Canada. A number of members of his caucus have made this point.
Does he not agree that it would be better not to put red herrings into this debate so we can talk about what is really happening now?
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- Feb/20/22 1:57:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the correction from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I wrongly inserted the word “our” in my comment and I apologize for that.
I talked in my speech about the motion put forward on our opposition day a week and a half ago. It was voted down by members opposite. It would have seen hope for Canadians to move forward, a plan and some sort of timeline to get past the restrictions and mandates that we are seeing continue, and the continued restrictions now that are being put in place on people's bank accounts through the Emergencies Act.
This is a point where we all need to come together and work collectively as 338 parliamentarians to find solutions that Canadians need.
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- Feb/20/22 1:59:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Granville.
It is not an honour for me to speak to this motion, today. I want to say that I do not hate the members of the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP or the Green Party; I do not hate people who do not share my political agenda; I do not hate people who are unvaccinated.
In fact, I have some friends who are not vaccinated. We have had good, respectful discussions. Sometimes, I made some good points, and sometimes they made some good points. We still like each other and we are still friends, to this day, because we have discussed things respectfully. I have no problem talking to people who do not share my views, as long as those discussions are based on facts.
I support the right to protest. However, like any right or freedom, protests have limits.
Section 1 of the charter states:
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
The charter recognizes that there are limits, and these limits must be reasonable. This leads me to ask the following questions.
Is it reasonable to protest on Parliament Hill? Is it reasonable to protest in the streets of a municipality for a day or two?
My answer to these two questions is “of course”.
Is it reasonable to protest for three weeks in the streets of a municipality, limiting the freedoms of those who live in this municipality?
My answer to this question is “no”.
Is it reasonable to protest by blocking borders in areas of significant economic activity?
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- Feb/20/22 2:01:48 p.m.
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The economic impact is more than $300 million a day.
That impact became apparent in my riding when one of our major employers phoned me and said that if this lasted four or five more days, he would have to take action and lay off more than 100 employees.
These border blockades are not reasonable. Weapons were discovered at the Coutts blockade, and that is not normal and certainly not reasonable.
I want to make it clear that there were reasonable people who came to protest. I spoke to truckers, farmers and parents who are frustrated because government told them to get vaccinated and there would be no more lockdowns. Unfortunately, there were lockdowns again in January.
I want to tell these people that I hear them and, of course, that I do not support indefinite lockdowns.
Having said that, I did not support or give any legitimacy to this protest in Ottawa because I knew who the organizers were right from the get-go. Yes, the protests did evolve, but the organizers were always the same. I know many who attended were not aware of these people's views.
In a democratic society, it is not normal for leaders of a protest to want to overthrow a government without any mandate from the people who elect us. In this chamber, opposition parties are free to present a non-confidence motion to the government if they have lost confidence in the government's ability to govern. They can do so without any fears from cabinet, the military or the police, something not all opposition parties in other countries get to cherish.
I support the motion for confirmation of a declaration of emergency. I believe the criteria have been met. Protesting to the extent of having a major economic impact at our borders is an emergency. Canada is a G7 country. An unstable border is bad for investment. Just this week, protesters again tried to occupy the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. That is not normal. Supply chains were already fragile, but were being threatened by these blockades. Foreign cryptocurrency being used to finance these types of activities is not normal and not covered under any act at the moment. In fact, early analysis demonstrated that the majority of that funding came from outside of Canada.
The rule of law must always be upheld in Canada. We cannot enjoy any of our rights and freedoms if we do not have law and order.
I want to make it clear that this public order emergency is not about calling the army on civilians in Canada. I received many phone calls at my office about this. Of course I would oppose that if it were the case. In Ottawa, the tools that were given under the act were used by the police without any military presence. It was never about that. It was always about making sure law and order is restored in Canada, but rather than condemning misinformation, some used it for their own political advantage.
I am concerned about the influence of misinformation that plays into our country and into people's lives in Canada. It is not normal for Canadians to be screaming or physically assaulting members of the media in a democratic society. The charter clearly outlines freedom of expression and guarantees freedom of the press. We must do everything to fight misinformation. It is incumbent on all of us, even when we do not like what journalists report or write about us, to support that freedom. Canada can only remain a true democratic democracy if the media is able to question and criticize governments and political leaders without fear of being assaulted by citizens.
I have had lots of conversations over the past few months with many who disagree with my view on vaccines. Many thought that the Prime Minister and political leaders are undergoing an international criminal law trial, and I worry about them as they are swimming in a bath of misinformation. I do not know how to help them. I have had many conversations with them and have tried to be rational, but they believe what they believe and I know that some in Ottawa also believe those same measures. However, at the end of the day, law and order must always be restored in Canada if we want to enjoy those freedoms.
I support this motion. As I have just said, law and order must be restored and without law and order, none of us can enjoy our rights and freedoms.
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- Feb/20/22 2:07:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I liked the tone of the speech given by the member, my former colleague on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, with whom I have had the opportunity to share many thoughts.
Nevertheless, I will ask him the same question I asked my other colleague earlier. Where and how do these emergency measures give police rights and powers that they did not already have?
Before these emergency measures were invoked, were police forces from different municipalities not allowed to work together?
Could police officers not issue fines?
Could police officers not enforce court orders?
How do these emergency measures give the police new powers?
What are the new powers?
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- Feb/20/22 2:08:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague.
The purpose of this conversation, this debate, is not to target anyone or point fingers at anyone. As parliamentarians, we all have a duty to lead by example. I have to say that what I have seen so far, from all parties, is unacceptable.
In response to the member's question, I would point out that I mentioned the issue of outside financing in my speech. This power cannot be granted under the current legislation. The police chief of the City of Ottawa mentioned that he had used the powers that he had obtained.
I am a member from Ontario, and the Premier of Ontario supports our decision to have declared an emergency. Personally, I will side with the Premier of Ontario.
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- Feb/20/22 2:09:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to listen to the members opposite talking about things such as law and order and the seriousness of the situation.
I wonder if the member opposite could enlighten all of us in this House on the vast seriousness of the many people who were charged with treason, seditious conspiracy, seditious intent and riot, or were they perhaps charged with other things? Some, as we do know, were sent on their way after being led out the city.
I guess the other part about law and order is related specifically to not having a warrant to freeze people's bank accounts. Is that really what the member opposite thinks is law and order?
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- Feb/20/22 2:10:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will just remind the hon. member that 73 bank accounts have been frozen to this date. There were thousands of protesters on Parliament Hill and in the streets of Ottawa who never saw their bank accounts frozen.
In terms of prosecution, I will not make a comment. I will remind the hon. member that some people were charged in the Vancouver riot five years after it took place, so obviously we have to let the police do their job. I will not comment on that, as it is not my place.
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- Feb/20/22 2:10:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, given the parliamentary secretary's role in agriculture and agri-food, he would know the extraordinary importance of ensuring that our supply chain is maintained across that border. My colleague from Windsor West spoke this morning about the incredible impact that this blockade was having on his riding, which of course has a border crossing within it. He called for the government to put forward a safe border task force.
Is that something the hon. parliamentary secretary can support?
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