SoVote

Feb/20/22 8:53:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I do not know where he heard me say that the use of the Emergencies Act is being trivialized. That is not what I said, but I do think that it is excessive. The act is far too powerful a tool for what we needed at the time. I am not saying that the use of the Act is being trivialized, but I do condemn it for the overreach that it represents.

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Mr. Patrick Weiler (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, Lib.)

Feb/20/22 8:53:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start by noting I will be sharing my time with the member for Halifax. I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's critically important debate at a difficult time for our country. It is difficult because it pains me to see the lengths that those who descended upon Ottawa and our border crossings across the country, and those who sympathized with them, felt they needed to go just to have their voices heard. It pains me to see the response that was necessary to restore order in our country. For three weeks the occupation of Ottawa's downtown core has forced businesses to close, putting thousands out of work. It has restricted the movement of essential workers and goods and has threatened the health and safety of the city's residents. Since the blockades began at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, over $390 million in daily trade with Canada's largest and most important trading partner has been adversely affected. Border blockades have stretched as far away as the Pacific truck crossing here in B.C., causing significant damage to our supply chains and our economy, and even reconstituted yesterday. As the Deputy Prime Minister has made clear, these costs are real. They threaten businesses big and small, and they threaten the livelihoods of Canadian workers just as they are working hard to recover from the economic damage caused by COVID. They also threaten our reputation as a reliable trading partner. Clearly, this is unacceptable. These illegal blockades and occupations are not just a threat to our economy. The leaders of these activities are not just calling for their voices to be heard. They are calling for Canada's recently democratically elected government to be overthrown through threats of violence and coercion and by holding our cities and our supply chains hostage through illegal activities that rob fellow citizens of their rights. The leaders of these protests are supported by a vast, coordinated and well-financed international network of disinformation that is seeking to sow doubt in our country's institutions, in independent media and in science. It is a network involving the alt-right that promotes xenophobic and racist views that, despite our hopes that Canada was immune from it, presents a real and present threat to our democratic institutions. It is a coordinated effort to use mistruths and half-truths to misrepresent constantly evolving scientific evidence as a reason to attack and discredit expert opinion. It pains me to think that in Canada we are talking about fake news, yet here we are. This coordinated effort has exploited the very real frustration that we all feel having lived through this pandemic for two whole years. It has exploited people's legitimate desires to gather, let loose and enjoy the company of others by using conspiracy theories that scapegoat the Prime Minister, governments, experts, the media and shadow elites, rather than recognizing that we all face one common enemy: the virus. I do not want to paint all the people who have attended these protests or those who sympathize with them with the same brush. I have spoken to many who have legitimate concerns and see this as an opportunity to express the frustration that we all feel. Coming to Parliament to make our voices heard in peaceful protest is a sacred right that we all must protect. I want to assure the folks that have reached out to me by phone, email and social media that they have been heard. What we are debating here today is not about silencing their voices, but rather re-establishing order and restoring freedoms to those who have had them taken away. To the measure at hand, on February 14, the Government of Canada appropriately declared a public order emergency. This order is effectively and peacefully putting an end to these illegal acts. Make no mistake. This is an extraordinary and unprecedented measure that was invoked in the context of ongoing border blockades, which became necessary after weeks of impasse with the occupation in Ottawa and after all other measures had been exhausted. It comes after occupiers had been directed to leave for weeks, after additional resources were provided to the police of local jurisdiction and after coordinated efforts of law enforcement were not able to rectify a solution nor remove the illegal blockade in Ottawa. This is not the first resort and it has not been used lightly. Contrary to what many believe, it does not suspend the application of our rights and freedoms. This act is replete with checks and balances to ensure it is not abused. This is an, at most, 30-day time-limited measure overseen by a committee of parliamentarians that is proportional, targeted and will be followed by an inquiry. It can also be revoked by Parliament at any time, and it is our duty to ensure that these powers are used prudently and only so long as they are needed. The measures being implemented allow the temporary designation of secure areas to prevent blockades, allow for the freezing of accounts of those financing illegal activities and other assets used in the furtherance of these illegal activities, allow the RCMP to enforce local bylaws, bring law enforcement capabilities from across the country to bear and importantly enable the government to commandeer tow trucks to finally move the blockade. This is precisely what we have seen happen in the last week. We have heard from the opposition that these powers are not necessary, so I want to quote the interim Ottawa police chief. He said, on Friday, “Without the authorities that have been provided to us through these pieces of legislation, we wouldn't be able to be doing the work we are today.” I want to thank law enforcement for their professional work to carry out this operation, largely safely, and the vast majority of the protesters who eschewed violence and went home peacefully. I also want to thank members of the media for putting themselves in harm's way to cover the events of the past few days in the face of so much abuse. I have had constituents question whether there was, in fact, a public order emergency, as the act requires to trigger this measure, so I want to touch on that briefly. The Emergencies Act states that the threshold that must be met is a reasonable belief that a public order emergency exists. Public order emergencies are defined as serious threats to the security of Canada, and such threats are defined by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act as including: foreign influenced activities...that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a threat to any person threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada activities directed toward undermining by covert unlawful acts...to lead to the destruction or overthrow by violence of, the constitutionally established system of government in Canada We know that over half the donations made in furtherance of these illegal blockades came from international sources, thousands of which funded the January 6 insurrection in Washington. Also, there have been serious threats and destructive acts to individuals and businesses in Ottawa, and the stated purpose of this enterprise was to overthrow the government. Therefore, from my reading, this threshold is clearly met. Many have raised concerns about the precedent that using this act presents, and while this act must always be used sparingly, I believe it is warranted in this situation for the reasons I mentioned before. I would also counter that we need to be similarly concerned with the precedent that would be set if we did not act. The precedent would be allowing an openly seditious movement to be legitimized, and to legitimize the methods of blockading critical infrastructure and of seeking to hold cities hostage for weeks on end with the goal of forcing a change in government policy or of the government itself. I would agree we should never have ended up at this point. We should not have had to resort to the Emergencies Act, but here we are. The last few weeks have revealed vulnerabilities in our law enforcement system, and it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to learn from these illegal blockades, and who and what was behind them, to take remedial action and to take seriously the threat that misinformation and foreign influence pose to our democracy. If we can do that, we will ensure that tools, systems and protocols are in place to prevent similar situations from occurring without the need to invoke the Emergencies Act, as we must do now. I also want to clarify a distinction and misinterpretation that sits at the heart of these illegal activities, and that is the idea of freedom. Freedom cannot be absolute in a free and democratic society. Freedom is not a form of unbridled licence to do whatever we want regardless of how it harms others. Personal freedoms must be limited when they take away the freedoms of others. The flip side of personal rights and freedoms is societal obligations and responsibilities. They must be balanced with the rights and freedoms of others. That is how a democratic society functions, and that is why these blockades must end. Political protest is protected by our charter right to freedom of expression, but there is no right in this country to block critical infrastructure, to harass fellow Canadians, to vandalize businesses and homes, to defecate in the streets, to saddle others with the cost of policing these actions or to saddle our country with billions of dollars in economic losses from illegal blockades. None of these aforementioned acts can ever be considered a legitimate form of expression. I have to say that I have been embarrassed by what I have seen in Canada over the last month, from the hateful symbols we have seen in public and hateful political rhetoric to the horrible messages my staff, many of my hon. colleagues and I have been receiving. We need to be civil. We need to be better. We need to be able to truly listen to the ideas that differ from our own without pointing fingers and calling each other names. As elected representatives of Canadians, that starts in this House. With that, I look forward to questions from my hon. friends.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Feb/20/22 9:03:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will ask the member a question. He said that the point of all the protesters was to overthrow the government. I have been closely following the Ottawa Police Service and they are now laying out charges against people they detained and arrested. I have noticed that nobody has been charged with treason, conspiracy to commit sedition, seditious intentions or rioting. I wonder if the member can please explain to me how the government can claim something rhetorically and amp up the language in this chamber, as we talk about civil debate, when the charges being laid by police services and prosecutors do not match what the government is claiming these protests were about.

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Mr. Patrick Weiler

Feb/20/22 9:04:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not want to comment on the ongoing investigations right now, but what I will say is that the freedom convoy's stated purpose was to do just that, to overthrow the democratically elected government that we are all honoured to sit in today. Those ideas and that intent were made very clear from the beginning, but I will not comment on the ongoing investigations that may be taking place right now.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

Feb/20/22 9:04:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member, who is also my neighbour, for his intervention today. When we look outside and see what has happened and talk about extremism, one thing I heard during this time from some members in the House is that there are “a few bad apples”, and this is very concerning to me. We all know that there are a few bad apples in every group, but the point is not the bad apples: It is the people who stand with the bad apples. If we look at our history on this planet, it is when people were quiet, when they minimized what was happening, that really terrible things were the outcome. I wonder if the member could speak to how important it is to stand against things that are extreme and make sure that we are not complicit in things that put us and our democracy in huge trouble.

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Mr. Patrick Weiler

Feb/20/22 9:05:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. neighbour, the member for North Island—Powell River, for her very important question, which is also to point of the member opposite who asked the previous question. Certainly not all those who are involved in these debates hold those views, but we need to be very careful that those views are not normalized within Canada, that seeing swastikas and Confederate flags is not normalized and kind of swept under the rug as being just the acts of a few folks. We need to be very vigilant on this point, as I mentioned in my speech earlier, and the real threat that it could pose to our society if it becomes normalized. I completely agree with the comments and suggestions of the member.

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Mr. Mario Beaulieu (La Pointe-de-l'Île, BQ)

Feb/20/22 9:06:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what does my colleague think that it would take to revoke the emergency measures?

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Mr. Patrick Weiler

Feb/20/22 9:07:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. I do not want us to have to use these measures for long. In fact, we cannot use them for more than 30 days. However, we have already seen the impact they had on downtown Ottawa and elsewhere in the country. Investigations are already under way. I look forward to seeing the response from the Minister of Public Safety. We must not put these measures in place if they are not necessary.

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Mr. Frank Caputo (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, CPC)

Feb/20/22 9:08:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. I take this member's remarks to be that in his view, the temperature really has to be dialed down and that we have to really watch that things do not become normalized. I wonder if he can comment, when it comes to normalizing things, on the Prime Minister's lack of apology to the member for Thornhill for the comments he made in the House last week.

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Mr. Patrick Weiler

Feb/20/22 9:08:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we all need to be very careful about what we say in this House and what we say in public. I mentioned in my speech that we do not want to be calling people names and we do not want to be pointing fingers, and that is the responsibility that we all need to take to heart to make sure that we are doing better, because we are setting an example for Canadians. We are here to represent Canadians, and that is a responsibility we need to take very seriously.

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Mr. Andy Fillmore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Lib.)

Feb/20/22 9:09:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when historians write this chapter of the Canadian story, what will they say about the protest? I do not question that for some it was about vaccine requirements for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border, nor do I question that others came here earnestly to protest pandemic restrictions and the disruption these public health measures brought on all of us. Although I do not share their views, vigorous debate and peaceful protest make Canada's democracy stronger. However, for more than a few and for many of those making up the core of organizers themselves, who sat atop a chain of command throughout this three-week occupation, the purpose was something far more sinister and one that betrayed the earnest initial intent of the others. These individuals came to upend the democracy upon which our country is found. They had their demands and soon resorted to intimidation, lawlessness, force and even sedition to see them met, regardless of whether those demands were wise or even fell within the jurisdiction of the federal government at all. Thwarted by the incoherence of their own demands and frustrated by our resolve, they laid siege to our capital with the stated intent to overthrow the democratically elected government and install themselves in our place. Today, it is evident that they have failed. With the powers of the Emergencies Act, law and order have returned to the streets of Ottawa. Our democratic system, as well as the rights and freedoms that it provides, carries on. Members of Parliament, duly elected, continue debate on the Emergencies Act, invoked in the spirit of peace, order and good government. Today, it is evident that this measure was necessary, so let me speak to why I will be voting in support of invoking the Emergencies Act. I have the benefit of addressing the chamber following this week's police operation that finally brought the occupation to an end. What we saw was a methodical, orderly and restrained operation by professional police from across the country working as one. We know now just how integral the powers of the Emergencies Act were to the success of that operation. When asked if the Emergencies Act was necessary, the interim chief of the Ottawa police, Steve Bell, could not have been more clear: Police could not have done the job they did the way they did it without the powers provided by the act. That comes from the senior commanding officer for the operation. He is not alone. Many more academic, legal and security professionals have come to the same conclusion, including a Harper-appointed senator, Vernon White, a former Ottawa police chief himself, and security expert Wesley Wark, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, whom I know to be a respected voice by many in the chamber, including my Conservative colleagues. It is, of course, worth noting that a recent poll indicated that two-thirds of Canadians support this measure as well. Specifically, the Emergencies Act provided these key powers that were absolutely critical. One, it allowed police to establish a secure perimeter around the downtown core, preventing additional trucks or groups from joining the occupations. Two, it allowed Canadian financial service providers to immediately freeze or suspend accounts of an individual or a business affiliated with these illegal blockades until such time as that illegal activity was ceased. Three, it compelled private companies to provide towing services, fully compensated, to remove trucks and other vehicles from the occupation zone. It also allowed for the RCMP to enforce municipal bylaws, among other important measures. Some have asked, which is responsible, whether the Emergencies Act is an overreach. In fact, that is the essential question before Parliament today. It is a minority Parliament that will make a determination on the matter and revoke the measure if it not agreed to by the House. It is an excellent example of the oversight built into the legislation written by the Mulroney government. With due credit to the Progressive Conservative Party at that time, other accountability measures include a special joint committee of both the House of Commons and the Senate to review the government's actions under the act on an ongoing basis, a 30-day sunset clause to make sure that these powers do not extend longer than necessary and an inquiry after one year. Importantly, the Emergencies Act does not limit charter rights; rather, it is subordinate to those rights. Still, a common refrain from the occupiers is that the Emergencies Act and the police operation to end the lawlessness in our capital trampled on their charter rights to peaceful assembly. That is simply false. The charter protections extend only to assembly that is peaceful. The charter does not protect one's right to seriously disturb the peace, as the occupation of Ottawa has done over the past three weeks. It also does not provide cover for illegal activities carried out during a protest, like the flagrant disregard for the law that has been well documented in the streets of our capital throughout the occupation, with hate crimes, misogyny, arson, vandalism and intimidation. The list is long. Importantly, the Emergencies Act is democratic. It is an act of Parliament already debated and passed by both Houses, given royal assent, proclaimed and gazetted some 30 years ago. Its application is now being democratically debated in the House of Commons. Did the time-limited, targeted and proportionate powers of the act work? For the first time in 23 days, quiet has descended upon Ottawa. The streets of the city have finally been returned to its residents, law and order have been restored and the Emergencies Act has performed its function as intended by the Progressive Conservative government that enacted it in 1988. Three decades later, we find ourselves in the unexpected situation in which the party of Mulroney opposed invoking the measure, while the Liberals and the NDP support it. Our parliamentary system requires Her Majesty's loyal opposition. It is an essential part of the checks and balances that keep our country on a stable footing and ensures that the diverse voices of Canadians are heard in this place. However, when crisis strikes, as leaders we are called to rise above our political divides, for we all take an oath as members of Parliament to act in the best interests of our country. Sadly, that is not what we have seen from the Conservatives throughout this occupation. Through their actions in the last three weeks, it is all too clear that the Conservative Party has strayed from its origins as a party of principle and accountability. Its proud tradition as the party of law and order lies shattered in the dirty snow on Wellington Street. The Conservatives have put their own political gain ahead of the country's security, prosperity and democracy. As their party clamours for an ever-smaller and more extreme faction of the far right, they abandon the hard-working conservatives who look to them for a credible potential government. Instead, the Canadians they have left behind watch in horror as our police and media are spat on and assaulted in the throes of a lawless occupation that today's Conservative Party has chosen to defend. With the help of the powers of the Emergencies Act, the occupation has come to an end. The trucks and the protesters have gone home, the people of Ottawa are breathing a sigh of relief and Parliament has resumed its important democratic function. However, something has changed in Canada or has perhaps been uncovered these past three weeks. Some will say the divide has grown wider. As political columnist John Ivison wrote yesterday, “It feels like Canada is splintering into two tribes—the intolerant, authoritarian woke lunatics on the left and the spittle-flecked, hateful lunatics on the far-right.” The optimist in me wants to deny it, but I cannot. At times, that is how it feels. Perhaps that is how it feels to a growing number of Canadians as well after these last two years or after these last 23 days. We need to log out of social media, put down our phones, stop doom-scrolling and ask why it is that, despite a pretty strong consensus on the effectiveness of the broad pandemic response from all parties and all orders of government, it still feels at times like we are more divided than ever. The answer may lie in the palm of our hands in the devices we carry with us day and night. Our political beliefs and grievances are being fed to us by opaque algorithms that serve a singular function: profit for the massive tech giants that dominate our online realm. These platforms prey on our psyche, weaponizing our emotions to keep us all online all the time and garnering untold fortunes in ad revenue. Disinformation, a tool of foreign influence in the cyber-era, goes unchecked. Division, it turns out, is a money-maker. The scene was set as the pandemic locked us inside, and the very same screens they told us would keep us together served instead to push us further apart. It is my hope that the joint committee and inquiry required in the Emergencies Act will take a hard look at the fundamental role that online platforms played in stoking the flames of division, anger and disinformation, making it harder for any of us to see the other side, as though we live in two entirely different and separate universes, unrecognizable to one another, with incompatible ideas of truth, media and science. Until we address this, I fear we risk repeating the crisis, and who knows in what terrifying form next time. We must act before a generation of children, our children, online as they are, grow up never knowing that there was a better way to be.

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Mr. Frank Caputo (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, CPC)

Feb/20/22 9:18:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. I find it rather disheartening that we have an ode to hope here, but partisan rhetoric really couches it. One thing the hon. member said in his speech is that public opinion is on his side. I would like to ask him when the rule of law became subordinate to public opinion. He cited those two principles and sometimes they are incompatible, but if the rule of law is superlative, why is he not abiding by the rule of law?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Feb/20/22 9:19:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot discern a sensible question, but the member did mention political rhetoric. I note that the interim leader of the member's party stated recently, “It’s time for MPs to return to the House and restore unity, wholeness and hope back to our nation.” I would suggest that perhaps the member and his interim leader should focus on restoring unity, wholeness and hope back to their party as we watch it self-immolate in real time day by day.

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Mr. Mario Beaulieu (La Pointe-de-l'Île, BQ)

Feb/20/22 9:20:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for operations that call for multiple police forces to intervene, emergency measures are not needed. Why were such operations not carried out sooner?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Feb/20/22 9:20:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my remarks, the interim chief of police in Ottawa was very clear in stating that he was unable to do his job without the act. We have seen the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police underscore that same truth: that this act was a required action to have been taken by the government to help police forces across the country deal with the blockades. I would further say that there are checks built into this act. The special committee that will be set up to review the actions under the act will shed more light on the question the member asked, but for now I am very satisfied that we are well within the confines of the law.

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Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Feb/20/22 9:21:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with the urgency I am hearing today, why did it take the Prime Minister so long to take this seriously?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Feb/20/22 9:21:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member that multiple premiers across the country reached out and asked for help. When that happened, the government got busy invoking the act. It was very important to give the provincial governments the required time and space to act under their own laws and rules, but when it became clear to some of the premiers, and to the federal government, that the additional powers of the act were required, the Prime Minister and the cabinet acted very swiftly. The results, as we saw, were delivered very swiftly as well.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/20/22 9:22:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think of the impact this has had on people, communities and jobs, whether in Alberta, Manitoba or Ontario. Blockades prevented half a billion dollars in trade between two countries. It had a horrendous impact. Ottawa was shut down by illegal blockades. There were written requests from the Province of Alberta and the Province of Manitoba to the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada asking for support. This is one of the tools that we provided, and it has been effective. Could the member provide his thoughts on the importance of the tool?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Feb/20/22 9:23:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we all have stories about how the lockdown here and the blockades elsewhere have had a personal impact, but I want to address the part of the question about the interruption of trade, the job losses, the shuttering of automobile factories in Canada and the loss of wages that resulted from these blockades. I was privileged to be part of a call two days ago with the Canadian American Business Council. I found it necessary to reassure our American trade partners that the government had acted at a national level to ensure that such disruptions would not happen again. It was important for them to hear that, and they were edified by it. We must never let it happen again.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Feb/20/22 9:23:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart I rise today. This is a solemn day that will no doubt be remembered by Canadians for decades to come. Given the gravity of today's debate, I believe it is incumbent on all members to speak candidly, earnestly and sincerely. Today we are debating the Emergencies Act, but before I outline why the invocation of this act is capricious and completely unnecessary, it is best to provide some context to how our country got to where it is right now. Unfortunately, it is truly clear that Canada is a highly fragmented country facing significant economic problems that put our entire prosperity at risk. Our economy has just experienced significant job losses. We are experiencing an inflation crisis, with inflation at a 30-year high of 5.1%. That has real consequences. There are people, many Canadians, who cannot afford the bare necessities of life. We have over $1 trillion in debt that will doubtlessly be pushed onto future generations as they pay for our expenditures. Our country is divided. It is divided between west versus east, rural versus urban, freedom versus security and vaccinated versus unvaccinated. Now our Prime Minister has invoked the Emergencies Act. It is an act that suspends the civil liberties of Canadians such as section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of association, and section 8, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The police can, literally without warrant or warning, seize one's property. They can arrest Canadians for simply assembling. Never in my life or in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to have five police checks just to get to my office. Never did I expect that in Canada. The invocation of the Emergencies Act has also given the government the right to freeze bank accounts without judicial oversight. This can create financial ruin by putting an asterisk beside someone's financial credit rating for life. This might mean that a mortgage never happens, or that a son or daughter never goes to university, because of this asterisk. Why was this done? According to the Minister of Justice, when he was talking to the media, he said that the grounds could be for as little as supporting causes the government disagrees with. This is shameful. When someone's bank account is frozen, they are effectively being removed from society. They may not have money to pay for food to feed their children, for gasoline for their cars to get to work, or for electricity to heat their homes. The government may literally starve and freeze Canadians into submission. I watched this weekend as protesters were arrested at gunpoint. They were pepper sprayed. Several protesters were trampled by 2,000-pound horses. How could the Prime Minister ever let the situation get this bad? This is not our Canada. Let us go back and look at what led us to these circumstances. It makes sense to start with the change in tone from the Prime Minister heading into his unnecessary $600-million election. The Prime Minister, based no doubt on polling numbers, made a calculated effort to demonize unvaccinated Canadians and to capitalize on the growing frustration of vaccinated Canadians with the unvaccinated. The choice led the Prime Minister to demean and stigmatize, as the member for Louis-Hébert so eloquently said. The Prime Minister said they are extremists “who do not believe in science, they’re often misogynists and often racists. It is a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a decision in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?” That is repugnant. I have sat here listening to Liberal member after Liberal member saying that we needed to de-escalate and bring down the heat. They should start by talking to the Prime Minister. Also, it was no doubt a part of the Prime Minister's strategy to demonize and exploit cleavages in our society when he decided to implement a 14-day quarantine period on truckers: our heroes who, throughout COVID for two years, when there were no vaccines, went across. They braved the delta variant. They braved the omicron variant. They were our heroes, and now they are demonized. All we have asked, and all the media and the opposition members have asked, is for the government to show us its math. Instead, we get outdated, irrelevant talking points. We have cost thousands of Canadians their livelihoods for purely partisan politics. This is disgusting. We presented the most utterly reasonable motion. Our party simply asked for a plan to end the mandate. It was just a plan. The Prime Minister remained defiant, refusing to support the plan. While the rest of the world opens up borders, while the rest of the world eases restrictions, our Prime Minister will not even give Canadians, who deserve hope, a plan for that hope or a plan to return to normality. Once again, the Prime Minister has chosen politics over science and petulance over leadership. This crisis could have been avoided with strong and compassionate leadership. Instead, the Prime Minister chose partisanship over statesmanship and division over unity. This has led us to the current crisis. The Prime Minister's unnecessary mandate and divisive rhetoric have caused frustrations to boil over. Canadians from across the country began to spontaneously demonstrate and show their dissatisfaction to the Liberal government. Unfortunately, some of the movement splintered into illegal activities, including the blockades at the border crossings at Coutts and the Ambassador Bridge. Fortunately, the provinces were able to resolve these matters peacefully, and they ended with hugs instead of violence. Here in Ottawa, while many of the protesters were salt-of-the-earth Canadians who wanted to express their grievances, unfortunately there were some who expressed hate. They should all be individually accountable for those expressions. In addition, there were approximately 150 vehicles parked in front of Parliament for over three weeks. Those vehicles disrupted lives. They made it impossible for individuals to go to school or to go to work. They needed to be moved, and that cannot be doubted. To end this, though, the Prime Minister overreached. He invoked the Emergencies Act. The Emergencies Act is fairly clear and fairly prescriptive. It requires that three tests be met: first, that the public disorder created a threat to the security of Canada; second, that it was national in scope; and third, that the public disorder could not be resolved by other means. Let us review those criteria, one by one. Was there a security threat to Canada? A security threat would presumably be something extremely significant. A clear example would be the potential use of a nuclear or chemical weapon. Those are security threats to Canada. Another would be a paramilitary force threatening to overthrow the Canadian government. What we had here were 150 illegally parked vehicles and a mass of disorganized people, some of them who had repugnant views, including the overthrow of the government, but there is no actual intelligence I have seen or any evidence that there was actually the ability to threaten our government. I walked through there for three weeks, and if in fact the government allowed all MPs to walk through these protests and there was an imminent threat to our government, that is the most malfeasance and insecurity our government has ever had. Second, it is national in scope. Three weeks ago, we may have had an argument about this. When the Coutts and Ambassador Bridge blockades were happening, we might have had an argument, but they are gone. Do members know what? So is the protest in Ottawa. Why has this not been revoked by now? Where is the threat? Where is it? It is clear. It is done. Third, it cannot be resolved by other legislation. Clearly, it could be and it has been, at the Ambassador Bridge and otherwise. It is true that it would be helpful. A sledgehammer would be helpful to crack a walnut, but it would not be necessary. That is the case here. Ultimately, this is not about truckers or one's vaccination status. This is about the future of Canada. Do we want a country that is free to dissent? A government that controls the discourse, controls our lives. Do we want a country where environmentalists fear that we are not doing enough on climate change? Do we want a country where Quebeckers can share their request for greater autonomy? Do we want a government where a Conservative can share his contempt for the government? I believe all of these voices should be heard.

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