44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 7:33:17 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we need to be careful because this debate is not just about the abuse that was committed during the protest. This movement took hold because some truckers were against mandatory vaccination for cross-border truckers and then the situation deteriorated.
I do not want to minimize the movement, but the member said that the use of the Emergencies Act was the result of the government's lack of leadership. I imagine that she agrees that the government could have taken action sooner and used other tools instead of allowing the crisis to escalate and then using this law of last resort.
I would like to hear the member say that this debate is about the health measures and that the situation did not warrant the use of the Emergencies Act.
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- Feb/20/22 7:50:58 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying hello to the people in my riding of Thérèse‑De Blainville, and thanking the many constituents who have sent messages of support for the position taken by my Bloc Québécois colleagues and I on the blockade in downtown Ottawa and in this debate on the Emergencies Act.
People have very legitimate questions, worries and concerns. We have listened carefully, and they have been heard. We also heard their heartfelt pleas that they never again wanted to experience or be afraid of experiencing the worst, that is events such as those of 1970, when the War Measures Act was invoked. The collective trauma and the fear experienced are still vivid and painful memories for an entire nation, namely, the people of Quebec.
I forgot to mention that, in the spirit of solidarity, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Repentigny. We stand twice as united.
Of course, the Emergencies Act is not the same as the War Measures Act. We know the difference. The former is nevertheless the spawn of the latter, as our leader so aptly put it. Although these two acts must not be conflated, they do have one thing in common: They are both special laws. This means that the exception should not be the rule or become the norm in dealing with situations or events that can be resolved using other means, whether political or legal, or through laws already in place. Any government that is even considering using the Emergencies Act must demonstrate unequivocally that all avenues have been pursued and all options have been exhausted.
Isaac Newton said that we should only be certain about what can be proven. I am certain that the Emergencies Act is not necessary because the government and the Prime Minister have failed to prove that it is.
On the first day of debate in the House, the Prime Minister described the Emergencies Act as targeted, proportionate and reasonable. That same day, I described it as the opposite. This act is disproportionate and unreasonable. How can he claim that it is targeted when, in fact, its scope is from one end of Canada to the other, whether we need it or not?
One thing the act requires is consultation with the provinces. Even though seven of them said no, even though the Premier of Quebec said no, even though the National Assembly unanimously said no, the federal government does not care. It does not give a fig. That is bad.
To hear the Prime Minister tell it, this is a law of last resort to be used once options 1, 2 and 3 have all failed. Those options did not fail; they were not even tried.
Plans for a protest at the Parliament of Canada in the national capital were announced over three weeks ago now. We knew a convoy of truckers was coming from as far away as Vancouver, bearing a message for the federal government. What steps did the federal government take to prepare? Nobody knows. Did the federal government analyze the potential impact of the protest based on the messages it was expecting to hear from the protestors? Apparently not. It seems to have opted for a wait-and-see approach, which led the protesters to believe they were welcome in Ottawa and could make themselves right at home.
Once the protesters were settled in in front of Parliament Hill and on main downtown arteries, the only thing the Prime Minister deigned to say was that they were a fringe minority. After that, there was no sign of him. A few days later, things got worse. We acknowledge that. We condemn what happened. We do not tolerate these incidents. At that point, the Prime Minister said that it was not up to the government, that it was up to the City of Ottawa and its police service.
Funnily enough, around the same time, I heard a City of Ottawa police officer saying that the police were speaking to protesters, but that the protesters were not interested in talking to the police because they wanted to speak to the Prime Minister. That short message spoke volumes.
In the House, we urged the government to take action and we proposed such solutions as creating a crisis task force, requesting a meeting with the opposition party leaders and the Prime Minister, and emphasizing that coordinated action was necessary. That would have been possible and, in fact, it proved to be possible when law enforcement coordinated their efforts and took down the protest in front of Parliament Hill in two days. No one had been able to take down that protest for three weeks.
The City of Ottawa requested an additional 1,800 police officers, and the federal government sent them 275 RCMP officers. The Prime Minister and his government had options and chose to let the situation drag on. What is worse, the government now wants our blessing for its inaction and is calling on us to vote in favour of using the Emergencies Act, a piece of legislation designed to be used in exceptional circumstances. We will not support the use of this act, because the evidence is clear that the government dropped the ball. Once again, one too many times, the Prime Minister and his government proved themselves to be incapable of managing conflicts.
There is no crisis in the country right now that warrants invoking the Emergencies Act. Yes, for the past 24 days there has been a protest-turned-blockade that is interfering with the peace of mind and safety of downtown Ottawa residents. We condemned this protest and continue to do so. However, the situation can and could have been dealt with long before, with the powers that the police already have and with the legislative tools already available.
The Emergencies Act was passed in 1988, over 30 years ago, and to this day it has never been enacted. The fact that the government is invoking it now is proof of its failure in managing the crisis. We cannot endorse it, because this government has failed to demonstrate that it is needed. Nor can it be considered a “just in case” option.
I heard the Minister of Justice say that this legislation is being invoked in case the protesters come back or in case the situation in Windsor becomes destabilized. The Emergencies Act is there to deal with an ongoing situation, not to prevent one in the future or to act retroactively on a past situation. The minister should know that, because it is an essential principle of natural justice.
There is one option that we would support, and that is for the government to withdraw this motion and to admit that it was wrong. That would take courage and humility. If that is not possible, we would be satisfied with an apology from the Prime Minister. We know that he is capable of giving them.
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- Feb/20/22 7:59:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech.
However, I want to point out that her comparison with the War Measures Act is inaccurate because we are talking about another act here. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that, for the Bloc Québécois, respecting areas of jurisdiction is only important from time to time. The member is asking us to act when she knows full well that, without the Emergencies Act, that is not part of our jurisdiction.
Our NDP colleague from Windsor just told us that his community is in crisis. We know that Premier Doug Ford is incapable of dealing with the situation. How can she claim that we are not in a crisis situation?
There may not be a crisis in Quebec, but there is one in Ontario, especially in Windsor.
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- Feb/20/22 8:00:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I did not falsely conflate the two acts, but the trauma does still remain in our collective psyche. It makes no difference. There is no crisis. That is what is being falsely conflated. The Emergencies Act applies all across Canada to situations that are not crises, like the one we are experiencing.
The situation in Windsor has been resolved because the police managed to resolve it, and yes, it still needs to be stabilized, but the police must do that. We saw that it worked. Do we have to wait for President Biden to call the Prime Minister again to resolve the matter, because that makes it more important?
Jurisdictional issues are not an excuse for incompetence and the inability to coordinate all the resources that would have been necessary to deal with the situation in Ontario.
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- Feb/20/22 8:20:08 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I should start by saying that I am opposed to the government's invoking the Emergencies Act, and I will be voting against this motion when it comes up for a vote tomorrow evening. I will now explain my reasons for doing so.
The invocation of the Emergencies Act, formally known as the War Measures Act, is an extremely serious matter that rightfully concerns all Canadians. This is only the fourth time in history that either of these acts has been invoked, and I certainly hope that it will be the last for the foreseeable future.
The first time the War Measures Act was invoked was during World War I, the second time was during World War II, and the third and most recent time was during the FLQ crisis of 1970. For context, I would like to speak a little more about this most recent invocation of the War Measures Act, in 1970, during the FLQ crisis.
The Front de libération du Québec, or FLQ, was by any objective measure a terrorist organization. The FLQ plotted and carried out dozens of bombings. The FLQ robbed banks. The FLQ performed kidnappings. The FLQ murdered a total of eight people and wounded dozens more. Finally, after all the bombings, all the bank robberies, all the kidnappings and all the murders, the federal government decided that this matter could no longer be left to local law enforcement officials; it decided to invoke the War Measures Act in October 1970. To this day, scholars, historians and even politicians who were there at the time remain critical of the decision by then prime minister Pierre Trudeau to invoke the War Measures Act in 1970. Instead, they argue that the matter should simply have been left to local law enforcement officials.
NDP leader Tommy Douglas was very critical of the decision on the floor of the House of Commons, noting that the Liberal government of the day did not provide one shred of evidence to support its claim of an apprehended insurrection. Don Jamieson, Pierre Trudeau's transport minister, wrote in his memoirs years later, “In concrete terms, we did not have a compelling case to put forward.” In his opinion, invoking the War Measures Act was simply a way for Pierre Trudeau to make life difficult for his political opponents.
In the Journal of Canadian Studies, Professor Dominique Clément has argued, “The universal suspension of human rights is, in retrospect, the most damning indictment of the government's decision to invoke the War Measures Act.” Richard Gwyn, one of Pierre Trudeau's biographers, argues, “Trudeau smeared irredeemably his reputation as a champion of civil liberties. No other prime minister has been so severely criticized for crushing civil liberties.”
There is a strong argument to be made by historians and academics that even the FLQ crisis, with all of its bombings, bank robberies, kidnappings and murders, did not justify invoking the War Measures Act, and that these matters were best left to local law enforcement officials.
Therefore, if it is highly questionable as to whether the War Measures Act was justified in 1970, then what is the justification for invoking the Emergencies Act today? What are the protesters in downtown Ottawa and on Parliament Hill doing that would justify the invocation of this act?
Well, for starters, they have bouncy castles. I have walked through the crowd of protesters almost every morning on my way to work on Parliament Hill and I can confirm that there are bouncy castles, but bouncy castles do not justify invoking the Emergencies Act. Bouncy castles in the middle of the street are a matter for local law enforcement.
Many of these protesters and truckers have parked their trucks illegally and have been blaring their horns all night long. I think these trucks should be ticketed and towed, but the need to ticket and tow some vehicles does not justify invoking the Emergencies Act. Ticketing and towing vehicles is a matter for local law enforcement officials.
There has also been an incident of someone jumping up and down on the National War Memorial. There has been another incident of someone putting an upside-down flag on the Terry Fox statue. There have also been reports of local residents being intimidated and harassed. I certainly condemn all these activities, but none of this justifies invoking the emergency measures act. These are matters for local law enforcement, nothing more.
In order for the act to be invoked, I think it is important for Canadians, including members of this House, to understand the threshold that must be met. Section 16 of the act reads, “public order emergency means an emergency that arises from threats to the security of Canada and that is so serious as to be a national emergency”. It says a “national emergency”. The noisy truckers and the bouncy castles out on Wellington Street do not constitute a national emergency.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: They are not there anymore.
Mr. Michael Kram: Then they especially do not.
Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, I have walked through the crowds out on Wellington Street almost every morning on my way to work since the convoy arrived, and I lived to tell about it. There is no al Qaeda. There is no Taliban. There are no North Korean special forces looking to take over the government. This is a matter for local law enforcement officials, and it is wrong for the government to try to make it out to be anything more than that.
If the protestors out on Wellington Street are best left to local law enforcement, then that raises the following questions: What should the federal government be doing? How can the federal government best respond to this whole situation in a positive and constructive manner? I think the federal government needs to get to the root cause of the frustrations we have all been feeling over the last two years. Of course, I am talking about the pandemic restrictions that have been disrupting the lives of Canadians.
The government would do well to come up with a science-based and evidence-based plan to safely and responsibly wind down pandemic restrictions at the federal level. This is exactly what the Conservative opposition has been calling on the government to do for some time. In fact, every provincial government has already presented a science-based, evidence-based plan to gradually wind down most, if not all pandemic restrictions, in a measurable, quantifiable manner based on metrics, benchmarks and milestones.
It is time for the federal government to do the same. If the government would focus its efforts on coming up with a science-based and evidence-based plan to responsibly wind down pandemic restrictions, that would be infinitely more beneficial to the quality of life of Canadians than invoking the emergency measures act to deal with noisy truckers and bouncy castles.
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- Feb/20/22 9:52:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like the previous speech that was given, my colleague acknowledge Wyatt Sharpe. I want to also take the time to acknowledge such a bright young man who is doing great work and pursuing a path in journalism at such a young age and so engaged in politics.
Today’s debate is undoubtedly one the most important debates that I have had the opportunity to participate in since I was elected by the people of Whitby in 2019. The invocation of the Emergencies Act is not to be taken lightly. I do not believe our government has taken it lightly.
In preparation for this debate, I have taken the time to review documents, to reflect deeply on this moment, the situation our country is facing, and the special temporary measures our government has proposed to aid in the enforcement of the law and what is the best course of action. I will say that I have been following the events that have been unfolding across Canada. It has been deeply disturbing to watch as all of this unfolds in our great country. I have been following it closely over the last weeks and I think I really have a lot of the information that I need to make these judgments.
To my mind, the debate today is about whether the invocation of the Emergencies Act is necessary and justified. I believe what we have seen happening does meet the threshold or criteria. More specifically, I will argue that based on reasonable grounds a public order emergency does exist and has existed, that the public order emergency necessitates the taking of special temporary measures that the government has proposed and that these are measures that are necessary because they could not be effectively dealt with by provinces and territories; that the proposed temporary measures are reasonable and proportionate in how they may limit the rights of citizens, and that the consultation, as required in section 25, was indeed carried out sufficiently. An acknowledgement was made by multiple jurisdictions that the current emergency could not be dealt with within their capacity or authority.
I want to say a few words about a public order emergency. The act defines a national emergency as:
an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
(b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada
With regard to a “urgent, temporary and critical situation...that...seriously endangers the health and safety of Canadians”, I think we can all agree that what we have seen across Canada was clearly escalating over time and seriously endangered the health and safety of Canadians. I will say why.
What we saw was a coordinated attempt. It was not an isolated incident or a multiple autonomous isolated incidents. It was a coordinated attempt to illegally occupy Ottawa. There have been attempts to occupy other major cities by the same group, which was centrally organized and had a stated intent to overthrow a democratically elected government. I would add that we should remember that that government was engaged in implementing platform commitments it was elected on. I think that is really important here.
These individuals unfortunately used large transport trucks to purposely disrupt the flow of traffic, impede the progress of other citizens and entrenched themselves in our capital city over weeks. These individuals and their supporters also said that they would not leave until their demands were met. In my books, that is extortion. It is coercion for the purpose of achieving a political and ideological objective. That is not okay in a democracy. It is completely unacceptable.
Certainly, the people of downtown Ottawa experienced a real endangerment to their health and safety. There is no doubt about that in my mind. I think we could talk to almost any individual who lives within the downtown core and they would say that they have been terrorized. I do not think anyone can deny that.
Many people in downtown Ottawa were harassed, from shop owners to workers, families and children. I have heard that people just walking down the street, who happened to be wearing a mask, were harassed. Businesses have been closed and shuttered for quite some time, and we know the Rideau Centre has been closed for weeks.
Schools and vaccine clinics were closed. We saw parties on the streets and fireworks, and horns honked all night long. We saw thefts and attempted arson. We saw the desecration of monuments to our national heroes, and we saw open displays of symbols of racism, hate and white supremacy.
We also saw the targeting of other essential infrastructure, including overwhelming 911 lines, which definitely impacted people's ability to access emergency services in a moment of crisis. We saw the planning for targeting, or potential targeting, of the international airport in Ottawa and even local schools.
These are acts of intimidation. We cannot call them anything else. This is not a peaceful protest. They are acts of intimidation for a political and ideological aim or purpose. These individuals were warned of the consequences of their illegal activity over and over again. Instead of discontinuing that behaviour, they persisted.
This is why I do not have much sympathy for the individuals who are performing these illegal blockades at this point, although I understand that we all need to listen to some of the concerns they express. I understand that. I do not paint them with a broad brush, but at the same time, the illegal activity and blockades that are impeding other people's rights and freedoms are really a significant concern to the health and safety of Canadians.
This has had such a prolonged and severe negative impact on the residents of downtown Ottawa that they decided to organize counterprotests to put an end to the occupation of their city. This is a recipe for disaster, in my book. When people's confidence in the rule of law has been so diminished that they decide to take matters into their own hands, we have got a major problem in this country. We cannot allow this to persist.
We know that participants were organized and became more entrenched. They set up their own sites, they stored supplies centrally and they coordinated through various communication channels. This continued lawlessness, coupled with the unfortunate inability, originally, to enforce the rule of law by the Ottawa police, contributed to the ongoing legitimization of this activity. Consequently, going unchecked, it spread fairly quickly. What we have seen is a spread.
This was encouraged and emboldened by the Conservative Party of Canada, which is utterly and completely shameful, in my book. They were out there serving coffee, taking selfies and pictures with these individuals and basically encouraging them.
What then spread throughout Canada at many different sites was an attempt to block ports of entry, including in Windsor, Ontario, Coutts, Alberta, and Emerson, Manitoba. The list goes on. Many others threats cropped up, which were real, including in Sarnia, Ontario, Fort Erie, Ontario, Surrey, B.C., and others. Just yesterday, there was another protest in Surrey, B.C.
This establishes that the emergency is national in nature. It is not limited to one area or jurisdiction, and it is not over yet. We know that the blockade at just one border crossing, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, would interrupt over $390 million in trade per day. This had the immediate effect of causing a loss of wages and temporary layoffs for workers, as well as revenue losses for businesses. It crippled essential supply chains that provide fuel, food and health supplies, not to mention increasing the inflationary pressures that our opposition has been ranting and raving about in the House of Commons for weeks. It damaged the reputation of Canada as a reliable trade partner, affecting foreign investor confidence. The list goes on.
We all know how closely integrated the economies of Canada and the U.S. are, and how important critical infrastructure and trade routes are to ensuring the flow of essential goods and services. This is all essential to the health and security of all Canadians, which is part of the definition of a national emergency.
Seeing these blockades multiply, target our border crossings and purposely disrupt essential trade is most certainly a critical and urgent situation that endangers the health and safety of Canadians, again constituting a national emergency. I can add the fact that at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta there was a seizure of guns, body armour and ammunition, and that arrests were made and charges laid by the RCMP for conspiracy to commit murder. This also presents a threat to the security of Canada through “acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political or ideological objective”. These individuals, who are part of an extremist group called “Diagolon”, have a political and ideological motivation, and they were willing to use lethal force to carry out their agenda.
Errol Mendes, professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa, said it well. He said:
If you look at what's happened not just in Ottawa but at the Ambassador Bridge and Coutts, Alta. and in B.C., essentially we have a national emergency.
There were threats and credible intelligence that individuals coordinating all of this were also planning to target railway lines, airports and even schools. Just yesterday, we saw another attempted blockade in Surrey, as I have already mentioned, which again demonstrates that this emergency is not over yet.
We also need to consider the flow of funding into crowdfunding platforms to support all of this illegal activity. Hacked data from GiveSendGo that was released showed that 55.7% of the over 92,000 donations made to this so-called “freedom convoy” were made by donors in the U.S., compared with 39% from Canada. This was predominantly foreign-funded. The illegal occupation of our capital city by a group of centrally coordinated individuals who were terrorizing the citizens of Ottawa for three weeks with the stated intent of overthrowing the government, and the targeting of our borders through illegal blockades spreading through the country with far-right extremist elements conspiring in some cases to commit murder, and the disruption of the essential supply chains that Canadians rely on, in fact had the majority of their funding from foreign sources.
Now, I think I am a pretty reasonable person in all of my dealings. I really believe in what I call the principle of sufficient reason. I do not know how any rational judge or person could see what I have just described as anything other than what it is, which is most certainly a public order emergency. I believe that wholeheartedly. This is a crisis that we are in, and it is appropriate to consider the Emergencies Act as a potential way to respond to such a crisis. When we look at the specific temporary measures that have been proposed, I think we need to determine whether those are actually needed, whether they are justified, whether they are reasonable and proportionate and whether they could not be used by any other level of authority in our country. If we look at those proposed measures, and there are five that I would like to talk about, I would maintain that they could not be enacted or used under any other law in our country.
On prohibiting any “public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace”, we have seen that this allows for areas such as downtown Ottawa to be designated as areas where public assembly is prohibited. This can be used for ports of entry and other critical infrastructure. To my knowledge, there is no other way to do that within provincial or municipal jurisdiction. What we have seen occur in Ottawa over the past few days, although it is certainly not something I ever thought I would see in our country, is in my view certainly necessary. We have seen the police and law enforcement professionals collaborate on a level I have never seen before in my lifetime. They have professionally and methodically, with the least amount of force possible, moved people out of downtown Ottawa. This has worked.
The other thing I want to talk about is the need to remove the transport trucks that are being used to create these illegal blockades. Tow truck companies have refused to assist in this matter, some of them because of threats they may have experienced or because of concerns that they would experience those threats, and some of them maybe for ideological purposes. They may not want to support the removal of some of these blockades, and that is fine. The point is that Ontario's Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act authorizes persons to provide assistance, but does not compel them to do so. The Emergencies Act is unique, in that it allows for the compelling of the provision of those services, which are surely needed to get these blockades to come to an end. The tool that makes the difference there is the ability to compel.
Also, RCMP and other law enforcement professionals could be sworn in and allowed to enforce laws at the local level, which we have seen supplement the efforts of the Ottawa police over the past couple of days. These have certainly been effective in mobilizing quickly and putting the blockades and the occupation of Ottawa to an end quite quickly.
Second to last, I want to talk about the shutdown of the flow of funds to the illegal blockades. My understanding is that requiring a comprehensive list of financial service providers to determine whether any property in their possession or control belonged to protesters participating in illegal blockades, and to cease dealing with those protesters, could not be done in any other way. Because of the flow of funds across jurisdictions and the specific nature of our financial industry, this could not be done unless we had an emergency economic measures order as a part of this whole package of tools.
The last tool I will mention is the cancellation of insurance for vehicles participating in illegal blockades. This could not be done without the Emergencies Act, because provincial governments cannot cancel insurance outside of their own jurisdiction. When we have transport trucks crossing the country to come and create illegal blockades in one of our cities, the hands of the city and the province are tied with regard to cancelling the insurance of those vehicles, at least for the time that they are participating in an illegal activity.
These specific measures are proportionate and reasonable. They allow for new essential tools that will certainly enhance our law enforcement services and restore the confidence of the public in the rule of law. We have seen how effective these measures have been over the past days in Ottawa, having cleared the streets. In fact, interim chief of police Steve Bell 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 talk very briefly about consultations with provinces and territories. Under the Emergencies Act, there is a requirement to consult with provinces. Those consultations took place and are ongoing. At least three premiers publicly supported the act's invocation, from Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia. They have all said publicly that they supported the proposed, time-limited and targeted measures.
Let us not forget that the report to both Houses of Parliament, called the Emergencies Act Consultations, was tabled on February 16. It provides a detailed overview of the extensive consultations and engagement that took place at every level of government, and across ministries and departments. These conversations took place over weeks and made it clear that federal support was needed. Indeed, we heard calls from Mayor Dilkens in Windsor, who called the protests a national crisis and talked about the economic impact of the border closures. We also heard the Ottawa chief of police on February 2 say this is, “a national issue, not an Ottawa issue—
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- Feb/20/22 10:14:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the Emergencies Act had been contemplated early on in this crisis, people would have a lot more cause for concern, but that is looking backward and the member opposite asked me to look forward.
This is about a time-limited, geographically specific, targeted measure that is reasonable and proportionate. It is not being looked at as something that is ongoing. It is limited, and I believe strongly that our government is interested in and fully supports the parliamentary oversight that is required to ensure that this is used not one day longer than it is needed.
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- Feb/20/22 10:16:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really struggle to understand how we can lay blame so indiscriminately on the federal government, when this protest started with a convoy that came across the country. We all knew it was coming, but did the Ottawa police know just how quickly it would set in and become entrenched?
When we look back on this, all levels and orders of government will be able to see where they could have acted more quickly or taken the threat more seriously, but hindsight is always 20/20. To get real, as the member said, we need to look at where we are now and look forward to how we are going to deal with this national crisis. I agree that it is a severe crisis and we need to use every tool in the tool box to get it under control, because the confidence of Canadians in the rule of law—
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- Feb/20/22 10:37:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the motion before us is a story of a profound failure of leadership. When I was elected to this chamber some 16 years ago and became the member of Parliament for Abbotsford, I would not have believed it if I had been told that I would be asked to approve giving the Prime Minister the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act.
I remember, when growing up as a teenager in 1970, Pierre Elliott Trudeau triggered the War Measures Act to quell the FLQ terrorist threat in Quebec. That crisis had gripped the nation for many months and involved kidnappings, extortion, over 200 bombings, gun violence, robbery and the eventual murder of a Quebec cabinet minister. The circumstances were clear and compelling, implicating the security and sovereignty of our country and justifying the use of this extreme measure.
Fast-forward to today and the circumstances are very different. For two years, truck drivers had been the heroes of the COVID pandemic, risking their health to transport goods and groceries as the virus raged across our nation. For a while, the truckers were the good guys. Then the Prime Minister decided to deprive these heroes of their livelihoods because they chose not to get vaccinated, despite the Prime Minister failing to show any evidence that unvaccinated truckers were significant spreaders of the virus. He made no effort to accommodate these Canadians through the use of other tools like PCR or rapid tests.
The reaction of the truckers was swift. A convoy was organized with the goal of delivering to the Prime Minister one simple message: Do not force us truckers to get vaccinated in order to keep our jobs. We all know the rest of the story. The protests grew and ended up right here in Ottawa, camped out in front of the Parliament Buildings. They were expecting at the very least that the Prime Minister would be open to listening to their concerns, but they were wrong. He was not. It became clear that the Prime Minister was not interested in hearing out his own citizens. What he did do was resort to name-calling. The protesters were the fringes of Canadian society. They were misogynists, racist, science-deniers, un-Canadian. “Do we even tolerate these people?” he screamed. In fact, he questioned whether those people should have any place in his Canada.
In the meantime, residents of downtown Ottawa were rightly becoming agitated. With the incessant honking of horns, shops and malls that had to close their doors and send employees home, major traffic disruptions and misbehaviour by a small number of protesters, life in the protest zone was becoming unbearable. I know. My apartment is within that protest zone.
We Conservatives called upon the protesters to dismantle the barricades and for the Prime Minister to reach out to the truckers. He again refused, not even an olive branch. Instead, during the first week of the protests, the Prime Minister simply disappeared into his cottage, missing in action as a crisis developed. When he finally reappeared, we Conservatives began asking him what steps he was taking to resolve the impasse. After all, he had said that invoking the Emergencies Act should not be the first, second or even the third response.
We asked him what was his first, second or third response. Had he met with the protesters? Would he sit down with the other party leaders to discuss a resolution to the dispute? Had he deployed a negotiating team to resolve the impasse? Had he delivered the additional policing resources so desperately needed by the city of Ottawa? We were met with stony silence.
The answer was obviously, no, the Prime Minister had not taken any steps to address this evolving situation. He even rejected our request to create a plan to roll back mandates, which could have lowered the temperature. For three long weeks, the Prime Minister refused to act and then he did what only autocrats and authoritarian regimes do when faced with peaceful, civil disobedience.
He did what his father had done in 1970. He triggered Canada’s war measures regime, except that this time the circumstances do not, in any way, rise to the level of those present during the FLQ crisis. There have been no bombings in the streets of Ottawa, no kidnappings, no robberies, no extortion or gun violence, no murders of politicians; only peaceful civil disobedience by frustrated Canadians who have concluded that the Prime Minister does not care for them. The Prime Minister had at his disposal all of the tools he needed to bring an end to this protest without invoking Canada’s war measures legislation. Indeed, blockades at the Ambassador Bridge, the Coutts border crossing and in Emerson, Manitoba have all been resolved without resorting to the Emergencies Act. What about the violent rail blockades in 2020, the Oka standoff or the Wet’suwet’en dispute in B.C.? What about the riots in Toronto at the G7 in 2010? The Emergencies Act was not required. Not even the circumstances around 9/11 called for war measures legislation.
The Prime Minister already has the tools to respond to the Ottawa protest. It is just that he chose not to use them. There was no need to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians for exercising their right to peaceful protest or for donating to the cause. There was no need for the Liberal government to suspend the licenses and livelihoods of truckers without due process, simply because they disagreed with his vaccine mandates. It was completely unnecessary and a reckless overreach by the power-hungry prime minister. By triggering extraordinary, sweeping powers under the Emergencies Act, the prime minister has set an incredibly low bar for abrogating the rights and freedoms of Canadians. How do we know that? The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is challenging the Prime Minister’s power grab in court. Here is what it had to say:
The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met.
Further, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association states:
The Emergencies Act is there to address these kinds of extreme threats to Canada, not to protect the economy [as the Prime Minister had suggested].
Emergency legislation should not be normalized. It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties.
Never before in the history of our country has the threshold for triggering martial law been so low and the overreach been so high as with the motion before us. When the story of this monumental overreach and abuse of power is finally written, when historians analyze and dissect why the Prime Minister would invoke martial law powers to quell peaceful civil disobedience, when historians try to explain why Canada’s Prime Minister chose to use a constitutional sledgehammer to “crack a peanut”, as the NDP’s Tommy Douglas once put it, I want to be on the right side of that history. I want my children, my 12 grand-children and their descendants to know that I stood on the side of freedom and that I stood up to a power-grabbing prime minister.
Yes, the streets of downtown Ottawa are now clear, protesters are in jail, truckers are on their way home; bank accounts have been frozen and the lives of many Canadians have been irrevocably damaged by the Prime Minister’s failure to listen and his abuse of the Emergencies Act, but for what? I would ask the Prime Minister how it came to this. This was a mess of his own making. The Prime Minister could have listened and de-escalated. He had the tools to resolve the situation but he refused. That is a profound failure of leadership on his part.
Invoking the Emergencies Act is and was completely unnecessary and sets an extremely dangerous and ugly precedent for the future. For all of those reasons, I will be voting against this motion.
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- Feb/20/22 11:24:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a sad and dark time for our great country. The last two years have been difficult for everyone. Every person in this country has been affected by the pandemic. No one has been exempt. How did we get here? What brought us to this point?
Standing here in this chamber today to debate the unprecedented use of Canada's Emergencies Act is upsetting, to say the least. The culmination of what has happened to our country under the Liberal government's divisive and stigmatizing leadership is tragic. We have seen peaceful law enforcement resolutions that ended multiple unlawful border blockades without the Emergencies Act. Why do we need to escalate to these drastic measures? I will always stand up for Canadians' rights to peacefully assemble and lawfully protest. Likewise, I will always condemn disrespectful, hateful and unlawful conduct. Conservatives have condemned the blocking of critical infrastructure and have called for a peaceful protest.
As the events evolved, the Prime Minister made no effort to de-escalate the situation. Instead, he escalated it by continuing to divide, wedge, stigmatize and traumatize Canadians. Instead of apologizing for his mistakes, he threw fuel on the fire and opted for extreme overreach. Canadians have had enough. At the very least, they deserve a plan from the Liberal government to end the mandates.
It has been said many times this week that the Emergencies Act has never been invoked and should only be used in the most dire situations. It was not invoked for the Oka crisis, not for 9/11, not for the shooting on Parliament Hill, not for the rail blockades or even for COVID-19. Where is the threat to our sovereignty and national security? What proof does the government have showing the threshold has been met to invoke its use now? Neither the Prime Minister nor any of his ministers have answered these questions.
The Prime Minister has said the act should not be used as a first, second or third choice, but we on the opposition side have asked repeatedly what his first, second and third choices were. The question has still not been answered. The government, which currently has immense powers granted by the Emergencies Act, refuses to be clear or accountable to Parliament. How can the government be trusted to show responsibility in answering to Canadians?
The situation has become a spectacle around the world as a result of the Prime Minister's failures. He tries to save face by using the Emergencies Act, a measure of last resort. It is like using a wrecking ball to fix a broken tractor. It makes no sense.
What also does not make sense is a February 17 tweet from Foreign Policy CAN which said, “Canada condemns Cuba's harsh sentencing following the July 2021 protests. Canada strongly advocates for freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly free from intimidation. We stand with the people of Cuba in their aspiration for democracy.” This is a little rich, coming from a government that will not even so much as go out and listen to its own people who have been waiting to be heard.
The government claims that it will not use this piece of legislation to take away freedom of speech or freedom of assembly, but we have come to a point here where people from all over the country feel that they do not have a voice. We are at a point where the government has dropped a sledgehammer and is taking the most extreme action the government can take to silence the voices of Canadians who are simply asking to be heard. Again I must ask what the first, second and third things were that the government did to avoid getting to this place where we are now.
I am not alone in wondering why the Liberal government is so hesitant to advocate the same freedoms for its own citizens that it has asked for Cubans. I know the Prime Minister has said that he admires basic dictatorships. Could it be that they find democratic rights, such as free expression and peaceful assembly, inconvenient when it does not align with their politics?
Real leadership involves listening to people and considering their opinions, whether one agrees with them or not. Real leadership is about making sure people feel heard. The Prime Minister continues to malign and name-call Canadians with whom he disagrees. This is not leadership. Real leadership allows people to write to one's office and say they appreciate that regardless of one's perspective on the mandates, one is open-minded enough to talk to them. Real leadership is acknowledging and owning our mistakes. It is humility, not hubris.
If our Prime Minister had at least attempted to listen to the people who came all the way to Ottawa, we would not be in this situation at all. Canadians came to Ottawa from coast to coast to coast. They spent thousands of their hard-earned dollars and days of their time to be here because they felt that their government was not listening to them. They felt the only way they could be heard was by coming to Ottawa. The Prime Minister has done nothing but divide, wedge, stigmatize and traumatize Canadians for two years. Canadians have seen that. Trust has been broken.
The Conservatives warned Canadians repeatedly about the Liberals' love of power. We have stood against the unprecedented power grabs and scandals since before the pandemic. We said no when they tried to grant themselves unlimited taxing and spending powers without parliamentary oversight. That all happened on a weekend, and here we are on a weekend again, debating another piece of emergency legislation that gives the government overreaching power.
The legislation grants unprecedented powers over Canadians' financial security. I have heard from thousands of residents of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, most of whom have never contacted their MP's office. Simply put, they are traumatized. They are gripped with fear that donating to or purchasing from anything not approved by the government will result in their assets being frozen. They have very real concerns about how the changes brought by the act will impact their finances and their credit ratings long term. They have written me, saying, “My country is falling apart. What do I do?” They are hearing on the news that the Liberals are threatening to freeze their bank accounts if they support an organization they do not approve of.
That is not an exaggeration. During an interview, the justice minister even replied in the affirmative when asked if the banks could freeze the accounts of anyone who donated for not liking the government's vaccine mandates. He said, “if you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating...to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried”.
I would say to the minister that this is not what we are seeing. It is ordinary Canadians, patriotic Canadians, who are having their accounts frozen. It is Canadians who disagreed with an unnecessary and divisive government policy. It is not people donating large sums of money. It is Canadians who donated $20 who are being locked out of their bank accounts. It is those who got a T-shirt or a toque and those who sent money to a peaceful demonstration that gave them hope.
Even though the Liberal government says that the financial measures are temporary, regardless of how the vote goes, the Liberals will bring legislation forward to transition these powers into a permanent power grab. They want to permanently remove judges, who are the gatekeepers ensuring that big government overreach does not happen. The finance minister said as much during a press conference on Monday. He said the move to make crowdfunding platforms reportable to FINTRAC is going to be made permanent. She is also telling the banks to review their relationship with anyone involved in the blockades and report findings to the RCMP and CSIS.
When Canadians look back on this debate in the history books, they will see which of us, and the parties we represent, stood up for their interests, for their freedoms and for ending or enabling the continued trauma brought forward by the Prime Minister's inability to show compassion and leadership and by his power-seeking political games. It is the government's responsibility to stop contributing to the problem and to significantly improve its response to address the damage that is already done.
I encourage everyone to open compassionate eyes, hearts and hands to the burdens our families, neighbours and communities are bearing, and to create for each other the harbour of safety, respect and inclusion that we Canadians are known for. The Conservatives will continue to stand up for the rights and freedoms of all Canadians. We can do this without the government overreaching and using the Emergencies Act. Canadians are clear when they write our offices to say, “I am asking that you vote for ending all mandates, as well as the state of emergency immediately. It is time to follow the medical science and not political science, and do the right thing for the people.” That is why I will be voting against this motion.
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- Feb/20/22 11:55:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we all know this is about whether the government should have unbridled power going forward after Monday. We all know this is a manufactured crisis because junior wanted his “just watch me” moment.
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- Feb/20/22 11:55:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Steveston—Richmond East.
Today we are here to debate the decision by the Prime Minister to invoke the Emergencies Act with the purpose of bringing the unlawful protests in Ottawa to an end. After three weeks of exercising the right to protest, what has happened and what is happening in the streets of Ottawa must come to an end.
Over the last week, the “freedom convoy” taking place in our nation’s capital has been on the minds of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It has morphed into something it was not intended to be. It has been a demonstration organized by folks whose views that I believe at their core do not align with the Canadian values we are so proud of. Respecting the right of freedom of speech and the freedom to protest, I was disheartened by the way events over the last three weeks have unfolded. I have spent the last several weeks reflecting on how far we have come in this pandemic and how, over the past two years, we have all had to learn to live with COVID-19.
I will be the first to say that it has been challenging for all. Fortunately, across the country and in my riding of Cape Breton—Canso there have been thousands of dedicated, essential workers who, at a time when the world had come to a standstill, continued their work to ensure we were all able to live as normal a life as possible. All workers in Canada are important and have an essential role in our communities and, if may, I would like to acknowledge as many as I can here, workers who continued to show up despite the challenges of the past two years.
I thank the first responders who never stopped answering the calls for help, to the corrections staff for maintaining our jails, to the doctors, nurses and long-term care workers, pharmacists and all health care workers who show up every day. Let us not forget the amazing work of the cleaning, maintenance and kitchen staff in our hospitals and long-term care facilities. Thanks go to the home care workers who continue to go into the homes of those in our community who need that extra support. Also, thanks to the farmers for making sure we have food to eat and manufacturing employees who have been making PPE.
I thank the mechanics, plumbers, electricians and carpenters who can get calls at any time of day or night and show up to fix problems in our homes, hospitals and everywhere in between. Thanks to the tow truck drivers who help us on the side of the road when we need it. Thanks to those who make sure our water and waste-water systems continue to function and those who collect our solid waste. Thanks to the public works crews for keeping our roads clear and salted. Thanks to the contractors for fixing and replacing our bridges and buildings, particularly after major weather events.
I thank the early childhood educators, teachers and all staff who care for and teach our children. They reached out, even when the schools were closed, to help with virtual learning and to check in on children and families when they knew they needed their support. Thanks to those who work in retail and customer service, from big box stores to local community businesses and grocery stores, and the owners and employees who continued to do everything they could to keep the shelves stocked, always adapting to the endless changes to safety guidelines and to help people access the items they needed when they needed them.
I thank the truckers. Let us remember that when we were all staying home, many of them were going to where infections were the highest to bring home the food and supplies we needed. It is also important to note, as has been mentioned here today, that more than 90% of truckers are vaccinated and delivering goods across the continent as I speak. Thanks to the fishers who went out with their crews with so much uncertainty in their markets and thanks to the Canadian Coast Guard that is always there to answer the call and patrol our coasts.
I thank the pilots and flight crews who went to other countries to bring our fellow Canadians home, bring us PPE when we needed it and for taking supplies to countries as we worked together to end this global pandemic. Thanks to the Canadian Armed Forces that helped across this country in countless roles, from vaccinations to staffing long-term care facilities. Thanks to those in our financial sector, banks, credit unions and many others, who supported where they could, adapting to new government programs at record speed to help their customers and clients.
I thank the local arts and culture sector that has been hit hard and continues to find innovative ways to use their talents to keep us entertained. Mental health is as critically important as physical health and for this we certainly need our culture and arts sector. To those in the oil and gas and mining sectors, I thank them for making sure we have oil to heat our homes, gas to put in our vehicles and minerals as the raw materials for so much of our manufacturing.
I thank those working in our telecommunications sector, those who help with the purchasing of cell phones in-store, and those installing and repairing towers and lines to keep us online, and everything they do to help keep us connected.
I also thank the Nova Scotia Power employees, who ensure that they keep the power on and who repair the lines in some of the worst conditions imaginable. Finally, I thank seniors and seniors groups such as the Reserve Mines Seniors and Pensioners Club and the Pensioners Association, which are there to ensure seniors receive the help when they need it.
I realize there are so many more people to thank in so many essential jobs, but I hope this helps people realize how intertwined our society is. One thing this pandemic has taught us, or it has certainly taught me, is that we could not do the job we do and could not live a life with some trace of normalcy without everyone else doing their job.
We cannot allow a small minority to cause us to forget our hard work over the last two years and the impact it has made. There have been millions of Canadians who have selflessly gone to work every day knowing they play a role in protecting their communities. In my opinion, that is what it means to be Canadian.
We all need to do our part, which is why I ask everyone to please get vaccinated. We are all living, everyone in the House and every Canadian, with COVID fatigue. We are tired of restrictions and the negativity associated with this pandemic. We are all concerned about the impacts on mental health.
We all want this to be over, and this is the way to get there, but I will tell members how we do not get there. We do not get there by threats, conspiracy theories and violence toward others. We get there by following public health guidelines, getting vaccinated, listening to the science and doing our part to keep our communities safe and healthy.
When I look at what has happened in Ottawa over the past several weeks, I am disappointed and disheartened. When I think of the intimidation tactics that have been used against parliamentarians and their staff, civil servants, hotel staff, those working in places like food banks, and all the citizens of Ottawa, I am disappointed and disheartened. When I see hate, disrespect and misinformation being spread from coast to coast to coast, I get angry, and quite frankly, I am sad about that.
We have seen examples of these attacks on our democracy and what they can do. We are past the point of whataboutisms or that it will blow over. It is here. It is outside these doors, and we need to call out this behaviour as we see it.
I really believe this is about democracy. We have been looking at this all wrong. It is not about traditional left, right and centre ideologies. We are talking about democracy and obstructionism. We are talking about democracy and intimidation, democracy and the viewpoint that the rule of law should not apply. That starts off small, and we have seen this play out in the United States, but it is growing. We have seen how it grew here in the last three weeks.
When there are some people in positions of authority going out and giving a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to people who are protesting unlawfully, it is a significant problem. Again, it happened south of the border, and it cannot happen here. I want to call that behaviour out clearly.
It is times like this I think about my dad. My father was in charge of mine rescue, and he would always say that, in times of struggle, crisis reveals character. Let me be very clear that we will not allow these demonstrations on Parliament Hill to intimidate our democratic and legislative process.
Despite what has been happening just outside the walls of the chamber, each of us has continued to do the work we were sent here to do. We have been here in Ottawa working hard for our constituents, whether those are my constituents in Cape Breton—Canso or those across the country.
For seniors who have been staying at home following public health guidelines, for the folks whose mental health has been impacted by the pandemic, for the businesses, not-for-profits and community organizations that have adapted to the pandemic, for the seasonal industries that have been hit the hardest, and for young people in particular, who have missed out on so much time for sports, school and with their friends, we are here in this House, in Canada’s House of Commons, doing the work for them. That will not stop.
On Monday, I will be voting in favour of the Prime Minister’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act. What we are seeing here in Ottawa, what we saw in Coutts and what we continue to see in Windsor, and even at my constituency office in Nova Scotia, shows that the health and safety of Canadians is at risk. Frankly, I believe our democracy is at risk.
Before I finish, I would like to express my great—
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- Feb/20/22 12:25:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Rivière-du-Nord.
The Talleyrand quote “all that is excessive is insignificant” could have been said today about the situation we are debating in the House.
Yes, we are in the midst of a crisis, but the federal government chose to enforce an act by proclamation, which would allow the state to infringe on citizens' rights. Although the government could have taken many different paths, it chose to break out the heavy artillery. All that is excessive is insignificant.
The Liberal government claims that the Emergencies Act is necessary to resolve this crisis, but in reality, it needs to use this act because it was unable to properly manage the crisis from the outset. This type of act is meant to be used exceptionally, especially if it was designed to apply to Quebec. The War Measures Act may have gotten a new name, but it still brings back bad memories for Quebec.
If I may, I would like to provide a brief history of the introduction and use of the War Measures Act and the Emergencies Act. The War Measures Act was introduced and came into force in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War. Its purpose was to give additional powers to the government in the event of a war, invasion or insurrection. The act was used again in 1939 because of the Second World War.
The third time the government invoked this law—we still remember it in Quebec—was during the October crisis in 1970. Immediately following the adoption of an executive order issued during the night at the request of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's government, the army took to the streets of Montreal in large numbers, striking terror and fear in the hearts of all Quebeckers. That was when their rights and freedoms were trampled on. In total, 497 Quebeckers were arrested and thrown in jail without reasonable cause or recourse. It happened before I was born, but the people have certainly not forgotten: “Je me souviens”.
In 1988, the Emergencies Act replaced the War Measures Act. The new act changed the way the federal government can use extraordinary powers in times of crisis. Since it was passed, the government has never invoked it, so why now?
To answer that question, let us look closely at the present situation and the invocation criteria for this act. To have the right to invoke the act, the government must prove two things: first, that a dangerous and urgent situation exists; second, that it is impossible to deal with the situation with any other existing law.
First, is the current situation dangerous and urgent? The government does not meet this requirement for the unilateral application of the act. Allow me to demonstrate. On January 15, 2020, proof of vaccination against COVID‑19 became mandatory to cross the Canada-U.S. border. Two weeks later, on January 29, a truckers' movement opposed to this measure decided to gather and protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. So far, it all seems reasonable, because the right to protest and freedom of expression are guaranteed by both the Quebec and the Canadian charters of rights and freedoms.
The protest that was supposed to last a few days at the most turned into an occupation of the downtown area. At that point, the government should have dealt with the situation. Instead of taking action, the government washed its hands of it, claiming that crisis management was the Ottawa police's responsibility. On February 6, the City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency and the next day, on February 7, the Ottawa police force requested assistance from the federal and Ontario provincial governments. On February 11, the Ontario government declared a state of emergency, granting additional resources and powers to law enforcement services. The federal government continued doing nothing, except to polarize the public with inflammatory statements.
Let us keep in mind that in addition to the Ottawa siege, border blockades were set up in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, in such places as Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia.
However, these situations were resolved through existing laws. The same was obviously true for the protests in Quebec City.
As to whether this was an urgent and critical situation, if the situation was cause for concern, that was only true in Ontario, specifically in Ottawa, and nowhere else, especially not in Quebec. The Emergencies Act was to be used in a reasonable and proportionate manner, as the government had announced. That is clearly not the case.
The Liberal government's lack of leadership caused to the situation to deteriorate. Each day of inaction strengthened the protesters' position. Each day required more effort to enforce the law and each day the Prime Minister refused to take action, choosing to throw fuel on the fire with disparaging statements. As a result, the offenders were allowed to organize. They were allowed to set up tents, toilets, kitchens, cafeterias, a stage and barbecues. They even let them install a hot tub. A hot tub impeded the smooth functioning of democracy in a G7 nation.
By allowing the situation to fester, the Prime Minister gave the protesters time—time to fortify their position, time for radicals to get from one coast to the other or to cross the border, and time for foreign elements seeking to destabilize democracy in Quebec and Canada to raise funds in support of the offenders. Had action been taken earlier, we would not be here in Ottawa on a Sunday. We would be home with our constituents, which is where we should be.
Invoking the Emergencies Act is a massive smokescreen, a diversion to trick Quebeckers and Canadians into looking elsewhere so they will forget how things got to this point. It is unnecessary, dangerous and disproportionate. To be clear, the January 29 protest no longer has anything to do with the die-hards who decided to place the House under siege. Those who continue to resist, if any, are extremists who should have been contained by law enforcement long ago.
Now let us turn to the second criterion for invoking the Emergencies Act. The situation must be such that ordinary laws cannot address it.
Could the crisis have been addressed with existing laws? The answer is yes.
These protesters had been breaking the law for weeks. All the police had to do was enforce the laws already in place, and the whole thing would have been over in two days. The government had plenty of options. The Criminal Code is full of offences that were committed by the protesters.
Subsection 63(1) talks about “unlawful assembly”; section 64 defines the term “riot”; section 68 deals with people who fail to peaceably disperse and depart from a riot; section 430 talks about “mischief”; subsection 181(1) describes “common nuisance”; subsection 423.1(1) talks about the intimidation of a journalist; and section 129 talks about the obstruction of public officers or peace officers.
Some police authorities claimed recently that the only solution was the integration of the various police forces involved. However, there is no need for the Emergencies Act to request reinforcements and coordinate efforts. The RCMP, the Parliamentary Protective Service, the OPP, municipal police forces from neighbouring cities and even the Sûreté du Québec were already working together, and this legislation was not required.
As for the claim that the occupation could not be dealt with using ordinary legislation, as I have demonstrated to the House, the Criminal Code was already more than adequate to deal with the threat.
The government decided to use legislation by proclamation, in other words without consulting the opposition parties or allowing the smallest amendment. By ignoring those who were elected by the majority of the voters, this minority government is undermining its legitimacy and proving its detractors right. The Prime Minister decided to ignore the verdict of the voters, who gave him a minority mandate. He is acting as though he was granted all the power. That is not what the voters chose.
The government could use the act in specific locations, when the provinces request it. Quebec made it clear to the federal government that it wanted absolutely nothing to do with its emergency measures. Several Canadian provinces did the same. Rather than consult the provinces and Quebec, the Liberal government chose to impose an act that applies across Canada.
This law therefore cannot be limited. It is foreign to the reality of Quebec. It should not apply to Quebec.
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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 2:18:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, instead, members of the opposition have stood with, encouraged, supported and even broken bread with the very people who have terrorized the citizens of Ottawa and threatened the lives of law enforcement officials.
The organizers of this movement have led blockades that have cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars. Many of the organizers are not interested in protecting the rights of Canadians; they are interested in overthrowing a democratically elected government. They have told us this repeatedly, so we must take them at their word. This is precisely why we need the Emergencies Act.
Last week Richard Fadden, the former national security advisor to Stephen Harper and the former director of CSIS, agreed that it was appropriate to invoke the Emergencies Act, particularly referencing the federal banking measures as a clear example of where no other jurisdiction could intervene. He said, “I think it's pretty clear that there have been instances where the provinces, whatever they have done, have not had the necessary constitutional authority to make a difference.”
The invocation of the Emergencies Act was absolutely essential for many reasons, and it allowed the federal government, in partnership with other jurisdictions, to implement a multipronged approach to address this national crisis. Here are some examples.
First, right here in Ottawa, it allowed the City to bring in police forces from outside jurisdictions and authorize them to get to work immediately without the need to be deputized, a process that would have further delayed clearing the occupation. I was particularly proud to see members of the Vancouver Police Department joining their colleagues from across Canada to defend our democracy.
Second, the act allows us to stop the financing of these illegal blockades. Further, it allows the City of Ottawa to seize and sell vehicles used in the illegal blockades and use the proceeds to offset the millions of dollars of losses incurred by the City of Ottawa.
Third, it prohibits the use of certain property, including goods, to support blockades. These are some examples.
While Ottawa has been cleared, thanks to the hard work of our police forces, there is still work to be done to bring this crisis to a conclusion. Like all in the House, I want this act to come to an end quickly, but we all know that there are credible threats that ultra-right-wing extremist forces continue to organize and are redoubling their efforts to disrupt Canadian society, our economy and our freedoms.
An example is what happened in Coutts. Weapons were found, along with body armour, machetes and oversized magazines. There were confirmations that some of those sought to kill RCMP officers if they tried to take down the blockade.
Let us not kid ourselves. This is not about their dislike of a Liberal government or a vaccine mandate, nor is it about freedom. This is about a fundamental opposition to, and a repudiation of, our democratic system of government, which values the voice of every single Canadian, regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender, identity or religion.
The role of Her Majesty's loyal opposition is to hold the government to account, and it must do this, but it must also remain loyal to Canada and its laws, and indeed to its democracy. In that spirit, I ask all members of the House to reflect on what we want to say to the world. Are we a country where a small, violent minority should be able to disrupt government, attack law enforcement officials with impunity, shut down trade routes and take over our capital for weeks?
I will say to the House that these threats to our pluralistic democracy are real. The Canada that has been built by Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats and others is at risk. This is not the time to side with the extremists, nor to grant legitimacy to those who seek to undermine our democracy or our values. This is the time for all of us to stand united in our defence of peace, order and good government.
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- Feb/20/22 2:42:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am struck today by the importance of this moment and also by the immense responsibility that we hold as members of Parliament. As people across the country deal with the impacts of the global pandemic, we are tasked with creating the laws that will best help them deal with the challenges they face, keep them safe and healthy and provide the supports they need.
In this already unparalleled moment in our history, on top of everything else, we have witnessed the occupation of our nation's capital. We are now tasked in this debate with examining and deciding on the use, for the first time ever, of the Emergencies Act. This is not a moment any of us should take lightly.
As someone who came to this role through community activism, attending countless protests, standing in front of trucks filled with contaminated soil, delivering food to tree sitters, protecting fragile ecosystems and organizing climate demonstrations, protest, dissent and social movements are vital elements of our democracy. We need to ensure that non-violent civil disobedience remains a protected and valued part of our society.
We also need to ensure there is effective oversight of any additional powers given to government. The Emergencies Act itself has provisions that require, after the emergency is over, an inquiry into the circumstances under which the declaration was issued and the measures taken. This should also include a public inquiry into the role of law enforcement in these occupations, the reports of officers supporting the occupiers and police refusing to enforce the law. It is clear there needs to be a sober examination of policing in Canada. The difference between how occupiers were treated by police versus how indigenous and racialized people have been treated is stark. This disparity is unjust and also undermines the trust of Canadians in law enforcement.
I have been contacted by many people who are concerned about the use of the Emergencies Act. Many are concerned that we should not set a precedent of cracking down on protests. It is important to note that what we have seen over the past 24 days has not just been a protest. It has not been peaceful.
The core organizers of this occupation were very clear from the outset that their goal was to overthrow a democratically elected government. I have to admit that I laughed when I first read their aim. Like most Canadians, to me it sounded preposterous. They could not seriously think the Governor General and the Senate could just remove the Prime Minister or that it would be possible in Canada to hand over power to an unelected group of occupiers, but these organizers, many of whom are well-known far-right figures, who have espoused Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-indigenous and other hateful views, published their goal to take down the government in a manifesto.
To quote Maya Anjelou, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them”. This illegal occupation raised millions of dollars, had significant foreign involvement and was explicit in its goal to undermine our democracy. We have also witnessed instances of organized militia-style activity, weapons seized, body armour with white supremacist insignia and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In January, as the convoy initially rolled across the country, there were supporters who went on TV to say they had guns and would stand up and bring them out. When people tell us who they are, we should believe them.
While all of this was happening, a number of Conservative MPs were welcoming the convoy to the city, handing out doughnuts, making excuses for the deplorable actions at memorials and encouraging the convoy participants to stay. The member for Carleton said that he was proud of the convoy and stands with it. Convoy participants occupied the city, making it unbearable for residents. They harassed journalists and health care workers. There were reports of attempted arson, bomb threats to hospitals and plans to block airports and railways. Our borders were shut down. Weapons were seized. There were attempted murder charges laid. The member for Carleton, who wants to be the prime minister of Canada, stands with them. When people tell us who they are, we should believe them.
If the Conservative members truly stand with truckers, they should stand with the 90% of truckers who are vaccinated and the truckers who have been profoundly negatively impacted by border blockades. They should listen to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which put out a statement saying that it applauds the use of the Emergencies Act to help end the illegal blockades.
In those initial weeks, while Conservative MPs encouraged the occupiers, the Liberal government stood idly by. As the convoy rolled toward Ottawa, as the far-right rhetoric rose in the truck convoy, as foreign funding poured into a movement that aimed to undermine our democracy, the government did nothing. It should have never come to this.
The use of the Emergencies Act is an acknowledgement of a failure of leadership. The government has allowed things to escalate unchecked and could have addressed this crisis early on but failed to. After over two weeks of turmoil and chaos, the Ottawa Police Services Board chair stated, “Frankly, the response to this crisis so far has been ineffective.” She said that police have been “unable to adequately enforce our law and our residents continue to be terrorized.”
In this debate, we are being asked whether the Emergencies Act is necessary. It has been clear that for the past three weeks the municipality and a number of provinces were not able to maintain security in our nation's capital and at our borders. This is one of the key reasons why the situation meets the definition of a national emergency under section 3 of the act.
Once the Emergencies Act was enacted, the interim Ottawa police chief made it clear that without these additional powers, they would not have been able to make the progress that they have made. Over the past week, we finally saw police taking appropriate and measured steps to remove the occupiers.
The act allowed the RCMP to direct tow truck drivers to tow vehicles. In addition, without the Emergencies Act, the RCMP and financial institutions could not quickly freeze funds that were fundraised with the explicit intent to destabilize our elected government.
We know there has been significant foreign funding. When the convoy's GoFundMe site was shut down, they started using GiveSendGo, a Christian platform infamously known for being the platform used by many of the groups involved in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and also for raising millions for the Proud Boys, a listed terrorist entity in Canada. A recent data leak identifying GiveSendGo's donors to the convoy campaign showed that over half of the donors were from the U.S. and less than a third of the donors were Canadian.
The Emergencies Act also gives the power to prohibit bringing children to unlawful assemblies. Many of us watched in horror as occupiers brought their children to block the border crossing. We heard reports of occupiers keeping their kids near the police line, using them as shields. As a parent, it is hard to wrap my head around the choice to bring children into such dangerous situations.
The powers granted by the Emergencies Act were needed as they did help secure our national capital. Yesterday, the occupation was still happening and there were still border closures happening in Surrey because of the convoy protest. Today, things are quieter. New Democrats have been clear that we are ready to withdraw our support at any time. If the situation is actually under control, then the government has to provide a compelling reason for why it still needs these emergency powers. If there is not one, then we have said all along that we will withdraw support.
We have heard again and again comparisons to the War Measures Act, but we know this is not the same law. It is not even close. Under the War Measures Act, there is no Constitution, no Bill of Rights, no provincial constitutions. The government would have the power to do anything it wants to intern citizens, to deport any citizen, to arrest any person. We can all agree that is unacceptable.
That is why Tommy Douglas and other New Democrats voted against it. The War Measures Act suspended the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is why, in 1988, the act was repealed. The Emergencies Act, the act that replaced it, is subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is subject to the Canadian Bill of Rights.
There is a still a valid concern that the government could misuse the powers in the Emergencies Act. This is why New Democrats have been clear that if we vote in favour of the government's request, the government must stay within the established powers or we will withdraw support.
We will protect the right to protest. We must continue to hold dissent and non-violent civil disobedience as sacred, as integral parts of our democracy.
I want to close my speech by speaking to the vast majority of Canadians who have been following public health orders, who banged pots to show support for health care workers, who have been helping out their neighbours, who have made great sacrifices in order to keep their loved ones, their families and their communities safe.
As mandates and restrictions begin to lift, they should know that it is because of their acts of solidarity and the fact that they got vaccinated, and the convoy participants, while they might not realize it, owe the majority of Canadians a great debt of gratitude. The vast majority of Canadians have not only saved lives, but they are also the reason we are going to get through this together.
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- Feb/20/22 3:26:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe the debate we are having on the Emergencies Act is the most important and significant debate Parliament will have in a generation. Canadians are watching what we do. I have never received more emails and phone calls from my constituents since I have been elected. The vote on such unprecedented powers should not be taken lightly by any member of the House. This is not just another vote on another bill. It is setting a precedent in the House of Commons the people of this nation will judge for generations to come. This is not a vote that will impact a few Canadians. It is a decision that will impact the lives of every single Canadian from coast to coast to coast.
I want to begin by discussing how we got here, before I tell the House why I believe the use of the Emergencies Act is not warranted in this situation. The Prime Minister is responsible for this mess. He pushed Canadians to the breaking point. He stripped them of their dignity. He deprived them of their livelihoods. He made absolutely no attempt to unite this country or heal divisions. He pitted friends against friends, neighbours against neighbours and kids against parents. While other world leaders encouraged and supported their citizens to get vaccinated, the Prime Minister pressured, insulted and demonized ours. Our Prime Minister is not a leader, and history will show that he is not fit to lead our nation.
When faced with a growing crisis, he made no attempt to resolve the problem, and now the Prime Minister is trying to cover up his own inaction with a dramatic political performance. I should remind members of the House that the Prime Minister was not confined to two options in addressing the state of affairs we face today. This was not a binary choice between choosing not to do anything and choosing to invoke the Emergencies Act. The Prime Minister has decided to go from zero to 100 without attempting to solve the problem.
Parliamentarians have been urging the Prime Minister to resolve the situation at hand. Last week, Conservatives put forward a reasonable solution to resolve it. We introduced a motion calling on the government to present a plan on when Canadians could regain control of their lives. Canadians saw a glimmer of hope, but the government voted against the plan for them. The Liberals could have de-escalated the situation, but they chose not to for their own political gain. The government never attempted to de-escalate the situation. We should not have ever gotten to this point.
The question we are debating today is not whether the blockades should come down. We should not tolerate blockades on any occasion. They are illegal and must be removed. I thank law enforcement for doing its job on that front. The question we are debating today is whether the Emergencies Act, an act that has never been used before in our nation's history, is an appropriate and justified response to the situation our nation is facing. When I read the criteria for implementing the Emergencies Act, it is clear that the extreme use of this government power is not only excessive for the situation at hand, but also an infringement on some of our very basic freedoms.
The House must ask itself what constitutes a national emergency to give the government such extreme and excessive powers. Section 2 of the Emergencies Act defines a national emergency as meeting one of two criteria. Does it “seriously endanger the lives, health or safety of Canadians”, and is it “of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it”?
Let us examine section 2(a). Does the situation we are encountering exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it? The answer is no. The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have all publicly opposed the Prime Minister's use of the Emergencies Act, and the illegal blockades at the Coutts border in Alberta, the Emerson border in Manitoba and the Ambassador Bridge in Ontario have all been resolved with the tools and resources available to those provinces.
The Emergencies Act is supposed to be used for emergency situations that existing laws cannot address.
The government has failed to provide any evidence that we cannot end illegal blockades without the use of the Emergencies Act. There is a stark difference between inaction and not having the ability to act. Parliament has clearly heard that the government could have used existing legislation to address the situation, but failed to do so. Now the government faces court challenges from both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation for failing to meet the threshold defined in the act.
Let us examine section 2(b). Does this “seriously threaten the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada”? Does the situation we are encountering threaten the sovereignty of our nation? Again, the answer is no. Our sovereignty is not in question.
Do members of the House believe that semi trucks on Parliament Hill threaten our territorial integrity? The government has provided zero evidence to support such an extreme assumption, and now there are more questions than there are answers.
Suppose a grandmother donated $20 to feed local truckers four weeks ago. Will she be treated as someone who funded a terrorism activity, and be barred from using her bank account? Suppose a Canadian walks down to the main street in their local community to peacefully voice their concerns with their government. Will they be arrested and criminally charged for peacefully protesting?
We have faced many crises in my lifetime: the Oka crisis, the aftermath of 9/11, the Parliament Hill shooting, deadly wildfires, historic floods, the pandemic and many blockades, just to name a few. Not once have such powers been needed to address these problems. Invoking such extreme measures without meeting the high threshold outlined in the act is setting a dangerous precedent of government overreach. Who are we as a nation if we normalize the use of emergency powers? I encourage all the members of the House not to dilute the magnitude of the decision on this vote.
To my NDP colleagues, who I hear plan to support the Prime Minister in this excessive power grab, I want to remind them of the words of their former leader, Tommy Douglas, who famously took a principled stand and opposed the War Measures Act in 1970. He stood in this same democratic chamber and stated:
The fact is, and this is very clear, that the government has panicked and is now putting on a dramatic performance to cover up its own ineptitude.
Those words could not be truer today. This is nothing more than a dramatic performance to cover up the Liberals' own ineptitude. I also want to remind my NDP colleagues that disagreeing with the demonstrations and disagreeing with the Emergencies Act are not mutually exclusive. They can do both.
We have a decision to make. Will we stand up for the freedoms of Canadians, or will we hand over the unprecedented reins of power to a Prime Minister who has shown no respect for our democratic institutions? The Prime Minister thinks he is leaving behind a legacy, when he is really leaving behind a scar that will take years to heal.
I will be voting against the Emergencies Act, and I encourage every other member in the House to do the same as well.
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- Feb/20/22 3:39:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is dark days for our country. I am here before members, despondent, with some serious questions about the motion before us. History will look back on the debate today as a black mark on the leadership of the Prime Minister, of the government and of all those who lend their support to this gross overreach.
All members of the House have watched the lawlessness paralyzing Ottawa and the key border crossings across the country with great concern. Every single member of the House has done that no matter what people hear from those who have convinced themselves otherwise. However, never has the Emergencies Act been invoked. It has always been there but never used. In challenging times and in times of true crisis, it has always been there, but it was never used because it was viewed as a last resort and not a first resort. The motion before us today asks members to approve an act that gives the federal government enhanced powers.
As its questionable justification is being discussed in this House for the first time, Canadians are watching. Much of this debate has been mired in the hyperbole of members opposite tripping over one another to claim that any member of this House encouraged the lawlessness that they, themselves, stoked. The idea that any member of the House would support the vile elements of this protest is wrong and members of the House know it. There is no precedent for this. Instead, we are making a precedent. The points we make, the evidence we present and the tone we use will be judged by those who will look back on these dark days to ask, “How did we get here?”
Everyone has a right to peacefully protest any government policy. This is a fundamental freedom in our democracy. It protects the rights of individuals to express their views, even when those views are not shared by the elected government of the day. While these protests are a fundamental part of Canadian democracy, so too is the rule of law. The blockades that incapacitate our critical infrastructure, including our rail lines, our pipelines, our bridges and our urban downtown areas, are illegal. We cannot and should not arbitrarily decide to apply the rule of law to some situations and not others, like we are doing today, because that is not how we build precedent.
I do not think for a moment the threshold has been met to apply the Emergencies Act. This debate has failed to make that threshold known. There is no question that some in these protests and their views are alarming. They have been categorically denounced by every member of the House.
Let us be clear. Not everyone who has participated in these protests is a racist, a misogynist or a woman-hating terrorist trying to overthrow a government. Hearing members of the House suggest they are is the ugliest of politics, something Canadians have come to distrust and reject.
Some of those outside are frustrated by the government’s inability to manage a pandemic two years in without relying on tired talking points and ancient solutions that fail to hear the outcry of those disproportionally hurt by the government’s addiction to lockdowns, restrictions and mandates as the only policy response.
We hear the other side talking about the economic activity jeopardized by these blockades as the primary reason for the invocation of the Emergencies Act. While I will never disagree that our economy is fundamental to the function of our nation, I will remind these very members that for two years few of them raised questions about the economic activity in this country lost due to the heavy-handed COVID restrictions and mandates that have come to be the cornerstone of the Canadian policy response.
There have been terrorist attacks, economic collapses, national protest movements and a pandemic. Every single one of these situations were dealt with using existing laws and existing democratic processes, and at times, when absolutely necessary, municipal and provincial emergency powers.
Let me remind Canadians that there have also been national protest movements that have occupied city streets and parks for months and blockaded critical infrastructure like railways where essential democratic activity, economic activity, had been disrupted or stopped entirely. These have all been responded to within the context of existing laws, every single one of them.
Not only is it not necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act to address them, but it is frustrating to watch members of the government take credit for things that were resolved outside of the powers of this act. Two of the most serious incidents, the blockading of the Ambassador Bridge and the RCMP arrests in Alberta, were both accomplished without the need to invoke the legislation. A national emergency has a high bar for the very reason that it must actually be a national emergency. The answer to lawlessness cannot and should not be a greater level of lawlessness.
The government is asking members of the House to suspend certain laws to deal with those breaking other laws, and we are being asked to undermine democratic principles to address some who wish to see our very democracy undermined. These powers allow the government to freeze Canadians' assets with no recourse. The 76 bank accounts so far is 76 bank accounts too many. We have seen some very troubling scenes outside of this place over the last couple of days and hearing few mention it shows Canadians that this is still an insular talking club of those who show little regard for the people who do not share their views.
Less than one week ago, the Prime Minister, after 18 days of doing absolutely nothing about the situation in Ottawa, convened the cabinet on Sunday, told his caucus, informed premiers on Monday and, by press conference, later that day informed Canadians that the Emergencies Act was needed to do the very thing by last resort he failed to do by first resort.
It took days for the Prime Minister to address the House. There were no briefings, no intelligence, no committees struck and if there were evidence pointing to some serious issue of public safety, should members not have been told? If we were all under siege by terrorists waiting to breach the gate of Parliament Hill, would it not be the government's responsibility to tell members of the House not to cross the street right through the protests every day?
The story has changed more times than Canadians can keep up with today and the government's justification in the House was a calculated solution to its own political peril. The Prime Minister's vague claims that whatever he does with these currently unchecked powers will be targeted and time-limited simply is not backed up by the formal text or members of his own caucus. Nor did the text contain any detail on what he planned to do. All he was saying was “trust me”. Forgive me, he has given Canadians absolutely no reason to trust him.
At the beginning of this pandemic, the government proposed giving itself unlimited spending powers for almost two years without oversight of Parliament. They said “trust me”. The government has given itself the power to freeze the assets and finances of people involved in political protests, people who disagree with the government's COVID policy, without the courts' oversight and with no recourse available to those targeted. We cannot treat this as a foregone conclusion because we have an NDP that cannot and will not stand up for protests, for scrutiny or have any courage on this one.
If we wanted to pretend that this was not about politics, the information would have been shared immediately. Otherwise, the only conclusion of any of this is that this is all politics.
The House must approach every decision with caution. The consequences for individuals are too great if we decide to approve the use of this act, and the precedent that will be set is too great to shrug off the legitimate questions and concerns that I think are valid in this discussion. We are setting a very dangerous precedent and it would be a shame if members of the House decide to invoke a never before used disproportional act, when there are very clearly other actions the government could have taken.
We should be cautious about normalizing the use of a blunt instrument in this circumstance. If we consider using the Emergencies Act every time there is a protest that lasts a certain number of days, we have much bigger problems in our democracy. The threshold has not been met and we cannot leave the decision to politics over the real scrutiny that is required. It will be a dark chapter in our history when members of the House choose political expediency over the rights of individuals.
I implore my colleagues, those with a voice, to vote against this motion, because I certainly will.
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- Feb/20/22 4:14:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was in the House yesterday when that member yelled across the floor to a colleague of mine from B.C. in the official opposition, asking them something to the effect of how they would feel if something like this was happening in their community.
I just want to remind the member that last year a huge portion of B.C., my riding and neighbouring ridings in particular, had extensive fires, floods, mudslides, lives lost, houses burnt, substantial infrastructure destroyed and livelihoods destroyed. The member talked about having to go through some checkpoints to get to his office; in British Columbia, for many days and weeks, many members of Parliament could not get around their constituencies and could not even get to the airport to come to Ottawa. It just shows a disconnect with what is happening across the rest of the country.
The member is in the government and knows the serious crisis that we had. Just as a reflection, the act defines an emergency as a situation that “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians”. Based on that, was this member involved last summer, due to the serious situations happening in British Columbia, and did he advocate invoking the Emergencies Act at that time, or is he only considering—
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- Feb/20/22 4:40:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the clash of words and social media clickbait we are witnessing around this conflict, I feel it necessary to remind the House and Canadians that we are taking part in this critical debate as people, speaking from our individual vantage points. It is the same for all who comment, who analyze, who interpret and who express their opinions. We are all just people.
We are here today to deal in facts and to debate the unprecedented use of a tool of government to deal with a crisis. The Emergencies Act authorizes the taking of special, temporary measures to ensure safety and security during national emergencies. With its inception, it created more limited and specific powers for the federal government to deal with security emergencies of five different types: national emergencies, public welfare emergencies, public order emergencies, international emergencies and war emergencies.
To demonstrate my support for deployment of the act, I am going to share facts from my vantage point, which, as I also hope to demonstrate, comes from a place of love and deep respect for this country.
I have formally trained in critical studies and education. I have had the privilege of studying the lenses of oppression in our society from a white gaze. I am going to recommend that all who identify as the same check that privilege when having this discussion. While we are talking about privilege, as a scholar of Canadian and international military history, we must also check our privilege as citizens in a democracy and in an ever-progressing judicial system designed to protect our individual freedoms. We represent less than 0.5% of the total world population and have the second-largest land mass. We are truly among the most privileged people in the world. We must never forget that.
I challenge Canadians and members of the House to question their echo chambers, to check themselves and their privilege and to try to see things from the other side, even if it is only to strengthen their arguments. At least that moves us past assumptions, which are the real scourge of our society. They are what really divide us.
Many Canadians are being misled. These Canadians do not need us to encourage them or keep them blissfully ignorant. Today, far too much of Canadian discourse is hateful, reactionary and dangerous, and the political rhetoric that ramps it up is reprehensible. We are indeed facing extremism in Canada, and it is incumbent on each of us to call it what it is.
As New Brunswick's commissioner on systemic racism said, continuing to pretend that what we have witnessed over the last three weeks is not a cover for a maturing anti-government, anti-pluralist, far-right extremism does nothing to combat the rising hate in this country. That extremism culminated in the occupation of our nation’s capital and other key locations, in a politically motivated coup attempt, and it requires decisive action with measures that are targeted, temporary and proportionate.
This is what has brought us here today. I have heard many in the House ask this question during this debate: How did we get here? It has been clear from the outset, long before the initial convoy colonizers arrived in Ottawa, Windsor, Surrey or Coutts, that the intent has been to disrupt and indeed overthrow our government. This is not a simple question of public health mandates. This cannot be denied, and there is no integrity in calling these protests peaceful.
A protest cannot be deemed peaceful unless every citizen feels safe and protected while being exposed to it. That was certainly not the experience of hundreds of people across this country and the residents in Ottawa. People were being harassed and intimidated by illegal occupiers simply because they were wearing masks. Women were targeted, noise levels were unbearable, hotel lobbies and retail spaces were taken over, staff were terrorized and ultimately businesses were forced to close. The narrative that this was peaceful was false from the beginning.
It feels as though the Conservatives are celebrating these occupations, purposely inflaming the debate, intentionally escalating tensions while claiming the opposite. Sowing mistrust in government institutions and public health advice is causing further harm. I have had many conversations about vaccines specifically in my community. I encourage people to listen to their health care providers, not politicians and certainly not the loudest voices in an angry mob.
In Ottawa, over the last three weeks, residents lost their sense of safety. Countless testimonials describe vitriol and harassment. Our 2SLGBTQ+ community members, racialized community members and women had to limit their movement, shelter at home or, as a last resort, leave the city because they were not feeling safe. Terrorizing people for weeks is an act of violence, regardless of the perceived merits of the original intent.
Minimizing what is happening here and how we got here is unacceptable, as is minimizing other large-scale demonstrations and incidents of civil disobedience because of what they too were trying to say and how they felt the need to express it. There is a lot to be learned from what has transpired.
I have committed to the people of Fredericton that with each new issue, I ask for input. I ask constituents to engage to help me take the temperature, to listen, to learn and to then act after thoughtful, informed, evidence-based consideration.
I know I am not alone in the House in saying that I received thousands of emails, letters and calls and had many conversations on what has been playing out. Many are asking to be heard, and I am listening. While there are many who have legitimate questions and concerns that I do my best to address, what I am also hearing are strings of false narratives and scapegoating. I see fear based on misinformation.
A lot of people need help right now. That is unequivocally clear based on the number of threats I have received, that my staff has had to endure and that anyone involved has been subjected to. I have been told that my family is also at risk, and that if I exercise my vote in a way some do not agree with, I should watch my back. There have been threats to our Prime Minister and all government members with bullets and nooses. It is enough.
That is how I know these are not peaceful protesters. It is how I know we have a very real and serious problem in Canada.
I have been mad, disrespected and wronged, and I have stood up. I have protested for justice for many causes, with the law on my side, within my rights and with a firm understanding of the charter. I also took things further when I felt it was not enough and felt the system had failed and had to be changed. I organized and ran for office, again with great privilege. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, it takes sacrifices and it takes a toll, but it is the greatest honour. Thanks to political financing laws, we are a collection of everyday Canadians who have the trust and respect of our electors.
Here in Canada, to vote is a sacred right and a duty, and I serve to protect that right every day in the House. Those who disagree with me, based on the laws of this land and under our flag that has been so disrespected, do not get to shut down critical infrastructure, illegally disrupt the lives of Canadians and endanger public safety. We are not living in a dictatorship; we are not living in tyranny. The misleading, the agitating, the grifting, the harassment and the threats must all come to an end. It has become clear, after three weeks of coordinated, foreign-funded and right-wing white supremacy infiltration, that we have reached the threshold of emergency requiring the implementation of this act.
I have heard Conservative members of the House suggest that this is not necessary, that we have not met the threshold, that there are more options available and that our focus must be on de-escalation. On that last point alone, I agree. We absolutely must de-escalate, which is what we see unfolding before us in a renewed law enforcement operation, initiated only after engaging the Emergencies Act.
In the words of the interim Ottawa Police chief, without the additional legislation, we could not have done what we did. De-escalation was stopping the weekend protest tourism from ramping up again in Ottawa. De-escalation was stopping the never-ending stream of supplies and funds from siege supporters laughing in the wings. Compromise has been on the table since the beginning, and the comparisons with how demonstrators of different stripes have been treated within mere hours of assembly suggest to me, as far as law enforcement and government go, that we have been more than tolerant, perhaps unjustifiably so. I would support a national inquiry into the original police response.
I was born and raised in a military town, with military roots and a deep respect for our Canadian Armed Forces. I was also raised to respect the men and women in police uniforms serving and protecting our communities. Having said this, after watching video of uniformed police saying it feels like war, with a service weapon on their hip, or high-fiving, smiling for selfies, using squad cars as carnival rides and turning a blind eye to bylaw and Criminal Code infractions, or when neighbours from my local military community threaten me directly, I know we have a very serious problem.
I am white. I can only imagine how some Canadians who have demonstrated in their lives against oppression must be feeling as they watched how white protesters were comfortably dealt with over the last weeks. We have been watching the entitlement of those who party in hot tubs, with their barbecues and fireworks, having street fires or stockpiling diesel and propane near the parliamentary precinct. They claim oppression, claim that we do not live in a free society and claim that there was no other recourse for their grievances to be heard. It is enough. This needs to stop, and that is what the government is committed to doing.
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