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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 35

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 35 - Feb/20/22
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Feb/20/22 8:31:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is lovely to finally have a chance to speak, having been here since 7 a.m., and I will be here until midnight. I am trying to make up my mind on how I am going to vote. With a sincere effort to remain respectful, I must tell the member that it does not help when the crisis in Ottawa is minimized to a problem of bouncy castles. It was an occupation. It caused millions and millions of dollars of damage to this city and its residents. Honking horns all night actually qualifies, under the Geneva Convention, as torture. One is not allowed to do that to prisoners. The people of Ottawa have been imprisoned by occupiers. They may not have known what they were doing. This is quite likely for many of them, especially the ones who seemed so surprised they were ultimately going to get arrested. Non-violent civil disobedience has a long tradition, which I will not go through, that includes knowing one is going to be arrested because one is breaking the law and has done this on principle. Could we not at least agree what occurred here in Ottawa was, from the moment those large 18-wheelers started occupying whole streets so the people of Ottawa could not go about their day-to-day lives, a crisis? It was badly handled and I will not disagree with that. If we look at the place where we were last week, how would we have solved that without the powers in the Emergencies Act, particularly to compel tow truck drivers? One of his colleagues on those benches directed me to section 129 of the Criminal Code, which I know is obstruction of a police officer, but it does not fit the circumstance.
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Context: House Hansard - 35 - Feb/20/22
Mr. James Maloney
  • Feb/20/22 11:22:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. The short answer is no, of course not. It does not affect the people in my community or the communities of anybody in the House today, or stop them from carrying on with their normal lives. People are free to come and go and do what they want. Freedom to protest does not mean parking at the end of my driveway, honking your horn for weeks on end so that I cannot sleep, prohibiting me from going to work and then peeing on my lawn. This allows people—
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