44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 7:29:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the previous engagement with the member for Brantford—Brant, he referenced the fact that this side of the House started to laugh when he said he was part of the party of law and order, and I want to read for him a quote from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, that it “supports the fundamental objectives of the invocation of the Emergencies Act that is intended to regulate and prohibit illegal public assemblies and lead to the breach of peace, and to restrict the funding of such illegal assemblies.” The party of law and order across the way does not even agree with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. That is why we find it remarkably funny, the position they have taken on this.
I am wondering if my NDP colleague can reflect on whether she also sees perplexing statements and positioning coming from the Conservative Party.
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- Feb/20/22 8:32:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope the hon. member does vote against the invocation of this act. We can agree this whole situation could have been handled better, as we have seen with other police departments in other cities across the country.
There certainly is a role to be played for law enforcement. We cannot have law and order break down. I did say in my speech I condemn the jumping up and down on the National War Memorial and the intimidation of local residents.
Again, these are matters for local law enforcement and do not justify the national emergency spelled out in the Emergencies Act.
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- Feb/20/22 12:41:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first, I need to clarify something. The Emergencies Act was assented to on July 21, 1988, and it replaced the War Measures Act. I would agree that there are important, not to say fundamental, differences between them. However, both acts set out the manner in which we wish to articulate our interventions and responses to the worst situations, namely a public welfare emergency, a public order emergency, an international emergency or a war emergency. There is nothing ordinary or trivial about this act. It is the heavy artillery of legislation. It must only be invoked sparingly and with the utmost prudence.
Today, we must decide if using this act in the current situation is appropriate. Are we in a state of emergency? If the answer is yes, does the seriousness of the situation justify invoking the Emergencies Act? If so, as provided for in subsection 17(2), what area is affected by this state of emergency?
Subsection 17(1) of the act provides for the Governor in Council to declare a state of emergency after holding consultations under section 25. Pursuant to section 25, this means that “the lieutenant governor in council of each province...shall be consulted”. This exercise should usually make it possible to determine, with a modicum of reliability, if a situation exists in a province that requires us to invoke the Emergencies Act.
In the interest of being thorough, subsection 58(1) provides that the report on the consultations must be provided with the motion for confirmation of the potential proclamation. The Governor in Council's proclamation, dated February 15, 2022, states that the consultation under subsection 25(1) did take place, and it “declare[s] that a public order emergency exists throughout Canada and necessitates the taking of special temporary measures”.
What does that mean, exactly? Like all the other members of the Bloc Québécois caucus, I think that ratifying this proclamation at this point in time would be a grave error that could have worse consequences than the situation it seeks to address. Even setting aside the fact that no end date is given for the allegedly temporary proposed measures, there are plainly at least two big issues with the proclamation. First of all, and this is no small matter, it is clear that there is no state of emergency as defined in the act, which I think nullifies any argument for authorizing the proclamation under section 17(1). The definition of a public order emergency is set out in section 16 of the act and requires “a national emergency”. This national emergency is itself defined in section 3 of the act, which states that the situation must be such that it “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada”. It also states that the situation must “exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it”.
However, the protests and the occupation in Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada have all been dealt with. The blockades have been removed and the offenders punished without the need to invoke the Emergencies Act. The existing laws and provincial and municipal powers to intervene were clearly sufficient. Moreover, the majority of premiers consulted by the Prime Minister confirmed that they did not need this act and made it clear that they were opposed to using it. In fact, of the 13 premiers consulted, only three said they supported invoking the act. How then can anyone seriously argue that the whole country is in a state of emergency?
The Premier of Quebec even said as much to the Prime Minister. Page 5 of the report attached to the proclamation says that “municipal police and the Sûreté du Québec have control of the situation”. It then says that “the use of the Act would be divisive”.
The least we can conclude from that is that the national emergency, which the act states is a condition for declaring a public order emergency, simply does not exist.
Furthermore, in the worst-case scenario, the report on the consultation with the provinces under in subsection 25(1) of the act would only justify the declaration of a public order emergency in the three provinces that were affected and that supported the declaration, namely Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia.
The premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec all said that they had the situation under control and did not support the invocation of this act.
Unless the government has no regard for these premiers, it certainly cannot claim that there is a national emergency in these seven provinces as required by the act.
As for the premiers of Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the report merely states that they have not issued public statements. It would be pretty difficult to interpret that silence as a call for help or as approval to invoke the Emergencies Act.
As for Quebec, I will simply read the quote from the report on the consultations regarding the proclamation. It takes up just three short lines in an eight-page document:
The Premier of Quebec said that he opposed the application of the Emergencies Act in Quebec, stating that municipal police and the Sûreté du Québec have control of the situation, and arguing that the use of the Act would be divisive.
Under subsection 17(2) of the Act, the emergency, if it existed, was in only three provinces, so the proclamation should have stated that there was a situation in the provinces of Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia, rather than indicating that a state of emergency exists throughout the country, as appears in the third paragraph of the declaration.
The government's claim that the lieutenant governor in council of each province and the commissioners of Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut had been consulted and that it had therefore concluded that a state of emergency exists throughout the country inevitably suggests either a serious lack of judgment or equally serious wilful blindness. As the Premier of Quebec rightly said, this is not an inconsequential mistake, but a potentially divisive act. Do we really need this?
Moreover, it sets a dangerous precedent. This kind of law constitutes a serious argument to convince anyone that the Government of Canada has the power to control its territory. Invoking it on a whim anytime an unexpected situation causes headaches and creates major policing challenges actually weakens its impact. The most powerful weapons should be used only as a last resort. They tend to be more effective as a deterrent than when they are put to use.
Let us be clear. The situation that has been happening on Parliament Hill for the past three weeks is unacceptable in a democracy and should never have been tolerated this long. In a democracy, the right to express disapproval of our leaders' decisions and the right to assemble are sacred.
However, we must bear in mind that each individual's rights end where another's begin. Abuse of those rights is a violation that can and actually should always be punished. Have we reached the point of bringing out the heavy artillery? I do not think so. It might happen one day. We cannot rule it out. As I see it, this act should be delayed for as long as possible and be used as rarely as possible—ideally, never.
In conclusion, the invocation of the Emergencies Act at this point could be seen as a clumsy or perhaps desperate move on the part of a beleaguered Prime Minister trying to make it look like he took action to deal with a situation that is unacceptable in a democracy. Either way, it is a serious, dangerous move whose consequences will not be fully understood for years.
It is therefore my intention and that of the entire Bloc Québécois caucus to vote against the confirmation motion, and I urge my 306 colleagues, be they NDP, Conservative, Green, Liberal or independent, who also care about democracy and the rights we enjoy because of it, to reject this motion.
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- Feb/20/22 4:38:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is very much incumbent on the government to explain to Canadians on an ongoing basis the justification for the Emergencies Act. I agree that a situation exists that requires its invocation now, but in her mind, what conditions would need to exist to convince her that the Emergencies Act is no longer necessary? I think Canadians really need to have that kind of an explanation because they are quite concerned with it being invoked.
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- Feb/20/22 7:50:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her dedication.
Certainly, if I think of my previous role, decisions depended on input from a variety of experts and from discussion with colleagues, as well as security assessments and briefings from intelligence officials. I would expect the same types of considerations to be put to cabinet to allow a determination of when that would no longer be necessary.
It is important to reflect that the degree of oversight, including the striking of a committee, would allow for transparency in the decision-making process that would allow us, hopefully as soon as possible, to be able to cease the invocation of this act.
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- Feb/20/22 9:48:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have not had the pleasure of meeting the member yet, but I look forward to meeting him and working with him productively in the House.
I thank him for his invitation to vote against the motion confirming the declaration of emergency, but I must assure him that I will be voting in favour of it. I must also remind him that, in fact, two-thirds of Canadians support it, including 75% of Canadians in his own province of British Columbia, 72% of Canadians in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, 65% in Ontario, 57% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and 51% of Canadians in Alberta. In fact, a majority of Canadians in every province support the invocation. By the way, 82% of Canadians believe that premiers who lifted restrictions lifted them too quickly. That is 82% of Canadians.
The member mentioned that one of the actions he wished the Prime Minister would have taken was speaking to the protesters. I remember a press conference in the early days of the protest and it looked like it was a small, confined basement room somewhere. The Conservatives were asking the Prime Minister to speak with this group.
Why would the Prime Minister of any country empower illegal occupiers with a conversation? What message would that send to future occupiers?
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