44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 8:48:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That is the deal.
From the early stages of the pandemic to a protest that has become the target of the sledgehammer that is the Emergencies Act, the government has failed in every way to plan for events that it had ample opportunity to be ready for. It has dismally planned to fail.
Before COVID-19 we had SARS, a precursor to the pandemic that should have given us a road map for what could come, but it did not. From a dismal lack of stockpiling of PPE to the completely inadequate health care capacity of our whole system to the failure to produce a single drop of vaccine two years in, Canada was not ready for what became the biggest spend of money in all Canadians' lifetimes combined.
What will we see in the next decade? Misspending has created the largest inflation in 30 years, gas prices are now over $1.80 in some parts of the country, and grocery bills are crippling our families.
The government did what the government had to do when there was no plan: It intervened. The problem with the government taking total control is that it hates to lose the control that it has gained.
Let us switch gears to the protests here in Ottawa. The convoy drove from west to east, making its way slowly across the country while making it well known that it was not happy with the mandates. In every town it entered, it was met with thousands of Canadians who supported it, feeling hopeful for change. Canadians had their own reasons for supporting it, but the common thread was the need for change, for hope and for the end of suffering.
The government had fair warning. People were coming and they were unhappy. The government had ample time to listen to the people and create a plan, a road map out of this pandemic, that Canadians so desperately needed. However, instead of listening and seeing what other countries that had had fourth waves ahead of us were doing, on January 7 our health minister said that he saw more mandates coming.
There was Quebec's tax on health and the continued PCR testing that the WHO said was unnecessary. There was and has been no scientific medical data to back up these mandates, just as there was no data to prove that the Prime Minister was correct in suggesting that interprovincial passports for truckers were absolutely necessary.
Instead of listening and creating a safe, responsible plan, the government took a heavy hand, threatening more mandates and belittling Canadians for expressing their displeasure.
The Ottawa police, the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police had all the time they needed to prepare for trucks coming downtown, but let us be honest: There was no plan. An article in the National Post on Saturday stated that the Ottawa police's plan was that the trucker protest would last just a weekend. When police were overwhelmed, they still did not announce an emergency. The following week, they became more indecisive. The police chief stated that he believed protesters would dissipate on their own. It was a failure to plan.
Especially, there was no plan from the federal government to address this larger group or manage any elements of lawlessness. There was absolutely no plan to understand that this was not just a fringe element, but a larger movement of ordinary Canadians simply looking for hope from somebody, anybody, as we in the world continually reach the last phases of the pandemic and the beginning of an endemic. It was a larger group that had no affiliation with hate, intolerance or lawlessness. We only had to listen to and speak to many of those screaming to be heard, or see the messaging from our constituencies.
Most of all, it was a failure of the Prime Minister.
We must all remember just one thing in the House, and that is whom we work for, whom we represent and whom we answer to. When we forget that, and it feels like the government has forgotten it, we find a divided country. A divided country allows our country to be weak on the world stage, weak in future planning and weak to those who look to us for a path forward.
The Prime Minister made a choice, and that choice ignored Canadians when they most needed a leader to hear from. Here are some of the voices from Bay of Quinte in the last few weeks.
My son struggles after COVID19 to the point where he has completely broken down. He can no longer play with friends and he has no interest in even attending school.
I had a major reaction to the first vaccine where I cannot mentally get the second and cannot get a medical exception. I am at the verge of breaking down every day and have never had so little hope.
I donated $30 to the trucker convoy not because of any other reason than I wanted hope and an end to mandates. I’m a single mother and I’m afraid my bank account will be frozen, and I will be detained.
I am currently a teacher. I am speaking on behalf of children that are being masked all day long. They cannot breathe. They are not developing social skills with one another that they should be. The language development in several of my senior kindergarten students are being stunted because of masks.
This is after we should be celebrating what we have done as a country, a country that is 90% vaccinated, a country that has all the opportunity in front of it for a prosperous future and a country that can start to heal from its wounds.
As COVID‑19 wanes, what is left today is a country in shambles. What remains is a country divided, leaving generations of mistrust in government. When a government divides and conquers, once trust is broken, it is almost impossible to build it back. Mothers, daughters and sons have contacted us in the last few weeks. There has been massive trauma experienced as a result of COVID‑19. Domestic abuse and mental health issues have gone through the roof.
The question for the government is this: Why are your politics more important than the heart of this nation? We keep creating division when we should be healing. We cannot keep fighting across the aisle, slinging mud and acting like it is helpful. Canadians need us to meet them with an open heart, acknowledge the pain and trauma they have suffered throughout this pandemic and do all we can to be a light after this dark tunnel. It is time to say that we are sorry, right our wrongs, start mending our country and build trust again.
The government did what it had to do at the beginning of the pandemic: It intervened because it had no plan. There have been countless consequences of that. Again, with no plan to deal with a prolonged protest in downtown Ottawa, the government is in another failure scenario with the Emergencies Act. We are against this act.
The actions taken these past three weeks in several locations in Canada are not an aberration, but rather a manifestation of the growing frustration Canadians feel with our federal government and its inability to truly listen to Canadians and put them ahead of its overreach. The invocation of the Emergencies Act is a slap in the face to all Canadians and not a proud moment in our country’s history.
Even if the need for law enforcement is justified to bail out those who failed to plan, it is the financial overreach that has me most concerned. The law must be predictable and transparent, and the financial overreach of this act is not. Banks should not be and are not our nation’s prosecutors. There are laws now that ensure law enforcement can and will go after unlawful activities, but no Canadian who innocently donated to a cause because they wanted desperately to feel hope should feel maligned. Certainly no government looking at powers that allow financial information to be accessed should be allowed to make those changes permanent, as the Deputy Prime Minister made claim to this week.
The invocation of the Emergencies Act under these circumstances is an insult to all Canadians and certainly not a proud moment in our country’s history. Our nation needs to start healing now, and that is the only plan that we all need to get behind.
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- Feb/20/22 10:20:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, from what I understand, omicron has changed the whole scenario we are in, so the context has shifted. However, that does not undermine the effectiveness of our vaccines in significantly reducing hospitalizations, severe illness and outcomes such as death. Vaccine mandates are still effective in reducing the spread of COVID‑19, specifically the spread of severe outcomes, and alleviating the burden on our health care systems, which we saw come very close to breaking down completely in the omicron wave. We have to continue this fight. The higher the vaccination rates, the better, and vaccine mandates have been proven in many jurisdictions to push those vaccination rates up as high as possible, which is good for our country and for our economy. I fully believe every Canadian should choose for themselves whether to get vaccinated. If they choose not to do so, that is their choice, but there are going to be some consequences associated with that.
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- Feb/20/22 7:22:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, like the Conservatives, we disagree with the motion. However, I must say from the outset that we do not agree with the protesters, either. Unfortunately, I heard a number of Conservatives in the House say that there was a link to be made between the vaccine mandate and the protests outside.
Does my colleague agree with some of the members of his caucus who say that everything we are seeing right now is a result of the vaccine mandate and the provincial rules that to some degree limit personal freedoms?
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say.
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- Feb/20/22 7:22:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was the first to condemn the vaccine mandate for truckers on December 15. I can assure the House that I have not changed my mind. As the hon. member for Louis-Hébert said earlier, the government used the election to sow division between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in Canada. It is still doing so. The Liberal Party members are doing the same thing now. It was not necessary to impose this requirement on the truckers, since the government tolerated the situation for two years. The government did not present any valid studies to show that the truckers were coming into Canada with COVID. There was absolutely no need to impose this requirement.
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- Feb/20/22 7:53:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to join the debate on the Emergencies Act. I hate to spoil the surprise for those waiting until the end of my speech to understand how I will vote, but I am going to come out early now and spoil it by saying I do not support this overreach by the government.
We have to ask how we got here today. I am sure the Liberals are saying “by Air Canada”, but I mean the crisis we are dealing with right now. Some think it was because of the trucker vaccine mandate brought in by the government about a month ago, and I have to wonder why, now, the government would bring this in.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, two years ago, before we had vaccines and before we knew much about COVID, truckers were able to come and go. They were deemed vital to the continuation of our economy, bringing food exports, so we were not putting any mandates on them then. During the delta wave, we had some vaccines, but not a huge part of the population had been vaccinated. Truckers were able to come into the country without having the mandate.
Here we are, now, where 90% of Canadians are vaxxed or partially vaxxed. We have had omicron wash through the country. Thankfully, due to the high vaccination rate and that it is milder, we have not had the problems and the issues of the first waves. Now, the Liberals decide they are going to hit the truckers with a mandate. There was no data to back it up and no reason, it seems, apart from politicking.
At the point where we are here with the crisis happening in Ottawa, some might think the tipping point was the Prime Minister in September, but it was reported in January, calling the unvaccinated racists, misogynists and extremists. The Prime Minister asked if we should “tolerate” these people, pitting Canadian against Canadian.
However, I think the roots of what is happening across Canada and outside this place, go back to the election. On July 13 the Prime Minister stated there would be no vaccine mandates. Two weeks later, when he called the unnecessary, unneeded election, he found out, though internal polling, that this was a wedge issue and he could wedge Canadian against Canadian and the electorate against Conservatives by flip-flopping and bringing in vaccine mandates and making it the prime election issue. It is quite funny, listening to the other side, especially the finance minister, calling Conservatives the party of flip-flop.
This country has had a number of distinguished finance ministers: Paul Martin, Jim Flaherty and Michael Wilson. Can members imagine any of these distinguished and fine finance ministers reducing themselves to name-calling, such as “the party of flip-flop”, like the current one? That seems to be the modus operandi of the government.
During the election, we had never seen protests like we did, caused by the current government. We had never had people out shamefully throwing rocks and pebbles at a prime minister until the government purposely wedged Canadians against Canadians.
We understand vaccines are important. We all know that, but pitting Canadians against unvaccinated Canadians for political gain is wrong, and it has led to what has happened outside. I have been doing this game for a long time. I actually started my political volunteering with a gentleman named Chuck Cook, who was the member of Parliament for North Vancouver and was the whip at one time for the Mulroney government. I helped out as a youth delegate alternate for Joe Clark, losing unfortunately. I campaigned from Victoria to Newfoundland, knocking at doors, and I have never seen such anger or so many Canadians turned against each other as I have because of the government turning one group against the other.
I once even actually door-knocked in the by-election in Davenport after Jack Layton passed away. I had never in my life seen a campaign where every single house had an orange sign throughout the entire riding. The support was amazing, but as a Conservative I was able to door-knock there with none of the vitriol we saw in the last election, again caused by the Prime Minister pitting Canadian against Canadian and wondering if we should tolerate other Canadians who have not been vaccinated.
When the truckers announced they were coming to town, the Prime Minister thought he could just demonize them like he did with other protests. If he called them names, they would simply go away, but they did not. The Prime Minister riled them up. Again, instead of discussing the issue, instead of debating it in the House, he called them names. He created the conditions and the anger and that stuck in Canada.
When we had rail protests a couple of years ago, crippling the economy, the port of Vancouver blockaded, the situation in Quebec with the lack of fuel was so bad that Alberta companies were talking about, heaven forbid, a convoy to bring propane to keep Quebeckers heated. What did the Prime Minister do? Did he call them names? These were protesters who were throwing furniture in front of moving trains, hoping to derail them. Did he call them names? Of course not. He actually hurried and sent ministers out to negotiate. This is not a national emergency as much as the other side will claim. This is a political emergency for the Prime Minister.
On the act itself, since 1988, we think of all the crises Canada has faced, and there have been a lot, some major, some not as much. We had Oka. I remember Oka. The army was there against people with AK47s, and it was solved without the Emergencies Act. There was Caledonia, and again the protests two years ago with the rail blockades. The G20 summit protest, where we had over 1,000 arrests, violence in the streets and storefronts destroyed, was not a national emergency.
In 1997, we remember Vancouver during APEC, when the RCMP famously pepper sprayed protesters and then prime minister Chrétien talked about pepper being something to put on his steak. People do not realize that the RCMP feared for protesters' lives, because the government for the first time had allowed eight different nations to have armed security with their leaders. I am not worried about Bush being here and the U.S. being armed, but President Suharto, a strongman and thug from Indonesia at the time had armed security with him. The RCMP stated they were afraid Suharto's thugs would fire into the crowd and kill Canadians, but that was not an emergency under the act.
At the Coastal GasLink protest, we just saw that people broke in and tried to light a car on fire that had workers inside. They broke in with axes; there were millions of dollars' worth of equipment and, when the police were attending, they ambushed the police, throwing burning items at the police cars. Apparently that was not an emergency. I wonder if the government is actually going to try to seize some of the bank accounts of those supporting such things.
Are the Liberals going to investigate that? Of course not, because certain ideological protests are apparently more fair than others. The Liberals will try their best to trot out the various reasons that this is a national emergency. They try to claim, as we heard earlier in one of my interventions, that these people were trying to overthrow the government. Seriously, as if the hot tub time machine guys out there with the ludicrous online demand to overthrow the government are to be taken seriously, or the people calling in saying, “Have the Governor General replace the Prime Minister.” That is not a serious issue.
Perhaps bringing out former prime minister Harper to be beheaded on the lawn of this place like the Toronto 18 planned to do could have been considered an emergency, but again, I do not think the bouncy castle people are anything that constitutes an emergency.
Earlier, when this first came up, I was heckled by one of the Liberals when I was asking a question about why they were able to clear Windsor, Surrey and the other border crossings without the Emergencies Act. Why do we need it? The Liberal MP yelled across that they might come back. I have to ask, when will this actually end for the Liberal government? When will the political emergency end if the government is saying secretly maybe they will come back and we will keep it going.
The Liberals have not justified in any way the use of the Emergencies Act. That is why I will not be supporting it.
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- Feb/20/22 9:36:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. It must be the end of the day, because I am a little passionate. My apologies to the member if I got a little passionate.
I am definitely pro-vaccine. I am proudly vaxxed and I believe everyone should be vaccinated. However, we also need to not demonize people who think differently from us. We live in a free country, and when we demonize people, calling them misogynist and racist, that is not Canadian. That is not our Canada.
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- Feb/20/22 10:09:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge that I am speaking on the traditional territories of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe peoples. I also acknowledge that my constituency is on the treaty lands of the Williams Treaties first nations and recognize the Chippewas of Georgina Island as the closest first nations community.
It is an honour and privilege for me to speak in this House to represent the constituents of Newmarket—Aurora. Is this not the fundamental value we are here to defend? That value is democracy, which so many people have died to defend. It is the reason my parents became part of an underground escape route in Holland to help escaped prisoners of war return home, and the reason that my parents came to Canada.
I acknowledge that some of the people who joined the protest did so to express their opposition to vaccine mandates and with the intent to protest peacefully, but it also needs to be explicitly stated that here in Ottawa, within our country and at our border crossings, our democracy was at risk from a dangerous extreme minority that had declared its intent to overthrow the government with its MOU. For the organizers of the blockades and the occupation of Ottawa, this was not about vaccine mandates. That was just a ruse. They intended to damage our economy, with no regard for the impact to our communities, and disrupt and shut down businesses, which only revealed their contempt for Canada and the rule of law.
For three weeks, blockades have been illegally disrupting the lives of Canadians, harming our economy and endangering public safety. Canadians have seen their work hours reduced, or in many cases their jobs put on hold. Factories have been put on hold, and retailers and restaurants have been forced to closed. Let us be unwavering in our condemnation of those who set out to create an economic crisis by further disrupting supply chains to create a climate of fear and uncertainty. The occupation by this illegal blockade has resulted in serious harm to our economy and to Canada's international standing.
The world's confidence in Canada as a place to invest and do business was being undermined. The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge has affected about $390 million in trade each day, and this bridge supports about 30% of all trade by road between Canada and the United States, which is our most important trading partner.
In Coutts, Alberta, about $48 million in trade has been affected by these blockades, and in Emerson, Manitoba, about $73 million in daily trade has been affected. Those impacts are real. They threaten businesses, big and small, and the livelihoods of Canadian workers. Recognizing all the provisions in place to safeguard our country, I support invoking the Emergencies Act to supplement the provincial and territorial authorities to address the blockades and the occupation. This is to keep Canadians safe, protect people's jobs and ensure our economy continues on the path of recovery while restoring confidence in our institutions.
Through the Emergencies Act, we are broadening the scope of Canada's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules so they can cover crowdfunding platforms and their payment service providers, including digital assets such as cryptocurrency. This is particularly significant in an era where social media makes it possible to broadly distribute disinformation and raise funds on that basis. Over 55% of the funds raised on these platforms came from the United States.
Through the Emergencies Act, we are providing new authorities to law enforcement to regulate crowds, prohibit blockades and keep essential corridors open. The Emergencies Act allows the government to mobilize essential services, such as tow trucks; allows the RCMP to act more swiftly to enforce local laws; and provides enhanced powers to stop the flow of money. These measures are targeted, temporary and proportionate.
Canada is a rule of law country and, when we declared the public order emergency under the Emergencies Act, we followed the law. We continue to act within it. There are clear conditions set out in the Emergencies Act for a public emergency order to be declared, and our government believes those conditions have been met, and that they require the Government of Canada to act.
The scope of these measures will be time limited and geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address. The Emergencies Act is intended to strengthen and support law enforcement agencies at all levels across the country. This is about keeping Canadians safe and allowing residents to go into their communities with the security and freedom to do so, while protecting people's jobs and restoring confidence in our institutions.
The Emergencies Act also contains a number of significant limits, checks and safeguards. As required by the act, on several occasions over the past week the Prime Minister and members of the cabinet consulted with the premiers and members of their respective governments. In the coming days, a parliamentary committee will be established to provide oversight while the emergency is in effect. The declaration only lasts 30 days, unless renewed. However, we can and sincerely hope to revoke the emergency much sooner.
I agree with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands when she said that it is not helpful to trivialize the gravity of this situation with references about bouncy castles, nor is it helpful to polarize this debate with antagonistic, inflammatory rhetoric and personal attacks.
These are challenging times. The pandemic has impacted all of us, and for some the impact has been one of great loss economically and personally. Over the course of this pandemic, 36,000 Canadian lives have been lost and more than 1.2 million Canadians have been diagnosed with COVID. We should also remember the 2,000 Canadians who have silently lost their lives over the last three weeks because of COVID.
Pandemic restrictions, the majority of which are imposed provincially, are starting to be lifted. Our country has 30.7 million people, or about 80% of its population, vaccinated. Efforts continue to expand the number of those who have been triple vaccinated.
It is due to the efforts of so many Canadians that we stand on the threshold of a recovery, a threshold that cannot be derailed or trampled on by a minority whose intent was seditious, an economic sabotage with a disregard for the neighbours and residents whose streets they occupied.
This was a crisis in need of the Emergencies Act. In a letter addressed to the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, or CACP, wrote:
the national coordination of the Freedom Convoy 2022 has presented unique challenges.
The CACP supports the fundamental objectives of the invocation of the Emergencies Act that is intended to regulate and prohibit illegal public assemblies that lead to the breach of peace, and to restrict the funding of such illegal assemblies.
I also agree with the member for Edmonton Strathcona who stated that our constituents expect us to work together and find solutions to resolve this crisis.
In the weeks and months ahead, we need to restore faith in the institutions Canadians rely on. We need to come to a full understanding of how these blockades and the occupation were able to happen and what can be done to prevent them from happening in the future. In doing so, we must safeguard the right to protest peacefully, and we must remember the House we stand in belongs to all Canadians. We stand here at their will with the expectation to work in the best interests of Canadians.
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