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Feb/21/22 10:28:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her work on the industry committee as the former chair. It was very much a collegial environment. As I have noted several times in interventions, the Ambassador Bridge blockade has moved from Huron Church Road and is now along city streets. A couple of convoys have been intercepted since the act has been in place. Does the member find it ironic that a private American billionaire now benefits from traffic being quickly rerouted, when small businesses and their employees cannot work because the blockades and cement barriers are now preventing people from getting to their businesses along the corridor?

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Mrs. Sherry Romanado

Feb/21/22 10:29:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague when I was on the INDU committee. I have heard the member explain throughout this debate the precarious situation on the ground right now at the Ambassador Bridge, the fact that there are still protesters blocks away who can retake that bridge. There are issues with respect to the management and ownership of that bridge that I would happily discuss with him. I know he needs to make sure that the people in his community are able to feel safe, that businesses in his community can continue to thrive and that we are able to move beyond this awful period in our history.

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Ms. Ruby Sahota (Brampton North, Lib.)

Feb/21/22 10:30:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, being able to rise today on this issue is an opportunity I do not take lightly nor for granted. It is only in a few democratic countries like ours that the voice of someone like me would even be heard or carry any weight. Over the last several days, we have heard many points of view on the invocation of the Emergencies Act and regarding the details outlined in the declaration of the act tabled in the House. After hearing much of the debate in the House and outside this place, I want to touch upon some key issues that have been misconstrued or misunderstood. The first is that this is just a normal truckers' protest. Anyone thinking that is naive as to the elements that exist within this protest, so I will address that. I also want to address that this is not just a protest representing truck drivers. If people claim that it is, they really have missed the mark. I represent a large demographic of truck drivers in my riding, and these are not their real concerns. I will also address the issue of whether this act was necessary and whether it is still necessary at this time. Lastly, I would like to show the real difference that exists between the Emergencies Act and the War Measures Act. Let us first address the claim that this is just a normal protest. If that is what people believe, then they are either naive or willfully ignoring the dangerous truths that exist within this protest. We have heard from many criminologists and cybersecurity experts over the last several weeks that this is not the intention of this protest. We are not new to protests in Parliament, and neither is Ottawa. Ottawa is a place that has had protests for centuries, always consisting of people wanting their say on policy or wanting to have their issues heard. In fact, this government has never silenced the voices of those who wish to protest. I, myself, have protested many times on the Hill in my younger years, and I strongly believe in one's ability to do so. However, blocking a city for over three weeks, shutting down its businesses, and disturbing the mental and physical health of its people is not a protest, not to mention the irreparable harm that has been done by shutting down our borders for over 18 days. As the ambassador to the UN and former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Bob Rae, put it the other day, “A truck is not a speech. A horn is not a voice. An occupation is not a protest. A blockade is not freedom, it blocks the liberty of all. A demand to overthrow a government is not a dialogue. The expression of hatred is not a difference of opinion. A lie is not the truth.” On my way in today, for the first time in quite some time, I felt some freedom. I am sure the people of Ottawa are feeling freedom today. Furthermore, the protests have had varying ideological grievances, with demands ranging from ending the public health measures to overthrowing a democratically elected government. While the latter is non-negotiable, the public health restrictions have been put in place by most governments around the world to varying degrees, depending on the advice of their public health, the capacities of their health systems and the willingness of their governments to have high death tolls versus their desire to protect the vulnerable. Public health is, and should be, every government's number one priority. This is not tyranny, nor is it authoritarianism. Those making these outlandish claims have really minimized what many people living in Canada experienced before fleeing from countries that have these types of regimes. Yes, we have all been inconvenienced. Yes, we are all tired and frustrated. The good news is that we are seeing a relaxation of measures across this country. Despite what a few want us to believe, Canadians, in large part, have done all of the right things to help get us through this pandemic. They have gotten vaccinated. Over 90% of Canadians, and over 90% of Canadian truckers also, have been vaccinated. That is an overwhelming majority. Due to the work that they have done, we will soon see that many measures will be lifted. The Conservatives may want to paint this protest as just truckers voicing their opinion, but it is more than that. It is an ideologically motivated group of people who, for weeks on end, had been plotting and planning the overthrow of this government and other criminal activities. We have seen that. A lot of people want to forget, but we saw it at our southern Alberta border. At Coutts, we saw over 13 individuals be arrested. When we take a look at their backgrounds, they are quite astonishing. The plans that they had in place to kill our federal RCMP officers are not something to minimize. We should understand the grave danger that some of these people pose. We are also seeing congressional committees down south in the U.S. investigating Facebook and other social media giants to see where a lot of the push and motivation for this trucker convoy has come from. It has come from outside of our borders. A lot of the funding has also come from outside of our borders. What is very interesting is the correlation that we found between those who supported the January 6 insurrection at the Washington Capitol, and those who have supported this trucker convoy. There is a great overlap. Over 1,100 of the same donors donated to both causes. Furthermore, blocking our trade corridors is not just a protest. Blocking our trade corridors has had a substantial impact on the truck drivers who live in my riding, and on the auto industry that is also in my riding. Many workers have been displaced due to the protest. I hesitate to continue to call it a protest, because it has been a siege and occupation of our land. There has also been a lack of transparency as to what the funds that had been raised by this convoy, this occupation, would be used for. Therefore, I think it was very important for the government to impose the Emergencies Act at this time, to make sure that we could stop that money from getting into the wrong hands. There has been a very big lack of transparency. I know many will argue today that the borders have been cleared, and thankfully Ottawa for the most part has been cleared. This measure also allows us to make sure that this does not happen again within days. We are starting to see it in different places in this country, so we need to make sure we keep this act in place for the remainder of the 30 days. The second thing that I wanted to talk about concerns the truckers in my riding. The truckers in my riding have been calling me, talking about the issues that they face. They have been facing long waits. They have been stuck at times without food or water at the borders. This is not fair. They have real issues. They have issues of pay. They have labour issues that they want addressed. If it were a real trucker protest, that is what the protest should have been about. Some will argue that the Emergencies Act was not needed, but we have heard interim Ottawa police chief Steve Bell say that the Emergencies Act and the province's state of emergency provided the police with the resources they needed to push back the demonstrators. It provided them with the ability to block off the city of Ottawa so that further protesters did not come to encourage the siege. It has given them the tools that were necessary, and I would say that many of the premiers requested these tools all along—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Feb/21/22 10:40:46 a.m.
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We will go to questions now. The hon. member for Peace River—Westlock.

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Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

Feb/21/22 10:40:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the spring of 2020, we saw rail blockades across the country. At that point, when Quebec was running out of propane and people were unable to heat their own homes across the country, there was no mention of the invocation of the Emergencies Act. What we did see in that case was an army of cabinet ministers going out across the country speaking to whomever they could in order to resolve the situation. Why was that tactic not taken in this particular case?

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Ms. Ruby Sahota

Feb/21/22 10:41:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in this case, we had a series of blockades across the country closing our borders. These did irreparable damage: over $390 million of damage a day. The city was taken siege for over three weeks, not to mention that the mayors of the cities and the premiers were calling on the federal government to intervene and implement measures to give them the tools and resources that they needed. Even the premier of Alberta, although he is stating something else today, wrote to the federal government wanting us to do more. Therefore, the government has listened and done what was needed.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

Feb/21/22 10:42:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Brampton North for her speech. She talked about the tools that are now available and that we needed. I would like her to give me a list of the tools that were used and for her to explain to me why they were not necessary in Sarnia, Fort Erie, Vancouver, Quebec City and Coutts.

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Ms. Ruby Sahota

Feb/21/22 10:42:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in fact, Coutts was requiring them, and had a very difficult time getting the tow trucks that were needed. Many of the law enforcement agencies complained that this was a key problem they had. They were not able to get the private resources that were needed, but that has become a lot easier ever since the Emergencies Act was put in place. We heard right here, from Ottawa police chief Steve Bell, that the act and the powers that were given within it helped the police to achieve what they did over the last few days here in Ottawa. They would not have been able to stop people from coming into the borders of this city without these measures.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

Feb/21/22 10:43:37 a.m.
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Qujannamiik, Uqaqtittiji. In my previous question, I asked the member for Oxford, who also happens to be on the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, if he had read the emergency measures regulations, to which he said that he had not. Could the member confirm whether the places listed in subsections 1(a) to 1(f) of the regulations, such as airports and international bridges, have been under threat, which necessitated the declaration of the Emergencies Act? Indeed, do they continue to be a security risk? Qujannamiik.

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Ms. Ruby Sahota

Feb/21/22 10:44:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, absolutely, and I would like to thank my colleague for bringing that up. Our infrastructure was under threat and continues to be under threat in this country. That is why it is so important to make sure that we vote in favour of the implementation of this act today. This is a time-limited act. It is targeted to where it is needed. Therefore, I think it is absolutely the best measure to have in place to be able to curtail what is happening in our country today.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/21/22 10:44:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into this discussion this morning after the last few days. I thought the member for Brampton North made a number of very compelling points. In reflecting on an insurrection, in a lot of the debate over the last number of days, some members in this place have said to others, “Well, what makes you think they could be capable of succeeding in an insurrection?” I would ask the hon. member for Brampton North this. In any reasonable universe, is the test for sedition how likely it is that it would succeed?

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Ms. Ruby Sahota

Feb/21/22 10:45:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say to my colleague and to the House that we have received lots of warnings, and we are continuing to receive warnings, from our security and cybersecurity experts that Canada and many democratically elected governments are under a real threat. We have seen proof of that here within our own borders. Weapons and armour have been seized. Plots have been revealed. That should be enough to wake us all up.

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Mr. Frank Caputo

Feb/21/22 10:46:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Twice I referenced the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act, and I referenced a specific provision that was in a schedule while the act is in force. I came to learn from a very sharp-eyed person that the schedule is not in force, so I withdraw my comments that were made with respect to section 21 in that schedule.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Feb/21/22 10:46:27 a.m.
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That is duly noted. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Montcalm.

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Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Feb/21/22 10:46:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. I taught political philosophy for 30 years. The democratic ideal is at the heart of my political involvement. That is why I am a sovereignist, because the political sovereignty of the people is the very foundation of the democratic ideal. The debate that is coming to a close today is one of the most serious debates I have ever participated in in the House, because the Emergencies Act is the most powerful and coercive action that a nation governed by the rule of law can impose in a democracy. Government by decree is the antithesis of the exercise of legislative power. Such decrees cannot be made based on feelings, frustration with what others are saying, or ideological differences—whether far left or far right—or simply to cover up incompetence on the pretext of a legal vacuum. It is not with joy in my heart or without emotion that I rise today. I never would have thought that the 10-year-old-boy from a working-class neighbourhood of Montreal who was forced to walk by armoured tanks and soldiers armed with machine guns every morning for the duration of the October crisis, because his school was right next to the police headquarters on Parthenais Street, would end up in the House of Commons 52 years later debating the Emergencies Act. I remember the fear and the intense climate of suspicion that gripped the neighbourhood every time there was a police operation or arrest, whether or not it made the news, involving people we considered to be perfectly ordinary, like us, with no criminal record and far from being terrorists, as we rightly thought. Despite the emotion I am feeling by recalling this memory, I never would have failed in my duty to add my voice to that of my colleagues in this debate that started long before January 29, in the wake of a global health crisis that has affected our lives, everyone's quality of life, that has left thousands of families in mourning, that for two years now has challenged our sense of solidarity and mutual goodwill and that gives new meaning to the old adage, “One person's freedom ends where another's begins”. This should lead us as parliamentarians to be more careful than ever not to set a precedent, but also to be as thorough as possible in order to maintain the increasingly fragile trust the public has in their democratic institutions. The issue here is not the opinions or the interpretation that different people can have of democracy or freedom. As we saw in the streets for 23 days, and in many other countries of the world throughout history, people can say and do many things in the name of freedom and democracy. However, in a country governed by the rule of law and in a self-proclaimed free and democratic society, the legitimacy of the government's power in relation to its citizens must be guided by and measured against a fundamental question that must be answered to prevent abuse of power. What are the limits to the government's power to intervene? My questions arise only out of the desire to understand the necessity of invoking this act. I would point out that it is special legislation, which, let us not forget, was developed in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act so that the executive branch, meaning the government, any government, regardless of its political stripes, can never again claim the absolute power to trample rights and freedoms for political purposes, nor engage in abuse of power with impunity. I recognize that it is not the same act. Much like Thomson and Thompson are not the same, these acts are not the same. With this act, however, the government has brought out the heavy artillery. In 1988, parliamentarians created some safeguards, and one of those safeguards was us, as members of Parliament. We have a duty to question the legitimacy of the Emergencies Act, which was invoked in response to a situation we all now know, when the government stood by for 21 days. To all those who claim we are living in a dictatorship, I do want to point out that totalitarian and dictatorial regimes rarely hold the kinds of debates we have been having today. These types of debates are the essence of a parliamentary democracy, of a representative democracy, but we also have to live up to that responsibility and maintain credibility. Unfortunately, the sequence of events and the failure to implement the necessary measures in response to the siege of the federal capital do not justify these orders. How did we wind up here? According to the Emergencies Act, the government had a responsibility to consult the provinces and report on those consultations to establish that there was a nationwide emergency. Seven out of 10 premiers opposed the use of the Emergencies Act in their provinces because they did not feel it was necessary. Two of the three other premiers said that they did not need this special legislation. What national crisis are the Liberals talking about when they continue to claim that the Emergencies Act must absolutely be confirmed? We are hearing that it is useful, but it must be proven indispensable. Even the Quebec National Assembly saw fit to distance itself from the process and unanimously adopted a motion against the application of the law in Quebec. It reads: That the National Assembly be concerned about the current disruptions in Ontario and around certain federal border crossings; That it affirm that no emergency situation currently justifies the use of special legislative measures in Québec; That it ask the Canadian government to not apply the federal Emergencies Act in Québec; That, lastly, the National Assembly reiterate the importance of close collaboration between the federal government and the Québec government, in particular to ensure peace of mind and safety for citizens in the Outaouais region who are affected by the ongoing demonstrations in Ottawa and who could have to bear the brunt of any further deterioration of the situation. The Government of Canada has ignored the requirement to demonstrate a national emergency. How can it claim a national emergency when seven premiers say they do not need this legislation? How can we draw any other conclusion besides that the usual laws were sufficient? I can understand that the members sitting on the government side feel obliged to support their government's shaky logic and failure to provide the required proofs. However, I am of the opinion that there should be a free vote on such a fundamental issue. This minority government did not do its homework, but because it has the support of the NDP, it does not matter if it fulfills the obligations set out in the act. As we speak, the siege in Ottawa has ended. The so-called national crisis that the government failed to demonstrate no longer exists. In the circumstances, I wonder if the NDP is aware that by voting with the government, it is an accomplice to setting a dangerous precedent by accepting such a low bar and that, one day, a majority government may use it to do something even worse. The government failed to fulfill another requirement, that of demonstrating, in accordance with section 3 of the act, that any other law of Canada, the regular laws, cannot effectively deal with the emergency situation of this alleged national crisis. Not only did the government not prove this, but it did not even try. My colleagues from Joliette and Rivière-du-Nord eloquently and methodically explained that existing legislation was sufficient to resolve the situation and that seven out of 10 premiers were opposed to the invocation of the Emergencies Act in their provinces, because they had the situation under control. This clearly demonstrates that the conditions of section 3 were not met. In conclusion, I invite members of all parties to vote according to the highest principles that should limit the exercise of the government's power to ensure its legitimacy and guarantee the rule of law. This will result in a parliamentary democracy where not only can the general will of the people be expressed, but also where different points of view can be heard, rather than being relegated to the streets.

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

Feb/21/22 10:56:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member cited the Quebec National Assembly and the unanimous motion. The Province of Alberta wrote Ottawa asking for assistance. It specifically cited towing. The Province of Manitoba pleaded with Ottawa to get engaged and assist, which was only two or three days prior to the enactment of the Emergencies Act. However, both of those provinces say it is not necessary. There could come a point in time when it could be necessary and it would be an option. It is a tool for law enforcement and others to consider. What does the member opposite have to say about my home province of Manitoba in particular, which was pleading for federal involvement, even though today it says it is not necessary?

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Mr. Luc Thériault

Feb/21/22 10:57:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, a very specific and targeted order would have been sufficient to address the towing issue. The government did not have to get out the heavy artillery and invoke the Emergencies Act simply because it would be useful. The act should only be used when absolutely necessary.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Feb/21/22 10:58:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it should be underlined that, while the Government of Alberta clearly had been engaged with the federal government, at no point did it asked for the imposition of the Emergencies Act. As my colleague pointed out, a majority of premiers, including the Premier of Alberta and the Premier of Quebec, opposed the use of the Emergencies Act. We have a situation where a bare majority of parliamentarians, as far as we know, support the use of the Emergencies Act, and a majority of premiers and many members of Parliament are very concerned about it. This sets a very dangerous precedent. Is the member aware if the Quebec government is contemplating participating in legal action, along with Alberta, against the use of the Emergencies Act in this case?

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Mr. Luc Thériault

Feb/21/22 10:59:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have no idea, but it is clear that the order does not meet the criteria set out in section 3 of the act.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/21/22 10:59:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to tell my esteemed Bloc Québécois colleague that I completely agree that it is important that we vote on this today. It would be better to have a free vote, and I am wondering if the Bloc Québécois agrees with that.

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