44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 21, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/21/22 11:10:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe the member is so wrong. What is happening, what has happened and the potential threat of what could happen is very real.
The shutdown of downtown Ottawa by an illegal protest and blockades has had a profound and negative impact in many ways. That is not to mention the blocking of the international border where literally half a billion dollars plus of financial activity daily was being blocked. We saw the loss of hundreds of jobs, going into the thousands, as a direct result. We saw a community, the nation's capital, being held captive.
The legislation is there to ensure that kids are forbidden from being used as part of a barricade. It is there to ensure there is a financial consequence for irresponsible behaviour.
Why does the Bloc not support the rule of law in Canada, which includes Quebec?
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- Feb/21/22 11:11:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say to my colleague opposite that the priority is not to neglect the rule of law, but to apply it correctly.
I will ask him the following questions.
Who let the barricades go up? Who let us get to this point as a result of a failure to act, complacency and lack of leadership?
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- Feb/21/22 11:12:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was an excellent speech. The member has clearly made the case that the threshold for invoking the Emergencies Act has not been met.
Due process is required to happen under the rule of law. Could the member speak a little about the fact that due process did not happen, that there was a complete lack of process, and that the government moved from A to Z unmerited?
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- Feb/21/22 11:12:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very relevant question.
Indeed, my background in labour relations taught me that a gradual negotiation process is required to deal with conflicts. First, you have to acknowledge the other party's position, assess why that person or group feels the way they do, consider what they are saying and then negotiate a plan to resolve the crisis.
The government could have gone through the steps. It could have met with the other party, negotiated, made proposals, and negotiated again, all to keep this protest relatively peaceful.
I think the government's failure to do that is what led to the terrible situation we are in now.
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- Feb/21/22 11:13:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix for her passionate speech.
She spoke a lot about the value of democracy and about our duty to protect this democracy and live up to our responsibilities here in this place.
I would like to hear her thoughts on the dangerous precedent this will set if, and I emphasize if, the left wing of the Liberal Party continues to support the government and votes in favour of applying this act, which is not needed. Even if it had been needed, it certainly is not now, since there is no one left in the streets.
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- Feb/21/22 11:14:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for his good question.
I will reiterate my position. The danger is that, if we exercise poor judgment here today and support the use of the Emergencies Act, then our actions might later be interpreted in a way that could jeopardize the future of many people because they will think that the Emergencies Act can be used to resolve deadlocks and protests, when it is supposed to be a law of last resort. The danger is that the public may become ambivalent. That is serious, and I am once again asking all members of Parliament to think very seriously about how they are going to vote this evening.
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- Feb/21/22 11:15:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour anytime to rise on my feet in this House. It is unfortunate that we are rising today to debate the Emergencies Act. It is an act whose use is not merited right now. I will outline my reasoning for voting against this tonight and why I hope that the NDP will join with us, stay relevant and hopefully support our position that it is not needed right now.
To get understanding, we need to ask ourselves how and why: How are we here and why are we here debating this, and why did we have protesters on the streets of Ottawa? It goes to the function of parliamentarians, which is to listen. We may not agree with the protesters and we may not agree with all views in Canada, but we listen, hopefully to have a better understanding of our fellow Canadians. That is what has been unfortunately lacking in this place.
We have gone through two years of this pandemic with these difficulties. Everyone is tired. Everyone wants this to be over. The good news is that in Canada it is slowly becoming very apparent that the pandemic is coming to an end. Mandates are being lifted across Canada. Freedom is on the move again. We are able to take back our lives. The Super Bowl was just played in California, with 85,000 people in that stadium, and we did not see a spike of COVID cases afterward. Why is that? Part of it is that vaccines have helped.
We are one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world. We have therapeutic options now available. Also, the variant that is dominant right now is milder. In the past, this is how pandemics have ended, with the dominant strain becoming a mild virus that would go through our population and we would have natural immunity layered on top of all the other measures that I have outlined. That is why we are coming to the end of it. We are at the tail end of this. Province after province is lifting its restrictions. Countries, significant western world countries, are removing the mandates. We are so close to being in that spot.
Why would the Liberal government in January, last month, at the end of this pandemic, after claiming that truck drivers were frontline heroes, the people who literally fed us and delivered the goods that sustained us for these last two years, who called them heroes for the first two years, at the waning end of this pandemic, move them from heroes to zeros? At the stroke of a pen, the Prime Minister decided that at the tail end we are going to have this mandate imposed when they cross the border. That was a month ago. We are talking about a small portion of the Canadian population who, for the most part, are vaccinated and by themselves for 22 hours of the day, and the Liberals targeted those people. Worse than targeting them, they insulted them. They divided us.
As this convoy was getting started, the Prime Minister called out that the people in this freedom convoy were separatist, nothing more than people who want to tear our country apart. They got to Ottawa, and I have never seen as many Canadian flags in a group on Parliament Hill. These are not separatists; they are patriots. They were called sexist and racist. I would hope that the Liberal members who are here had the opportunity to meet with some of these fellow Canadians and hear their stories. They would hear and notice that they are from every nationality, that every corner of the world is represented by those truckers and the people who joined them. They were not racist. They were not sexist. They were not separatists.
We had the Prime Minister piling on, for what purpose? One would only surmise that it is for his political benefit, and that is wrong. A lot of wrong things happened in the last two years, but in the last two weeks or the last month there have been profound changes in the way I view our institution and the way Canadians view this place and their government, and it is not for the better.
We are in a different spot. The Queen, at 95 years old, caught COVID. With all the precautions that are out there, the bubble-wrapped Queen, at her age, caught COVID, and she is working through it. We are definitely in a new phase of this pandemic. We are coming to the end, so why pile on these mandates that only divide Canadians, not unify us?
The powers that the Emergencies Act gives the government are profoundly wrong, and we know this to be true. In a free society, we do not freeze bank accounts. That is the most horrendous thing that failed regimes around the world do. In their dying days, they print money, they remove civil liberties and they freeze bank accounts.
It is not that difficult to view what is going on in Canada through a lens of mistrust. We need leadership to bring healing once we are through this pandemic. When all the mandates are removed, and I believe we are weeks or less away from that, we are going to have huge divisions that need to be mended. Invoking the Emergencies Act only divides Canadians that much more at a time we should not be divided.
That is a little bit about why we are here, but how are we here? How was it that a protest would go on for as many days as it did? When the inquiry takes place, one of the questions and one of the things to analyze is what happened at the start. For weeks, or days at least, we would turn on the news and see the news of this convoy coming to Ottawa. People were lining the highways in the cold just to wave at the convoy.
Even if someone does not agree with convoy's message, they must take a step back and understand what it must take for people to give up all they had in their lives to get on the road and come to Ottawa to fight for what they believe in and to have their message heard by the government. The reports that they were coming to Ottawa were no secret.
When the convoy got here, they were directed or welcomed by the City of Ottawa's electronic signs that said “convoy turn here”, and they headed downtown. When they got to the downtown core of Ottawa, what were they told? “Go ahead, park on Wellington. You have to leave on Sunday, but you are free to come and break this law. You can set up shop and you can protest.”
In Canada, we have the right to protest. It is still a right. We need to provide a space for people to protest, to disagree with their government and to let their message be heard. I believe that when the inquiry looks at what the first mistakes were, they will turn out to be it was the Liberal Prime Minister's pressure that led the Liberal mayor of Ottawa to invite them down to set up shop on Wellington Street. That was the message they heard when they got to Ottawa.
People are now second-guessing themselves and saying we needed intelligence reports because we did not know what was coming. Turn on the news: The whole country knew where they were going and why they were going there. Their livelihoods were threatened. We were at the tail end of a pandemic, a pandemic in which they were treated like heroes for the first two years for delivering goods, crossing the border and putting their lives at risk.
In the dying days of this pandemic, as mandates were being lifted across Canada, what did our Prime Minister decide to do? He decided to divide Canadians, just like he did in the last election. Leading into that election, he said, “No, we do not need mandates.” He must have received some polling information that showed otherwise, and he decided to use this divisive weapon against his own people to divide Canadians for his political gain.
I will be voting against this motion because it is not right. It is not right to freeze people's bank accounts and it is not right to insult the hard-working Canadians who make up that convoy.
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- Feb/21/22 11:25:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the premise of the member's argument from the beginning was about Liberals putting in the restrictions in regard to long-haul truck drivers crossing the border. I have a news flash for the member: Long-haul truck drivers cannot drive into the States. That is not because of Canada; it is because the United States of America will not let them in unless they are vaccinated.
The member's focus then was on Ottawa. Does he not recognize that the convoys and the blockades are still a threat at our international borders? Think for once of the real victims here, the people who are losing their jobs and the community members who are losing their ability to walk peacefully around their neighbourhoods. Does he not recognize those people?
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- Feb/21/22 11:26:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will correct the member opposite. The restrictions on crossing the border were first introduced by Ottawa. A week later, America retaliated.
With regard to having these restrictions removed, one side has to move first, and it should be Canada. I suspect the U.S. might actually move first and force us to rescind the restrictions, because it makes no sense to have these restrictions on people who sit in their cab for 22 hours of the day by themselves. While they have been crossing the border all through the last two years, they were being called heroes, and now you call them racists and you call them separatists and you call them sexist people. This is wrong.
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- Feb/21/22 11:27:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I just want to remind the member opposite that he is to speak through the Chair. Throughout his speech he kept saying “you” while looking at the government bench.
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- Feb/21/22 11:27:26 a.m.
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The hon. member has a point. Comments do need to come through the Chair.
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- Feb/21/22 11:27:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague talked about the protest and the trucker convoy. That deteriorated. It was not necessarily just a trucker convoy anymore, with all of the flags being displayed in Ottawa. We definitely do not want the Emergencies Act to be used. We are wondering how far this act can go if invoked.
Given the enormity of what has happened in Ottawa and elsewhere, what does my colleague think? Is it excessive or not?
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- Feb/21/22 11:28:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have had protests in Canada for over 150 years. Every protest that I have seen was able to be stopped with the current laws on the books. We had massive protests in major cities across Canada, protests in which buildings were being burnt, cars were being set on fire and people were getting killed. For three weeks, we had none of that on the streets of Ottawa. It was the lack of leadership from the Prime Minister that facilitated this protest getting to the place that it got to.
I am against blockades. I am against any illegal activity. Canadians still have the right to protest. They still have the right to have their message heard. These measures are not needed, because in the history of our country we have been able to put down all protests that we have had in the past up until now. Why is that? I believe it is because this act is being used for political reasons, not for law and order, which I am a big believer in.
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- Feb/21/22 11:29:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe we have a responsibility to reflect on how we have become so divided. Instead of peace, order and good government, we are witnessing chaos and disorder and poor government. Today our hon. member acknowledged the question of leadership.
My question is on behalf of the thousands of emails and phone calls I have received from people in my riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington.
Does the hon. member agree that we need to stop this abuse of power and focus on our strengths and opportunities as a country?
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- Feb/21/22 11:30:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need healing. We need a leader who will listen, a leader who will not divide us for his own benefit. We need to come together like never before because of what we have been through in the last two years. We talk about the traumatic scenes that some people witnessed in Ottawa. They could not go to work, could not see loved ones and could not get around. Well, that is what our country has been like for the last two years.
We need a leader who will bring freedom back to Canada and remember “God keep our land glorious and free”.
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- Feb/21/22 11:30:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place to take part in debate, although I must say I am saddened that it is under the current circumstances. Last week, I put down my words very carefully on what my contribution to this debate would be, but last week is not this week. Today is not yesterday. I would ask, why are we still here? Why has the Prime Minister not revoked this massive overreach by his Liberal government? The streets are now clear and the trucks are gone, and as we have yet to vote on all this, all done without parliamentary approval, let us recap for a moment how we came to be here.
Trucking was not broken in Canada. For the past two years, truckers have successfully delivered the goods, so to speak. Where was the problem here? Why did the Prime Minister intentionally pick this fight? Why did he decide to fix a trucking problem that was not broken? Truckers did their job faithfully for two years without a mandate. The vast majority of truckers are fully vaccinated. A small number of truckers who drive truck alone in their cab were never at any time shown to be a public health risk. The Liberal government has produced zero evidence to suggest there is a risk, and now here we are.
We all know that the Prime Minister has poured fuel on the fire. I will not quote the nasty names he has used because I believe them to be unparliamentary. He has told the truckers that they hold “unacceptable views”, that they do not deserve to be heard, that they must be condemned. The Prime Minister succeeded. He drove people to come from all parts of Canada to Ottawa to protest largely against him and the actions of his government, and to send a message to him that they wanted to be heard. I believe all of Ottawa and indeed Canada heard their message. Some agree with that message. Others do not. That is what occurs in a democracy. We know when the Prime Minister sees a protest that he agrees with, he joins it. Now we know that when he sees a protest he does not agree with, he will use the most powerful law he has to silence it, because that is exactly what happened when he invoked the Emergencies Act.
I come from British Columbia. It is a beautiful province, but one where we have seen far more than our fair share of protests. As anyone from British Columbia will tell us, when the RCMP decides to move in and clear protests, they do so with surgical-like efficiency. Close to 900 protesters have been cleared from the Fairy Creek protests and arrested. In November, the RCMP moved in on and cleared a protest blockade against the Pacific LNG gas line. A remote region in rural British Columbia with many indigenous protesters was cleared by the RCMP in a single day. These are not observations; these are facts. Make no mistake. All of these protests were cleared under existing Canadian laws.
Let me ask this place a question. Can any of us name any protest that has occurred in Canada since 2015 that has not ended under existing Canadian laws? I do not believe any of us can because none exist. I was first elected to this place in 2011, and, indeed, during the majority years of that government, I lost track of how many protests occurred. Every single one was resolved under existing Canadian laws. Why does that matter? It is because the standard used to invoke the Emergencies Act is absolutely crystal clear. The Emergencies Act cannot be invoked unless the emergency “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada”, full stop. However, the Prime Minister tried nothing else to de-escalate the situation before invoking the Emergencies Act.
That leaves a very awkward question on the table: Why is it that every other protest in modern-day Canadian history was cleared under existing laws and authority, but this protest required special laws, the Emergencies Act?
We all know, for whatever reason, that the Ottawa police were either unwilling or unable to do what other police forces in Canada have done. Also, let us not say it is due to the trucks. What Windsor police did in clearing the Ambassador Bridge only the week prior was done under existing laws, and it also involved trucks. Whatever the answer is to that question, make no mistake that an Ottawa policing problem is not a national crisis. We all know this.
I remind the House that all of the measures within the Emergencies Act must be met before the act can be invoked. It is not some, nor one. All must be met. Some members may not like that the law sets the standard, and the government is free to amend the law and members can support that or not. However, as it stands, the law has not been amended. All standards must be met before it is invoked by a government.
Every protest in the past 20 years has been resolved under existing Canadian laws. It not 99% of them, but 100% of them. The Prime Minister knows this, as does his Minister of Public Safety. The Liberals therefore had to change tactics, using heated rhetoric and making serious claims, but without providing any data to back up those claims. This approach from the Prime Minister seems to be taken from the Adam Sutler character in the movie V for Vendetta: scare the people and use fear. That is what the Prime Minister is trying to do to justify what cannot be legally justified.
This past weekend we watched exactly what happened. There was no armed insurrection. There were no massive stockpiles of illegal weapons, explosives or incendiary devices found here in Ottawa. This protest was largely cleared in a single weekend much like every other protest is cleared in Canada: without using the Emergencies Act.
Why is this a different situation and why are we still here? Why is the Emergencies Act not being revoked? I am reminded that recently the member for Louis-Hébert gave a public statement. He knows the dangerous games the Prime Minister plays. This member had the courage to call out the Prime Minister's divisive tactics and politics of division.
Here is the problem with the politics of division. Politically, I suppose some would say that if we poll on an issue, pick a winning side and then demonize the losing side, we come away with more votes. The challenge with this approach is that when we create sides, we divide people and create winners and losers. That approach divides. It creates hate and animosity.
Indeed, we have heard the Prime Minister use nasty words against those who, with his policies, have been turned into losers. We heard the Prime Minister make a most ungraceful and undignified attack against a female MP from my party last week. Why would he do that? Is it really too much of an expectation that a leader of a G7 country cannot answer a question from a Jewish member of Parliament without suggesting she stands with people who wave swastikas? However, he refused to apologize. He refused three times. Even after a day of reflection, he still refused to apologize, but that is what this man has become since the election: bitter, angry, divisive and vindictive. I say vindictive because we are still here. The protests have been cleared. The only motive now to continue with the act would be to punish, to punish under the terms of the Emergencies Act, where there is no due process to protect the innocent from mistakes that may occur. Is this the Canada we want now, one that punishes people without fairness and without due process?
Let us also recognize that other countries are now openly mocking and belittling the actions of the Prime Minister. How will future Canadian governments condemn those nations for cracking down on their citizens when we are no better here? Canada used to be an example, a country known for its kindness to others, its compassion and its willingness to stand with others to fight against tyranny and oppression. Today, under the Prime Minister, we have become a nation increasingly divided whose citizens are fighting among themselves. There was a time in the past when the Prime Minister would apologize for his use of unparliamentary words in this place and would speak of sunny ways, but not anymore. We have gone from sunny ways to dark days.
What has become of the Prime Minister since the election? The comments directed by the Prime Minister to the member for Thornhill were abhorrent. We cannot allow division to continue. If members vote for this act knowing full well that not all the conditions have been met, and knowing the protests have been cleared and the trucks are gone, they are basically authorizing an overuse and abuse and setting a very dangerous precedent in this process. They will in fact lower the bar that needs to be set high. We must do our job as parliamentarians, which means we must follow the law. If we do not, we are failing Canadians.
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- Feb/21/22 11:41:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will quote something from the Winnipeg Free Press that was printed just the other day. “Premier Heather Stefanson pleaded in a private letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—”
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- Feb/21/22 11:42:18 a.m.
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The hon. member cannot use a member's name.
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- Feb/21/22 11:42:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry. I definitely know better.
The article states:
Premier Heather Stefanson pleaded in a private letter to [the] Prime Minister...to intervene at the Emerson border blockade just days before she publicly opposed his decision to enact the federal Emergencies Act against protesters.
In a Feb. 11 letter obtained by the Free Press, Stefanson asked [the Prime Minister] to take “immediate and effective” action as she pleaded for “national leadership that only you and the federal government can provide.”
The Province of Alberta asked for Ottawa to help and to bring in some tow trucks. The Premier of Ontario supports this initiative. The interim Ottawa police chief supports it. It seems to me that it is the extreme Conservative right that is playing politics, and there is ample evidence of hypocrisy.
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- Feb/21/22 11:42:21 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in my speech I said very clearly that there are laws within Canada that allow for the coordination of police and for establishing order without invoking the Emergencies Act. It has never been used before. The member is just wrong. No one has said that any of the massive protests outside of this place could not have been dealt with using existing laws.
Now I will quote the Prime Minister:
...in order for you to trust your government, you need a government that will trust you. When we make a mistake—as all governments do—it is important that we acknowledge that mistake and learn from it. We know that you do not expect us to be perfect—but you expect us to work tirelessly, and to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.
What happened to that Prime Minister?
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