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Feb/21/22 3:20:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member for Huron—Bruce does not want to take you outside behind the wood shed. It had that feeling to it. I am sure we want to make sure we address our comments through the Chair and not at the Chair.

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/21/22 3:20:57 p.m.
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We are getting really late in the day and I know we just finished question period, so there is still a lot of energy floating around. The hon. member for Montcalm.

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Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Feb/21/22 3:21:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, during question period, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness said that he wanted to restore the rule of law. However, following the rule of law involves meeting the criteria required to invoke the Emergencies Act. The government failed to do that, but it still talking about restoring the rule of law. Does my Conservative colleague not think that the government is basically just living by the old adage of “do as I say, not as I do”?

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Mr. Ben Lobb

Feb/21/22 3:21:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is what the Prime Minister's mantra has been the whole time since he has been in. What I would ask is what this act is trying to do that the police cannot already do. The police are doing it. There are at least ten thousand police officers in this country and they are working every day to keep our streets as safe as they can. What is the act doing? It really does not do anything except put fear into Canadians.

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Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Feb/21/22 3:22:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that prominent Republicans in the U.S. have voiced their support for this illegal occupation, including Donald Trump. Ottawa Police Service noted concerns over the significant amount of foreign funding supporting the convoy. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton criticized GoFundMe's decision to block the remaining funding, saying that they “failed to deliver Texans’ money”. This seems like international interference. Is my colleague is as concerned as I am about the foreign funding that has funded and fuelled this illegal occupation, which literally brought—

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/21/22 3:23:10 p.m.
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The hon. member for Huron—Bruce.

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Mr. Ben Lobb

Feb/21/22 3:23:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the list, so I would not know, but how about the Tides Foundation and all of the different groups that have been operating for years on foreign dollars? Members of Parliament have never said a word. If there are foreign dollars, I do not think any of them were allocated, but the point is that this practice needs to be put to an end anyway. If people want to protest, they should do it with Canadian dollars and do it legally and peacefully. The bottom line here is that it is about federal mandates that do not make any sense and do not keep Canadians safe. An unvaccinated truck driver driving down the I-95 or the I-75 poses no risk to society. That is the bottom line.

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, BQ)

Feb/21/22 3:24:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Jonquière. I want to begin by saying that I did not walk down the street in front of Parliament waving a Canadian flag. I did not block the street by parking my car in the middle of it. I have never agreed with the people who decided to occupy the city. However, even though I did not agree with them and I felt it was important to follow the public health guidelines, I still think that invoking the Emergencies Act is an extreme move for this government to take. I am sad today. I am sad because we are in a situation of extreme polarization. We are wondering how we got to this point. We might say that the COVID-19 pandemic played a role. We might also be wondering whether the government did anything to try to reduce this polarization. I do not think it did. It is unfortunate, because the government let a bad situation drag on without addressing it. As the saying goes, the longer we wait, the worse things will get. The government did nothing to address the situation when the protesters set up across the street. Instead of trying to ease tensions and find ways to de-escalate the situation, it decided to add fuel to the fire. I think it did this because it was politically advantageous. These people across the street were there to express their frustration. They were there to say that they are tired of the health measures. We understand. I too am tired of the health measures, but I also recognize that we need to live with and continue following these measures until they can all be lifted. The government had a different view, however. It chose to villainize the protesters, as though it were us against them. It wanted to keep adding fuel to the fire because it was politically advantageous. We saw how that played out. Instead of showing empathy, the government chose to insult these people by doing absolutely nothing and not even trying to put an end to what was happening. This worked in the beginning, because the leader of the Conservatives ended up leaving. The Conservatives were caught up with their own issues, having had their contradictions exposed. No one could really figure out if they were for or against the health measures. No one could tell whether they were for or against the convoy of protesters. Some were opposed, while others supported it. It was a tough time for the Conservatives as political foes. What did the government end up doing? More nothing. It washed its hands of the whole thing and allowed the situation to deteriorate, knowing it would throw the Conservatives into turmoil. The sad thing is that the government's role is not to just stand by and be partisan. Contrary to what we have seen, it should not be partisan at all. This government adopted a partisan approach instead of dealing with a situation and improving social cohesion so we can all get along better and more forward as a society. That is the problem. Then the government skipped a few steps. After washing its hands of the whole thing, it suddenly found itself in the spotlight. Everyone was wondering how it was possible that people could settle in for weeks with no response from the other side and why the government was just hurling insults at these people without really trying to resolve the impasse. That is what we saw. It seemed to me that, by choosing to play with fire, the government was running the risk of getting burned. Its lack of leadership was obvious. Then the pyromaniac decided to pass itself off as a firefighter. It decided to pretend it was taking action and looking for a way to end the situation. It decided to invoke the Emergencies Act. The Premier of Quebec did not want it. The National Assembly unanimously voted against it. Seven out of 10 provinces said they did not want it, and that is kind of a big deal. When all those stakeholders are telling the federal government it is going too far, it seems to me the government should be able to read the room, listen to people and find some other way to address the issues. We proposed a solution to the government. We asked it not to apply the act in Quebec or to apply it only in specific areas. The government was not interested because it wanted to play politics with the Emergencies Act. It was so urgent that the government sat on its hands for weeks and did not try to resolve the situation. Quebec had protests too. They were handled, and the situation went back to normal. A bridge was blocked, but then it was unblocked without the use of emergency measures. It seems as though Ottawa simply lacked the will. Many critics spoke of a “health dictatorship”. I obviously disagree, but, by invoking the Emergencies Act, the Liberals kind of gave them a leg to stand on. The member for Louis-Hébert recently went so far as to say that he was uncomfortable with his government's decisions and positions because it was politicizing the pandemic. Earlier today, we learned that member is not alone. Other members within the Liberal ranks feel the same way. As my colleague from Mirabel noted, the government knows it is in trouble. Members of its own caucus are challenging its actions. MPs in the House are challenging its actions. To us, it looks like things are not going well for either the Liberals or the Conservatives. The NDP is on the fence; nobody knows yet. It has been very hard to understand that party's position lately. The government said it was prepared to use strong-arm tactics to ensure success. Maybe it went too far, but it will never admit that. Maybe there are people on the inside who felt that way. The government decided to make this a confidence vote. Maybe it thinks people will be afraid of triggering an election, so they will toe the line and it can say it was right all along. My colleague from Mirabel shared a very interesting analysis. He said the government had decided to change this from a vote of conscience, which would have allowed people to do their own analysis of the situation and vote in accordance with their real, sincere thoughts and feelings about it, to a confidence vote. That is an excellent explanation of what happened every step of the way. Every time the government had an opportunity to do the right thing and make the right decisions, it opted to politicize things instead. I really do not get it. The only thing the government managed to do since the start of the protest that became an occupation was haul out the nuclear option, the Emergencies Act, a law that has not been used since 1988, the year I was born. We got through all kinds of crisis situations, but not this one. This one was impossible. The government could not handle it. A few hundred people parked in front of Parliament, and the situation was out of control. The government could not deal with it. That surprises me. I am not saying extremist elements were not present. I am not saying it was not dangerous. What I am saying is that the government let things go. The government did nothing at all. That is shameful. It tried to persuade us by forcing our hand, but the truth is it was not very persuasive. Had the government managed to persuade us, to prove that this act was indeed necessary, then why are we still debating it when it has been in effect for seven days already? Even this morning, it was not clear whether the government would be able to get a majority to adopt the motion. It has been a tough road. We can see that the government is not in control of the situation, even after dropping the nuclear option that is the Emergencies Act. I want to extend an invitation to all members of the House. When it comes time to vote later, rather than voting under threat, rather than voting with a gun to our heads—because the government is always trying to push the envelope and polarize and politicize the situation—I invite them to vote according to their conscience and to ask themselves whether it was worth it. Is invoking the Emergencies Act absolutely necessary? We do not think so.

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Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)

Feb/21/22 3:34:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member and his party need to pick a lane. On the one hand, he is saying we should have stepped in sooner, that we should have been proactive, that we should have gone in without any invitation from the provinces to deal with this. On the other hand, he says that Quebec does not need the federal government. Did we step in without Quebec's request to help out in long-term care homes? No, we did not. We waited until Quebec asked us. Would the hon. member not believe that is actually the way we would proceed in this circumstance, that if Quebec asked us to help with the Emergencies Act, he would recognize that and welcome it?

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval

Feb/21/22 3:35:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a bit disappointed in the question from my colleague. I have the impression that this debate on the Emergencies Act, which is a serious, important piece of legislation with far-reaching consequences when it is invoked, is being used as an opportunity to do some Quebec bashing. That is unacceptable. I will not answer his question because, personally, I think it is below the belt.

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Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC)

Feb/21/22 3:35:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this crisis started on January 7. The government knew about it for six weeks, but all of a sudden, it was an emergency. Is the hon. member convinced that the government is not doing this for any other reason than a power grab?

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval

Feb/21/22 3:36:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to answer my colleague's question, for some reason, the government sat on its hands throughout the entire crisis. It did not do a single thing. It did not lift a finger. Instead, the Prime Minister insulted the protesters and hid in his basement. At some point, he woke up. Suddenly it became urgent to bring in the Emergencies Act to resolve the situation. It seems like he tried to save face instead of truly trying to resolve the situation.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Feb/21/22 3:37:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He raised some important points. However, does he not recognize that despite the fact that the streets of Ottawa are calmer today, some real threats remain? There are two places near the capital where truckers are waiting. There are also truckers who have been stopped with a convoy at the Pacific Highway border crossing in British Columbia. This is not over. Does my colleague not believe that being able to freeze bank accounts that are funding these illegal occupations is a good thing for preventing money from Donald Trump supporters and the United States from flowing in and being used to organize these sieges and protests?

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval

Feb/21/22 3:37:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my response to the member is that when we look at Wellington Street and elsewhere around the country at this time, we can see that all is quiet. Do we still need the police to continue their work? Yes, certainly. Do we need to continue to be vigilant with respect to foreign influence? Yes, certainly. However, personally, I do not feel particularly threatened at this time, and I am not convinced that ordinary folks, who are at home right now, are feeling particularly threatened.

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Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)

Feb/21/22 3:38:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Emergencies Act was a mistake from the get-go, and the government knows it. Today, now that the dust has settled in Ottawa, it is even more of a mistake. Despite all that, the Prime Minister has decided to turn tonight's motion into a vote of confidence. That makes no sense. Why decide to make it a vote of confidence? Is it to silence his own caucus, because some of its members are asking themselves serious questions, or is it to muzzle the NDP?

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval

Feb/21/22 3:38:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. With respect to the Liberal caucus, we may find out in a few years. When people write their memoirs 10, 15 or 20 years later, we often discover things. We already know that at least three members are not very comfortable with the position of their own government. We also know that, until this morning, the NDP was not very comfortable with the government's position. Magically, after the government decided to make this a vote of confidence, the NDP bolstered its support. It was unclear previously. I have the impression that the NDP's change in position has something to do with the threat of a vote of confidence.

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Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)

Feb/21/22 3:39:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will not be sharing my time because I am selfish. How should we tackle this matter? Yesterday, I asked myself how I would start my speech, and I thought that the best way would be to examine the issue of this law's legitimacy. In my opinion, this entails establishing how a free society works. All too often, when we speak of free societies, we make the mistake of believing that a democratic society, a free society, is a society that lives consensually. That is not the case. I recommend that everyone read Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy by Jacques Rancière, who is probably one of the foremost figures in French political philosophy. In this work, Jacques Rancière says that politics exist as soon as the “sans-part“, those who are excluded, want to have a part in society. That is what we see in class conflict, the feminist movement and the movement of homosexuals who want to be recognized. They are the “sans-part” who want to have a part in society. That is the only way the democratic process functions. I was looking for a quote this week because the notion of freedom has been the focus of our debates. I was looking for a quote that would give a positive definition of freedom, and I thought of my loyal listener, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, who got into a little tiff with the member for Carleton on Bill C‑8, a bill to implement certain budgetary measures. During this exchange, the member for Carleton started preaching about freedom. Since he aspires to become the leader of the Conservative Party, his motivations might be different from others'. He finished his speech talking about the protesters and said “Freedom is on the march.” Since my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean is a clever guy, he quickly pointed out that the member was off topic and his speech had absolutely nothing to do with Bill C‑8. The member for Carleton replied that freedom is never pertinent to the Bloc, which I thought was a little harsh. I thought it would be appropriate to teach the member for Carleton the definition of freedom and the type of freedom he is talking about. I think this is relevant to today's debate. I am going to share a quote from Jan Patocka, a modern Socratic philosopher. Jan Patocka died in 1977 following an intense interrogation that went wrong. He was an old man, a philosopher and spiritual advisor to Vaclav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic. In a book entitled Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, Jan Patocka wrote: “[P]olitics is always of another order than economic management or the projection of humans in work...politics is nothing other than life for the sake of freedom, not life for the sake of survival or even for well being”. What does Jan Patocka mean by “life for the sake of freedom”? For me, it is quite simple, and this goes back to Rancière. Life for the sake of freedom means that people are willing to challenge the established rules in order to be recognized. Patocka even died challenging the Iron Curtain regime to see the Czech regime recognized. These are people willing to pay a very heavy price. I am not sure if my colleague from Carleton would be willing to pay such a price, but at the very least, if we now follow this line of thought, we should distinguish between two types of freedom. There is the freedom that people seek to win, the kind that people are willing to fight for. However, there is another very basic freedom, as Isaiah Berlin presents in Liberty. It is the best illustration possible. In Liberty, Isaiah Berlin refers to two types of liberty: positive liberty and negative liberty. According to Isaiah Berlin, positive liberty is the freedom that allows individuals to live their lives the way they choose. It is possible for individuals in a society to feel that they are being treated unjustly. This has happened in history, especially to women in patriarchal societies. It has happened to ethnic minorities, and it has happened to a national minority, Quebeckers. We believe that we have suffered an offence, we want to change the course of society, we engage in a struggle, and we undertake social actions in an attempt to define ourselves. This is what Isaiah Berlin called positive liberty. But Isaiah Berlin also discussed negative liberty. Perhaps the best way to understand negative liberty is to look at a sentence by Dostoevsky in The Possessed. In this novel, Dostoevski, through the voice of Stavrogin, said, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” Let us leave God aside. What Dostoevsky meant is that if there are no institutions, then everything is permitted. If there is no legitimate and well-established authority, then everything is permitted. Negative liberty therefore means that not everything is permitted. Governments are in place for that. We have principles of political associations, a Constitution that tells us that not everything is permitted. I may not do everything that I want; I may not limit the freedom of others. Therefore, this “everything” is not permitted. Ultimately, negative liberty is a bit like government action. How are men to be made free? The one who came up with the best answer was certainly Camus. He said that it was through rebellion. I will read a quote from Camus’s novel The Rebel. Afterwards, we will try to unpack it What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion. A slave who has taken orders all his life suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying “no”? He means, for example, that “this has been going on too long,” [perhaps that was what we were seeing outside, but we will come back to that later] “up to this point yes, beyond it no,” “you are going too far,” or, again, “there is a limit beyond which you shall not go.” In other words, his no affirms the existence of a borderline. Camus goes on to say: Thus the movement of rebellion is founded simultaneously on the categorical rejection of an intrusion that is considered intolerable and on the confused conviction of an absolute right which, in the rebel's mind, is more precisely the impression that he “has the right to...” He demonstrates, with obstinacy, that there is something in him which “is worth while...” We have heard this outside, but we will get back to it. Camus says this about someone who uses that positive power on himself and the society that revolts him. I wonder if the protesters are rebelling in the sense understood by Camus. I will come back to another concept we have not yet discussed, the concept of “freedumb”; the “freedumb” the protesters were demanding. That reminds me of the platonic concept of double ignorance, that is to say, a person who does not realize that he does not know things. That goes hand in hand with the rise in far-right populist politics. In recent weeks, we heard of an American elected official who did not know the difference between the Gestapo and gazpacho. That is a good start. I hope that never happens here. We heard people talking about alternative facts. Supposedly they exist. We heard talk of 5G, a chip being injected in people. I will not get into the issue of vaccination again, but I have even heard some questionable ideas from some members. The most recent thing is the protester who was yelling “It's very not false”. According to him, the woman who was knocked down by a horse died, but the media was not telling people. When he was told that that had been proven to be false, he yelled, “It's very not false”. That is a new expression. What really bothers me is that invoking a law like the one the government is proposing to use means that perhaps, one day, the government that is in power will use the somewhat controversial principles of the growing populist far right. Right now, this government could decide to do what the NDP does not want it to, namely, put a stop to the legitimate pursuit of freedom by certain movements. Like my NDP colleagues, I see myself as a progressive. A progressive is someone who works tirelessly in an effort to support people who are seeking to free themselves from a situation they are trapped in. In 10 or 20 years, when indigenous, environmental or anti-globalist movements try to protest to get out of a situation that seems unfair to them, perhaps someone on the other side will invoke the Emergencies Act, because once we use it the first time, it sets a precedent. Unlike what happened 50 years ago, when the NPD leader at the time said no to the War Measures Act, my NDP colleagues will have to live with what happens in this moment in history.

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Hon. Greg Fergus (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the President of the Treasury Board, Lib.)

Feb/21/22 3:49:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in my hon. colleague's comments. I found that his speech was supported by several arguments. That said, I have a question for him about what he said at the end of his presentation. Is that a good enough excuse to do nothing about what he too described as the far right that exists here, that has the money and the tools to do damage? In 50 years' time, we may regret it if we decided to do nothing today.

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Mr. Mario Simard

Feb/21/22 3:50:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the best tool we have against populism is education. It is not about trying to shut these people up; it is about giving them relevant and accurate information. I respectfully submit that an additional tool we could have had was the following. If our health care system was not in such bad shape, the lockdowns might have been shorter. The federal government had a role to play in this. If it had paid its fair share of funding for the health care system, perhaps the pandemic would not have stirred up this grumbling and this passion motivated by rancour in some individuals. My colleagues have a responsibility in that regard.

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

Feb/21/22 3:50:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has called Canadians names. He has called them misogynists and racists, and asked if we are actually going to tolerate these people. I am just wondering what the member's comments would be around the Prime Minister's actions in this. We saw, with the rail blockades in 2020, half of cabinet running around the country talking to everybody to try to resolve the situation when Quebec was running out of propane. Could there not have been something similar, instead of calling Canadians names?

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