44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 21, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/21/22 12:17:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Skyview.
I have listened intently to the debate that has taken place in the House now for several days, and I come today with my intervention as a legislator, as a member of my community and as a mother.
Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once said, “Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.” The protection of our democratic institutions and the fabric of this country require for us to be responsible in this moment.
We can all agree that we came to this House to represent our communities and their rights under the Charter, which include the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and protest, and the right to be safe and secure in our homes and places of worship. These democratic freedoms that we cherish and enjoy as Canadians are exercised and anchored within the rule of law.
As a mother and member of my community, I know we are exhausted and frustrated by the devastating impacts of the pandemic. Many of us have experienced trauma, and others are grieving the loss of a loved one among the over 34,000 Canadians who have died due to COVID-19.
We can agree that the majority of Canadians, communities, families, mothers and fathers, health care workers, essential service workers and business owners, have come together and have been unified to support one another, to take care of each other these past two years, day after day, in the simplest of ways. They have done this by wearing masks, by maintaining health protocols and social distancing, and, yes, by getting vaccinated, including 90% of Canadian truckers.
All the tools that we as federal, provincial and municipal governments have utilized have been with only one primary goal in mind: to keep one another safe and healthy in this unprecedented global pandemic and to be united in a fight for the collective health and safety of one another and of our most vulnerable, the immunocompromised and the elderly.
We have come to agree that the convoy of people who came to Ottawa unimpeded to speak their minds over the duration of three weeks of occupation became an illegal blockade. It included members who intimidated residents, threatening their safety and security. Its leaders called for the overthrowing of this government and its replacement with leaders of their choosing, and they are affiliated with disturbing alliances to white supremacy, racism and, yes, anti-Semitism.
We can agree that Canadians were shocked, horrified and traumatized to see the memory and tragedy of the Holocaust diminished and weaponized to justify this insurrection, be it through yellow stars worn on coats or, as Canadians were pained to see, white supremacy flags brazenly flown with Confederate or Nazi flags by some in the crowd. The language of organizers in their social media feeds spouted hate and vitriol, demanding a removal of government time and again, and let us not forget that the tragedy of residential schools was trivialized to justify these illegal protests.
We can agree that all of these acts harm the fabric of our democracy, our governmental institutions and our unity. They also harm the trust we have in one another as Canadians.
We have been asked if the threshold was met to invoke the Emergencies Act. The test to justify this difficult decision is that there has to be a threat that is national in scope and that current tools are unable to address. We can acknowledge that the arrival of hundreds of truckers at each location across the country, blocking critical infrastructure, is a harm and a threat, be it to the borders themselves, impacting jobs and the livelihood of families, or in the form of the hundreds of millions of dollars of our economic trade that were impacted. It was a harm and a threat, on a more personal level, to the mother I spoke to, whose autistic child had to be taken to the emergency room due to the incessant honking of horns that were causing him to self-harm, or to the man, on one of the first nights of the occupation of Ottawa, who died in an ambulance because it could not get through.
We can agree that a degree of foreign funds, nearly 50% of the millions raised, was fuelled not by the desire to protest vaccine mandates but by a desire to drive white supremacist populist agendas that are a threat to our democratic institutions, and was potentially donated by foreign agents, political movements and individuals from beyond our borders. We must address this.
We can agree that the pervasiveness of these blockades has been national in scope, impacting borders and communities from across the country. These were not peaceful protests. This is clear by the weapons seized at the Alberta Coutts border and the 12 arrests of those charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
We have been asked if this is a first, second, third or last resort. If we are to examine the engagement and timelines of the very public sharing of information as this situation unfolded, we can agree on the following: Municipal and provincial jurisdictions were offered assistance and tools by this government on the first day these illegal blockades took hold. The government was clear in its regular and daily communication with local authorities on the resources it could provide if asked to do so.
What colleagues can and should understand is that as the federal government, we continued to do the work that our jurisdiction and authority allowed us to do. That is how we protected and respected the Constitution, the charter and the authority of all levels of government as a democracy, working together to evaluate capacity each and every step of the way during the illegal blockades.
The occupation of downtown Ottawa and the Windsor and Coutts borders posed a unique threat by the tactics used, be it the trucks themselves, the lethal weapons found or the tremendous economic impact.
Finally, I say this both as a legislator and as a mother, the horrifying images of the children who were put in harm's way time and again in the name of protest, who were sent as human shields, required this Emergencies Act to be implemented. We have an obligation to our constituents, our businesses, our communities, our families and yes, our children, to protect them from such harms.
To that end, in order to continue to build on these efforts, the federal government made the responsible and reasonable decision to ensure that this situation could be brought under control so Canadians could get their lives back.
We know that these tools were necessary. We know this from the interim chief of police for Ottawa, Steve Bell, who said so clearly in his statement last Friday: “With the new resources we've seen flowing in from our policing partners, the new tools both the province and federal government have put in place, and our new integrated command centre...I believe we now have the resources and partners to bring a safe end to this occupation.” They have done that, and they will continue to do so.
Without this act, law enforcement from Vancouver, Sudbury, Toronto, Halton, York Region, Quebec and many other jurisdictions, including the OPP and the RCMP, could not have been mobilized in this manner to answer the call of Ottawa police for 1,800 officers to assist on the ground. We thank each and every one of them for their service and their swift action. It was professional, strategic and measured, and kept the peace while dismantling the illegal blockades and removing protesters, restoring the city of Ottawa back to its rightful residents.
This is a defining moment for law and order and for democracy to be upheld. It was not taken lightly, and the measures we have proposed are temporary, strategic and necessary to ensure that all levels of government and law enforcement from across Canada can work together for Canadians. There will be much discussion, inquiry and review of the implementation of these measures in the coming months, as there should be, for this is an unprecedented decision and a responsible, reasonable one.
It will also be a time of deep reflection on where we are as a country when white supremacy, populism and anti-Semitic, racist and anti-democratic action can rise so swiftly among protesters and mobilize others under a banner of freedom that was anything but.
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- Feb/21/22 1:56:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to rise today to talk about the Emergencies Act. I think the question a lot of Canadians are asking, and I know most of the parliamentarians here today have talked about it, is how we got here and why we are here.
It has been almost two years to the day, and we are in a time when provinces are lifting their COVID mandates, virtually across the country. In my home province of Ontario, for example, Premier Doug Ford has announced his plan to lift COVID mandates, and on March 1 a significant one will be that he is lifting the vaccine passports. That is very significant for the province, and for people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated.
About 10 days ago, the Conservative Party brought a motion to the House and asked for a plan that the Prime Minister and his team would give Parliament and Canadians on how we can move forward, how we can lift the COVID mandates federally and allow everybody to move on, and how we can unite the country and move together.
We are a very divided country, despite what the Liberals may say. We are a very divided country at this time, and we need to move forward. There was a vote a week ago, and the Liberals defeated that motion, failing to give Canadians a plan to move forward. My point is that if the premiers were not doing anything and lifting mandates, it might make sense for the Prime Minister to double down and continue on with his divisive comments and everything else, but when we are looking at the facts, the facts are that mandates are being lifted not just in Canada, but around the world. Today we saw in England that Boris Johnson has virtually lifted all restrictions, and the Prime Minister is continuing to double down.
To my mind, that is how we got to where we are. If he had listed a reasonable road map, I do not believe anybody would have come here. I do not believe we would be talking about this today, and I think everybody would have a path forward. We could start to heal this country and move forward.
This morning I listened to a long-time friend of mine. He has been a colleague for many years. He is the member of Parliament for Oxford. He was the first elected police chief in Parliament, and he is a very wise individual. He and I served on the public safety committee over 10 years ago together, at a time when we were reviewing the outcomes of the G8 and G20 summits, but specifically the G20 summit. No one would believe who the police chief was at the time. I know most people in here know this, but it was actually the Minister of Emergency Preparedness. That chief was there to tell us about what he did at the G20 summit.
They had an integrated security unit at that time. I made a note of what they called it. They did not need to invoke this act.
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- Feb/21/22 4:20:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as my colleague rightly said, in my closing remarks I said it is time to get together to come to a solution on this.
Are we going to leave the Emergencies Act in place for 30 days, when there are no trucks left on the streets of Ottawa? My colleagues have mentioned that in the House a number of times today. I believe there is as much peace on the streets as we have seen in over a month, and more so, and I believe there is an opportunity for us to get together.
We have to remember, as well, why this started in the first place. It was because the Prime Minister decided to take a sector that was already 80% vaccinated, and force a vaccination mandate. That was fine when COVID first broke out. When he saw omicron numbers already going down for two weeks before he made the decision to ask for double vaccination for these truckers, he did it to divide Canadians. There can be very few other reasons for it.
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- Feb/21/22 6:47:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member knows that the NDP is reluctantly supporting this motion, and we will use all the powers at our disposal to hold the government to account while this Emergencies Act remains in place.
I support his denouncing of the gaslighting of the Conservatives, and of the occupation and the convoy itself. However, I do believe there are many Canadians who have been pushed to the margins that are struggling through COVID, like all of us. Many people have been pushed to the margins, and they have not been heard. In fact, there has been divisive rhetoric on both sides. The Liberals are responsible too, for not listening to those Canadians and for not explaining their decision-making around policies on mandates.
I believe our collective consciousness as a Parliament is, right now, at its lowest level of shame and blame and fear. I am scared for our country if we do not bring down the rhetoric and acknowledge the mistakes that have taken place.
What will the member do to bring down the temperature? What will he do to acknowledge the failures of the Liberal government for the sake of our country?
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