44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 21, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/21/22 8:01:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member talks about freedom. I am wondering which freedoms he is trying to preserve. Is it the freedom to overthrow the government? Is it the freedom to terrorize people in Ottawa? Is it the freedom to choke off billions of dollars in trade? Is it the freedom to flout the law after everybody was very, very clear on what the people in Ottawa, at Coutts, at the Ambassador Bridge, wanted?
Are those the freedoms he is trying to protect?
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- Feb/21/22 12:52:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for sharing aspects of her own experience and the experience of her communities. I think it is a powerful reminder of the injustices that have been committed by federal governments toward indigenous peoples and also about, really, the abuses we have seen from overreaching federal governments.
I think it underlines the importance of freedom, the freedom of peoples to be authors of their own story, to work and to live where they wish. I think is it important to underline the fact, and I think there has been some misstatement around this, that there are people who have been involved in these protests from all different backgrounds. Being on Wellington Street, I have seen members of visible minority communities, indigenous people and people who are concerned about mandates from all walks of life, who do feel that this is an overreach.
The member seems, in the principles she articulates, to be very aligned with where I am and where we are in terms of not wanting the federal government to be able to interfere too much in people's lives. I do not understand why she is supporting this motion.
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- Feb/21/22 2:11:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent the riding of Haldimand—Norfolk, which has been a refuge for so many seeking freedom from the early days before Confederation.
In 1793, the act to limit slavery declared that any enslaved person who reached Upper Canada, which the abolitionists called the promised land, became free upon arrival. Right down the street from my home was one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad, the village of Canfield in Haldimand, where the remains of a community of former runaway slaves was recently discovered.
Since then, Black Canadians have fought in wars for Canada and have made contributions in politics, arts, sports, business, academia, medicine, law and many other areas. These contributions tell us that Black history is not separate from but an integral part of Canadian history.
This month, we celebrate Black history and freedom. I thank Haldimand—Norfolk for preserving this Canadian legacy of freedom. Let freedom reign.
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- 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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