44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 21, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/21/22 7:18:55 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, if anything, I think that is where my colleague and l clearly share the importance of taking action to ensure that trade can resume and can move unabated. He would know better than many how vital that connection is. Just as important as that connection is to our strongest and largest trading partner, so too is our reputation and the stain that this protest has had on it. It is so vital for foreign investment and jobs that we move forward. That is why the targeted use of a certain portion of the Emergencies Act is something I support.
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- Feb/21/22 8:02:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us be clear. There is nobody in this House who supports the unlawful overthrow of the government. We live in a democracy, after all.
At the end of the day, the issues we are hearing about have to do with people who feel like they are not being heard by the government. They feel abandoned by the government, so they came to Ottawa to protest. We have seen protests pop up across the country. Unfortunately, we have seen blockades of critical infrastructure that have led to the loss of millions of dollars to the economy. That is definitely unfortunate.
Thankfully, the RCMP, without the use of the emergency measures act, was able to step in to get the job done, open the borders, open the crossings back up and restore our commerce.
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- Feb/21/22 8:06:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I join this debate with great sadness and disappointment in my heart this morning. Please make no mistake: It is always an honour to be the voice of the residents and citizens of Chatham-Kent—Leamington in this chamber, but I am sad because of the toll that the current situation continues to have on Canadians and the fact that so much of this is unnecessary and avoidable.
The fundamental question that the government has put before us today is this: Do we believe that the public emergency act is the right tool for right now? Has the rightfully high threshold for a public order emergency been met? If the question is how we remove the protest, the blockade, the occupation that was encamped outside these doors, then should the question not be to ask what enforcement tools current legislation lacks to address the illegal activities outside this House?
Let me be clear: Illegally parking a semi, excessively blowing horns and harassment all contravene bylaws, but these violations are subject to fines, towing, injunctions and existing remedies under existing laws, provincially and municipally, and under existing law enforcement. They can be reinforced with help from federal police forces without invoking this act. After all, is that not what cleared the illegal blockades in Surrey, Windsor, Emerson and Coutts? I am very thankful for law enforcement intercepting truly dangerous elements caught with illegal guns and ammunition near Coutts. Therefore, I thank our “un-defunded” police forces.
Does a basic interpretation of the Emergencies Act determine that its threshold for invocation has been met, or are we more concerned that we are being asked to give the Prime Minister great powers, given his history of deception and his disrespect for the law?
The Prime Minister asks us to trust him, to give him unlimited authority to implement “other temporary measures authorized under section 19 of the Emergencies Act that are not yet known.” He is the only Prime Minister convicted for ethics violations, not once but twice, and he avoided a third conviction due to lack of evidence, not lack of intent. He is the only Prime Minister ever to sue, Madam Speaker, your office, to keep from this very House documents ordered released by Parliament with respect to the Winnipeg virology lab. He now asks that we trust him with power never before invoked or confirmed by this House under this act. It seems that when faced with difficult situations, the Prime Minister's go-to response is to grab as much power as he can.
Let us just think back to immediately after the declaration of the pandemic in March 2020. The Prime Minister responded by attempting to give the government unlimited, unfettered taxing and spending powers without parliamentary oversight. His instinct was not to come to this House and enter into dialogue to determine the path forward. Yes, Her Majesty's loyal opposition sits on this side of the chamber and might not have immediately agreed to every point put forward, but he was forced into dialogue and debate with us and we demonstrated through our subsequent actions that we would support emergency measures when properly engaged.
Similarly, the Prime Minister did not engage in dialogue with Canadians involved with this protest. He does not have to agree with them but he does, or he should, have to listen. This very process of listening and engaging de-escalates any situation. It is the hallmark characteristic of leadership. Name-calling, dividing, stigmatizing, traumatizing and grabbing for power escalate any situation. They are hallmark characteristics of what? Members can fill in the blank.
If the question is how the Prime Minister tries to cover up his record of governing mistakes and whether this attempt to redirect public attention will work, clearly the answer is no. Inflation will not be reduced. Our debt will not be addressed. Interest rate rises will not be blunted. Immigration backlogs will not be addressed. Labour shortages will not be alleviated. Housing prices will not drop, and budgets will not balance themselves.
If the question is how invoking this Emergencies Act fits into the government's overall plan to get us from a pandemic to an endemic situation, again, for this question, there is a very clear answer. No, it does not do that, because there continues to be no plan.
History will show that we got into this crisis, this situation in our nation’s capital, because the government did not have a plan to transition from a pandemic to an endemic situation. The government’s lack of a plan by which businesses in Chatham—Kent—Leamington or anywhere in the country could more predictably manage their staff, their business and their investment decisions continues to cause unnecessary hardship and failure. The failures are not theirs; it is the government’s problem, the government's failure to plan and its lunging from problem to problem with no coherent plan that could better multiply our effectiveness through our collective capacity.
Farmers, greenhouse operators and small businesses in my riding and across Canada continue to live with the uncertainty of labour supply, border access and supply chains. They want to see a plan. Our health care system wants to see a plan for surge capacity. It is not the bricks and mortar that are missing; it is the human resources and the people for whom the government did not plan to resource.
The government’s lack of a plan is evident in the fact that we are so late in acquiring sufficient rapid tests; we are so late in developing domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity, and we are so late in coordinating coherent, integrated, science-based messaging, from our health care leaders to our political leaders.
It has been more than two years since the pandemic came to Canada, and we still have no plan for living in an endemic state. Canadians did what was asked of them. They got vaccinated, they stayed home, they safely distanced and they agreed to forgo family gatherings, travel and basic but essential human contact, all to do their part. What has been the reward for the constituents of Chatham—Kent—Leamington, or for any Canadians, for what they did? It is more divisiveness, greater stress, more lost jobs, out of control inflation, economic uncertainty and still no plan.
Like all of us here, I have friends on both sides of the challenge before us. Something has happened in our country that may never be replaced. The capacity for kindness that Canadians are known for has been strained by our nation’s leader, who has used the politics of division rather than co-operation and understanding. There is a sadness that comes when Canadians are pitted against Canadians.
There is more than enough blame to go around. Was the City of Ottawa woefully unprepared and did it make serious mistakes at the beginning of this situation, despite the many days of notice that the convoy was coming? Many people would say, “Yes.” Was the province slow to table resources? Again, many people would say, “Yes,” but here, in the centrepiece of our nation's capital, the question before us today is twofold.
The first question is, where is the plan forward? Even when the crisis outside these walls is resolved, we will simply return to this question and the need for an endemic plan to return to normalcy. The second question is the legislation before us today. Simple common sense tells us that if we take the total of what the Prime Minister expects the Emergencies Act to bring and subtract from it what is already covered under existing laws and resources, then I respectfully submit that the difference we are left with pales in comparison to the constitutional precedent we are asking the House to confirm.
I must vote against these measures. The Emergencies Act is not a substitute for leadership, but rather a consequence of the lack of it. The Prime Minister loves telling Canadians he has our backs. He uses the approach of trying to hide behind us while pointing at those he believes are to blame. Leading cannot be done from behind. Leading means engaging in conversation, even with those with whom one disagrees. The only good thing that may come from enacting this act is that there will be an inquiry, an accountability review, which will no doubt expose and document for history that when Canada was at one of its greatest challenges, the response from the government was a grab for power through the tactics of division and the lack of any plan forward.
Let us get on with responsible endemic living. Canadians have done their job; now let us do ours.
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- Feb/21/22 8:34:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, thank you, meegwetch.
I was elected the member for Nickel Belt in 2015 and I am proud to represent my constituents for the third time and to improve the living conditions in my community.
I would never have believed I would be giving a speech in the House of Commons on the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Yet that is the case today.
I returned to Ottawa on January 31 for the House of Commons session and I have seen the events first-hand. Many lives, livelihoods and businesses in Ottawa have been impacted in a very negative way. The right to protest is fundamental. I saw and supported the right to protest with the rolling truck convoy in my riding that rolled through Highway 17 on January 28, driving toward Ottawa. However, it was different when the truck convoy parked and camped on the city streets of Ottawa. This became illegal. Also, when we see a movement propped up by hate, racism and intimidation, we have to ask ourselves what we are truly supporting. Let us be clear: Many people demonstrating were doing this peacefully. However, this became an illegal occupation and it needed to end.
I am wishing my colleagues, the residents of Ottawa and all involved parties a safe and peaceful transition as the city is getting back to the residents. This agreement should not incite violence or threats. We are more Canadian than that.
Political criticism is at an all-time high. I commend all my colleagues, federal staff and my constituency staff for remaining at the public service even through these most difficult moments. I want to thank Nickel Belt constituents with different opinions for voicing their points of view in a respectful way. There are over 91,000 voices to represent in Nickel Belt, and we may not all agree, but we most certainly all wish for a healthier, more united and stronger region.
I am grateful to be in Ottawa to represent the residents of Nickel Belt and will continue to advocate for their priorities and strive to deliver solutions. It has been a long two years. Everyone has been affected by the pandemic in some way. There is so much misinformation circling and different opinions being shared, but there is a lot that is positive. We need to reach out to people in need in each of our communities.
I will give a special thanks to my exceptional constituency office staff. Despite the vulgar and intimidating tactics and threats in the office, my team remains committing to helping. Here are a few examples. They are helping Mary, a senior, with OAS and GIS benefits; Evelyn, with affordable housing; Helen, a single mom, with the Canada child benefit; and John, with a disability pension application. There are many more.
The pandemic has not been easy for anybody. It has altered the course of normal life for almost two years. People have a right to be fed up, tired and frustrated.
The Emergencies Act is difficult. Being in government is difficult, because we are called upon to make decisions about the health and safety of Canadians. Over the past three weeks, illegal blockades have disrupted Canadians' lives and jeopardized public safety. Clearly, the local police forces have struggled to enforce the law effectively.
We invoked the Emergencies Act in order to help provincial authorities deal with the blockades and the occupation and to keep Canadians safe, protect jobs and restore confidence in our institutions.
Through the Emergencies Act, we are granting police officers new powers to control crowds, stop blockades and keep essential corridors open. The Emergencies Act allows the government to mobilize essential services, such as tow trucks, enables the RCMP to act more quickly to enforce local laws and strengthens our ability to stop foreign money from being used for illegal purposes.
Our government cannot allow disruptions to carry on forever. Our government will always respect Canadians' right to protest. However, this does not entitle people to occupy streets, break the law or shut down essential trade corridors.
This siege and the blockades are crippling our economy and our democracy. The specific measures set out by the act are limited, subject to many controls, and must comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A parliamentary review committee will be established in the next few days to review the exercise of power during the state of emergency. These measures will be limited in time, geographically targeted, reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address.
Another important point for the people in Nickel Belt: the Emergencies Act also includes a number of significant limitations, checks and balances and guarantees. The Act also provides for a public inquiry to be held before the end of the first year.
Ottawa's interim police chief, in addition to Vernon White, the former Ottawa chief of police who was appointed to the Senate by former prime minister Stephen Harper, and Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford all clearly stated that adopting the emergency measures was important and essential. They also said that those measures were necessary to allow for the coordination of municipal and provincial police forces and the RCMP to keep people safe and enforce the law.
According to Michael Kempa, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, it is obvious that order would not have been restored without the Emergencies Act. The act is crucial because it prompted protesters to leave and outlined serious consequences.
To my constituents of Nickel Belt, I appreciate why the criticism comes my way. I signed up to be their MP, their voice in Ottawa, and although we may disagree sometimes, I do appreciate each of them for reaching out. I see all the correspondence that comes to my office, with lots of varied opinions on all sides. These next few weeks will be difficult and people might feel let down. We all need to listen better.
I thank each person who has reached out to someone in need. I thank our frontline workers. I thank our law enforcement, police officers, the Greater Sudbury police officers who came to Ottawa, as many others did from across the country, the RCMP, OPP officers and local authorities for keeping Canadians safe and helping democracy move forward. The restraint these people, these men and women, have shown in the past few weeks in Ottawa has been remarkable.
I hear from my constituents that some people want mandates to continue for a little while longer because they still have concerns and want a safe, balanced approach to reopening fully. They support the government's decision. Some people do not agree with the federal government's or provincial government's position on mandates. Some support the truck convoy and denounce those who try to weaponize this movement.
All I know is that we must stick to our Canadian values and democratic process, where we value respect, denounce intimidation and choose to collaborate. MPs are the voices of Canadians, and I am as committed as ever to each of my constituents. I have kept a grassroots approach when engaging with Nickel Belt constituents, and continue to meet with individuals with varying opinions on topics while seeking to preserve the safety and health of our community. We need to grow the region. We need to do this together.
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- Feb/21/22 8:43:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have heard many things from Liberal members throughout this debate that I disagree with. However, I want to start with one thing that I agree with, which the member said. He said that he supported the right to peaceful protest prior to blockades and he did not agree with blockading critical infrastructure. These are sentiments that I fundamentally agree with.
The provisions of the Emergencies Act that I am most concerned about are the powers given to arbitrarily freeze individual's bank accounts without a court order. We are hearing reports of individuals who have had their bank accounts frozen. These individuals donated to the convoy movement prior to any blockading, and they wanted to see peaceful protests and wanted to see the convoy movement bring its message about the need to end mandates. Now those individuals are seeing their bank accounts frozen.
I would contend that this is in violation of the charter. I would contend that giving banks the sweeping power to freeze the accounts of individual who made small donations in good faith, potentially without being in support of blockading, is totally unreasonable. I wonder if the member would agree with me that this is not an appropriate way to be proceeding.
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- Feb/21/22 9:16:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
I understand him. We are well aware of everything that has happened over the past three weeks in Ottawa and of all of the impacts that it has had on residents and businesses, and even everywhere else in Canada and Quebec.
My colleague spoke about the protests. It is true that while people do have the right to protest, there are certain limits. It must not go as far as extremism.
Why does my colleague oppose the use of the Emergencies Act by the government, given its slow response and inaction over the past three weeks?
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- Feb/21/22 9:16:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very important question.
Yes, there are extreme elements on all sides, and I believe Canadians want us to make sure they are dealt with appropriately, and dealt with through utilizing the existing laws already in place. We saw this happen across the country. They have been utilized, and they have been effective, without using the nuclear option of going to this extreme measure.
Now, this act is being weaponized against Canadian citizens who happen to not share the same political views as the government. That is a dangerous precedent. I think what we need is a measured, reasonable response, so the hallmark of any democracy's right to protest is protected when done lawfully and peacefully, as all Canadians desire.
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- Feb/21/22 9:19:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will be splitting my time with my esteemed colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.
On this day of debate on the Emergencies Act, I would first like to offer my thanks to all the staff in the House, namely the clerks, the interpreters, the pages, the security officers and the cooks, among others. I also thank the reporters and their teams, who covered the various protests.
Of course, I am well aware that we are going through an exceptional situation right now. I hope that all parliamentarians, especially the government members, are well aware of this. The vote that will take place in a few hours might create an important precedent.
We have been incredibly busy these past few days. We have been busy debating an unnecessary law to lift the siege in Ottawa, and I have been busy talking to the people of Laurentides—Labelle about the issues related to this bill. Hundreds of people contacted me to talk about their concerns and what they wanted done about the blockade that, unfortunately, lasted 23 days.
I would like to use my time to explain the reasons why we oppose the use of the Emergencies Act, which the government invoked in haste without proving that other legislative tools at its disposal did not work.
I absolutely understand that people are sick to death of the virus and the public health measures and rules that changed our lives. The situation had a direct impact on me too, just as it impacted caregivers, business people, parents and health care workers, among many others.
It is no secret that we will vote against the use of the Emergencies Act, and there are many reasons why.
On February 15, the elected members of Quebec's National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion stating that no emergency situation justified the use of special legislative measures in Quebec and calling on the Canadian government not to apply the Emergencies Act in Quebec. Will the government respect the will of the 125 members of the National Assembly?
Even more appalling is that seven out of 10 provinces are against using this legislation. Obviously, Ontario requested it because that is where the siege was held.
The application of such legislation should not be taken lightly. It must be measured and proportionate. The Prime Minister himself said several times that the act would not be used where it is not needed. Why, then, does it apply everywhere?
The Prime Minister also explained to the House and in documents attached to the motion that he feared that other blockades would go up elsewhere in Canada, given the mobilization facilitated by social media. This type of legislation is not to be applied “just in case”; it is to be applied to deal with a real and imminent situation. The application of the act must be essential and necessary.
Every action taken in the past few days could have been taken with the tools provided under the Criminal Code. Arrests were made in coordination with the various police forces, which, in my opinion, should have been done in the early days.
What we needed was a head of state to coordinate interventions. Sadly, since being elected, I have seen no such head of state. Instead of getting out in front of a crisis, an issue, or a pandemic, the Prime Minister racks up conflicts of interest, as I saw when I was a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. When the City of Ottawa called for reinforcements, the federal government dawdled. Here is how I would sum up the situation. The federal government did not try anything. Then, not knowing what to do, it invoked the Emergencies Act, once all the occupations had been cleared out. The authorities will continue their work.
The government was not too worried about the Ambassador Bridge situation until it got a call from the White House. That is kind of a big deal. Then the government did nothing until it got a call from the Ottawa police, which wanted an additional 1,800 officers. The feds sent in a handful of officers, basically just enough to protect ministers and MPs. Only about 20 officers were deployed to the protest sites.
It is important to note that the government cannot invoke the Emergencies Act unless it can demonstrate that a dangerous and urgent situation exists and cannot be handled by means of ordinary laws.
There is indeed a dangerous and urgent situation, but it is limited to Ontario. We wanted the act to apply only where the occupation was taking place, especially since invoking this act, if applied more broadly than it should be, will set a dangerous precedent. The Emergencies Act was not needed to settle the rail blockades of 2020, the Oka crisis, 9/11, or even the COVID-19 pandemic.
When someone is criticized for not taking action, they try to make people forget about their bungling by using a sledgehammer as a show of strength to impress people. However, politics is not a game where players come up with strategies for the simple and only reason of maintaining or regaining power.
If this makes people rather cynical, I would tell them “welcome to the club”. Applying the Emergencies Act when the situation is confined to one location, not across Canada, is overkill. What saddens me is that the voters will think that the Prime Minister saved Ottawa. I want to express my sincerest appreciation to police officers at all levels for the tremendous work they have done.
To all those who reached out to me regarding the use of the Emergencies Act, I want to say that the siege did indeed have to be stopped. Existing measures are what saved Ottawa. The Criminal Code and traffic regulations are what saved Ottawa. No, I will not vote in favour of the use of the Emergencies Act. Quebec's 125 MNAs do not want it to be used. The implications of this legislation are too great to use it as a way to take back control, just because a government failed to take action and lacks leadership.
I would like to remind members that the federal government lagged behind the provinces when it came to implementing measures to deal with the pandemic. One need only think of the management of the borders, or lack thereof, at the beginning of the pandemic. That was a good opportunity for the Prime Minister to show some leadership as a government leader, but he did not. That is unfortunate for him and for us.
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- Feb/21/22 9:59:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that I have to follow my friend, colleague and seatmate from Parry Sound—Muskoka because it is a tough act to follow. I appreciate that I can follow him because I do share a lot of the same concerns as he does. I truly am concerned with the state of affairs in this country, in this place, in this chamber, and I am worried about the direction that our political discussion is going. I would like to touch on that a bit more later on.
To start my remarks, I would like to come back to the issue at hand. We are having a very important vote tonight and I believe I have a duty to share my views on how I will be making my decision when the vote comes tonight.
As I said last week in this chamber, the blockades we are seeing are illegal and they must come to an end. I am pleased to see that they have come to an end. The right to peaceful protest is an integral part of our democracy. It is an important pillar of our democracy. I have told many people back home that almost every day I am here, it seems like there is a different protest happening out by the flame on the lawn of Parliament, and that is an important part of our process.
However, nobody in this country has the right to blockade critical infrastructure. Freedom is limited by how it interferes with the freedom of others, and that is what we saw on display over the past few weeks here in Ottawa and in other places across the country.
I believe that police have and had the ability to handle the situation without invoking the Emergencies Act. We saw that the Ambassador Bridge was cleared and that the Coutts border crossing was cleared without the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
In the past in this country, we have seen terrorist attacks. We have seen the Oka crisis, the Wet'suwet'en blockades, the fisheries crisis, G20 protests and the Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver. None of these instances warranted the use of the Emergencies Act. Quite recently, we have seen the terrible images from B.C. from the Coastal GasLink assault, a situation where the Emergencies Act was not deemed to be necessary.
I believe that the government had many options it could have taken in working with its partners to address the situation, without going so far, because there are such far-reaching powers afforded to the government by invoking this act, including the ability to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians. Many people I know are very concerned that they may have contributed a small amount to support this convoy. They may have bought a shirt or contributed in a very small way because they felt at the time that this convoy, this protest, was going to be peaceful and was going to raise awareness about an issue that they cared about. They felt like they did not have a voice and the protesters were raising that for them.
Those people are the ones I worry could be unfairly impacted by this decision to invoke the Emergencies Act. They are people who contributed, not knowing that there would be unlawful protests, not knowing how the situation would escalate or necessarily who was organizing it.
I also worry, as many have mentioned in this chamber already throughout the weekend and here today, about the precedent that this sets. I believe we are drastically lowering the bar for what constitutes an emergency in this country. That is something that all of us in this chamber have to think very hard about when we have our vote here tonight. We do not want to see widespread use of the Emergencies Act. We do not want this to become something that is almost an everyday reaction because of how serious and far-reaching the powers are. That is why I will be voting against the implementation of the Emergencies Act.
It will be interesting to see how this transpires because an argument could be made that the situation the government needed to address has been dealt with already. I know that is a question that has been put to the members of the government so far.
As I mentioned off the top, I want to pick up on some of the comments that my friend from Parry Sound—Muskoka was making, because the rhetoric I have heard in this debate and in the chamber over the past couple of weeks in question period, I am truly disturbed by. I have been disgusted by it. The polarization that we are seeing across the country, the polarization that we are seeing in this chamber needs to stop.
Last week, the Prime Minister accused our side of standing with people who waved swastikas. Many members of the House have made comments to essentially say that we are racists. This of course could not be further from the truth, but they are seeing a political opportunity and that is what bothers me the most about this. I know these members. These are my colleagues, my friends. I know that it does not seem like it to many people watching at home, but we actually do get along sometimes in this place, especially when we get outside of the chamber doors.
Many members of the government, the NDP and other parties, I have coffee with them and dinner with them. We crack jokes at the committee table. After a particularly tough debate, maybe we have a drink that is a little stiffer, but to think that those individuals view my colleagues and me as racists, I cannot accept because I surely know that if I believed anybody in the chamber was a racist, I would not be having dinner with them or shaking their hand. Frankly, I do not think I would treat them with any respect whatsoever, and that is the frustrating part because I know it has become political. The Liberals see an opportunity to divide and to wedge and they are capitalizing on it.
We have also heard from members of the government that their leadership, in the last election campaign and since, made a deliberate decision to stigmatize unvaccinated Canadians, driving wedges even further. I do not mean to throw this all on the government. I obviously believe the Prime Minister has an important leadership role to play right now and we need him to lead by example and work to unify us. However, we all have to look inward in this place because we are seeing hateful rhetoric on all sides.
We are seeing people accusing the Prime Minister of being a communist dictator, which is ridiculous and untrue. We are seeing hate and polarization all across this chamber and across this country, and putting an end to it starts right here with every single one of us in the House. We need to turn down the heat. We need to tone down the rhetoric as my friend before me mentioned.
I am shocked that I have to say this in the House. We have a Prime Minister who was democratically elected three times, who commands the confidence of this chamber, yet there are many people across the country who are not seeing it as legitimate and that is a very big problem in our democracy. I disagree with the use of the Emergencies Act. I believe it is far-reaching, but it does not make the Prime Minister a dictator. He is within his right to invoke it.
My plea to all of my colleagues is to think about the words we use in this place. We cannot throw around words like “dictator” and “racist” flippantly. These words matter. They carry weight and when we use these words so casually, we delegitimize the true evils that have been experienced by many people and continue to be experienced by many people in the world.
I am asking all of my colleagues to look at their comments, look at their rhetoric and reassess because we are seeing divisions created that I do not know how we come back from at this point. I am urging all my colleagues to tone down the rhetoric and work to unify. I do not mean to unify in the sense that we all agree on everything. We never will, nor should we, but let us have a respectful debate about the issues. Surely we do not need to resort to name-calling and personal attacks.
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- Feb/21/22 10:13:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the premise of the member's question. It is obviously an argument I do not agree with, but to the argument on the government side that the Emergencies Act was necessary to remove the protest.
What we can see now though is that it has gone. I think the emergency has been dealt with. I would ask all members to consider whether or not the Emergencies Act is still needed at this time.
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- Feb/21/22 10:16:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Brampton North.
I think I lucked out with my time slot because I am following two members who spoke so eloquently in this chamber. I want to thank them for that. We all have a role to play as leaders in bringing down the tone and showing that we can actually work together.
I want to thank the Parliamentary Protective Service, the various municipal police forces, as well as the RCMP, the OPP, la Sûreté du Québec, and everyone involved in the last three weeks for their professionalism in bringing this situation to a close. Today, we are discussing whether the Emergencies Act should have been used. I will explain today why I am going to support this motion and why it was necessary.
When I look at it from a situational analysis perspective, over the past 26 days, Ottawa has been under siege. We have seen protests at the Ambassador Bridge. We have see protests at the Coutts border, in Vancouver and here in Ottawa. We have seen the Rideau Centre down the street closed. There are hundreds and hundreds of employees who cannot go to work. We have seen fundraising with a lot of foreign interference toward this occupation. We have seen a lot of misinformation being shared on social media.
I have been in Ottawa for 22 of the last 26 days of the occupation, and I have witnessed first-hand the constant honking, the fireworks in the streets, the open fires and citizens afraid to go outside. One of the most disturbing sights was someone jumping on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As the mother and mother-in-law of three serving members, this was incredibly difficult for me to witness.
I have seen people being taunted in the streets for wearing a mask. We have had staff members yelled at, one of whom had feces thrown at her, for coming to work. We have seen reporters being assaulted. We have seen the stockpiling of propane and fuel. We have seen this progression, despite measures that had been taken by local police.
Our government has been in contact with the mayor the whole time. We have also been in contact with the chief of police, the premier and the various premiers of the locations where we have seen these protests. We deployed RCMP officers and tactical police troops; had joint intelligence and operational teams, and community liaison teams; and convened a table with relevant federal and municipal partners. Despite these efforts, it continued.
When we look at the timeline of events, we saw very clearly an escalation. We saw the potential for this to increase. I know that Wellington Street is clear right now, but we also know that protesters are currently in Vankleek Hill. We know that protesters are just south of us waiting. That is why I believe we are just in invoking the Emergencies Act.
My colleague from Windsor West has said multiple times in the last three days that the Ambassador Bridge is not secure. Two blocks away, there are protesters. It is a very volatile situation right now. It is evolving quickly. I trust the police forces, and the intelligence they have, to keep us safe.
The laws that we currently have on the books were not sufficient. One of the most difficult things for me to see were children at these protests. The invoking of the Emergencies Act will make it punishable to bring children into these protests. It also prevents travel to the Hill and through border crossings by those intent on breaking laws. It prevents foreign extremists from joining these protests. It directs tow companies to assist in removing vehicles parked in our streets.
Invoking the Emergencies Act also authorizes financial institutions to freeze the funds of this illegal activity. We are talking dark money. We are talking about using crowdfunding to avoid FINTRAC rules. It also allowed the police forces to save days of delay in deputizing various police forces.
This is not something we take lightly. When this piece of legislation was drafted in 1987, the safeguards were put in place. We are having this debate. There will be a vote. A joint committee of parliamentarians will be struck. There will be an inquiry. There will be a report tabled in the House after 60 days to determine whether or not the invoking of this act was justifiable.
I heard a lot over the last couple of days about listening. I make a point of reaching out to the citizens who write to me, especially those who are angry and do not agree, because I really want to hear their point. Let us be honest. When most people write to an MP's office, it is not to say we are doing a great job; it is because they are angry about something or not happy with something. I make every effort to hear them. While we may not agree on a position, it is important that I hear them. I am pretty sure this is the same across all parties. We have those discussions in caucus. We share what we are hearing on the ground. Those conversations are happening. People are listening. We are listening. We have a duty to listen, and we are.
We are dealing with a very scary situation in Canada where people feel empowered to say awful things to others, whether it be on social media from the safety of their keyboard or attacking them personally. I have no problem with someone questioning my position on something or questioning a policy, but when we start taking personal attacks, we have gone too far.
I think there are a lot of questions to be asked coming out of what has happened in the last month here in Canada. My hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay brought this up, I believe, on Saturday. I may be mixing up the days after being here debating for three days. He said there should be a public inquiry into what happened here, in addition to the parliamentary inquiry that is stipulated in the Emergencies Act.
Ottawa has festivities all the time. It is well versed in crowd control. I looked up online what streets are closed normally to vehicular traffic during the Canada Day celebrations. How did those trucks get on Wellington Street? How did a crane get put beside the Prime Minister's office? Where was the protection for the protesters walking in between the parked trucks? There will be a lot of questions to ask after this through various channels, levels of government and agencies, and I welcome that, so this never happens again.
I urge colleagues across the aisle, as well as on my side, to be mindful of the words we use and how we express ourselves, and to ask questions about what really happened here. How is it that an illegal protest like this was allowed to get so far? Let us be honest. If the complexion of this protest were different, this would have been called something entirely different.
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- 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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- Feb/21/22 11:02:58 a.m.
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I apologize to all members of Parliament for this slip of the tongue. It was unintentional.
I will resume my speech.
If we confirm the application of this legislation this evening because of the situation we went through, we will be demonstrating that what is meant to be the last resort for a government is being used with complete disregard for the two key components that absolutely justify its use.
This will send a message to the public that if they decide to go through with a planned protest, the government will pretend not to know about it and allow the protesters to set up, get settled, disturb the public, shove and intimidate journalists, install hot tubs and occupy the streets for three weeks. It will not matter in any case, because the government will apply the Emergencies Act while the Prime Minister stays at his cottage.
I am sorry, but that is not how government management works. Planned protests are legitimate, permitted and even good to have in a democratic society when a segment of the population wants to share a message it considers to be urgent and important, whether we agree with it or not. It is our cherished democracy that allows it. Let us not forget the importance of this democracy. Trivializing it, controlling it or, worse, ignoring it sends a really bad message.
When there is an illegal occupation that includes illegally parking in the streets or setting up stages without authorization, if hateful slogans are being used against elected members and the press, then we need to ask law enforcement, our police forces, to intervene. The police services were the ones who were called to take action, to organize and to request support from their counterparts in neighbouring nations, for example those from the Sûreté du Québec. I want to commend them and thank them from the bottom of my heart.
Everything was done properly and with a great deal of respect for the protesters, who were emboldened by the passage of time and the dismissive attitude of their head of government. I found this situation difficult, since people need to be heard and listened to. They must be given some basic consideration, before an act like this is thrown at them. Let me be clear. I do not support the deplorable and punishable actions taken by some individuals. I condemn these actions, but I also condemn the lack of consideration and contempt the Prime Minister has shown for these people he was elected to represent and to whom he is ultimately accountable.
I want to take this opportunity to commend the police for their exemplary and extremely diligent interventions since the occupation started in Ottawa. They have been calm and effective, under the circumstances, given that there were many children on site. It was particularly sad to see the government stand by for so long knowing these children were there. The government is meant to govern, which requires being a leader, listening, being open and showing diplomacy. These are invaluable and appropriate tools that could have resolved this crisis or, at the very least, prevented it from escalating.
This leads me to say that it was not justified and that it will not be justified for the government to invoke the Emergencies Act. To have justification, two conditions must be met, in a very clear and, especially, unequivocal manner. First, there must be a dangerous and urgent situation. It can be said that it was dangerous and urgent, but who really caused it? Second, it must be impossible to address the situation with ordinary laws.
To justify invoking the act under the present circumstances, we would need to add one or two conditions to it that are just not there. I want to emphasize that if the House chooses to support the application of this act and if, in a momentary lapse, our NDP colleagues approve the use of this act, it is crucial that the Bloc Québécois obtain the exemption to that application of the act for Quebec.
To support my position, I would like to quote from an interview the Minister of Public Safety gave on the CBC.
He was asked the following question: Is there a link between the people arrested and the accounts that were frozen? Are they the same people?
Here is how the minister replied: These actions are taken by law enforcement; they are independent of politics.
I wonder then how the Emergencies Act has changed things. Voting in favour of invoking this legislation sends the wrong message not only to the public, but also to the rest of the world. All parliamentarians in this House will bear responsibility for the repercussions of invoking this legislation and the perception of its application in these kinds of circumstances.
We are talking about setting some kind of precedent, to which future governments in this place will have to refer. I would like to point out to our NDP colleagues that if they vote to invoke this legislation, they will be contributing to the normalization of its subsequent use, which will lower the perception of the importance of this legislation's nature as a tool of last resort.
If by today's actions the public's perception of this law, as well as that of the various responders, becomes distorted, that could pose a serious risk to everyone's safety in a future national crisis, which we do not wish for, but could well happen one day.
Everyone will remember this day. They will hear an announcement that the government voted in favour of the Emergencies Act and will say that the situation does not have to be all that critical. They will say that Parliament Hill will have to again be overrun by trucks and signs.
In the future, the public may overlook a real threat and, because we did not have the judgment needed today to correctly assess whether to use the Emergencies Act or not, we will be a party to this misguided lapse.
If the NDP is going to be irresponsible and vote in favour of applying this law, I would ask that the government at least not apply the act to Quebec and the provinces that expressed their keen desire that it not apply in their territory.
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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 11:15:33 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 11:27:37 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 11:46:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, violence was their mode of operation; hate is what drove them; human life was called into question or altogether threatened; millions of dollars of damage was done to property, yet there was silence from the Prime Minister, and the media only spoke whispers several days later.
Meanwhile, 4,500 kilometres away on the other side of the country, a diverse group of Canadians gathered from all across. Some wore turbans and some wore toques. Some were in their seventies and some were not even able to walk yet. They gathered for one reason: to advocate for freedom. They gathered to advocate for what it is to be Canadian: true north, strong and free. These individuals were truckers, farmers, doctors, nurses, stay-at-home moms, students, teachers or social workers. I talked with them. I heard their story. I listened, because that is what a politician does who deeply cares about this country.
The Prime Minister took a bit of a different approach. He stigmatized. He antagonized. He turned a deaf ear. Some of these individuals drove big rigs; some of them drove Civics and some of them drove F-150s. Some of them were vaccinated three times and some of them were not vaccinated at all. However, they all were Canadians fighting for an ideal. Were they disruptive at times? Yes, indeed. That is the point of a peaceful assembly protesting something that people disagree with. It is allowed in this country, a democratic country. Were there a few bad actors? Sure there were, but they were quickly condemned and removed.
When we juxtapose this with the attack on the Coastal GasLink site at Houston, B.C., with damage to property and threat to human life, it becomes very clear that the Prime Minister's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to Ottawa is a massive overreach and purely punitive in nature. We know this, especially given the fact that we watched the border crossings at Windsor, Coutts, Surrey and Emerson be cleared without the Emergencies Act needing to be invoked. We know it even more today, when we see that the downtown core of Ottawa has been cleared out.
However, the Prime Minister insists that he will still move forward with invoking the Emergencies Act. Why? Is it necessary? I argue it is not. Again, if the Windsor border, the Surrey border, the Coutts border and the Emerson border were able to be cleared up without this over-exaggeration of power, then Ottawa could have been too.
There is something more that needs to be discussed here and that is what that threshold is for invoking the act. The Emergencies Act has never been used since it was first created in 1988. Its predecessor, the War Measures Act, was used three times: once in World War I, once in World War II and once for the FLQ crisis, where again, human life was taken and the country was really thrown into chaos. The bar is high, so for the Prime Minister to invoke the Emergencies Act when an assembly of people comes to protest with views that are different from his, one has to wonder why; why the overreach?
The one power the Prime Minister gets from this is the ability to freeze bank accounts. He has the opportunity to seize control of the monetary flow for those individuals who hold views different from his own. This is an abuse of power. We are talking about individuals who may have donated $10 or maybe a few hundred dollars to this cause. Simply because they had views that were different from the Prime Minister's, their bank accounts are frozen and they are unable to make their car payments, their house payments or put food on the table. Some of them are unable to take care of their children. Others are unable just to meet the basic needs of life.
It is a massive breach on these individuals, and it is simply for no other reason than the fact that these folks failed to fall in line. They questioned the government and they hold views that are different from the Prime Minister's. Using the tactic of a schoolyard bully, he has decided to implement the Emergencies Act so that he can control, manipulate, dictate, be punitive and punish.
It should be highlighted that the federal government is utilizing national security tools that were designed to combat terrorism against Canadians who support protests. We must let that sink in for just a moment. The Prime Minister of our country is using laws that are normally used against terrorists, and he is using them against citizens of his own country who hold views that happen to be different from his own. That is extremely alarming. It is vindictive. One commentator said, “It's almost as if the cruelty is the point.”
It did not need to come to this. The reason we are here is that the Prime Minister decided to put a punitive measure in place. On January 15, he required that all truck drivers going across the U.S. border and wanting to return to Canada needed to be double-vaccinated. We are talking about individuals who were earlier declared as heroes, individuals who stayed in the cabs of their truck, aside from maybe refuelling or grabbing a quick snack at a gas station. These individuals have served our country in an incredibly heroic way, and then the Prime Minister made a decision to go after them and put restrictions in place. It was nonsense.
This started a movement of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who started to question the government, question the Prime Minister, question his motives, and fair enough, as they did not add up. Dr. Tam herself was saying that we needed to reassess the mandates that were put in place at that time. She herself was saying that we needed to learn to live with COVID, that we needed to return to normal.
The Prime Minister has turned a deaf ear, a blind eye and has refused to listen. I am not sure what his agenda is, but it certainly is not to serve this country well. It certainly is not in the best interests of Canadians at heart.
Before even knowing who was coming to Ottawa, he refused to listen. His tactics were mean-spirited and divisive in nature. He stigmatized. He antagonized. He traumatized. He went after these individuals telling them they were a fringe minority with unacceptable views. He damaged the unity of this country, pitting one region or one people against another. He crushed the human spirit.
One of my constituents wrote to me. She is an immigrant who moved to Canada about a decade ago. She now has three children and is married. She runs a small business and is a beautiful community participant.
She wrote:
It was mere months ago I filled out the paperwork to become a Canadian citizen. I desire to align myself with a nation I’ve come to love, to stand beside people who make it great, to cast a vote in the bucket of democracy. And yet, I am sickened by the increasingly pervasive narrative being spouted; one where rightness trumps charity...and good faith, and where ‘being Canadian’ is defined not by our humanity but by our political affiliations.
And here I am, awaiting news of my application status, while the Canada I thought I knew crumbles around me, not from Covid-but from the divisive and destructive language being used to define citizenship and belonging.
Further on she wrote:
But what am I saying yes to? A nation that speaks before listening, one that defines ‘being a good Canadian’ in a way that marginalizes everyone who doesn’t fit said description.
She concluded by writing:
I humbly ask that we take steps towards the Canada I first moved to-one where value isn’t gained its given-and given generously by the people who call it home. Because diversity of thought and conscience are greater markers of democracy than the alternative.
This is the deep, hard cry of so many Canadians across this country. We want a unified nation. We want a prime minister who listens to the fellow citizens of this great country. We want to move forward with strength. The Prime Minister has claimed that he wants the same, but in order to do that, it starts with him. He must trust and respect the Canadian people for the Canadian people to do the same. Unfortunately, he has chosen gamesmanship over statesmanship, and it is killing our country.
I urge this House to vote no to the punitive measures that are being discussed here today.
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- Feb/21/22 12:29:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was really moved by the answer the member just gave. We have been continuously hearing from the opposition today that this is a peaceful protest, that the protesters all meant well, and that the protesters were just having a carnival here for the last three weeks. It is continuing to minimize the seriousness of what is really going on.
I would like the member to elaborate on why we cannot overlook the signs that were out there.
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- Feb/21/22 12:30:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today. This evening I will be voting in favour of confirming the invocation of the Emergencies Act to restore peace, order and good government.
We are country of the rule of law, protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I have heard a clear and urgent plea from my constituents and Calgarians alike. They want illegal and disruptive protests to come to an end. The actions of a small group of protesters have impacted working truckers, business owners and thousands of law-abiding residents.
We are making significant progress towards recovery from the pandemic. Unfortunately, the actions of a few have taken us in the wrong direction, away from freedom and towards disorder. Local authorities in both Alberta and Ontario were unable to restore order for weeks. They allowed protesters to cause massive economic damage, with border blockades alone disrupting millions of dollars in trade.
Last week, at our transportation infrastructure committee meeting, the impacts of that trade were highlighted. At Coutts, for 18 days, they were $48 million a day, for a total of $864 million in trade lost or deferred. At the Ambassador Bridge, for six days, there was $2.4-billion worth of impact to our economy. If we look at the impact on the Pacific Highway or at Emerson, there was a substantial cost to our economy, coast to coast. It was billions of dollars.
Then we should think about the people impacted: the small businesses whose goods and services have not come because of these blockades. Many small businesses in Calgary are saying it will take weeks or months to get the supply chain back to a normal working order, impacting their businesses' ability to open and provide goods and services to Calgarians and Canadians.
I have had the opportunity to speak to many truckers during this time. One of my constituents, Kabir, who lives in Calgary Skyview, was caught in the blockade at Coutts. He could not get back into the country. He could not pass that blockade. This had a tremendous impact on him. He was not able to deliver those goods and services, and make those deliveries of groceries and medical supplies, like many of his colleagues were doing in the province of Alberta. It also took him away from getting back home to his family after being away for 10 days. It disrupted his future job opportunities to deliver to other parts of the country and back into the U.S. That is one of the truckers from my constituency, and there are many more who have been impacted by these illegal disruptions.
My thoughts go out to the family who was on their way home to Medicine Hat to visit to their loved one. Their mother was ill and unfortunately passed away. Because of the blockade at Coutts, they were unable to make it home to see their loved one one last time. This had an impact on me. The impacts of these illegal blockades were financial, but they also had a cost to the lives and families of many.
On the Coutts border specifically, law enforcement agencies initially chose to negotiate and de-escalate the situation until they were faced with radicalized and heavily armed extremists, who were soon charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The police found guns, ammunition, body armour, and a threat to attack our law enforcement authorities.
These events underscored the urgency of action. Invoking the Emergencies Act had an immediate, positive effect on restoring order. Law enforcement agencies from across the country were mobilized and have restored order to Canada's capital.
Border blockades have been dismantled, allowing vehicles to move freely and maintain critical supply chains. Protest organizers have been arrested. It is also apparent that alt-right organizations participated in organizing these protest movements. These are forces that promote conspiracy theories and disinformation to radicalize individuals. Some of these radicalized individuals have shown up at my private residence to intimidate me and my family.
Our government is not taking this decision lightly. It has been debated intensely by elected members of Parliament in the House of Commons. Its impact will be reviewed closely by a parliamentary committee explicitly tasked with studying all aspects of this situation. Checks and balances are in place to ensure accountability.
I want to express my disagreement with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's decision to challenge the federal use of the Emergencies Act. On February 5, Alberta's minister of municipal affairs sent a letter to Canada's Minister of Public Safety requesting federal assistance in removing obstructions from a provincial highway. Our government listened, and responded by including a provision in the Emergencies Act that orders tow truck drivers to move vehicles that are blocking roads. It is unfortunate that the premier continues to meaninglessly posture instead of putting the best interests of his province above his own political survival.
Our nation's capital was under occupation for more than three weeks. Non-state foreign actors have been actively engaged in undermining our democratic institutions. Canada was unprepared. I look forward to the continued vigorous debate in Parliament to investigate and hold responsible those who have caused direct and indirect damage to our security and to our economic interests.
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