Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, on February 22, when we were debating your government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, you were asked if you were aware which levels of our national security apparatus or others were consulted and listened to when the government was considering invoking the Emergencies Act. You replied:

. . . the government was informed by all of the law enforcement and intelligence services upon which it relies in matters like this.

Senator Gold, is the RCMP included among those law enforcement agencies that the government relies upon in matters like this? If not, why not?

Senator Plett: Well, of course, that didn’t even touch upon the question I asked.

Leader, I don’t know what you or your government think “collaboration” means. It’s not just debating here in the chamber. The Oxford Dictionary definition of collaboration is, “The action of working with someone to produce or create something.” What the Trudeau government did regarding Bill C-69 was “impose,” to “Force (something unwelcome or unfamiliar) to be accepted or put in place.”

Leader, in 2019, the government of your own province wrote to the Senate’s Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee to say:

While Quebec conveyed its concerns to the federal government, there was no real government-to-government dialogue on Bill C-69 . . . .

Leader, if there was no dialogue on Bill C-69, how is that collaboration? If provinces and First Nations had to take your government to court to be heard on Bill C-69, how is that collaboration, leader?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question concerns the government leader’s response to Senator Tannas on Tuesday regarding the ruling of the Court of Appeal of Alberta that the Impact Assessment Act, formerly Bill C-69, is unconstitutional.

Leader, you said:

The government worked with provincial and territorial governments when developing the legislation to ensure that their views were considered and that jurisdictional responsibilities were respected . . . . Working collaboratively with provinces . . . .

I repeat the word “collaboratively.” You end that sentence by saying, “. . . supports a single impact assessment process for major projects that considers all project impacts.”

Leader, who exactly did your NDP-Liberal government work collaboratively with on Bill C-69? Alberta? Saskatchewan? Ontario? The Woodland Cree First Nation? The Indian Resource Council? They all opposed Bill C-69 in court and won the case. So where was the so-called collaboration, leader?

Senator Plett: I think you said the RCMP had also been involved. Leader, by now, I’m sure you are aware of an exchange between our colleague Senator White and Commissioner Brenda Lucki of the RCMP that took place in the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency. Senator White asked:

As a law enforcement agency with primacy for national security, did you ask the government or representatives for the invocation of the Emergencies Act?

Commissioner Lucki responded:

No, there was never a question of requesting the Emergencies Act.

Senator White said:

So you never asked for it. Do you know of any other police leadership who asked specifically the government for the invocation?

Commissioner Lucki responded, “No.”

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said, in defending his government’s invocation of the act, “We invoked the act because it was the advice of non-partisan professional law enforcement . . . .”

Who, leader, is correct? The Minister of Public Safety or the Commissioner of the RCMP? They cannot both be correct, Senator Gold.