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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 10:48:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her speech. The member referenced a number of provisions of the Criminal Code, and one that has come up repeatedly in today's debate, particularly from the official opposition and supported by the Bloc, is in section 129 of the Criminal Code. I have looked at this provision and thought about it. This provision is about an omission. It is about someone failing to assist a peace officer, and it allows for that person to be charged with an offence. There is an exclusion in the provision if that person who is not co-operating with the peace officer has a reasonable excuse. To my mind, and I think to most legal analysts, when somebody receives a death threat, as has been evidenced by an Ottawa tow truck company that was accused of helping with the towing of a protester's truck, that would constitute a reasonable excuse. I put it to the member opposite that we do not compel people to co-operate with peace officers in other investigations, such as when someone witnesses a gang shooting or a mafia-related incident. We do not arrest those individuals; we come up with other means to ensure their participation. That is what—

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 10:02:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I welcome the member for Edmonton Griesbach to the House. I admit to some extreme concern when members of the official opposition have actually belittled the concerns of other parliamentarians who do not share his particular demographic and the fears that they might be experiencing. I want to ask the hon. member something, as a man who is an indigenous advocate and as a man who is indigenous himself. When he sees people who are being arrested assaulting the police officers, throwing bikes at police horses and attempting to remove weapons from police officers, can he contemplate how that kind of response would have been met had those protesters been Black, indigenous or people of colour? Could he perhaps discuss, with some further clarity, how the response would differ? I firmly believe it would have differed. We need to move forward and really rethink how we are doing policing, notwithstanding the tremendous work that our law enforcement officials are attempting to do in this country right now.

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 9:46:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have three points of clarification. First, today, a blockade exists in Surrey, B.C. Second, the declaration order, notwithstanding the submissions from the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, is not about entrusting the Prime Minister with emergency powers. It is about empowering police, who operate independently, to enforce the law. Third, lawful protest is permitted pursuant to this order and is always permitted under the charter. It is only protests that breach peace that would be prevented. I am going to put this to the member very squarely. Members of his party have talked about law and order and have said it is founded on a law and order premise. Can we at least agree on one thing? When it gets to the point after 22 days that members of the public in Ottawa are taking matters into their own hands because they are so frustrated with the lack of enforcement, we have a problem that needs to be addressed with powers, including increased powers such as the ones the interim chief, Steve Bell, has welcomed to empower enforcement.

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 8:28:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member opposite and his contributions to the chamber at all times. I politely point out to him that in terms of the crisis being ongoing, even today the blockade at the Surrey border in B.C. has been resurrected, so tools are still required by law enforcement around the country. That is the first point of clarification. I am going to put something to the hon. member that I think is very significant, because we have heard this from other Conservatives, including the member for Haldimand—Norfolk, who said that “everyone” has the right to be heard. What I would say to him is that I have a specific view that not everyone has a right to be heard in this context. People who are waving swastikas or Confederate flags, people who are leaving vitriol in the voice mail of other members of Parliament, people who are openly intimidating and threatening violence or people who are arming themselves at the border do not have a right to be heard. Would the member opposite agree that in fact there is and should be limited appetite for engaging in dialogue with individuals who are part of the blockade seizing this nation?

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Feb/19/22 8:17:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, there are rules about language in this chamber and those rules are appropriate when we are talking among ourselves through you. However, when we are making a citation that refers to the type of invective and vitriol being volleyed in people's direction in the context of this convoy—

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 7:10:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I respect the member opposite, but I am going to take strong disagreement with one point that she and her party have made repeatedly in today's debate, which is that there is no crisis. I think we are in agreement that the blockades still exist outside the chamber, so in Ottawa there clearly is a problem. We know that on February 14, the declaration was put into force. On February 16, we know that in Windsor, there was an attempted resurrection of the blockade, which was thwarted successfully, which was great, but reports are showing that even today the Surrey border is again being closed on account of blockades. Clearly, the protest continues and the problem has not been resolved. Does the member opposite agree that indeed these tools are required in order to address what is clearly a national problem that must be regulated in order to ensure that the economic security, territorial integrity and the sovereignty of our borders are not compromised by unlawful and illegal blockades?

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Feb/19/22 6:43:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been very patient and I rarely raise points of order, but something that the member for Cumberland—Colchester said really offends me as a parliamentarian and I am going to give him an opportunity to retract his statement. He belittled members and fellow parliamentarians who are members of the health committee for their reluctance to exit a committee in the dark during the midst of this protest. Although he has gone on at length to explain how he has been unaffected by these protests and feels quite comfortable with them, clearly residents of Ottawa and other parliamentarians do not. I am going to give him an opportunity to retract that statement and clarify, for the record, that he would not want to belittle the subjective feelings of fellow parliamentarians and members of this House, how they perceive this protest and what it represents to them.

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 5:09:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will just point out the logical inconsistencies the member was attempting to make vis-à-vis the Liberals being a government incapable of taking decisions, when we have taken a decision that no government has ever taken in Canadian history. Let us find some common ground. The Bloc is against the blockades. The Bloc has said the blockades are illegal. We all agree with that. We also agree with listening to the police and cutting off the funding that is supplying those blockades. One of the tools to do so is by tracking that money to things such as credit unions, banks, cryptocurrency sites or online sites. When no sites or donations are being made from the province of Quebec that would necessitate the application of these emergency measures in the province of Quebec, does the member opposite agree with that aspect of this law applying in his province?

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Feb/19/22 5:06:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would point out a logical inconsistency of the member's suggestions. He is saying that we are incapable of taking decisions on the government benches—

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 4:36:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Centre for his remarks. By way of a brief rebuttal, I would simply say that the powers used under the Emergencies Act declaration were used most recently as February 16 in Windsor to thwart an attempted resurrection of a blockade. If the member's concern is with investment in this country, I would say the blockades actually threaten the investment climate in this country. My point is in response to something he raised to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He said we should not be stigmatizing, and I agree with him. However, when far-right elements, including a group called Diagolon, are actively involved with arming themselves and carrying ammunition and body armour to blockade the border at Coutts, and when that results in four arrests for conspiracy to commit murder and ongoing investigations as to whether that group has links to groups raising swastikas and Confederate flags here in Ottawa and the blockade in Ottawa continues, I think we do have an ongoing threat that needs to be resolved. Can the member comment on that response?

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Feb/17/22 3:40:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to do is address the situation that has really seized the city and seized this nation. As opposed to turning back the clock and engaging in what-ifs or hypotheticals about what could have been done previously, we are quite directly, and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance addressed this in question period, addressing lacunae in financial tracking legislation right now, as that is one of the economic measures contained in this declaration. It allows us to address who is funding, including foreign sources, this particular illegal blockade and make sure it is brought to an end.

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Feb/17/22 3:38:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not want to get into hypothetical situations or backtrack. However, what I do want to point out is that the City of Ottawa and the Government of Ontario have declared a state of emergency. Both levels of government were unable to resolve the situation here, in Windsor or anywhere else. The third and final step is to use the Emergencies Act, if it would help, to resolve the situation. This is a serious situation, and it requires serious action.

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Feb/17/22 3:37:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to make clear, as the member for Calgary Shepard has read the material, as I hope everyone who is participating in this debate has read the material, that it talks about certain regulations, certain powers and certain prohibitions. One of the prohibitions is on assemblies that would lead to a breach of the peace, but what is important, and what the Prime Minister and every cabinet minister has said, is that everything that is undertaken under this emergency declaration must be done in compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms talks about charter liberties. It also talks about limitations on such liberties that are saved under section 1. That is the important facet all Canadians must recognize, and that is the important facet under which we will operate as a government. That is what all parliamentarians must operate under, because the charter and those fundamental rights are sacrosanct in our democracy.

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Mr. Arif Virani (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, Lib.)

Feb/17/22 3:26:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Surrey Centre. I rise today with some humility. I rise to speak not on behalf of a political party, because I firmly belief this issue cannot be partisan today. I rise not as a representative of a particular community, because I do not think it is a regional issue that we are discussing today. I rise today, in all sincerity, as a member of Parliament, as a member of this chamber, the House of Commons, committed to serving the public, to serving all Canadians in a genuine effort to do what is best for our country. At this stage, I firmly believe that the only way to resolve the present threat that is facing this country is to declare a public order emergency under the Emergencies Act. I want to start by talking about the charter. Let me state at the outset that the right to freedom of expression is sacrosanct in this country. It is entrenched in section 2(b) of the charter for a reason: because it is the hallmark of our democracy, and indeed of any democracy. It is the ability for citizens to voice their discontent, to challenge authority and to seek change. I do not deny any of this. To the contrary, I vigorously defend it. I also do not deny that the people gathered outside this very chamber right now, who have been on the streets of Ottawa for what is now 21 days, have legitimate grievances; criticisms of my government, of my party; perhaps even of me personally, which they have every right to air. However, in our democracy, freedom of expression, while sacrosanct, is not absolute. This charter protection under section 2(b) extends toward lawful, peaceful protest; the charter does not protect illegal, violent blockades. It is the latter, unfortunately, that this protest has devolved into. I want to reference Ottawa. How do I substantiate this assertion I just made? I substantiate it with the evidence I gathered with my own eyes and from the accounts of other parliamentarians that have been shared with me. Far from seeing people exercising their constitutional rights to disagree vigorously with the government, we have instead seen intimidation, threats and harassment. We have seen deliberate nuisances being created by truck horns blowing at all hours of the day and night, rendering the city effectively uninhabitable for local residents. We have seen open displays of hatred, such as swastikas and Confederate flags, and acts of direct hatred when windows are smashed on coffee shops that dare to fly the pride flag. We have seen the desecration of national monuments, including our national war memorial. We have seen deliberate efforts to block the movement of people and goods by people intentionally disabling large vehicles and trucks by activating their air brakes or actually removing the tires from their vehicles. We have seen death threats follow toward an Ottawa tow trucking company accused of being complicit with police efforts to remove such disabled vehicles. We have seen the shuttering of businesses in the entire downtown core, impeding residents' ability to work. It is puzzling, to say the least, to see protesters who claim to eschew lockdowns themselves causing Ottawa's downtown to enter into a lockdown for a period of now three weeks. We have seen intimidation and threats toward the media, again ironic for those who would be more ardent defenders of freedom of expression than even I am, in terms of what I have articulated. We have seen the active sabotage of 9-1-1 emergency call lines and even an attempted arson. The protest ostensibly began over vaccine mandates. It has morphed into what resembles an occupation of the city by people who have openly declared on the public record that they are seeking to overthrow the government. That constitutes a complete breakdown of public order in Ottawa. Despite efforts from the Ottawa Police Service, law and order in the nation's capital have been impossible to maintain. The evidence that I am outlining here extends beyond the nation's capital. Members have heard references to the borders. I want to address this now. What commenced as a protest targeting this city and this Parliament has emerged as a concerted effort to block our national border crossings and impede the flow of people and goods. In Texas and Florida and in other parts of the United States and indeed in other nations, foreign entities openly and publicly have declared their sympathy with the blockades and admitted to sending money and resources to help the blockades continue. Today the Anti-Defamation League showed a result of their analysis of the GiveSendGo website; it found 1,100 people in the United States who supported the January 6 insurrection last year actually donated money under GiveSendGo to these blockades. Just let that settle in for a moment, in terms of what the motivations are for such types of people. The blockades that have emerged around the country are deliberately targeting critical infrastructure. We know about what happened at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor and Detroit. The multi-day siege on Canada's busiest border crossing alone, and I am now wearing my hat as the parliamentary secretary for international trade, resulted in the suspension of nearly $400 million in daily trade between Canada and the United States, the cancellation of shifts at multiple auto plants in southern Ontario and an intervention by President Biden and the Governor of Michigan showing that confidence in Canada as a safe place to invest, do business and trade with is starting to erode. Blockades have occurred in Surrey, Emerson and Coutts, Alberta. What should be startlingly alarming for every person in this chamber and every Canadian watching right now is that when members of the RCMP went to clear the Coutts border crossing, they made 13 arrests, including laying charges for conspiracy to commit murder. They found firearms, ammunition and body armour. That bore out certainly my worst fears, and I think all of our worst fears, that blockade protesters were armed and preparing for violent confrontation with law enforcement. The violence is continuing to ratchet up. We have had bomb threats at a Vancouver hospital as well as suspicious packages and language about hanging members of Parliament being sent to colleagues of mine from Nova Scotia. I am laying this all out in such excruciating detail because there is a legal test that must be met when we are doing something that has not ever been done under this legislation or even in this country under antecedent legislation in 52 years. The test is high, as it should be, when we are considering a statute that temporarily permits the suspension of civil liberties. What is the test? It is entrenched in section 3 of the Emergencies Act, which states: a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada. It is my fundamental belief that this high legal threshold has been met in this case. When we have a blockade laying siege to an entire city for 21 days and counting, intimidating, harassing and threatening locals and rendering a city uninhabitable, it is endangering the safety of Canadians. When those blockades limit the ability of medical first responders to respond quickly to emergencies, they are endangering the lives of those on the other end of those 911 calls. When factions armed with weapons and ammunition are blockading borders, they are directly endangering the lives of Canadians. When groups are deliberately blocking trade corridors with our single largest trading partner, grinding our border traffic to a halt, they are threatening the ability of the federal government to preserve our sovereignty and economic security. These are important. In the last two minutes, I want to address some of the general objections we have heard, not just today but prior to this. To those who say there is an overreach here, I say there are five checks that are important. First, everything done by a government under the Emergencies Act must be done in accordance with the charter. That is entrenched in the preamble. Second, all declarations are time-limited to 30 days and no more. In fact, it may be less, and hopefully it will be less in this context. Third, the very act of declaring an emergency under the declaration must be reviewed by a committee of all members of Parliament and senators from all parties. Fourth, the exercise of powers under the declaration must be reviewed by that committee. Fifth, following the end of an emergency, a full inquiry must be held. What we are doing is not a power grab and it is not the invocation of the War Measures Act; we are simply giving the RCMP the power to enforce local laws and work quickly with local law enforcement. We are not calling in the armed forces. We are not putting the RCMP or any other police force under the control of the government. Policing operational decisions remain independent, as they must in any democracy. I am going to end with the right to protest, because people have asked about their children's rights to protest. I take this very seriously, because I myself have taken my children to protests. This law talks about the right to lawful protest. It is in entrenched in black and white. The measures we are contemplating would address or prohibit public assembly that is a threat leading to a breach of the peace; we are specifically carving out the right of lawful advocacy, protest and dissent. I would say this to those who say the threats have been addressed: Windsor had an attempted blockade yesterday, and we know the protesters are returning to the Quebec National Assembly on February 19. I will conclude with this sincere undertaking to the members of this chamber and all Canadians: I will do everything in my power to ensure that this act lasts for only as long as is absolutely necessary; I will do everything in my power to ensure that there is no overbreadth; I will do everything in my power to ensure that charter rights are always fundamentally protected. All members of Parliament should strive for nothing less.

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