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Member of Parliament

Hon. Judy A. Sgro

  • Member of Parliament
  • Liberal
  • Humber River—Black Creek
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 64%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $134,163.57

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 34 - Feb/19/22
Hon. Judy A. Sgro
  • Feb/19/22 2:13:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have talked about trying to get through this pandemic and the difficulties many businesses are facing, so we cannot stand back and allow things to continue this way. Michael Kempa, a law professor and criminologist in Ottawa, was asked a few minutes ago if the Emergencies Act was really necessary. He said that it absolutely was, because without the Emergencies Measures Act being brought into play, it would have taken a minimum of five or six more days to get other police services here and deputized. We would have continued to see this kind of illegal activity going on outside Parliament Hill and the disruption to neighbourhoods for another five or six days. I ask members to think about the impacts this is having on the economy. Nate's Deli, which is located at Sparks and O'Connor, is a little delicatessen many of us go to on our lunch hour. Its workers told me that they were just hanging on at the end of the lockdown restrictions. That delicatessen has now been locked down for four more weeks. Will it be able to open and survive this? I think of Goodfood, which is company close to the riding owned by a young family. President Dan Simile phoned me last week to tell me that he could not get a truck to deliver boxes across the border. He was having to lay off all his staff. Those kinds of things are big disruptions to our economy. They are also disruptions to the people living in the Ottawa area in particular. Many employees were unable to get to their places of employment, even to work on Parliament Hill, without being called names and facing abuses. My own staff was subject to some abuse from some of the protesters out there. We have a responsibility to move forward. Businesses, such as the grocery stores in downtown, are suffering. One had to close up because protesters without masks would come into the store with no respect for anybody else. This upset everybody, so ultimately it had to close. This has gone on for far too long. Yes, I know this is not easy. I have received lots of calls from people in my constituency who do not quite fully understand this, but they are not here. They are not seeing it every day, and they do not realize the full impact of what is going on. It is imperative we do the right thing. We need to protect our country, and we need to protect its citizens. Very importantly, we also need to protect the economy. To have a banker in the U.S. refer to Canada as a banana republic is unacceptable to all of us. It is a real insult. I am proud of my country, and I am proud of what we do. We are taking the necessary steps to move forward. We try to not get into political rhetoric. If folks on the other side choose to join us in a united front to support this, it will only be in effect for a very short period of time. There will be a parliamentary committee that will reviewing it, and there will be a full investigation afterward. This came off the rails right from the beginning, and once these protesters became entrenched, it was very difficult to move them out. I ask that we stay as united a front as we possibly can and not confuse people by talking about the War Measures Act, because that frightens the very people we represent. Let us try to be more united and provide accurate information regardless of what side anyone is on.
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