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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Ken Hardie

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
  • Liberal
  • Fleetwood—Port Kells
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,090.09

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 42 - Mar/21/22
Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)
  • Mar/21/22 4:09:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to what degree do we need to count on action by the provinces in order to get meaningful measures to deal with the high cost of things and particularly housing?
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Context: House Hansard - 33 - Feb/17/22
Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)
  • Feb/17/22 9:42:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a message tonight for all my colleagues here in the House of Commons and especially for everyone at home in Fleetwood—Port Kells, who are rightfully having a good debate right now about the justifications for using the emergency measures act. I want to provide my own thoughts and the rationale behind my support for the government's actions. To do that, let us focus specifically on the questions in this debate. Is the government's use of the emergency measures act justified and are the measures being invoked legally? The second question is the easiest to answer because that answer is yes, if the measures being used to deal with this situation conform with the legislation that has been on the books since the 1980s. Given that this is the first time the legislation has been used, there should be scrutiny of the measures to make sure that they do conform with the law. However, that is the easy part. We have to talk about the justification. The act is right to the point. It says: 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 Let us take that apart and look at the evidence. Does the current situation endanger the lives of Canadians? Well, the border disruptions certainly endangered the economic quality of life of Canadians and therefore their well-being. There is ample evidence of that in Windsor, especially in the auto sector, and for so many businesses and their employees in Ottawa. The threats of physical violence toward people in Ottawa's downtown neighbourhood have been real, and charges have been laid against 13 people in Coutts, Alberta, apparently because they appeared ready to murder RCMP officers. Does the activity endanger our health? There is no doubt that the premature lifting of public health measures, as demanded by the protesters, would do this. We saw this very clearly in Alberta last year when it lifted the mandates for the best summer ever. It was not. We do not want a repeat of that. However, the stated aim of the protest is to force the government to abandon public health measures regardless of the advice from the Public Health Agency of Canada and provincial authorities. Do the blockades endanger safety? When protesters harass and bully people and threaten assault, yes. When protesters allegedly try to set fire to a residential building in Ottawa, gluing the doors shut in the process, yes, indeed. When police found that cache of weapons that was seized in Coutts, Alberta, how could there not be a perception that public safety was endangered? Does the situation exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it? This is not true in every case, but certainly in some, notably in Ontario. It is why the use of the emergency measures act clearly sets out that it can be specifically targeted to locations where provincial authorities need additional help to restore order. One point that has been raised a few times is that all these things were cleared up just as the emergency measures act was being announced. Let us face it. We want to prevent people from bringing disorder back to those locations, which is a real and current threat. Do the current actions threaten Canada's sovereignty and security? The manifesto of this group calls for Canada's democratically elected government to be deposed and for the government to be turned over to a committee made up, in part, of them. We can put a check mark next to that one. There will be some who say the answer is no and that if we consider the protesters at face value, it is just some good old boys and girls and kids in big trucks challenging the government to preserve God-given and charter-enshrined rights and freedoms. However, people who believe that, like some of our Conservative colleagues, have been deceived. They have been gamed by crafty, intense, grey-faced agents of passive aggressive manipulation and sedition. One can only imagine the information our security services have on them. The gaming that they performed has been intense indeed. Canada has had a long and sometimes very colourful history of civil disobedience where people break the law and the police show patience and restraint while protesters make their point. Then, having made their point on a reasonably transparent agenda, they and the government trade ideas, the deal is done and the protesters go home. Well, those behind the blockades and occupations know this and have gamed us to a fare-thee-well. They allegedly gamed the Ottawa Police Service too, telling them they will do their thing for a few days and then leave, while planning to use the grace period to dig in. They may have also gamed Ottawa's mayor, who thought there was a deal to get some of the trucks out of the residential areas until one of the leaders, Patrick King, stepped in and said there was no deal and they were not going anywhere. Do the current actions seriously threaten Canada's sovereignty and security? Well, the evidence says yes. When we take a close, honest look at the people calling the shots in the protest, do their actions seriously threaten Canada's sovereignty and security? Yes, absolutely. Patrick King, who has demonstrated significant influence in the Ottawa occupation, has deposited a great deal of material online. I am going to quote him, and the “you” in the quote refers to the Prime Minister: “someone's gonna make you catch a bullet one day. To the rest of this government, someone's gonna...do you in.” At another point he said, “The only way that this is gonna be solved is with bullets.” The 13 people charged in Coutts, Alberta, by their history of arrests and violence, represent a very clear danger to police and to Canadian society. Do members want to know what their motto is for change in Canada? It is “gun or rope”. How many times have we seen news of mass shootings, tragic bloodshed and loss of life only to find out in the aftermath that there were signs the authorities should have picked up. Well, signs have been picked up, and the government will not want the postscript to an act of domestic terrorism to be an indictment by Canadians that we did not act. This gets us to the real point of the protest, the real agenda of the people behind it. Theirs is a world of anger, resentment and hate, of minorities, immigrants, liberal values and the democracy they represent. The core people behind the protests are precisely as the Prime Minister has described them. Many agree. Glen Pearson, writing in National Newswatch today, noted: This hatred for hatred's sake doesn't find an easy landing in Canada, as it might do south of the border. But as the convoy protest revealed, the hate movement is increasingly interested in this country, hoping to undermine its authorities and replace them with chaos. The goal of such insidious agents was never to help the truckers succeed but to make sure the governments and security forces didn't. Some of the messages put out by the protest leaders make it abundantly clear than Glen Pearson is right that the blockades and occupations have little to do with vaccine mandates and even less to do with truckers. They say Canada should eliminate vaccine mandates for truckers operating back and forth across the U.S. border. They know this is a ridiculous rationale for the protest as long as the U.S. demands anyone entering their country be fully vaccinated. We could eliminate our vaccine mandate right now for truckers, but those truckers would still be out of work and still be out of luck. Some 90% of our truckers agree. They are fully vaccinated, so this foolish premise for the protests has no traction. The protest leaders and their political familiars frame their actions as legitimate dissent of government actions. That is allowed in Canada. However, the protest leaders have tried to obscure the methods they are capable of using and are possibly threatening to use. Well, we are onto them. They know and we know that those methods are not allowed. They are illegal, and given the size and scope of the blockades and occupations, and even the amount and sources of funding to support them, Canada's security and sovereignty are most certainly under attack. Two-thirds of Canadians agree with justified, careful measures applied with the emergency powers in the act, with parliamentary and legal oversight and in co-operation with the provinces that need our support. That is what this debate is intended to examine. The majority of Canadians will be looking for justified, careful and measured opposition in this debate, offered in the interests of doing what is best for the country, because what is best for Canada, even when difficult to do, is our government's agenda. It should be the agenda of everyone debating this measure over the weekend.
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