Declaration of Emergency Committee on April 26th, 2022

[Peter Harder]

Two minutes, maybe...?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Well, you can draw your own conclusion.

[Peter Harder]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Senator.

I now give the floor to Senator Campbell for five minutes.

[Larry W. Campbell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming today.

There are now two government bodies looking into the Emergencies Act. There is this body, and there's an inquiry that has been announced. How does this committee affect the recently announced Emergencies Act inquiry? How do they come together or not come together?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Thank you for the question, Senator. It's a good one.

Both of these institutions are envisaged in the act itself, both the parliamentary committee and the independent inquiry. It's not a government inquiry. It is an inquiry under the Inquiries Act, and it is completely independent.

The commission's mandate, and I'll read it, looks into “the circumstances that led to the declaration being issued”, etc., to the extent relevant circumstances and measures were taken, the evolution goals, the whole context, including the role of domestic and foreign funding and crowdsourcing, etc. It's a very wide mandate that the independent inquiry has.

My understanding is that the parliamentary review committee is meant to review what we did as a government with respect to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. There will necessarily be some overlap, but I believe, at least the way I read the mandates in the act, that the independent inquiry is probably wider and probably has, under the Inquiries Act, additional powers as well.

[Larry W. Campbell]

Do you see them as complementary or oppositional?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

They're very much complementary. I take that in the spirit of the act that Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Beatty passed. I think they both have a relevant role. It's why I'm here, frankly, enthusiastically. I don't necessarily agree with all of the questions that are asked or their framing, but I'm here because we have a duty to report. When we deliberated, we knew that we had a duty to report, and we took that seriously in our deliberations to invoke the act.

[Larry W. Campbell]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Senator.

We will now go to the second round of questions.

Mr. Motz, you have the floor for four minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here.

You just finished talking about the duty you have. I would be remiss not to mention that we all have a duty, including you, sir, to be fully transparent and accountable to the Canadian public. That's one of the reasons we're having this review as well as the inquiry.

I think it's important that Canadians can trust that, when we ask for information, that information can be made available. I know it's easy to hide behind cabinet confidence, but that doesn't give the Canadian public confidence. It really doesn't. They have to have reason to trust this government, and they have to have reason to trust this committee and that we would have full access to the information the government relied upon to make those decisions, and it's fair that we do.

I would ask that you undertake to provide the analysis and the information you were made aware of and that you relied upon to be part of making the invocation for this particular Emergencies Act, sir.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Motz. I understand the sentiment behind the question, and I certainly share the goal of transparency.

I think Canadians will understand that cabinet confidence is a critical part of our cabinet governance system. The ability for members around the cabinet table to express their opinions freely, particularly when they disagree, particularly when they have to leave that room and all give a common answer, which they may not have agreed with privately, that's a critical part of our system. The waiving of cabinet confidence is extremely rare. The same is true for solicitor-client privilege.

We have given a detailed map in the documents we have tabled. We have tabled our consultation report. We have tabled the reasons for which we invoked the act, and we feel we've met the act. We've effectively given the conclusions—

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Fair enough.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

—of the discussions.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate the position you've taken. I think we have to also recognize the supremacy of Parliament, and that is something I'm sure will come forward in the future.

Based on your testimony tonight, sir, I think it appears as if, on a comment you made I believe to Senator Boniface, you went straight to the Emergencies Act, contrary to section 3 of the Emergencies Act, which requires that the situation cannot be properly handled, effectively handled, under any other law in Canada. I would suggest that there are many sections in the Criminal Code, too numerous to mention in my limited time, and certainly provincial statutes and municipal bylaws to even have been employed, and they were not fully or properly utilized in this situation. That's what may have prompted you to do that.

I want to get to a question Mr. Green asked about the charter. Many Canadians believe that the order in council in this particular situation raised serious concerns with respect to charter rights. Section 2 guarantees freedom of association and of assembly. Section 7 guarantees the right to liberty, freedom and security of the person. Section 8 guarantees protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Again it was mentioned before that judges have ruled previously that the limitation of fundamental freedoms must be demonstrably justified, reasonably proportionate and prescribed by law.

Did you conduct a full charter review, sir, and compliance review in all aspects of this particular act? If so, whom did you consult with and are you able to share those findings with the committee?

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

You have only five seconds to give an answer.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

First of all, Mr. Motz, I disagree with your premise that we went straight to the Emergencies Act. We did not. We did not invoke it before we felt it was absolutely necessary.

With respect to—

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Minister. The time is unfortunately over. I gave you an additional 15 seconds or so.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

I didn't have time to answer the question on the charter.

Perhaps Mr. Green will take up your question.

[The Joint Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Naqvi, go ahead for four minutes.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Attorney General, it's good to see you.

Let me go to the question about the charter, but first and foremost, can you highlight for us the difference between the Emergencies Act and its predecessor the War Measures Act?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

They are two entirely different animals. The War Measures Act allowed for the complete suspension of rights. The Emergencies Act does not do that. Rights continue to subsist. The charter continues to apply. We have the duty to be here in front of you to explain what we've done. We have the duty to have a public inquiry. We have a duty to table certain documents. None of that was present under the War Measures Act. The War Measures Act was much more authoritarian. I have said this publicly tonight and I'll say it again that I thought the changes brought by Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Beatty were very balanced, and we have applied those.

With respect to the charter, no rights are unlimited. There's a balancing provision within the charter, section 1 of the charter. We were targeting illegal activity. We were targeting unlawful protests. We weren't targeting lawful protests. We weren't targeting freedom of speech. Freedom of speech that people had was never restricted. Only blocking bridges, city of Ottawa, threatening in other places—that's the kind of activity we were targeting very specifically.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That targeting takes place on the basis of the facts you have in front of you, which is in this case the illegal occupation, unpeaceful assembly, here in Ottawa and the blockades of border crossings.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

That's correct.

Anybody who thinks the assembly here in Ottawa was peaceful didn't really see it up close.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I want to very quickly check with you.

There was a line of questioning to you from Senator Carignan around the power to seize frozen bank accounts. That power comes straight from the Emergencies Act under subsection 19(1), where it says you can have regulations prohibiting “the use of specified property”.