Thank you, Mr. Chair
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
I want to make it very clear what we are voting on, colleagues.
We are voting on a motion that would call the Minister of Public Safety and various police forces in this country to committee. The spirit of this motion is that they come as soon as possible. We would like that to be next week.
I'm not clear. It seems, from subamendments moved by the Liberal members, that they don't find this situation urgent, that we could wait. In fact, I think a Liberal member said that this is not helpful. I would say what's not helpful is the Minister of Public Safety and police forces avoiding public scrutiny and accountability of how we got to such a point in our country that emergency powers had to be invoked.
Just to be clear to members of this committee, these emergency powers are now freezing the bank accounts of Canadians who donated to the protest. This is live; this is happening right now, and it is incumbent upon the members of this public safety committee of Canada to hear from the Minister of Public Safety and the police forces in this country as to how we got to this extreme point in our country and in our history. That is the importance of this motion. That needs to be made extremely clear to those who are watching.
For that reason, obviously, Conservatives will be supporting this motion and look forward to having the opportunity to scrutinize and hold accountable the Minister of Public Safety for how we got to this point.
The last thing I will say is that he has failed to date to make a coherent argument for invoking these emergency powers, so I look forward to hearing him defend his position. Hopefully for him, he can do a better job than he's done thus far.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.