Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. She is an amazing member of Parliament. I am so proud to share my time with her today.
Today is a sad day. It is sad that our country has gone to this level. It did not need to be this way. Canada is a trading nation. We are a nation that sells some $300 billion of goods around the world. Around the world, Canada is thought of as a friendly, polite and respectful nation. The rule of law is important in our nation. We tell other nations that the rule of law is what helps us to be who we are today.
We are talking about the barricades and what is going on in Canada, across western Canada, and the impact it is having on families right across the country. The inaction and the inability of the Liberal government to understand how serious things are is pretty disappointing. It shows how out of touch the Liberals are. The inability to react or know what to do shows us how weak the leadership of the Liberal government is.
Last week I was talking to a farmer friend of mine, Rick Lindsay, when this was happening. Rick had a couple of loads of wheat he wanted to get out. He has a cash advance just like every other farmer. He asked me what was going on. He said farmers have been fighting a hard harvest. They have a carbon tax. He wants to ship some grain, but he cannot get it shipped. He has contracts he wants to fulfill so he can get some cash flow and he has to start organizing and purchasing fertilizer for the spring, so he wants to know what is going on.
Let us look at the situation on the west coast with the Wet'suwet'en nation. The elected officials are in favour of this pipeline. The 20 bands along the route are in favour. How can three people, how can activists in Ontario, how can activists who have no skin in the game take a country down? That is what they want to do. They want to take this country down.
The member for Brandon—Souris talked about a group of farmers fighting for freedom. They were fighting for the freedom to sell the product they grow on their own. They did not want a Canadian wheat board. They protested, and that protest consisted of taking a sack of wheat across the border. They were arrested.
They were not being violent. They were not being smug to the RCMP. They were not being disrespectful. They were making a point. They were protesting. What did the Chrétien government do to those farmers?
People would be amazed to hear what that government did to those people. They were treated as if they were drug dealers. They were arrested and charged and thrown in jail. The minister at the time, who was from Malpeque, said the law is the law is the law. He said those farmers broke the law, so they had to go to jail. Minister Goodale at the time said he agreed that the law is the law is the law. He felt those farmers broke the law, so they have to go to jail.
It is easy to throw farmers in jail, because they are polite and respectful. They are not criminals and they are not anarchists. They are not trying to take down the country. Those farmers were fighting for something. They had skin in the game, something that was important to them. They were willing to cross that line to make a point. They were never going to put an RCMP officer's life at risk. They were never going to disrupt the country. They were never going to create a situation in which people would not be able to get contact lenses here in Ottawa or not get baby formula across the country or not get propane in eastern Canada. That was not their intent. They did not disrupt the whole Canadian economy. They wanted to make a point.
That is the difference between the type of protest we are seeing today versus a true protest. A true protest would be peaceful. A Gandhi-style protest would not include taking up arms. A Gandhi-style protest would not include protesters sitting on the ground and stating they are going to disrupt this country and take it to its knees. This protest going on is not a Gandhi-style protest. These people are anarchists. These people do not have skin in the game.
We need to ask ourselves what is going on and how it got to this point. When we do not enforce the rule of law, this is what happens. It is one of those things that just keeps growing and growing. If people get away with it once, with no slap on the wrist, they feel they can do it again.
We have a member from Vancouver who was arrested for protesting and received a slap on the wrist. There were no consequences. That makes people think they will do another one, since there were no consequences—