Mr. Speaker, in a previous life as a teacher, when I presented a topic, I always gave my students some background to help them understand.
Today, I am going to provide a bit of history about the current situation, and I am obviously going to put the spotlight on the Prime Minister, because we believe that he is the one who is responsible for how things currently stand.
I am a former member of the Quebec National Assembly, where I sat from 2012 to 2018. I faced two premiers, Ms. Marois from 2012 to 2014, and Mr. Couillard from 2014 to 2018. They showed me what a premier is like, in the National Assembly and elsewhere. Both premiers loved the thrust and parry of parliamentary debate, showed up ready for question period and had fun engaging with and trying to persuade their opponents.
During the 2019 federal campaign, when I saw the Prime Minister on the hustings, I honestly thought that he was energetic, that he was determined, and that he was in top form. I expected him to be like that in the House. He was not.
When we began sitting here, something struck me. It is not something that often comes to mind, but here we have the chance to work with people who are seen on television, people who are recognizable in public. We are often asked what we think of this or that person. I tell them the truth, because I am a Bloc member. When the Liberals come up, for example, I am quick to point out that so-and-so is very nice, and I say nice things about people in the House in general.
Somebody asked me what I thought of the Prime Minister. I said he seemed nice, I did not talk to him much, and he really did not seem to like his job. That really struck me. He would show up in the House at question period and give people the impression they were bothering him. He did not seem keen on being there. I do not know how else to describe it. He is the Prime Minister of a G7 country, after all. If it were me, I would be turning cartwheels all over the place, but I got the sense he would rather be somewhere else. I figured he was just going through something, or maybe he ate something that disagreed with him.
Then along came a crisis and, as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough men and women of this world get going. Our PM certainly had a tough go of it during his 2019-21 term, and things have not eased up.
I am going to speak very quickly about two crises. First, there was the rail crisis. When the Wet'suwet'en protested, there were rail blockades across Canada. The Prime Minister was on a trip, and he was told that he should return because things were not going well in Quebec and Canada. He told people to leave him alone because he was on a trip.
The crisis seems to have three episodes, somewhat like the Indiana Jones trilogy. In the first episode, he asked that he not be bothered because he was on a trip. When he came back 10 days later, he did not seem all that interested in intervening, and he said that it was up to the provinces to resolve the crisis—when it was a national problem that fell under federal jurisdiction.
It is ironic, because he always seems to have fun tinkering with provincial jurisdictions, sticking his nose in, demanding all kinds of things, and lecturing and preaching to everyone. However, he does not seem interested in his own matters. It is a bit odd, and it seems as if he always wanted to be the premier of a province, such as British Columbia.
In the second episode, we told him that the Bloc was focusing on finding solutions, and we proposed some for him to consider. However, he spent the next 10 days saying that it was up to others to solve the problem.
In the third episode, he listened to the Bloc, and, in the last days, he did what we asked of him and the situation was resolved. However, he did not seem all that interested.
The coronavirus arrived with a vengeance. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, as you were there. It started with China, then Iran and Italy; travellers from those countries just waltzed into Canada as they pleased.
We were calling on the Prime Minister to do something, to close down the borders, to require tests and quarantines, but he did nothing. I guess we could call it compulsive inaction. It was as though he were asleep and had to be nudged to do something.
Ultimately, and even as I say it I cannot believe it, Valérie Plante went to the Montreal-Trudeau airport to say that enough was enough and they needed to stop letting people in and start testing people. Think about it. The mayor of Montreal stepped in for the Prime Minister because she could see that this was wrong. Again, we have to wonder if he was even interested.
Here we are with a third crisis, and this is a big one. I looked outside a few minutes ago, and I have to say that going out to play on Wellington Street right now does not sound very appealing.
Again, there are three steps, a trilogy, if you will. Step one is to add fuel to the fire. This all started a while ago, not just in the past day or so. I want to read a quote about what was happening during the last election campaign, and I hope my colleagues will be able to guess who said it:
I can't help but notice with regret that both the tone and the policies of my government changed drastically on the eve [of] and during the last election campaign....a decision was made to wedge, to divide and to stigmatize.
He went on to say:
I fear that this politicization of the pandemic risks undermining the public's trust in our public health institutions. This is not a risk we ought to be taking lightly.
Who said that?
Was it the Conservatives? No. Was it the Bloc? No. Was it the NDP? Of course not. Let me tell you. It was the Liberal member for Louis-Hébert. I imagine he is not the only one among the Liberal members who are asking themselves “Should I do it?” Even they are wondering.
On September 16, on a program in Quebec called La semaine des 4 Julie, the Prime Minister added fuel to the fire when he said:
[People who] don't believe in science...are very often misogynistic and racist....And then we have to make a choice, as a leader, as a country: Do we tolerate these people?
When he starts conflating and stigmatizing, that is a problem. It only adds fuel to the fire. Then he goes on to say that vaccination is being made mandatory for truckers.
We know that 90% of truckers are vaccinated, but convoys are heading out from all across Canada. That comes as no surprise. The trucks did not appear on Wellington Street out of nowhere. They arrived from somewhere, they arrived from British Columbia. We know that Canada is a big country. A guy who leaves British Columbia in his truck will be at it for quite a while. He will also rack up Petro Points in no time.
The truckers then arrive in Ottawa, but that is not exactly surprising, because they said they were coming. This is another quote by the Prime Minister, adding a little more fuel to the fire on January 29:
Canadians are not represented by this very troubling, small but very vocal minority of Canadians who are lashing out at science, at government, at society, at mandates and public health avice.
It goes on. Now we have to pay attention. The Prime Minister got COVID‑19. I agree, we have to isolate when we get COVID‑19. I understand that, and I hope he was not too sick. It does not seem like he was.
People in isolation can sometimes make appearances over Zoom or make calls, but no, not him. On January 31, during his first public appearance since the beginning of the siege and the occupation of Ottawa, he said the following, adding a little more fuel to the fire:
We will not end this pandemic by complaining. We will end it by getting vaccinated and listening to the best public health advice.
That is what he told protesters. I do not think that worked. Now we get to step two: looking for solutions. This could also be known as the Prime Minister's inaction fest.
Little by little, the stakeholders, including the Ottawa police chief and the mayor of Ottawa, tried to find a solution.
People saw what was happening in front of Parliament and thought that maybe it was not such a bad idea. They started protesting and blocking roads in other parts of the country. Some even tried in Quebec City. They stayed two days and that was the end of it. The situation in front of the House of Commons was left to deteriorate, and it set a bad example.
The Bloc Québécois is always coming up with suggestions. We usually end up having to press the government, but in the beginning we always make suggestions. The Bloc Québécois has done so from the beginning. We made six suggestions, including talking to trucker representatives, even those who are vaccinated and who are against this movement, and trying to reach out to the people protesting, but the Prime Minister did nothing.
On February 6, the City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency because it wanted the government's help. It was as though it was signalling to the federal government that things were not going well.
My father used to always say, once a Liberal, always a Liberal. He never met the member for Louis-Hébert. Even Ernest Lapointe, Mackenzie King's lieutenant used to say that he was not a Quebecker, he was not a Canadian, he was a Liberal. Even former Liberal Allan Rock criticized the current Liberal government's lack of leadership. Things are not going well.
On February 7 we were anxiously awaiting the Prime Minister's return to the House. We were just like kids waiting for Santa to arrive. We thought that the Prime Minister of Canada would have been advised to come up with a solution and that he would propose something. Plus, since he was scheduled to speak for 10 minutes, he had the time to give us some good news.
What he proposed was that the protesters should go get vaccinated. That is it. That is step two: inaction, a lack of leadership.
The good news is that the Ambassador Bridge was cleared, in response to pressure from the White House. In Manitoba, southern Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia things were eventually resolved. Quebec also had some protests, and the mayor of Quebec City and the Government of Quebec made sure that nothing got out of hand. The only blockade remaining is the one in front of the House of Commons, where we await the end of this upheaval. We support the right to protest, but we do not support an occupation. That is unacceptable.
I call step three the “atomic bomb.” We have reached the stage where the Liberals know that they have lost badly. It is like a midget player who gets shut out by a pee-wee. He knows that he really blew it. He walks away, his cap by his side, and goes home without talking to anyone. His girlfriend is in the stands, but he pretends that she is not there.
This is probably what the government thought, that it had looked like a fool for 10 days, and that it would unleash the atomic bomb and look like heroes. That is not how things work at all.
Six out of nine provinces, Quebec, the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Quebec National Assembly have said that they want nothing to do with this. Even Québec Solidaire, the party that is very fond of the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, said that they want nothing to do with it. Everyone has said it, except the NDP.
Despite this, the government has invoked the Emergencies Act. We are still in a situation where we see that the government already had tools. The Prime Minister told us that he would not unleash this atomic bomb until he had used tools one, two and three. However, he has not used tool one, two or three.
He has gone from acting like Pontius Pilate, doing nothing and washing his hands of the whole business, to dropping an atomic bomb. It is as though there is no in-between. However, there are indeed things in between. We saw it at the Ambassador Bridge. We have seen it in other provinces.
We all have a childhood hero. Mine was Batman. For some people, it was Zorro or some other superhero with incredible powers. I am pretty sure the Prime Minister's childhood hero was Pontius Pilate. He had this magical ability to wash his hands. The Prime Minister wanted to be just like him. In fact, his hands got all chapped from washing them so often. That is the kind of Prime Minister we have. He is like Pontius Pilate with OCD. That is what we have, unfortunately.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about the NDP members, our great moral arbiters. Here is what Svend Robinson said about their position on Twitter: “The NDP Caucus in 1970 under Tommy Douglas took a courageous and principled stand against the War Measures Act. Today's NDP under [its current leader] betrays that legacy and supports Liberals on the Emergencies Act. Shame. A very dangerous precedent is being set.”
This statement illustrates the once-quiet strength of the NDP, a leftist party that defended workers and people who needed help, not the government.
I would like to comment on what people have said about using this measure. A lot of people have said that it is pointless, that things work themselves out. When things work themselves out, it is because people already had the tools to deal with the problems, so why use this measure?
Some people said that governments are relaxing restrictions, some of them quite rapidly, so the frustration will just go away on its own. That is what The Economist says, not some amateur stand-up comedian. The Economist says this is dangerous because these measures can fan the flames of frustration.
I said earlier that, when the going gets tough, the tough men and women of this world get going. Out of the Great Depression, the worst crisis the world has ever known, emerged a hero, John Maynard Keynes, a brilliant economist and true humanist, a hero who changed the face of humanity.
John F. Kennedy become a hero because of the October missile crisis. During the Second World War, de Gaulle became a hero in France, while Churchill was Great Britain's hero. Of course there was Mandela, in South Africa, who fought for racial justice. There was also Gandhi. They have all earned their place in the history books. These people all experienced hardship, had to be strong and decided to take a stand. They have been an inspiration to the world and their nation.
We can see how the Prime Minister behaves in the various crises we are going through. These are major, serious crises. We are talking about the worst pandemic since 1919 and trucks in front of the House of Commons. It is terrible. I can say one thing. The history books will remember the Prime Minister not as a hero, but as someone who caved when faced with adversity.
