Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Surrey Centre.
I rise today with some humility. I rise to speak not on behalf of a political party, because I firmly belief this issue cannot be partisan today. I rise not as a representative of a particular community, because I do not think it is a regional issue that we are discussing today. I rise today, in all sincerity, as a member of Parliament, as a member of this chamber, the House of Commons, committed to serving the public, to serving all Canadians in a genuine effort to do what is best for our country.
At this stage, I firmly believe that the only way to resolve the present threat that is facing this country is to declare a public order emergency under the Emergencies Act.
I want to start by talking about the charter. Let me state at the outset that the right to freedom of expression is sacrosanct in this country. It is entrenched in section 2(b) of the charter for a reason: because it is the hallmark of our democracy, and indeed of any democracy. It is the ability for citizens to voice their discontent, to challenge authority and to seek change. I do not deny any of this. To the contrary, I vigorously defend it. I also do not deny that the people gathered outside this very chamber right now, who have been on the streets of Ottawa for what is now 21 days, have legitimate grievances; criticisms of my government, of my party; perhaps even of me personally, which they have every right to air.
However, in our democracy, freedom of expression, while sacrosanct, is not absolute. This charter protection under section 2(b) extends toward lawful, peaceful protest; the charter does not protect illegal, violent blockades. It is the latter, unfortunately, that this protest has devolved into.
I want to reference Ottawa. How do I substantiate this assertion I just made? I substantiate it with the evidence I gathered with my own eyes and from the accounts of other parliamentarians that have been shared with me.
Far from seeing people exercising their constitutional rights to disagree vigorously with the government, we have instead seen intimidation, threats and harassment. We have seen deliberate nuisances being created by truck horns blowing at all hours of the day and night, rendering the city effectively uninhabitable for local residents. We have seen open displays of hatred, such as swastikas and Confederate flags, and acts of direct hatred when windows are smashed on coffee shops that dare to fly the pride flag. We have seen the desecration of national monuments, including our national war memorial. We have seen deliberate efforts to block the movement of people and goods by people intentionally disabling large vehicles and trucks by activating their air brakes or actually removing the tires from their vehicles. We have seen death threats follow toward an Ottawa tow trucking company accused of being complicit with police efforts to remove such disabled vehicles.
We have seen the shuttering of businesses in the entire downtown core, impeding residents' ability to work. It is puzzling, to say the least, to see protesters who claim to eschew lockdowns themselves causing Ottawa's downtown to enter into a lockdown for a period of now three weeks. We have seen intimidation and threats toward the media, again ironic for those who would be more ardent defenders of freedom of expression than even I am, in terms of what I have articulated. We have seen the active sabotage of 9-1-1 emergency call lines and even an attempted arson.
The protest ostensibly began over vaccine mandates. It has morphed into what resembles an occupation of the city by people who have openly declared on the public record that they are seeking to overthrow the government. That constitutes a complete breakdown of public order in Ottawa. Despite efforts from the Ottawa Police Service, law and order in the nation's capital have been impossible to maintain.
The evidence that I am outlining here extends beyond the nation's capital. Members have heard references to the borders. I want to address this now. What commenced as a protest targeting this city and this Parliament has emerged as a concerted effort to block our national border crossings and impede the flow of people and goods. In Texas and Florida and in other parts of the United States and indeed in other nations, foreign entities openly and publicly have declared their sympathy with the blockades and admitted to sending money and resources to help the blockades continue. Today the Anti-Defamation League showed a result of their analysis of the GiveSendGo website; it found 1,100 people in the United States who supported the January 6 insurrection last year actually donated money under GiveSendGo to these blockades. Just let that settle in for a moment, in terms of what the motivations are for such types of people.
The blockades that have emerged around the country are deliberately targeting critical infrastructure. We know about what happened at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor and Detroit. The multi-day siege on Canada's busiest border crossing alone, and I am now wearing my hat as the parliamentary secretary for international trade, resulted in the suspension of nearly $400 million in daily trade between Canada and the United States, the cancellation of shifts at multiple auto plants in southern Ontario and an intervention by President Biden and the Governor of Michigan showing that confidence in Canada as a safe place to invest, do business and trade with is starting to erode.
Blockades have occurred in Surrey, Emerson and Coutts, Alberta. What should be startlingly alarming for every person in this chamber and every Canadian watching right now is that when members of the RCMP went to clear the Coutts border crossing, they made 13 arrests, including laying charges for conspiracy to commit murder. They found firearms, ammunition and body armour. That bore out certainly my worst fears, and I think all of our worst fears, that blockade protesters were armed and preparing for violent confrontation with law enforcement. The violence is continuing to ratchet up. We have had bomb threats at a Vancouver hospital as well as suspicious packages and language about hanging members of Parliament being sent to colleagues of mine from Nova Scotia.
I am laying this all out in such excruciating detail because there is a legal test that must be met when we are doing something that has not ever been done under this legislation or even in this country under antecedent legislation in 52 years. The test is high, as it should be, when we are considering a statute that temporarily permits the suspension of civil liberties.
What is the test? It is entrenched in section 3 of the Emergencies Act, which states:
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.
It is my fundamental belief that this high legal threshold has been met in this case. When we have a blockade laying siege to an entire city for 21 days and counting, intimidating, harassing and threatening locals and rendering a city uninhabitable, it is endangering the safety of Canadians. When those blockades limit the ability of medical first responders to respond quickly to emergencies, they are endangering the lives of those on the other end of those 911 calls. When factions armed with weapons and ammunition are blockading borders, they are directly endangering the lives of Canadians. When groups are deliberately blocking trade corridors with our single largest trading partner, grinding our border traffic to a halt, they are threatening the ability of the federal government to preserve our sovereignty and economic security. These are important.
In the last two minutes, I want to address some of the general objections we have heard, not just today but prior to this.
To those who say there is an overreach here, I say there are five checks that are important.
First, everything done by a government under the Emergencies Act must be done in accordance with the charter. That is entrenched in the preamble.
Second, all declarations are time-limited to 30 days and no more. In fact, it may be less, and hopefully it will be less in this context.
Third, the very act of declaring an emergency under the declaration must be reviewed by a committee of all members of Parliament and senators from all parties.
Fourth, the exercise of powers under the declaration must be reviewed by that committee.
Fifth, following the end of an emergency, a full inquiry must be held.
What we are doing is not a power grab and it is not the invocation of the War Measures Act; we are simply giving the RCMP the power to enforce local laws and work quickly with local law enforcement. We are not calling in the armed forces. We are not putting the RCMP or any other police force under the control of the government. Policing operational decisions remain independent, as they must in any democracy.
I am going to end with the right to protest, because people have asked about their children's rights to protest. I take this very seriously, because I myself have taken my children to protests. This law talks about the right to lawful protest. It is in entrenched in black and white. The measures we are contemplating would address or prohibit public assembly that is a threat leading to a breach of the peace; we are specifically carving out the right of lawful advocacy, protest and dissent.
I would say this to those who say the threats have been addressed: Windsor had an attempted blockade yesterday, and we know the protesters are returning to the Quebec National Assembly on February 19.
I will conclude with this sincere undertaking to the members of this chamber and all Canadians: I will do everything in my power to ensure that this act lasts for only as long as is absolutely necessary; I will do everything in my power to ensure that there is no overbreadth; I will do everything in my power to ensure that charter rights are always fundamentally protected. All members of Parliament should strive for nothing less.
