Madam Speaker, it is certainly a privilege today to speak on behalf of the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake.
After 14 years of life in politics, this speech kept me up at night. It caused me to consider so many different angles of what is truly happening. It took me back to some travelling I did as a young adult. I travelled extensively in Italy and France, I lived in South Korea for a time, and I stayed in Rome for one month.
While in Rome, I studied ancient history. We learned about the Emperor Nero. We learned about how, when Rome was burning in the year 64, he let the city go up in a blaze. Historians often pondered whether he played the fiddle while it was burning because he wanted to create a new palace amid the ashes. He blamed it on a small fringe minority of people called Christians. I learned that in ancient history.
In the afternoon on that study trip, we studied modern Italy. I learned about how the Italians were so thankful to Canadians for being liberated during World War II. I attended a ceremony in Thierville, Normandy in 2011, and spoke on behalf of the Province of New Brunswick. I witnessed the tears in real time of the people who lived in Juno, of the first houses liberated, and the respect they have for Canadians to this very day.
When I lived in South Korea, I was walking down the street late one night. I believe there was a 12-hour difference, and I was calling home. In the street, a drunken old man cursed me out because he did not like the sound of my voice. I was speaking English. What I realized later is that he thought I was American.
Some friends of mine who are Korean walked up to the man. They told him to be kind to me and that I was Canadian. I did not understand the language they were speaking. The old fellow, who could barely walk as he was intoxicated, walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek. He called me a oegug-in, which is a Canadian to a South Korean, and thanked me in his language for what our ancestors and veterans did in the Korean conflict. It is not lost on me, the respect our country has around the world and how we achieved it.
The question here today is an important one. We all believe in freedom. We all know how we achieved it. We have to ascertain what it means to each and every one of us. If people are listening in Miramichi—Grand Lake and watching today, I want to tell them that there is a difference between an emergency and an invocation of the Emergencies Act.
The act used to be called the War Measures Act. It was brought in during World War I and World War II. It was also brought in by then prime minister Trudeau in 1970, in what then leader of the NDP, Tommy Douglas, called basically a gargantuan oversight by an inept government.
This is the fourth time in our history. Now it is under the new name of the Emergencies Act. I need members to realize this act was not brought in for 9/11 under Prime Minister Chrétien. It was not brought in when Allan Legere, a serial killer, terrorized and horrified Miramichiers on a murdering rampage nobody in my community will ever forget. It was not brought in for the natural shale gas demonstrations on Route 11, which saw millions of dollars of seismic equipment destroyed and eight police cruisers bombed with molotov cocktails, while the people who managed the protest stood there with machine guns. When the RCMP was called to make it end, it ended abruptly. It did not end with what we used to call the War Measures Act. It did not end with what we now call the Emergencies Act.
The fact is that I am vaccinated, as are my wife and kids. Many people I know are vaccinated, and many people I know are not vaccinated. I believe it is a personal choice to be vaccinated, and I do not believe the leader of the nation should vilify those who have made the personal choice not to be. I do not believe in that. I could never believe in that.
For those following at home, today's speech is not about vaccinations. It is not even about mandates anymore. It is about whether we bring the Emergencies Act in to move protesters: dissenters of the Canadian public. I wonder about my own security. I walked through that every night for 14 days, in the dark and alone in temperatures of 20° to 30° below zero, without anyone escorting me. If this was a national crisis, who was protecting me?
The only way to find a cab was through those unlawful people, as mainstream media would have us believe. They asked me if I wanted a cheeseburger. One of them asked me if I wanted to dance. I cannot make this stuff up. One does not have to agree with the protest. One does not have to agree with why they are doing it, but one needs to see that when bridges and rail routes and trade routes were blocked, the blockages were removed almost instantly.
How did that happen? How did all of these other issues that happened in our jurisdiction get solved? They got solved by decency. They got solved by prime ministers who did not run and hide inside their own houses while their country was in turmoil because of a crisis started by the Prime Minister himself.
If my constituents are wondering about this, I did not run home to hide. I was one of the first members of Parliament to walk up to a transport and talk to some truck drivers. They were from Alberta. It was Saturday, January 29, before the convoy even hit Parliament Hill. Most of them were vaccinated. They were protesting for freedom. They believed their freedoms were being taken away.
How did sitting on the back of a flatbed with a few truck drivers make me a racist, misogynist member of Parliament? How did the member for Thornhill, whose family experienced the Holocaust, get called a racist and a sympathizer?
The Government of Canada has been labelling Canadians for many, many months. The Prime Minister has traumatized Canadians by using divisive language, using constant wedge issues, resulting in the outright stigmatization of the Canadian identity, and the Prime Minister will not apologize for the labelling that he has done. He has hurled insults at everybody who disagrees with him.
The Prime Minister has used the following language and expressions to further traumatize Canadian citizens: These people. Unacceptable people. People who hold unacceptable views. Racists. Bigots. Terrorists. Misogynists, and people that take up space. People that take up space? I would like to think that all of us are allowed to take up a little bit of space in this country that we call Canada. The Prime Minister must wear the blame.
I want to leave colleagues with something. We must value and uphold freedom of speech and the diversity of opinions. We all have a relative in our past who fought for the freedom we share today. They sacrificed for the right to have different opinions from government and to live free in that perspective. Dissenting voices are part of our democracy.
I leave colleagues with the following. I am against the Emergencies Act because it is an overreach. Freezing bank accounts is something they do in communist states. This is a verse from the Bible, Philippians 2, verse 3-4:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
This is the Canadian way. To the world, Canada has always been a nation of peace and justice. It is time we witnessed that again while we are here at home.