Debates of Feb. 21st, 2022

Emergencies Act

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I just want to remind the member opposite that he is to speak through the Chair. Throughout his speech he kept saying “you” while looking at the government bench.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member has a point. Comments do need to come through the Chair.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague talked about the protest and the trucker convoy. That deteriorated. It was not necessarily just a trucker convoy anymore, with all of the flags being displayed in Ottawa. We definitely do not want the Emergencies Act to be used. We are wondering how far this act can go if invoked.

Given the enormity of what has happened in Ottawa and elsewhere, what does my colleague think? Is it excessive or not?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, we have had protests in Canada for over 150 years. Every protest that I have seen was able to be stopped with the current laws on the books. We had massive protests in major cities across Canada, protests in which buildings were being burnt, cars were being set on fire and people were getting killed. For three weeks, we had none of that on the streets of Ottawa. It was the lack of leadership from the Prime Minister that facilitated this protest getting to the place that it got to.

I am against blockades. I am against any illegal activity. Canadians still have the right to protest. They still have the right to have their message heard. These measures are not needed, because in the history of our country we have been able to put down all protests that we have had in the past up until now. Why is that? I believe it is because this act is being used for political reasons, not for law and order, which I am a big believer in.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I believe we have a responsibility to reflect on how we have become so divided. Instead of peace, order and good government, we are witnessing chaos and disorder and poor government. Today our hon. member acknowledged the question of leadership.

My question is on behalf of the thousands of emails and phone calls I have received from people in my riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

Does the hon. member agree that we need to stop this abuse of power and focus on our strengths and opportunities as a country?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, we need healing. We need a leader who will listen, a leader who will not divide us for his own benefit. We need to come together like never before because of what we have been through in the last two years. We talk about the traumatic scenes that some people witnessed in Ottawa. They could not go to work, could not see loved ones and could not get around. Well, that is what our country has been like for the last two years.

We need a leader who will bring freedom back to Canada and remember “God keep our land glorious and free”.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place to take part in debate, although I must say I am saddened that it is under the current circumstances. Last week, I put down my words very carefully on what my contribution to this debate would be, but last week is not this week. Today is not yesterday. I would ask, why are we still here? Why has the Prime Minister not revoked this massive overreach by his Liberal government? The streets are now clear and the trucks are gone, and as we have yet to vote on all this, all done without parliamentary approval, let us recap for a moment how we came to be here.

Trucking was not broken in Canada. For the past two years, truckers have successfully delivered the goods, so to speak. Where was the problem here? Why did the Prime Minister intentionally pick this fight? Why did he decide to fix a trucking problem that was not broken? Truckers did their job faithfully for two years without a mandate. The vast majority of truckers are fully vaccinated. A small number of truckers who drive truck alone in their cab were never at any time shown to be a public health risk. The Liberal government has produced zero evidence to suggest there is a risk, and now here we are.

We all know that the Prime Minister has poured fuel on the fire. I will not quote the nasty names he has used because I believe them to be unparliamentary. He has told the truckers that they hold “unacceptable views”, that they do not deserve to be heard, that they must be condemned. The Prime Minister succeeded. He drove people to come from all parts of Canada to Ottawa to protest largely against him and the actions of his government, and to send a message to him that they wanted to be heard. I believe all of Ottawa and indeed Canada heard their message. Some agree with that message. Others do not. That is what occurs in a democracy. We know when the Prime Minister sees a protest that he agrees with, he joins it. Now we know that when he sees a protest he does not agree with, he will use the most powerful law he has to silence it, because that is exactly what happened when he invoked the Emergencies Act.

I come from British Columbia. It is a beautiful province, but one where we have seen far more than our fair share of protests. As anyone from British Columbia will tell us, when the RCMP decides to move in and clear protests, they do so with surgical-like efficiency. Close to 900 protesters have been cleared from the Fairy Creek protests and arrested. In November, the RCMP moved in on and cleared a protest blockade against the Pacific LNG gas line. A remote region in rural British Columbia with many indigenous protesters was cleared by the RCMP in a single day. These are not observations; these are facts. Make no mistake. All of these protests were cleared under existing Canadian laws.

Let me ask this place a question. Can any of us name any protest that has occurred in Canada since 2015 that has not ended under existing Canadian laws? I do not believe any of us can because none exist. I was first elected to this place in 2011, and, indeed, during the majority years of that government, I lost track of how many protests occurred. Every single one was resolved under existing Canadian laws. Why does that matter? It is because the standard used to invoke the Emergencies Act is absolutely crystal clear. The Emergencies Act cannot be invoked unless the emergency “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada”, full stop. However, the Prime Minister tried nothing else to de-escalate the situation before invoking the Emergencies Act.

That leaves a very awkward question on the table: Why is it that every other protest in modern-day Canadian history was cleared under existing laws and authority, but this protest required special laws, the Emergencies Act?

We all know, for whatever reason, that the Ottawa police were either unwilling or unable to do what other police forces in Canada have done. Also, let us not say it is due to the trucks. What Windsor police did in clearing the Ambassador Bridge only the week prior was done under existing laws, and it also involved trucks. Whatever the answer is to that question, make no mistake that an Ottawa policing problem is not a national crisis. We all know this.

I remind the House that all of the measures within the Emergencies Act must be met before the act can be invoked. It is not some, nor one. All must be met. Some members may not like that the law sets the standard, and the government is free to amend the law and members can support that or not. However, as it stands, the law has not been amended. All standards must be met before it is invoked by a government.

Every protest in the past 20 years has been resolved under existing Canadian laws. It not 99% of them, but 100% of them. The Prime Minister knows this, as does his Minister of Public Safety. The Liberals therefore had to change tactics, using heated rhetoric and making serious claims, but without providing any data to back up those claims. This approach from the Prime Minister seems to be taken from the Adam Sutler character in the movie V for Vendetta: scare the people and use fear. That is what the Prime Minister is trying to do to justify what cannot be legally justified.

This past weekend we watched exactly what happened. There was no armed insurrection. There were no massive stockpiles of illegal weapons, explosives or incendiary devices found here in Ottawa. This protest was largely cleared in a single weekend much like every other protest is cleared in Canada: without using the Emergencies Act.

Why is this a different situation and why are we still here? Why is the Emergencies Act not being revoked? I am reminded that recently the member for Louis-Hébert gave a public statement. He knows the dangerous games the Prime Minister plays. This member had the courage to call out the Prime Minister's divisive tactics and politics of division.

Here is the problem with the politics of division. Politically, I suppose some would say that if we poll on an issue, pick a winning side and then demonize the losing side, we come away with more votes. The challenge with this approach is that when we create sides, we divide people and create winners and losers. That approach divides. It creates hate and animosity.

Indeed, we have heard the Prime Minister use nasty words against those who, with his policies, have been turned into losers. We heard the Prime Minister make a most ungraceful and undignified attack against a female MP from my party last week. Why would he do that? Is it really too much of an expectation that a leader of a G7 country cannot answer a question from a Jewish member of Parliament without suggesting she stands with people who wave swastikas? However, he refused to apologize. He refused three times. Even after a day of reflection, he still refused to apologize, but that is what this man has become since the election: bitter, angry, divisive and vindictive. I say vindictive because we are still here. The protests have been cleared. The only motive now to continue with the act would be to punish, to punish under the terms of the Emergencies Act, where there is no due process to protect the innocent from mistakes that may occur. Is this the Canada we want now, one that punishes people without fairness and without due process?

Let us also recognize that other countries are now openly mocking and belittling the actions of the Prime Minister. How will future Canadian governments condemn those nations for cracking down on their citizens when we are no better here? Canada used to be an example, a country known for its kindness to others, its compassion and its willingness to stand with others to fight against tyranny and oppression. Today, under the Prime Minister, we have become a nation increasingly divided whose citizens are fighting among themselves. There was a time in the past when the Prime Minister would apologize for his use of unparliamentary words in this place and would speak of sunny ways, but not anymore. We have gone from sunny ways to dark days.

What has become of the Prime Minister since the election? The comments directed by the Prime Minister to the member for Thornhill were abhorrent. We cannot allow division to continue. If members vote for this act knowing full well that not all the conditions have been met, and knowing the protests have been cleared and the trucks are gone, they are basically authorizing an overuse and abuse and setting a very dangerous precedent in this process. They will in fact lower the bar that needs to be set high. We must do our job as parliamentarians, which means we must follow the law. If we do not, we are failing Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I will quote something from the Winnipeg Free Press that was printed just the other day. “Premier Heather Stefanson pleaded in a private letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—”

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member cannot use a member's name.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry. I definitely know better.

The article states:

Premier Heather Stefanson pleaded in a private letter to [the] Prime Minister...to intervene at the Emerson border blockade just days before she publicly opposed his decision to enact the federal Emergencies Act against protesters.

In a Feb. 11 letter obtained by the Free Press, Stefanson asked [the Prime Minister] to take “immediate and effective” action as she pleaded for “national leadership that only you and the federal government can provide.”

The Province of Alberta asked for Ottawa to help and to bring in some tow trucks. The Premier of Ontario supports this initiative. The interim Ottawa police chief supports it. It seems to me that it is the extreme Conservative right that is playing politics, and there is ample evidence of hypocrisy.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, in my speech I said very clearly that there are laws within Canada that allow for the coordination of police and for establishing order without invoking the Emergencies Act. It has never been used before. The member is just wrong. No one has said that any of the massive protests outside of this place could not have been dealt with using existing laws.

Now I will quote the Prime Minister:

...in order for you to trust your government, you need a government that will trust you. When we make a mistake—as all governments do—it is important that we acknowledge that mistake and learn from it. We know that you do not expect us to be perfect—but you expect us to work tirelessly, and to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.

What happened to that Prime Minister?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am sick of hearing the Liberals tell us that this is an ordinary law that will simply provide a few extra tools if needed and that the provinces begged them to help and to show leadership. We, too, begged them to show some leadership for more than 20 days.

Showing leadership does not involve the use of an extreme piece of legislation like the Emergencies Act. It involves bringing people together, talking to them, trying to meet with them, coordinating law enforcement and taking action before 20 days have passed. What does my colleague think about that?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, leadership is everything. Stoking divisions and name-calling, as the Prime Minister has done, and I will not use his unparliamentary terms, have escalated the crisis much more. He could have chosen to work with the solicitor general of Ontario to find ways to support utilizing existing measures, not the Emergencies Act.

It is the equivalent of awakening the kraken, a legislative leviathan that should only be broken when in the most dire situations. I do not believe the government has met the test, and in fact, I believe it should rescind that invocation immediately. We are a nation of laws, but no one person should have such power. Parliamentarians need to do our part to uphold the rule of law. If the government has not met the high threshold test, we should vote against it.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, history has taught us that giving any government or politician too much power or too much money leads to a dictatorship style of governance. How much does this motion and this experience remind us of history?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I understand that when people are pushed to the limit, they want to push back. We are supposed to channel the concerns of Canadians to this place, and as I said, if the government felt that the threshold was too high in the Emergencies Act, it could have moved to amend it, but it did not.

We here in this chamber now have a responsibility to look at whether the Prime Minister and his cabinet have met the threshold to utilize legislation that gives them enormous powers that have never been used. We should limit those powers and the government should revoke its use of the act. In the face of not doing that, we should vote against this motion to restore—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Lethbridge.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, violence was their mode of operation; hate is what drove them; human life was called into question or altogether threatened; millions of dollars of damage was done to property, yet there was silence from the Prime Minister, and the media only spoke whispers several days later.

Meanwhile, 4,500 kilometres away on the other side of the country, a diverse group of Canadians gathered from all across. Some wore turbans and some wore toques. Some were in their seventies and some were not even able to walk yet. They gathered for one reason: to advocate for freedom. They gathered to advocate for what it is to be Canadian: true north, strong and free. These individuals were truckers, farmers, doctors, nurses, stay-at-home moms, students, teachers or social workers. I talked with them. I heard their story. I listened, because that is what a politician does who deeply cares about this country.

The Prime Minister took a bit of a different approach. He stigmatized. He antagonized. He turned a deaf ear. Some of these individuals drove big rigs; some of them drove Civics and some of them drove F-150s. Some of them were vaccinated three times and some of them were not vaccinated at all. However, they all were Canadians fighting for an ideal. Were they disruptive at times? Yes, indeed. That is the point of a peaceful assembly protesting something that people disagree with. It is allowed in this country, a democratic country. Were there a few bad actors? Sure there were, but they were quickly condemned and removed.

When we juxtapose this with the attack on the Coastal GasLink site at Houston, B.C., with damage to property and threat to human life, it becomes very clear that the Prime Minister's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to Ottawa is a massive overreach and purely punitive in nature. We know this, especially given the fact that we watched the border crossings at Windsor, Coutts, Surrey and Emerson be cleared without the Emergencies Act needing to be invoked. We know it even more today, when we see that the downtown core of Ottawa has been cleared out.

However, the Prime Minister insists that he will still move forward with invoking the Emergencies Act. Why? Is it necessary? I argue it is not. Again, if the Windsor border, the Surrey border, the Coutts border and the Emerson border were able to be cleared up without this over-exaggeration of power, then Ottawa could have been too.

There is something more that needs to be discussed here and that is what that threshold is for invoking the act. The Emergencies Act has never been used since it was first created in 1988. Its predecessor, the War Measures Act, was used three times: once in World War I, once in World War II and once for the FLQ crisis, where again, human life was taken and the country was really thrown into chaos. The bar is high, so for the Prime Minister to invoke the Emergencies Act when an assembly of people comes to protest with views that are different from his, one has to wonder why; why the overreach?

The one power the Prime Minister gets from this is the ability to freeze bank accounts. He has the opportunity to seize control of the monetary flow for those individuals who hold views different from his own. This is an abuse of power. We are talking about individuals who may have donated $10 or maybe a few hundred dollars to this cause. Simply because they had views that were different from the Prime Minister's, their bank accounts are frozen and they are unable to make their car payments, their house payments or put food on the table. Some of them are unable to take care of their children. Others are unable just to meet the basic needs of life.

It is a massive breach on these individuals, and it is simply for no other reason than the fact that these folks failed to fall in line. They questioned the government and they hold views that are different from the Prime Minister's. Using the tactic of a schoolyard bully, he has decided to implement the Emergencies Act so that he can control, manipulate, dictate, be punitive and punish.

It should be highlighted that the federal government is utilizing national security tools that were designed to combat terrorism against Canadians who support protests. We must let that sink in for just a moment. The Prime Minister of our country is using laws that are normally used against terrorists, and he is using them against citizens of his own country who hold views that happen to be different from his own. That is extremely alarming. It is vindictive. One commentator said, “It's almost as if the cruelty is the point.”

It did not need to come to this. The reason we are here is that the Prime Minister decided to put a punitive measure in place. On January 15, he required that all truck drivers going across the U.S. border and wanting to return to Canada needed to be double-vaccinated. We are talking about individuals who were earlier declared as heroes, individuals who stayed in the cabs of their truck, aside from maybe refuelling or grabbing a quick snack at a gas station. These individuals have served our country in an incredibly heroic way, and then the Prime Minister made a decision to go after them and put restrictions in place. It was nonsense.

This started a movement of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who started to question the government, question the Prime Minister, question his motives, and fair enough, as they did not add up. Dr. Tam herself was saying that we needed to reassess the mandates that were put in place at that time. She herself was saying that we needed to learn to live with COVID, that we needed to return to normal.

The Prime Minister has turned a deaf ear, a blind eye and has refused to listen. I am not sure what his agenda is, but it certainly is not to serve this country well. It certainly is not in the best interests of Canadians at heart.

Before even knowing who was coming to Ottawa, he refused to listen. His tactics were mean-spirited and divisive in nature. He stigmatized. He antagonized. He traumatized. He went after these individuals telling them they were a fringe minority with unacceptable views. He damaged the unity of this country, pitting one region or one people against another. He crushed the human spirit.

One of my constituents wrote to me. She is an immigrant who moved to Canada about a decade ago. She now has three children and is married. She runs a small business and is a beautiful community participant.

She wrote:

It was mere months ago I filled out the paperwork to become a Canadian citizen. I desire to align myself with a nation I’ve come to love, to stand beside people who make it great, to cast a vote in the bucket of democracy. And yet, I am sickened by the increasingly pervasive narrative being spouted; one where rightness trumps charity...and good faith, and where ‘being Canadian’ is defined not by our humanity but by our political affiliations.

And here I am, awaiting news of my application status, while the Canada I thought I knew crumbles around me, not from Covid-but from the divisive and destructive language being used to define citizenship and belonging.

Further on she wrote:

But what am I saying yes to? A nation that speaks before listening, one that defines ‘being a good Canadian’ in a way that marginalizes everyone who doesn’t fit said description.

She concluded by writing:

I humbly ask that we take steps towards the Canada I first moved to-one where value isn’t gained its given-and given generously by the people who call it home. Because diversity of thought and conscience are greater markers of democracy than the alternative.

This is the deep, hard cry of so many Canadians across this country. We want a unified nation. We want a prime minister who listens to the fellow citizens of this great country. We want to move forward with strength. The Prime Minister has claimed that he wants the same, but in order to do that, it starts with him. He must trust and respect the Canadian people for the Canadian people to do the same. Unfortunately, he has chosen gamesmanship over statesmanship, and it is killing our country.

I urge this House to vote no to the punitive measures that are being discussed here today.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I think we can all agree that many of the protesters who came to Ottawa and other parts of the country felt they were speaking out against the suffering that many Canadians have felt over the past two years and that the restrictions for them were difficult and challenging. This pandemic has been difficult and challenging for all Canadians.

I want to ask the member why colleagues across the way choose to be wilfully blind to the white supremacy sentiments that were clear and present in the leadership of this convoy, be it Pat King's vitriol, Tamara Lich's affiliation with the Maverick Party, the Diagolon badges that were found on the members who were arrested at Coutts, or the 1,100 donors discovered through GoFundMe who had also donated to the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021, in the United States. I would be happy to share the ADL report with her if she would like.

I feel strongly that all of us should be standing up against white supremacists and anti-democratic sentiments, whether they are forthcoming and up front in these blockades or part of the driving forces that led people to gather together.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, interestingly enough, the member knows very well that my party, the members on our side of the aisle, have condemned those acts of hate or the flying of swastikas, but she chooses to participate in the same tactics as the Prime Minister, which is to divide, attack and be punitive. It is absolutely disgusting.

What we are talking about right now is invoking the Emergencies Act in the country of Canada, an act the Prime Minister will use in order to go after individuals who disagree with his viewpoints.

Why does the member not ask the Prime Minister to apologize to the member on our side, who was accused of marching with a swastika, when she herself is a young Jewish woman? That is disgusting. I would urge the member to call out the Prime Minister on that bad behaviour.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the comments made by the member for Lethbridge, alongside others, I appreciated the call for unity, particularly in a discussion in this House that has been lacking that in recent days. What is important in that is also a shared understanding of facts and context.

I also note that in the member's comments there was no mention of the MOU to overthrow the government or the ties to white nationalism as part of the ideologies of the protesters who were in Ottawa. I wonder if the member would want to share more about the wider context of those who were in Ottawa over recent weeks.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member opposite would like to talk about the vast majority of protesters who held themselves in peaceful regard, such as elderly individuals and those in their twenties, the children who bounced in bouncy castles and waved Canadian flags, the people who cooked sausages and pancakes and held little rallies, and those who advocated for their freedom, which is their democratic right to do.

I wonder if that same member, after talking about all of those peaceful protesting acts that were taken here on Parliament Hill by the vast majority of participants, would then also like to talk about the fact that the Prime Minister is invoking the Emergencies Act—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Montcalm.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, not only do the orders not meet the criteria set out in section 3 of the Emergencies Act, but, to hear the arguments from our Liberal colleagues, we really get the impression that they are turning the ultimate tool at the government's disposal into a public interest law.

Does my colleague not find that this trivializes the act?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, as discussed in my speech, I believe that the Prime Minister is overstepping and that this is a massive overreach and abuse of power. Something that should be used against terrorists he is using against the citizens who have protested him in the streets of Ottawa because they hold viewpoints that are different from his. It is absolutely—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Edmonton Manning.