Mr. Speaker, the circumstances of the Emergencies Act have certainly been one of the more significant debates in which I have participated in this place. I welcomed the Emergencies Act, and one of the reasons I felt comfortable voting yes for it was that the parliamentary oversight process was rigorous, in the sense that there will be a committee and there will also be an inquiry.
I would put forward this notion to the hon. government House leader. One of the worst things that has happened to Canadian democracy has been the emergence of people believing in “alternative facts”, as the Trump White House used to say. If we think that one set of people in this place have already made up their minds so firmly that they cannot be reliable in investigating, I think that is a wrong supposition. Obviously Conservatives are part of the committee, but I would make the point that the hon. member for Kitchener Centre and I are also an opposition party in this place. We respect each other a lot, but we did not vote the same way, and I respect my colleagues across the way who did not vote the same way.
If a committee of all people in this place, including the Green Party, was able to come to a report and give it to Canadians, could we then stop having different sets of facts, really explore what happened, and get past that idea? I get emails from constituents who say that nobody assaulted the workers or the homeless at Shepherds of Good Hope, yet I know it happened. How do we get to an agreed statement of facts if we decide that one set of people in this place are not really open-minded?