Madam Speaker, I apologize.
This is simply not true. No such investigation exists. The interim Leader of the Opposition, instead of seeking a solution to the problem, said, “I don't think we should be asking them to go home...we need to turn this into the [Prime Minister's] problem.” With this type of rhetoric, a willingness to mislead Canadians and a willingness to support an ongoing occupation of our capital to serve political goals, how can they reasonably be trusted to chair a committee reviewing the very action taken?
We invoked the Emergencies Act to supplement provincial and territorial authorities to address the blockades and occupation to keep Canadians safe. We did this at the behest of the provinces and we did this to support others across the country who needed our help. It allowed our government to mobilize essential services, allowed the RCMP to swiftly enforce local laws and provided enhanced power to stop the flow of money. These measures were targeted, temporary and proportionate. We invoked them only after exhausting other measures, and they were the result of close consultation with the provinces and territories.
To be clear, the Emergencies Act is expressly governed by the rights and freedoms set out in the charter and no one should tell us otherwise. The specific measures provided by the Emergencies Act were limited and subject to numerous checks and safeguards. One such safeguard is the requirement for a parliamentary review committee to be established, which is what we are discussing today.
We have had productive discussions with other parties in the House about how to structure the membership of this joint review committee in a manner that is reasonable, fair and appropriate. Now is the time for reckoning and to review and understand the circumstances of what brought us to this point and how it was handled. We have proposed a reasonable approach to this review and to this committee's structure. Unfortunately, after supporting the illegal blockades and occupations, the Conservative Party is now refusing to do what it should, which is to support the timely creation of a fair structure for this committee to do its work. What Canadians need now from their Parliament is an honest, efficient and thoughtful review of the invocation of the act, its implementation and its outcomes.
We have seen the spread of lies and misinformation and we do not need that when it comes to something as fundamental as this. We are talking about trust in our institutions and in our democracy. We are talking about ensuring there is public trust in our processes and indeed in our Parliament. We must not trifle with this. It is an opportunity for all parliamentarians to do what is right and allow a review to look at things honestly. Surely, if everyone in the House has acted in good faith throughout this occupation and acted in the best interests of Canadians, no one should have anything to worry about in terms of what comes out of this review. It should be easy for the opposition to accept the proposal we have made.
Under this proposal, as everybody knows, the committee would have 11 members. It would mean three Liberals, two Conservatives, one Bloc, one member of the NDP and four senators representing all groups in the Senate. The committee would be chaired by three co-chairs: a Bloc MP, an NDP MP and one senator. That is pretty balanced, in my view. The chair would not be a Liberal, whose government invoked the Emergencies Act, or a Conservative, whose party, as we heard before, led the way in supporting protesters and the protests.
The Conservatives inexplicably refuse to support this balanced proposal. They have insisted from the start that they co-chair and are now demanding that both co-chairs be Conservative. Their bias in cheering on the illegal occupation cannot, should not and must not extend to chairing the committee. Canadians are going to judge us long after we are gone from this place. If the government is prepared to cede the chair of this committee to the Bloc and the NDP without fear or favour, what is stopping the Conservatives from doing exactly the same thing?
Were they here, I would appeal to my colleagues from across the floor, those who are uncomfortable with misinformation, with harmful rhetoric and with pandering to PPC voters, to vote in favour of this motion to show Canadians that the institution of Parliament and the review of the Emergencies Act and the actions taken come above petty partisanship.