Denis Trudel

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the situation has changed in the past 48 hours. The truckers have left and so have most of the protesters.

The NDP member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie told the media that, if the truckers left, the NDP might rethink its decision.

The truckers have left Ottawa and there is no more national emergency. If the Prime Minister held a free vote on this important issue, does my colleague think that there would be dissent among the Liberals and that some might vote against the decision to invoke the act?

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I very much enjoyed my colleague's speech.

I understand that there is some ambiguity and that this situation is not easy. We have a choice to make right now. This is emergency legislation that has been applied three times in the country's entire history. We are not voting on just any bill. The motion we are debating is important. We have to weigh the pros and the cons.

However, since the act was invoked a week ago, the situation on the ground has changed a lot. I heard one of his colleagues, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie say on Thursday on television in Quebec that if the situation changed in such a way that there would no longer be any protesters in Ottawa, the NDP might reconsider its decision to support the government on this legislation.

Does my colleague think that the situation has changed enough for the NDP to change its position?

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I see that my colleague is against resorting to the Emergencies Act.

We in the Bloc Québécois are obviously opposed to it, as we have an allergic reaction every time the federal government interferes in Quebec's affairs. Unfortunately, we have seen members of the Conservative Party, including an aspiring leader, film themselves with truckers and encourage this movement.

My question is rather simple: How many Conservative parties are there in the House?

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, if we set aside the racist symbols, which have been discussed at length, I see quite a bit of distress among the protesters over these past few weeks. Canada is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, with a 90% vaccination rate. People have followed the health rules. Despite this, Canada has been one of the slowest countries to lift restrictions. The main reason is that the health care system has been underfunded for the past 30 years.

Does my colleague agree that if federal governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, had properly funded the health care system for the past 30 years, the country might have been able to come out of lockdown a few months ago, and we might have avoided the mess we see out there right now?

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, of course we should. However, there are provisions in the Criminal Code that can help us do it. We do not need an act like the one we are discussing tonight.

We are aware of the situation. In the United States, Donald Trump sends funding across the globe. His influence extends to many countries, and it is considerable. We absolutely must fight back against that.

However, we already have the tools to do that. We do not need the Emergencies Act to fight this. We have done it before, perhaps we have to fight a little harder now, and we will do so in the future as well.

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I am going to go in a different direction because I think it is important. There is one thing we have heard very little about in relation to this crisis.

We have heard a lot about extremist groups that infiltrated the protests. This is true and has been documented. These extremist groups exist, and we must combat them. However, there are other ways to do so. We did not need the Emergencies Act.

We have heard a lot about children being used as human shields. The media has really sensationalized this.

There are people outside who simply wanted to express their frustrations over what they have been living with for the past two years. I share that frustration. Everyone is fed up and tired. The health restrictions have been hard on people.

We, as members of Parliament, are relatively privileged. We probably have homes that are big enough to live in. Many of the people who are outside right now live with eight people in a one-bedroom apartment, and it is not easy going through this pandemic with all of these restrictions.

If, instead of tarring everyone with the same brush—this is Canadians we are talking about after all—the Prime Minister had listened to people all along, we might have been able to resolve this crisis in another way.

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague, whom I am very fond of, is incorrect. All it would take is a court order. Just order the companies to go tow the trucks, and it is done. There is no need for a sledgehammer or a big club like the emergency legislation before us today.

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I apologize.

The Prime Minister said, “Invoking the Emergencies Act is not something we do lightly.” Obviously. He added, “This is not the first, second or third option.” What are the three options that were supposedly considered? We do not know.

During a national crisis, the important thing is to show leadership. When a crisis occurs, a leader acknowledges that it is something difficult, that it is not easy for society, but that they think they should do this or that and that this is the way to go. That is what leadership is. Leadership is making decisions and telling us which way we will go.

As for the decision before us, seven Canadian provinces are against invoking this act. Is this what leadership looks like?

Thinking about that this week reminded me of the film 12 Angry Men. Has anyone seen that movie? It was an international hit adapted from a play by Reginald Rose. 12 Angry Men is a courtroom drama about a man on trial for murder. There are 12 jurors. The film begins as the jurors are meeting. Everyone thinks the defendant is guilty. The evidence is overwhelming. Everyone is anxious to go home, since it has been a long trial. Eleven people say he should be convicted, but one juror raises a doubt. He says no and questions the truth. He says the truth lies in another direction. Over the course of two hours, he slowly convinces everyone of his point of view, of what the truth is. He thinks the defendant is innocent. Now that is a leader.

Seven provinces oppose this legislation. The Prime Minister could have stood up and said that he thinks it is important and that it should be done for such and such a reason. That never happened. At no time did we see the Prime Minister show any leadership. That is what is missing.

I do not have time to talk about the October crisis, but I think members have understood what I am trying to say. This is a useless, totally disproportionate law that is not supported by a large part of the population. I have received thousands of emails from people who oppose it, thousands of emails from people who want us to vote against this legislation—

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Shefford.

I must confess something: I am exhausted. I am completely exhausted. I am intellectually, physically and mentally exhausted.

It is 6:45 p.m. on a Saturday night. I should be having supper with my wife and children at home, but I am here, in Parliament, discussing legislation regarding a national emergency, when there is no national emergency. It is over. There are no more people in the streets in front of Parliament. The trucks are gone, the people are gone. The crisis is over.

I have no problem with spending hours and nights talking about housing, seniors, health, climate change or any manner of important topics. I would spend my weekends here. I would camp here, with my sleeping bag. I would sleep in Parliament for all those worthwhile issues that are so important to people.

I am searching for the national crisis. Where is it?

We are still looking. We are looking for the national crisis. We keep looking for it, but we cannot find it. The outrageous truth is that there is no crisis.

I would like to commend the police outside. For 24 hours, they have been doing truly incredible work. I am not sure if members have seen them, but step by step, they have been slowly advancing. They had a strategy. That is the crux of the Bloc Québécois' argument. What tools do they have, now that the act has been in effect for the past few days? What more do they have now?

If they were able to do that now, then the government needs to explain to us how the police managed to carry out this strategy that they were unable to implement before.

I was there in 2001 at the Summit of the Americas. The police did roughly the same thing as they did today. They used pepper spray a bit, not too much. They advanced slowly. They managed to get the protesters under control. It went very well. There was no special legislation.

Commending the police is one thing, but I would also like to commend the interpreters, who will have to work for three or four days because of this totally pointless debate. They are doing an outstanding job. They will be spending the weekend here, and it is very important to salute them.

I would also like to commend the journalists who are outside in the middle of the crowd with their microphones. They are being insulted and shoved around. It is not easy for them. They have done a terrific job.

To begin my speech, even though I have been speaking for five minutes already, I would like to quote British writer Ernest Benn, who said something rather interesting that applies to the crisis we are in right now. He said: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies.” I suspect that Ernest Benn did not like politicians very much.

If we apply that to the current crisis, if we say that politics is the art of looking for trouble, we might say that the government started it by allowing the truckers to come here in the first place.

Take Quebec City. They knew the truckers were coming, so they took necessary steps, such as setting up barricades around the National Assembly and telling the truckers where they could park. The mayor of Quebec City even told them he wanted to hear what they had to say and they had the right to be there because their actions were legitimate in a democracy. They were told they had the right to speak, but they were asked to do so without paralyzing the assembly and keeping people from sleeping.

Did Quebec have an emergency measures act at the time? The answer is no. Quebec handled the situation very well.

Again, it is the art of looking for trouble and finding it. How did the Prime Minister manage to find trouble? By letting them set up shop. If Ottawa had done like Quebec City from the start, it would never have come to this.

I also said it is the art of diagnosing trouble wrongly. The Prime Minister's strategy for the last three weeks has been to stay at the cottage and hope things will sort themselves out and the truckers will eventually leave. Well, they did not leave.

Lastly, politics is the art of applying unsuitable remedies, which in this case is the nuclear option of the Emergencies Act. I believe that Mr. Benn was right about that, because national emergency measures were not needed at the Ambassador Bridge. They were not needed in Coutts. They were not needed in Sarnia. They were not needed in Fort Erie, Vancouver, or Emerson, to name them all.

If I park my car in the middle of the road in Longueuil and leave the engine running for an hour or two, eventually a police officer is going to come along and tell me I am violating a bylaw. If I tell the officer that I feel like staying there anyway, another officer will surely show up to issue a fine three or four hours later. If I still say that I am going to stay there, they will tow my car two days later. There are laws for that. National emergency measures are not needed to move some trucks. That is what we saw here.

I listened carefully to Prime Minister Trudeau when he gave his speech to present this legislation—

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the act we are discussing cannot be invoked as a preventive measure. It is right there. We already know that.

This week, the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie told the media in Quebec that if protesters were to leave and the blockades were removed by Monday, the NDP might reconsider its decision to support the government. Well, it is over. The protesters have left. They are no longer in front of Parliament.

Does my colleague think that the NDP might decide not to support the government on this?