Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Nunavut for perhaps one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard in the House. I certainly hope all members of this place have an opportunity to listen to the power of her words.
Last night one of my constituency offices was vandalized. I want to thank the members of my staff who have gone to clean up the mess this morning. They work hard every day to help people in our riding, because they care and want to see a better life for the people we serve.
I also want to thank the security folks in Campbell River who work all night to keep our streets safe and who contacted me last night to let me know. I deeply respect their work and dedication.
I want to thank all of the workers in this House who have driven or walked here during these unprecedented times to make sure that this place still works on a long weekend that is meant to be focused on their families. The House of Commons team shows up every single time, regardless of who is sitting in any seat in this House, and I admire them for it.
I am now in my seventh year of working in this place. I am a person who never wanted or planned to be a politician. I came here because, more than anything, I hate injustice.
I came here because I am a white girl who was adopted into an indigenous family, who at a very young age realized that how I was treated was different from the majority of my family. It took me years to understand that what I was seeing was racism and colonial systems that are everywhere in our country still today.
I learned time and again a very important lesson. I cannot participate in minimizing the voices of marginalized people. I cannot minimize any form of action that has any form of extremism at its roots. I take this very seriously because I know our planet's history and I know our country's history. When the majority is minimized, the bodies of marginalized communities pay. If I am not careful inside this white body, the bodies of my children, grandchildren and family are at risk, and I do not take that lightly.
Here we are and I am being very clear that I have heard people say they do not feel safe. They are the workers near the Ambassador Bridge, who watched their jobs become at risk because of the blockade. They were terrified when they heard folks in the U.S. ask why they should continue to partner with Canada when these kinds of things can happen. They have fought so hard to keep these jobs in Canada and know how fragile the relationship is.
They are the working people who are seeing the costs of their everyday expenses grow while watching their income stay the same or lessen, and just want enough to get by every day. They have been put in a position of constant worry that they will not be able to afford what they need to survive and they know they are not getting the help they need.
They are the young people who are scared because they know that the ability to purchase a home or even rent one is something they cannot imagine to be able to afford.
They are the citizens of Ottawa who live right where the blockade happened for three weeks and felt like there was no end in sight.
They are the citizens I saw while walking to this place who were being yelled at for wearing masks.
They are the people with mobility challenges who had vehicles blocking their way so they could not get to where they needed to be. I asked several vehicles to move just a couple of feet so they would have the right to transport themselves safely through their community. The responses I received were a very clear and sometimes very rude “No”.
They are the people in this community who heard fireworks set off in the middle of the night as they slept. The occupation continued night after night. Can members imagine the fear of waking up hearing that noise and not knowing where it was coming from?
They are the poor people who were charged with the attempted murder of the RCMP officers.
They are the people who were blocked from returning home at the Coutts intersection for days.
They are the journalists across our country who are now terrified, who have been spat on, yelled at and called “fake news”, after years of service in their field.
They are the nurses, doctors and health care workers who for the last two years have put everything on the line for Canadians. They have been working too much overtime, have been feeling overwhelmed, have had to tell their patients to wait even in some cases for life-saving supports because the pandemic has overwhelmed our health care system. They have been threatened and told not to go out in public wearing anything that shows their profession because it is not safe.
People are afraid and I feel that as I listen to our debate on this long weekend. I believe in and have participated in peaceful protests, protests that were full of anger and frustration at the issues we wanted to change, fix or see taken seriously by government. That is not what is happening across this country, and I also do not believe it is over.
We saw an occupation that became a complete undermining of our democracy and our social structures. The leaders of this occupation had an MOU that spoke about overtaking the government. They invited opposition parties and the Governor General to have a discussion about how a new government would look.
I will not minimize this. I simply will not do it. I may not agree with many components of the processes of our institutions. I believe, in fact, that there is a lot of work to do to decolonize our systems to address key issues, like systemic racism, ablism and white privilege, and how these institutions continuously leave out workers, the poor, persons with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ2+ communities and people from BIPOC, Black, indigenous and people of colour communities. Even with that perspective, I will not minimize what it does to our communities when people do not respect the rule of law, when they flaunt their complete disregard for what a peaceful protest is and when they create a party on the street that does not respect the people who live where they are occupying.
Just yesterday when I was trying to walk to this place, I saw a business owner chasing two men out of his store with a stick. It was frightening. As I watched, I was trying to think of what I could do to help, but I also thought to myself that this is what happens when people disrespect the rule of law. When they set up bouncy castles and hot tubs in the streets and say, “Look how peaceful we are,” people become emboldened to act in a way that our social structures often prevent.
I will not minimize the fact that the lead organizers of this occupation are from groups of extremists who follow very clearly the beliefs of white supremacy. I believe there were many people out there who wanted to speak out about mandates and about their fear of the unknown and their future. I also know that the leaders were very clear about their agenda. That agenda scares me. I will not minimize it by saying there are just a few bad apples. I believe these people are very organized. I believe that they take advantage of people's fears and give people someone to blame with those fears.
This is where all of us as parliamentarians must look at history. Humanity sadly has a history of dehumanizing people from the communities I mentioned earlier. It is these people and these souls who often pay the most terrible price. I will not minimize the power of white supremacists and their ability to build fear. I will not minimize that the fear can become a weapon.
The NDP has used every tool at its disposal to get the federal government to act. We called for a debate specifically on the occupation. We moved a motion at committee to study the measures that keep money from coming from outside of our country to fund this occupation and make sure those dollars are all held to account.
We moved a motion to invite the U.S. ambassador to the foreign affairs committee to address concerns of the prominent U.S. political figures who are encouraging people to donate and support the convoy leaders. This was voted down by the Conservatives and the Liberals, with the Liberal member for Vancouver Centre saying that this is not an urgent issue, that we have too many more urgent things and she will definitely be voting against it. I simply disagree. I cannot imagine any other issue right now that is more urgent.
Here we are debating the Emergencies Act. I wish that all levels of government had worked together more efficiently, that members of all levels of government had not minimized who was coming to our nation's front door. Governing in whatever capacity a person has is not easy. I personally struggle often over the decisions I have to make in this place. This one has been very hard and it should be.
There are steps that all parliamentarians should be careful when taking. I wish I had heard a lot more thoughtful debate in this place. Sadly, there have been a lot of political shots taken, ones that further destabilize our democracy and our communities. On one side, we see the government dismissing legitimate fears and concerns from people who are afraid. On the official opposition side, people are stirring up fears and amping up dangerous rhetoric.
I will be voting yes. I will continue to take my duties seriously, with the great possibility of withdrawing my support at any moment.
