44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 17, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/17/22 12:29:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand and share the concerns that people have about the potential long-term impacts of the use of emergency measures legislation, in particular, as it relates to the expansion of the institution of policing, given the past abuses and overreach against legitimate political actions by indigenous, racial and climate-justice activists and workers. However, with the capital and country in crisis, Canadians are feeling abandoned by their local police services who have repeatedly been caught on video compromised and at times seeming to be working in collusion with the insurrectionist occupation.
The last royal commission on policing was in 1962. Will the Minister of Public Safety commit to establishing a national commission on policing that would review the duties assigned to the police and their corresponding budgets, and will the minister commit to a secretariat or some other office to report on the radicalization and use of public resources and security forces for undemocratic ends?
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- Feb/17/22 12:31:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the Minister of Emergency Preparedness sharing the care and caution with which this is being applied. The Prime Minister shared a more targeted approach, but I need to reconcile that with what I am reading in the regulations that we have been provided, which mention critical infrastructure quite broadly. I share the concerns of the member for Burnaby South, for example, with respect to how this could be applied in the future to indigenous land defenders and climate activists.
Could the minister clarify the difference between the more targeted approach we are hearing and the words we are seeing written here?
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- Feb/17/22 2:10:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to address the government's egregious overstep in invoking the Emergencies Act. I have had hundreds of constituents contact me, sincerely alarmed by the implications of the Prime Minister's draconian overstep. This is the same Prime Minister who stated that he admired China's dictatorship. Even Chinese state media stated that, while “Hong Kong cannot invoke National Security Law against violent petrol-bomb-throwing mobs”, it is shocked to see the Canadian Prime Minister “crack down on peaceful pro-freedom protesters”.
The people of the world are watching this critical moment in our nation's capital, and they are rightly alarmed to see the leader of a G7 country that has long been a beacon of freedom come down on peaceful protesters with a sledgehammer. It is absolutely shameful, and I am calling on the Prime Minister to lay aside his pride, listen to the very real concerns of the Canadian people, follow the science and drop the mandates. That is the clearest path forward to resolving these tensions and healing our divided and wounded nation.
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- Feb/17/22 7:46:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a commentary to make about the member's speech, just to set the record straight and correct the misinformation.
For the last three weeks I too have been walking downtown every weekend and every day across this line, and I have met a lot of very friendly people. Of course, some people are profane in what they say; this is a protest, after all. However, the member was talking about a wrecking ball on a vehicle. It is not a wrecking ball; it is actually a hook weight at the end of a cable, and there is a difference between the two.
I have met a lot of people with families. I stay at a hotel when I am down here, and I have met people who have brought their families here. There are music shows going on. The impression the member is trying to give to the general public and people back home in Calgary is that this is some type of riot that is going on downtown. Yes, people have blocked streets, and yes, we have said that they should go home. We have heard them and we are hearing them. We are addressing their concerns.
However, what the government is doing here is going far too far. It is asking for powers that have not been given to anybody since the 1970s. It is asking for too much, more than the House should be willing to give. Every day that I have been here, I have not seen the same things the member has seen. I am getting thousands of emails from constituents demanding that we vote against this measure.
I just wanted to correct the member that it is a weight at the end of a hook and not a wrecking ball. I just want to make that correction. Also, the vast majority of the people I have met are friendly. I have seen people play street hockey on the street, but the impression the member is giving is that this is a chaotic scene. It is unpleasant, I understand, for people who live here. It has been unpleasant for three weeks for me as well.
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- Feb/17/22 10:42:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to echo what the member just said about the member for Mount Royal. The tone of the member's comments was, as ever, extremely helpful.
We need to lower the temperature in this place and be honest with Canadians about the difficulties we face and why it is important to distinguish between what the War Measures Act was and what the Emergencies Act is. The Mulroney government repealed the War Measures Act and put in place a far more thoughtful piece of legislation that does not in any way suspend civil liberties. However, I still have concerns about it.
I ask the hon member for Mount Royal if he believes that in the course of this debate we might even see some changes from the government in terms of the regulations, to be very specific.
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- Feb/17/22 10:56:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I speak to people here in my riding of Victoria, they want action to be taken. The use of the Emergencies Act, while some have concerns about it, makes it clear we are at an emergency state. It is an acknowledgement of the failure of leadership at all levels of government, but really of the federal government, which allowed things to escalate unchecked.
One thing I have heard asked time and again is why it took weeks to deal with this issue, when there are clear links to white supremacy. There were clear concerns from the beginning. When it comes to how the RCMP and the government deal with land defenders, indigenous rights activists and environmental activists, there is a very different approach.
I am curious whether the member is committed to changing this in the future. What is his government going to do to address these inequities?
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- Feb/17/22 10:57:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is right for people to have some concerns. This act is being applied for the first time, so there are some legitimate concerns. The issue of whether we should have brought this act in five days ago or two days later can be debated, but the time came when it was critical to our economic infrastructure to end this occupation by mostly foreign-funded groups. I think the government took these steps at the right time and in coordination with all other levels of government.
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- Feb/17/22 11:58:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to ask the member a question about civil liberties. There are many Canadians who will have donated to the convoy before recent developments, certainly without any criminal intent. They maybe donated as an expression of their concerns about mandates, before any of the blockades had started.
Based on the justice minister's comments to Evan Solomon, it appears that the government is contemplating freezing the bank accounts of people who have donated as a response to, allegedly, what their views are with respect to Donald Trump or something else.
Is the member concerned that this is a serious civil liberties issue? People without criminal intent, who may have donated in good faith without knowing some of the things that have gone on since, could lose—
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