SoVote

Feb/19/22 2:04:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe in law and order, but I also believe in Canada. I was raised to believe that Canadian people sit down, negotiate, talk to each other, listen to their constituents and try to resolve issues peacefully, not with the Emergencies Act.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

Feb/19/22 2:04:55 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, the Conservatives have been spreading their rhetoric that this is a protest of unity, peace and freedom over fear, incited by foreign extremists. They did so while standing with people who bore Confederate flags and swastikas and terrorized women and indigenous people. This is not unity; this is not peace; this is not freedom. This is violence, violence that threatens the safety and democracy of Canada. The ignorance they have shown to the security threats that continue to be defended on the Hill as we speak is unacceptable. What are the Conservatives gaining from spreading this hate?

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Mrs. Anna Roberts

Feb/19/22 2:05:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the hon. member is getting this information, because it is absolutely false. The Conservatives stand for law and order. We respect our constituents, but one thing we do is we listen to try to understand. Whether we agree or disagree, we listen to them to try to work out and resolve the issue.

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Feb/19/22 2:06:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her very passionate speech. Earlier today I was asked a question by my Liberal colleague from Hull—Aylmer. He said that he was not 100% certain that the use of the act was the best course of action, but that there were more pros than cons for confirming the order. My question is simple. Should we not be absolutely certain of the best course of action before enforcing an act of this magnitude?

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Mrs. Anna Roberts

Feb/19/22 2:06:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe the only way to resolve issues is to sit down, listen, discuss and come to a peaceful and respectful resolution. This Emergencies Act is not needed. It is creating a divide between all Canadians. Canada was built on peace, not disruption.

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Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

Feb/19/22 2:07:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know my hon. colleague was a banker prior to being elected in 2021, so I want to ask her a question about the Emergencies Act regulations, which tells financial institutions to cease dealing with designated persons. In my riding on Friday, two bank branches ran out of money because Canadians, who were afraid the government was going to take their assets under this legislation, came into the banks and took out their money. Therefore, I would like you to comment, as a former branch manager and banker, on how you would deal with that?

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/19/22 2:08:11 p.m.
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As I was not in banking, I would remind the member to make sure he asks his questions through the Chair. I am sure all members understand that. The hon. member for King—Vaughan.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts

Feb/19/22 2:08:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will tell the hon. colleague that, from my experience of over three decades in banking, this type of act will create havoc. Branches will run out of money. Criminals will be there waiting for people to come out of the branches with their funds. It creates disruption. This cannot happen because it is putting the fear of God into every Canadian citizen in this country.

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)

Feb/19/22 2:08:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Etobicoke Centre. I stand with great sadness today to talk about the Emergencies Act because it is not something that any of us in this House, especially the Prime Minister, wanted to bring forward. We would not have if it were not absolutely necessary to do so. We need to look at the blockades that were going on last weekend at the Ambassador Bridge, in Coutts, Alberta, and Emerson and what was happening with trade. As chair of the international trade committee, I know these things are very important to all of us. The blockades were preventing goods, services and people from being able to cross those borders. We know it cost $400 million a day at the Ambassador Bridge, aside from all of the personal issues that my colleague from Windsor West mentioned earlier, such as people being prevented from getting to doctor appointments and nurses prevented from crossing the border to help us with the pandemic. That is a huge economic hit on all four fronts. That is aside from what we are dealing with here in Ottawa. I would ask my Conservative colleagues that, if their communities were besieged for almost four weeks, would they have said they would like to go through another process of deputizing a whole lot of emergency police officers, which would take another five to six days? They would not have been happy to do that, and we were not able to allow this to go any further. The economic impact of this has been enormous, so it was critical that we move forward to ensure we have law and order. The concern with what is going on is not just here, it is around the world. I guess the new thing for people do to try to disrupt governments is to bring in transport trucks, trailers and tractors, by some of these people on the extreme right, who then convince a whole lot of other people that this is about mandates. This has nothing to do with mandates or vaccines. This is all about trying to bring down a government and disrupt democracy. When we do not have democracy or law and order, what we are left with? What is happening today outside Parliament, in particular, is that law and order is being put into effect. People have been asked to please go home. The illegal blockade was not a regular protest, it was much more serious than that. Interim chief of police Steve Bell, three other former chiefs of police in Ottawa and the former chief of police in London all said that the Emergencies Act, unfortunate as it is, absolutely had to be brought in before there was more violence than what we had seen so far. Without that act, it would be much more difficult. I know what last weekend and previous weekends were like. I can only imagine what this weekend would have been like with hundreds more people coming here every weekend to create more mayhem and disruption. Let us talk about the children. At the foot of the steps of the gate into West Block, there is a bouncy castle and children skipping rope to try to show this as a pleasant little uprising of a protest. This was an illegal blockade that was using children as shields. I would tell anybody participating that it is not democracy when we are talking about children. Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/19/22 2:12:55 p.m.
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I am sorry to interrupt the member. She is close to me, and I want to be able to hear her full comments. I want to make sure members respect each other's right to speak in the House of Commons. There is lots of time to ask questions and make comments during that part of the debate. I want to make sure that, when a member is presenting a speech, I can hear them as well. Let us try to keep it down.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Feb/19/22 2:13:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With all due respect, you have done an excellent job keeping everyone calm and focused. You deserve a lot of congratulations for your work today.

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/19/22 2:13:33 p.m.
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While it is not a point of order, I do appreciate the comment, and I want to make sure we keep things flowing. The hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Feb/19/22 2:13:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have talked about trying to get through this pandemic and the difficulties many businesses are facing, so we cannot stand back and allow things to continue this way. Michael Kempa, a law professor and criminologist in Ottawa, was asked a few minutes ago if the Emergencies Act was really necessary. He said that it absolutely was, because without the Emergencies Measures Act being brought into play, it would have taken a minimum of five or six more days to get other police services here and deputized. We would have continued to see this kind of illegal activity going on outside Parliament Hill and the disruption to neighbourhoods for another five or six days. I ask members to think about the impacts this is having on the economy. Nate's Deli, which is located at Sparks and O'Connor, is a little delicatessen many of us go to on our lunch hour. Its workers told me that they were just hanging on at the end of the lockdown restrictions. That delicatessen has now been locked down for four more weeks. Will it be able to open and survive this? I think of Goodfood, which is company close to the riding owned by a young family. President Dan Simile phoned me last week to tell me that he could not get a truck to deliver boxes across the border. He was having to lay off all his staff. Those kinds of things are big disruptions to our economy. They are also disruptions to the people living in the Ottawa area in particular. Many employees were unable to get to their places of employment, even to work on Parliament Hill, without being called names and facing abuses. My own staff was subject to some abuse from some of the protesters out there. We have a responsibility to move forward. Businesses, such as the grocery stores in downtown, are suffering. One had to close up because protesters without masks would come into the store with no respect for anybody else. This upset everybody, so ultimately it had to close. This has gone on for far too long. Yes, I know this is not easy. I have received lots of calls from people in my constituency who do not quite fully understand this, but they are not here. They are not seeing it every day, and they do not realize the full impact of what is going on. It is imperative we do the right thing. We need to protect our country, and we need to protect its citizens. Very importantly, we also need to protect the economy. To have a banker in the U.S. refer to Canada as a banana republic is unacceptable to all of us. It is a real insult. I am proud of my country, and I am proud of what we do. We are taking the necessary steps to move forward. We try to not get into political rhetoric. If folks on the other side choose to join us in a united front to support this, it will only be in effect for a very short period of time. There will be a parliamentary committee that will reviewing it, and there will be a full investigation afterward. This came off the rails right from the beginning, and once these protesters became entrenched, it was very difficult to move them out. I ask that we stay as united a front as we possibly can and not confuse people by talking about the War Measures Act, because that frightens the very people we represent. Let us try to be more united and provide accurate information regardless of what side anyone is on.

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Hon. Mike Lake (Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC)

Feb/19/22 2:18:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend talked about this going off the rails right from the very beginning. If one talks to many of the folks who have been expressing their concern about vaccine mandates, this went off the rails for them when the Prime Minister said that many of them were misogynists and racists. There has never been a retraction of that and there has never been an apology. I am going to give my hon. friend the opportunity to maybe extend an olive branch to them and weigh in on whether she believes many of them are misogynist and racist.

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Feb/19/22 2:19:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think there are a ton of nice people outside who are protesting because this illegal protest brought out two years of frustrations. I could have been out there in the protest just as well as they could have. We are all fed up with this. We have all been through a difficult time, but we have to do what we have to do, and that is to respect each other. There are some extremists out there who are here to cause nothing but trouble, and when we look at the signs saying, “Down with our Prime Minister,” and hear the kinds of threats he has been receiving from many folks across the country, that is very unfair. I would not want any prime minister of any party to have to experience what he and his family are going through.

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Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Feb/19/22 2:20:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in her speech my colleague spoke a lot about how serious the situation was to justify the enforcement of the Emergencies Act. She described a lot of situations that are indeed very serious. That said, I will not get into certain issues, such as the fact that a business was not able to deliver biscuits. My question is the following: What would my colleague say is a necessary condition for act to be enforced, the severity of the situation or the fact that all other options have been exhausted?

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Feb/19/22 2:20:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if we had to wait another five or six days before we could start to remove the illegal protest and illegal blockage that is there, what kind of damage would that continue to do to Canada's reputation? Many of our small businesses deliver biscuits or other things. They are valuable businesses and they have anywhere from five or six to a dozen employees. They were feeling the strain. I do not want to see those businesses go out of business.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Feb/19/22 2:21:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like many people in the House, I am deeply concerned about enacting the Emergencies Act. It is why we are here. It is the debate we are participating in. I, like many others in this room, wonder how we got to this place and about the failures, at all levels of government, that got us to this place. I would like a guarantee from the government, and this member, for a fully transparent, public and independent inquiry into what went wrong over the past three weeks. Will she guarantee that will be a step the government will take as soon as possible?

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Feb/19/22 2:21:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her support and for her important question. This matters to all of us. It does not matter what party. This is an important piece of legislation that we are standing for and supporting. We all want to make sure that due process happens, which means that there will be a full investigation of what did happen and what went wrong. Clearly, we can see that right from the very beginning, these folks were allowed to get entrenched the way they did. It just built up. They could have been there for another six months. We could not allow that to happen. I can guarantee her my support and my government's support that we will follow the due process that is required under this legislation.

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Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC)

Feb/19/22 2:22:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for Humber River—Black Creek for her speech. I know she has been a big champion for many things throughout Parliament and her career, particularly the Canada-Taiwan organization, and I applaud her for that. She is now championing the issue of the Emergencies Act. The reality is, as she indicated, that this is throughout all of Canada and it is being put in place on everything. Would the member champion the seizure of vehicles and the freezing of bank accounts of foreign-funded eco-terrorists responsible for the violence and destruction, and the millions of dollars in damage, to the Coastal GasLink? I hope she would champion that cause as well with her government, with the Emergencies Act.

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