44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 19, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/19/22 4:05:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.
When it comes to using special legislation like the Emergencies Act, I think we need to be 100% sure that it is the right decision, unlike what my colleague from Hull—Aylmer believes. Earlier today, he told us that he was not 100% sure that this is the right decision, but he wanted to make it anyway.
What does the act itself say? It says that all the other regular legislative tools have to be used before the Emergencies Act can be invoked.
Does my hon. colleague believe that is the case? Does he believe that we have already used all the legislative tools at our disposal? If so, can he name those tools?
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- Feb/19/22 4:06:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, nothing in life is 100% certain. I could not live if I were waiting for everything to be 100% certain. However, I believe the burden of proof has been met. We have listened to police forces. We are giving them the tools. We are working with them to ensure our rights and freedoms are protected, but also that the authorities have the tools that they need to act.
We will engage. We will have a public inquiry after this event. We have a parliamentary committee that will oversee it. Everything will be transparent. Everything will be acted upon. This is a courageous act. The legislation is there. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are using it, and frankly, I am proud of them.
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- Feb/19/22 4:07:11 p.m.
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Qujannamiik, Uqaqtittiji. I want to thank the member for Don Valley West. I also want to thank the parliamentary staff, who have been doing an extraordinary job.
I have described the leaders of the so-called “freedom convoy” as extremists. I am being asked by my constituents in Nunavut what extremists I am talking about. Could the member describe those who have led the illegal blockades and tell us exactly what danger they pose to the rest of Canada?
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- Feb/19/22 4:07:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Nunavut for her leadership on this issue. I have been profoundly moved by her questions, both about inclusion and about rights, and now this one.
Arrests have been made. A significant number of arrests have been made yesterday and today. These folks are now before the courts, so I am not going to comment on them directly. The court processes will take place, and we will understand what happens later.
It is my instinct, however, and having followed the news on this and having followed intelligence over the last number of years about who is moving and where our biggest threats to Canada are, I believe those threats are from extremist far-right groups. I think that right now is a time when it has come to a head. We will have a clearer and better picture once our courts have acted.
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- Feb/19/22 4:08:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the supplementary estimates (C), 2021-22.
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- Feb/19/22 4:10:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, regarding the invocation of the Emergencies Act, I must ask how someone so irresponsible can be entrusted with such great responsibility.
Our country is more divided than ever before. Over the past two years, we have seen the government divide Canadians for political gain over and over again by pitting one region against the other, pitting east against west, pitting Canadians against each other, eroding trust in our institutions and flouting the rule of law.
The primary responsibility of the Prime Minister is to maintain peace, order and good government. What grade should the Prime Minister get? He gets an F in my book. We do not have peace. We do not have order, and I think all Canadians know the answer to the third question. That is right. It is an F.
The Prime Minister has decided to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time since its inception 34 years ago. This legislation gives the government unprecedented power and control over the lives of Canadians, and it should only be used in the most exceptional of circumstances. It should not be used where existing laws are sufficient.
The threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act has simply not been met. It is not even close. This is a clear case of government overreach. So far, the Prime Minister and his ministers cannot even articulate a coherent reason.
The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation is such that it:
(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
(b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada
and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
The Emergencies Act is there to address certain types of extreme threats to Canada only when all other existing options will just not work The act is not there to allow the Prime Minister to arbitrarily, and without reason, curtail the rights of all citizens.
The Prime Minister says that the issues that have arisen over the past three weeks cannot be dealt with under existing legislation. Experts disagree, saying that existing Criminal Code provisions are sufficient, and extraordinary powers are an overreach.
Here is an example. The justice minister is justifying the Emergencies Act as needed to compel tow truck drivers to remove illegally parked vehicles, but there is a problem with that. Paragraph 129(b) of the Criminal Code already gives the police this power. It applies to anyone who:
omits, without reasonable excuse, to assist a public officer or peace officer in the execution of his duty in arresting a person or in preserving the peace,
The Criminal Code also already contains other sections that address unlawful assembly, harassment, intimidation and mischief.
Our country has experienced many crises in the last 30 years that were resolved without the need for Emergencies Act overrides. It was not invoked during the 2008 financial crisis. It was not invoked during the Oka crisis in 1990. It was not invoked in the aftermath of the Ottawa shootings that tragically ended the life of Corporal Nathan Cirillo in 2014. It was not invoked during 9/11. It was not during invoked in 2020, when rail crossings were being blocked across the country for weeks on end, disrupting supply chains, the delivery of goods and livelihoods.
It has not been invoked to deal with the opioid crisis. Most recently, it was not used during the greatest crisis that this country has faced since the Second World War, which is the COVID pandemic. In fact, it was not even used last week to clear the Ambassador Bridge, the Emerson border crossing or, for that matter, any other crossing. The crossings were clearly cleared peacefully, without violence and under existing laws.
Why invoke the Emergencies Act? Why suspend the rights of all Canadians? Sadly, we do not know why. The Prime Minister will not tell us his reason for this historic and unfettered power grab.
It is clear the the Prime Minister has lost of control of this situation and is desperate to save his political skin. Yes, the sunny ways of 2015 have given way to the dark, cloudy haze of 2022. He has lost control, and we should not be surprised in the slightest.
Here is why. When a government reduces sentences for serious offences, as this government has, when a prime minister tries to cut his friends at SNC-Lavalin a special deal to avoid criminal prosecution, when a government abandons the fundamental adherence to the rule of law, when certain politicians call to defund the police and the Prime Minister does not even immediately and strongly repudiate that terrible idea, what happens? What happens is lawlessness, and that is what has happened here. That is right: lawlessness.
Parliament has been surrounded by trucks that have blockaded the streets of Ottawa, cut off the free flow of traffic, made downtown residents' lives miserable, subjected them to honking noises 24-7, shut down businesses and cost people their livelihoods, all because of the weak policies of the Prime Minister.
As we have seen in Coutts, Windsor, Surrey and even in my home province of Manitoba, law enforcement has been able to peacefully clear border protests through negotiations without resorting to any Emergencies Act provisions. In fact, Manitoba and many other provinces are telling the Prime Minister that this step simply is not necessary and may even inflame the situation.
However, the government is insisting on triggering this draconian legislation that dramatically expands the ability of the state to interfere in the private lives of Canadians, a law that includes requiring banks to freeze an individual's bank account without due process.
The fact of the matter is that the governments in the different provinces already have the powers they need to deal with blockades and street protests. This was confirmed last week when the Minister of Emergency Preparedness actually said that police already had all the tools and resources they needed. Why then, a few days later, invoke the Emergencies Act?
This is a prime minister who thought it was a good idea to take an all-expenses-paid trip to the Aga Khan's island, a prime minister who embarrassed Canada by dancing through India with a known terrorist, a prime minister who paid $10 million to Omar Khadr and who gave his friends at WE Charity a $500-million contract in exchange for $500,000 in speaking fees for his family.
This is a prime minister who has been cited, not once but twice, by the Ethics Commissioner for ethics violations; who tried to pressure the first indigenous Attorney General in our history to cut a special deal for his friends at SNC-Lavalin, to go easy on them because of criminal charges they faced; who pretends to be a feminist while removing strong women of colour from his caucus for simply disagreeing with him; who flew to Tofino for a vacation on the very first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, after spending years pretending to care about reconciliation; who personally mocked indigenous protesters for simply wanting clean drinking water; and who spent years dressing up in blackface, so many times he cannot recall how many times he did it.
Now, just last week, in response to a reasonable question, he shamefully said to the hon. member for Thornhill, who is Jewish, that Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas and people who wave Confederate flags. What an insult to the member, to the Jewish community, to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, and to the brave Canadians who served in World War II and helped defeat the Nazis.
To make matters worse, he has refused to apologize. Such comments and actions are far, far beneath the office of the Prime Minister.
Conservatives are the party of law and order. We believe any illegal blockades must end quickly and peacefully. However, the actions of the Prime Minister, of invoking the Emergencies Act, could have the exact opposite effect.
The great American poet Maya Angelou wrote, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Canadians should heed this advice.
I ask again, how can someone so irresponsible be entrusted with such great responsibility as the invocation of the Emergencies Act? The answer is simple: They cannot.
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- Feb/19/22 4:20:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will note that the member from Winnipeg described his party as the party of law and order and, earlier in his speech, described how lawlessness was occurring in downtown Ottawa.
He is right. Lawlessness has occurred over the last three weeks. The Rideau Centre mall, for example, has been closed for approximately three weeks. It is a shame, because, had we all worked together, we could have avoided that.
The hon. member's interim leader advocated, in internal discussions, refusing to ask the demonstrators to go home. I quote from an email she sent: “I don't think we should be asking them to go home. I understand the mood may shift soon. So we need to turn this into the PM's problem.”
Can the member comment on that?
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- Feb/19/22 4:21:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the important things about debate is that we need to stay on point. The real point of debate today is whether or not the threshold has been met for the invocation of the Emergencies Act. That threshold is that these matters “cannot be...dealt with under any other law of Canada.” That threshold simply has not been met. In fact, international affairs professor Leah West at Carleton University said that she does not think the act applies. She said, “I have serious doubts that this definition is met.” When the leader of the NDP speaks about this, it sounds like he would rather go to the dentist than vote for this legislation.
I really think we need to stay on point, and I do not believe the threshold has been met.
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- Feb/19/22 4:22:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal member who just spoke criticized the opposition by saying that if everyone had worked together, we would not find ourselves in this position today. I am astonished.
I would like my colleague to tell us how many proposals and suggestions have been made in the past three weeks by the opposition parties, including the Bloc Québécois, so we would not find ourselves in this position today.
Does he think it appropriate for the government to criticize the opposition for a lack of governance?
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- Feb/19/22 4:22:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister said as justification for triggering this draconian legislation that it is not “the first, second or third” thing he would do, but when asked what the first, second and third things were that he actually did, he is unable to answer, as are his ministers. It is a very valid question. I do not know how we got from A to Z without reading the rest of the alphabet in between.
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- Feb/19/22 4:23:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, two kilometres from me is the Ambassador Bridge in my riding. Things are not normal. Trucks are lined up and going slower than before. There is now a section of the city where the barriers on Huron Church Road are stopping citizens from getting to businesses, some of which are still closed; children cannot get to doctor appointments, and there are a series of other problems.
We have asked the Province of Ontario and the federal government to financially compensate the city. We just had another convoy turned back the other day. What intelligence can the member provide that will secure the border of 14 kilometres between the bridge and Highway 401? How does the Conservative Party know that there is no imminent threat, when there was one just a couple of days ago?
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- Feb/19/22 4:24:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can only reiterate that the point we are debating today is really a binary one: Has the threshold been met or has it not? We cannot just invoke draconian legislation like the Emergencies Act without that test being met. It is clear that the government has not been able to make the case that the threshold to invoke that legislation has been met. The reality is that existing laws were used to clear the Ambassador Bridge and other checkpoints across the country.
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- Feb/19/22 4:24:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today sombrely in the House of Commons to raise my voice against the government's invocation of the Emergencies Act. The first issue to address is the rule of law that we live under in this democracy. Outside, police are corralling the remainder of the protesters who have set up a blockade on Ottawa's streets.
Last week, blockades at Canada's borders were disassembled by police forces in five provinces. These all have serious implications for Canada regarding our economy and the jobs upon which Canadians depend; our dependability as a trading partner; our supply chain, and we have heard much about how that supply chain has been strained; our grocery shelves, as over 70% of the produce Canadians consume during the winter arrives from southern supply; and, of course, inflation, as shipments have been delayed, rerouted or cancelled.
In so many ways, Canadians will be paying the price for these illegal blockades. These short-term interruptions have long-term consequences. I need to illustrate clearly that every blockade at our international borders was addressed within Canada's existing laws. No extraordinary powers were required. Our police, in each province, rose to the challenge and dealt with the illegal blockades.
The notion that extraordinary powers were required to deal with the situation is a ruse, and the Attorney General of Canada's justification that these powers were required to compel tow truck drivers to assist them has been clearly debunked by references to Canada's Criminal Code, where those powers already reside.
There is no doubt that we are living in extraordinary times and this is testing all our democratic institutions. Canada is quickly becoming viewed in the eyes of the world as no longer a nation of laws. We rank much worse on Transparency International's corruption index. We have moved from the seventh most important economy in the world to the 10th. Our international security partners are largely ignoring us and making decisions without our input. We are on the wrong path.
How did we get here? Our Prime Minister invoked the Emergencies Act, for the fourth time in our nation's history. Two world wars and the FLQ crisis are the only other instances. Close examination shows that this invocation is a gross overreach and is unnecessary.
I have spoken of the blockades. Individuals will face charges for actions that occurred during these illegal blockades. The beginning of the convoy formed to bring a message of hope to Canadians and gained so much support as those trucks crossed our country to arrive in Ottawa to protest against the government's sudden vaccine mandate imposed on transborder truckers. This was unnecessary and unwarranted, and has no scientific basis: a gross overstep against a group of hard-working Canadians who had kept this country supplied for two years of a pandemic. How the Prime Minister relegated these Canadian heroes to zeros overnight is a turnaround of a most divisive nature.
There is no data linking our trucking industry to the spread of the coronavirus. There is only a divisive government looking to exploit differences among Canadians. These truckers were standing up for their rights, and yes, those rights are covered in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and should not be trampled upon because the government says that the situation warrants it. They took to their trucks, drove to Ottawa and protested to uphold their rights. That is also their right.
Along the way, they gathered support from so many Canadians who are tired of the government's overreach that has occurred during the pandemic. Canadians are tired of expensive government programs that show no sense and are only designed to frustrate Canadians at great cost. I am referring to the requirement for multiple tests and potential quarantines when Canadians return home from elsewhere. Government is making life more complex and expensive, with no tangible outcome to its protocols.
At the same time, Canadians are seeing the other side of the outcomes, the ones the government is not measuring, and one cannot manage what one does not measure: suicides, drug overdoses, mental health breakdowns, business failures, children falling behind in their educational and social development, our senior citizens spending their final years alone, lonely and inactive. It is little wonder these protesters gathered such a following across Canada in their challenge to a clear government overreach.
Rather than having anyone in government meet with these protesters, the Prime Minister, the divider-in-chief, ignored them and, to fuel the flame, described them as undesirables. Working Canadians, who had been our heroes shortly before, were now undesirables. This is hardly a step in resolving a dispute that arose through a gross government overreach.
Unfortunately, legal protests led to illegal blockades, and we cannot abide blockades, any blockades. The Prime Minister thinks he can decide to whom the law applies, but the rule of law needs to be clear. The blockades had to end, and the fact that they lasted as long as they did is another black eye for Canada's standing in the world.
It could have been so easily averted, but the Prime Minister never took one step toward a constructive outcome. Such is his way. The effects of the last month will have lasting impacts on Canada.
One matter that needs to be addressed is the limits of peaceful protest in this country. If this latest blockade is an example of the escalation of acceptable protest in this country, then I think we are becoming largely ungovernable. How quickly we have fallen. I often wonder if it is the aim of the Prime Minister and the cabal around him to make this country less democratic, more divided and less law-abiding or if it is just incompetence of the highest order.
Let us recall the slide away from the rule of law regarding protests. Over the past six and a half years, the government sat on its hands while protests largely shut down huge swaths of the Canadian economy. Indeed, the government has delivered funding to organizations whose only intent was to protest and hold back Canadian economic development. Foreign funding blockades have been a part of Canada's protest industry since this government arrived. It is this government's motto and and this government's agenda to have its policies bolstered by opaque foreign funding.
Here are the results: People have been hurt, property has been destroyed, projects have been delayed and cancelled, indigenous economic reconciliation has stalled, foreign investment capital has fled Canada and Canadian investment capital looks for opportunities elsewhere.
Let me take this moment to offer my gratitude to Canada's law enforcement officials who intervened in the latest illegal action on Thursday night at the site where the Coastal GasLink pipeline is under construction. I understand that one officer was injured and that workers were threatened with serious harm. This cannot continue, and I hope the assailants are pursued to the full extent of the law.
Do we now understand why Canadians are unclear about the laws around protests? The government has made them intentionally unclear in order to ensure that those supporting its post-nation state agenda are able to thrive with public money and foreign funding.
This brings me to the most egregious portion of the orders associated with the Emergencies Act, which is to require any financial service provider to determine whether it has in its possession or control property that belongs to a person who participated in the blockade. I do not think the Minister of Finance has any notion of the financial implications of what this is proposing. She is asking Canadian banks to freeze, without judicial order, accounts of Canadians who have committed no crime.
As an example, a retiree who may have donated $50 to help her son's appeal to support his right to protest will have her account frozen. She will have no way to pay for food or her retirement residence. There are human implications, but there are also huge implications for Canada's financial system. When Canadians lose trust in Canadian banks, when our retirement savings are no longer considered safe for withdrawal and government can unilaterally freeze our bank accounts, Canada's financial system will encounter a crisis. I ask the government to look ahead and consider these implications.
I also presented a motion at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance that would address this matter, and the committee will start meeting urgently to address this motion beginning Tuesday. I thank my colleagues in the other parties who helped this motion to pass on Thursday.
These implications cannot be addressed through the rear-view mirror, as has been the government's practices. I take heart that there is at least one Liberal, the member for Louis-Hébert, who voted for our motion to get the government on a path to lessening mandates in this country. There is hope.
The motion we put forward last week was defeated in Parliament, but I was very pleased that the Bloc Québécois supported the motion.
I recall the member for Louis-Hébert clearly enunciating that the Prime Minister and his team had chosen to divide and stigmatize Canadians around the pandemic. This is not leadership. It is divisiveness and it is no way to govern.
I say to the Prime Minister that you reap what you sow. There is much division in this country, largely due to your choice to divide Canadians.
The world is watching Canada like never before, and not in a good way. I implore my colleagues and friends in both the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party to defy your party leadership. There is more at stake here than politics. Canadian democracy is at risk. Vote against this bill, I implore you.
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- Feb/19/22 4:35:02 p.m.
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I remind the member that he went directly to speaking to the government as opposed to speaking through the Chair.
Questions and comments; the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development.
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- Feb/19/22 4:36:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Centre for his remarks. By way of a brief rebuttal, I would simply say that the powers used under the Emergencies Act declaration were used most recently as February 16 in Windsor to thwart an attempted resurrection of a blockade. If the member's concern is with investment in this country, I would say the blockades actually threaten the investment climate in this country.
My point is in response to something he raised to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He said we should not be stigmatizing, and I agree with him. However, when far-right elements, including a group called Diagolon, are actively involved with arming themselves and carrying ammunition and body armour to blockade the border at Coutts, and when that results in four arrests for conspiracy to commit murder and ongoing investigations as to whether that group has links to groups raising swastikas and Confederate flags here in Ottawa and the blockade in Ottawa continues, I think we do have an ongoing threat that needs to be resolved.
Can the member comment on that response?
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- Feb/19/22 4:37:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I am very thankful that the peace officers at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta were able to intercept what was obviously very destructive elements that embedded themselves within the actual protest organization. Once that was discovered, the whole blockade disbanded because they did not want to be associated with that.
This is a problem wherever we are in the world, and it is not right or left. There are going to be elements that break the law no matter what. We have said all along that these blockades were illegal on their own, but when we throw in a mix of violence that is going to potentially injure our peace officers, they have raised the bar, and it has to be addressed very quickly. It does not matter what side of the spectrum it comes from. Any type of illegal activity that leads to violence will be detrimental to all of us.
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- Feb/19/22 4:38:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
Earlier today, I was taken aback by certain comments. I almost fell off my chair, even though it is very sturdy. Two members of the Liberal caucus, the members for Hull—Aylmer and Don Valley West, told us that they were not 100% certain that invoking the Emergencies Act was the right thing to do. The blues will show that those were their very words.
My question for my hon. colleague is very simple: Does he believe, as I do, that before invoking the Emergencies Act, it is vital to be 100% certain that it is the right thing to do?
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- Feb/19/22 4:39:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for his question.
I completely agree with him. The government has not demonstrated to the House of Commons that such legislation needed to be implemented.
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- Feb/19/22 4:39:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard about the Coutts blockade many times in the House. The member speaking before me asked about the legal implications, the people who have been charged with attempted murder, the violence and the white racism there, but in addition to those, there is an economic impact. Those 18 days the blockade was in place cost $864 million to the Alberta economy.
What do we do when the government in place, the Alberta government, that has the legislation in Bill 1 to actually stop these blockades, does not do it? When the provincial government fails to protect the people and economy of Alberta, does the federal government not have an obligation to step it?
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- Feb/19/22 4:40:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I should point out that the Coutts blockade was somewhat disbanded and there was one lane open shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, there was an element there that actually was a problem. We know that. We know it was slowed down. I had not heard the number she referred to, the $864 million of commerce that was interrupted, but I did note in my speech how important it was to make sure those borders were open in Canada all the way across the country.
I will also point out to her that the Government of Alberta has not asked the Canadian government to intervene. I do not know how the Canadian government does intervene. Alberta already has a police force. Is it going to request police forces from across the country? The Government of Alberta has all kinds of police forces, and it acted, and it acted in the benefit of the people of Alberta to make sure that the flow of goods was coming across that border.
Are they asking for—
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