44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 7:25:32 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I speak today from the traditional territory of the Ta'an Kwach'an Council and Kwanlin Dun First Nation, recognizing with honour the trust that the people of Yukon have bestowed on me to represent them in this House and lend my voice to this important debate.
I recognize also what a great privilege we have here to carry out this debate on some of the most fundamental tenets of our democracy in one of the most respected and successful democracies in the world.
As members of Parliament, we all have a responsibility to put partisan ideology aside, look at the best evidence we can find and set the way forward to preserve our democracy from any cracks in its integrity or threats to its survival.
Today we are debating the invocation of the Emergencies Act, legislation that was passed in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act to ensure that in moments of crisis when existing measures are insufficient, special time-limited measures could be introduced federally to deal with the crisis.
As many have stated, this is the first time these measures have been enacted. I add my voice to those who agree that this action is necessary to put an end to the occupation of Ottawa, address the blockades or threats of blockades by these groups and address the threats to critical infrastructure.
Let me be clear: This is no longer a mandates protest. This is a siege, an occupation and a credible threat to our democracy. I will come back to that, but first I would like to offer some reflections on the pandemic and the many measures that have been put in place to respond to this public health crisis.
Fatigue and pandemic exhaustion simply from the length of this pandemic have fuelled much of the current unrest, unrest due not only to the two-year duration but also the many false endings we have seen. How many lights at the end of the tunnel will be seen before it really is not another train?
Almost a full two years ago, as chief medical officer of health for Yukon, I was involved in the first few weeks as we watched and prepared for the pandemic coming closer to Yukon. I remember fully the tears that were in the eyes of deputy CMOH Dr. Elliott when she had to announce the cancellation of the Arctic Winter Games, the first of many joyous events that fell in the path of COVID.
No long later, even before our first case, we declared a public health emergency, knowing that extraordinary measures would be required to fight this pandemic. When I announced Yukon's first cases and later Yukon's first death from COVID-19, those days are marked with searing clarity in my memory.
When we decided early on and quickly that the only way to protect ourselves from COVID would be to temporarily limit non-essential travel into Yukon and establish a quarantine requirement, we realized how drastic and serious a move that was. There were Yukoners who opposed that move, some vociferously, and we were acutely aware of the hardship and loss that those restrictions imposed.
However, most people supported the move. It gave us protection and allowed us more freedom within our territory. We united as a community and we managed to contain the impact of COVID to a minimum until the arrival of vaccines enabled us to gradually replace border controls with a vaccine strategy, well before most other jurisdictions with similar approaches.
Even before vaccines arrived, we opened borders when we could, even removing quarantine requirements for our B.C. bubble in the summer of 2020 to allow travel back-and-forth between B.C. and Yukon, providing a release valve for people to travel in both directions and for families and friends to reunite.
Largely, our strategy of containment worked. Were there costs? Absolutely there were. We shared the pain of elders in long-term care not having visitors, but we avoided outbreaks of COVID in long-term care and protected many lives. We saw families separated, families grieving the loss of loved ones in solitude, celebrations of all kinds cancelled or severely cut, workplaces struggling to keep up and tourism devastated, but because we had measures in place that were tied to the risk of COVID, we kept our society open as much as possible.
We had compensation, including substantial federal benefits that were supplemented by territorial government supports and allowed people and businesses to stay afloat despite incredible challenges.
I am telling this story because I wanted to help members understand that painful compromises and infringements on individual freedom had to be made in order to achieve a greater public benefit. We knew there was a cost and we did not hide that. We started early to measure and document the effects not just of the virus but of the consequences of restrictions.
There were mental health effects, including depression and anxiety, addictions and toxic drug deaths. A backlog of surgical health care services and screening was unattended to. There were children suffering from lack of socialization and physical activity.
As CMOH, it had always been my perspective to understand and address resistance and hesitancy. When vaccines arrived, through conversation and consultation, we could help determine what stood between anyone's beliefs and vaccines, work with that person or community and strive for ever higher vaccination rates.
When we removed vaccine quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated people, the move was received with joy and relief. Of course, not everyone agreed or was pleased, but in allowing fully vaccinated people to have that extra freedom, we were able to achieve more people being able to travel, more families reuniting and more people getting vaccinated to enable our small population to weather oncoming waves of the pandemic.
Do vaccine requirements and mandates restrict individual freedom? To some extent, they do, but so do seat belts, drinking and driving laws, and other vaccine policies. In fact, many everyday laws and regulations keep us safe and allow us to thrive.
A greater public good should always be the aim. In the case of COVID vaccine policies, the public good is found in allowing sectors to reopen or reinvigorate, in allowing people's livelihoods to continue or in advising people to get vaccinated.
As the pandemic once again recedes, we should be well placed to reduce and rescind many of these requirements, especially as our tool box to tackle COVID is growing. These tools include better masks, better knowledge of how masks work, more understanding of the role of ventilation, an increasing panoply of vaccines, the arrival of effective treatments and even increased population immunity with the recent omicron wave.
However, let me be clear: We should not be in a rush to end our restrictions and policies. If we have learned anything, it is that public health responses should be swift in response to a threat and lifted slowly, in accordance with expert analysis of viral activity, including international surveillance and monitoring.
Unfortunately, the pandemic will not be gone overnight. There is a rush toward thinking that we are in an endemic phase, without even fully knowing what “endemic” means.
Let us note, for example, that in Denmark, where restrictions were rapidly dropped in a highly vaccinated population, a country often cited in the House as one whose policies we should adopt, we are already seeing concerning trends in increasing ICU and death rates. There is a cost, and that cost will be borne disproportionately by people at greater risk and susceptibility. They are people with disabilities, people who are immunocompromised and people who, for whatever reason, are not vaccinated.
I am concerned for other parts of the globe or a country where restrictions have precipitately been removed. We need a gradual and thoughtful way out of this phase of the pandemic, and we need to take considerable caution with what might be next.
Let us revisit the Emergencies Act and whether it was called for. As I said, I believe it was necessary, for all of the reasons that we have already heard on this side of the House. I, like anyone, have received emails and correspondence saying “support the convoy”. I have even received some from people in Yukon. However, I have received concerned emails and calls from many others. One call from a Yukon resident representing many like-minded friends said to me, “You have to do something. This occupation and these blockades are unacceptable in a democracy. You have to do more.”
Our capital city is being occupied. As anguished as Ottawa citizens have been, this call came from citizens of Canada 5,400 kilometres away. Ottawa being occupied is more than a city being under siege. People, including my own family members, are being subjected to fear. The downtown core is shut down like a war zone. This is about a disruptive occupation with a violent underbelly bringing our capital city to its knees.
It has been said many times, but please remember that the Emergencies Act is scalable, so that the response is proportionate to the threat. It is limited in time. It is limited in scope. It offers extensive parliamentary oversight, part of which we are engaging in presently, to ensure the measures introduced are not abused. Perhaps most importantly, it must be charter compliant—that is, it must operate within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The act is designed to support provinces and territories that require additional authorities, but imposes no infringement upon the rights of citizens anywhere.
Some of my colleagues opposite have compared the Emergencies Act, even today, to the invocation of the War Measures Act in October 1970. Not to age myself, but I will. It is a day that, as a 12-year-old child, I remember well. I was not far from the age of my own son, who is 13 years old, and my grandniece Audrey, who celebrates her 12th birthday today in Ottawa. I wish Audrey happy birthday on this singular Sunday.
Back to 1970, when I was 12, I do remember the shock and pall with which the kidnapping of James Cross and Pierre Laporte, and later the murder of Mr. Laporte, rocked the country. That was a tense time and many of us are reflecting on Canada's experience and response in that time of fear, violence and threat.
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- Feb/20/22 7:37:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us be clear that 52 years later, we are invoking an entirely different and substantially refined piece of legislation. The Emergencies Act is not the War Measures Act. Indeed, the accountability mechanisms included in the Emergencies Act are a testament to the strength of Canada's democracy. I salute all those in this House in years gone by who worked to make it so.
We know the steps that were attempted to reach a solution. For three weeks, Ottawa as a city was held hostage and occupied, forcing businesses that were poised to move on to the next stages of reopening to stay closed, harassing and disrupting the life of communities, putting lives, homes and businesses at risk.
There has been much discussion, particularly from across the aisle, about how innocent and well behaved people attending the occupation were. Sure. I also walked around and people smiled and said good morning or good evening. I, too, saw the bouncy castle and the barbeques, the sing-songs and children playing, but I reject that these were simply innocent and peaceful protesters. They may have started with intentions to simply state their objections to the mandates, but by being present in the occupied city core, whether friendly or not, they were actively complicit in an occupation that had long seized being a simple protest.
Others, including the testimony from my colleagues today, have well documented the other elements that led this well beyond a protest to an actual threat to public order: threats from the extremist elements that have brought this from protest to siege, the funding, the foreign influence, the disruption to citizens of Ottawa, the blockades that virtually stopped our trade with the U.S. in its tracks, affecting already strained supplies that have led to shortages all the way to stores in rural Yukon.
All Canadians have the right to protest, and I will always fight for that right. That right is enshrined and protected in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our right to protest, however, should not infringe on the rights of others.
In Ottawa, the city has been occupied and, given the inability of existing levers available at the municipal and provincial authorities alone, greater federal involvement through this act was critically needed to lift the siege. I never thought that the word “freedom” could be co-opted into a threat, or that our beautiful national flag could become a symbol of occupation. The occupation of Ottawa must end, as it has, and we must move on from this. I believe the Emergencies Act was necessary to get us there.
As well as a public health physician, I am also, or at least was until recently, an emergency physician. There are two reflections I have, in closing, that I would like to share. Working in the emergency room, of course, can be very busy, as many will know from either receiving or perhaps providing or supporting the care. People can be mildly sick, critically ill or just worried. Our job is to tell the difference and to make a decision that could affect the rest of that patient's life. Sometimes, the decision can be made in seconds, sometimes hours, but decisions do need to be made, and sometimes many decisions have to be made each hour. Timely decision-making is critical.
Deciding to call a national emergency is similar. Was it necessary? If necessary, was it called too soon or too late? At some point, a decision must be made based on the best evidence available at the time. Similarly, since Ottawa's occupation is over and the blockade has ended, was invoking the act still a necessary decision? I am glad the decision was made. I am glad it was made only after many other efforts were made under normal laws and regulations. Those efforts were not working, certainly not for Ottawa and apparently not for Surrey, and the risk of further blockades has continued to be acutely present.
Thankfully, we have public scrutiny and all the checks and balances and time-limited nature to help us ensure the intervention is as minimally intrusive as necessary. Perhaps for the next crisis, we will have better mechanisms in place to avoid having to trigger the Emergencies Act. In a similar future scenario, the precedent will be set, and so will experience with implementation of the act, thresholds and interventions that could render another invocation unnecessary.
The second reflection I have is that in the emergency room, every now and then there could be a violent incident in the department, one where prevention may not have worked and where attempts at de-escalation are clearly overwhelmed. In such cases, we would call on the RCMP, and on such occasions I would never be so glad as to see our friends in uniform. I felt a little the same way yesterday, after the previous three weeks, some of which I have spent in Ottawa. I felt grateful and proud of the professional way in which our combined police forces from all around the country, empowered and reinforced under the Emergencies Act, were able to de-escalate and end the occupation without significant violence. I want to thank all those brave men and women who helped resolve this crisis.
I know that many have expressed concern about the way policing failed in the initial weeks of this occupation, and how the response to this particular, mostly white-person, siege differed from police responses to recent indigenous and racialized protests. I want members to know that I share those concerns, and other concerns about how this crisis was initially handled and perhaps even enabled by local police. However, I also appreciate the professionalism and the successful end to this siege without violence, a testament, again, to the ability to act with sufficient numbers and coordination made possible under the provisions of the Emergencies Act.
I also want to thank all of our essential workers: our truckers, who have hauled goods all over the continent throughout this pandemic; our health care workers in both public health and health care who, even while I see another light in the tunnel, are preparing for whatever lies ahead; and indeed, all citizens who have stepped up and contributed to our collective journey through this pandemic. I thank them all.
I look forward to working with all members in this House in standing up for peace, order and good government. We have more than enough ahead of us to accomplish together.
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- Feb/20/22 7:44:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite from my neighbouring province for the question.
Again, I will come back to the limitations set around this act. It is temporary in nature, limited in scope and under a high degree of parliamentary scrutiny, including this debate, the setting up of a parliamentary committee and a sunset provision. I think there are many checks and balances embedded in this act.
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- Feb/20/22 7:45:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the situation is under control for the moment, and the use of the Emergencies Act is only temporary. We are waiting to see what happens next in order to determine when it will no longer be necessary. It is certainly not up to me to decide when it will no longer be necessary or how long it will remain in effect. However, I can say with confidence that invoking it provided all of the means and tools needed to act.
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- Feb/20/22 7:47:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to have a question from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for whom I have a great admiration.
I am confident in all that I have learned and all that I have read and discussed, and in looking through the steps that were taken, that this was the right move at the right time. I harken back to what I said, that there was a ticking clock. One could wait and one could have many other options on the table that would all have taken time. Timeliness was part of the decision-making here.
It was appropriate and appropriately scaled, and it followed the appropriate steps. I do believe it was the only recourse at this time.
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- Feb/20/22 7:49:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her dedication to many issues and concerns that we share in common.
I do believe, again, referring back to the fact that this will be scaled, focused and responsive, that the act was appropriate. I believe it was effective in bringing an end to the blockade, and it should be effective in maintaining order until such a time as, under expert advice, it is no longer deemed necessary.
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- Feb/20/22 7:50:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her dedication.
Certainly, if I think of my previous role, decisions depended on input from a variety of experts and from discussion with colleagues, as well as security assessments and briefings from intelligence officials. I would expect the same types of considerations to be put to cabinet to allow a determination of when that would no longer be necessary.
It is important to reflect that the degree of oversight, including the striking of a committee, would allow for transparency in the decision-making process that would allow us, hopefully as soon as possible, to be able to cease the invocation of this act.
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- Feb/20/22 7:53:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say that the courts will rule on the threshold issue and on the constitutionality of the act, including any intrusion on provincial jurisdiction, so I think there is accountability written into this act through all the mechanisms I have mentioned. There will be a public inquiry. There are many opportunities to review the implementation of this act.
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