44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- Feb/20/22 3:26:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe the debate we are having on the Emergencies Act is the most important and significant debate Parliament will have in a generation. Canadians are watching what we do. I have never received more emails and phone calls from my constituents since I have been elected. The vote on such unprecedented powers should not be taken lightly by any member of the House. This is not just another vote on another bill. It is setting a precedent in the House of Commons the people of this nation will judge for generations to come. This is not a vote that will impact a few Canadians. It is a decision that will impact the lives of every single Canadian from coast to coast to coast.
I want to begin by discussing how we got here, before I tell the House why I believe the use of the Emergencies Act is not warranted in this situation. The Prime Minister is responsible for this mess. He pushed Canadians to the breaking point. He stripped them of their dignity. He deprived them of their livelihoods. He made absolutely no attempt to unite this country or heal divisions. He pitted friends against friends, neighbours against neighbours and kids against parents. While other world leaders encouraged and supported their citizens to get vaccinated, the Prime Minister pressured, insulted and demonized ours. Our Prime Minister is not a leader, and history will show that he is not fit to lead our nation.
When faced with a growing crisis, he made no attempt to resolve the problem, and now the Prime Minister is trying to cover up his own inaction with a dramatic political performance. I should remind members of the House that the Prime Minister was not confined to two options in addressing the state of affairs we face today. This was not a binary choice between choosing not to do anything and choosing to invoke the Emergencies Act. The Prime Minister has decided to go from zero to 100 without attempting to solve the problem.
Parliamentarians have been urging the Prime Minister to resolve the situation at hand. Last week, Conservatives put forward a reasonable solution to resolve it. We introduced a motion calling on the government to present a plan on when Canadians could regain control of their lives. Canadians saw a glimmer of hope, but the government voted against the plan for them. The Liberals could have de-escalated the situation, but they chose not to for their own political gain. The government never attempted to de-escalate the situation. We should not have ever gotten to this point.
The question we are debating today is not whether the blockades should come down. We should not tolerate blockades on any occasion. They are illegal and must be removed. I thank law enforcement for doing its job on that front. The question we are debating today is whether the Emergencies Act, an act that has never been used before in our nation's history, is an appropriate and justified response to the situation our nation is facing. When I read the criteria for implementing the Emergencies Act, it is clear that the extreme use of this government power is not only excessive for the situation at hand, but also an infringement on some of our very basic freedoms.
The House must ask itself what constitutes a national emergency to give the government such extreme and excessive powers. Section 2 of the Emergencies Act defines a national emergency as meeting one of two criteria. Does it “seriously endanger the lives, health or safety of Canadians”, and is it “of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it”?
Let us examine section 2(a). Does the situation we are encountering exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it? The answer is no. The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have all publicly opposed the Prime Minister's use of the Emergencies Act, and the illegal blockades at the Coutts border in Alberta, the Emerson border in Manitoba and the Ambassador Bridge in Ontario have all been resolved with the tools and resources available to those provinces.
The Emergencies Act is supposed to be used for emergency situations that existing laws cannot address.
The government has failed to provide any evidence that we cannot end illegal blockades without the use of the Emergencies Act. There is a stark difference between inaction and not having the ability to act. Parliament has clearly heard that the government could have used existing legislation to address the situation, but failed to do so. Now the government faces court challenges from both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation for failing to meet the threshold defined in the act.
Let us examine section 2(b). Does this “seriously threaten the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada”? Does the situation we are encountering threaten the sovereignty of our nation? Again, the answer is no. Our sovereignty is not in question.
Do members of the House believe that semi trucks on Parliament Hill threaten our territorial integrity? The government has provided zero evidence to support such an extreme assumption, and now there are more questions than there are answers.
Suppose a grandmother donated $20 to feed local truckers four weeks ago. Will she be treated as someone who funded a terrorism activity, and be barred from using her bank account? Suppose a Canadian walks down to the main street in their local community to peacefully voice their concerns with their government. Will they be arrested and criminally charged for peacefully protesting?
We have faced many crises in my lifetime: the Oka crisis, the aftermath of 9/11, the Parliament Hill shooting, deadly wildfires, historic floods, the pandemic and many blockades, just to name a few. Not once have such powers been needed to address these problems. Invoking such extreme measures without meeting the high threshold outlined in the act is setting a dangerous precedent of government overreach. Who are we as a nation if we normalize the use of emergency powers? I encourage all the members of the House not to dilute the magnitude of the decision on this vote.
To my NDP colleagues, who I hear plan to support the Prime Minister in this excessive power grab, I want to remind them of the words of their former leader, Tommy Douglas, who famously took a principled stand and opposed the War Measures Act in 1970. He stood in this same democratic chamber and stated:
The fact is, and this is very clear, that the government has panicked and is now putting on a dramatic performance to cover up its own ineptitude.
Those words could not be truer today. This is nothing more than a dramatic performance to cover up the Liberals' own ineptitude. I also want to remind my NDP colleagues that disagreeing with the demonstrations and disagreeing with the Emergencies Act are not mutually exclusive. They can do both.
We have a decision to make. Will we stand up for the freedoms of Canadians, or will we hand over the unprecedented reins of power to a Prime Minister who has shown no respect for our democratic institutions? The Prime Minister thinks he is leaving behind a legacy, when he is really leaving behind a scar that will take years to heal.
I will be voting against the Emergencies Act, and I encourage every other member in the House to do the same as well.
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- Feb/20/22 3:35:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his acknowledgement of the illegality of the blockades. I know that he referenced the steps undertaken by the government. I am wondering if he had a chance to read the “Report to the Houses of Parliament: Emergencies Act Consultations”. It is an eight-page report that was tabled. It outlines all of the measures undertaken by the government, including the Prime Minister and a number of ministers who were involved with this.
Could he comment on why he feels that this is inadequate? This does really outline the urgent manner in which this issue has been addressed throughout the government since the beginning.
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- Feb/20/22 3:36:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I guess the bottom line is that they are words on paper. I wonder what kind of relationship they have with those provinces. I wonder how many times the actual Prime Minister just happened to talk personally to all of the officials who were involved. Did they actually sit down and ask what they could do with the tools available?
When the trucks started showing up there, they had weeks of advance warning to say, “Here, we better get ready for something”, but no. They waited. They waited three weeks to do something, and then they put on laws and put in acts that control everybody in Canada. It is just unacceptable.
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- Feb/20/22 3:36:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the course of the last couple of days, I know my office has been receiving literally thousands of emails. I suspect that colleagues across all parties are receiving the emails, particularly as they relate to the Emergencies Act and the concern that Canadians are now waking up to as they start to better understand just the expansive overreach of the state into their lives. I just wonder if the member can comment on that.
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- Feb/20/22 3:37:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, overreach is something we have not talked about in the House. I got an email yesterday from a person who has been charged under this act, a family. The husband was out here protesting. They had their truck confiscated and taken away. The mom was at home. She had nothing to do with the protest, nothing like that at all. Meanwhile, she has a one-year-old baby she is looking after. She went to get some groceries and realized that their accounts had been seized. They are shut right down, no credit card, no bank account, nothing. Meanwhile, her husband was out here just doing his thing, having a protest.
An hon. member: How is that standing up for Canadians?
Mr. Dan Mazier: Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine having that kind of thing happen, when someone has nothing to do with the organization at all.
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- Feb/20/22 3:38:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like to ask him whether he believes the situation for which the government is taking emergency measures could be handled using the legislative tools that we already have, such as the Criminal Code or any other federal or provincial legislation in effect in Canada.
Should we not consider using other acts or legislative tools to manage the blockades and protests?
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- Feb/20/22 3:39:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I guess this is what I cannot understand. I am relatively new to this parliamentary position. There are acts. There are laws. Many of my colleagues have pointed out that, with the Criminal Code, they could have nipped this in the bud and kept it under control. If they were that worried about it, where was the plan? It is so typical of the current government and of the Prime Minister. The Liberals figure they are above the law or figure they do not have to be accountable to Canadians. It is just sad how we ended up in this situation.
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- Feb/20/22 3:39:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is dark days for our country. I am here before members, despondent, with some serious questions about the motion before us. History will look back on the debate today as a black mark on the leadership of the Prime Minister, of the government and of all those who lend their support to this gross overreach.
All members of the House have watched the lawlessness paralyzing Ottawa and the key border crossings across the country with great concern. Every single member of the House has done that no matter what people hear from those who have convinced themselves otherwise. However, never has the Emergencies Act been invoked. It has always been there but never used. In challenging times and in times of true crisis, it has always been there, but it was never used because it was viewed as a last resort and not a first resort. The motion before us today asks members to approve an act that gives the federal government enhanced powers.
As its questionable justification is being discussed in this House for the first time, Canadians are watching. Much of this debate has been mired in the hyperbole of members opposite tripping over one another to claim that any member of this House encouraged the lawlessness that they, themselves, stoked. The idea that any member of the House would support the vile elements of this protest is wrong and members of the House know it. There is no precedent for this. Instead, we are making a precedent. The points we make, the evidence we present and the tone we use will be judged by those who will look back on these dark days to ask, “How did we get here?”
Everyone has a right to peacefully protest any government policy. This is a fundamental freedom in our democracy. It protects the rights of individuals to express their views, even when those views are not shared by the elected government of the day. While these protests are a fundamental part of Canadian democracy, so too is the rule of law. The blockades that incapacitate our critical infrastructure, including our rail lines, our pipelines, our bridges and our urban downtown areas, are illegal. We cannot and should not arbitrarily decide to apply the rule of law to some situations and not others, like we are doing today, because that is not how we build precedent.
I do not think for a moment the threshold has been met to apply the Emergencies Act. This debate has failed to make that threshold known. There is no question that some in these protests and their views are alarming. They have been categorically denounced by every member of the House.
Let us be clear. Not everyone who has participated in these protests is a racist, a misogynist or a woman-hating terrorist trying to overthrow a government. Hearing members of the House suggest they are is the ugliest of politics, something Canadians have come to distrust and reject.
Some of those outside are frustrated by the government’s inability to manage a pandemic two years in without relying on tired talking points and ancient solutions that fail to hear the outcry of those disproportionally hurt by the government’s addiction to lockdowns, restrictions and mandates as the only policy response.
We hear the other side talking about the economic activity jeopardized by these blockades as the primary reason for the invocation of the Emergencies Act. While I will never disagree that our economy is fundamental to the function of our nation, I will remind these very members that for two years few of them raised questions about the economic activity in this country lost due to the heavy-handed COVID restrictions and mandates that have come to be the cornerstone of the Canadian policy response.
There have been terrorist attacks, economic collapses, national protest movements and a pandemic. Every single one of these situations were dealt with using existing laws and existing democratic processes, and at times, when absolutely necessary, municipal and provincial emergency powers.
Let me remind Canadians that there have also been national protest movements that have occupied city streets and parks for months and blockaded critical infrastructure like railways where essential democratic activity, economic activity, had been disrupted or stopped entirely. These have all been responded to within the context of existing laws, every single one of them.
Not only is it not necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act to address them, but it is frustrating to watch members of the government take credit for things that were resolved outside of the powers of this act. Two of the most serious incidents, the blockading of the Ambassador Bridge and the RCMP arrests in Alberta, were both accomplished without the need to invoke the legislation. A national emergency has a high bar for the very reason that it must actually be a national emergency. The answer to lawlessness cannot and should not be a greater level of lawlessness.
The government is asking members of the House to suspend certain laws to deal with those breaking other laws, and we are being asked to undermine democratic principles to address some who wish to see our very democracy undermined. These powers allow the government to freeze Canadians' assets with no recourse. The 76 bank accounts so far is 76 bank accounts too many. We have seen some very troubling scenes outside of this place over the last couple of days and hearing few mention it shows Canadians that this is still an insular talking club of those who show little regard for the people who do not share their views.
Less than one week ago, the Prime Minister, after 18 days of doing absolutely nothing about the situation in Ottawa, convened the cabinet on Sunday, told his caucus, informed premiers on Monday and, by press conference, later that day informed Canadians that the Emergencies Act was needed to do the very thing by last resort he failed to do by first resort.
It took days for the Prime Minister to address the House. There were no briefings, no intelligence, no committees struck and if there were evidence pointing to some serious issue of public safety, should members not have been told? If we were all under siege by terrorists waiting to breach the gate of Parliament Hill, would it not be the government's responsibility to tell members of the House not to cross the street right through the protests every day?
The story has changed more times than Canadians can keep up with today and the government's justification in the House was a calculated solution to its own political peril. The Prime Minister's vague claims that whatever he does with these currently unchecked powers will be targeted and time-limited simply is not backed up by the formal text or members of his own caucus. Nor did the text contain any detail on what he planned to do. All he was saying was “trust me”. Forgive me, he has given Canadians absolutely no reason to trust him.
At the beginning of this pandemic, the government proposed giving itself unlimited spending powers for almost two years without oversight of Parliament. They said “trust me”. The government has given itself the power to freeze the assets and finances of people involved in political protests, people who disagree with the government's COVID policy, without the courts' oversight and with no recourse available to those targeted. We cannot treat this as a foregone conclusion because we have an NDP that cannot and will not stand up for protests, for scrutiny or have any courage on this one.
If we wanted to pretend that this was not about politics, the information would have been shared immediately. Otherwise, the only conclusion of any of this is that this is all politics.
The House must approach every decision with caution. The consequences for individuals are too great if we decide to approve the use of this act, and the precedent that will be set is too great to shrug off the legitimate questions and concerns that I think are valid in this discussion. We are setting a very dangerous precedent and it would be a shame if members of the House decide to invoke a never before used disproportional act, when there are very clearly other actions the government could have taken.
We should be cautious about normalizing the use of a blunt instrument in this circumstance. If we consider using the Emergencies Act every time there is a protest that lasts a certain number of days, we have much bigger problems in our democracy. The threshold has not been met and we cannot leave the decision to politics over the real scrutiny that is required. It will be a dark chapter in our history when members of the House choose political expediency over the rights of individuals.
I implore my colleagues, those with a voice, to vote against this motion, because I certainly will.
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- Feb/20/22 3:48:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have two questions. First of all, would the member acknowledge that the Emergencies Act brought in place by a Conservative government is subject to the charter? The charter still reigns supreme. Would she acknowledge that?
Second, how does she feel about the fact that the Conservative Party is now on the opposite side of this issue, not just with respect to where the government sits but also the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Ottawa police chief and the Conservative Premier of Ontario? All of these three have supported the government putting in place the Emergencies Act. How does she feel about those two things?
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- Feb/20/22 3:49:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member that the government's primary responsibility is peace, order and good government. There is no peace, there is no order and there is certainly no government. This act is unnecessary. It is disproportionate. It violates individual rights. It intrudes on provincial jurisdiction and it creates a very dangerous precedent.
I would implore the member, and any other members showing trepidation on continuing what is abundantly clear to Canadians wondering how this could happen here, that the member opposite should know history is forever and so is his vote on this. He has not proven to the House that there is a justification for this act.
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- Feb/20/22 3:50:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, in which she very eloquently explained all the reasons for which this legislation was not necessary.
Does my hon. colleague agree that, even if it was necessary to use the Emergencies Act in downtown Ottawa, the law could and should have been limited to this city instead of being enforced across Canada?
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- Feb/20/22 3:50:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I see where the hon. member is coming from. I laid out very clearly in my remarks that I do not think the threshold has been met. I do not think it has been met on where the act would apply or why the act should apply to begin with. There are a number of ways the government could have acted before using this. It has said to the House that this was not option one, two or three, and has not named what those options were. Instead, it just went to this without giving members of Parliament a justification. It still has not done that up to this moment.
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- Feb/20/22 3:51:45 p.m.
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Qujannamiik, Uqaqtittiji.
Since the Emergencies Act was declared last week and used this weekend, it has been with reluctance I have participated in this debate. I have done so with my heart and my mind open. I am deeply concerned with the threat to our democracy based on the demonstrations of anti-Semitism and hate we have seen within our immediate vicinity and across Canada.
Does the member agree the leaders identified as extremists have penetrated the minds of Canadians and this penetration continues to pose a threat to our democracy?
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- Feb/20/22 3:52:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is not a single member of this House who has stood with any symbol of hate or who has said the hateful comments that have come out of the convoy have been okay. Instead of doubling down on the Prime Minister's disgusting comments last week, I will give the member the opportunity to show some courage and apologize for painting every member she does not agree with or and every member of the opposition with the same brush as an attempt to fuel hate and division in this conversation.
We are talking about the Emergencies Act, and there is no justification the government has presented for her to turn her back on her NDP voters and vote for this act.
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- Feb/20/22 3:53:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Andreas Park, who is a finance professor at the University of Toronto, commenting on the extraordinary financial powers to freeze people's bank accounts said, “What we're doing is we're taking people who have not been charged with a crime and we're threatening them with financial ruin. It strikes me as the mob rule.”
They should be afraid of mob rules since the Minister of Justice indicated that political movements the Liberal government disapproves of should be worried. Would the member please comment on that extraordinary power?
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- Feb/20/22 3:53:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, members of this House should be very concerned when a government can freeze the assets, effectively unbank and unperson a Canadian, without them having any recourse. One cannot possibly think it is okay in a democracy to freeze the assets of somebody whose opinion one does not agree with. This act goes too far and should have never been used.
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- Feb/20/22 3:54:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, thank you for recognizing me and giving me the opportunity to speak in this extraordinary debate that is taking place in this House.
It is the Sunday afternoon of the Family Day long weekend in Ontario, but here we are, as parliamentarians, debating a very important issue.
As members know, I represent the riding of Ottawa Centre. Parliament is located in the riding of Ottawa Centre. The occupation we all witnessed for over 20 days primarily took place in the riding of Ottawa Centre.
I am speaking today with a profound sense of sadness. The events we saw over the last 22 or 23 days were troubling. In particular, the attempt by police to end this illegal occupation and return my community back to its peaceful state was in fact quite sad. Over the last two days I have had a chance to speak to a lot of my constituents who have been aggrieved by this illegal occupation. I asked them how they were feeling. An overwhelming number of them are sad. They are definitely relieved, but they are also sad.
I spent some time wondering why I am feeling sad when we will hopefully have some sense of normalcy back and why the members of my community are feeling sad.
I do not think I have figured out all of the answers yet, as it is still quite raw, but I have a feeling, a sense as to what it is. I think the sadness stems from the fact that, although we live in the nation's capital, in one of the most democratic countries in the world, I have never seen the kind of illegal occupation we just saw in our community. We have never seen that many police officers descend on our community. That did not give us comfort. We are relieved they did their job and ended this occupation, but it did not give us any comfort. If anything, we feel sad it came to the point where this action was necessary to put an end to this illegal occupation and reclaim our streets and neighbourhoods so people can go back to their normal lives.
I cannot overstate the profound impact this occupation has had on my community. In fact, I talked about that with the time I have been given on the floor of this House over the last three weeks and outlined to members what my community has gone through.
I should have said this at the outset. I am not trying to be partisan, because this debate is far more important than partisanship. I am here to speak on behalf of my community. I do not think members in this House will deny that some members live in my riding of Ottawa Centre. Many of them have personally confided in me about their own experiences, such as the horn honking in the middle of the night for weeks, the hurling of fireworks in a densely populated neighbourhood, and the harassment and intimidation of people on the street as they were trying to go from one place to another and live their normal lives.
I have heard from constituents, and I have read many of those emails in this House, such as the seniors who had not been able to go grocery shopping, because they were just too concerned. None of that is partisan. I am not suggesting that every single one of those people voted for me, probably not, but they are real people with real stories of what my community has gone through. It will take some time for my community to heal from this.
As I have said before, it is not like we have been immune to protests in this community. We recognize that we live in the nation's capital. We recognize that we live in downtown Ottawa where Parliament Hill is located. We have seen protests, festivals and all kinds of marches. We accept it and recognize that it is a very important expression of a free and democratic society. However, they have been lawful and peaceful. In fact, at times there were two or three protests at a time, and we did not know they were taking place. People are free to express themselves in a peaceful and lawful way.
We never imagined that we would come to this point with a protest that should have been peaceful, that should have been legitimate with grievances cited. In the end, there were quite a few different grievances cited by people, which would have been okay had those grievances been cited in a peaceful way. Whether the protesters disagreed with vaccines, disagreed with mandates, were tired of the pandemic, did not like the government or thought that certain things that are happening in society are not correct, whatever the case may be, people are free to express their point of view. However, in a democratic society, they are expected to so in a way that does not rob other people's peace, but we saw that just evaporate in this particular operation. We saw three weekends of mayhem, intentional lawlessness and partying take place in the downtown core in a residential area where people felt unsafe. People felt threatened.
Now that we have started the process of recovering our community, we are still sad that it came to this, that we had to resort to invoking the Emergencies Act to bring law and order back into our community. That is why I am supportive of the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
I am a lawyer by training and have served as the attorney general for the Province of Ontario. I have brought that lens, that skill set, to my analysis as to why it is legitimate to invoke the Emergencies Act. The legislation is extraordinary in nature, but the history of the legislation is very interesting, because it was crafted in a manner to ensure that people's charter rights are always protected. That has been the premise of the legislation.
Let us not forget that this legislation replaced the War Measures Act, which was crafted before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into our lives as part of our Constitution. In fact, it had powers of extraordinary measure that could take away people's charter rights.
The government at the time rightly decided that the War Measures Act would not sustain the charter. It needed to repeal that act and come up with new legislation that would be charter compliant. Hence, the Emergencies Act was created.
If we look back, we can see that there was a very thorough debate by our predecessors in this House. I know it has been said before, but is worth repeating: When the government invoked this act, it was in the spirit that the measures are very targeted in geographical scope; they are temporary in nature, remaining in force for only 30 days; and the response is proportional to the situation we are dealing with. All of that is to ensure that the charter is not violated. That is what we are looking at. That is what we are working with in order to ensure that the siege of Ottawa is stopped, as has been the case now for two days, and to ensure that we put an end to blockades at our vital trade links and our border crossings and prevent them from happening. Yesterday we saw an attempt in British Columbia with the blocking of the Pacific Highway. All of those considerations are extremely important in our deliberations here in this House.
I will go back to what I know best, which is Ottawa. I have been involved since day one in all the work that has gone on that led to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, given the fact that I represent the riding of Ottawa Centre. We have engaged from the very first day with our municipal government and the provincial government in Ontario through the work the federal government was doing, whether it meant providing resources by way of the RCMP or the OPP or by providing other municipal services. These resources to put an end to this illegal occupation came not just two days ago, but over time. We made sure that we had the legal authority or legislative mechanisms to take action.
Let us not forget that this situation got to the point where the City of Ottawa and the Province of Ontario had to declare states of emergency, yet despite all of that, the occupation continued. It was with the powers that came through the invocation of the Emergencies Act that law enforcement authorities were able to put an end to it. One of these powers was declaring a set geographic area as a no-go zone, which in Ottawa is called the red zone, so that no protests or occupation could take place. Another power facilitated the transfer of police services from other jurisdictions to come here and enforce the law, which would otherwise have to be done by swearing in police officers to give them jurisdiction to operate in Ottawa, which takes time. Another power enabled the procuring of tow trucks so that the trucks blocking the roads in the downtown core could be towed, as we saw happen over the last 24 or 48 hours.
That is not to mention that when we learned of the sophisticated nature of this occupation, including the coordination aspects and the role of foreign money, we were able to give financial measures to FINTRAC to enable our banks to stop the flow of money that was fuelling this illegal occupation.
All these steps and measures were necessary to have a successful outcome, and we are still not out yet. I just got in to the House of Commons through I do not know how many checkpoints, because I am a member of Parliament. Imagine how sad I feel, as I was saying earlier, to see my downtown feel like a war zone. My beloved city and hometown has roadblocks all over, and I ask members, all of us, to close their eyes for a moment and imagine their communities in that state. I have stayed pretty calm all through this ordeal because I am a calm person by nature. I know that many people would not, because of the tragedy of it. I am saying this in the hope of persuading members to support this measure or at the least to demonstrate to members my reasons for supporting the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
I think my time is limited. I want to say this at the end, and I am going to speak as a fellow parliamentarian to all the members.
We are quite privileged to be the 338 people who have this incredible opportunity to serve not only our communities but our country, and I am confident when I say that every single one of us loves our country. Every single one of us is here for the same reason, which is to build Canada into an even better place than we found it. We may differ in the path we take to do it, and that is totally legitimate. I hope we do, because that exchange of ideas would result in a better path forward. That friction is a healthy friction in our democracy, but I think we are more united than we like to think, and I think it would serve us well if we remind Canadians of that unity as well.
I have been listening to a lot of this rhetoric that we are developing about how we are so divided. I disagree. We may have our disagreements, but as a country we are not divided. When I look at the number of people who have gotten themselves vaccinated, I see that it is over 80%. Have we ever seen Canadians agree that much on anything? Over 80% of Canadians being fully vaccinated tells us how united we are to get through this pandemic, which has been terrible and devastating to all of us, and I think that is the unease and the anxiety that we feel right now.
If I asked members right now to raise their hands if they love their country, to raise their hands if they love their province or their territory, to raise their hands if they love their city, their town, their village or their hamlet, to raise their hands if they love their community, to raise their hands if they love their family, we will see that we have more in common than divides us. Let us work together.
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- Feb/20/22 4:14:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was in the House yesterday when that member yelled across the floor to a colleague of mine from B.C. in the official opposition, asking them something to the effect of how they would feel if something like this was happening in their community.
I just want to remind the member that last year a huge portion of B.C., my riding and neighbouring ridings in particular, had extensive fires, floods, mudslides, lives lost, houses burnt, substantial infrastructure destroyed and livelihoods destroyed. The member talked about having to go through some checkpoints to get to his office; in British Columbia, for many days and weeks, many members of Parliament could not get around their constituencies and could not even get to the airport to come to Ottawa. It just shows a disconnect with what is happening across the rest of the country.
The member is in the government and knows the serious crisis that we had. Just as a reflection, the act defines an emergency as a situation that “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians”. Based on that, was this member involved last summer, due to the serious situations happening in British Columbia, and did he advocate invoking the Emergencies Act at that time, or is he only considering—
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- Feb/20/22 4:15:51 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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- Feb/20/22 4:15:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my heart ached as a Canadian when I saw communities in British Columbia going through the torturing heat or the flooding that I have seen just recently, or the parts of the country that experienced forest fires.
This is a big country, and what binds us, unites us and glues us together is that we care for each other, so I say that I will stand with the member opposite, shoulder to shoulder, if her community goes through a disaster. I will listen to her carefully, because she will be in a better position to share with the rest of us what her community has gone through, as I am sharing with her how my community feels, and I will find ways to work with her.
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