44th Parl. 1st Sess.

February 20, 2022 07:00AM

Feb/20/22 11:09:10 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, as the member noted, there has been a flip-flop of events in Alberta, in terms of asking for help and then criticizing the government when it acted upon the request from that province. As she mentioned, here in Ontario, the premier has declared a state of emergency. That is what the act does. It declares a state of emergency and gives provinces the ability to deal with protesters, whether they are in blockades or in occupations such as we saw in Ottawa.

85 words

All Topics

Hear!
Rabble!
add
star_border
share

Context: House Hansard - 35 - Feb/20/22

Mr. Tako Van Popta (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC)

Feb/20/22 11:26:34 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek. We are here this whole weekend debating the merits of the Liberal government motion to invoke the Emergencies Act. Before I get into that, I want to take the opportunity to thank the many people in my riding of Langley—Aldergrove who have reached out to me to encourage me and to plead with me to vote against this motion. I can assure them that I and my Conservative colleagues will definitely vote against it, and I will explain why that is. I also want to thank those people who told me they were praying for the peace, security and healing of this nation. I am praying for that as well in what hopefully soon is going to be a post-pandemic world. On February 14, the Liberal government issued a declaration invoking the Emergencies Act based on their finding that there was a public welfare emergency existing in Canada at the moment. To understand what that means, we need to take a look at the definition section of the act. It states that: For the purposes of this Act, a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that (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 It concludes, “and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” It is a very high burden of proof and that is exactly what the drafters of this legislation intended back in the 1980s. It was supposed to be a tool of last resort, not a tool of first resort. What is the situation that is alarming the government to the extent that it now feels it has to invoke this very drastic step? What we have is trucks parked in Ottawa, big trucks, rigs clogging up the streets in downtown Ottawa. It is a real nuisance along Wellington Street and some of the side streets. It is a real problem for local businesses and people who live in the downtown core. I and other members of the House who come into the House every day had to negotiate our way across Wellington Street and that is the same for all the employees as well in the House and in our parliamentary offices. It is a nuisance, an inconvenience and an irritant, yes, but a national emergency, no. It fails that test. This does not attain the very high level that was set by the drafters of this emergency legislation. The order in council also makes reference to blockages at border crossings in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and in my home province of British Columbia. The Liberals have a better argument here, because that is going to be very devastating to our economy and also to our international reputation. However, here is the challenge that we have. Before this declaration was made, a week ago, all those blockages had already been cleared up. How? It was done by provincial forces, by municipal forces, by the RCMP that came under provincial jurisdiction. The police forces were doing exactly what they were supposed to do and the fact that they were successful proved that the situation did not exceed the capacity or the authority of the province to deal with it. I submit that it fails the test. We come back to what was going on in Ottawa. We have heard members on the Liberal side of the House quote the interim chief of the city of Ottawa Police Service, saying that the Emergencies Act was a very helpful tool for him, for them, to solve the problem. We do not dispute that at all. Of course the nuclear option is going to be successful. We know that and there is no argument with that, but that is not the test. The test is not whether it would be successful, but whether it was necessary. I submit that it was not necessary. The proof is that provincial police forces and municipal police forces were able to solve the problem at the borders and also control other protests that were going on in other cities across the country. It fails the threshold. I now want to turn my attention to a constitutional analysis of what is going on. It has been pointed out on a number of occasions that the Emergencies Act requires that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights be honoured, respected and maintained. It is interesting that the Bill of Rights is included in that. It is an older piece of legislation and people sometimes assume that it was subsumed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but that is not the case. It is still a good law in Canada today. It is very useful for our analysis today, because it talks about property rights for individuals. What property are we talking about? We are talking about bank accounts, bank accounts that have been frozen under the regulations. Shortly after the announcement was made on Monday, my office started getting phone calls. I started getting text messages. People were asking, “Is my bank account going to be frozen? I made a donation to the convoy through GoFundMe.” I assured them, “No, no, no. This is Canada in the 21st century. We are a modern, free and democratic society. There is no way that your federal government is interested in donations that you might make to a cause that is important to you.” Then I picked up the regulation and started to read it. I was wrong. I was hoping that I was misreading it, so I checked with some lawyer friends of mine who said, “No, absolutely that is exactly what it says.” Then I was hoping that maybe it was just a drafting error. All doubt was set aside the other day when our Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada was interviewed on national television. This is how the conversation went. The interviewer asked, “A lot of folks said, 'I just don’t like your vaccine mandates and I donated to this, now it’s illegal, should I be worried that the bank can freeze my account?'” The Minister of Justice said in reply, “If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried. There it is, straight out of the mouth of the Minister of Justice. If someone has made a donation to the freedom convoy, then the Minister of Justice thinks they are part of a Trump movement and that they ought to be worried. The Liberal Party is no longer the party of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It has become the party of correct political thought. People now have to think like the Minister of Justice does or they ought to be worried. I plead with members of this House to vote against this motion. It is incumbent upon us to do this. This is wrong legislation. We must defend Canadian rights and civil liberties. We must vote against this. I plead with members of the NDP. They can make the difference. Members should please vote with the Conservative Party on this one.

1261 words

All Topics

Hear!
Rabble!
add
star_border
share

SoVote

House Hansard - 35