44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 20, 2022 07:00AM
- 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 4:40:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the clash of words and social media clickbait we are witnessing around this conflict, I feel it necessary to remind the House and Canadians that we are taking part in this critical debate as people, speaking from our individual vantage points. It is the same for all who comment, who analyze, who interpret and who express their opinions. We are all just people.
We are here today to deal in facts and to debate the unprecedented use of a tool of government to deal with a crisis. The Emergencies Act authorizes the taking of special, temporary measures to ensure safety and security during national emergencies. With its inception, it created more limited and specific powers for the federal government to deal with security emergencies of five different types: national emergencies, public welfare emergencies, public order emergencies, international emergencies and war emergencies.
To demonstrate my support for deployment of the act, I am going to share facts from my vantage point, which, as I also hope to demonstrate, comes from a place of love and deep respect for this country.
I have formally trained in critical studies and education. I have had the privilege of studying the lenses of oppression in our society from a white gaze. I am going to recommend that all who identify as the same check that privilege when having this discussion. While we are talking about privilege, as a scholar of Canadian and international military history, we must also check our privilege as citizens in a democracy and in an ever-progressing judicial system designed to protect our individual freedoms. We represent less than 0.5% of the total world population and have the second-largest land mass. We are truly among the most privileged people in the world. We must never forget that.
I challenge Canadians and members of the House to question their echo chambers, to check themselves and their privilege and to try to see things from the other side, even if it is only to strengthen their arguments. At least that moves us past assumptions, which are the real scourge of our society. They are what really divide us.
Many Canadians are being misled. These Canadians do not need us to encourage them or keep them blissfully ignorant. Today, far too much of Canadian discourse is hateful, reactionary and dangerous, and the political rhetoric that ramps it up is reprehensible. We are indeed facing extremism in Canada, and it is incumbent on each of us to call it what it is.
As New Brunswick's commissioner on systemic racism said, continuing to pretend that what we have witnessed over the last three weeks is not a cover for a maturing anti-government, anti-pluralist, far-right extremism does nothing to combat the rising hate in this country. That extremism culminated in the occupation of our nation’s capital and other key locations, in a politically motivated coup attempt, and it requires decisive action with measures that are targeted, temporary and proportionate.
This is what has brought us here today. I have heard many in the House ask this question during this debate: How did we get here? It has been clear from the outset, long before the initial convoy colonizers arrived in Ottawa, Windsor, Surrey or Coutts, that the intent has been to disrupt and indeed overthrow our government. This is not a simple question of public health mandates. This cannot be denied, and there is no integrity in calling these protests peaceful.
A protest cannot be deemed peaceful unless every citizen feels safe and protected while being exposed to it. That was certainly not the experience of hundreds of people across this country and the residents in Ottawa. People were being harassed and intimidated by illegal occupiers simply because they were wearing masks. Women were targeted, noise levels were unbearable, hotel lobbies and retail spaces were taken over, staff were terrorized and ultimately businesses were forced to close. The narrative that this was peaceful was false from the beginning.
It feels as though the Conservatives are celebrating these occupations, purposely inflaming the debate, intentionally escalating tensions while claiming the opposite. Sowing mistrust in government institutions and public health advice is causing further harm. I have had many conversations about vaccines specifically in my community. I encourage people to listen to their health care providers, not politicians and certainly not the loudest voices in an angry mob.
In Ottawa, over the last three weeks, residents lost their sense of safety. Countless testimonials describe vitriol and harassment. Our 2SLGBTQ+ community members, racialized community members and women had to limit their movement, shelter at home or, as a last resort, leave the city because they were not feeling safe. Terrorizing people for weeks is an act of violence, regardless of the perceived merits of the original intent.
Minimizing what is happening here and how we got here is unacceptable, as is minimizing other large-scale demonstrations and incidents of civil disobedience because of what they too were trying to say and how they felt the need to express it. There is a lot to be learned from what has transpired.
I have committed to the people of Fredericton that with each new issue, I ask for input. I ask constituents to engage to help me take the temperature, to listen, to learn and to then act after thoughtful, informed, evidence-based consideration.
I know I am not alone in the House in saying that I received thousands of emails, letters and calls and had many conversations on what has been playing out. Many are asking to be heard, and I am listening. While there are many who have legitimate questions and concerns that I do my best to address, what I am also hearing are strings of false narratives and scapegoating. I see fear based on misinformation.
A lot of people need help right now. That is unequivocally clear based on the number of threats I have received, that my staff has had to endure and that anyone involved has been subjected to. I have been told that my family is also at risk, and that if I exercise my vote in a way some do not agree with, I should watch my back. There have been threats to our Prime Minister and all government members with bullets and nooses. It is enough.
That is how I know these are not peaceful protesters. It is how I know we have a very real and serious problem in Canada.
I have been mad, disrespected and wronged, and I have stood up. I have protested for justice for many causes, with the law on my side, within my rights and with a firm understanding of the charter. I also took things further when I felt it was not enough and felt the system had failed and had to be changed. I organized and ran for office, again with great privilege. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, it takes sacrifices and it takes a toll, but it is the greatest honour. Thanks to political financing laws, we are a collection of everyday Canadians who have the trust and respect of our electors.
Here in Canada, to vote is a sacred right and a duty, and I serve to protect that right every day in the House. Those who disagree with me, based on the laws of this land and under our flag that has been so disrespected, do not get to shut down critical infrastructure, illegally disrupt the lives of Canadians and endanger public safety. We are not living in a dictatorship; we are not living in tyranny. The misleading, the agitating, the grifting, the harassment and the threats must all come to an end. It has become clear, after three weeks of coordinated, foreign-funded and right-wing white supremacy infiltration, that we have reached the threshold of emergency requiring the implementation of this act.
I have heard Conservative members of the House suggest that this is not necessary, that we have not met the threshold, that there are more options available and that our focus must be on de-escalation. On that last point alone, I agree. We absolutely must de-escalate, which is what we see unfolding before us in a renewed law enforcement operation, initiated only after engaging the Emergencies Act.
In the words of the interim Ottawa Police chief, without the additional legislation, we could not have done what we did. De-escalation was stopping the weekend protest tourism from ramping up again in Ottawa. De-escalation was stopping the never-ending stream of supplies and funds from siege supporters laughing in the wings. Compromise has been on the table since the beginning, and the comparisons with how demonstrators of different stripes have been treated within mere hours of assembly suggest to me, as far as law enforcement and government go, that we have been more than tolerant, perhaps unjustifiably so. I would support a national inquiry into the original police response.
I was born and raised in a military town, with military roots and a deep respect for our Canadian Armed Forces. I was also raised to respect the men and women in police uniforms serving and protecting our communities. Having said this, after watching video of uniformed police saying it feels like war, with a service weapon on their hip, or high-fiving, smiling for selfies, using squad cars as carnival rides and turning a blind eye to bylaw and Criminal Code infractions, or when neighbours from my local military community threaten me directly, I know we have a very serious problem.
I am white. I can only imagine how some Canadians who have demonstrated in their lives against oppression must be feeling as they watched how white protesters were comfortably dealt with over the last weeks. We have been watching the entitlement of those who party in hot tubs, with their barbecues and fireworks, having street fires or stockpiling diesel and propane near the parliamentary precinct. They claim oppression, claim that we do not live in a free society and claim that there was no other recourse for their grievances to be heard. It is enough. This needs to stop, and that is what the government is committed to doing.
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