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Mar/2/22 4:36:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way is absolutely right. It is important to create the committee as soon as possible. It is discouraging that the Conservative Party continues to block its creation when the committee is receiving a lot of support from the other parties, not just here in the House of Commons, but also in the Senate. The second point I want to raise is the process in the Senate, the other place. The Senate also needs to start its work, but it is waiting for us to adopt our motion to create the committee. The longer the House of Commons waits, the longer the Senate also has to wait. It is time to start our work because this is so important. There is a very reasonable proposal on the table, and now it is time to create the committee.

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Ms. Lianne Rood (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC)

Mar/2/22 4:37:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a very important piece of legislation. We did not see any legal interpretation when the government invoked the act. We still have not heard that, and we have asked many questions on where the legal interpretation was that it met the threshold. If we read this act, it clearly states that a member of the official opposition or of the opposition, and we are recognized as being the official opposition, should be chairing this committee. It is normal practice that any committee that oversees and scrutinizes the government is chaired by an official opposition member. I am just wondering if you had a legal opinion to interpret the act in the way you are interpreting it, because you are saying it should be co-chaired by two members of different parties, not by the official opposition.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:38:11 p.m.
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I want to remind the member to ask the questions through the Chair. I cannot answer on behalf of the government, but I will let him answer now. The hon. government House leader.

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:38:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, here is the thing that I find concerning. We had, for three weeks, the city of Ottawa besieged by an occupation. I had an opportunity to talk with business owners and residents who had their lives ripped apart by what had occurred, yet the question we are being asked again and again is this: “Why can't I get the chair of the committee?” The concern from the Conservatives seems to be an obsession with whether they get the chair and have a member who gets to say they are the chair, when the city of Ottawa went through an absolute nightmare. I cannot imagine, if I were a resident or an owner of a business in the red zone, hearing the Conservatives spending all their time myopically asking about whether they can get a chair, instead of telling us to look at what happened here and to make sure that it never happens again, given these poor people in Ottawa, the blockades, the businesses that were impacted and the billions of dollars that were lost. How can we make sure that we do not have members of Parliament supporting those kinds of activities and make sure that we do not have these issues in the future?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Mar/2/22 4:39:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up with a question based on the answer the government House leader provided. I think of the RCMP commissioner, the interim chief of the Ottawa Police Service and, in my home province, the Premier of Manitoba, who three days prior was virtually demanding, asking and begging for Ottawa to take action in relation to our international borders given the importance of trade. The government House leader talked about the siege in downtown Ottawa. My question for him is this. From his perspective, on the issue of accountability, how important is it for this committee to be put in place and for our focus to be on ensuring we get witnesses to come before the committee to provide comfort to Canadians regarding its justification?

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:40:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the question from my hon. colleague is about taking a look at exactly how these measures were used. Let us remember that before the act was invoked, we were in a situation where border crossings were closed, the city of Ottawa was besieged and there did not seem to be an end in sight. The Emergencies Act was put into place, as it was contemplated in 1988, to deal with emergency situations, and we now see a flow of goods and services and a return to normalcy here in the city of Ottawa. The important work that needs to be done is not about dealing with the debate on who chairs the committee, particularly when we have so much agreement on how that process should take place. Instead, it is about looking to make sure the powers that were used were used judiciously, appropriately and in a limited fashion in terms of both geography and time. I would think that all members would want to get on with that process as quickly as possible, so I am frustrated that, because of the Conservatives' desire to have chairmanship, we continue to have to wait and grind this out. This should have started on Monday. We should not be here today continuing to deal with this.

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Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

Mar/2/22 4:42:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious conversation about how we can move forward to see if the emergency measures act was correctly implemented. I feel sorry for the government House leader. I believe he has short-term amnesia about what actually happened. In his answer, he said that we needed the Emergencies Act because there were blockades across our borders. That is not true. It is a lie. It is an absolute untruth and it did not happen. The blockades were gone— Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:42:44 p.m.
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Order. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

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Secretary

Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Mar/2/22 4:42:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we would all know, based on the parliamentary procedures we have in the House, that we cannot call another member in the House a liar. I ask you to ask the member to withdraw that comment.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:42:59 p.m.
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I will save us all on this one. I would ask the member to back up, retract the word in question and go forward from there. The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

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Mr. Warren Steinley

Mar/2/22 4:43:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I misspoke. I wanted to say that some things have happened that are not relevant to the history of the Emergencies Act. The member said that the Emergencies Act had to be invoked to clear the blockades, but that did not happen. The blockades were removed before the Emergencies Act was used. I would like to get back to the point of the question. The fact the Liberals keep telling a story that is fictional is something that really affects my constituents in Regina—Lewvan. Did they reach the criteria to invoke the Emergencies Act? That is the question the committee wants to have answered and why—

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:44:06 p.m.
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The hon. government House leader.

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:44:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a very quick way to get that answer, and it is to support this motion to create the committee. If the Conservatives are interested in those answers, I am a little confused as to why they are blocking them. I appreciate that the member across is concerned for my well-being. That is kind of him. As I age, sometimes I forget the details of movies and different things that I used to remember. However, I will tell members what I do not forget: trying to come to work through an occupation. What I do not forget is talking with the residents of Ottawa, who were completely besieged day and night, their lives utterly turned upside down. What I do not forget is the conversations I had with businesses that had their livelihoods horrifically upended as a result of these protests. What I do not forget is members opposite appearing in the illegal protests taking photographs, giving coffee and tweeting their support. I do not forget those things. They are burned indelibly into my memory because they were so disappointing. What we need to remember now is that before the act was put into place, this was the reality outside of these doors. That occupation was occurring. It was not until the Emergencies Act was put into place that we began to see action to see it lifted and to see us move forward. If the Conservatives are interested in the type of oversight they are talking about, there is a simple solution: Stop obfuscating and vote for this.

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Mr. Peter Julian

Mar/2/22 4:45:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one has to ask why the Conservatives want to delay this for three weeks. They do not want the oversight committee in place, this parliamentary review committee. That is my question to my colleague. However, I need to preface it by noting the incredible impacts that the occupation had on the people of Ottawa. Any of us who walked through those neighbourhoods and talked to those residents know first-hand that people with disabilities and seniors were cut off from essential services. Families were subject to huge levels of noise and the highest level of pollution in the country. Thousands of jobs were lost and hundreds of businesses were closed. We saw and heard about the assaults. We heard about the vandalism. We heard about a wide range of abuses that the people of Ottawa had to endure, yet at this point, I have not heard one Conservative MP say they talked to the people of Ottawa, found out what was happening and now understand what they were enduring. The Conservatives seem to want to delay this for three weeks, but at the same time, they never spoke to the residents of Ottawa. Why did they not speak to the residents of Ottawa and why are they trying to delay the oversight committee by three weeks?

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:47:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct. We are going to back to our constituencies for two weeks, so if we do not deal with this today, the matter would be put off for three weeks. It is very confusing to see the Conservatives stand up and demand that there be oversight and accountability, but also demand that we not set up the process that would do the thing they say they want. They are speaking in contradictions. Because I suspect one of the next questions will be from the members opposite, I would invite them to talk to us about the conversations they have had with business owners inside the red zone and about how they were affected. They should talk about the residents who were affected, about why they were outside supporting the protest and about why they would be demanding to chair a process to overlook the thing they were supporting. It is an untenable, illogical position. There is a very simple solution. It is to vote right now to create this committee, get to work right now and get this done.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC)

Mar/2/22 4:48:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the Friday Parliament was cancelled, I actually was talking to the residents of Ottawa. I talked to a lady who said she was one of the biggest supporters of the Prime Minister until a couple of months ago, when the Prime Minister insulted, belittled and continued to be disrespectful to people who have a different opinion than his. She had finally gotten to the point where she could no longer support the Prime Minister. She wanted to see what was going on, felt extremely safe and had no concerns. There was also a chef who worked for a restaurant that was closed because of the fearmongering by the government, which said there were dangerous people out on the streets. That was a blatant untruth. Many people were out of work simply because of the fearmongering that has happened in this place. In Parliament, we go on precedent. We quite often go on the customs and traditions of this place. I am wondering if something has happened historically that would give the member reason to believe we should give the chairmanship to a second and third opposition party, when the letter of the act specifically speaks to giving the chair to the official opposition. What is the precedent he is using to make this decision?

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:49:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise as the government House leader to respond to the question that was posed to me. The member says that he has talked to business owners who said their businesses were affected by the Prime Minister's objection to the illegal blockades. I would ask him what he thought happened when this city was completely shut down and businesses could not open their doors. I was talking to business owners who watched people defecate in front of their properties, who watched them stare in their windows and intimidate them, who watched them bang on their windows. Countless business owners said it was the worst thing they had endured in 30 years of business. The member found one person who was not negatively affected by it and is an ardent partisan of the Conservatives. I congratulate the member on his ability to find that person, because things would have been very difficult for anybody living in the red zone. This was a situation without precedent. Our city was occupied. There were unbelievable things happening outside these doors and the official opposition was cheerleading them. The member is right that this is without precedent, and we have to respond accordingly.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Mar/2/22 4:50:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if this was not such a serious issue, I would almost be amused by the childishness of the Liberals and the Conservatives. Personally, I find it doubly important that the membership of the committee be unanimous, because we need this committee to be as legitimate as possible given the context. Another reason why I think that is important is that a precedent has already been set in this case. The Liberals, along with their Siamese twins the NDP, imposed the emergency measures in a seemingly partisan context, and I would find it extremely frustrating if the membership of this committee was shoved down the House's throat with a gag order.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:51:33 p.m.
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It is my duty to interrupt proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House. The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I will invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair. The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

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Mr. John Brassard

Mar/2/22 4:52:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we want a recorded vote.

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Recorded

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