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House Hansard - 39

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 2, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 39 - Mar/2/22
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
  • Mar/2/22 7:15:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, over the last couple of years, the issue that I think would have been a wonderful thing to talk about is the heroes of the pandemic and how Canadians stepped up to the plate when we really needed to take on the coronavirus. We are not necessarily focusing on that issue, but rather on a short period of time when people, due to the illegal blockades, caused far too many discussions and debates taking place here in Ottawa. I heard previously of the real heroes and issues of the pandemic. It has been a long, hard two-plus years, and there are so many wonderful things we could be saying about those Canadians and residents who really stepped up to get us through to this point. Getting back on topic, a couple of days before the government instituted the Emergencies Act there was a letter that was sent to the Prime Minister. I caught wind of it not through the PMO or anything of that nature, but through a Winnipeg Free Press article. I would like to quote the article. It states: Premier Heather Stefanson pleaded in a private letter to [the Prime Minister] to intervene at the Emerson border blockade just days before she publicly opposed his decision.... In a Feb. 11 letter obtained by the Free Press, Stefanson asked [the Prime Minister] to take “immediate and effective” action as she pleaded for “national leadership that only you and the federal government can provide.” It goes on: [The premier's] letter said the situation was urgent and blockades that disrupt “this critical corridor—even temporarily—create potential dangers, impose severe hardships on all Manitobans and cause severe economic loss and damage to Manitoba and Canadian businesses.” That was just a couple of days before the Emergencies Act. On the Sunday, the fact that the federal government was looking at enacting the legislation was already being talked about through some media outlets, and on Monday it was enacted. I do not think it was of any great surprise. We saw the City of Ottawa declare an emergency. The Province of Ontario declared an emergency. We had letters such as I just cited from Manitoba. We had a letter a week or so prior to that from the Province of Alberta asking the federal government to get engaged. The need to engage the Emergencies Act was very real, tangible and the right thing to do. I will go to what we heard from some of the law enforcement agencies. Steve Bell, the interim chief of the Ottawa Police Service, stated: “All of those pieces of legislation and supports we've got from different levels of government have directly and actively contributed to our ability to ultimately say we are in a position to move forward and look to end the demonstration,” meaning the lockdown here in Ottawa. In another news article, the commissioner of the RCMP stated that the powers given to her officers through the Emergencies Act served as a big deterrent in policing the anti-vaccine mandate protests that occupied the streets of downtown Ottawa for nearly a month. She stated: We don't have anything in laws that prevent people from coming to protests and we can't turn them away. So for us, operationally, it was all about reducing that footprint in Ottawa and the only way to do that was to stop people from coming in or incentivizing them to leave. There is no doubt in my mind that the Prime Minister, the cabinet and in fact not just Liberal members of Parliament but New Democrats, one Green member of the House, which was the former leader of the Green Party, and even the Bloc supported the Emergencies Act. We recognized there was a need for it. At the end of the day, if we take a look at the Conservatives, it is very difficult to see where they actually were. Many members talked about Conservatives walking out and getting those snapshots onto social media. In fact, I saw one picture of the interim leader at a dinner table with some of the protesters. It was quite amazing to see that. Some say maybe we should have gone out there and talked to them. I want to give a quote. This is the Conservative guru from the Prairies. The Conservative Party members know him as Jason Kenney, the premier. This is what the premier had to say about negotiating with protesters. The premier was asked specifically about one of the leadership candidates, and I cannot say his name, and whether his comments compromised conduct. The premier stated, “I will never praise people who are out there breaking the law, creating public safety hazards, and I don't think anybody in elected office should do that.” The articles says, “He also said he does not believe anyone from the federal or provincial governments should be meeting with the participants.” Stick with the facts. That is what I want the committee to be able to do, and hopefully it will be able to do it as quickly as possible.
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