Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, on February 22, when we were debating your government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, you were asked if you were aware which levels of our national security apparatus or others were consulted and listened to when the government was considering invoking the Emergencies Act. You replied:

. . . the government was informed by all of the law enforcement and intelligence services upon which it relies in matters like this.

Senator Gold, is the RCMP included among those law enforcement agencies that the government relies upon in matters like this? If not, why not?

Senator Plett: Well, of course, that didn’t even touch upon the question I asked.

Leader, I don’t know what you or your government think “collaboration” means. It’s not just debating here in the chamber. The Oxford Dictionary definition of collaboration is, “The action of working with someone to produce or create something.” What the Trudeau government did regarding Bill C-69 was “impose,” to “Force (something unwelcome or unfamiliar) to be accepted or put in place.”

Leader, in 2019, the government of your own province wrote to the Senate’s Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee to say:

While Quebec conveyed its concerns to the federal government, there was no real government-to-government dialogue on Bill C-69 . . . .

Leader, if there was no dialogue on Bill C-69, how is that collaboration? If provinces and First Nations had to take your government to court to be heard on Bill C-69, how is that collaboration, leader?