Senator Housakos: I did get up on a question. You are not the Speaker last time I checked.

The question here, government leader, is very simple. Do you agree with Prime Minister Trudeau that any parliamentarian, and anybody who took the time to listen to these protesters, to take their calls, to meet with them, that we are Nazis and we are supporters of the swastika? Is that a view you share, the view that the Prime Minister has expressed publicly and refuses to apologize for?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Carignan, are you asking for five more minutes to answer a question?

Senator Gold: Faced with the crisis, and given that people refused to comply with requests and refused to leave even after several weeks, the government decided, after taking all circumstances into account, to declare a state of emergency and enact temporary measures, which were necessary in order to re‑establish the situation on the ground, due to the facts that occurred. The government had no choice.

Hon. Jane Cordy: Honourable senators, I speak to you today from the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe peoples. I want to thank Senator Gold for the hours he spent answering questions today — maintaining his composure throughout — and, of course, to thank his team, because all of us have amazing teams behind us.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Bovey, it is six o’clock. You can resume your speech when we return. In accordance with the order, I must leave the chair for the one-hour dinner break.

We will adjourn until seven o’clock.

(The sitting of the Senate was suspended.)

(The sitting of the Senate was resumed.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Gold, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator LaBoucane-Benson:

That, pursuant to section 58 of the Emergencies Act, the Senate confirm the declaration of a public order emergency proclaimed on February 14, 2022.

Senator Plett: We’ll be nice. We’ll stop pretty soon.

Senator Carignan: Again, I refer you to section 129 of the Criminal Code, which would have allowed charges to be laid against the tow truck operators who were refusing to do their job. My question is on funding and the seizure of bank accounts. How did seizing bank accounts help the police remove the trucks from Wellington Street more quickly?

Senator Plett: “Only a few hundred,” you say. You have said that a number of times today, like these 200 people are insignificant.

There were only a few — a very, very few — people in Ottawa at any time that were flying a Confederate flag or possibly promoting a swastika. Only a very, very few. And yet, you have constantly, leader, been referring to those few as being the “leaders of this movement.” It seems that when it serves your purpose, 200 people having their bank accounts frozen is somewhat insignificant, and it’s “only” 200. But if it’s only 2 or 5 or 10 out of hundreds of thousands of people that were part of this protest across the country, that is very significant. I find that strange.

Leader, the Prime Minister called these people a “fringe” group, called them “racist” and he called them “misogynistic,” from when they left Vancouver all the way through to here. That’s what they were. I find this so difficult, leader. I am wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt. I have, quite frankly, given up with the rest of the government, but I still would like to give you the benefit of the doubt that we still are living in a society where everybody’s views are appreciated and respected if they are not racist and, indeed, misogynistic. But just because Justin Trudeau says they are, doesn’t make it so, leader.

Clearly, I am not going to get a clear answer on that issue as we haven’t been getting very clear answers on many issues here today. I am going to ask you another question.

An Hon. Senator: What’s the question?

Senator Plett: Well, I will ask that, sir. Instead of me doing this every time somebody says something, I’ll keep on talking, and you can keep on interrupting and I will continue to talk.

And you can continue interrupting, too. I have no problem and I won’t do this.

As we deal with the Emergencies Act and its ramifications, I keep thinking about how our country got to this point, and I keep coming back to how this all started. It began with Canadians protesting — as is absolutely their right to do in any liberal democracy — the Trudeau government’s actions in dealing with COVID-19 and this government’s inability to follow the science and bring forward a plan to end the mandates.

Now, without question — you have said it, others have said it, and we all agree — we are tired. We fight amongst friends. We fight amongst families. We have differences of opinion. Some family members believe you should be vaccinated. Others believe there is a conspiracy theory. We all, I’m sure, every one of us, at least knows people, if they aren’t in your own families. So we are tired of that. We recognize that.

But that doesn’t make Canadians bad people when they say, “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of this government telling me what to do.”

Senator Gold, Canadians would like to understand what exactly the Trudeau government believes is the difference between a legal protest and an illegal protest. When did this protest become illegal? Was it when Justin Trudeau decided it was illegal? Senator McPhedran made a good point that for the longest time the trucks were held at bay. When did it become illegal? Was it when all of a sudden they moved the blockades and let trucks in? Who did that?

At what point does a legal protest become an illegal protest in the eyes of Justin Trudeau?

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. Look, I have been advised that there were conversations and an engagement with some banks in the course of this, but I do not have the details, Senator Loffreda, so I don’t want to state more than I know.

But only to say — of course I’m speaking to you as someone with as much experience in banking as most of us in the chamber, with very few exceptions — that the banks in this particular instance, although charged with an additional responsibility to review and share information, nonetheless have the competency to do it and the desire to do it, to assist our efforts as a country, to make sure that illegal funds do not support illegal activities.

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Would Senator Gold take a question?

Hon. Robert Black: Will Senator Gold take another question?

Senator Boehm: It took one year.

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. As I believe I outlined in my speech — and I believe it’s also set out in the declaration the government tabled and that I tabled in this place — yes, quite apart from what security agencies may know, there was very public reporting of circumstances that showed the presence of representatives or adherence to far-right extremist and White supremacy groups.

Let me just cite one group. Protesters bearing the symbol of the group Diagolon were found at Coutts and the symbol was also found on the body armour of some of the protesters here in Ottawa, even after the police initiated their action to clear out our streets. As I mentioned in my speech, according to an expert from the Justice Institute of British Columbia, Candyce Kelshall, this is a group that was formed by a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces and its stated purpose is “to incite a race war.”

This is not the only example, however, of signs, symbols and rhetoric that reflect a particular world view or ideology that privileges one group of citizens against all others depending upon their race and the colour of their skin.

Again — and I repeat, colleagues — it is not the position of the government that everybody who joined this convoy, whether initially or even in Ottawa, adheres to these views. That would be a grotesque distortion of not only my position and the government’s position, but also of the truth. However, it is still the case that when you stand in a crowd with people wearing the Star of David, equating vaccine mandates with the Holocaust, and when you stand in a crowd of people brandishing Confederate flags, you are giving silent encouragement — perhaps unconscious, perhaps unwitting — nonetheless you’re standing alongside those whose agenda may be far different from yours. It’s not acceptable in our society to allow to prevail that kind of imagery or rhetoric, to say nothing of the plans underlying some of the participants and some of the key drivers of this convoy.

Senator Carignan: I am surprised at your response, where you say that people were incapable. I saw that the Ambassador Bridge was open a few days before the emergency measures were adopted, under similar conditions, with truckers and people blockading. The difference there was that the U.S. President called asking that the bridge be opened. Maybe there should have been a call to get the entrance to the U.S. Embassy opened. What is the difference between the powers or solutions that the police had for the Ambassador Bridge and those they could not use on Wellington Street?

Hon. Wanda Elaine Thomas Bernard: Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

Senator Gold, first let me thank you and your team for all of your work to get us to this point today.

I want to start by asking a question regarding racism and White supremacy that we have seen evidence of in the media during this occupation. Could you tell us if there is specific evidence that supports the reports that we have seen that protesters did, in fact, carry neo-Nazi and White supremacy flags, and that there were also verbal and behavioural threats reported? Is there evidence to that effect?

Hon. Claude Carignan: Leader, I have many questions for you.

The act is pretty clear when it states, and I quote:

For the purposes of this Act, a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that

I’m trying to understand how you can claim that the municipal, provincial and Canadian laws currently in place were insufficient to arrest people on Wellington Street for mischief or possession of weapons. I don’t have a list of all of the charges that were laid or the tickets that were issued for disturbing the peace, but law enforcement officers are obligated to respond when such acts are being committed, and they can easily do so under the existing legislation. I’m therefore having a hard time understanding why the protesters could not have been forced to leave and the vehicles on Wellington Street could not have been towed under federal, provincial or municipal laws.

(1050)

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I have a number of questions. I’ll ask one or two, as you allow, and I will ask to be put back on the list for questions later.

Senator Gold, you said the government had been very clear. The government has been anything but very clear. Yesterday, I asked you a straightforward question in Question Period about invoking the Emergencies Act. Instead of answering the question, you said you looked forward to answering it during Tuesday’s debate. So here is my second attempt, Senator Gold.

When the Prime Minister invoked the Emergencies Act, he claimed it would be geographically targeted. In the other place on Saturday, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice confirmed that the legislation applies to all of Canada.

Senator Gold, what guidelines did the Trudeau government use before making the call to declare a historic national emergency throughout our entire country? Do you have an answer to that question directly today, Senator Gold?