Senator Gold: With pleasure.

Senator Gold: Thank you for that invitation. I will certainly pass on your concerns to the government.

Senator Gold: With great pleasure.

Senator Batters: Senator Gold, how will a bank know that someone has “stopped participating in the protest” and then unfreeze their bank account?

Senator Gold: Absolutely.

Hon. Renée Dupuis: Would Senator Gold accept another question?

Senator Gold: Why didn’t you just say that to me earlier, Senator Moncion?

Senator Gold: The answer is yes.

Senator McPhedran: I stated that at the beginning, Your Honour. My question to Senator Gold was whether he would forgive me for that partial information.

Senator Gold: Again, with your permission, I’m going to simply take my cue from Senator Moncion. I have been asked that question many times. My speech addressed it and the declaration is clear. I really believe I have provided the best answers I could, senator.

My speech, Hansard and the declarations will have to speak for themselves.

Senator Gold: Thank you for the question. With all due respect, I believe that’s exactly the same question that our colleague Senator Carignan just asked. I have already answered and I’ll leave it at that for now.

Senator Gold: Would the senator take a question?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Senator Gold, will you take another question?

Senator Gold: Sure.

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question and for your confidence in my respect for different views, which I do have.

The Prime Minister was really clear, as recently as yesterday, in drawing a sharp distinction between political dialogue of sharply opposing views, even angry dialogue, and actions that threaten the security and safety of individuals in the country and that persist even after they are declared illegal.

With regard to the financing issue, I have been clear in this chamber, as a representative of the government, that the position of the government and the reading of the act and the regulations is that only if you continue to fund illegal activities after February 15 are you at risk of having your bank account frozen. People were warned, and if they stayed and continued, either to engage in these activities, for whatever reasons, ideological or other, they have broken the law and are subject to that possible sanction.

Again, I repeat that, of the thousands and thousands of donations that were made for many weeks prior to the proclamation of a state of emergency, only 200 — the number may very well be growing since I last got the number — but only a few hundred initiatives were taken, as the government stated, focusing on those organizing or contributing significantly or accumulating the funds to continue to be used to support the illegal activity.

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.

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 Gold: Of course.