Senator Gold: I will do my best. You’re asking a question that lies at the heart of how, in a democratic society, we also protect our safety and security. If you will allow me, I’m scrambling here because it is such a deep, important question and there is no easy answer.

Our courts face this all the time. How do you give due process to somebody charged with an offence — say a terrorism offence, to use an example that will be understood by all — when the evidence against them cannot be disclosed?

It has often been discussed and criticized, but we have a system in Canada with special judges and with in camera proceedings, friends of the court and so on, to try to find that right balance, because not all values that are important always fit together so easily; they bump up against each other. This is one of these cases.

Our Constitution — indeed, it’s an exercise of the Royal Prerogative in foreign affairs — confers upon the government, as opposed to Parliament, certain responsibilities and gives access to certain kinds of information that is not shared. It has everything to do with today, but it is not unique to the Emergencies Act.

Whether the solution is to create something akin to NSICOP, to mandate NSICOP or something like that which would have access, although not able to divulge it to parliamentarians, it is a question of whom do we trust. I am showing my age from old TV shows.

There is no right answer here.

If you will allow me to revert to what I think is really at the heart of it, this is not the case where the government is saying, “I know you don’t see any problem here, but we have all this information; trust us.” It’s really not that.

I’m not going to overstay my welcome by reciting everything in my speech or in the declaration. There is plenty of evidence, in the opinion of the government, that we saw with our eyes and heard with our ears that is such that it rose to that level of the threshold. It satisfied the threshold.

As I said in my speech, simply the presence of those armed and threatening the use of force to destabilize a democratic institution itself satisfies an element of the definition. The blockades, and the risk of their return, also meet the criteria.

It is all of that that is known that supports, in our opinion, the government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act on February 14. Yes, they may know more than they’re able to share.

I have to be very careful what I say, because everything gets tweeted out, so I want to choose my words carefully. Either we do or do not have confidence that the Government of Canada, whatever you may think of the Prime Minister — whatever you may think of his economic policies, how he has handled the pandemic or not — I don’t care. You’re entitled to feel whatever you want.

If we as parliamentarians do not have confidence in our government that comes forward after weeks of seeing what happened in Ottawa — everything that happened in Ottawa, and everything that I have described and that you’re aware of — and if we don’t have confidence that our government, sworn to uphold the Constitution, applying a law that demands that their actions be proportionate and consistent with the Constitution, trusting parliamentary institutions, the Senate and the House of Commons, to apply themselves to a serious examination of whether or not we can confirm the government’s decision that this was necessary, then I despair.

It’s not a question of “trust us,” because you will hear it. I reserve the right, as I said, to argue on some other occasion with a piece of legislation that we ought to defer to the elected officials. I’m not making that argument. I am not saying that we have to defer to the government.

If we don’t have confidence that the government isn’t lying to us, that this is not, like some have argued, a black flag operation to turn Canada into a dictatorship under Prime Minister Trudeau — as one hears on certain media south of the border for sure, and maybe elsewhere as well — then I don’t know why we continue to serve our country.

We continue to serve our country because we’re doing our job as parliamentarians. We are doing our job. I am proud of the job we do. I think the government has responded responsibly and proportionately.

I believe that I have presented the case and the government has presented the case that clearly establishes that the threshold was met for the invocation on February 14.