Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, thank you for this incredibly important and robust debate.

I’m speaking to you today from Mi’kma’ki, the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.

Colleagues, I deeply value free speech. I deeply value peaceful protest. But these have not been peaceful protests about free speech. For example, those who came to occupy Ottawa were demanding that the federal government remove all mandates related to COVID-19, regardless of whether those mandates were issued by the American government, the Canadian government or one of our 13 provincial or territorial governments. Then we learned that the protest organizers had the stated objective of overthrowing a recently elected government and Parliament. Yet these protesters were still given the chance to voice their views peacefully on the weekend of January 29.

The voices of those protesters were definitely heard — not peacefully, but loudly. When their unreasonable and unconstitutional demands were not met, they entrenched. Day and night, the occupiers made their presence known where people lived, where they worked and on the streets. Businesses were shuttered, costing an estimated $15 million in lost wages and sales every day. Lawlessness and disorder prevailed.

The citizens and businesses of Ottawa were far from alone. Countless Canadians have been harmed by the blockades of critical infrastructure across our country. Those blockades disrupted billions of dollars of international and local trade. They caused struggling private businesses to close and send workers home, they damaged our most critical trading relationship at a crucial time and they stained our global reputation.

This level of instability in one of the world’s most treasured democracies should be deeply concerning to us all.

Colleagues, the occupation of a G7 capital by individuals who made it clear that they were not going to respect the law or leave voluntarily was untenable. Regardless of all the ineffective actions and jurisdictional failings that led up to this crisis, the Ottawa Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police were clearly incapable of restoring the rule of law. As a consequence, I firmly believe that the invocation of the Emergencies Act on February 14 was both necessary and justified.

Personally, I draw comfort from the checks and balances within the act and the fact that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms remains pre-eminent. But we will need to listen carefully to the concerns of certain groups, especially vulnerable and minority groups, who justifiably worry about precedents being set here. Canadians with a history of being marginalized, racialized and dominated by the majority are rightfully afraid that this use of the act could set a worrisome standard for future protests. Their fears are likely fuelled by their first-hand knowledge of past police actions — taken without use of the Emergencies Act — in situations that looked nothing like recent events.

Now I would like to focus on the use of the checks and balances within the Emergencies Act. An inquiry will be triggered when the act is revoked, be it through the will of Parliament with the House or Senate exercising their rights under section 59 or by a decision of this government. Canadians should rightly expect that inquiry to be thorough, balanced and non‑partisan in its examination of “. . . the circumstances that led to the declaration being issued and the measures taken for dealing with the emergency.”

Over the next year, the inquiry will call upon the Prime Minister and his cabinet to defend their use of the act and the people of Canada should ultimately have the opportunity to decide whether they agree with the actions taken.

The inquiry will need to clear up some troubling questions leading up to the invocation of the act, how special powers were used and why those special powers were needed in the first place. In leading up to its invocation, my questions include: In what ways did partisan language, tactics and actions escalate tensions and anger among protesters and broaden involvement?

During the first week of the crisis, Conservative MP Michael Chong and Liberal MP Joël Lightbound both spoke powerfully about the worrisome national divisions caused and widened by partisanship as it is now practised in Canada. For far too many, simply being anti-Conservative or anti-Liberal justifies saying and doing things that can only divide Canadians, not unite them.

Was the required security and intelligence advice available to each level of government and police force leading up to and during each protest? If not, why not? What barriers did jurisdictional issues present, and how did they prevent decisive action? Why were the police limited in their ability to secure essential services?

Those are all very important questions leading up to the invocation of the act.

In terms of the powers used under the act, I think we need to carefully examine issues that include the following: What burden of proof existed prior to freezing the roughly 200 personal and corporate accounts and 250 crypto addresses? How many accounts were frozen in error, and how quickly and completely were those situations resolved? What process was used to release the affected individual and corporate accounts so that those individuals do not remain “unbanked” and uninsured?

The actions taken could cause significant financial harm potentially to people who have not broken the law, but also to those people whom we do not want to become less connected to broader society. I trust that the inquiry will examine how quickly and completely each one of those situations was resolved.

Finally, I want us to examine why we got to the point where the Emergencies Act was required to access crucial financial measures. Specifically, I hope the inquiry will examine issues such as the following: Why is our financial oversight system not capable of monitoring the financial activities used during these occupations without invoking the Emergencies Act? The organizers showed sophistication in rapidly raising and distributing a large number of donations, including those made using crypto assets. However, those activities used are not very new and their use was far from unimaginable. Yet those activities remain unregulated. Our regulations and corresponding due process need to start to keep up with market realities.

This crisis has caused new payment technologies and platforms to be added to our list of regulated financial entities, but the fact that it took a crisis for this to happen is troubling.

Second, why have we failed to revamp our approach to anti‑money laundering and anti-terrorist financing despite FINTRAC’s existing protocols capturing less than 1% of estimated criminal money flows in Canada? How has this not been a priority? The status quo means that bad actors are 99% successful in moving their money in Canada. Our current system is a burden for good actors and fails to track bad actors unless we use the Emergencies Act. This is an unacceptable reality.

Third, how are we incapable of identifying and regulating foreign funds coming into Canada for political, ideological or illegal purposes? Why have new regulations and appropriate processes not been prioritized in the digital era? Simply, our financial regulators have not kept up with technological and market realities. Canada has stagnated as disruption has accelerated.

Highly disruptive point-of-sale technologies using crypto payments now exist, yet we still are not thoughtfully building a financial system that will keep up with market realities. We need to start to prioritize data rights, financial inclusiveness and global competitiveness, while protecting freedom in financial decision-making and dramatically limiting the role of bad actors.

That is no small task. With each of those issues, I worry about how much legislative work is needed but in an environment where Canadians’ trust in their public and political institutions has been weakened and their faith in what they see on social media is growing.

This is deeply worrisome. Rebuilding lost trust must be a top priority. It might be helped by prioritizing the use of consultative ways to engage Canadians in building shared solutions to shared problems and eliminate the paternalistic “Ottawa knows best” approach where Canadians are given a predetermined solution to a pre-selected problem.

Colleagues, throughout our country, Canadians have continued to do their jobs. They are stressed, tired and worn out, but they continued to work. I’m grateful for the million-plus Canadians who have been struggling, tired and without reprieve kept our health care system from collapsing during this crisis. I’m grateful for the 130,000 truckers who have continued to provide deliveries across our country, day in and day out. I’m grateful for the countless essential workers who remain heroes despite no longer receiving their hero pay. I’m grateful to the journalists who protect our democracy by constantly searching for the light of truth and I’m grateful for the police, first responders, business owners and ordinary citizens who keep our communities functioning. I’m grateful that all of these Canadians have continued to do their jobs.

Colleagues, I believe now is the time for Canadian politicians to lower the temperature, drop the partisan rhetoric, and focus on building a more sustainable, inclusive and prosperous path forward for all Canadians. That’s our job. I worry if we don’t do it. Thank you colleagues.

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