Senator Tannas: First of all, all evidence is to the contrary. The streets are clear. The emergency is over here in Ottawa. I accept that there was no way that conventional policing, with the laws on the books, could have done what was needed to encircle 100 square blocks, deny people entry and exit and to do what they needed to in all of the other elements that have been well enumerated to break the back of that protest that had metastasized over three weeks. I accept that.

There is lots of blame — and we’ll get to the blame — as to whose fault it was. It doesn’t matter. How could they have done it? I believe that that drastic decision had to be made.

But today, to say that we need to continue an act that has been told to Canadians is the absolute last resort, that it must continue today and in the next hour, the hour after that and the hour after that, when the clear purpose it was invoked for, here in Ottawa, has been dealt with. That is the issue.

We have a fully functioning intelligence department. We have the RCMP. In this province, you have the Ontario Provincial Police and you have the municipal police. They didn’t all go home. They have been working hard. They have laws and resources available to them. There is nothing that I have heard that tells me that they still need those.

We heard yesterday that there were all these banking and financial products that had been frozen. Now we hear they are starting to be unfrozen — not that there are new ones, just the ones that were frozen. That leads me to believe that the extra measures that are so repugnant to Canadians — because they were told that this law was to be used once in a generation maybe — and the powers in that law need to continue just doesn’t square. I have not heard anything that convinces me otherwise.

We heard from you and others about the financial side of things. We heard about a bunch of truckers who are circling Ottawa or parked in a field somewhere waiting to come back as soon as the Emergencies Act is revoked. Presumably, this time the police have a plan if that happens, or, I guess if they don’t, then we’ll have to invoke it again. But it doesn’t need to continue today. It should be put back in the closet where it belongs. Thank you.