Senator Ataullahjan: Senator Plett, we heard on the floor of this chamber that if someone feels that their account was wrongfully frozen, they could always go to court. I don’t know if you can answer this question, but how easy would it be to go to court for a layman who doesn’t have an understanding of his rights, who doesn’t know what options are available for him and who might not have the means? What do I say to someone who calls me and asks, as a racialized person or someone who has a racialized name and might not have that great a command of the English language? Do I tell them to go to court?

I don’t know if you have the answer, because I didn’t have an answer.

Senator Plett: Thank you, Senator Bernard. Your question really does not pertain to the Emergencies Act. You’re asking me a question, do I believe that one person’s rights trump another’s person’s rights? No, I don’t. If somebody did something illegal, if somebody destroyed property, then those people should be charged.

If somebody is pulling down statues across our country, if somebody is putting a rope around Sir John A. Macdonald’s neck somewhere in our country and it’s pulled down, that person should be charged. If somebody is burning a church somewhere in our country, that’s arson. That person should be charged. If somebody is promoting hate in Ottawa, that person should be charged.

But you’re giving me a whole lot of hypotheticals saying you have heard this, you have heard that. One person with a flag carrying a swastika who should have been run out of town or whatever we would have wanted to do with that individual, but that does not constitute the rally being promoted by racist people. That’s not fair.

So unless the people have done something illegal — I’m sorry, Senator Bernard. You and I may have differences of opinion on issues, but as I said in my speech, I will defend to the death your right to your opinion. It may be different than mine. The same thing here.

The ironic thing is — much as I do support the police, and I’ve made that clear and I try to do that every chance I get — the injunction to get the truckers to stop blowing their horn was a private citizen here in Ottawa, not the police.

If somebody is doing something illegal, they need to be charged. If they’re promoting racism, they need to be charged. But they weren’t. I’m not going to condemn somebody if they haven’t been charged with a crime.

Senator Plett: Certainly, Senator Carignan, I would share many of your same feelings with that. I think our rights and freedoms are being infringed upon, certainly with something like this, drastically infringed upon.

I find when somebody like Minister Freeland talks about our liberal democracy, and Prime Minister Trudeau does the same thing, I think they are the drivers in pushing that back.

Senator Bernard said in her question to me that the dissension has been in our country for years and I agree with her statement. But I think it has been drastically escalated in the last half-dozen years.

I think the Prime Minister that we have today is driving that and will continue to drive that down because I do not see in him the spirit to give people the rights that they deserve. When he says something like he admires the general dictatorship of China, those are things that will drive that index, I believe, Senator Carignan. Yes, I believe it will continue to go down.

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