Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable senators, in my 13 years in the Senate of Canada, I don’t think I have risen on a more important debate and issue than this one.
I want to remind all senators in this chamber that our fundamental role when we were summoned to this place is to be the voice of our regions and to be the voice of minorities in this country. These are voices that need to be heard, voices that need to be represented when they feel they’re not being adequately represented, particularly on the other side, but also when they feel that they’re being trampled on by the executive branch of government.
There’s no role more important in this place than the role of oversight of the government. In this particular instance, one minute these protesters, convoys, were coming to Ottawa and they were marginalized by the Prime Minister. He called them a fringe minority. And the next minute, this fringe minority, this small group of Canadians that are anti-vaccines and anti‑mandates all of a sudden became such a threat that we had to impose something that has been done only three times before in the history of this country. Clearly, from that admission, the Prime Minister was wrong when he called this a fringe group, a minority.
Colleagues, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it wasn’t a fringe group. It isn’t a fringe group. This country is deeply divided like I’ve never seen in my 50-plus years. As a proud Canadian, I’ve seen governments come and go. We have seen many crises and public discourse in the country, but never in my lifetime have I seen these deep divisions.
It’s in moments like these that the executive branch of government has an obligation and every prime minister has an obligation to put the nation’s interests above the interests of himself, his party and partisan politics. I saw that many times under the leadership of Stephen Harper. I saw it first-hand in his caucus. I saw it under the leadership of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who I always appreciated. He put the nation first regardless of political differences at various times. God knows he had some very tough crossroads to walk in this country. I saw it under the leadership of Brian Mulroney as well.
There is always temptation on the part of the politicians to wedge and divide for political benefit, and I’ve seen first-hand that it works, but in those moments of existential crisis, all prime ministers are obligated to bring the parties together, not to throw fuel on the fire, not to call protesters names, not to call them extreme right, extremists, racists or a few other words I won’t even mention. We’ve had this debate, and there is no point in revisiting it.
That kind of political posturing is completely unnecessary. We saw this government do it in the last general election when they tried to create the atmosphere of “them versus us.” They did some polls. They realized that 80% of Canadians are double vaccinated. They said, “We’ll make an example of the 20% of Canadians who don’t want to be vaccinated because they are vaccine-hesitant, have medical conditions, have a phobia or whatever the reasons may be.”
I believe in freedom, yes. I believe in freedom of a man and woman to choose if they undergo a medical procedure. It’s their choice in this country. Before you go for a surgery, they ask you to sign a form, a waiver. I don’t think it’s much to ask in this country as a Canadian citizen to have your government lay off when it comes to taking vaccines, medications or medical procedures, or being forced to have or not have an abortion. It’s the same type of debate for me as a libertarian. These are rights that should be fundamental in the country.
Therefore, when protesters come to Ottawa, there should be consistent rules for all Canadians. I’m double-vaccinated. I try to persuade my friends, neighbours and everybody — I believe it’s genuinely the way to go in order to mitigate this disease and fight it to the best of our ability, but I also recognize the right of somebody else not to be vaccinated. I recognize the right of somebody to expect their government to be fair with all citizens, to be just with all citizens. When protesters come to Ottawa or they go to Coutts, Quebec City or Toronto, they have the right of protest, which is fundamental in our democracy. No one can take that away.
When protesters went to the G20 a few years back, they had a legitimate right to protest. When Indigenous communities had legitimate issues with the government, they went to the extreme with armed protests, shutting down infrastructure and railway crossings in this country for a number of weeks. When Black Lives Matter protested for issues that are important, they are fundamentally on the right side of where they should be. Every politician has the right to respect these protests.
We have an obligation, particularly as parliamentarians, as a prime minister, whoever it is, to dialogue with these people. Somebody said earlier in their speech that the three Rs are the most important thing in our democracy: rights, responsibilities and respect. I think it was Senator Arnot. I agree with him. It’s a right to protest in this country. It’s a responsibility though of Parliament, our Prime Minister and our governments to dialogue with these citizens. These are not enemies of the state. These are frustrated Canadians.
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If it’s Black Lives Matter, if it’s the Indigenous communities, if it’s people at a G20 for economic reasons — we saw what happened in Oka in my province many years ago. I’m old enough to remember. In all of these instances, prime ministers threw water on the fire. They dialogued, they sent ministers in for discussions. They sent bureaucrats in to have chats to try to figure out what the problem was.
They didn’t say, “you’re undesirable,” “you’re racist,” “you march with swastikas,” or “you’re tearing down monuments,” when they did not. We have had other protests that desecrated monuments across the country or burned down religious centres of worship. The prime minister didn’t run out and invoke the Emergencies Act: He engaged in dialogue.
So why, in this instance, did he choose to do otherwise? Is it because he thought maybe the poll numbers were on his side? Maybe he thought he would get away once again with creating an “us” majority versus “them” the minority.
All of a sudden he started realizing that even double vaccinated people are frustrated in this country. We are frustrated with mandates that are not fair. For example, when a government institutes a travel mandate, they should institute a travel mandate. But, no, there is a double standard with the policies of this government. If you are a wealthy Canadian and you need to see a family member in New Jersey or California, no problem. Hop on a plane, you do your PCR test, you come back and you quarantine. Life is a dream.
If you have a sick mother in Vermont and you are in Montreal, you can’t get over the border to visit because of COVID mandates. We have to do this, we have to save the country.
But, of course, if you sit back and think about it, the sacrifices will be made by those who cannot afford to get on a plane and drive over a border. For those who can fly, you’re good — more double standards.
We have a case in point where we had protests in Coutts and at the Ambassador Bridge. Police authorities there were able to bring down the temperature and resolve that issue. Nobody called the Prime Minister and said, “Give us the Emergencies Act or else we can’t get it done.”
Police authorities in Quebec City planned for the protests effectively. They calmed things down and dealt with it appropriately. There was no need for emergency measures. This is the kind of irresponsible behaviour on the part of the government that just can’t be excused. It just cannot be.
This Prime Minister has tripled down for political expediency and nothing else when he saw he was losing. To this day, he hasn’t once taken any responsibility for this issue.
The other element, colleagues, is this could have been resolved quickly if this government had done or was willing to do what governments across this country have been doing now for over a week: announcing that they are removing mandates. It’s the easiest thing. Alberta did it. Saskatchewan did it. Ontario did it. The Quebec government did it. The only one who has tripled down and is refusing to eliminate those mandates is Prime Minister Trudeau. At this point, we see there is no good reason for it except he doesn’t want to acknowledge political defeat.
This isn’t a game. This is about bringing a deeply divided country together. This is about reconciliation after coming out of a terrible crisis called COVID. And by the way, colleagues, make no mistake, this is just the beginning of the disruption. The next crisis around the corner is fundamentally worse, and this Prime Minister has buried his head in the sand regarding that one as well. I’ll get to that later.
He has invoked an emergency measure — which was unnecessary — giving the police authorities in this country — overkill — overarching authority essentially to do what they want without any accountability to anybody. The government leader pretty much said to us yesterday, “trust me, trust the government, there is enough evidence to justify this.” I haven’t seen it. He acknowledged that he hasn’t seen it. I think Senator Tannas asked him about it. We haven’t seen it.
But the Parliament of Canada, “trust me.” We can freeze accounts. We can give the police all this authority to take care of what they should be able to take care of with our present laws, it seems to me. If the present laws on the books are not sufficient to manage a few protesters on Parliament Hill, we are lawmakers — let’s change the laws. Let’s not tell the government to take over and become a dictatorship. Come to Parliament and say that this is what we need and we need it quickly.
As you have seen over the last two years, Senator Gold, we are agile in this place. Everything you have asked of your colleagues in the Senate, we have done relatively quickly. You needed billions of dollars; we approved them. We need changes in order to deal with COVID; we dealt with them, even when we had reservations. We haven’t pushed back. There hasn’t been any hesitation.
But telling police officers to go ahead and decide who enters the Parliamentary Precinct, to make a list of who is appropriate to enter and who is not, I find unbelievable.
Yes, local residents were inconvenienced in a big way. Unfortunately, the frustration of Canadians has reached such a boiling point where they are causing chaos in the streets. That should be a red alert that we need to sit down and find out how we can address them. That’s our job.
Foreign investment in this country, in the last few days since the Emergencies Act, has come to a standstill. You have seen the statistics. It is even worse than it was before the Emergencies Act, which was pretty pitiful. Foreign investment in this country is at its lowest level in seven or eight years.
When we become the laughing stock of other western democracies, when we are all over the front page news in the U.K., the United States, France and Germany and I’m getting calls from parliamentarians asking, “What is happening to your great democracy?” I have no answer. I can’t explain it.
I can’t explain that a few hundred thousand people in Ottawa overcame the laws of this country, our police forces and our public security system, and that we had to invoke a measure that has been invoked only three other times in the history of this country: World War I, World War II and, of course, the October Crisis.
Colleagues, in each and every one of those cases when that act was invoked, history has proven that there were indiscretions and that mistakes were made. We wronged people in a serious way. Afterwards, governments had to stand up in this place and the other to apologize for those indiscretions.
It is not good enough to say to trust the government. It’s not the role of the Senate or the House of Commons to trust the government. That’s for the people who decide during elections if they want to trust them or not. This place, our job, is to question, to see the facts before we are forced to vote on certain things.
Now, we also have a Prime Minister who, in addition to calling people names, has another talent. He likes to reinvent things. All of a sudden, the Government Leader in the Senate has become the representative. Partisanship has become an evil thing in public debate.
An “independent” parliamentarian is a parliamentarian who rubber-stamps their political programs and the government agenda. “Extremists,” “racists,” “extreme right-wing,” these are all code words for anybody who opposes us, and we are going to tag you. We are going to put a label on you. That is politically very astute. It has worked very well so far. I think it’s slowly catching up to him.
Colleagues, Prime Minister Trudeau said at the beginning of this crisis that we are all in this together. That’s what he said. He said we are going to be in this together. We have your back, unless you are a trucker. If you are a trucker, you are on your own. Unless you are not willing to accept a medical procedure. If you are unwilling to take a vaccine, you are on your own in a big way. If you can’t afford to fly in an airplane, you are going to be locked in your house and quarantined by this government because there are different rules for those travelling by plane than those going on four wheels because they can’t afford to do otherwise.
I’m seeing this dangerous thing developing in our country. It’s called the bureaucratic oligarchy. People like us have the privilege of a guaranteed paycheque every couple of weeks, as do all those who work for government agencies across this country. During this COVID-19 crisis, we saw that the government had the back of all those people.
Our employees were working from home. We found ways to accommodate them. We made sure our employees’ paycheques were on time. There wasn’t as big a hit on them as other citizens who are not part of the bureaucratic oligarchy like I am. I have that privilege. Citizens who have to work in the private sector have been hit with a 30% pay cut or have unfortunately lost their jobs and are starting to feel the pain.
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Colleagues, in conclusion, all I have to say is the following: We have an obligation to make sure this divided country has some reconciliation and comes together. We have to recognize that we have to represent the interests of all Canadians in dealing with this crisis, because now we are getting through this crisis of COVID and the next one — you can see it; it’s $200 to buy a roast to feed a family of three or four. Again, we bureaucratic oligarchs, we privileged ones, can afford it.
