First day of debate in the Senate on the Emergencies Act begins now. You can live stream the debate at the link below. #SenCa #cdnpoli
https://twitter.com/SenateCA/status/1496107820185444353
Normally, we would begin with Senate statements and question period. Today, we begin without the usual preambles, and jump straight into debate on the Emergencies Act. Senate Marc Gold, the government representative in the Senate, begins the debate. #SenCa #cdnpoli
Senator Gold is a constitutional lawyer and a constitutional law professor at McGill University. As government representative, he is granted unlimited speaking time - as is Don Plett, the leader of the opposition. The other "group" leaders will be allowed 45 minutes.
Senator Gold says the Senate has the unique benefit of hindsight, to see the impact of the EA. Speaking now in French, he says the measures of the EA must conform to the Charter of Rights and be proportionate. #SenCa #cdnpoli
Sen. Gold is now going through the provisions of the act, and the nature of a public order emergency. (I won't live tweet in detail. I will say that he is laying out the case in the style of the lawyer and professor that he is.)
Gold says provinces, including Ontario and Alberta, asked the federal government for help, saying that they did not have the resources or capacity to deal with the situation. #ableg #SenCa #cdnpoli
Gold says it's possible the situation could have been managed with existing laws....but that it wasn't being managed "effectively" - which is the test of the act. #ableg #SenCa #cdnpoli
"Toxic, dangerous and at times hateful" - that's how Senator Gold describes the rhetoric of those who held the streets of Ottawa. #SenCa #cdnpoli #yow
Gold describes some of the violence in Ottawa - and is now moving to describe the economic consquences of the border blockades. #cdnpoli #SenCa
Sen. Gold is now analyzing the MOU presented by Canada Unity - and their calls for the PM to be arrested for treason. He quotes some of the violent rhetoric of the convoy organizers. #SenCa #cdnpoli
Gold now moves to Coutts, and the presence of Diagalon icongraphy there. He says extremists have used good will protestors as a Trojan house to advance their objects. #SenCa #cdnpoli
Speaking in French, Gold says the government took this decision very carefully, after meeting with provinces, and after cabinet debate.
(I should perhaps explain here that there are no Liberal Senators - so it is Gold's task to lay out the government's case in detail. He is the official government representative in the Senate - but he is an unaffiliated Senator.) #SenCa #cdnpoli
Sen. Gold turns to the financial measures of the EA, the way it is going to track money from crowd sources platforms & its impact on bank accounts and insurance. Details safeguards to unfreeze accounts as quickly as possible. Says freezing is not being applied indiscriminately.
'The purpose of this short term emergency order is to have people's accounts frozen while they are actively participating in blockades." The order, he insists, does not apply retroactively to before February 15. Only about 200 accounts have been frozen, he says.
(Someone appears to be heckling a bit, at this point, but I can't make out who is saying what on my video feed.)
Sen Gold is now laying out the powers of parliamentarians to revoke or amend the provisions of the Emergencies Act. There is recourse to reconsider, or to revoke the EA before the 30 day limit, he argues.
Sen. Gold is now laying out the rules to set up a joint Senate/Commons committee to inquire into how this happened, including the review of the actions of law enforcement before and after the EA was invoked.
Gold, who has been speaking now for almost an hour, says he is turning to his concluding remarks.
Senate Speaker George Furey gently chastises the hecklers, asking them to show courtesy to speakers who have the floor.
Gold says on the weekend, people jammed Ottawa's 911 line. There was a bomb threat at an Ottawa hospital. Gold says people of Ottawa feel more free, but not yet safe.
Senators can now ask questions. Up first is Don Plett, the leader of the Conservative opposition in the Senate. Plett says the government has been anything but clear about the Emergencies Act.
Sen. Plett wants to know why the Act was applied nationally, and not just regionally. Sen. Gold says there were activities in many provinces that were threats to people and security. They were funded by people across the country and internationally. Borders were affected.
Gold says EA measures are being applied only where they are needed and only where jurisdictions have asked for assistance.
(Because Gold has unlimited speaking time, he can, in theory, answer all the questions put to him. But it's up to him, how many questions he actually will take.)
Sen. Plett wants to know the specific guidelines or criteria are being used to decide which bank accounts to freeze.
Sen Gold says money can't be used to support illegal activities, which undermine the security of Canada, whether those funds are Canadian or American.
Senator Housakos is asking a question now. Says Canada has seen more violent protests in the past without the EA. Accuses PM of speaking down to people, engaging in wedge politics, rather than calming the situation. I'm waiting for the question....
And after some heckling, are we getting to the question? It appears to be whether Gold thinks the PM's remarks about swatikas were fair? Since Gold is himself a long-time Jewish community leader, this is, um, ironic?
(I'm pretty darned sure that Marc Gold knows anti-Semitism when he sees it.)
Sen. Housakos says he's allowed to be partisan, and that there's nothing wrong with being partisan. "I am entitled to my opinion." Says PM has smeared the protestors as Nazis. Housakos says the protestors went "out of their way to be measured." #SenCa #cdnpoli
Sen. Housakos says he objects to being asked to show ID to enter the Parliament Hill area. Says the measures don't only affect protestors. The speaker calls on him to ask a question, not give a speech.
Sen. Gold says yes, it is an inconvenience for parliamentarians to show ID to enter the parliamentary precinct, but that it is a proportional temporary response.
The next question is from Dennis Patterson, who recently quit the Conservative caucus to sit with the Canadian Senators Group. Patterson is a former premier of the NWT. He asks whether the [arl review committee will have access of unredacted security information for its inquiry.
Gold says that it's unlikely the members of the review committee with have the necessary security clearances to see all the intelligence information.
Patterson says this concerns him. How can the parliamentary review committee "seriously investigate" this, if they can't see all the intelligence?
Now Conservative Senator Batters is asking a question about who gets to sit on the review committee - given that only Conservative senators belong to a recognized party.
Lawyer to lawyer, says Gold, there is nothing in the EA that says independent senators can't be on the committee. A literal and contexual reading of the act, he says, does not preclude naming of senators who aren't members of a party.
Sen. Batters now asks about the situation in Ukraine. Will Ukrainian-Canadians, she asks, be allowed to gather on Parliament Hil to express their concerns about Russian aggression this weekend?
Sen. Gold says he cannot predict on Tuesday what the rules will be on Saturday. But encourages Ukrainian-Canadians to make their concerns heard. (Notes that he too has family roots in Ukraine.)
ISG Senator Marty Deacon has a question now. "Are you aware of which levels of our national security apparatus were consulted or listened to?"
Gold consults a list. (This thread is getting far too long!! I will start a new one when Sen. Gold stops taking questions, and the next senator begins their speaking time.)
CPC senator Elizabeth Marshall asks about why the protest was tolerated for so long. What happened, specifically, to change that, she asks. #SenCa #cdnpoli
Sen. Gold says the federal government did not have the tools it needed to help the Ottawa City Police. The Emergencies Act gave them that capacity, to do everything from freeze funds or order tow trucks to two. #SenCa #cdnpoli
Sen. Marshall asks the question that's been on my mind. Why didn't the government realize what a threat this group was before it arrived?? Where was the threat assessment? Why was it so late?
Sen. Gold says he can't share all the intelligence that helped to inform the govt's decision. But he says all the circumstances that led to this point must be reviewed.
The next question is from ISG Senator Frances Lankin. (She was herself a cabinet minister in the Bob Rae government and now sits on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.)
She's trying to get clarity on the roles of the parliamentary review committee and the follow-up inquiry. She says the review committee should be up and running now - or as soon as possible. When can we expect it?
Sen. Gold says the standing up of the committee(s) requires a motion in the House and in the Senate. He says he's not aware that an understanding has been reached in the House about who will be on the committee.
A questions now from Sen. Claude Carignon of the Conservatives. Speaking in French, he asks why the laws and law enforcement agencies we have were not enough to deal with the situation on Wellington. A fair question, one I think many are asking.
Gold, speaking in French, says not withstanding the fact that the city of Ottawa and the province had powers, they were not capable of dealing with the situation. They didn't have capacity. (My French is not perfect, but this is my basic translation.)
Carignan says he has many follow-up questions! What powers did police have in Windsor to clear the Ambassador Bridge that they didn't have in Ottawa to clear Wellington, he asks. (Again, that's my translation.)
Sen. Gold, responding in French, singles out, as one example, the fact that in Windsor, they were able to bring in tow trucks from Detroit to help move trucks blocking the border.
I think everyone is sort of pussyfooting around directly criticizing the way the OPS dealt with things in Ottawa.
A question now from CSG senator David Adams Richards, the acclaimed novelist. He and Sen. Gold are talking about the possible future use of this legislation against environmental or Indigenous protestors.
For those of you watching at home, the Speaker's chair is now occupied by the Speaker Pro Tempore, Pierette Ringuette.
David Adams Richards suggests terms such as Nazi and racist are being thrown around as though by whimsy. Gold counters that symbols of hate appeared and continued to appear in Ottawa.
Gold says that of course not everyone at the protest was a Nazi, but that the convoy was hijacked by extremist elements. These are uncomfortable facts we cannot escape, he says.
Senator Gold, having spoken for an hour, has now taken questions for an hour. As I say, his official speaking time is unlimited. But we will have a "lunch" break at 10 AM MST, noon EST.
Sen Gold is now enumerating, en francais, the ways in which the Emergencies Act of 1988 is different from its predecessor, the War Measures Act.
Ooops! I've lost the live feed. And it seems, from the texts of some of my fellow senators, that I am not alone.
And we're back! Now Senator Rob Black, the chair of the Senate Agriculture and Foresty Committee is asking whether agriculture supply chain nodes are considered essential/critical infrastructure. He wants to amend the regulations to include agricultural infrastructure.
AAAND - we've lost the feed again!
Footnote- we've being doing the Senate online for a year and a half, and I don't recall us ever losing the feed this way in the past. Terribly timing.
And we're back. Sen. Gold says they can look into it. Sen. Black has another question, asking to update legislation to protect critical agricultural and supply chain infrastructure.
Now, ISG senator Mary Coyle is speaking, expressing her disappointment (which I share) that we didn't have a Committee of the Whole with key cabinet ministers on this file.
Sen. Coyle asks what happens if the protesters regroup after the EA is revoked. Are there tools that can be used to deal with that, rather than proclaiming this act again? An excellent question. We can't keep relying on this act to deal with ongoing policing issues.
Marc Gold says police and other jurisdictions have learned lessons from everything that happened. Say the fed govt is also planning stand alone legislation to deal with online funding platforms and crypto currency.
ISG senator Renee Dupuis is asking a question now. She's a lawyer and long-time advocate for human rights and a member of the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs.
In French, she asks about the powers and timing and agenda of the parliamentary review committee.
Gold, responding in French, says he can't give a very clear answer because of the language about the review committee isn't terribly specific. (Again, these are my translations.)
Dupuis says that the act says there has to be consultation as soon as possible with provinces. She is being very precise about the clauses of the act.
There are apparently more than a dozen senators in the queue to ask questions of Sen. Gold, who has been fielding questions for more than 90 minutes now.
A question now from CSG senator Pat Quinn. He also has questions about the review committee, and their access to confidential information. Gold says there are different categories of information with different levels of protection and access.
All members of the review committee, says Gold, will take an oath of secrecy, but won't have the same kind of security review as senators on the national security committee.
Note - Gold has been speaking this whole time with his N95 mask on. So far, it doesn't seem to have been any impediment.
Sen. Quinn asks about the life span of the review committee. How long will it be constituted? Gold says its role extends past the revocation of the Emergencies Act. But it is separate and distinct from the inquiry which takes place 60 days after the revocation.
Up next, Alberta senator Scott Tannas, the leader of the CSG. He begins by thanking Marc Gold for arranging a technical briefing for senators last night with some of the lead ministers on this file.
Sen. Tannas says no one has been killed due to "all of this." As far as he knows, he says, no one has been hospitalized. It's a testiment, he says, to the professionalism of police. So what emergency still exists today, hour by hour?
Sen. Tannas says he understand the original invocation of the Emergencies Act. But what justifies its continued usage?
Sen. Gold says the act is only valid if and only if there is an emergency affecting the country as a whole. He says we're in a Section 58 debate to confirm whether the government was correct to invoke the act.
"We're all Canadians. We all want this to end," says Sen. Gold. "This is a mature Chamber. Yes, we have different points of view," #SenCa #cdnpoli
Gold wryly thanks a heckler for helping him to remember his train of thought. (Couldn't tell who the heckler was.)
The government believes, based upon the comments from Canadian policing agencies, that the job is not yet done, says Gold. The government doesn't want a quick and dangerous return to blockades.
Once the criteria in the act are no longer met, says Gold, the measures in the Emergencies Act will be revoked. But right now, police say they still need support of tow trucks, still want laws to keep children out of harm's way.
Gold points out that protestors gathered outside of Ottawa have threatened to return. Gold says he hopes police in Ottawa reconsider how they responded the first time.
Sen. Tannas makes the fair point that sometimes legally required parliamentary committees have not been called into being in a timely manner. He says every day after this vote, Sen. Gold should have to explain why the committee hasn't been constituted yet. Until it is.
Gold says he'll be happy to report on the state of affairs, with the consent of the Senate.
CPC senator Salma Ataullahjan asks about the precedent this sets and the standard for invoking this act in the future. Sen. Gold praises the Mulroney government for creating the Emergencies Act in the first place, with democratic accountability.
Gold agrees that the act could be amended and updated. But today, he says, our role is to decide whether to affirm the government's decision to invoke the act in this instance.
Sen. Ataullahjan asks - and I paraphrase - if the government knew abouyt these threats, why wasn't more done to protect Ottawa sooner ?
Sen. Gold says the feds were sharing information. But rapid coordination of police forces wasn't possible without the Emergencies Act.
He says the federal government couldn't just take over the policing of Ottawa or of Ontario highways. That would violate constitutional jurisdiction. And now, we have hit the agreed upon lunch break.
Well. That was three hours of remarkable debate and discussion. We will now rise for an hour. I'll return then, and complete this thread - and start a new one when the next Senator takes the floor.
And we've back. Senator Pamela Wallin of the CSG is asking her questions now. Meanwhile, the Rideau Centre mall, across the street from the Senate, has been evacuated after reports of a gunman there.
Sen. Wallin asks about whether banks are indemnified if they freeze accounts. Sen. Gold says that is true. But that RCMP and financial institutions are working closely to be fair to customers who had accounts frozen.
Sen. Wallin says she's worried that banks may over-react and overcompensate. Asks Sen. Gold what is in place to prevent that. He says there's no evidence banks are likely to overreact. Says banks already monitor accounts for money laundering, terrorist financing.
More to the point, perhaps, Gold says there is no penalty for banks that neglect to freeze an account, implying they have no reason to overreact.
Up next is Senator Diane Griffin of the CSG, who has concerns about the rules that children are not allowed to be present within a 500 metre radius of the protest site. She's worried this could affect kids just going to the park.
Sen. Gold says that for three weeks, downtown Ottawa residents with young children were terrorized and unable to take their own kids to the park. Says the act responds to huge number of children of protestors present within the protest site. This was to protect them.
(I honestly don't think anyone is going to arrest a parent who takes a child to a playground 500 metres from the protest site.)
Sen. Griffin asks now about mature minors who might want to attend the protest. Sen. Gold responds by talking about the way some protesters used their children as human shields, and put them in harm's way. Says the EA was blunt but reasonable response.
ISG senator Tony Loffreda, a former VP at Royal Bank asks about strategy. To what extent were banks consulted? Sen. Gold says he knows less about banking that Tony does, but says the govt did its best to consult with banking sector.
A question now from Senator Mobina Jaffer, a human rights lawyer and chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. She was also Canada's first Muslim senator, appointed in 2001.
Sen. Jaffer wants to know if the inquiry will look at the root causes of all this. Sen. Gold says the act is circumspect and brief. It says "into the circumstances" of the situation. The committee will have broad latitude to decide what witnesses to call and what questions to ask
Gold says he thinks we could look at the larger social issues that fed into this protest, people who feel left out.
Sen. Jaffer says extra police powers always worry her. She says her Muslim community is still suffering from laws passed in the wake of 9/11. She's worried that Black Canadians, Indigenous Canadians might be overpoliced through this act.
Sen. Patrick Brazeau, who is Indigenous himself, asks about how the police will police themselves, and about the conduct of the OPS in general. Will the inquiry deal with that? Sen. Gold says yes.
Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard of the PSG, a long-time Black activist, asks whether there is specific evidence that protestors carried neo-Nazi and white supremacist flags. Is there evidence to that effect?
Yes, says Gold. There is. Apart from police intelligence, there was public reporting of circumstances that showed ahearents to white supremacist groups were at the protests in Coutts and Ottawa.
Gold effectively says when you choose to stand next to people carrying white supremacist symbols, using white supremacist rhetoric, your own views are sort of beside the point.
Gold says we live in a free country and we can believe what we want to believe. People who want to believe bad things about Jews, are allowed to believe that. What matters are actions. Gold says the some of the driving forces behind this convoy publicly and proudly espouse hate.
"They are explicitly on the record with what their agenda is," says Gold.
This is the most fired up we've seen Sen. Gold so far. He has spent much of his professional life fighting anti-Semitism. Let's just say he knows a quacking walking duck when he sees one.
Now PSG senator Diane Bellemaire asks, in French, about federal conversations with the provinces about this all.
Gold acknowledges that is it confusing when different provinces and jurisdictions have different vaccine mandate rules.
Maintenant, a question from Sen. Julie Miville-Dechene, who is, like me, a former journalist. She has a question, in general, about government overreach. Gold says we have proof on the ground of what happened, in real time, of what the impact of these protests was.
This isn't just a case of the government saying "trust us," says Sen. Gold
Miville-Dechene asks how we as a senators can objectively understand the degree of threat, without access to all the information that the government has. (Again, we're relying on my French translation.)
Gold says they are listening to the police services when they say they need more time.
A question now from Sen. Marilou McPhedran, who begins by thanking Sen. Gold for his work today. She asks about Gold's statement that trucks are still nearby. Says the world has learned from Ottawa's examples and police elsewhere have headed off these truck-style protests.
McPhedran, a human rights lawyer, asks about the power in the bill that allows a group of parliamentarians to bring a motion to revoke the act. "If there were to be such a motion," she asks, "would this kind of motion have a place in our ongoing debate?"
(We are officially debating section 58 of the act - but Marilou and Marc are now discussing section 59, which allows a group of parliamentarians to bring a motion to end the act.)
Sen. Gold says many of us want to see an end of this as soon as possible. Even if we confirm the EA this week, senators have the right to ask that the act be revisted. All it would take, he says, would be 10 senators to trigger a review process.
Marc says he's not necessarily encouraging us to do this, but that he'd be proud if we in the senate used all the tools at our disposal to hold the government to account. The act, he says, has many checks and balances.
Sen. McPhedran says she was in Ottawa when the protest started, and at that early stage, all trucks were blocked from entering the Wellington area. (Her unvoiced question - why did that change?)
"Please," says Senator Gold. "We need a little more time to finish the job." But measures, he insists, will only be used in proportion. Notes there's no evidence of police abusing their powers under the act. Says the act is being applied surgically.
A question now from Conservative Senator Oh about foreign interference. Asks Sen. Gold what evidence we have of foreign interference in these protests. Gold deflects somewhat and says CSIS is very concerned about right white extremist terrorism in Canada.
We have evidence of foreign funding, says Gold. Says extremist groups are mobilizing Covid fatigue.
Senator Oh comes back to the issue of foreign influence and suggests it needs more government attention. I have to say I agree. (I'll be speaking more to this in my own speech, which may come late tonight, or tomorrow morning,)
Conservative Senator David Wells is up now, stresses that we are an independent chamber and not subservient to the House. This is not a bill, he points out. It's a motion.
Sen. Wells takes a shot a Gold's "speech writer". Sen. Gold indicates that he doesn't have a speech writer. (I don't either.) But I think Gold likely did write his own speech. Constitutional law is his metier.
Sen. Gold agrees with Sen. Wells that we are independent - and could well have voted on this before the House, depending how the timing of things worked out.
This is not a case where it's a question of deferring to the other place, Sen. Gold agrees. Says our decision whether to confirm the act is ours alone. But says it's important to note that the House confirmed. It's relevant. But we are not subservient.
(This is a really interesting point, and one I didn't understand until right now myself. Useful to have two lawyers to explain this all. And useful to have a constitutuional law prof kick off this debate.)
Constitutional! Typing too fast. We are now on to a second round of questions. And Opposition leader Don Plett kicks things off on this round again.
Sen. Plett's question seems to be about freezing bank accounts of people who hold "unacceptable views."
Sen. Gold stresses that bank accounts were only frozen when people went on funding the protest after it became illegal. Only 200 or so accounts have been frozen, he says, though the number may be growing.
Plett says it's wrong to suggest those 200 people don't matter. He says only a few people were flying swastikas. Why is it that a few people with flags are more significant than 200 people with bank accounts?
Plett says Canadians have an absolute right to protest and that the government refused to follow the science and end all mandates. It doesn't make Canadians bad people when they say they're tired of this, he says.
What made this protest illegal, Sen. Plett asks. Is it up to Justin Trudeau to decide what's legal and what isn't?
Sen. Gold says that the law clearly lays out when a protest is legal and when it isn't. Says it wasn't Justin Trudeau who made this decision. Gold says it was quite clear for some time that the protest had morphed into something that was far from peaceful.
Gold, who has been on his feet for almost five hours now, temporarily forgets the word for bouncy castles. Many senators rush in to help him.
Gold says the leaders of this protest were proud of their agenda.
On the second round, Conservative Senator Batters asks why the Emergencies Act didn't target only affected areas. (I think Gold answered this question once before, but in French, as I recalls, and Batters may have missed it.)
Gold stresses again that there were border incidents all across the country. But he says there is no evidence of overreach in Saskatchewan or Quebec, or any where else where they are not needed. The act hasn't been applied where it hasn't been needed, says Gold
As I recall. Not recalls. Crikey. I guess I'm tweeting too fast. Apologies for the typos. I hope you'll grant me a little latitude, as I attempt to keep up with this fascinating debate.
Meantime....Sen. Batters has asked a question about how people can get their bank accounts unfrozen. (Thawed?)
Now, CPC Senator Carignon is back on deck, talking about mediation in strikes to overcome impasses. Speaking in French, he asks what efforts were made for mediation or conciliation with protesters on Wellington. (Again, my translation.)
Sen. Gold compares and contrasts this incident with the history of strike in Quebec. Suggests it's pretty hard to conciliate with a group whose leaders' stated goal is to overthrow the government and replace them with the governor general.
Their public agenda, Gold notes, was the overthrow of the government. He says we're free to ask about what should of or could of happened. But that's not what the motion before us is about.
Sen. Carignan says Sen. Gold said earlier it was hard to get different police forces all working together without the powers of the EA. How then, he asks, did the govt bring forces together for other big high security events?
It must be said, I think this was a big part of what went wrong in Ottawa. So many different police and security agencies work in the National Capital Region. Coming out of this, we need a big debate and discussion about how we police the national capital, period.
Now ISG senator France Lankin is on her second round of questions. Says there is a threshold that must be met before we can decide whether to confirm the act.
Lankin, a former union leader, and a former minister in the Rae government, picks up on Carignan's question, and suggests mediation shouldn't have been with the government but with the police.
Gold again says that even if we can second guess what happened, what we're debating now are the legal requirements of the Emergencies Act and whether they have been met.
Lankin, again, asks how we balance trust of our government with concerns about abuse of power, when all the evidence cannot be examined. (She does have special security clearance, btw. She's one of the people who might be allowed to see this intel.)
Gold says the government may know more than they are able to say. But either we do or we do not have confidence as parliamentarians in our government and in parliamentary institutions.
Sen. Gold now makes an impassioned plea for reason, and not buy into conspiracy theories that the government is doing this as some black flag operation to upend democracy.
A question now from Sen. Housakos of the CPC. What are the measures to make sure banks don't over step their authorities? Asks what the connection is between freezing accounts and clearing out protestors. Says he just don't see the connection.
Sen. Gold explains that millions of dollars flooded into Canada very quickly and went into very few hands. Following the money, choking off the support is one critical step in dealing with this, he says.
Sen. Housakos wants to know if residents of Ottawa residents can visits "the red zone." Who is allowed to enter?
Gold says residents or people with legitimate business can enter, if, for example, they work in the area. The inconvenience to residents of Ottawa now, pales in comparison, he says, to what residents of Ottawa endured for three weeks.
When duly elected leaders and police officers are threatened, then asking residents to take a detour to walk along the canal is not too much to ask, he suggests.
A second set of questions now from Conservative senator Boisvenu. He says that for a motion like this, we need transparency. Does we have proof that Canada's security is at risk? (Again, my French translation.)
Back now to Sen. Dennis Patterson, who is asking again about the parliamentary review committee. Patterson says he supports the review committee, but wants to know how the committee can have proper oversight with all the information.
He suggests parliamentary review committee could be sworn in, temporarily, to the Privy Council, and given security clearance, as they are for the CSIS review committee.
Patterson asks if the government might be open to an amendment to the motion, that parliamentary review committee members be given necessary security clearances. Sen. Gold says the government would oppose such an amendment because it's not necessary at this point.
Also, Gold says you can't really be a temporary privy councillor.
ISG senator Dupuis is back with another question. Instead, Gold reverts to Patterson's earlier question about the amendment. Now, he gets back to Dupuis's query.
She had asked why we weren't able to speak to key ministers directly, in Committee of the Whole. Sen. Gold agrees that would have been beneficial. But Gold says such a plenary session would have required the unanimous consent of the Senate. And there was no path to agreement.
(That's my best translation of the French. Piste means path, yes? Since the Winter Olympics are over?)
Up now is Sen. McPhedran. Says she misspoke when she said there were no trucks on Wellington, that they were stopped by security forces. Says that was the view from her window - but she was wrong. Sen. Kim Pate, her friend, sent her photos with trucks in view.
Sen. Gold says he's reticent to stop taking questions. But says if people re-ask their questions, they will still get the same answers. Suggests people try to ask new questions.
Sen. Gold jokes that as a law prof and rock and roll musician, he's happy to be the centre of attention, but that he wants other senators to have the chance to speak.
Senator Plett rises to ask a question. Says he has two questions prepared, but he wants to address what Sen. Dupuis asked. So that's three questions more from him.
Sen. Plett takes issue with Sen. Gold's response to Sen. Dupuis. Says he will say that he refused to give leave for us to have a Committee of the Whole - unless we heard from both sides, and not just the government ministers.
This....is not a question.
Sen. Plett says he doesn't think it was unreasonable to have, say, civil liberties experts testify in Committee of the Whole. Now...he says he will indeed ask his questions. And notes that he will also have unlimited speaking time when it is his turn to speak.
So he asks - why police couldn't handle the protests without the EA powers. (I do believe this is a question that has been answered several times now.)
Sen. Plett has a different question now. He said the PM said the powers of the EA would be time limited. But instead, says Sen. Plett, the government is planning to make the financial tracing tools permanent. How and when does the Trudeau plan to make this power permanent?
Sen. Plett says he worries that this might be bundled with the budget as a confidence motion.
Senator Batters is back up now for the CPC. Wants to know how the government defines what happened in Ottawa as an emergency, when the ringleaders have only been charged with mischief?
Sen. Gold points out that he has answered this question, more or less, before.
Sen Carignon gets up and speaks briefly in English, so he can make a pretty decent joke about how Marc deserves a prize for his performance today. "We'll call it the Gold Medal," he says.
Now, he and Senator Gold are talking tow trucks.
Sen. Gold says all the various measures reinforced one another - the freezing of bank accounts, the tow truck, etc., all combined to put in place the things needed to clear the blockades.
A question now from Sen. Dagenais, himself a former member of the SQ, asking about police powers under the act versus without the act.
And with that...Sen Marc Gold is done! And so is this thread. I will start a new one now, as Sen. Raymonde Saint-Germaine starts her speech. Thanks for following along.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
