Thread by @Paulatics

Sen. Michele Audette, one of our newest senators, is speaking now. This is her first-ever Senate speech. She is an Indigenous senator from Quebec, and a long-time activist for Indigenous and women's rights.

She says, speaking in French, that she believes profoundly in the right to peaceful protest. She enumerates some of the many protests in which she, herself, has taken part, beginning with Idle No More.

The question she keeps asking herself is whether a three-week protest by Indigenous (or Black) activists would have been allowed to continue in this way. The answer, she says, is no.

BLM and G20 protestor have been tear gassed and beaten by police, she notes.

The dangerous posed by the extreme right, she says, needs more attention. There is a double-standard, she says, in the way other protestors are treated, and the way those in Ottawa were handled.

Dangers. Not dangerous. Sorry about that. Typing too much and too quickly.

The people of Ottawa have their city back, says Sen. Audette. But how can we allow these groups to undermine and weaken our democracy?

Turning to the parliamentary review committee - she says it's important that we have diverse perspectives and make sure an Indigenous/ FNMI lense is applied.

A very fine maiden speech!

Up now is Sen. Pamela Wallin. (Appointed as a Conservative, she later joined the ISG. But she is now a member of the CSG.)

Sen Wallin says Canada must be able to solve its problems using existing laws and institutions and not resorting to extremes.

Sen. Wallin says there has been a collossal failure of leadership at all levels in Ottawa. The laws were not employed. But do bad decisions and inaction justify using an act designed for the most severe national security crises?

Why the Emergencies Act now, and not during 9/11, when we were having urgent debates about dealing with actual terrorism?

Sen. Walling says foreign money has been flowing into Canada for years to stop a pipeline or save a whale. So why isn't it allowed to support a truck convoy?

(these.....are not the same thing.)

If you disagree with the government, can your finances be frozen or seals? Sen. Wallin says the banks have been given protection from liability, so many don't have the resources to unfreeze their accounts.

Sen Wallin says the weapons cache in Coutts was seized under existing laws, that talking to people worked. Discussions in Coutts and Emerson and Windsor helped, she says.

Sen. Wallin says it's normal for people from her part of the world to bring their kids to events, because they can't afford a nanny.

Democracy is messy, she says. Free speech is about tolerating speech you don't believe in, so that you are free to say what you want to say. Emergency powers must not be normalized, when people are losing faith in institutions.

"Just watch me gave me no comfort," says Wallin. Saying just trust me gives her even less, she says.

Sen. Wallin says many people may feel they have no option but separatism. We can't pretend smugly that foreign actors are to blame, she says.

And now, we will hear from Sen. Bev Busson, an ISG senator from British Columbia. Bev was the first female commissioned RCMP officer, and the first woman to serve (in an acting capacity) as RCMP commissioner.

We break in 4 minutes, so she'll only get to give the introduction to her speech. "This is not over," says Sen. Busson. Those who coached this event will be emboldened if we do not support national institutions and the rule of law.

Sen. Busson says she is proud of police who acted in a professional way, without tear gas or violence.

Sen. Busson says our Charter describes our rights. But freedom is a two-way street. We depend on this balance to lead our lives together. A wave of ultra-right groups have morphed this into a moment that brazenly ignored the rule of law.

Hard core members locked down, thumbing their noses, not just at the police, she says, but at all the rest of us. The national capital, she says, was turned into "an amusement park for anachists."

They are anarchists, professionally led, are well funded, and want to bring about the downfall of our democracy, using children as human shield, she says. And now- we must break - and Sen. Busson will continue at 1 pm EST. As will this thread!

Meantime, while we break, here is a link to me own speech from yesterday, which I could not live tweet!

Back now with Senator Busson - who, in addition to being the first female commissioner of the RCMP is also a lawyer. Says she learned in her prior life that policing a protest is always a no-win situation.

What are we prepared to do, she asks, to protect our democracy? She says the EA isn't over-reach - that it was designed for a situation just like this.

The wail of hoodlums and cacophony of truck horns were an unfair imposition on the city of Ottawa. She says we need to support those now who have taken back the streets.

Sen Busson says we need also need a review of policing in the capital, which is reactive, and not nimble.

Failure is not an option in these difficult circumstances," says Sen. Busson. Our way of life is at stake. We need to send a message that copycat protests of this type will not be tolerated.

We should stand for law and order, says Sen. Busson. This is a national crisis and we cannot play politics with democracy and with the lives of police. She says again, "This is not over."

Well-organized white supremacist groups who want to take down the government are strategic, smart, and masters of manipulation and misinformation, says Sen. Busson. (She is all too right. Alas.)

Now, Sen. Vern White is speaking. He is a CSG senator and a former chief of the Ottawa Police Service. Originally a Conservative senator, he crossed the floor to sit as an independent about two years ago.

Sen. White said police in Ottawa asked for me resources and didn't get the help they needed. The protest was an octopus with multiple limbs. There was potential for it to become violent.

Sen. White talks about harassment of Ottawa schools, the overloading of the 911 line. This wasn't just about the protest on Parliament Hill.

The EA worked, he says - you can see it in the results. But is it still needed? We may only be able to judge that in the future, says Sen. White. He supported the act's invocation. And he supports its continuence.

And now Sen. Don Plett, the leader of the Conservative opposition rises to speak. He has unlimited speaking time, as leader of the opposition.

Sen. Plett says the Conservative party stands for law and order, but the government did not have enough grounds to invoke the act. And even if the Emergencies Act was needed last week , he cannot support it now.

Sen. Plett says that while some Covid public health measures were justified, they also exactly a terrible costs. Families were separated, people died alone. We couldn't go out to eat or attend high school graduations. Funerals and weddings were restricted.

Businesses were closed. Jobs were lost. And inflation is eating away at the spending power we have left. And most Canadians, he says, more than 90 per cent, are now double vaccinated, one of the highest rates in the world.

Not getting vaccinated is not just a "choice" says Sen. Plett. It's the result of firmly held beliefs, sometimes religious beliefs, sometimes because a person knows someone who had a bad reaction. The decision not to vaccinate comes from deeply held conviction.

Mandating vaccinations, and punishing people who don't get vaccinated is wrong and dangerous, says Sen. Plett. It promotes the fantasy that Canada is a homogenous society. It never has been.

We must protect people's freedom of religion and freedom on conscience, says Sen. Plett. But the PM believes everyone should be vaccinated, and that those who are not should be scorned and punished.

Sen. Plett says PM Trudeau was depressed and angry after the 2019 election, and wanted to punish Conservative for winning more votes. Then he cynically called a useless election in 2021, says Plett, and made a wedge issue out of the unvaccinated.

The Trudeau government, Sen. Plett claims, made the unvaccinated a scapegoat, turned other Canadians against them. Likens it to the way other govts have made scapegoats out of minority groups. "Shame on the Trudeau government," for treating unvaccinated as a political football.

Once, says Sen. Plett, the prime minister praised truckers for their hard work in the midst of the Covid crisis. Truckers then suddenly became a threat to public health, he says.

Sen. Plett says government overreach is becoming endemic. He describes all the support the convoy received as it made its way to Ottawa. The truckers, he said, were uniting our country, restoring hope.

There was no one leader, says Sen. Plett, and no one agenda. Yes, some bad elements joined. But the prime minister's characterization of the protestors as dangerous and racist was incredible.

Yes, there were idiots with racist views in the group, Sen. Plett acknowledges. But if we paint all the supporters with same brush, we miss the point.

Plett points out that a member of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh's own family donated to the cause. Not everyone was wearing a tin foil hat.

There was no credible plot of an insurrection, says Sen. Plett. Actual revolutionaries don't arrive in their own trucks, with the names of their companies painted on the side, they don't roast pigs or dance in the street.

Eventually, says Sen. Plett, people get tired of being controlled, and look for a way out.

The PM, says Plett, sounded more like a bully than a true statesman. The debate isn't whether mandates are right or wrong. It's about whether people can be allowed to live according to their beliefs, even if those beliefs don't like up with "the accepted CBC version of reality."

Plett suggest that PM Trudeau could have appointed a mediator to meet with the protestors. He could also have followed the example, says Sen. Plett, of Jason Kenney and Scott Moe.

Sen. Plett says that this is a prime minister who is at war with many of his citizens, that he wants to use the sweeping powers of the Emergencies Act to crush them.

Sen. Plett says Trudeau admires the strength of the Chinese dictatorship and its sweeping powers.

By invoking the Emergencies Act the government is saying this is the worst public order emergency Canada has seen in more than 30 years, says Sen. Plett, incredulously. We have faced many emergencies since 1988, including the Oka crisis.

(TIL, from Sen. Plett, no less, that the mediator who helped end the Oka Crisis, Alan B. Gold, was the father of Senator Marc Gold. Canada is a strangely small place sometimes.)

Sen. Plett is still enumerating many crises Canada has faced since 1988 without invoking the Emergencies Act.

Sen. Plett, let me note again, has unlimited speaking time. That's a privilege given only to the Leader of the Opposition and the Government Representative. So he has time to list lots of emergencies!

Sen. Plett says he saw no protestors on the street this week. The government calls this unprecedented. Well, he says, a protest with no protestors is certainly unprecedented.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle, says Sen. Plett. Progressives today will be sorry in the future that they've set this precedent for future use of this legislation. The bar is now very low. (I'll admit, I share some of his concerns. And Sen. Plett and I rarely agree.)

Canadians are living their normal lives, says Sen. Plett. There is no national emergency that seriously endangers the lives or health of Canadians or threatens Canadian sovereignty.

The government, insists Sen. Plett, have not met the threshold for the use of the Emergencies Act. Seven provinces have said no to the use of the act. There was no concerted action with the provinces.

Sen. Plett says there are no blockades anywhere in Canada. The Emergencies Act can not be based, he says, on a conspiracy theory about shadowy unknown threats.

Parliament has been sitting unimpeded, he says. The CPC, Sen. Plett notes, even managed to change leaders in the middle of the protest! (I'm sure that will be cold comfort to Erin O'Toole.)

Did we really need to use the Emergencies Act to get five or six tow trucks? Plett is incredulous again.

Sen. Plett says the government is pushing the idea that this movement is funded by "dark foreign forces." But he says the government gave no proof. Accuses Minister Bill Blair about promoting conspiracy theories.

Sen. Plett now addresses the charges in Coutts, Alberta. Says these were undoubtedly serious charges and the results could have been very dangerous. But he says there's no evidence that those arrested had anything to do with the protestors. I. Um.

Sen. Plett suggests the Coutts protests for infiltrated, and that people left willingly when they realized that.

Sorry. That Coutts WAS infiltrated. My apologies. Too many typos.

Sen. Plett says he cannot believe the the government is trying to minimize the invocation of the Emergencies Act, that it's telling people, 'Nothing to see here.' We shouldn't normalize or trivialize the use of these extraordinary powers, says the opposition leader.

None of these powers were needed to remove these trucks from the streets of Ottawa, Sen. Plett insists. The precedent we still will survive us all, he says, a legacy that will endure after we all leave the political stage.

Sen. Plett turns now to the banking measures in the act. Says someone who gave $20 to GoFundMe might find bank account frozen, even if they donated before the Emergencies Act was invoked. How can we retroactively seize financial assets, he asks. (Note: the act is not retroactive)

Sen. Plett seems to suggest that Canadians are now withdrawing money from their banks because they worry about their bank accounts being frozen.

Sen. Plett has a legit point in here. There is a good faith argument to be made that police should have to get a warrant to freeze bank accounts. But I think we need to be clear that people who bought $20 Tshirts weeks before the act was invoked are not losing their money.

Sen. Plett speaks again about the danger to banks if Canadians withdraw their savings. (Is there any evidence that this is something that is happening? Any reporting that this a problem?)

Sen. Plett is now discussing the history of the War Measures Act, and the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Moving on the FLQ crisis.

Sen. Plett now quotes Tommy Douglas, who opposed the War Measures Act. He says Robert Stanfield, leader fo the Progressive Conservatives, was wrong to support the invocation of the act back then.

Sen. Plett says history will judge Jagmeet Singh very differently than Tommy Douglas. And he suggests that the War Measures Act led to the election of Rene Levesque.

Just as history has judged Pierre Trudeau harshly, says Sen. Plett, it will be equally unkind to Justin Trudeau, who, as PET's son, should have known the history of the War Measures Act.

From China to Iran, says Sen. Plett, countries are trolling Canada for invoking the Emergencies Act. (This is true. I've seen the Tweets. I'm not sure that's the strong argument that Sen. Plett things it is, however.)

Thinks. Not Things. Gee whiz, Paula. Proof read twice, tweet once.

Sen. Plett notes that the National Assembly of Quebec has opposed the Emergencies Act - and that Jason Kenney in Alberta is going to court to fight it. Plett says Trudeau is making an even worse mistake than his father did.

Ok. Sen. Plett just said that if the Famous Five came to Ottawa today to fight for women's rights, they would not be allowed to speak because of the Emergencies Act. I....um...that is a creative counter-factual,

Everything is back to normal, says Sen. Plett. He raises his voice and says the Senate HAS to vote no on the motion, otherwise we will have set the bar so low the government can use this act on a regular basis..

Now Sen. Plett invokes the name of Voltaire in the defence of free speech. He says we need a prime minister who is willing to listen. He says we must put our political biases and partisanship aside.

We should not be voting for motions that will deepen divisions, says Sen. Plett. And he concludes his remarks.

But now his Conservative colleague Sen. Leo Housakos is on his feet, to ask Sen. Plett a question. Again, Plett has unlimited speaking time, so he can take as many friendly questions as he wishes.

Sen. Housakos asks whether there was proper consultation with premiers. Sen. Plett repeats than 7 provinces oppose the act, and that Alberta is going to court to fight it, even though some of the worst protests were in Alberta. (No mention that Ford in Ontario supports the EA)

Sen. Plett says the "block party" in Ottawa was noisy but not dangerous. He now receives another friendly question from CPC senator Salma Ataullahjan, who asks how racialized people or people without much English can fight back if their accounts are frozen.

Sen. Plett asks how people who've been arrested can afford to make bail or pay a lawyer if their bank accounts are frozen. Plett says he can't answer her question.

Now Government representative Marc Gold asks a question. He says he has a simple yes/no three part question.

1) Do you have confidence in our law enforcement services?
2) Do think govts should consult with law enforcement and take their advice?
3) If the answers to 1 and 2 are yes - would it be wrong for the government to disregard their advice?

I paraphrase. Yes, Sen. Plett, to the first question. But he says his colleagues talked to police who were "in the convoy". Notes the police chief in Ottawa had to resign over this issue. Many of the police we talked to, says Plett, were supportive of the protests.

Sen. Gold tries again, noting with a wry chuckle, that Sen. Plett didn't actually answer his third question.

Sen. Gold says Police Chiefs of Canada supported the EA, and the continuing existence of the act. That's the advise the government is taking, because it's relying on law enforcement. Gold asks Plett why that's not compelling.

Sen Plett says regardless of what a police chief says, there is no reason for the Emergencies Act today. Stresses that ministers of justice in the majority of provinces say the act is not needed.

Sen. Plett even if the Emergencies Act was needed in Ottawa, it wasn't welcomed in the rest of the country.

Now Senator Bernard from the PSG has question for Sen. Plett. She notes the organizers of the convoy had records of far-right extremism. Notes hate symbols have been on display. Notes attacks on journalists. Says the protest has not been a safe, peaceful environment.

Sen. Bernard asks why the rights of the protestors were privileged over the rights of Ottawa residents and journalists. Sen. Plett says we should charge people who destroy property - including people who pull down statues of Sir John A or burn churches.

Sen. Plett says there's no evidence that the rally was promoted by racist people. Says there was just one person with a swastika flag, "who should have been run out of town."

Sen. Bernard says she wants to talk about race privilege. Says a "deep divide" in this country is nothing new - it's been felt by many for decades. She suggests protestors were protected by their privilege.

Sen. Plett gives a deep sigh. He says her question doesn't relate to the Emergencies Act, and his answer will be irrelevant. Sen. Plett says he wasn't in Ottawa for much of the protest, got only "unbiased" reports from the CBC.

Sen. Plett says he saw Blacks, and Indigenous and all different ethnicities taking part in the protest. Says there were as many women there as men. Children too. He says it was a mixture of frustrated people who were tired of lockdowns and tired of Covid.

Says he disagrees with Sen. Bernard's description. Now Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan is up with another friendly question.

Sen. Carignan asks Sen. Plett if this use of the Emergencies Act to limit people's rights and seize back accounts will drop us down the democracy index.

Sen. Plett, says it's PM Trudeau who displays privilege and entitlement. He says Stephen Harper had so much respect for the House, that he wouldn't travel when Parliament was sitting. Trudeau, he says, has disdain for parliament & does everything he can not to be there.