Sen. Patti Laboucan-Benson ask Sen. Plett if he thinks the government should have given in to the demands of protestors and lift all mandates. Is that the kind of precedent we want?
Sen. Plett said he never agreed with the Memorandum of Understanding. Says he thought it was silly, but that nobody took it seriously, and it didn't come from the Alberta leaders, anyway.
Sen. Laboucan-Benson tries again. Should a government give in to illegal activity? Should the government have lifted the mandates as demanded?
Plett says no, he doesn't think a government should act under threat. But he repeats that the government should have brought in a mediator. And he says mandates should have been lifted even before the convoy arrived.
Sen. Brent Cotter of the ISG is up now - with what he calls a technical legal question about the timing of the confirmation of the declaration of the Emergencies Act. Cotter makes a case that we aren't voting to extend the act, but to retroactively confirm its invocation.
Sen. Plett says he will offer a simple plumber's view instead. Says if you are being robbed, and the burgler gives up, you call off the troops.
Sen. Brazeau cautions Sen. Plett not to assume there was Indigenous support for the protest, given that there were people there pretending to be aboriginal, dressed up and making fun of Indigenous music. Now asks when the Conservatives have ever supported Indigenous protest.
(Note: Sen. Brazeau was appointed as a Conservative - and after many ups and downs - now sits as an unaffiliated Senator.)
Sen. Audette of the ISG asks Sen. Plett about the impact of the Emergencies Act in the future. Sen. Plett says he has confidence in CSIS, anti-terrorism investigators. He says there was only one smoke bomb set off in Ottawa and that was the extent of it.
Sen. Plett says there may have been Hell's Angels in the protest. He says there may have been a few people of ill repute there, but that they had the right to be there. Everybody had the right to be there.
If the police thought there were weapons or dangerous people on Wellington, says Plett, they would have acted. (Well. That is indeed the crux on this all.)
A question now from Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais. (I misidentified him yesterday as a Conservative. But he crossed the floor some time ago to sit with the CSG.)
Sen. Dagenais asks Sen. Plett if Plett thinks the Prime Minister has shown disrespect fo the Senate and the House of Commons. Sen. Plett agrees.
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