(Ottawa) Hounded by his adversaries, the Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino, offered few concrete answers to defend the historical recourse to the Emergency Measures Act in February. He was the first witness to be questioned by the joint committee made up of deputies and senators responsible for examining why and how the government endowed itself with extraordinary powers.
Posted at 9:00 p.m.
“It doesn’t make sense,” exclaimed Conservative Senator Claude Carignan. He said he still tries to understand how the government was able to invoke this legislation to put an end to the blockades of border crossings and the convoy of trucks that paralyzed downtown Ottawa for three weeks.
“The level of disruption on the streets in Ottawa was unprecedented,” said Minister Mendicino. Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act did not allow police to commandeer tow trucks to remove heavy goods vehicles.
He would not say if the city and the Ontario government had exhausted all their resources before February 14, when the federal government resorted to the Emergency Measures Act. He also avoided naming the provinces that would have asked him to invoke it. “We have discussed with several provinces,” he replied.
Bloc Québécois MP Rhéal Fortin argued that a total of seven provinces and three territories “did not seem to believe there was an emergency.” “How can you claim that there was an emergency in all of Canada,” he asked.
“At that time, there was an emergency situation and we created the conditions to restore public security,” Mendicino replied.
The Conservative MP compared his answers to “ bullshit before being reprimanded by the chairman of the committee. He asked that the documents on which the Cabinet relied to make its decision be made public.
MNA Rhéal Fortin also asked that the written opinions received by the government be disclosed as part of the committee’s work.
Minister Mendicino recalled at the start of his testimony that the blocking of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor had cost 90 million a day since goods could no longer circulate between the United States and Canada, that the Rideau Shopping Center in Ottawa was closed for three weeks, that 911 was inundated with non-emergency and malicious calls and that downtown citizens were harassed by protesters.
Justice Minister David Lametti is also testifying in committee on Tuesday evening.