A few minutes before her party joined the Trudeau Liberals in voting for invocation of the Emergencies Act on Monday night, Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing NDP MP Carol Hughes took to social media to defend her decision to support the implementation of the act to remain in effect for 30 days.
The following is the full text of Hughes' posting on her Facebook page.
As many of you know there will be a vote in Parliament shortly (8 p.m.) on the Emergency Act Measure (EMA) being implemented under a 30 day Public Order Emergency that the Government put in place on Feb. 14.
What Ottawa was facing since the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa was an untenable situation and the use of the Emergencies Act is an acknowledgement that leadership of the Ottawa Police and that of all levels of governments (City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario & Federal Government) had allowed things to escalate unchecked since the beginning.
It is a symptom of a system that has failed to uphold even the most basic laws. This was not a peaceful protest, it was a siege that saw residents being terrorized and was marred by illegal & criminal activities, including incidents that of hate crimes.
Let me be clear that we should not paint all participants with the same brush, as there were many that participated peacefully to voice their concerns about pandemic mandates.
However, many others overshadowed this particular demonstration, including all those who illegally blocked the roads. Legal and peaceful protests do not try to foster change through intimidation or harm to others.
Although peace has mostly been restored in Ottawa in the last few days, we are told that the situation is still not under control as we’ve been advised that there continues to be attempts every day to block our borders and that a large contingent of convoy participants have regrouped in Embrun, Vars & Arnprior.
My decision, as well as that of my NDP colleagues, to vote in favour of the EMA motion tonight has not been taken lightly. We are taking the use of the Emergencies Act very seriously and won’t be giving a blank cheque to the Prime Minister.
The government will have to stay within the established powers and if they don’t we will withdraw our support.
Further, it should be noted that the Act has significant Parliamentary review mechanisms as well, which includes a parliamentary committee being created to review “the exercise of powers and the performance of duties and functions pursuant to a declaration of emergency”, the ability to initiate a debate on revoking or amending the order at any time at the request of either 10 Senators or 20 MPs, and the initiation of an inquiry.