Feds bringing emergency declaration to Parliament 'imminently'

The federal Liberal minority government is planning to bring the emergency declaration motion before Parliament “imminently,” says Government House Leader Mark Holland.

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared a public order emergency through the Emergencies Act, giving federal authorities the power to—among other things— impose fines, imprisonment and freeze the funding for those taking part in the ongoing trucker protests and blockades.

Once a declaration of a public order emergency is issued, as it was on Monday, it is considered in effect, and unless the declaration is revoked or extended, it will expire after 30 days.

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As part of the parliamentary oversight requirements in invoking these powers, the government must table a motion in both the House and Senate within seven sitting days outlining why federal officials feel the powers are required and detailing what specific measures will be taken, to allow the two parliamentary bodies to confirm it.

“We’ll be introducing a motion into the House imminently. Obviously, these are provisions that have never been used before, so we want to make sure that we’re proceeding prudently,” Holland told reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting in West Block. “We are working and having conversations with other opposition parties… There’s obviously conversations that are taking place with Senate leadership as well.”

The clock started ticking for this motion to be presented the moment the Act was put into force.

Once the motion is tabled, debate will begin on the next siting day and will continue, according to the Act, “without interruption” until the vote is ready to be called -- essentially when the list of speakers has been exhausted or if the government imposes closure on the debate.

If the motion is adopted—which is expected in the House given the NDP have already signalled they’ll support the Liberals, giving them the majority numbers, but the Senate remains to be seen—the emergency powers will remain in effect. The Conservatives said Monday they want to read the details of the motion before deciding whether they’ll be backing it.

“I am hoping that we can get to a point of full support. I noticed that even the Bloc, who said that they were against it, are saying they are now looking at some of the details and there is some openness there. So it’s my objective to get as much parliamentary support for this essential implementation of this act as possible,” Holland said.

MPs are set to adjourn for a week on Friday and the Senate is not currently sitting until Feb. 22 so it’s possible one or both chambers would have to be recalled or sitting hours extended, depending on when this motion is received.

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“It’s never been used before… So there’s a lot of procedural things that kind of had to be cleared out and understood first, and now we’re going to be talking brass tacks around when and how and these types of things,” Holland said. “We are seized by this.”

Both the House and the Senate have the power to revoke the declaration at any time, as does the government.

“If a motion for confirmation of a declaration of emergency is negatived by either House of Parliament, the declaration, to the extent that it has not previously expired or been revoked, is revoked effective on the day of the negative vote and no further action under this section need be taken in the other House with respect to the motion,” reads the Act.

If discussion of the Act in the House on Tuesday was any indication of what is to come when the official debate gets underway, there’s set to be some fiery exchanges.

“Twenty-four hours in and there are more questions than answers. Questions about whether this is justified, questions around if the criteria is met, questions around what this means to Canadians’ rights and freedoms. Parliamentary approval is required in order for the prime minister to use this unprecedented sledgehammer,” said interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen leading off question period.

More than once during question period, the House of Commons Speaker interjected to address heckling, prompting the prime minister to say it’s “a time for responsible leadership, not crass partisanship.”

After three weeks of what Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has described as “lawless” behaviour at times, the government is hoping it can move to revoke the emergency powers in less than a month.

A cross-party and closed-door Parliamentary Review Committee will also be struck, that must include “at least one member of the House of Commons from each party that has a recognized membership of twelve or more persons in that House and at least one senator from each party in the Senate that is represented on the committee by a member of the House of Commons.”

It’ll be the committee’s responsibility to monitor the implementation of the Act and ensure the government is using its powers responsibly.

Within 60 days of the declaration of emergency being revoked or expiring, the government will have to convene an inquiry to study the use of the powers. The report stemming from this work will have to then be presented to Parliament within 360 days.