Suddenly the Emergencies Act is out the door.

Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 23, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a live update revoking the Emergencies Act after first invoking it last week on Monday, Feb. 14, in response to blockades and protests.

Foothills MP John Barlow says there was no reason for it to be invoked in the first place.

"None of this was needed. The borders were cleared without the Emergencies Act. There was no tools that were used over the weekend to clear out Ottawa that were not already existing for law enforcement under the current criminal code."

Barlow and many of his colleagues in the Conservative party had already signed a notice of motion to revoke the Emergencies Act not long after it was passed in the House of Commons on Monday.

Barlow described it as “one of the grossest power grabs” and overreaches of authority in our government's history.

In Trudeau's update, he said the situation is no longer an emergency and that they would be ending the use of the Emergencies Act.

"We are confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe," said Trudeau.



 

In regards to prior discussions in the House, Barlow said that some of the speeches over the weekend from the NDP side crossed the line.

"The Liberals or NDP are trying to paint all these protests and Canadians with the same brush."

Barlow disagrees with those who are lumping all of them into one broad category and referenced the firearms discovered in relation to the Coutts blockade.

"But those people were not associated with the families who organized the blockade in Coutts, and for them to make that about this whole thing, I think is disingenuous and unfair because they were not associated. And the protestors were trying to be peaceful and disassociated themselves with that."

Barlow disagrees with those saying the protests are about white supremacy, describing some of the dialogue over the weekend as unparliamentary.

"They're trying to make this protest a thing about white supremacy. That's just simply not the case."



 

Barlow says one of the key elements that has been missing throughout this is a prime minister who's willing to listen to the Canadian people, all of the Canadian people, not just those he agrees with.

"Countries around the world are changing course and eliminating vaccination passports and mandates. The United Kingdom made an announcement earlier this week that they're getting rid of everything. The provinces are doing the same, except the one outlier is Canada."

He says the job of an elected official is first and foremost to listen, and that the reason for such unprecedented actions by Canadians is because they feel they don't have any other choice.

"These are thousands of Canadians who were at their wits end because they didn't believe they were being heard. This was certainly not their first choice, to uproot their lives, drive in many cases thousands of kilometres to Ottawa, because they weren't being heard."

He mentioned that this isn’t the first time there’s been protests.

“I think we all support legal, peaceful protests. We do not want them blocking critical infrastructure like the borders or our bridges.”

He says however that the number one thing that would have brought down the temperature during the protest is if the prime minister actually listened, noting that neither Trudeau nor his ministers ever met with the protestors.

He compared it with the handling of the protests a couple years ago which blocked railways, highways, and access to ports for weeks and how the prime minister was willing to communicate with them and even offer them funds to end the blockades but did none of that this time.

“The two things, is you allow the law enforcement to do the job which they are empowered to do and they have the resources to do. And the second thing, act like a prime minister. Act like a leader.

“Listen to Canadians. Don’t just listen to the ones you agree with. You also have to listen to those who you do not agree with, and try and find some common ground. And that is the big element that’s missing from everything you’ve seen here.”