MP Glen Motz will sit on committee looking into Emergencies Act

By COLLIN GALLANT on March 12, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

The work of a parliamentary committee looking into the use of the Emergencies Act last month begins its work Monday and will include local area MP Glen Motz.

The retired Medicine Hat Police Service inspector is one of seven MPs on the 11-person committee which also includes four senators.

It will review actions taken by the Liberal government and the reasons and need for the government to invoke the extraordinary legislation.

Members will be made privy to what information the government had that precipitated the use of the act, but could be sworn to confidentiality on some matters deemed crucial to protect any ongoing police or security investigations.

Motz told the News in February he understood and even sympathized with protesters that took over space in encampments near Parliament Hill, and even met with organizers of another blockade at the Coutts border crossing in his riding.

Motz did call on protesters to end to total stoppage at border but said he found the Liberal government’s use of the act an overreach.

A separate inquiry must be held into the circumstances and actions taken during the period within one year.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that in response to weeks-long protests by protesters his government would invoke the Act on Feb. 14.

Under the 34-year old statute, which replaced the War Measures Act, officials would lay down new rules to track fundraising on crowdsourcing and cryptocurrency platforms, and potentially freeze bank accounts, impound vehicles and suspend commercial carrier licences.

That was the Monday after police in Ontario cleared and opened the Ambassador Bridge linking Windsor and Detroit but the same day after arrests and weapons seizures took place at Coutts.

Four people were charged with conspiracy to murder police officers.

The Coutts protest broke up the next morning as organizers left without police action. In Ottawa, local police reinforced from other jurisdictions cleared the larger encampment in front of Parliament Hill the following weekend, and the emergency declaration was revoked Feb. 23.

Conservatives decreed the government’s unwillingness to meet with protesters, and blamed Trudeau and other cabinet ministers for not addressing their concerns.

Motz served as his party’s deputy shadow minister on public safety matters for four years up until 2019, and the majority of committee members have legal or law enforcement backgrounds.

New Democrat MP Matthew Green will co-chair the committee along with Bloc MP Rheal Fortin, a lawyer, and Gwen Boniface, an independent senator and former commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police.

The other Conservative MP on the committee, Larry Brock, is a former Crown prosecutor. Liberal MPs on the committee are Liberals Rachel Bendayan, Yasir Naqvi and Arif Virani, were all lawyers in private careers.