U.S. concern about convoy blockades meant a 'dangerous moment for Canada,' Freeland tells inquiry
CBC
As Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tells it, Brian Deese is a hard man to get hold of.
So when U.S. President Joe Biden's senior economic adviser requested a call with her on Feb. 10 about the ongoing border blockades, Freeland said, she knew the stakes were high.
"That was a dangerous moment for Canada, I felt," the deputy prime minister testified Thursday before the Emergencies Act inquiry.
"That one conversation was a seminal one for me. And it was a moment when I realized as a country, somehow, we had to find a way to bring this to an end."
Freeland described the call with Deese in front of the Public Order Emergency Commission Thursday. The commission is reviewing the federal government's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 to clear anti-public health measure protests in Ottawa and deter border blockades.
As part of its work, the commission is probing whether the government met the threshold to trigger the never-before-used legislation.
Tearing up at one point, Freeland defended her government's actions by arguing economic security is linked to national security.
"I really do believe our security as a country is built on our economic security," she said.
"And if our economic security is threatened, all of our security is threatened. And I think that's true for us as a country. And it's true for individuals."
Freeland said that after her call with Deese, director of the U.S. president's National Economic Council, she knew the blockades had set an "amber light flashing" south of the border regarding supply chain vulnerabilities with Canada.
She said she worried the blockades would tip the balance in favour of Democrats and Republicans who support a protectionist trade stance.
"It wasn't just the immediate damage, it wasn't just the immediate harm. It wasn't, 'Oh, you know, this plant loses four days of operation,'" Freeland said Thursday.
"The danger was were we in the process, as a country, of doing long-term and possibly irreparable harm to our trading relationship with the United States."
At various points in early 2022, protesters blockaded border crossings in Windsor, Ont., the small town of Coutts, Alta., Emerson, Man., and the Pacific Highway in Surrey, B.C.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.