MPP Belinda Karahalios criticizes the Ford government for seeking 7 more months of emergency powers

By: Broderick Visser

Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives (PCs) want seven more months of emergency powers.

During debate on the motion Thursday, Belinda Karahalios, MPP for Cambridge was given her chance to debate the motion which would give the Ford government these powers till the end of 2021.

“About two months before the expiration date the one year anniversary — this government wants an additional seven months of emergency powers under the emergency act to continue their authoritarian rule over the people of Ontario without scrutiny by this legislature, without debate, without vote on the measures introduced,” she said.

Her husband, Jim Karahalios also Tweeted on the matter — stating “Belinda and other opposition MPPs stopped the PCs ramming through emergency powers extension on a voice vote.”

Karahalios was previously a PC MPP before she was kicked out of the caucus for voting against Bill 195 last year. She now serves under her own party — The New Blue Party of Ontario.

“It is this very act that I voted against last summer and was promptly thrown out of the government caucus immediately,” she said.

“These powers was an overreach”

“I say the act that gives the premier these powers was an overreach, and I maintain that. The premier and the government seemed insulted that I, as a member of this legislature, would not just give up my voice or right to vote in representing my constituents to the premier for a year. And here they are back again, ten months later, asking for this power for another seven months.”

“It is them who is not doing their jobs.”

Karahalios bashed every MPP in the Ontario legislature who plans to support this extension of the emergency powers — because they are not doing their job.

“During one of my questions a couple of weeks ago, the solicitor general took a swipe at me saying she’s going to show me how to do my job.”

“Well speaker, let me inform the solicitor general and every single government member that by supporting Bill-195 and supporting this motion for another seven months — it is them who is not doing their jobs.”

Belinda Karahalios, MPP for Cambridge

“It is them who are advocating their responsibility as a member of this legislature by saying with one vote that they aren’t interested in debating or scrutinizing or voting on emergency powers — that these members are happy to hand off their responsibilities in representing their constituents to the premier to do the job for all of them, over the last ten months and over the next seven months.”

“So perhaps the solicitor general and the government members should look in the mirror and think about what it is that they promised their constituents when they wanted to get elected and what is it that they thought their jobs were because if it wasn’t the basics — if their job wasn’t to vote, debate and scrutinize on laws that are put in force and they’ve decided instead that premier can make all those decisions — what’s the point of any of them even being here in this legislature?”

Karahalios pointed out that while the Ford government is talking about re-opening, they are also looking for this extension of emergency powers — something she finds interesting.

“At the very moment this motion was being debated, the premier instead of debating and defending his request of this house to extend his one-man rule for another seven months instead of defending his record over the last 12 months, he conducted a press conference to let Ontarians know that one day in the future there will be a re-opening. At the same time he’s talking reopening, he has his government passing a motion to give him authoritarian emergency rule for another seven months.

“What the government gives the people with one hand, it certainly takes with the other.”

Belinda Karahalios, MPP for Cambridge

Karahalios’ full statement is available on YouTube below.