OTTAWA — “I don’t take edicts from you, you’re not my f—ing boss.”
That’s what an Ontario cabinet minister snapped at her federal counterpart in February as he pressed for answers about how the province and Ontario Provincial Police would handle so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters who had by then paralyzed downtown Ottawa for nearly two weeks.
It was the height of what would soon be declared a national public order emergency.
Then-solicitor general Sylvia Jones’s icy retort to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino was revealed at a public inquiry in one of hundreds of fascinating texts that showed how tensions mounted, police struggled and governments fought behind the scenes.
