We have yet to hear anything demonstrating that the government’s use of the act was necessary
Act first, ask questions later. That’s what the Emergencies Act allows the government to do.
No parliamentary debate, no sober second thought in the Senate, no transparent democratic process. Just action. New legal orders start to govern us on the sole authority of the prime minister and cabinet.
A secretly recorded conversation between Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and Coun. Diane Deans about an aborted plan to hire a new police chief at the height of last winter’s convoy protest was played Wednesday at the public inquiry examining the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to help end the crisis.
The Feb. 15 recording, which was only brought forward to the commission Wednesday morning, was entered into evidence at the Public Order Emergency Commission Wednesday afternoon. The tense call was recorded by Deans’ assistant without Watson’s knowledge, she later testified.
It appears that government and the police were the greatest threat to public order.
OTTAWA – The chair of the committee overseeing Ottawa’s police says there was “constant” infighting within the force that hampered its ability to deal with the Freedom Convoy protests and undermined Chief Peter Sloly’s authority.
The infighting within the Ottawa Police Service got so bad that it caused an operation to take down a blockade in the core of downtown to be called off even though 400 officers were ready to move in, Diane Deans told the Public Order Emergency Commission on Wednesday.
‘Recruiting ground’ and ‘martyrdom’ concerns: Insights from documents provided to convoy commission so far
Less than one week into the Public Order Emergency Commission’s hearings examining the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, hundreds of documents have already been made public.
While a considerable portion of the documents provided to the commission so far are copies of pandemic public health orders and statements, as well as clippings from media coverage of the ‘Freedom Convoy,’ there have also been transcripts or summaries of high-level phone calls, email and text message exchanges, and internal reports, with likely much more to come.
Ontario Provincial Police intelligence officer Pat Morris says that the OPP "produced no intelligence to indicate that these individuals (protesters) would be armed."
Morris labels the coverage of potential firearms at the protest as "hyperbole." pic.twitter.com/SCWiCgIntx
— True North (@TrueNorthCentre) October 19, 2022
He may not have seen the potential threat when truckers rolled toward Ottawa last January, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot miss the risk of Freedom Convoy fallout he now faces.
Under the no-nonsense watch of Justice Paul Rouleau with a lineup of inquisitive lawyers representing all sides of the protest, the Public Order Emergency Commission may well deliver a daily dose of bad news for the government as Trudeau and his seven cabinet ministers parade across the stand.
Will Ottawa City Manager Steve Kanellakos turn out to be the Alexander Butterfield of the Freedom Convoy hearings going on in the nation’s capital?
Butterfield is the former White House deputy chief of staff whose 1973 testimony before the U.S. Senate committee investigating the Watergate burglary revealed that then-president Richard Nixon had had a secret audio recording system installed in the Oval Office to tape every conversation between Nixon, his staff and visitors.
OTTAWA – Midway through the Freedom Convoy protests, Canada’s spy agency worried that they were being used as a “recruiting ground” for other causes but saw no sign of foreign threat actors supporting the movement.
A first glimpse into assessments of the convoy by Canada’s secretive intelligence agencies is contained in a summary of a call between municipal, provincial and federal government officials on Feb. 6, nine days after protests began in Ottawa.
I have not watched in detail thus far the inquiry into the invocation of the Emergencies Act. As a reasonable caution.
I fear trauma by proxy.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Ontario Premier Doug Ford of hiding from his responsibilities during the Freedom Convoy protests, according to a readout of a private call with Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson.
The readout of the February 8 call between Watson and Trudeau is not an exact transcript, but was presented at the ongoing Emergencies Act Inquiry as Watson testified on the protests that overwhelmed Ottawa in February.
There’s such a din in Ottawa you’d think the truckers were back. And in a sense they are, because hearings are finally under way into the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, and the ratio of noise to sense threatens to be worse than in the original go-round. Which is a pity because what is really called for, here and in public discussion generally, is truth and clarity, not screeching.
Nothing to see here… Just Ottawa Mayor @JimWatsonOttawa admitting he met with @gofundme and pressured them to freeze the convoy fundraiser, which they did. And for which he “lauded” them. The criminals are running the prison… #DictatorWatson pic.twitter.com/If0V8BEqWZ
— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) October 18, 2022
The behaviour from the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters in February was “despicable” and “abhorrent,” Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told the Emergencies Act inquiry on Tuesday.
Watson is spending the day providing his long-awaited testimony on municipal efforts to handle the three-week demonstration, after his chief of staff and Ottawa’s city manager appeared Monday.
“We had some people dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We had other people urinating at Cenotaph. We had a group that went and stole meals from the (homeless shelter) Shepherds of Good Hope,” Watson said.
Anyone wondering why public trust in government has tanked should review the testimony of Ottawa’s city manager at the inquiry into the federal government’s use of emergency legislation last winter. Residents and businesses were casualties of almost encyclopedic misjudgments by police, the city, the province and the federal government.
Trust in government tanked long before the Convoy arrived on the scene. It was the symptom.
Ottawa city manager Steve Kanellakos revealed new details Monday about a last-ditch agreement between police, protesters and politicians to move trucks out of residential areas and onto Wellington Street during last winter’s convoy protest in the capital — a deal that would ultimately fall apart just days before the federal government gave police special powers to end the occupation.
Kanellakos was testifying on the third day of the Public Order Emergency Commission, which was triggered when the Emergencies Act was invoked on Feb. 14.
Ottawa City Manager Steve Kanellakos told the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) on Monday that Freedom Convoy protesters never fulfilled their end of the deal to move trucks out of residential neighbourhoods, which was a condition to meet with Mayor Jim Watson, but protesters’ representatives counter that police never allowed the move.
“They never fulfilled their end of the bargain, so he never met with them,” said Kanellakos, the most senior public servant at the city.
Two protesters’ representatives involved in negotiations told The Epoch Times they were always ready to carry forward the agreement but police action made it impossible.
… The Liberals don’t want the public looking too closely at their flimsy case for invoking the Emergencies Act to oust the Freedom Convoy last February. In the spring, they refused to allow the Conservatives, the official Opposition, to chair or vice-chair the parliamentary committee studying the use of the act, as is common practice for committees. The government has also used cabinet confidentiality to deny requests in court to outline the specific information supposedly used to back up claims that there was a genuine national security threat.
