The Public Order Emergency Commission is hearing evidence from the Prime Minister, the Director of CSIS, and the top intelligence analyst in the country about the use of a wartime law to extinguish an anti-police protest in the nation s capital.
00:02:48.780As was mentioned earlier, we are prevented by law to investigate protests and lawful dissent.
00:02:55.440We're not investigating the convoy itself.
00:02:58.160Our interest is to understand how that dynamic is potentially influencing individuals who may, individuals that were known already to CSIS,
00:03:08.880and others potentially to radicalize further and engage in potential threat-related activity.
00:03:16.700So we were not investigating the convoy.
00:03:20.700You know, that's interesting because the CSIS Act specifically restrains CSIS from surveilling or examining lawful protests,
00:03:31.860including anti-government protests, as long as they're peaceful.
00:03:34.580Yeah, and I mean, I think we all take some comfort in that or should, but I think we all similarly had some unease about this whole concept of ideologically motivated extremists.
00:03:48.500When they were talking about the definition of that and how broad it was, and it's somebody who not only believes something,
00:03:57.980but believes on it to the extent that they want to act it out and change the world around them,
00:04:03.060to have the world around them be different than it is today.
00:04:40.140But now it seems to be a trigger of whether or not the government gets to watch you and whether it puts you in an offside zone, which is disconcerting to hear some of it.
00:05:32.360And we've seen throughout the inquiry, starting from the very first witnesses from the city residents, that it was felt aggressions and felt violence.
00:05:43.700One of the senior police officials also talked about that.
00:05:46.100So we're getting a lot of double speak into language that is very disconcerting.
00:05:54.680Well, I think one of my favorite clips today, though, is clip number two.
00:05:59.860And this was the lawyer from the JCCF examining the top security apparatus in this country and making them answer to every specific portion of Section 2 of the CSIS Act, which is the bar.
00:06:37.040You have to hit one of the four to initiate the Emergencies Act.
00:06:41.300And so let's go to clip two because it's quite astounding.
00:06:43.400That a terrorist group was going to pretend to use an event in order to conduct a terrorist activity.
00:06:56.960Well, of course, that would be of interest to CSIS.
00:06:59.400But we are very, very conscious and aware of balancing the rights of individuals in a democracy like Canada with our own mandate and our more intrusive techniques.
00:07:09.100Okay, Mr. Vigneault, so looking at, let's look at, we can look at A first.
00:07:16.780Based on the services assessment, there was no espionage or sabotage associated with the protest, correct?
00:07:30.900And there was no foreign interference?
00:07:33.440We have, I think it's in our testimony that we have said that we investigated foreign interference in relation to the event, including foreign funding.
00:07:47.160And we do not see these activities amounting to a threat to Secure of Canada.
00:08:08.580We're looking at, you know, how these events or individuals, you know, might engage in activities that meet our threshold.
00:08:15.900That this is where I was answering questions earlier about, you know, distinction between what law enforcement would be doing in terms of serious violence versus what we would do as a CSIS under the confine of the CSIS Act.
00:08:28.880There were no activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological objective within Canada, correct?
00:08:47.880And just quickly, there was no credible threat to overthrowing our established system of government?
00:08:54.240I can say that we have not investigated under 2D.
00:09:01.020It was astounding because if you watch mainstream media, all you hear is that this was a seditionist plot.
00:09:05.500Well, and this is another theme that's emerged where the law is clear, the test is clear, it's a checklist, you cannot invoke the Emergencies Act unless you can check certain boxes.
00:09:20.980And the testimony from the OPP intelligence people, the RCMP, the Ottawa Police Service, the Solicitor General for the Province of Ontario, senior government officials, the Deputy Attorney General or Public Safety Minister for Canada have all been the same, which is none of the tests were met.
00:09:45.420But then they proceed to say, as we heard today from the Director of CSIS, well, I recommended it anyway.
00:09:56.860That is an unlawful thing to do, particularly when you're talking about invoking a measure that allows the federal government to intrude into provincial jurisdiction, which they did,
00:10:08.140and strip Canadians of fundamental rights, freeze their personal bank accounts, freeze their corporate bank accounts, prevent them from meeting, cut businesses from meeting payroll, preventing parents from paying for daycare, rent, and food.
00:10:23.520And subsequently, we found out that they were denying bank loans after the fact, like Farm Credit Canada was guilty of that.
00:10:30.220And yeah, after the fact, that takes us to our next clip, the same CSIS director who just testified that none of the benchmarks were reached by the convoy under Section 2 of the CSIS Act, he, and I think that there were documents that said that he would, that we saw, I think it was February 10th, where he was saying there are no plots within the convoy, there are no serious threats within the convoy.
00:10:57.140I think he might be the only law enforcement official who uses the word violence correctly in this whole thing.
00:11:03.920But by the 13th, I think he met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
00:11:11.480And he said that it was because he received outside legal advice, but I hardly think it was outside because he got it from the Justice Department, which wanted to invoke the Emergencies Act anyway.
00:11:22.740Well, I think the Prime Minister wanted to invoke the Emergencies Act.
00:11:43.840Since you left the hearing room, we just got bombarded again with another large document dump from the federal government,
00:11:52.800despite the fact that half of their witnesses have already testified, the conduct of the federal government and how the commission is allowing this to happen without consequence and doing nothing to bring fairness back into the process is severely undermining the integrity and the credibility of the commission process and this whole hearing.
00:12:16.180Because you're not even getting the full scope of the evidence and you're trying to craft questions, but you can't ask questions if you don't even know what the full story is.
00:12:23.820As we were there today, you and I saw it firsthand.
00:12:27.240We're sitting behind Brendan Miller and the Freedom Team, and they're getting documents dumped on them.
00:12:35.600They're getting documents that were suddenly becoming unredacted.
00:12:39.420And then Brendan Miller's got to fight to re-examine a witness who he's just getting new evidence on while the witness is testifying.
00:13:10.640I say that because they, in the same way that they took advantage and so uncaringly stripped 6 million Canadians of their ability to travel and be with loved ones and have their fundamental right of mobility, how they so quickly made the decision that everyone, if you worked at an airport or in a train station or were a federal subcontractor or a prison guard,
00:13:37.980or a park warden, et cetera, that you had to be vaccinated without any consideration of, you know, if it's a 21-year-old park worker, the risk of the vaccine is far higher than the risk of COVID.
00:13:53.960So, in the same way that the government has been so cavalier about trampling Canadians' rights, that same cultural approach of this Trudeau government we're seeing manifest in the inquiry process in real time on live TV.
00:14:10.500Now, can, is there any sort of, I don't know, anything you can do about that?
00:14:17.060Like, does the commissioner know that they're giving you these document dumps on the witness while the witness is testifying?
00:14:28.900One is a judge in any hearing or proceeding or a commissioner or a tribunal member will only keep the respect of the room if they treat the parties with respect.
00:14:44.500So, when a party is completely out of line and the decision maker, the person with the authority does nothing about it, then there's no point in anybody else being in line.
00:14:57.540So, if the commissioner Rouleau doesn't do something about this, I think he's going to lose control of the room.
00:15:04.020Um, that's, that's just sort of a practical human nature thing that happens.
00:15:11.320Um, and you already started to see flavors of it today with the frustration of the lawyers.
00:15:16.520But the other thing that normally happens is that the, the, the judge, or in this case, a commissioner says, all right, well, what do we got to do to make this fair?
00:15:25.420If you're just getting these documents now, normally what they would do is they would adjourn.
00:15:45.020And then what would happen is, um, there'd be a rescheduling and then you'd have an opportunity to re-examine that witness and rely on that documentation.
00:15:54.880I don't know what he's going to do here.
00:16:25.740Because they know, it says right in section 63 of the act, within 60 days of invocation or revocation of it, you have, there's going to be a public inquiry.
00:16:54.120Uh, to throw us off, to prevent us from having the good stuff, to frustrate us, to model us up and, um, just their sheer arrogance combined with their incompetence.
00:17:03.880He's already lost control of the room at that point.
00:17:06.020And you started to see in the very, very beginning, there was some sort of standard that everyone was setting.
00:17:18.300I understand that there is a time crunch towards the end of this.
00:17:21.540But at the same time, you have to equate for the fact that when you have the other half of the room that is receiving all of these documents, that no human on this earth can possibly go through.
00:18:25.920Let's go to clip three, please, Zafron, in studio.
00:18:30.040It's CSIS Director David Vigneault explaining that despite the fact that the convoy didn't rise to the level of Section 2 of the CSIS Act, he told the Prime Minister, you know what?
00:18:44.740So, sorry, that threat that you're speaking about is with respect to individuals, but the protest itself did not pose a Section 2 threat to the security of Canada.
00:18:56.040What we've testified to is that we did not make a determination at the event itself, and I think it's part of our testimony, yes.
00:19:11.640And you did that not because you thought that the protest posed a threat to the security of Canada as defined in Section 2 of the CSIS Act, but because you were reassured that threat to the security of Canada had a different meaning in the context of the emergency.
00:19:26.040I think my testimony was in part that, but it was also based on all of the other information that, you know, I became aware of during all of the interdepartmental meetings and cabinet meetings I participated in.
00:19:39.880So, it was, I was provided, that opinion was provided, if you want, as a national security advisor, as opposed to the director of CSIS specifically.
00:19:51.460He said, oh, wait, wait, I didn't catch that the first time.
00:20:13.480Well, and if I'm understanding what happened today, and I think I am, they were never at, like, CSIS was never asked to provide a threat assessment on the convoy to cabinet.
00:20:44.220And both of them concluded that they were, that was not a threat to national security.
00:20:49.280Which is odd, because if, why even get an assessment from CSIS if CSIS's assessment is not going to be the assessment you're going to use to invoke the Emergencies Act, which relies on CSIS assessment?
00:21:03.320Because that whole line is something they developed in the last week.
00:21:09.900Because they saw all the evidence coming out, because remember, Mendocino said no fewer than seven times in the House and various committee meetings that it was the police forces that asked for the invocation.
00:21:23.200And once we started having each different police force multiple times testify, wasn't me, wasn't me, wasn't me, they started to run out of field to run on.
00:21:32.880And then when the bureaucrats came in and said, well, it wasn't us, it wasn't us, it wasn't us, they now had to come up with a completely brand new story.
00:21:43.320It's because they're fabricating it because they need to, and you really saw it, as I said, when we did one of these sessions after last Friday, that when we had some of the senior officials from the committee council's office and the prime minister's office testify that they were testing.
00:22:02.880They were testing out this new approach, which is, well, it might not have technically met the definition, but we all felt that it was the right thing to do.
00:22:14.740You know, and we also saw some of the documents, and they sort of just breeze by, and a lot of times I'm reading the document, not what they want you to look at, but everything else is probably the stuff you should be looking at.
00:22:27.480And one of them was that CSIS said that invocation of the act, specifically unnecessarily, would be a thing that would radicalize people to their IMVE status, because it would confirm all the things that people like you and me already think about the government, that it's crooked, it's tyrannical, that it's out to get you, and it's intolerant.
00:22:51.160And they said, invoking the act is going to push people in that direction, so don't do it, if you're concerned about those things.
00:22:58.900And the government ignored that recommendation, because it suited their political agenda.
00:23:07.020CSIS, in the written documentation from the time, which is, in law, the most persuasive, not the stuff you make up after the fact when you get your hand in the cookie jar.
00:23:30.040That was CSIS's documented position while the protest in Ottawa was ongoing, and prior to the invocation.
00:23:38.400This, oh, the head of CSIS testifying today that, yeah, no, none of the elements were met, the legal tests weren't met, we're clear about that.
00:23:48.480But I told the prime minister it was a good idea anyway.
00:23:54.620There, um, track this gentleman's career, and you will see, mark my words, he will be, probably within the next five to ten years, he will be the ambassador to Italy, or maybe the ambassador to Bahamas.
00:24:42.520I can't believe these are our security professionals.
00:24:44.880Well, I looked over at you, and I was like, well, I wonder what happened in the last two years to cause people to be inside for such long durations of time.
00:25:02.300Like, they accuse other people of being radical, but imposing all these lockdowns and restrictions that are unscientific, that's very radical.
00:25:08.440So, all of these projections onto other people, calling them misogynist, racist, radicalists, you name it, they seem to house a lot of those, um, traits themselves, don't you think?
00:25:23.600Do you have any sort of further comment on that threat environment from 2020 to today?
00:25:30.160Has it changed in any way, or has it, uh, remained the same?
00:25:35.800I would say it is increasing, and I'll pass to my colleague as well, but I would, from the CESIS perspective, part of the concern is you're seeing a lot of this type of discussion in more mainstream media.
00:25:46.900And we know through some of the, uh, individuals that we would be concerned with, and as I mentioned a number of times today, they try to use that to recruit individuals towards a more extreme ideology.
00:25:59.380So, because we see a lot more of this globally, frankly, uh, adherence to this type of a movement, it is of increasing concern in terms of the ability for people to access that type of violent propaganda.
00:26:14.100I would also add that we have seen during the pandemic, uh, especially while people were staying home, uh, they spent a whole lot of time on social media, on the internet, and there's, uh, surveys that have been done that show a large increase in the number of research, uh, people researching internet sites that have IMV content.
00:26:36.300We have seen also the number, as it's written in this, in this summary, the number of threats, uh, targeting public officials, politicians have been increasing.
00:27:15.720I mean, again, just, it's so common sense, and it's so blatant, and it's so obvious that what they're saying makes no sense.
00:27:21.880Um, anyone would be able to discern the truth in that room, um, even if you were blind, deaf, and, um, dumb for, yeah, 100%.
00:27:28.600They're so good, like, these security professionals are so good up until they have to be critical of the government, and then all of a sudden, they're completely politically compromised.
00:27:38.000Yeah, because when they, when they do their job honestly, they do their job well.
00:27:40.620Yeah, like, they, he accurately used the word violence properly.
00:27:45.400Like, he, violence was actually physical instead of a feeling that Steve Bell had one day on the streets.
00:27:53.000Um, and they seem really good up until they have to pin the blame on the government, and then they say, no, no, 100%.
00:28:00.560Yeah, and we can't lose sight on the seriousness of all this, and I know you're alive to it, and it's that, um, um, this power has only been used when there's been a World War, World War I, World War II, FLQ crisis with bombings, kidnappings.
00:28:21.680Not even for 9-11, not even for many other things, and the definition, I just looked at it again, right in the Act, a public order of urgency means an emergency that arises of threats to the security of Canada, and threats to the security of Canada has the meaning assigned by Section 2.
00:28:41.960So, we've had evidence after evidence, even again, from CSIS again, that the definition wasn't met, but they come right out and say, it's still okay, because the Prime Minister and some of the people around him thought it was a good idea to strip Canadians of their rights, presumably because the Prime Minister was mad because he was being embarrassed.
00:29:04.280If we have now transitioned into a country where a Prime Minister can freeze your bank account and strip you of your fundamental rights, override provincial jurisdiction because he's upset, we're in a very dangerous place in this country.
00:29:20.540So, the inquiry's not over, there's still more to do, there's also judicial reviews going on, but Canadians need to take this very seriously.
00:29:31.900I think more people are becoming engaged, I think.
00:29:35.600I've seen online, and take that for what you will, but more people who are sort of like, I didn't like the convoy, but I also don't like what's happening here.
00:29:45.600Yeah, the thing, even the government's own polling has shown that the largest grouping of people is people who are upset and fundamentally unnerved by the idea that the government can't at a whim freeze their bank account and seize their money.
00:30:03.680And even those who were completely opposed to the convoy, fully supportive of mandates and vaccination requirements, fell into that category.
00:30:15.180So, that's encouraging, but it remains to be seen as to whether there's going to be any political accountability here.
00:30:22.060It's going to be a wild week as we have more politicians come forward, and I know you're going to now start talking about the political angle because we had our first Cabinet Minister today.
00:30:31.100Yeah, yeah. We have Mendocino tomorrow, right?