Juno News - Chrystia Freeland Testifies ｜ Emergencies Act Inquiry

00:00:00.000 economy situation to reopening the economy and doing everything we could

00:00:10.820 to achieve a soft landing for the Canadian economy after the trauma of COVID, the COVID

00:00:19.360 lockdowns, the COVID recession, the economic trauma. That meant that we were particularly

00:00:26.440 focused in the economy on two things. One was supply chains. You know, by now, I think it's

00:00:38.000 sort of become part of the common discourse that supply chains were strained by COVID.

00:00:43.980 It was maybe less apparent to regular Canadians in January of this year, but it was really

00:00:51.400 apparent to us that the peculiar nature of the global economy during COVID had placed some very

00:01:00.040 significant strains on supply chains. That was jeopardizing Canada's recovery from the COVID

00:01:07.640 recession in areas like the lack of semiconductors putting real stress on our car sector. To give

00:01:17.540 just one example of very specific supply chain problems that we were focused on and thinking

00:01:22.980 about the second area we were really focused on um which again has moved more into what

00:01:32.420 everyday people are talking about but we were focused on it already in january was we could see

00:01:39.460 partly because of those strained supply chains that inflation was elevated and rising

00:01:45.860 And so it was apparent, I think, to us that we were going to be moving from the COVID recession situation where the challenge was, you know, prevent the greatest downturn since the Great Depression in Canada from really taking hold and scarring the Canadian economy.

00:02:10.540 that had been the preoccupation during COVID. We knew that we were moving into an environment where

00:02:17.200 the challenge was reopening and elevated inflation. And how do you deal with that?

00:02:24.080 And that made us particularly concerned again about the supply chains, because they posed a

00:02:28.980 challenge to elevated inflation. So I would say that was kind of my finance minister budget-related

00:02:36.220 set of concerns. The second economic issue that I was very focused on in December, January,

00:02:46.700 November, December, January, was the U.S. Build Back Better legislation, and in particular their

00:02:55.400 proposal on EV incentives. And, you know, I realized to an Ottawa kind of maybe legal community

00:03:05.460 type audience, that might seem a little bit esoteric. But the reality is, and it might seem

00:03:15.280 a little bit esoteric and a little bit specific, the EV incentives, as proposed by the U.S.,

00:03:23.560 and that legislation made its way through the House in the fall in the U.S., I believe in November,

00:03:29.680 That legislation, as proposed, would have been completely devastating to the future of the Canadian car sector.

00:03:39.100 What the incentives would have done had they been passed into law as initially proposed is create very strong incentives for buying electric vehicles that were made in the U.S., not North America, just the U.S.

00:04:01.060 And EVs, that's a national industry, right?

00:04:04.060 We're just shifting to the production of EVs.

00:04:08.160 Imagine if you are a car company and all the car companies that produce cars in Canada operate on both sides of the border.

00:04:17.160 Imagine these powerful U.S. incentives are put in place, but they only apply to EVs and batteries made in the U.S.

00:04:26.160 Are you going to build anything in Canada? Are you going to put any of those production lines in Canada?

00:04:31.160 And the answer is you wouldn't have.

00:04:34.160 And, you know, these incentives, frankly, were quite intentionally designed to drive all of the building of the new fledgling EV industry into the U.S. only and to create a powerful economic disincentive to build any of that in Canada.

00:04:56.460 That would have been a disaster for us because EVs are the cars of the future.

00:05:01.460 And to just give you a final kind of sense of how significant this was, at the end of 2021, marrying the trade minister and I sent a letter, which we made public to the U.S., warning that Canada was prepared to retaliate at scale were this measure to be passed into law.

00:05:28.200 Well, in December, in finance, we were looking at and putting the final touches on a retaliation list, because whenever there is trade retaliation, the first step is you publish the list of things you might retaliate against.

00:05:47.140 We did that during the 232 challenge, shall we say, the 232 tariff challenge.

00:05:55.260 The initial retaliation list that we were looking at was going to include up to $100 billion of U.S. imports into Canada.

00:06:09.500 So that's to give you a sense of the scale that we judged this challenge to be at.

00:06:18.140 Now, we didn't want to do that.

00:06:19.820 We really didn't want a trade war. That would have been terrible for Canada. And so we were also negotiating. And we were talking, all of us, the Prime Minister with President Biden, Mary Ng with the USTR.

00:06:37.960 I was speaking about it with Janet Yellen at the Treasury, and really the key person emerged as a guy called Brian Deese, who is in the White House.

00:06:50.400 He is the president's economic advisor.

00:06:53.640 And what we were trying to persuade Brian Deese of is the idea that, look, we understand that you want incentives for electric vehicles.

00:07:06.020 We believe in that, too.

00:07:07.420 we also believe in the green transition. We understand that you want U.S. workers to benefit

00:07:14.100 from these incentives, but our car sector is very, very closely interconnected. A favorite line that

00:07:22.400 you'll hear every single Canadian trade negotiator who ever has negotiated mentioned to the Americans

00:07:27.560 on this is, a single car part can cross the border six times on the way to becoming part of a car.

00:07:34.020 So we say that all the time to the Americans. And so what I said to Brian is our sectors are totally integrated. We're not asking for a free ride from the U.S. Why don't we match your incentives? And you guys have incentives. We'll have incentives, too. And both of us have incentives for North American-made EVs, thus creating a level playing field between Canada and the U.S.

00:08:02.920 And frankly, a strong incentive for investment into Canada, because in that kind of an environment, Canadian-made EVs would be uniquely able to be sold into the U.S. market.

00:08:19.500 So that was what we were talking about precisely at that time.

00:08:24.480 And in the month of December and January, we were drafting these ideas.

00:08:30.980 my department was working on it, and I was sharing them with the Treasury and with Brian Deese.

00:08:38.240 And actually, at the very end of January, my department prepared for me a sort of yet another

00:08:47.580 iteration of this sort of Deese note on how can we coordinate. So that was sort of a second

00:08:57.560 direction of economic concern, I would even say anxiety. We knew we had to make this work

00:09:05.880 coming at exactly that time. And then the final thing, which was more maybe a deputy

00:09:15.640 prime minister area of focus, was Russia and Ukraine. The war hadn't started yet,

00:09:22.600 But we and our allies started to get intelligence in December and in January that Russia could well be preparing to invade Ukraine.

00:09:37.100 I was briefed directly at the beginning of January that the judgment was this could really happen.

00:09:46.740 And again, it's happened now, so we might not fully remember how astonishing and horrifying that thought was before it actually happened.

00:09:57.980 It's horrifying now, too, of course.

00:10:00.220 So, you know, that was a very big deal.

00:10:03.800 I learned about it at the beginning of January, and the threat just kept getting greater and greater and greater.

00:10:10.760 I believe NATO troops were put on alert at the end of January.

00:10:17.920 And then I think the U.S. took this extraordinary step of declassifying its intelligence about Russia's plans in early February to kind of alert everyone.

00:10:30.720 And I was also involved at the finance minister level, working with other finance ministers, talking to the Ukrainians about putting together sort of preemptive sanctions.

00:10:42.620 If you think back to that time, the idea was we would be very explicit with Russia about the sanctions that would snap in in the event of an invasion.

00:10:53.480 So we were working on that.

00:10:55.320 So that was kind of a third area I was very aware of.

00:10:58.820 I thought then, and I think today, that Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which of course did ultimately happen, is the biggest challenge to Canada's national security since the Second World War.

00:11:13.740 I think it's a very serious attack on Western democracies, on the rules-based international order.

00:11:21.840 I took it seriously then, and I believed it was really important for Canada to be in a strong position to be able to respond.

00:11:32.680 Okay. There's a lot to unpack there.

00:11:37.520 There was a lot going on.

00:11:39.240 Fair enough. In the interest of time, I'm just going to go over a couple of points and then move on.

00:11:45.260 But so the last point you raised was what was going on on in Ukraine.

00:11:51.460 You saw a link to that Canada's national security so that that link may not be obvious.

00:11:58.300 It's something that's going on in the other end of the world.

00:12:00.900 So what do you mean by that?

00:12:01.940 That would be a risk to Canada's national security.

00:12:05.700 Well, Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine

00:12:09.420 is the first time that one internationally recognized state has tried to take,

00:12:17.060 has tried to conquer or seize the territory of another since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. 0.84

00:12:24.800 It's a very grave violation of what I think is one of the greatest accomplishments

00:12:32.840 of the post-World War II international order,

00:12:37.800 which was, you know, a basic, basic understanding

00:12:44.820 that internationally recognized countries don't invade each other

00:12:50.960 and seize each other's territory.

00:12:53.280 Now, that has not been perfectly honored,

00:12:57.620 but if you compare the entire post-World War II period

00:13:01.380 with all of human history prior to that, it's a huge change. And that has hugely enhanced the

00:13:11.300 security of every country in the world. So that's number one. Number two way that Canada's security

00:13:18.880 was threatened, is threatened, but I think the allied response has been strong and has strengthened

00:13:25.500 in Canada, is I absolutely believe that one of Vladimir Putin's war aims, you know, his

00:13:36.300 principal objective was, is to crush Ukraine, to take it over, to crush Ukrainians as a

00:13:45.920 people, and to replace the democratically elected government, to make it a puppet satrapy.

00:13:55.500 But he has another objective, which is to show that dictatorships work and democracies don't.

00:14:04.920 There is a broader goal he has in mind, and that is, I believe, in his view, because he wants that demonstration effect. 0.95

00:14:16.540 He wants to show Russians, you know, you might not like that much how things work here, but we're better than those, you know, weak, feeble, pathetic Western democracies. 0.64

00:14:29.340 That's sort of the message he wants to communicate with what he perceives to be his own strength. 0.90

00:14:35.200 and his success were he to be successful i absolutely believe would weaken western

00:14:47.300 democracies writ large including our own okay um that's i think helpful context for for uh if you'll

00:14:56.980 agree with me for the what was in your mind essentially as the convoy arrived in late

00:15:02.240 january you've said that that dovetailed basically with your negotiations on the on the electron

00:15:07.840 the electric vehicle incentives um and in the chronology you can appreciate this is the second

00:15:13.120 last day of the commission's testimony so we've we've been through a lot of the chronology of

00:15:17.040 what happened in those early days and i want to focus with you this morning on uh your specific

00:15:22.320 involvement and um i think you you've expressed to us in the interview and and um you may agree

00:15:30.400 or you may not but you started to become very actively engaged in this file in this matter

00:15:34.960 around february 6th around the second sse meeting does that ring a bell that's the second weekend

00:15:42.480 right is that the saturday or the sunday that would be the sunday okay um yes that's true and

00:15:48.640 that's kind of consistent with how i was describing my role so i would sort of say up until that point

00:15:56.560 um i was pretty much heads down we have the budget we have budget is sort of

00:16:04.160 90 of the focus and then there's electric vehicles over here hope we can get a good

00:16:10.000 outcome otherwise it's going to be really bad and you know i've spoken um

00:16:17.280 with a lot of conviction a moment ago about the significance of the russian invasion of ukraine

00:16:23.360 But I want to remind us all, at the end of January, beginning of February, it hadn't happened yet. 0.88

00:16:29.260 So that was just out there as a threat that I had in mind.

00:16:34.220 So up until February 6th, 90% budget, EVs on one side, worried about Russia, Ukraine, hoping that we can put forward strong sanction ideas that will prevent it.

00:16:48.760 But it was really budget, budget, budget.

00:16:50.480 But then the second weekend of the occupation happened, and I started hearing particularly from business leaders that this was starting to be an area of concern.

00:17:08.200 And so I did attend that committee meeting.

00:17:12.060 And then as that week went on, I became more and more and more involved.

00:17:17.040 Okay. And just to clarify, you wouldn't normally attend an SSE meeting, is that right?

00:17:22.200 No, not at all.

00:17:23.340 A standing invitation as Deputy Prime Minister?

00:17:26.380 The Finance Minister has a stand. I think they call it an ad refio member.

00:17:32.760 The Finance Minister can attend any Cabinet meeting that she or he chooses to attend.

00:17:38.660 So on February 6th, you sort of invited yourself?

00:17:41.100 I think my colleagues also thought it would be good to have me there.

00:17:44.540 Fair enough. Okay. So, soon after that, on February 9th, your department produced

00:17:51.420 an options memo. And Mr. Clerk, if we can just pull that up quickly, it's SSM.can403764.

00:17:58.940 Okay. So, Mr. Freeland, we've talked a little bit about this already, but I'd like you to

00:18:17.080 take us through the options and how this memo came about and the two options that are outlined,

00:18:22.760 here which are essentially amendments to sorry scroll down a bit please mr clerk the first

00:18:28.600 option that's outlined uh until you get to there we go um so would be potential amendments to the

00:18:35.720 pcmltfa act and then if we scroll down beyond that you'll see amendments to the bank act so

00:18:41.880 can you tell us how you perceive these options how the memo came about and and what you did with this

00:18:46.520 information afterwards sure um and i think so this was on the 9th which is the wednesday

00:18:54.360 believe that's right so um and that really was the crucial week from my perspective

00:19:00.920 and i think the blockade of the ambassador bridge began on the monday

00:19:06.680 of that week um so from a finance economic perspective that escalated things exponentially

00:19:21.080 um that's what made it a hugely significant economic action and you know i had started to

00:19:33.660 get really worried on the Sunday, I attended the cabinet committee meeting. Bridge is occupied on

00:19:38.700 the Monday. I start talking very urgently with my team, with Michael Sabia and officials.

00:19:51.600 And we basically go through sort of three thought processes. Number one, is this a really huge

00:20:01.660 problem that has risen to the level that we need to figure out a way to stop this.

00:20:11.600 And by the beginning of that week, especially with the bridge blockade, we were coming to

00:20:16.720 that conclusion.

00:20:17.600 We have to figure out something to do.

00:20:20.740 So then step two is, we're the Department of Finance.

00:20:24.920 I think you've probably heard from other ministers, the instruction was, okay, everyone, take a look in your toolbox and figure out what tools are available to you to act on this.

00:20:43.500 And so that's what we did. Um, and we found looking at what was in the finance toolbox, that there were basically two areas where there could be authority. Um, one was FinTrack, um, which is, uh, the center that sort of monitors financial transactions, money laundering,

00:21:12.900 terrorist financial activity. And then the second was the Bank Act. And would there be

00:21:21.160 authorities under the Bank Act that could be useful in resolving the situation? So that was

00:21:26.900 the two areas we looked at. We looked at what the existing tools available as of that moment

00:21:35.760 permitted us to do and we came to the conclusion pretty quickly that everything that could be

00:21:43.920 utilized was being utilized so then we thought well is there a need to legislate

00:21:54.480 and that memo outlines areas where the department said you could legislate to create this authority

00:22:03.280 or you know you could legislate to create these various authorities as outlined in the memo

00:22:08.400 and did you consider those viable options then um we definitely looked at them um

00:22:17.680 as you know um i would say let me say a couple of things so on the fin track front um what

00:22:27.040 What we concluded was, to put it in maybe kind of more regular terms, what we concluded, and this is something that finance officials had been thinking about for a while, is that basically the FinTrack monitoring authorities were appropriate for a 20th century economy, but not for a 21st century economy.

00:22:56.000 that FinTrack, and I know you guys know this because you have been over this for hours and

00:23:02.600 hours and hours, but maybe for people who are tuning in for the first time, FinTrack is not

00:23:10.700 an enforcement agency. The job of FinTrack is to monitor what's going on, to both look into

00:23:19.640 reports that it gets, and to just kind of have situational awareness and let us know what's

00:23:26.240 happening in terms of illicit financial flows in Canada. I think that's a summary I would offer

00:23:31.620 you of FinTrack, of FinTrack's job. What we were sort of reminded of in looking at this

00:23:40.300 is FinTrack's sort of line of sight was very blinkered. They could look into what you might

00:23:47.080 call the 20th century financial system, but they didn't have authority over the 21st century

00:23:54.280 financial system. And by that specifically, I mean over crowdfunding and over payment platforms.

00:24:02.920 So that was a lacuna. It was well known that it was a lacuna, but there hadn't been an urgency

00:24:12.280 uh to act and the memo identifies this is an authority that we think fin track should have

00:24:19.560 and you could legislate to create that authority subsequently as we all became fin track experts

00:24:26.600 very quickly or thought we were becoming fin track experts very quickly um we understood that

00:24:34.200 regulatory authority would be sufficient to grant FinTrack these additional powers.

00:24:41.800 And as you know, that's what we ultimately did. So FinTrack, one area. And then second area,

00:24:48.200 which is outlined in this note, is could the Bank Act be used to allow the banks to

00:25:00.760 effectively freeze accounts. That's basically what the memo discusses and it discusses what

00:25:11.000 would be the different authorities which would allow that. And so those were the options that

00:25:17.560 were developed there. Maybe the final point worth mentioning with regard to that memo is

00:25:30.920 in terms of a legislative path what we understood was it takes a long time and

00:25:40.440 look it's a good thing that it takes a long time for legislation to be passed in canada

00:25:46.200 um even when we're working really together and urgently and quickly and an example you know

00:25:54.200 just this fall of parliament coming together understanding an urgent necessity and passing

00:25:59.960 legislation uh was the bill uh that granted us the authority to double the gst credit

00:26:08.360 which we proposed as soon as we returned from the summer recess it gained all party support

00:26:15.160 and it speeded through and you know we got we proposed it in the middle of september

00:26:21.560 and we got the first checks out to canadians on november 5th

00:26:25.480 5th. In parliamentary legislative time, that is a sprint. And that was good, because we know that

00:26:33.200 Canadians need inflation relief. But that's really, really fast, from September 19th to November 5th.

00:26:41.320 So, and that's just one real-life example where there was urgent action by Parliament

00:26:46.660 and the Senate, and the House and the Senate. And so, while this, we looked at what the

00:26:54.460 legislative options could be, we quickly understood that they would take a long time.

00:27:02.600 So skipping way ahead now, but so the conclusion in the end was you did not have time to legislate.

00:27:09.360 Not that, I mean, I think the short answer is yes. You know, basically the legislative timelines

00:27:16.140 And the snowballing, sort of exponentially damaging impact on the economy, they were not, the legislative timeline was not appropriate to the scale and speed with which the damage was mounting.

00:27:35.660 You mentioned in the course of that that you were having conversations and you were hearing

00:27:42.860 from various stakeholders and business people, et cetera. So I want to spend a moment, and also

00:27:48.320 U.S. officials, obviously, so I want to spend, not actually a moment, a little while going through

00:27:53.960 some of the conversations that you were having. And I think the best way to do this is with the

00:27:58.740 assistance of some of the documents that we have that may remind you of the specific conversations.

00:28:03.900 So we'll start with, Mr. Clerk, SSM.CAN.401255.

00:28:11.240 So this is a summary of your conversation while it's being pulled up with Mr. Deese, Brian Deese, on February 10th.

00:28:18.800 And you've already explained to us who Mr. Deese is, but just maybe go over that again.

00:28:25.020 So would you say he's the senior economic policy advisor to the president?

00:28:30.480 100%. I would say when it comes to U.S. executive economic authority, the most important person is President Biden, obviously, and his most important advisor is Brian Deese. And then, of course, Secretary Yellen is a very significant and, you know, frankly, brilliant figure and player in all of this.

00:28:58.100 And we were, maybe just as a quick footnote, I don't want to offend the Treasury, in talking about these EV incentives, we were very much in touch with the Treasury, both with Secretary Yellen and with David Lipton, who worked in the Treasury.

00:29:15.200 They were very aware of our proposals, too, and supportive of them.

00:29:18.980 Is Mr. Deese someone who talks to you often?

00:29:24.640 I try to.

00:29:26.340 um what was striking to me about the conversation i had with him on the 10th of february is

00:29:34.740 he is a person who is very hard for canadians to get a hold of um and actually in the fall

00:29:45.400 when we realized how significant the ev issue was and when in my conversations with the treasury

00:29:54.380 I really learned how important the White House and Brian Deese were and also our ambassador

00:30:00.980 Kirsten Hillman sort of identified to us Brian Deese is the guy you have to talk to

00:30:05.260 and it was a real effort to develop a relationship and a dialogue with him

00:30:14.320 and an effort to get it always an effort to get him on the phone to get him to answer

00:30:21.160 an email. And I don't mean that in any way to slight him. He's an extremely busy person.

00:30:27.740 In a way, the fact that it's hard for Canada to reach him is a good thing. It means we're a peace

00:30:35.040 order and good government country, and they're not very worried about us. And so what was really

00:30:41.520 striking to me was how quickly he got on the phone with me on that Thursday. It was instant.

00:30:49.940 and while in some ways you know that was in as a practical matter that was good but it gave me a

00:30:58.340 measure of how worried the white house was about this okay so let's look at the uh the summary of

00:31:05.940 the conversation you had with them mr clerk if you can just scroll down to um so we can see that

00:31:11.780 entire part of the email yeah okay so starting february 10th so this is you mr freeland writing

00:31:18.660 and say he called me they are very very very worried if this is not sorted out in the next 12

00:31:25.940 hours all of their northeastern car plants will shut down he said that he supposed that this

00:31:31.220 proved the point that we made previously to them about how closely integrated our economies are

00:31:37.220 he did not seem to see this as a positive he asked what he could do to help us i said tow trucks

00:31:43.700 make your point about banning travel to the U.S. for participants public, arrange a call between

00:31:51.020 the PM and the president, and then you say he was aware of points one and two, tow trucks and

00:31:57.680 banning travel, and said he would push on both. He was supportive of the idea of a call and would

00:32:02.700 try to make it happen. So can you flesh out that summary a little bit of what Mr. Deese was

00:32:08.460 conveying to you yeah i mean you know i think can you move up a little bit just you know i think the

00:32:16.680 point the second sentence he said that this proved the point about how integrated our economies are

00:32:22.940 and he didn't seem to see this as a positive um he brought that up and you have to kind of bear in

00:32:29.400 mind i have been bugging the guy and canadians have been nagging americans since the fall and

00:32:35.180 we've been saying guys you don't understand canada you don't understand how integrated our

00:32:39.900 economies are this approach you're taking to the evs it's completely counterproductive for you

00:32:45.960 because we work so closely together those parts they cross the border six times we've been saying

00:32:51.240 this over and over and so he comes back at me and he says yeah okay like you've made the point

00:32:58.780 We get it. And it was a surprise to him, actually, the extent to which their car industry was dependent on the trade with Canada.

00:33:10.500 But that was a dangerous moment for Canada, I felt, very, very dangerous, because the US then and now, as part of their own soft landing from COVID, something that is happening there is a real move to protect the supply chains of the United States.

00:33:38.660 The same supply chain challenges I was talking about earlier as affecting Canada affected the U.S., and I think we have all seen a very strong push this year by Americans to insulate their supply chains, particularly from China.

00:33:57.680 are very worried about the semiconductors, but more broadly, COVID brought alive to them the

00:34:04.840 vulnerability of their supply chains. And this was so worrying to me because I could see really

00:34:13.060 for the first time ever, the Americans having this amber light flashing in Canada and this amber

00:34:20.740 light that said to them, you know what? The Canadian supply chain could be a vulnerability

00:34:25.040 to. And that's a problem for us because there are plenty of Americans, both Democrats and

00:34:32.360 Republicans, who would love any excuse to impose more protectionist measures on us. So that line

00:34:41.360 to me, it jumped out at me. It made me really, really worried. And I understood, I really

00:34:51.100 understood at that point that the danger wasn't just the danger of the, it wasn't just the

00:35:01.920 immediate damage. It wasn't just the immediate harm. It wasn't, oh, you know, this plant

00:35:08.300 loses four days of operation. The danger was, were we in the process as a country of doing

00:35:18.360 long-term and possibly irreparable harm to our trading relationship with the United States.

00:35:27.140 And it's also important to understand that our trading relationship with the United States,

00:35:32.780 it's not just about Canada-US trade. It's about Canada's attractiveness as a destination

00:35:40.320 for all foreign investments. Japanese car companies invest in Canada because of our

00:35:47.620 trading relationship with the United States. So that one conversation was a seminal one for me.

00:35:54.380 And it was a moment when I realized, as a country, somehow, we had to find a way to bring this to an

00:36:01.360 end. And Mr. Clerk, if you just scroll up a bit, so we can see the next email there.

00:36:08.860 You say one final thing, he'd like to talk to me again tomorrow, every day until this is sorted

00:36:15.000 it out. Did that end up happening? It didn't, because we sorted it out. So, you know, that was

00:36:23.080 a conversation on the Thursday night. You'll see from that conversation that I asked Brian to help

00:36:31.240 organize a call between the Prime Minister and the President. And again, that's a very hard thing to

00:36:38.160 set up. The President of the United States, the most important elected leader in the world,

00:36:43.600 very very busy guy he also by the way was involved in this potential russian invasion of ukraine very

00:36:52.460 involved and yet i asked for the call that thursday i can't remember exactly when my call with brian

00:37:00.980 happened thursday sort of early evening i think late afternoon early evening the president and

00:37:06.260 prime minister spoke on the friday um and then as you know we made an announcement on the monday

00:37:16.980 okay um just gonna take you back for one second mr clerk can you pull that one down and go

00:37:22.820 to ssm.can four zeros 4175 um so mr freeland this is a text exchange you had on the 11th with brian

00:37:32.420 Clough of the PMO. Yeah. Okay. And that is, that's the following day then. That's the Friday.

00:37:39.800 Yeah. That's the Friday. And scroll down a little bit, please, Mr. Clerk, until we see Windsor was

00:37:44.120 supposed to do there. So you say, Windsor was supposed to happen today. This can't go on.

00:37:49.360 We need to show some federal leadership too. So does that go back to what you were just saying?

00:37:55.020 At that point, you had decided something had to be done and quickly. Yes. And also,

00:38:03.380 you know that point windsor was supposed to be today um i think it's worth dwelling on for a

00:38:10.420 moment because it speaks you know to our experience in the eye of the storm which is that

00:38:21.220 we continued to hear that action was going to be taken, and things were going to come to an end.

00:38:33.620 And it seemed that that wasn't happening. And at the same time, what seemed to be happening

00:38:41.220 is we had this metastasizing of the illegal blockades and occupations. So there were sort of,

00:38:48.420 you know copycat action across the country sort of a whack-a-mole and that was also worrying

00:38:57.460 okay um we'll go back to the stakeholders now mr clerk

00:39:00.740 thank you you can take that one down and pull up ssm.can four zeros 4138

00:39:10.740 so this is a text exchange with um mr flavio volpe yes explain who mr volpe is yeah um

00:39:18.420 Flavio is the head of the car parts group.

00:39:27.540 He is a real leader in the car sector.

00:39:33.000 I got to know him well during the NAFTA negotiations, where we had sort of a real Team Canada approach,

00:39:43.060 and autos were a very important issue.

00:39:45.560 And so Flavio and his constituent companies and the trade negotiators and I worked really closely together on the specifics of the deal.

00:39:57.080 And Flavio also, you know, significantly, I think, for this exchange, Flavio was very aware of the EV issue.

00:40:07.920 And if I have seemed to you guys today to be kind of weirdly obsessed with EVs and U.S. EV incentives, I would urge you to spend five minutes talking to Flavio, and you will understand how really kind of life or death for the car sector it is.

00:40:30.680 So he was very, very steeped in all of these issues.

00:40:37.920 Okay, so if we just look at the text exchange, he says to you on the 9th, this is the ambassador bridge debacle is embarrassing. And then you say, let's talk tomorrow. I would love to get your ideas. I'm worried too. So the text then skips to February 14th. But we don't necessarily need to go. Well, actually, let's go there.

00:40:56.100 So this is at the point, I guess, where the Emergencies Act has been involved, and you say, express to him, I know how devastating this has been, and it's been determined that we need to take strong action.

00:41:08.260 We didn't save NAFTA, only to have it undermined.

00:41:12.060 Can you tell us about the conversations you had sort of in between these texts?

00:41:15.980 not really because i don't have sort of specific memory of actual things we said

00:41:24.980 and i can't even tell you a hundred percent whether we spoke on the phone or just exchange

00:41:31.120 texts so i don't want to pretend to knowledge of that um but you know i can give you some context

00:41:39.080 for that view that I expressed there, which I do remember expressing,

00:41:45.960 which I think is consistent with what I've been saying earlier this morning,

00:41:52.940 that all of us who had been involved in the NAFTA negotiation,

00:41:59.560 very much the car sector people,

00:42:03.420 but I think you'll see that I also had a text exchange with one of the steel guys.

00:42:14.920 All of the industries that were very implicated in the NAFTA negotiations

00:42:19.800 were aware of how Canada's access to the U.S. market was both essential

00:42:29.140 and kind of constantly fragile and in need of tending.

00:42:36.360 I don't know, maybe it's like a marriage,

00:42:38.420 like your whole life is based on it,

00:42:40.560 but you have to take care of it every single day.

00:42:44.440 And these people whose jobs,

00:42:48.120 whose livelihoods depended on it,

00:42:50.480 really understood that.

00:42:52.240 And like, I'm aware as I'm speaking

00:42:55.200 that this might seem esoteric to lawyers. And what I really want to say is,

00:43:06.180 you know, especially for me personally, the NAFTA negotiations were kind of a bonding experience,

00:43:14.100 just for me as an elected Canadian leader, with everyone who works in a Canadian car plant,

00:43:21.480 or a Canadian car park plant, with Canadian steel workers, with Canadian aluminum workers,

00:43:29.740 with people in Regina who make pipes. I knew during the NAFTA negotiations,

00:43:36.260 their jobs were on the line, and they knew it too. And all of those people across Canada,

00:43:43.780 they were so great. Like, they were prepared for Canada to take a strong position. They were

00:43:50.520 prepared for the U.S. president to insult us. They were prepared for us to take really strong

00:43:57.880 retaliatory actions against the 232 tariffs because they knew how important it was for them

00:44:04.420 and their jobs and their lives. And what that text exchange with Flavio represents is me sharing with

00:44:13.480 something I know he felt too, which is this really important market access that we managed to secure just a couple of years ago. It's constantly under threat. Witness the EV incentives. And it's under threat right now. And we just, we can't let Canada be devastated this way.

00:44:35.260 Okay, you mentioned one of the steel guys. Would that be Alan Kestenbaum?

00:44:40.000 It certainly would.

00:44:40.760 Okay, well, let's pull up then SSM.can404171. This is a text exchange you had with him on the 11th. And what he has to say is a little bit different, I think. So, we're going through.

00:44:56.980 so he sends you this and he says hi christy i hope you're well i know you have your hands full

00:45:07.620 i'm not saying anything you probably don't know but this is really impacting us badly now like

00:45:13.500 many others and i fear that even worse the long-term consequences of shutting down auto

00:45:18.560 plants because of lack of canadian parts will only convince the auto companies on shore even more

00:45:24.940 and relocate supplies. This is a bit annoying because it's in three separate documents. So,

00:45:30.400 Mr. Clerk, can you take that one down and put up SSM.can404349?

00:45:45.300 Record time. Okay, so that's a continuation of the text. Relocate supplies and our customers to

00:45:51.780 usa i know it sucks politically to back down and reverse course but it does really pay to carry on

00:45:58.100 the policy and or does it really pay i'm sorry to carry on the policy in support of a mandate for a

00:46:03.460 vaccine that doesn't prevent the spread of omicron and which seems to be vanishing naturally anyway

00:46:09.060 moreover this could create a resurgence of the right wing just like it did in america

00:46:13.700 anyway i know this is a massive headache for you but it could be solved by retreating and letting

00:46:18.020 it fade away from everyone's memory just sharing my views hoping the spreading disruption gets

00:46:23.460 resolved quickly okay and then the next one mr clerk is your response which is ssm.can404170

00:46:41.540 and that response is dear alan thank you for reaching out i share your concerns

00:46:46.180 we are determined to bring this to an end quickly and we will so what mr kastenbaum is expressing

00:46:51.620 there is the same concern and a suggestion that the solution to it is to to alter the public

00:46:56.820 health measures um so what was your reaction to that for me the salient point was the first part

00:47:05.300 of his message and you know i think what he says there um and he is runs stelco in hamilton uh he

00:47:15.860 is american though and u.s based um what he was saying at the beginning about on shoring and

00:47:24.420 relocating to the u.s that's what i was talking about earlier today and i kind of highlight that

00:47:31.940 for all of us here just to kind of make clear to everyone that for people whose bread and butter

00:47:44.420 whose livelihoods were in the U.S. trade-exposed industries, their immediate conclusion, you

00:47:53.440 didn't have to think about it, the immediate conclusion from the blockage of trade was

00:48:00.000 the Americans are going to respond by cutting us out.

00:48:02.620 Um, and then in terms of Alan's proposal, um, I didn't debate it with him.

00:48:14.600 Um, I don't think that it's, I think that the relevant information for me from him wasn't for him to tell me what the right solution was.

00:48:28.340 the relevant information for me from him was for him pointing out to me that this was a really big

00:48:35.420 problem and it had to get resolved. Okay. We're now going to skip to one of the very,

00:48:42.920 very crucial days in all of this chronology, which is the 13th of February.

00:48:50.320 I understand that on that day, you had a call with a number of Canadian bank CEOs. And I think,

00:48:56.900 correct me if I'm wrong, but the chronology of that day in your world goes call with the bank

00:49:01.840 afternoon around 1 p.m., IRG meeting mid-afternoon, and then cabinet meeting at 8.30 at night. Does

00:49:10.700 that sound right? It does. I'm just referring to my own chronology because there was one other

00:49:17.020 meeting which is relevant, which is at 2 o'clock that day, I had a national security meeting on

00:49:24.620 Ukraine. Okay, fair enough. So just to give you guys a sense of how overlapping the issues were.

00:49:31.120 Okay. Mr. Clerk, if you can pull up a document. I've lost my document. SSM.CAN 1281, please.

00:49:40.740 okay so we're on the 13th now um and this is an email from merit meredith tyler tyler meredith

00:49:56.180 tyler meredith i'm sorry can you tell us who tyler meredith is um he doesn't work in my office

00:50:02.420 anymore um but he was i think his title was um strategic policy advisor a senior policy person

00:50:13.380 okay um and he writes in the time stamp of this email it's that wonky greenwich meantime thing so

00:50:19.860 that means around 11 30 in the morning i believe um he writes hi christia everyone is confirmed for

00:50:26.740 1 p.m. a list of ceos is at the bottom of this email a couple of points of background for the

00:50:33.220 call the institutions are all aware we convened a call with the canadian bankers association

00:50:39.780 earlier this week just to check in on whether they had any advice for us in light of recent events

00:50:45.700 the message from industry mostly speaking for that probably means from their legal counsel at the

00:50:51.460 time was we've got this under control and generally feel comfortable with the current regime

00:50:58.340 uh then he says privately certain banks have have

00:51:03.540 while looking at bringing in fat platforms under aml that's anti-money laundering proceeds of crime

00:51:10.820 uh limiting access to payment processors and then the last bullet is we haven't given them

00:51:18.420 any indication about what's under consideration so in all of that it's actually the first bullet

00:51:23.380 that i want to focus on most which was this message that what had been heard from industry

00:51:28.260 prior to this was we got this uh it's under control we're comfortable with what's happening

00:51:33.780 um is that something that you were aware of that you heard before so i i mean this was an extremely

00:51:42.180 busy time that week tons and tons of stuff was happening i had a lot of information flowing

00:51:50.420 through my phone and my inbox and i can't confirm one way or the other whether i read this specific

00:51:58.820 note from tyler so i can't comment on this specific email um what i can say is that we can't and

00:52:08.980 you've seen sort of the disclosure of all of the things that all of the messages that i sent and

00:52:14.580 things i wrote down um what i can also say is that weekend and i can't tell you the specific times

00:52:22.580 i had two one-on-one phone calls with bank ceos with the ceo of bmo and the ceo of td

00:52:30.500 I believe at their request. That was unusual. I do sort of as a matter of course, meet with the bank

00:52:41.940 CEOs as a group every six months. And obviously, they can and should have access to me like they

00:52:51.060 should be able to meet with me. But it usually takes a while for people's calendars to work

00:52:57.700 um and for the meeting to be arranged and it's highly unusual for them to want to talk to me

00:53:04.180 on a weekend so that was significant to me that they wanted to talk to me on the phone

00:53:10.940 I spoke to both of them I am sure pretty sure well 90 sure I spoke to both of them

00:53:19.000 before this call at 1 p.m. on Sunday with all of the bank CEOs.

00:53:25.400 And each of them expressed a high degree of concern about the damage being done to Canada and the Canadian economy,

00:53:34.580 which was then reflected in the group call.

00:53:37.560 Okay, so let's have a look at that group call now.

00:53:41.020 Mr. Clerk, it's SSM.can408766.

00:53:49.000 So this is about a three-page document, Mr. Freeland, I'm just going to take you to certain

00:54:05.680 excerpts of it that I'd like you to elaborate on. So the first one, Mr. Park, if you just

00:54:10.860 scroll, there we go. We don't know who's speaking here, but whoever it is, it's one of the bank's

00:54:16.560 CEO says, the big hole in our financial system is these platforms, which are effectively money

00:54:22.440 service businesses that are not being regulated as such. So that these platforms refers to the

00:54:28.600 payment processors, the crowdfunding platforms? I believe so. I mean, I shouldn't put words in

00:54:34.960 the mouth of another person. But I think one of the messages that I recall came through in this

00:54:42.260 call and that you know my memory was refreshed when i looked at these notes one of the messages

00:54:48.260 from the bank ceos was kind of what finance had concluded independently earlier in the week

00:54:56.100 which is there's this whole space where financial transactions happen that no one has any line of

00:55:04.260 site to um and that is the crowdfunding platforms or the crowdfunding um platforms the payment

00:55:14.020 systems and then i think someone also mentions crypto later on in this call yeah i think they

00:55:20.020 do that's right so um we'll just scroll down a little bit there i'm not sure we're going to get

00:55:24.340 to crypto just yet but we are going to get to um your response here where you say i'm very prepared

00:55:30.660 to come out and speak about this.

00:55:32.500 This is an attack on democracy.

00:55:34.580 We need to educate Canadians about this.

00:55:37.380 What do you mean by this is an attack on democracy here?

00:55:40.520 So I was responding specifically to one of the CEOs

00:55:45.780 whose bank had acted to freeze an account based on,

00:55:54.720 this was prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

00:55:59.660 It was based, as that note shows, on what the bank's anti-money laundering systems detected.

00:56:09.540 And based on that, the bank rightly acted.

00:56:13.600 What was a concern for me, and this did shape how we acted,

00:56:23.060 was the banks being blamed for taking this action,

00:56:30.680 the banks being seen as choosing to do it, as having the agency.

00:56:37.460 And it was particularly a concern.

00:56:42.000 And you note the mention of Fox News.

00:56:45.180 The thing you have to remember about Canadian banks

00:56:47.440 is many of them are significant banks in the United States as well.

00:56:53.060 um they are big players there and some of them trade under their canadian names

00:57:00.660 and so they were in jeopardy

00:57:07.380 not only in canada but also in the united states if they were being seen to be taking

00:57:14.100 a politicized position i didn't think that was their responsibility i thought it was

00:57:19.060 the responsibility of the government to make judgments about this okay um the next concern

00:57:27.460 highlighted there is uh canada's reputation is indeed at risk we need to show the world proactively

00:57:33.700 that we won't let this happen again our trade corridors will remain open we should think about

00:57:39.060 putting the military in place to keep the border crossings moving even after the protesters removed

00:57:44.420 to send a clear signal so this is about as strong a suggestions you can get bring in the military

00:57:51.060 um and your response though here is is couldn't agree more with those points we must make clear

00:57:56.100 that one we won't resolve this and two we won't let this happen again um so can you explain your

00:58:03.380 response there and were you were you agreeing there that bringing the military to to patrol

00:58:09.460 the borders was a viable option no it was i mean look if you look at that conversation

00:58:16.340 people raised lots of different points in their commentary and i didn't respond to every single

00:58:25.220 one um just as in my previous exchange with alan uh kestelbaum our stelco guy i acknowledged his

00:58:32.980 concern but i didn't really address his uh public health measure point um my point there was as i

00:58:42.980 said in my follow-up that what we need to do is as a government one resolve it to be clear it's not

00:58:49.540 going to happen again and you know from my perspective i wanted the reason i convened that

00:58:59.220 call and again probably worth highlighting it is highly unusual for the ceos like highly highly

00:59:08.180 like never i mean i've only been finance minister for two years but it hasn't happened before and i

00:59:14.900 hope it will never happen again um for the ceos of all of canada's banks on you know a couple of

00:59:24.100 hours notice on a sunday afternoon to come together on a zoom call with the finance minister

00:59:32.900 and deputy minister of finance it's very very unusual for them to find the time to do that

00:59:41.060 i'm right now trying to organize a meeting with them my kind of every six month meeting

00:59:46.660 for December. And it's the kind of thing that we sort of organize four to six weeks in advance

00:59:55.240 because these are all busy people. So that's kind of just worth mentioning, shows their degree of

01:00:01.460 concern and anxiety. Value for me of this meeting, why did I want to have it? What did I want to get

01:00:07.940 out of it. Two things. One, I wanted to hear from them. How worried were they? By that point,

01:00:18.320 I was really worried. But we were contemplating, as you know, really serious action. And I needed

01:00:28.500 to hear directly myself from the leaders of Canada's financial institutions. Did they share

01:00:38.100 my level of concern? That was a very important proof point for me. So that was kind of number

01:00:44.760 one. And it was important for me, for them, it was important for it to be a meeting of everyone

01:00:52.160 because that's also a measure of how worried were they, right? Are you prepared to say these things

01:01:00.540 to a group of your peers? Is that, that's, you judge your words carefully there, and you should.

01:01:08.520 So number one, am I right to be as worried as I am? What do these guys think? And then number

01:01:15.900 two concern was um okay we do have some tools are the how are the tools working the people who have

01:01:25.420 these tools who are in charge of using them how are they finding they work in practice those were

01:01:31.660 the two things i tried to get out of the call and it was a very useful call in terms of answering

01:01:37.740 both those questions so maybe the next extract i wanted to point out goes to that second point um

01:01:43.260 mr kirk can you scroll down a little there we go so this is someone saying we need court orders to

01:01:49.500 act we'd identified an individual who was an organizer who had several hundred thousand

01:01:54.860 dollars move into their accounts we flagged it to fin track started work on a court order and

01:02:00.620 because of the delay of four hours the money was withdrawn before we could stop it and you

01:02:05.820 stay there you you asked was the problem there a gap in the current system or that it moves too

01:02:10.940 slowly and and reply is four hours was too long um and then i think underneath that there's

01:02:19.020 and let's be clear this that's the the the reference you were talking about and let's

01:02:23.100 be clear they will all eventually move to crypto okay um a little lower down mr clerk bottom of

01:02:30.860 that page you mentioned reputational risk that's something you've talked about several times here's

01:02:35.900 one of those i think quotable quotes agree with my colleagues the reputation of canada is at risk

01:02:41.500 just spent a lot of time in the u.s last week and we would be called a quote unquote joke by people

01:02:46.860 i had one investor say i won't invest another red cent in your banana republic in canada

01:02:52.620 that adds to an already tough investment perspective on canada did that have any

01:02:57.180 impact on that the banana republic idea i mean it's hyperbolic well i mean i believe

01:03:05.900 And subsequent conversations underscore, you know, if I were an editor, I would ask my, if I were still an editor, I would ask my reporter, is that a direct quote or are you paraphrasing?

01:03:20.160 And I think subsequent conversations we had show that was a direct quote and a direct quote that a Canadian bank CEO was relaying to me that he had heard on an investment trip to the U.S. from someone who he wanted to invest in Canada.

01:03:44.220 He was trying to persuade someone to invest in Canada. And that was a heart-stopping quote for me. That was really a moment when, having already been concerned, when I really understood that what was happening was profoundly jeopardizing the Canadian economy.

01:04:12.800 and putting investment in Canada at risk.

01:04:17.640 And, you know, I don't expect you guys to have read our April budget,

01:04:21.960 but one of the things we identify in the April budget

01:04:24.740 is underinvestment as being a core problem for the Canadian economy,

01:04:32.380 an Achilles heel.

01:04:33.380 We don't have a high enough rate of business investment.

01:04:36.940 We've done really well.

01:04:38.320 I don't want to talk Canada down.

01:04:39.820 Canada's fantastic.

01:04:40.900 Our economy is very strong.

01:04:42.800 We have a great jobs recovery from the COVID recession,

01:04:47.180 but one indicator where we're underperforming

01:04:52.020 is business investment.

01:04:53.940 And again, that can sound like a dry thing to focus on,

01:05:02.700 but a lack of business investment ultimately translates

01:05:07.060 into Canadians not having jobs

01:05:11.060 and Canadians not having jobs that pay well enough

01:05:15.060 to maintain a good standard of living.

01:05:18.060 That's what a lack of business investment means.

01:05:21.120 And that quote relayed to me really made me realize

01:05:29.220 I had a duty of stewardship.

01:05:30.620 I have a duty.

01:05:31.460 I had at that moment a very profound duty to Canadians

01:05:36.460 duty to Canadians, to stand up for them. And I'm surprised that I'm getting emotional, but

01:05:46.520 I really felt it. And I felt like, you know, the Canadian economy, it could seem like this

01:05:57.100 amorphous thing, investment, it can seem amorphous, EV incentives, amorphous. But when I heard that,

01:06:04.620 i realized i'm the finance minister i'm the deputy prime minister i have to protect canadians i have

01:06:12.600 to protect their well-being it's being really really damaged so yeah that was a meaningful

01:06:19.060 conversation for me and that was a very memorable uh quote and for sure a spur to action so maybe

01:06:27.020 in the end not so hyperbolic in your view well look i i can't comment on what that investor was

01:06:35.720 thinking it's second hand right that was what a bank ceo reported to me an investor said to him

01:06:42.340 but it is my job to ultimately what's the job of the finance minister to make sure canadians have

01:06:51.300 good life right and part of how canadians have a good life is capital is invested into the canadian

01:07:00.900 economy so they have well-paying jobs and what that quote said is something is happening in canada

01:07:08.740 that very profoundly um hurts canadian jobs and if you go down a little bit you'll see

01:07:18.180 um and i didn't remember this until i reread this note you know i tried to kind of rally the troops

01:07:24.180 there in the call i tried to say um i can show you the line um scroll down yeah please just you can

01:07:34.020 just direct so this is it if the investor you speak of is american i sort of said what i was

01:07:39.060 trying to do was rally the bank ceos and kind of say to them you guys are playing for team canada

01:07:45.940 Don't take that from your investors. Don't let guys, you know, I don't know if it was New York

01:07:50.400 or wherever, but like, don't let those guys say to you that Canada is a banana republic. We're

01:07:56.100 a great country. That's what I was trying to say there. And I was trying to say, sure, we have our

01:08:00.640 problems. But, you know, we, as I say there, our report card looks not too shabby. I wanted the

01:08:09.800 CEOs to have a confidence in Canada and the Canadian economy so that they could relay that

01:08:17.140 to investors. So, you know, I put up a good, I think, anyway, my objective was to imbue them

01:08:26.940 with confidence because the confidence they project is important for Canada. But when I

01:08:33.420 turned the zoom off i thought wow this is really serious okay um the last thing i want to take you

01:08:41.260 to before we put this document down is that just last little paragraph there that just came up on

01:08:46.700 the screen you say i am very resolute in ending this occupation of our democracy but i will never

01:08:53.820 support negotiating with those who held our democracy hostage no good thing comes of that

01:08:59.980 can you explain that comment you will never never uh sanction or never support negotiating

01:09:05.180 with those who hold our democracy hostage um i think it's pretty self-explanatory um

01:09:12.620 i don't think it's healthy for a democracy for any democracy um for uh policy to be made

01:09:24.780 you know, at gunpoint, if you will. And that really also devalues the views and the contributions

01:09:38.780 of all Canadians who express their political views and their political preferences

01:09:46.100 in different ways, for example, by voting. So, yeah.

01:09:51.980 Were you referring there to the vaccine mandates, to public health measures, or more generally?

01:09:57.340 Yeah, I think, I mean, again, I don't have a sort of photographic or a video memory of exactly how that conversation evolved.

01:10:09.720 And in fact, I didn't remember saying this until I read it again, but I'm sure that's a faithful account.

01:10:15.640 having read the note having read this note what i think i was referring to is a comment made

01:10:23.300 earlier in the conversation suggesting that the solution to this was a change in policy on

01:10:30.960 vaccines that's what i think i was responding to okay um so we're going to leave the call now

01:10:38.800 Mr. Clerk, you can take that document down and talk about the economic impact of the protests and the blockades as you saw it and what you conveyed to your colleagues on that front.

01:10:52.160 So last week when your department officials were here, we went through in some detail the initial assessment they prepared on February 10th and also the eventual February 22nd economic analysis.

01:11:05.800 So we're not going to go through that in detail this morning.

01:11:08.800 But what I would like to take you to is, actually, this is SSM.CAN 5095.

01:11:26.080 These are the minutes of the February 13th IRG.

01:11:29.720 So we're still on the same day here, February 13th.

01:11:32.340 And that was, I believe it was around, what was the time of the IRG again?

01:11:36.400 the early evening around four o'clock okay it says right there four o'clock yeah thank you

01:11:41.460 i was looking my paper not at the screen four o'clock so in between you had the bank call then

01:11:46.660 you had the ukraine call that we learned about and then four o'clock is the irg and if you scroll

01:11:51.620 down to page six please mr clerk rotate there so you're reporting to the irg on um the economic

01:12:02.880 impact. And you say the minister highlighted ongoing economic losses of 0.1% to 0.2% of the

01:12:11.740 GDP for every week the blockades continue. Now, we know at this point that that didn't come from

01:12:17.180 an internal Department of Finance analysis. I believe you were referring to something that

01:12:21.740 had been reported in a Bloomberg article. Is that right? A Bloomberg economic analysis.

01:12:25.640 And it was also fresh in my mind because in that bank CEO conversation, that number was also referred to by one of the CEOs.

01:12:39.160 So I was aware of that Bloomberg economic analysis, and I was also aware that on the street, that was the number that Canadian business leaders and international investors were seeing and citing.

01:12:57.480 So on the street, you mean on Bay Street?

01:13:00.100 On Bay Street and probably on Wall Street, too.

01:13:02.260 Okay. Did you explain to your colleagues at the IRG the source of this number?

01:13:07.760 I cannot recall whether I did or not, but my, yeah, so I can't remember. But, you know, it was a very busy time. A lot of people were speaking.

01:13:20.900 Um, my objective was in a succinct way to convey to my colleagues who aren't responsible for the economy, um, that this was a really serious economic impact.

01:13:37.900 impact so i think that it was possible um you know say you're a cabinet minister

01:13:46.780 you don't have principally economic responsibilities you might be seeing this

01:13:51.980 mostly as about you know damage to ottawa shopkeepers and that's really serious i don't

01:14:00.540 want to understate the human toll of that um but what i wanted to communicate was this

01:14:11.740 it this is getting to have a macro impact that will be material on the canadian economy and the

01:14:22.700 only other thing that i would say is you know with hindsight if anything i feel that number i i feel

01:14:33.660 that that statement if that's all i said there i feel that statement understated the possible

01:14:40.620 impact because the real challenge was it was exponential so as it happened that trade blockade

01:14:50.540 was effectively a week-long thing and that's what statistics ended up recording but had it gone on

01:15:00.300 then you would have seen not an arithmetic adding up the damage of week plus week plus week

01:15:06.860 i think what you would have seen and why this really rose to the level of a profound threat

01:15:14.460 to canada's economy was the exponential nature of it that the longer it went on the greater threat

01:15:23.340 that the us would lose faith in us and our trading relationship would be irreparably damaged the

01:15:29.980 longer it went on the greater the threat that foreign investors would write off canada okay

01:15:36.780 um so obviously that was a concern that you were expressing to your cabinet colleagues that day

01:15:43.060 Probably more clearly to you right now than I did then, but I think I did communicate to them. I was really worried.

01:15:48.940 Okay, so the overall economic impact, both near-term and long-term. We can take that down now. Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

01:15:56.720 The next topic I want to address with you is another concern that was being expressed around this time, which is the issue of foreign funding and foreign influence and money flowing largely, I think, up from the U.S. to fund the convoy.

01:16:15.800 So, Mr. Clerk, can you pull up, please, SSM.can401846?

01:16:26.720 So this is an after-the-fact, not quite after-the-fact, but certainly after the invocation of the Emergencies Act discussion that you're having with your departmental officials.

01:16:43.300 And if we scroll down a little bit, please, Mr. Clerk, keep going. I'll let you know when to stop.

01:16:49.960 keep going up there we go so this is a question that you've posed to your officials

01:16:59.800 and the question is and do we have any info on foreign donations and the response that comes back

01:17:05.900 is we do not have any information on foreign donations that entered our Canadian financial

01:17:10.760 systems it is possible that FinTrack CSIS or the RCMP possess information on foreign donations

01:17:17.880 but that information is not shared with the Department of Finance.

01:17:21.840 So is it fair to say that at the points at which foreign influence,

01:17:26.580 foreign donations were being talked about,

01:17:28.900 the government wasn't actually in possession of information to corroborate that?

01:17:35.260 No, I wouldn't say that.

01:17:38.520 What I would say is a couple of things.

01:17:42.300 One of the things that this occupation and the blockades really brought to our attention was how little official insight we had to crowdfunding and payment platforms, how little we knew for sure about what was going on there.

01:18:12.300 And we've talked about that, and we have since acted on a permanent basis to correct that.

01:18:22.280 There was very good reason to believe, and in fact, the subsequent report that the commission did that I thought was very good on foreign donations documents in a lot of detail that there were foreign donations coming in to support the convoy.

01:18:52.280 And so, you know, that was happening. Our own systems were weak at officially picking that up and slow. And quite rightly, actually, there are a lot of checks and balances within the Canadian system about what finance specifically learns, right?

01:19:21.340 Because law enforcement and finance operate in different silos, and certainly elected ministers and law enforcement have a lot of silos between them, and I think that's a good thing.

01:19:39.020 So, yeah, so that would be my understanding of the situation.

01:19:48.680 so to summarize that would it be fair to say you were operating a with incomplete information at

01:19:56.040 that i would yeah i would 100 say that and the other thing i would say is you know we

01:20:02.600 were operating in the fog of war um and we things were moving very quickly in real life

01:20:15.160 on the ground. We had to operate based on the best possible information we could get at every

01:20:24.920 single moment. And sometimes that meant using open source information. It didn't always mean

01:20:34.360 relying on official government information and analysis that came through the finance channels.

01:20:42.920 And I feel, you know, not only comfortable doing that, but that that's the right thing to do.

01:20:53.920 to do. In a fast moving hour by hour situation like this, you have to gather information

01:21:04.020 from a lot of different sources, reliable sources. But I believe that's the responsibility

01:21:13.780 of an elected minister. And if you don't do that, my experience in government has been,

01:21:22.120 You know, quite rightly, stuff that you officially get through official channels as a minister, I don't know, it's like flour that has been sifted many, many times.

01:21:33.460 It's like very pure, very verified.

01:21:37.480 It's gone through a lot of different hands and there have been a lot of different checks on it.

01:21:42.900 That's a good thing because it has, you know, Government of Canada stamp of approval.

01:21:47.640 And I think it's really good for us to have those systems.

01:21:50.140 But at the same time, I think to do your job as a minister, you have to be aware of and actively seek out other sources of information, including open source sources of information.

01:22:09.880 And I think you have to hear some things for yourself. That's, for example, why, for me, having that call with the banks directly was really, really important. And I wasn't just going to rely on other people telling me what they were hearing.

01:22:24.600 Okay. So the last thing I want to take you to on this point is SSM.can403807, please, Mr. Clerk.

01:22:39.880 so this is a draft minister freeland of of um the section 58 explanation that was reported

01:22:52.200 to parliament i'm sure you're familiar with that as we all are in this room right now

01:22:56.120 um if we scroll down to page eight please mr clerk

01:23:02.360 bottom of the page i believe okay yeah sorry here we go so under

01:23:07.880 item number six there roman numeral um this is a paragraph in the draft or a bullet point in the

01:23:14.360 draft that says there is credible evidence that significant amounts of funding for the protests

01:23:19.560 come from sources outside of canada which raises concerns about foreign interference in canadian

01:23:25.320 affairs and questions whether they represent threats to the security of canada and the comment

01:23:31.160 made on that underneath it is anecdotal reports of of donations from outside canada to support

01:23:38.200 the protesters were given credence when on february 13th hackers of the crowdfunding website give send

01:23:44.040 go released hack data and it goes on to explain what happened there but that that bullet point

01:23:50.120 paragraph there there is credible evidence that significant amount of funding come from sources

01:23:56.040 outside canada was removed from the eventual section 58 explanation uh were you aware of

01:24:01.880 that and i i wasn't part of that whole process okay um and do you have any comment on that at

01:24:08.600 this point i mean that i wasn't part of that process and of the drafting of all of that and

01:24:18.040 And finance was not, we weren't the people responsible for looking at that aspect of what was going on.

01:24:32.780 And, you know, as my previous comments have kind of underscored, I think my primary concern and anxiety around this was about the economic impact.

01:24:48.040 And we've talked about that at some length, but I felt my job was in the cabinet and as a team mate with my colleagues.

01:25:01.840 What were they relying on me as the Minister of Finance to do?

01:25:05.200 They were relying on me to figure out and communicate to them how big is the economic problem.

01:25:14.380 And then they were relying on me to figure out and communicate to them, look, finance guys, are you doing your job here? Are you awake? Are you using all the possible tools you have to stop the problem?

01:25:29.640 That was my job number two. And then job number three is, okay, if you think it's a really big problem, which we did, if you think you're using all the tools which currently exist, which we did, number three, do you have any ideas? Is there anything in the finance toolbox that could be devised that would help? That was how I understood finance's job.

01:25:55.780 Okay, so this would be more law enforcement slash intelligence area.

01:26:00.780 Okay. We can take that one down, Mr. Clerk, and move on to, which sort of goes back to what you were just addressing, Minister Freeland, what do we do about this?

01:26:14.720 So the development and the implementation of the emergency economic measures order.

01:26:19.840 So, again, we've heard at this point quite a bit about the orders and about what was done with them.

01:26:27.200 So, I want to take you to a few specific concerns that have been expressed about them.

01:26:32.240 The first one being that the EMA was overbroad in the sense that it might capture individuals who are not really directly involved in the protests,

01:26:41.260 but people who donated to the protests and or have adverse effects on family members.

01:26:47.340 You know, if you freeze someone's bank account, it may be a spouse or a child or someone else who suffers. So my first question was, was that, is that a concern that you were aware of? Is that a concern that you had? And is that a concern that you felt was it properly addressed with the measures that were enacted?

01:27:07.740 okay that's a lot of questions um but it's i mean that is kind of i would say core you're getting at

01:27:20.140 some core things we grappled with beforehand during the time the measures were in force

01:27:27.660 and in our reflections afterwards um and i want to start by saying

01:27:33.100 something that I was really, really worried about and extremely conscious of the whole time

01:27:40.740 was, you know, I've talked a lot about my profound conviction that Canada was in economic jeopardy.

01:27:52.360 But then as we were talking about, okay, what can we do about it? I had probably an equally

01:28:00.660 profound, and even emotional concern of we don't want anybody to get hurt. And one of my colleagues

01:28:12.120 said to me in our conversation about all of this, as you know, we had, we were talking constantly,

01:28:20.900 and I was sort of saying, we really have to act, something has to be done. And I remember a

01:28:26.000 holly saying to me my nightmare is blood on the face of a child and i remember that very clearly

01:28:35.200 because i was worried about that and i really was conscious that yes we had to end this

01:28:48.240 but it was so important for it to be ended peacefully without anybody being hurt

01:28:55.200 So that was a hugely important objective for me.

01:29:02.200 I didn't want to be a person responsible for making Canada a place where people, and you have heard by now there were reports of children, would actually get hurt in our efforts to protect the country.

01:29:21.200 that that was wrong and i felt so strongly we had to look for ways to resolve this yes that was urgent

01:29:29.760 but not physically hurting anyone and look especially not a child but anyone was a really

01:29:37.840 key objective for me um and that so that was one key thing and that is was a consideration

01:29:49.120 that very much shaped the development and use of the financial measures from my perspective at the

01:29:58.480 time and also with hindsight a virtue of these measures was no blood on the face of a child

01:30:09.840 No physical coercion required. And I thought that it was good that we came up with a way of creating some economic incentives for people to leave. So that was a very important consideration.

01:30:29.840 consideration. And yeah, and a second really important consideration in this question, right? I think you're asking exactly the right question. It's, it's the balance, right? I've talked a lot now about why it was such a big problem, why I think we needed to act.

01:30:49.580 Are your actions kind of appropriate and proportionate? And I would say the other thing in my mind there was we needed to always have in our minds, yes, a concern about the number of people who would be

01:31:11.580 restricted by these measures, but that always needed to be balanced against an awareness

01:31:22.720 of the number of people who would be protected by this action. So those were the things that I

01:31:28.840 chiefly had in mind. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, it was something like 280

01:31:37.620 accounts frozen. One of the reports I remember when we were at like 240 or 241 accounts frozen,

01:31:47.000 my numbers won't be exact, but I know you guys have all the numbers too. It was something like

01:31:51.220 57 people when we were at around 240. So I don't have the exact figure of how many actual people

01:31:59.460 when we were at 280, but I think we have an idea of the ballpark. And so in my mind, I say, okay,

01:32:06.480 that i i regret that that happened to those people i really do i would have preferred it

01:32:14.240 was a serious thing i would have preferred not to have had to do this but in my mind i weigh that

01:32:22.500 against what i really believe is the tens hundreds of thousands of canadian jobs and families that

01:32:31.980 be protected. So that's kind of a high level thing. I can talk about donations and family

01:32:37.160 members if you'd like me to. Sure. I mean, what I was going to ask you, and maybe this will lead

01:32:42.580 into it, but would it be fair to say then that if it's put to you, you know, someone is at the

01:32:50.080 protest in Ottawa and gets a call, you got to come home, they've frozen the account and I can't be

01:32:55.220 the grocery bill. In a sense, that is the measure doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is

01:33:02.620 create an incentive for that person to have to go home and leave the protest. That is in effect

01:33:08.360 exactly what the measure was trying to do, because the purpose of it was to avoid what you saw as a

01:33:15.240 worse outcome, being an enforcement action that would have potentially violent aspects to it.

01:33:23.060 I wouldn't quite go that far. So, you know, had it been possible, if we lived in a universe where, you know, it was possible that a joint, a jointly held family account, the family members could still have access to it, but the person doing the illegal activity didn't, that would be great.

01:33:51.060 But that's not how these accounts really work. So the intention was not to apply, to create any incentives on people who were not personally choosing to engage in this illegal activity.

01:34:10.020 I accept that that may have happened to some people, but that wasn't the intention.

01:34:16.140 The intention was really clear, and I think broadly it worked, was to create nonviolent, nonphysical incentives for people to stop doing this illegal activity, which was hurting Canadians very much.

01:34:36.400 And what I would also say is, you know, I would have loved it if we had made the announcement on February 14th that we are going to take this action unless you leave.

01:34:52.560 Ideal outcome would have been if everyone had left that night and if none of the measures had actually had to be used.

01:35:01.760 there was no desire there there was no desire to be in any way punitive there was a desire

01:35:09.440 to create non-violent incentives for people to do the right thing okay um

01:35:20.720 i do want to talk about the donations issue sorry mr commissioner i saw you looking at

01:35:25.280 at me is that break time it's uh anytime you like it's a can be now or in 10 minutes uh that's a

01:35:33.600 good moment maybe now might as well okay we'll take the morning break for uh 15 minutes the

01:35:41.440 commission is in recess for 15 minutes

01:35:55.280 Thank you.

01:36:25.280 Thank you.

01:36:55.280 Thank you.

01:37:25.280 Thank you.

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01:53:25.280 Thank you.

01:53:55.280 Thank you.

01:54:25.280 Thank you.

01:54:55.280 The Commission has reconvened, the committee is on the floor.

01:55:08.280 Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. I think I have about 15 minutes left in the examination, so we may actually clock in on time.

01:55:15.280 That's great.

01:55:18.280 Thank you. Mr. Freeland, when we left off, the next topic that we planned on addressing was the issue of donations. And to do that, Mr. Clerk, can you please pull up SSM.CAN403972?

01:55:32.280 72. And to be clear, the issue that we're getting at here is whether donations are captured,

01:55:44.940 small donors are captured by the measures that were enacted. And what we've heard in the evidence

01:55:51.200 was that the position taken essentially by the RCMP was this is not who they were targeting.

01:55:56.140 They were targeting influencers. They weren't targeting small donors. So this is a text

01:56:01.700 exchange between i believe two of your staffers can you tell us who alex lawrence is there

01:56:06.420 uh yes he's my director of communications okay um so the comment made here you can just scroll down

01:56:13.220 a bit mr clerk is friedland highly skeptical of this thinks that the banks will have frozen some

01:56:19.060 smaller account accounts and we just won't know is that an accurate depiction or of your thinking

01:56:25.460 around this at the time were you concerned that small donors were being when i say small donors

01:56:32.420 i'm talking about the amount of the donation um were being captured by these measures what i

01:56:38.580 remember being concerned about and again this isn't something that i wrote it's something that

01:56:46.100 alex wrote so i can't speak to his specific conveying of what i said to him and what i was

01:56:55.060 concerned about but once we put the measures in place um i knew this was an extraordinary action

01:57:07.540 um the kind of thing that i hope only happens you know once in a generation and

01:57:14.340 And I knew that Canadians were very focused on what was happening and concerned about it.

01:57:27.720 And it was very important for me, having taken this extraordinary step,

01:57:35.300 to be as careful as possible in communicating what was happening,

01:57:41.080 not to over egg the pudding not to stretch the truth and i didn't want to make a flat statement

01:57:56.060 that no small donors have had their accounts frozen although i very much hoped that was the

01:58:02.220 case i didn't want to make that categorical statement unless i knew for sure that was the

01:58:09.260 case, because I really did understand that we were, you know, in terra incognita. And it was

01:58:20.400 really important for us to do everything we could to maintain public confidence of Canadians in

01:58:29.720 their government, including the confidence of the Canadians who disagreed with us, maybe most of all

01:58:37.860 the confidence of those Canadians. And so my skepticism was sort of about saying to my team,

01:58:44.880 if I'm going to be in question period, if I'm going to be in a press conference,

01:58:49.740 I only want to assert things that are absolutely true. And the position I didn't want to be in

01:58:58.920 was to take this example of donations. I'm really glad that no small donors had their accounts

01:59:05.540 frozen. That was a good outcome. And the one that I hoped would be the case. But I also knew that

01:59:14.600 things were happening in real time. And what I didn't want to have happen was for me to go out

01:59:20.900 to say categorically and reassuringly, don't worry, if you made a small donation, your account

01:59:29.020 isn't going to be frozen. And then have someone show up and say, well, actually, it was.

01:59:33.780 Because had that been the case, and had I categorically asserted otherwise, then people who already had real doubts about our government would be feeling, wow, these guys are even lying to us.

01:59:50.200 So that's where my skepticism came from.

01:59:52.760 Okay, so would it be fair to say then that perhaps the intention was not to capture small donations in the measures, but they weren't crafted in order to be able to avoid that outcome specifically, and therefore you couldn't guarantee that that had happened?

02:00:09.820 Yes.

02:00:10.420 Okay. The next issue I want to address briefly is, Mr. Clerk, can you pull up ssm.nsc.can50404?

02:00:23.080 you mentioned earlier uh mr freeland that one of the issues or one of the concerns you were hearing

02:00:31.480 from the banks was being that they were being put in the middle of this and essentially having to

02:00:35.800 do some there's action having to take on having to be taken on their specific parts um as a

02:00:44.440 a corollary to that i hope that's the right document

02:00:48.200 if we go to the top of page seven

02:00:52.540 so there's the banks themselves and then there's the the issue of the bank employees themselves so

02:01:03.020 the people who are working there who now essentially become frontline officers in this

02:01:07.000 particular area you voice this this at the this is the minutes of the february 19th irg the deputy

02:01:13.980 Prime Minister and Minister of Finance noted that in conversations with the banks, she is hearing

02:01:19.660 concerns around the safety of bank employees, especially tellers who work at branches who may

02:01:25.340 be dealing with individuals who have had their accounts frozen. So what were you conveying there?

02:01:30.400 What was the concern? What were you hearing? I was concerned about bank tellers. You know,

02:01:40.360 they are vulnerable. They're frontline people. They don't get paid that much money. They worked

02:01:47.960 hard during COVID. It was important for me for them not to be exposed to any danger

02:01:57.000 in all of this. And actually, one of the motivations for crafting the measures the way we did

02:02:07.000 was to protect them and you'll remember in the document we looked at

02:02:12.760 from that sunday february 13th a concern one of the ceos expressed is absent a clear

02:02:23.640 government instruction to the banks the banks would be held responsible and that that was not

02:02:33.160 fair or appropriate and i actually agreed with that and my central concern was you know that

02:02:41.160 some poor teller not get yelled at and be held responsible um and even be in a dangerous situation

02:02:50.360 and so that was part of the thinking behind having these measures to give the banks at all levels

02:02:59.480 including the tellers the ability to say this is the government's decision it's not my decision

02:03:08.680 if you're angry at someone you know be angry at christie freeland don't be angry at me and i think

02:03:16.040 that's appropriate okay do you think that worked yeah i think by and large it did

02:03:23.320 Okay, the next topic that I want to ask you about is, as you know, the commission, part of the commission's mandate is to examine the necessity of the measures that were taken and whether the measures that were decided upon and chosen by your government were the correct measures and circumstances.

02:03:41.320 circumstances. So you've identified, and obviously identified at the time, choking off funding as an

02:03:48.780 important part of how to bring an end to what was going on in Ottawa and across the country,

02:03:54.020 funding of the convoys, the funding of the protesters. We know that, but there were a number

02:04:01.360 of actions being taken on that front by various actors. So in and around the time when the

02:04:08.780 emergencies act was being considered by cabinet by the irg but by cabinet by the prime minister

02:04:14.640 a number of things had already taken place so just to list some of them go fund me obviously

02:04:21.180 had shut down the uh the convoys campaign on february 4th um td had and and by the way all

02:04:30.560 of these are listed in the the crowdfunding overview report that uh you referenced earlier

02:04:35.300 that i can take no credit for but um the td had frozen accounts on february 10th i believe

02:04:43.860 and the attorney general of ontario had obtained a restraint order and the mureva project i'm sorry

02:04:50.900 the mureva injunction process was in play and was eventually obtained on february 17th so all this

02:04:56.340 to say there were various measures being taken by others designed to achieve a similar end choking

02:05:02.820 off the funding and in light of that and knowledge of what was going on in that area why did you

02:05:08.340 conclude that it was still necessary for the government to do what it did with the economic

02:05:13.620 measures um it's a good question and something that we thought about a lot and we were constantly

02:05:22.740 assessing um and so one of the things i think worth bearing in mind is you know sitting here

02:05:30.420 today, we kind of are judging a period of time that's frozen. Whereas as we were making the

02:05:39.100 decisions, we were making the decisions in real time as things were evolving. It's a real difference

02:05:43.680 in perspective. And I've been struck by it myself as I have reviewed documents to get ready for

02:05:49.180 today. In that real-time process, you know, I can't emphasize too much the extent to which

02:06:01.260 our preference, everyone's preference, would have been for the actions to stop the blockades

02:06:10.500 and occupation without the Emergencies Act needing to be invoked.

02:06:17.620 That was overwhelmingly what we would have preferred to do.

02:06:23.160 It is a measure of last resort.

02:06:25.500 We understood it to be a measure of last resort, and we would have preferred not to have needed

02:06:30.520 to resort to it.

02:06:32.720 So on the financial side of things, we were constantly looking and seeing, okay, are the

02:06:39.500 tools that are currently in place good enough effective enough and that was one reason from

02:06:45.740 my perspective that i convened that call of the bank ceos on february 13th and what you'll see

02:06:54.540 in that call that we've gone over already is they were very clear that the measures were not enough

02:07:02.220 And there was one CEO there who talked about how very specifically they had identified an account, they went to get the court order, but by the time they did, just four hours had passed and the money had moved.

02:07:17.340 And that, it is certainly consistent with my understanding of the financial system as moving faster than the legal system can move.

02:07:33.320 The other concern, which was also raised on that call, which I was very alive to, was the inappropriateness of putting the onus on the banks, including the tellers that we've spoken about, about acting.

02:07:57.900 that this had become a very politicized space and they felt and one of the CEOs said in that

02:08:12.500 conversation on Sunday, we are being seen in taking this measure as having taken a political

02:08:19.140 position. And I thought it was really legitimate for them to say, it's not our job to make a

02:08:26.540 political judgment here. You are the elected government. It's your job. And it's your job

02:08:32.900 to bear that responsibility. So essentially, if this is going to happen, the government should

02:08:38.980 own it, not the banks? Yeah. Also on the topic of necessity, then, there were a variety of

02:08:47.640 measures enacted, some of which were barely even used. So the insurance provisions, for instance,

02:08:54.180 barely, not used at all, I believe, the FinTrack, FinTrack, and they ended up seeing very few

02:09:00.620 reports made. How would you say, in retrospect, those measures were necessary, given that they

02:09:06.740 weren't even used? In retrospect, I am glad that we put both of those measures in there.

02:09:15.900 And I can explain each one if you'd like me to.

02:09:21.400 So on FinTrack, as we said we would do on February 14th, this was the case of this crisis causing us, you know, to review our toolbox and kind of saying, okay, we're missing a screwdriver.

02:09:43.020 And it turned out we couldn't, I don't know, build the screwdriver in time to use it in this

02:09:52.680 situation. But we were missing a screwdriver. We identified that. And we said on February 14th,

02:10:00.940 you know, this is a gap we've identified, we're going to fill the gap. And we did, in fact,

02:10:08.980 go ahead and do that. So FinTrack now has those authorities, and that's a good thing.

02:10:16.900 As it happened in this sort of fast-moving situation, the way FinTrack works means there

02:10:27.660 was a lag time between those authorities being granted to FinTrack, not granted, being sort of

02:10:36.240 put there in the measures and that actually being actionable and meaningful in this specific case.

02:10:46.160 I judge that to be a good thing because it meant that things came to an end quite quickly.

02:10:54.960 But I also judge, as we judged at the time and as we said very openly to Canadians,

02:11:00.800 And I don't think there's actually a lot of debate around this, that it's a good thing for FinTrack to have this authority. So that's FinTrack. And it was also appropriate, as was the case, that in the emergency measures, that specific extra power was limited just to the actions in the measures.

02:11:25.360 It wasn't a universal granting. We went back with regulatory changes to give that authority to FinTrack in a permanent way. And I think Isabelle Jacques has explained that, you know, I guess, theoretically, a person could say, well, why not just take that regulatory action on February the 14th or February the 15th right away, rather than put it in the emergency measures?

02:11:53.360 and regulation just takes longer to fully develop and to do properly but that was always the

02:12:01.940 intention and we did it and i think that's good on the insurance um from my perspective

02:12:09.020 it actually is good that we put it in place and it's good that we didn't have to use it

02:12:20.160 You will have seen in some of the previous documents you've discussed with me, and in some of previous testimony, that a huge preoccupation was tow trucks.

02:12:37.880 I think Canadians will not forget Premier Kenny's comments about tow trucks, for example.

02:12:45.280 And it's something that I raised with Brian Deese. It was like this serious thing. For lack of a tow truck, the economy was wrecked. For lack of a nail, the kingdom was lost. It was that kind of a situation. It all came down to lack of tow trucks.

02:13:05.240 The insurance measure, I saw and I see as like a virtual tow truck.

02:13:17.120 It was specifically designed to create an incentive for the trucks to move.

02:13:29.280 And I think it did.

02:13:30.660 and there was news reporting at the time that suggests that some people moved their trucks

02:13:42.120 because they saw the insurance measure was there. We were very public about it being there

02:13:47.660 and that that created an incentive to leave and that's what we wanted to have happen.

02:13:54.200 I see the fact that it didn't ever have to be used as a feature, not a bug.

02:14:03.160 Again, from my perspective, the less action we had to actually take, the less we had to actually use these measures, the better.

02:14:15.060 If the measures had been effective purely upon being announced, creating a deterrent and an incentive for people to leave, and if that had happened in 24 or 48 hours and no accounts had been frozen, that would have been a wonderful outcome.

02:14:36.220 I think you've coined a phrase there.

02:14:38.300 We've been at this for seven months and virtual tow truck is not an expression we've yet heard.

02:14:45.060 but getting back to the the substance of what you were saying there would it be fair to say or

02:14:52.660 the emergency is it was revoked within about a week the declaration of the emergency did it

02:14:59.300 did it end faster than you expected it to

02:15:02.500 i don't think i can answer that question because i don't think i had any precise expectation

02:15:16.660 um in a situation like that i think um you have to just hope for the best

02:15:24.100 and plan for the worst um and i think that's what we tried to do

02:15:28.580 um almost done there's a there's a few texts i want to take you to now um that consist of some

02:15:40.020 some discussions you had with various people after the act was invoked so the first one i

02:15:46.020 want to pull up is ssm.can four zeros 4352 please

02:15:58.660 so this is a discussion you had with parent beating can you just explain for the commission's

02:16:03.540 benefit who parent bd is um okay and maybe for my benefit you can remind me what the date of

02:16:10.500 this was because i don't remember the 22nd of february okay thanks maybe you already maybe you

02:16:15.780 said that and i didn't know sorry um so perrin beady um is the head of the chamber of commerce

02:16:24.580 um he is a person uh with whom i have now worked closely for a long time um during the nafta

02:16:34.100 negotiations also uh during the covid recession when we were working on our economic response

02:16:44.740 um he was particular he is someone who um i um whose collaboration i really value um

02:16:57.220 of course because he represents the chamber and canadian small business and that's an

02:17:02.660 important constituency for the department of finance obviously um but also because perrin

02:17:09.140 is a former conservative cabinet minister and in fact is the guy originally responsible for

02:17:14.740 the emergencies act um but in his capacity as sort of a former conservative cabinet minister

02:17:20.900 I do think that where possible, it's really good for a Liberal government to try to have good relationships, good working conversations with former Conservative ministers to understand that point of view.

02:17:41.220 And to, you know, I fully understand that we're talking now about a very strong action we took, which was polarizing for the country or which spoke to a time of polarization in the country.

02:17:58.760 but parents specifically for me is an example of a person with whom I work hard to maintain a

02:18:05.060 relationship because I think where we can have consensus in Canada where we can work across

02:18:11.960 partisan lines and we can't always do that but where we can I think that's good for the country

02:18:17.480 okay so let's see um what Mr. Beattie wrote to you so presumably you were texting him about

02:18:22.820 about the invocation of the act and he writes hi Christia thanks for your note while I'm still

02:18:28.620 working my way through the implications the financial aspects you announce seem to be the

02:18:33.980 most significant additional measures that the government took under the act then he goes on

02:18:39.660 and says i certainly hope that we'll see an early non-violent end to the blockades although i am as

02:18:44.860 worried i am worried as i know you are there are also lots of long-term issues we need to consider

02:18:50.460 once this is over including whether we need to take other measures that could obviate the need

02:18:55.500 to use the extraordinary powers in the act in the future and how to repair holes in our political

02:19:00.940 system i'm particularly concerned about the radicalization of people who would normally be

02:19:06.460 law-abiding mr clerk can you now pull up again it's in two separate documents ssm.can four zeros

02:19:13.820 4351 please so scrolling down until we get to where we were

02:19:30.620 there we go um i'm particularly concerned about the radicalization of people who would normally

02:19:35.660 be law-abiding and focused on going about their daily lives glad to talk at any time

02:19:40.700 so the first thing i want to ask you minister is would you agree that the mr beady says the

02:19:46.860 the most significant additional measures taken by the government

02:19:50.220 were the financial ones is that an observation you would agree with

02:20:00.060 i think they were significant for sure um and effective um i'm not sure i would say they were

02:20:06.220 the most significant but i think for sure they were significant okay and um the next the other

02:20:12.060 question i want to ask is uh mr beady raises the the issue or the possibility of considering other

02:20:20.780 measures that could be taken to obviate the need for the emergencies act do you have any comment

02:20:25.420 on that aspect of his i think that's a question for perrin okay fair enough and perhaps even a

02:20:31.900 question for the commission as we head into policy week next week he could parent actually i mean

02:20:36.060 And quite seriously, I think Perrin Beattie would be a very good person to talk to about this.

02:20:41.560 Thank you.

02:20:44.000 He's very thoughtful.

02:20:46.060 Which is why you were approaching him about this at this time.

02:20:49.560 Okay, so I think that's probably enough of Mr. Beattie's observations.

02:20:53.100 The other person, do you recall a phone call or a conversation with Brian Mulrooney,

02:20:58.240 former Prime Minister Brian Mulrooney, about this?

02:20:59.980 Um, I did not recall it at the time, and sort of it didn't immediately come to mind. But having reviewed my own notes, I do see that I spoke to him.

02:21:14.120 Okay, so if I pull up the notes, will you recognize the conversation?

02:21:17.400 Okay, so it's SSM.can408764.

02:21:30.540 and uh the notation i believe is that page 37.

02:21:36.620 there we go so you'll have to forgive me if i butcher this um in in deciphering the handwriting

02:21:42.460 but mulrooney you have conduct conducted i guess yourself in such a way and then flipping to the

02:21:50.300 next page there's not much else there emergencies act i brought it into law so i am in favor of it

02:21:57.980 the thing in brackets protests are over and then scrolling down i'm glad i brought

02:22:05.420 yeah i'm glad that's in yeah i'm glad i brought in that legislation so do you have any recollection

02:22:10.620 of this conversation and why you would have approached mr rooney about this um

02:22:17.500 being perfectly honest my recollection of the conversation is really um sparked and based

02:22:27.100 on having the notes there was a lot going on that's why i take notes i do think actually

02:22:35.420 that the conversation was mostly or was a lot about ukraine and russia

02:22:40.340 um and prime minister mulroney was the canadian prime minister who recognized ukraine

02:22:48.300 um and is very proud of that uh and uh it's an issue uh that i talk with him about

02:22:59.400 um and i have found him to be a really smart and wise advisor on it uh so i do talk to him about

02:23:09.420 that and i do have a relationship with him dating back to the nafta negotiations um where he was

02:23:19.080 a very good and helpful advisor to me and to the government so the date of that conversation is

02:23:27.080 february 25th so that that would probably go back to your point about there were a lot of things

02:23:31.960 going on at that time right russia invaded ukraine on the 24th of february and i think i can't

02:23:36.920 you know i've sworn on the bible what i'm about to say i can't swear a hundred percent but my

02:23:44.680 recollection is that that conversation was actually chiefly um about ukraine and him giving me some

02:23:53.560 advice and specifically that he thought it was an important opportunity for canada to play

02:24:01.880 an important role in the world and he wanted me he wanted to encourage me

02:24:06.680 and you know through me our government not to underestimate the impact that canada could have

02:24:12.360 and the seriousness of this so that brings me to the very last question i want to ask you minister

02:24:19.320 which is this is something that's been touched on already in inquiry we haven't really spoken

02:24:24.760 about it yet today but um if you look at the section 58 explanation and i'm not going to pull

02:24:29.640 it up because it's nothing specific but uh in reporting to parliament about why the act was

02:24:36.920 invoked much of that explanation focuses on economic security and the threats to as we've

02:24:44.520 talked about today canada's economy that we're in and this has been another discussion for about two

02:24:49.960 hours today what is the link as you see it between the threat to economic security and the threat to

02:24:57.160 mash and a threat to national security because that link is not necessarily obvious in looking

02:25:02.040 at legislation and i'd really like to hear we would really like to hear your perspective on

02:25:06.760 that question um yeah thank you for the question uh and i say that really sincerely i think that is

02:25:15.400 a really important question um and a serious and challenging one you know people could write

02:25:24.680 books about it uh maybe someone can write a phd thesis about it one day um but i will try to offer

02:25:34.920 um two links that are central in my own thinking and were at the time

02:25:42.120 The first is, I really do believe our security as a country is built on our economic security.

02:25:57.760 And if our economic security is threatened, all of our security is threatened.

02:26:04.140 And I think that's true for us as a country.

02:26:06.220 And it's true for individuals.

02:26:08.920 Um, it's true for the people who work in a Windsor car plant and who, you know, in some dystopian counterfactual, um, let's imagine that we hadn't acted. Let's imagine that this had entirely spiraled out of control.

02:26:29.740 Let's imagine that immediate trade in the car sector had been imperiled and that the Americans just sort of said, you know what, we just can't do this building of cars together with you guys.

02:26:42.700 You're too unreliable.

02:26:43.580 So, you know, the people who would have lost their jobs there, the people in a steel mill in Hamilton who would lose their job as that relationship fell apart,

02:26:56.560 the people in an aluminum smelter in Quebec. For each of those people, having this all fall apart

02:27:05.120 and the country's economy be profoundly undermined, that would undermine their security,

02:27:12.140 and it would undermine our security as a country. And if that seems too abstract,

02:27:19.900 I think you're seeing it today in the geopolitical space where we're actually seeing economic tools being weaponized in actual wars.

02:27:34.680 I spoke yesterday with the prime minister of Ukraine because we're issuing sovereignty bonds.

02:27:42.900 It's a good thing that Canada is doing.

02:27:45.500 It's good.

02:27:46.500 But I spoke with him yesterday, and he was talking to me in the darkness because most of Ukraine's power and water had been taken out by Russian missiles.

02:28:00.000 Now, I'm not saying that we're talking about missiles with Canada, but I'm saying that a tool being used to undermine Ukraine is directly going at its economy.

02:28:10.960 And we're seeing something similar happening in Europe, where energy supply to Europe, entirely an economic measure, is being used to undermine Europe's security.

02:28:24.960 So I do think that an attack on or an undermining of a country's economy, that can fundamentally undermine that country's national security.

02:28:40.960 And there's a second aspect, which I was really worried about, which is maybe less kind of highfalutin and philosophical and more human and specific.

02:28:56.280 And what I was worried about was, you know, it sounds, it can sound very abstract to say economic security can undermine national security, to say geo-economics is a tool in geopolitics.

02:29:13.600 But actually, that's not that complicated. And I think that while these illegal blockades and occupation were going on, I think actual ordinary Canadians who do not debate these concepts in their ordinary lives were feeling their own security to be undermined and were getting really angry.

02:29:39.980 And one thing that I was worried about, I've mentioned that I was worried about in the ending of these blockades and occupation, I really didn't want anyone who was part of the blockade and occupation to be hurt.

02:29:56.900 another thing that was very much in my mind was the possibility of violent conflict between people

02:30:05.360 doing the blockading and occupying and other Canadians who were very angry about it I felt

02:30:14.300 that Canada was sort of a powder cake and that you could have a violent physical confrontation

02:30:20.840 at any point. I didn't visit Windsor at the time, but I heard a lot of people saying,

02:30:31.700 you know, this could really get out of hand. And the people of Windsor, they really understand

02:30:38.540 how important that trade over the Ambassador Bridge is. And I did really fear you could have

02:30:47.000 counter protests and a confrontation there and that would have been terrible for the people

02:30:52.520 involved and terrible for our country and i was worried in ottawa also um and this is now just

02:30:59.480 very sort of personal eyewitness experience but um i don't normally have uh rcmp security

02:31:10.120 and i think that's a good thing i think that says something good about canada

02:31:14.160 But the RCMP, they know what I'm doing every day, and it's their job to judge whether they think I need security or not.

02:31:24.300 And I have to say to the RCMP officers who are here, who I recognize, they do a very good job of it, of making that judgment, I think.

02:31:32.680 So a measure for me of how much Ottawa was a powder keg was the fact that I think from the end of January,

02:31:43.620 the RCMP judged that I did need to have RCMP with me just walking around.

02:31:50.780 And so I didn't feel personally in danger because the RCMP were taking care of me.

02:31:56.440 But I do remember one morning, and I'm sorry, I didn't write it down in my notebook, so I can't tell you the date. But I remember one morning, when I was walking from my hotel to my office, I walked past a parked truck. And there was a young woman walking there too.

02:32:15.520 and the truck honked really loudly and she shouted something not very nice and made an obscene hand

02:32:27.960 gesture and the truck honked again really loudly and I was really glad that I was there and more

02:32:37.960 importantly that the RCMP was there because I thought this is exactly the kind of thing like

02:32:43.940 imagine no one had been there it was just this small young woman and this big truck and a person

02:32:51.780 in it and she was mad and i just thought you know there are dozens and dozens of these things 0.55

02:32:59.580 happening every day and you know god forbid that one of them should actually flare into violence

02:33:07.560 and physical harm so i was worried about that too and that does speak to the economic challenge

02:33:15.400 because many many canadians while this was happening understood that this for them this

02:33:24.360 threat to canada's economic security for many many canadians it was a personal threat to them

02:33:32.120 and they felt that their government was not protecting them and they were right we weren't

02:33:39.240 for a while and it was a real danger i think that that

02:33:49.800 totally understandable and reasonable feeling that my economic security is being undermined

02:33:57.480 by these illegal blockades and occupation my government isn't taking care of me maybe i have

02:34:05.520 to take care of myself and that would have been terrible had that happened that's why we have a

02:34:11.160 government thank you commissioner those are my questions okay well thank you so we're now uh

02:34:20.420 We'll move to the cross-examination portion. First, I'd like to call on the convoy organizers first to go ahead, please.

02:34:50.420 Hello, my name is Brendan Miller and I'm counsel to Freedom Corp, which is the representative

02:34:57.600 of the protesters that were in your city at Ottawa in January and February 2022. So ma'am,

02:35:06.660 I understand the mandate regarding truckers that led to the protest that came into effect

02:35:11.780 in January 15, 2022. Is that correct?

02:35:15.560 i don't recall the exact date but i'm prepared to believe you are citing it correctly and

02:35:22.360 during the pandemic from march 20 through january 15 2022 there was no such regulation right

02:35:30.200 again uh i'm don't recall the exact dates myself but i do know we didn't have the mandate and then

02:35:38.520 it came into force just so the folks at home understand a regulation is a different type of

02:35:43.080 law it's passed by the executive branch alone not by all of parliament right like the emergencies

02:35:48.600 act there is absolutely a distinction between things a government can do by regulation and

02:35:55.320 things that can only do by legislation and so uh would you be would you agree with me that

02:36:00.520 given that the during the throes of the pandemic from march 2020 through

02:36:05.240 to january 15 2022 and we had no regulation you didn't need one

02:36:13.080 no i actually

02:36:18.760 i believe that taken as a whole the public health measures that canada put in place

02:36:27.400 were very very important oh i understand health and safety of canadians i don't have so much time

02:36:32.360 so i'm going to cut you off there and you'd agree with me that given that there was no regulation

02:36:37.160 in place from march 2020 through january 15 2022 you know during the throes of the pandemic there

02:36:43.160 was no reason to pass one in january 15 2022 was there there was no health risk

02:36:49.000 no i'm afraid i don't agree in january we had an omicron wave we were still fighting covet and there

02:36:55.640 was a real value in encouraging as many canadians as possible to get vaccinated but so the purpose

02:37:04.200 was to encourage canadians to get vaccinated to compel them to get vaccinated is that fair

02:37:08.280 that's right all right so that was the purpose of the regulation that was the true purpose

02:37:13.960 it wasn't to keep people safe it was to get them vaccinated

02:37:18.680 i believe then and i believe now that

02:37:25.240 creating strong incentives for canadians to be vaccinated protected the health of vaccinated

02:37:32.360 canadians and protected the health of our country overall okay so from march 2020 to uh january 15

02:37:39.800 2022 did you fail to protect canadians without having that regulation let me start with one

02:37:45.880 aspect of that timeline which is obviously when covid first hit us vaccines didn't exist

02:37:55.880 and then even when vaccines arrived it took time for them to be distributed so of course vaccine

02:38:03.480 mandates couldn't be put in place before vaccines existed or were made available so and of course

02:38:10.120 the government you ended up creating a vaccine compensation fund in december of 2020 do you

02:38:15.720 remember that yes i do right and you're aware that quebec had a vaccine compensation fund and

02:38:23.400 and it was the only province that actually had one prior to that?

02:38:27.220 I am prepared to accept that that's the case.

02:38:30.500 I can't recall specifically.

02:38:31.540 And can you agree with me that the United States has a federal vaccine compensation fund?

02:38:38.680 Again, I'm prepared to accept that that's the case.

02:38:41.800 So from 1867, when Canada was founded, up until December of 2020,

02:38:48.620 Canada had no federal vaccine compensation fund.

02:38:51.260 Can you agree with that?

02:38:53.400 again i'm not an expert in the history of vaccine compensation funds right but first

02:39:00.680 company you can agree the first compensation fund in canada for vaccines came about only because of

02:39:07.240 the covid vaccines correct again i'm i'm really not an expert in vaccine compensation funds if

02:39:15.400 if the direction of the question is to suggest that the covid vaccines are more dangerous in

02:39:22.760 some way than previous vaccines we've used in canada i'll say one i'm not a health expert but

02:39:29.960 i believe very much uh in really the advice the effectiveness the thoroughness of health canada

02:39:41.160 okay they're very good at judging the safety of vaccines and i will say i have been vaccinated

02:39:46.520 four times my children i understand ma'am i don't need to know that but but it does speak

02:39:51.800 it does speak to my confidence in the vaccines i've had my children vaccinated it speaks to my

02:39:57.000 belief that they're saying you stop talking at the clock and let me ask my questions okay

02:40:00.840 so well it's it's a bit of a trade-off you you ask you make a statement and you say do you agree

02:40:06.200 and she qualifies the answer that's appropriate okay so ma'am if uh if that's the case then did

02:40:13.880 health canada advise you to enact this regulation uh the mandate yeah

02:40:21.800 Again, I'm not the health minister and I'm not going to speak to specific moments that we had advice.

02:40:30.780 But what I will say is we were very careful and thoughtful throughout COVID in the public health measures that we put in place and acted based on advice of PHAC.

02:40:44.880 Right. And so that mandate was only in place until June of 2022, right?

02:40:51.800 Again, I can't recall the specific dates, but I'm prepared to accept what you're saying.

02:40:58.920 We're going to move on to just another area.

02:41:00.900 I take it you know who Tamara Leach is, right? 0.91

02:41:03.580 I don't know her personally, but I have read about her.

02:41:07.160 Yeah, and you know who Chris Barber is?

02:41:11.060 Again, I don't know him personally, but I've read about him.

02:41:13.860 Yeah, and you know who Tom Morazzo is, right?

02:41:17.180 Can you say the third name?

02:41:19.160 Tom Morazzo, the gentleman over there.

02:41:21.800 um i can't say that i know as much about him or i've heard as much about him and what about

02:41:27.540 danny bulford you know who he is correct um what was that final last name danny bulford used to be

02:41:34.800 with the uh security team for the rcmp with the prime minister i'm afraid i'm not okay so familiar

02:41:41.300 with that final name so tamara leach and chris barber i've heard of yes and when you were making

02:41:47.960 your decision with respect to invoking the emergencies act you'd already heard about

02:41:51.880 tamara barber or sorry tamara leach and chris barber i had heard of their names yes yeah and

02:41:57.380 you there's some discussions about them in some of the records you there was issues uh you knew

02:42:03.760 who they were i had read their names in the media yeah and you knew about that before you invoke

02:42:10.980 the Emergencies Act? Again, I can't say 100% not having reviewed what I read, but my recollection

02:42:22.060 is they were reasonably prominent, and so I think it's reasonable to think that I would have read

02:42:28.520 their names. And of course you know Tamera Leach, she's a Canadian? Again, I haven't familiarized

02:42:34.780 myself with her biography before coming here. She's from Alberta, do you know that, where you're

02:42:40.460 from i really haven't studied about her before coming here i want to be careful that i say

02:42:49.100 things i know for sure are true i am certainly canadian and i'm born in peace river alberta

02:42:53.900 okay is tamara leach a terrorist

02:42:58.220 it in terms of designating who is a terrorist and who isn't that is not my job as minister

02:43:06.700 of finance or deputy prime minister okay we have authorities whose job is to do that right and so

02:43:12.540 it's not your authority to designate tamara leach chris barber tom marazzo or danny bold for terrorists

02:43:18.220 that's somebody else has to do that yes we have we have intelligence services we have enforcement

02:43:27.260 agencies whose job is to determine who is a terrorist and that's entirely appropriate it's

02:43:32.380 can i bring up can i say one thing about that just again if i can bring up document

02:43:36.300 ssm.cam.00008764 underscore rel.001 please and you can while he's pulling that up if you want to

02:43:47.740 to your answer okay if we can scroll down to page i believe it's this is a note with dave

02:44:04.620 what page 12 page 12 please this is a note that i understand you wrote with dave from cesus that's uh

02:44:14.220 11. And this is a meeting with Dave from CSIS. And if you scroll down, keep going.

02:44:28.220 Okay. And there you say that you need to designate the group as terrorists.

02:44:38.220 So, but it's not your job, but you wanted to designate them as terrorists, right?

02:44:48.200 So that handwritten note in my notebook, I can assure you that was not a meeting with the director of CSIS,

02:44:57.720 with whom I didn't have a meeting.

02:44:59.320 It says, okay, it's with David Vignol from CSIS.

02:45:05.740 It doesn't say that.

02:45:06.900 It says it's with a gentleman called Dave.

02:45:09.840 Which Dave?

02:45:11.900 That meeting, that is not an account of a meeting with Dave Vigneault

02:45:17.840 because I didn't have a meeting with the CSIS director.

02:45:21.900 Which Dave is in those notes?

02:45:23.200 What's Dave's last name?

02:45:25.040 I need to see my whole notebook that you're referring to,

02:45:28.260 but I can tell you for certain.

02:45:29.640 It only says Dave.

02:45:30.640 I can tell you for certain that I did not have a meeting

02:45:34.620 during this time with the CSIS director.

02:45:36.580 okay so I can exclude that a hundred percent I'm just gonna this isn't a

02:45:40.760 document I don't need to bring it up but you stayed in the house mr. speaker the

02:45:45.220 members opposite has just used the bad apple excuse she has excused the

02:45:50.800 desecration or a national yes that deputy prime minister said in the house

02:45:58.200 yeah there's an objection there for parliamentary privilege this is a

02:46:01.200 parliamentary commission there is no parliamentary privilege there there is it does exist parliamentary

02:46:08.160 privilege it does exist but because this is a report to parliament pursuant to the case i gave

02:46:13.840 you earlier mckiver it doesn't apply you can actually ask um all of it because we're carrying

02:46:18.320 out a parliamentary function and there's no liability here it's just a report to parliament

02:46:22.560 and the federal court of appeal has agreed i'm not aware of that um i gave you the mckiver case

02:46:29.600 uh quite a while ago when we talked about the objections and i think uh yes it's there well

02:46:35.040 that's my friend that he's referring to so that we know what he's talking about so we can

02:46:39.600 understand the parliamentary this is just uh this is just a statement um from the deputy prime

02:46:44.080 minister in the house and uh mr speaker the members opposite and this is what it says uh

02:46:49.520 use just the bad apples excuse she has excused the decoration i think we're gonna have to sort

02:46:54.640 this i'm because i don't think uh uh at this stage and i apologize i'm not as familiar with you

02:47:01.520 as you are about that case and uh clearly the crown is not either uh the uh the government so

02:47:08.320 i think we're gonna have to find that so i'd like you to hold that okay i'll come back and but you

02:47:15.920 do recall ma'am that you had expressed concerns publicly with respect to desecration to national

02:47:22.480 monuments is that fair i'm going to need advice from my council on whether things i said in

02:47:30.160 parliament i should be speaking about okay so here i'll just i'll move on it's okay so

02:47:36.800 one of the things that happened during the protest in ottawa uh dealt with the national

02:47:40.960 monument the terry fox statue do you remember reading about that i do yes i do remember of

02:47:48.160 the terry fox statue i remember discussing it with my children yeah we're very upset yeah and there

02:47:53.280 was in that that terry fox statue there they put a hat on terry fox's head and then put a flag

02:48:00.560 in his arm and then there was a mandate freedom sign on it i i don't remember specifically what

02:48:10.000 how the terry fox statue was implicated in this but i do remember reading about it and i remember

02:48:17.040 i remember it specifically because my children were aware of it and were upset right and so i

02:48:24.800 went online and i just looked at how many times someone's done that to that statute and it seems

02:48:29.200 to be hundreds so i'm just going to put this one to you if someone puts an lgbtq flag on the terry

02:48:35.440 fox statute and flowers in the statute is that a desecration i am not going to go into i really

02:48:45.520 don't think it's my job or helpful for canadians for me to go into a discussion of what is okay

02:48:51.600 and not okay but you've said when you've called it a desecration in public that was what you're

02:48:59.360 referring to based on what was put on the statute so is it fair to say that it's only a desecration

02:49:06.400 to you if you don't agree with the message again you've made a couple of leaps beyond anything

02:49:13.440 that i've said you that's okay it's the public record um with respects to you had said you had

02:49:21.680 concerns for violent actions and interactions um with respect to protesters and i take it that was

02:49:28.480 nationally you had concerns nationally or was it just ottawa i described in my testimony a moment

02:49:37.040 to go uh to specific areas where i had concern i was worried about the potential for conflict

02:49:46.640 between angry people in ottawa and the occupation i can i finish the answer because i have something

02:49:54.960 to add um and as i said in my earlier testimony and i believe the mayor of windsor shared this

02:50:02.640 concern i was concerned about the possibility of that kind of a conflict in windsor and i was

02:50:13.040 concerned about the situation in coots okay which which we heard about at the irg right on this

02:50:21.760 saturday okay so but pastors i don't know if you heard the testimony of the mayor there but

02:50:28.620 he said that 75% of his small towns supported the blockades

02:50:32.980 and that many of the properties have F Trudeau flags all over them.

02:50:37.460 So you wouldn't have concern with that specific protest, would you?

02:50:43.260 My reference to Cootes just now was very specific.

02:50:50.320 At the IRG on Saturday, the 12th of February,

02:50:56.420 the RCMP commissioner raised with us the possibility that there were weapons there.

02:51:05.360 And that was a source of great concern.

02:51:07.760 Right. And so you can agree that police investigate weapons offenses all over the country every day?

02:51:15.180 Again, I'm not a police expert, but that seems like a reasonable common sense observation.

02:51:20.540 So simply because the police know a weapon is somewhere, you can agree with me it's not a national emergency?

02:51:26.420 the concern about a single weapon somewhere in Canada.

02:51:32.700 And as you say, I think that one weapon being investigated somewhere in Canada,

02:51:40.620 if that were to happen today, certainly.

02:51:42.880 Right. And you testified earlier about what you viewed as, you know,

02:51:49.560 ensuring that we as Canadians have a good international reputation

02:51:55.100 so that people come to our country and want to do business with us.

02:52:00.580 Is that fair?

02:52:01.820 Yes, that's something I was very concerned about.

02:52:04.300 Okay, and I take it when you consider those sort of things,

02:52:07.940 you look at various reports, and I'm sure you look at various indexes,

02:52:13.860 and I'm sure you look at the Transparency International Index.

02:52:17.800 Is that fair?

02:52:19.680 I am familiar with the Transparency International Index,

02:52:23.280 but I haven't looked at it recently.

02:52:25.100 Okay, well, since 2019, we've began to fall, all right?

02:52:35.200 And we have now come down out of the top 10

02:52:38.340 and it continues to decline.

02:52:43.280 So can you agree with me that Canada not being transparent

02:52:48.720 hurts our relationship internationally?

02:52:58.300 I have to say that I disagree with the premise of the question.

02:53:04.380 I think Canada is a very transparent democracy.

02:53:09.960 And in fact, the commission that we're part of right now

02:53:13.800 is a part of Canadian transparency.

02:53:17.080 That's why it's important.

02:53:18.360 And on that point, if I told you that there is a whole bunch of unlawfully redacted documents that we've been fighting over and waiting for an order just to get them today, and we haven't had them for this whole proceeding, do you think that's transparent?

02:53:33.020 again and with apologies i can't agree with the premise of the question i think that but what i

02:53:42.780 can say is i think that the fact that this commission exists that these hearings are being

02:53:49.500 held that they're public is really important for canada and is a measure of canadian transparency

02:53:56.300 right and one of your concerns of course with transparency and our reputation

02:54:04.380 was that you would want your government to be as transparent as possible right

02:54:14.060 again here i do believe that transparency and accountability are important

02:54:20.860 but i also recognize that cabinet confidentiality

02:54:26.300 in many issues needs to be preserved for a reason and you know there are areas where

02:54:32.380 transparency is not appropriate and i recognize that as well okay can you agree with me if you

02:54:38.220 know anytime it comes out that the canadian government has misled canadians on something

02:54:42.700 that really hurts our international reputation doesn't it i think that the canadian government

02:54:51.340 should always seek not to mislead Canadians,

02:54:57.940 first and foremost, because that's wrong

02:55:01.380 and that is not the way we should treat Canadians.

02:55:04.260 And in the many statements that have been said

02:55:07.260 by all the politicians in this matter,

02:55:10.660 one of the main things they talked about,

02:55:13.120 and Justin Trudeau did particularly

02:55:15.720 following the first weekend of the invocation of the Emergencies Act

02:55:20.880 was these horrible, horrible, the Nazi flag

02:55:26.660 and all those things that people saw in Ottawa.

02:55:29.400 You heard him say that?

02:55:32.400 Again, I have to say, prior to coming here,

02:55:36.080 I have not specifically reviewed specific statements

02:55:39.540 of the Prime Minister.

02:55:40.920 If you want to point to a specific one,

02:55:44.000 maybe we could discuss it.

02:55:45.740 You'd agree if it turned out those flags were linked to your government.

02:55:48.960 That would look really bad.

02:55:50.880 for international reputation wouldn't it based on some okay next if I could call

02:56:04.440 on the CCLA, please.

02:56:18.960 MS. Good afternoon, Minister Freeland. My name is Eva Krajewska, and I'm counsel

02:56:24.420 for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Minister Freeland, I'd like to start off with

02:56:31.560 back to your testimony in chief with respect to the ambassador bridge if i understand your

02:56:38.600 testimony correctly you stated that the blockage of the ambassador bridge escalated matters in

02:56:45.960 your mind significantly that's fair um so first of all good afternoon miss krayevska nice well

02:56:54.840 maybe i shouldn't say nice maybe maybe you can tell me that yeah but i good afternoon and i

02:56:59.320 will try to answer your questions um and i think you're when you say testimony you're referring to

02:57:08.040 so um to be very try to be precise um yes as finance minister in my judgment around the economic

02:57:19.720 impact of the illegal blockades and occupation certainly the blockade of the ambassador bridge

02:57:27.720 was a very significant escalation right and and and precisely the words you just use now

02:57:33.960 it was at least at that point if not earlier that to your mind the blockades and the demonstrations

02:57:41.320 became illegal no i i don't think i want to

02:57:51.560 be so precise about that what i am very clear about is the blockade of the bridge

02:58:06.200 made this a real economic crisis for canada and that was a moment when as finance minister

02:58:18.040 I really had to figure out a way to stop the harm to Canada from getting worse and from really snowballing and irreparably damaging our country.

02:58:32.620 And you said because it had potentially exponential harm to the Canadian economy.

02:58:39.220 Yes. I mean, I wasn't taking notes of what I said, but I believe that.

02:58:43.300 Yes. And that's when you started looking at the Bank Act and the PCLMFTA as potential

02:58:50.420 using the measures under that legislation to stop those demonstrations.

02:58:57.380 Again, here, let me be sort of very precise about my state of mind.

02:59:05.700 um from my perspective the we had a number of different but uh certainly inspired by one another

02:59:20.100 occupations and blockades across the country there was the occupation of ottawa and i i can't

02:59:26.340 tell you the chronology of them i'm sure you're familiar with them but so there's occupation of

02:59:30.180 ottawa there was coots there was emerson in terms of economic impact the ambassador bridge was the

02:59:37.460 most significant um there was also i believe sarnia uh niagara and surrey so from my perspective

02:59:49.220 what was happening was this kind of metastasizing whack-a-mole copycat events around the country

03:00:02.660 and some of them had a greater specific economic impact than others the ambassador bridge sort of

03:00:12.340 stepped up the impact but it was not the case in my view that this was just the ambassador bridge

03:00:21.220 and i didn't that was not the purpose of my question that okay it was only about the ambassador

03:00:25.380 bridge i understand your evidence that the blockades generally had a significant economic

03:00:31.060 impact on canada that you were concerned about that's fair

03:00:35.460 again can i say yes and offer an explanation

03:00:43.760 i i'm not trying to make this controversial or to trap you i'm just i'm just i'm just trying

03:00:50.540 to establish this to move on to my next point okay well i would just say you are a lawyer

03:00:54.280 so a person does have to be careful yeah um but um and i say that with the greatest respect for

03:01:00.460 all the lawyers who are here um but look the point that i just want to be clear about and i do think

03:01:08.140 that um there has been in some of the public thinking about this a lack of clarity

03:01:16.060 is from my perspective one way that you could look at the economic harm

03:01:22.060 was what happens every day arithmetically and just add it up from my perspective

03:01:30.140 that grossly understates the econ the potential economic harm that was being done

03:01:36.860 because what i was really worried about was that as this goes on every single hour more damage is

03:01:47.420 done to american confidence in us as a trading partner and more damage is done to us as an

03:01:56.940 investment destination witness the banana republic comment right and you exactly so you were concerned

03:02:03.980 that this economic disruption was painting canada as politically unstable not a place that is safe

03:02:11.820 to invest for and potentially a banana republic which by definition is an unstable country i mean

03:02:18.140 banana republic wasn't my term but it was a term that had an impact on me for sure okay now minister

03:02:25.580 feeling you can appreciate that from the canadian civil liberties association our concern is that the

03:02:32.700 emergencies act should not be used to quash political dissent that's you understand that

03:02:38.300 I totally do. And if I can be personal for one moment, in my life as a person and a writer and an elected politician, I would always prefer for myself to be on the same side as the Civil Liberties Association, that these are values I hold very dear. And so I understand the urgency with which you champion them.

03:03:07.180 Right. And you and then so I think you would also agree that the Emergencies Act should not be used because demonstrators are disagreeing with government policy.

03:03:18.300 I think that's a very low threshold here that I'm putting to you.

03:03:22.180 Yes, I absolutely agree with that.

03:03:24.060 and i think you also know in your life both as a as a journalist and as a minister that on occasion

03:03:32.780 the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression includes actions that are of civil

03:03:39.420 disobedience i do recognize that that sometimes happens um and i also recognize that

03:03:51.580 laws are enforced against people committing acts of civil disobedience people can believe in

03:03:59.980 something and can bravely commit those acts and pay the price of the legal penalty and exactly and

03:04:09.260 civil disobedience will on occasion also involve serious economic disruption and i can i'll give

03:04:16.700 you a few examples a general strike is a form of civil disobedience that causes economic disruption

03:04:22.860 you'd agree with that if the tendency of these questions is to equate the economic harm that

03:04:34.940 was being done to canada and that would have risen had these illegal occupations and blockades

03:04:41.740 continued with the harm done by a general strike then i strongly disagree okay and sometimes

03:04:49.820 blockades by indigenous people cause economic harm correct they do and sometimes occupations

03:04:57.260 like occupy wall street or occupy toronto may cause economic harm certainly but the economic harm 0.99

03:05:05.820 you know to take those two specific instances um very very limited actually compared to the

03:05:14.060 damage being done to canada and if i may you know had what was happening in canada being about um

03:05:26.540 i don't know the the field behind the national art gallery being occupied for a long time

03:05:34.860 and maybe some comparable public park in windsor being occupied and so on across the country

03:05:41.580 um that would have been entirely legitimate protest but that wasn't what was happening okay

03:05:49.580 maybe i can take you to an example closer to home when for me when solidarity had a general

03:05:55.660 strike in poland and blocked the ports western democracies applauded that action that was

03:06:01.900 economic disruption was viewed as a legitimate form of political protest at that time

03:06:09.660 i'm going to allow myself one personal comment which is i did make a bet with myself that you

03:06:15.020 and i would end up talking about so that flushed yeah you know coming from the eastern block it

03:06:20.140 was going to happen um yeah i am aware of that and um i don't think you'll be surprised

03:06:32.140 to think that I thought about that at the time. And more recently, and more specifically,

03:06:38.780 I thought about the Maidan in Ukraine. And when we took this action. And

03:06:50.220 let me talk about a few differences. And the main one is this.

03:06:54.780 Solidarność, as you know very well, was a protest against a government that was illegitimate.

03:07:07.740 That was from whence it drew its power and legitimacy. This was people rising up against

03:07:17.500 an authoritarian, and I would even say in the case of Poland, colonial regime. In Canada,

03:07:24.780 what happened was a democratically elected government that was actually

03:07:31.420 acting on policies that we had campaigned on just that summer. So it was a fresh democratic

03:07:40.040 mandate. There was no lack of transparency with the people of Canada. And people who disagreed

03:07:47.520 with those policies were holding the country's economy hostage. And that was not appropriate.

03:07:56.620 I do want to raise a concern. I'm assuming you're not saying that democracy only operates at the

03:08:05.800 time of casting our ballot. Obviously, I think you acknowledge that we are able to protest in

03:08:13.780 between those times so even after you were democratically elected people could protest

03:08:18.800 your government's policies correct a hundred percent and and i am in no way in no way suggesting

03:08:25.500 that the act of protest is anti-democratic on the contrary the right to protest i think

03:08:37.280 It's a feature, not a bug of democracy. But what I was saying, which I believe very strongly, is there is a big difference between acts of popular resistance and even revolution against an authoritarian regime and protest in a democracy.

03:09:03.480 And, Minister, I'd like to just take you to, you started your comments this morning as well with the bigger geopolitical issues here between President Putin trying to demonstrate that his way of dictatorships is preferable to Western democracies.

03:09:27.360 and one you know i think you can appreciate that there have been countries in the world that have

03:09:34.560 said you should invest in us because we are politically stable we do not have general

03:09:40.640 strikes we do not tolerate dissent and i i want to end on this surely you agree that in canada

03:09:48.720 which is a democracy the right to protest the right to demonstration must be steadily

03:09:55.440 protected and that economic security does not trump those rights

03:10:05.120 so many things packed in there i know i just i'm running out of time so it's so going in

03:10:10.400 so many things packed in there um and many of them i agree with um

03:10:15.680 I have reported on a lot of authoritarian regimes that spoke about their stability

03:10:28.560 as something that should be attractive to investors. And clearly, I strongly disagree

03:10:37.860 with that argument. My concern when it came to the economic security of Canada was about

03:10:50.520 our ability not to not have political debate. Political debate is a sign of a healthy society.

03:11:02.440 You know, the fact we're having this commission, that's a healthy democracy. The fact that in

03:11:07.260 question period, we yell at each other. I really don't like it, but it's a sign of a healthy

03:11:11.720 democracy. What was undermining of Canada's economic security sufficiently dangerously

03:11:23.320 that I believe we needed to act and it was the right thing to do was that our trade was being

03:11:30.860 stopped and was being seriously blocked. And I was very worried that that was handing arguments

03:11:39.860 to U.S. protectionists who were already on the move and that had that relationship

03:11:48.060 being seriously damaged, that would really hurt Canada.

03:11:53.640 And, Mr. Guilherme, my last point, you mentioned at some point that it would have been one thing

03:11:57.720 for the protesters to stand with a placard at the war museum and protest. You mentioned that

03:12:04.880 today in testimony with me. I didn't say war museum and I didn't say placard, but the basic

03:12:11.280 idea, I think we're in the same zone. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of a different Ottawa monument,

03:12:15.900 but you agree that public assembly and the right to protest goes beyond simply me standing on a

03:12:23.480 green lawn in front of a government government building that it it does encompass more than that

03:12:31.260 and that canada should protect that to be a vibrant democracy

03:12:35.620 i you know am not going to right now try to define with you specifically you know what

03:12:49.240 is, you know, give examples of protests. But what I will say, and I really agree with,

03:12:59.760 and I think one of the lines that very much in my mind in this decision is, I do agree with you

03:13:10.660 that in a democracy, the right to protest is important and has to be protected. And

03:13:18.580 And yeah, I obviously, I mean, that's such an obvious statement.

03:13:23.160 And I agree with that.

03:13:24.220 And I agree.

03:13:25.220 Yeah.

03:13:26.220 So since it's obvious, I'll say it and I won't gild the lily.

03:13:29.960 Thank you.

03:13:30.960 Thank you, Minister.

03:13:31.960 Thank you, Commissioner.

03:13:32.960 Okay.

03:13:33.960 We have five minutes left.

03:13:35.900 I don't know if the Canadian Constitution Foundation wants to start or

03:13:40.960 lunch but i'm in your hands uh it's uh

03:13:53.360 i i don't know i think we'll we'll adjourn for lunch how's that

03:13:59.360 okay great thank you and we'll come back then at uh two o'clock the commission is in recess

03:14:06.960 until two o'clock the commission

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04:10:10.960 Thank you.

04:10:40.960 Thank you.

04:11:10.960 Thank you.

04:11:40.960 Thank you.

04:12:10.960 Thank you.

04:12:40.960 Thank you.

04:13:10.960 Thank you.

04:13:40.960 Thank you.

04:14:10.960 Thank you.

04:14:40.960 Thank you.

04:15:10.960 Thank you.

04:15:40.960 Thank you.

04:16:10.960 Thank you.

04:16:40.960 Thank you.

04:17:10.960 Thank you.

04:17:40.960 Thank you.

04:18:10.960 Thank you.

04:18:40.960 Thank you.

04:19:10.960 Thank you.

04:19:40.960 Thank you.

04:20:10.960 Thank you.

04:20:40.960 Thank you.

04:21:10.960 Thank you.

04:21:40.960 Thank you.

04:22:10.960 Thank you.

04:22:40.960 Thank you.

04:23:10.960 Thank you.

04:23:40.960 Order a lot.

04:24:10.960 commission has reconvened la commissary okay um once again i apologize for the slight delay

04:24:22.880 issues have come up that i'm having to deal with so i apologize now i think we can go to the next

04:24:31.440 the next which is the canadian constitution foundation and you're online go ahead yeah

04:24:39.120 great thank you very much so uh good afternoon minister um my name is jenny shen mcganathan

04:24:45.840 and i am counsel for the canadian constitution foundation and today in your evidence you talked

04:24:52.640 about the economic and financial consequences of the protests you talked about the reputational

04:25:00.320 damage to canada as an investment destination and at the end of commission council's examination

04:25:07.520 she asked you to explain how you understood this, you know, economic harm was linked to

04:25:15.440 national security. Do you recall that? Yes, I do. All right. And your answer to that was,

04:25:23.600 you believe our security as a country is built on economic security. And if our economic security

04:25:32.700 is threatened, all of our security is threatened. And now I'm not asking you to elaborate on this.

04:25:38.980 I just want you to confirm that this was your evidence.

04:25:44.300 Obviously, I don't have word by word recall of what I said, but that's what I believe. And I'm

04:25:50.780 sounds like you're reading the transcript. So. All right. Thank you very much. And now

04:25:55.960 I take it you know that in order to declare a public order emergency pursuant to the Emergencies Act, there must be what's called threats to the security of Canada.

04:26:10.120 You're aware of that?

04:26:12.120 Yes, I am.

04:26:13.760 And the Emergency Act says that threats to the security of Canada has the meaning assigned by Section 2 of the CSIS Act.

04:26:24.280 You're aware of that?

04:26:25.960 Yes, I am. 0.84

04:26:27.780 All right, so I just want to take you to Section 2 of the CSIS Act, and this is C-O-M, either

04:26:36.160 five zeros or six zeros, nine, three, five.

04:26:38.620 It should be five zeros.

04:26:50.020 If I can take to page eight, please.

04:26:55.960 Perfect. If you can just pause there. So, the CSIS Act defines threats to the security

04:27:04.880 of Canada. And we've heard evidence in this commission that for the purposes of invoking

04:27:10.440 the Emergencies Act here, the focus was on C. That's where they were focused on in terms

04:27:17.440 of the threats to the security of Canada. So what C says is activities within or relating

04:27:23.780 to canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against

04:27:31.540 persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political religious or ideological objective

04:27:38.020 within canada or a foreign state so you see that i do all right and so in terms of the economic

04:27:46.900 harm that you've described today the reputational damage to canada as you know an investment country

04:27:53.780 you'll agree that it doesn't fall within C, right?

04:27:58.300 The activities relating to Canada, directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence.

04:28:04.820 Would you agree with that or is that fair to say?

04:28:09.620 Not precisely.

04:28:11.120 You know, if the direction of these questions is to ask me, did I believe we were acting within legal authorities granted by the Emergencies Act, if that's where this question is leading, then my answer is yes.

04:28:41.120 i believed we had the authority to do what we did and i hope no one is surprised by my saying that

04:28:51.360 had i not believed it i would not have done it and i wouldn't be here uh speaking you know with

04:29:02.080 sadness but confidence that we did the right thing so my question was um whether the economic harm

04:29:10.640 that you've described today falls within the definition found in c which speaks specifically

04:29:17.920 to the support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property

04:29:24.720 for the purpose of achieving a political religious or ideological objective within

04:29:29.440 canada or a foreign state does the economic harm you've described today fall within c

04:29:35.280 it's a big question and so i was offering an answer in several parts

04:29:43.840 and i offered the first part of it and i can continue if you'd like

04:29:48.800 no i i mean to be respectful i just want to know you know i appreciate that your position is that

04:29:57.000 canada acted within lawful authority to invoke the emergencies act but i just want to understand if

04:30:03.380 the economic harm that we spent a lot of today talking about whether that falls within the scope

04:30:09.920 of C. And so I just want to know your answer to that question. And I also really do want to be

04:30:19.080 respectful and answer this really important question. But it's a big question, so I'm going

04:30:27.480 to have to take it in stages. And I offered the first stage. I can carry on if you'd like.

04:30:33.380 Sure. So that was my first stage. Second stage is in terms of, you know, one of the things that this commission is, I think, quite rightly investigating.

04:30:52.200 You know, was the government acting within its authorities?

04:30:58.600 For me, as finance minister, an important factor in the judgment I came to, which is that we were, was the expert advice that we received.

04:31:16.880 I'm not a lawyer.

04:31:18.160 uh i rely on the judgment of officials who advised us and on expert legal advice and i say that even

04:31:32.120 as i am very confident that it was the right decision and confident in taking personal

04:31:42.300 political responsibility. I can also speak to what I saw and experienced and believed

04:31:58.300 that falls within the scope of the serious violence against persons or property point.

04:32:05.900 But I do want to be clear that I'm not speaking here as someone with an expert legal opinion, but I'm speaking as a minister who made a political judgment and as someone who was also in Ottawa.

04:32:25.460 So some of the things that factored into my thinking about it were, as I described in my testimony this morning,

04:32:35.640 a real concern that we were in a tinderbox situation where the economic threats and the

04:32:50.320 threats generally um that and the damage that were being created both by the ottawa occupation

04:32:58.700 and the Ambassador Bridge did risk, I felt at every moment, some kind of conflict between

04:33:09.440 protesters and counter protesters. I saw that and experienced it myself, just being a person who was

04:33:17.700 in Ottawa. I felt it was a tinder keg that could be sparked at any moment and was therefore very

04:33:23.960 dangerous. And although I didn't see it myself, I heard accounts of Windsor, of a situation there,

04:33:32.260 which I found to be very credible. I was also influenced, can I say one more thing?

04:33:39.800 Sure. Which speaks to this. I was also influenced by our IRG meeting on, I think it was the Saturday,

04:33:50.460 the 12th, where we heard from the RCMP commissioner about concerns that there were serious weapons

04:34:00.400 in coots. And that really raised the stakes in terms of my degree of concern about what

04:34:13.540 could be happening there, but also what could be happening in this sort of whack-a-mole copycat

04:34:20.700 situation across the country. Okay, so my question was about how you understood the economic harms

04:34:30.780 to fall within subsection, or see the definition of threats to security of Canada in C, and as I

04:34:37.680 understand your explanation your explanation is it falls within it because there's a risk that

04:34:44.660 the economic harm that's being created by the protest could somehow manifest into actual

04:34:52.440 threats of violence is that is that your understanding of how it falls within c i'm going

04:34:57.360 to object to the question as phrased that's a legal question i'm just trying to find out her

04:35:03.600 on you know she's offered an explanation for how she says the economic harm falls within sea and

04:35:10.420 she linked it directly to the threats or use of acts and i'm just trying to understand what that

04:35:15.320 link is i i mean my counsel may have something to say but i don't think that's a fair characterization

04:35:21.880 of what i said just now or of what i said this morning um what i think is fair is first of all

04:35:32.960 that I relied on expert legal judgment to make a very important and weighty legal decision.

04:35:46.860 What I also said is, as a person who was here in Ottawa, I did see a real danger of violence.

04:35:56.160 And then finally, what I described in my testimony this morning was the way in which the economic security of our country, I really believe, is a part of our national security.

04:36:14.160 But that was a much broader conversation we were having about a broad set of issues, which I certainly think are important for us to think about and consider.

04:36:27.580 And I don't want to mischaracterize your evidence. Just so that we're all clear, do you see a link between the economic harm that you say was caused by the protests to Canada with what's contained in C in terms of the threats or use of acts of serious violence against persons?

04:36:48.760 And again, there, I really do not want to shirk my personal political responsibility, and while this was a grave and serious decision, we took it carefully and thoughtfully, and I believed it was the right decision then, and I believe today it is the right decision.

04:37:12.540 But I'm also conscious, if I may continue.

04:37:18.760 Of course, I'm also conscious that I am not a lawyer and I'm not a person who can give expert opinion on the precise parsing of these authorities.

04:37:37.520 It was important for me to be assured that we did have the authority to act, and I received, as a cabinet member, assurances that we had those authorities from people who I believe were qualified to offer those assurances.

04:38:02.380 and i don't mean to belabor the point i just want to make sure the evidence is clear so

04:38:07.580 your evidence is that you understood that you had the authority to invoke the emergencies act but

04:38:14.220 in terms of saying there's a linkage between the economic harm caused by the protest with

04:38:20.460 the requirement of the threat or use of acts of serious violence is that something that you can't

04:38:26.380 speak to again uh commissioner this is a legal interpretation question that will be addressed in

04:38:32.060 closing submissions and i don't mean to belabor this i just want to make sure i understand uh

04:38:37.900 deputy minister's evidence is she just saying that she can't comment on it because it's

04:38:42.380 a legal question or she's saying that there is a link i just want to know what the answer is

04:38:47.740 i i renew my objection and would ask for a ruling on it

04:38:50.540 Okay, well, I think at the end of the day, I don't think you can pursue this any further

04:38:58.000 at the moment. I think you've got your answer as it is.

04:39:03.760 That's fine. Thank you very much. I don't know how much time I have left, but I do have

04:39:07.500 just one other point I'd like to, or one other issue to address, if I may. So when we were

04:39:13.060 talking about fin track this morning and you explored it as one option to pursue but decided

04:39:20.100 that you know making a change to it you know the legislative amendment would take too much time do

04:39:26.660 you recall your evidence earlier today about that yes i do all right and so um just so that we're

04:39:34.180 all clear because we have canadians watching who may not understand the process the money

04:39:40.580 the Proceeds of Crime and Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, it gives the ability to create regulations, right?

04:39:51.740 If your question is, was it possible to grant Fintrack, to give Fintrack these expanded powers through regulation, that is correct.

04:40:06.700 And I said that this morning. We did go on to grant those powers through regulation.

04:40:15.300 And there's just a difference between how regulations are passed versus, say, example, legislation or amendments to legislation.

04:40:25.360 The latter is what you have to do, the three readings, going to Senate. It's a much longer legislative process. That's fair?

04:40:32.860 A hundred percent.

04:40:33.740 and by comparison passing regulations is a much shorter process absolutely okay those are all my

04:40:43.300 questions thank you very much okay thank you next is the democracy fund jccf

04:40:50.700 good afternoon minister my name is alan honor i'm a lawyer at the democracy fund and we share

04:41:03.740 to share status with the JC staff and Citizens for Freedom.

04:41:09.480 Ms. Freeland, in your witness statement,

04:41:11.820 you mentioned challenges to supply chains

04:41:14.060 as being a major focus for you in January of 2022.

04:41:18.480 But you didn't mention the government vaccine mandate

04:41:21.420 for truckers, and I'd just like to ask you

04:41:23.000 a little bit about that.

04:41:24.700 Can we please pull up OKT3027621.001.

04:41:33.740 And, Ms. Freeland, while we're waiting for that to come up, this is a letter which is addressed to you and other Ministers by the Canadian Trucking Alliance, and it's dated December 10th, 2021.

04:41:49.580 I'd like to take you through part of this letter, but before I do that, can you tell me, do you know who this group is, the Canadian Trucker Alliance?

04:41:55.960 I can't say I'm familiar with them right now. Maybe I've heard of them, but...

04:42:00.640 okay well i i think we've heard some evidence about them but if you're not familiar with them

04:42:04.880 that's okay let's just go down uh to the first paragraph here and mr land i just want to read

04:42:10.720 this to you it says that the canadian trucker alliance is disappointed to learn that our

04:42:16.480 current exemption from the national vaccination mandate is being removed considering the immense

04:42:22.880 impact this decision will have on already beleaguered supply chains do you see that i do

04:42:30.320 okay and if i can take you to another part of that letter just on the second page second paragraph

04:42:36.560 please here we see cta estimates that combined the proposed vaccine mandate for cross-border

04:42:46.080 truck drivers and the federal sector mandate announced by the minister of labor would remove

04:42:51.600 between 15 000 and 30 000 canadian drivers from the inter-provincial and international supply chains

04:42:58.800 The expected loss of transportation services, service capacity will trigger significant ripple effects throughout the entire economy.

04:43:09.460 And Mr. Lynn, I just want to ask you, this is something you knew about when the exemption for truckers was removed in February.

04:43:18.620 You knew that this might have some effect on the supply chain. Is that fair?

04:43:23.420 I knew that some people asserted that it might.

04:43:27.980 Okay, thank you. And I'm going to suggest, this is not the first time this group wrote to you. If we can scroll down to page five, please. We have another letter, just to the top of page five. Sorry, it might be page four, just go up, please.

04:43:44.740 Okay, so here we have a letter. It is a little bit down, please. I'm sorry. Can we just go to the top? So December the 8th, 2021. And if we can scroll down to the second paragraph, it says here,

04:44:02.860 When the mandate was originally announced, CTA expected that upwards of 20% of the 120,000 Canadian truck drivers crossing the U.S.-Canada border would have likely remained unvaccinated by January 2022.

04:44:20.060 Of the 40,000 U.S.-based truck drivers crossing the border, CTA estimated that upwards of 40% of these drivers would not be prepared to meet the vaccine mandate requirement.

04:44:31.100 Do you see that?

04:44:33.680 I do.

04:44:34.420 Okay, and just...

04:44:40.660 One last question about this.

04:44:43.480 You would agree that the reduction of truck drivers crossing the border

04:44:47.860 when there are already supply chain issues could have an effect on the economy?

04:44:52.420 i don't agree with the estimates that are provided there and i don't agree with the

04:45:03.780 assertion that the vaccine mandates themselves caused problems for our supply chain but they

04:45:12.340 affected it they had a contribution to that supply chain problem no i i don't agree with that okay

04:45:17.220 The vast majority of Canadian truckers are, in fact, and were at the time, vaccinated and supported the vaccine mandates.

04:45:26.440 Okay, well, let's go to page six, please.

04:45:36.060 Okay, in the first paragraph that we see there, the CTA is giving stats that truckers move about 70% of the $648 billion Canada-US trade.

04:45:46.980 Does that sound about right to you?

04:45:49.160 Again, I can't say whether that's true or not, but I have no reason to.

04:45:58.320 Let me say this.

04:46:00.100 Trucking is very important for the Canadian economy.

04:46:03.020 Trucking is very important for our supply chains, and trucking is very important for cross-border trade.

04:46:07.460 That I am very prepared to agree with.

04:46:10.180 I think we can all agree on that.

04:46:11.300 And let's just consider that if what the Canadian, if what the CTA is saying is correct, and the drivers are reduced by 20%, that's a reduction of 24,000 trucks in the supply chain.

04:46:29.980 The challenge here for me is I disagree with the fundamental premise. And this was something

04:46:41.620 that was looked at carefully by Minister Al Ghabra, and also by the Minister of Health.

04:46:48.740 Okay, so you disagree with the fundamental premise of the Canadian trucker lives. Thank

04:46:54.620 you um i'll move on to something else i just want to understand a little bit more um about what was

04:47:01.340 going on in january and you you gave some evidence today and i think you told us that it was a it was

04:47:09.580 a very intense month for you that would be fair yes that would be fair okay let me let me make

04:47:15.100 sure that i understand it so um on the one hand you were preparing a budget yes okay and um there

04:47:23.580 There was the issue of the Build Back Better legislation in the States, and there was the electric vehicle tax credit, right?

04:47:31.660 That was on your plate.

04:47:34.180 Not solely on mine, but it was something I was working on.

04:47:37.400 Right.

04:47:39.100 And there was the COVID recovery, and there were local and global supply chain issues.

04:47:45.220 Yes.

04:47:46.040 Okay.

04:47:46.240 And there was the looming threat of inflation.

04:47:49.560 Yes. 0.96

04:47:50.000 And we talked a little bit about the Ukraine, and I think you said that was the biggest threat to national security since World War II. 0.70

04:47:58.540 The Russian invasion. 0.75

04:48:00.240 The Russian invasion.

04:48:01.000 When it actually happened. Yes, I think that is the biggest national security challenge our country has faced. 0.91

04:48:07.700 And it was on your radar in January?

04:48:09.980 Yes, it was.

04:48:10.620 Okay. And in the midst of this, there was this trucker protest of unprecedented proportions taking place across the country, and you described that as whack-a-mole.

04:48:21.240 No. What I would describe as what we saw happening from the moment that the initial occupation began is copycat protests happening across the country, and that posed a particular national challenge.

04:48:47.280 I see. I thought you said the word whack-a-mole, but it's not important. But what is important I would put to you is that the U.S. was unhappy with the situation in Canada, and they were seeing their own vulnerability in our supply chains. That was your evidence, was it not?

04:49:05.380 Certainly.

04:49:05.780 And they didn't like that.

04:49:09.700 The, in particular, blockade of the Ambassador Bridge exposed the vulnerability of the U.S. economy, particularly the car sector, to the Canadian car sector.

04:49:23.260 Exactly.

04:49:23.940 And I put it to you, Minister, that the government felt that they had to do something about these protests,

04:49:29.060 not because of threats of serious violence, but because your government was completely overwhelmed

04:49:34.540 and you were under a tremendous amount of pressure from the United States.

04:49:39.080 I absolutely disagree with that.

04:49:41.460 Okay, well, we heard evidence from you earlier today, and you said that you were put into contact with Brian Deese.

04:49:48.000 So he's the economic advisor to the president.

04:49:50.320 He's a very influential player for the electric vehicle tax credit issue,

04:49:56.880 and he actually contacted you that's correct right and you thought that was it was striking

04:50:03.180 that someone of his importance who's so hard to get a hold of contacted you

04:50:08.220 I had spoken to Brian Deese before and since but the speed and urgency with which he got in touch

04:50:20.600 with me was definitely significant and relevant and he was unhappy and there could be major

04:50:25.620 economic consequences. What he said to me, as I reported in that readout, was that they were

04:50:38.020 very concerned that because of the blockades, US factories would shut down. Right. And we heard

04:50:43.660 that the CEOs of two major banks contacted you, Canadian banks, I believe. And we also heard that

04:50:49.920 uh president biden who is probably the world's most powerful person or or near near that had

04:50:56.480 a telephone call with the prime minister yes both of those things are true and that telephone call

04:51:02.960 it happened on a friday and by the monday the emergencies act was invoked that's true

04:51:10.400 okay and so i put it to you minister that the federal government had to show the usa

04:51:15.760 that they were in control and that explains why the emergencies act was invoked despite the fact

04:51:22.640 that for example the ambassador bridge was cleared and open to traffic no i wouldn't agree with that

04:51:30.480 characterization okay well i would put it to you that the pressure the government was under

04:51:34.960 explains why the emergencies act was invoked despite the fact that a deal had been struck

04:51:40.160 with the protesters in ottawa to reduce the footprint of the protest in that city

04:51:46.320 again i would disagree with that well let's see if you would this would agree with this i'd put

04:51:50.720 it to you that there was no meaningful consultation with the provinces not even advanced notice of

04:51:56.320 what the first minister's meeting was about and that's because the government didn't have time

04:52:01.360 for it they just had to make a decision about the emergencies act because of the tremendous

04:52:07.200 pressure that they were under again i disagree with a great deal of that characterization

04:52:14.960 one last question for you then miss freeland i put it to you that given the overwhelming

04:52:21.200 situation that the government was facing explains why they were willing to use extraordinary powers

04:52:27.760 against their own people despite the fact that no police agency or intelligence agency told them

04:52:34.400 that were there were threats to the security of canada again i

04:52:42.240 disagree with many of the premises in that question and i would be happy to elaborate

04:52:47.280 but it seems that we're out of time it seems so thank you very much for your answers thank

04:52:51.840 you mr commissioner okay thank you next i'd like to call on the government of alberta

04:52:57.760 thank you very much and good afternoon minister freeland i have just two questions for you this

04:53:07.840 afternoon as has been discussed today oh sorry i apologize for the transcript my name is mandy

04:53:13.600 england and i'm one of the lawyers for the government of alberta as has been discussed

04:53:17.680 today you had consultations with the ceos of several banks on february the 13th about potential

04:53:23.120 economic measures and you said in your testimony today how important it was for you to hear

04:53:28.880 from the leaders of the financial institutions what their views were on the situation with the

04:53:32.960 blockades and as you're also aware the consultation with the first ministers of the provinces and

04:53:38.160 territories was held on the morning of february 14th and that was after the cabinet meetings and

04:53:43.840 the irg meetings had been held now consulting with the ceos of financial institutions for

04:53:50.160 their views on the situation is not required by the emergencies act before the government can invoke

04:53:55.600 the act for a public order emergency but consulting with the provinces and territories for their input

04:54:01.040 is required as deputy prime minister don't you think that the input of the first ministers of

04:54:07.280 the provinces and territories on the potential invocation of the emergencies act and the proposed

04:54:11.760 measures would have been relevant information to have before you at the irg meetings and the cabinet

04:54:17.120 meetings where the invocation of the emergencies act was discussed and debated um thank you for

04:54:22.880 the question uh and as a former uh intergovernmental relations minister um i understand it and i really

04:54:35.760 do understand the importance and sometimes the challenges of that federal provincial relationship

04:54:41.600 In this particular situation, it was a very complex, fast-developing situation, and each minister was responsible for managing a series of relationships and bringing that information to the table.

04:55:01.840 My colleague, Dominic LeBlanc, is an extremely able minister, an extremely able intergovernmental affairs minister, and I relied on him, as did everyone around the table, to manage that relationship and to bring to us and to the table his knowledge of the views of the provinces and territories.

04:55:26.860 and with your knowledge that they weren't consulted or about the emergencies act or told

04:55:33.020 until the morning of february the 14th that the emergencies act might be invoked wouldn't you agree

04:55:38.780 that the information on their views on the potential invocation of the emergencies act

04:55:42.940 wasn't before the cabinet or the irg it wasn't one of the items because it wasn't available

04:55:48.380 until february the 14th in my view minister leblanc very effectively from what i could see

04:56:01.820 very effectively communicated with the provinces and territories and communicated with us his

04:56:08.380 what he learned from those conversations. That discussion that happened on the Monday

04:56:18.300 was important. I wasn't part of that discussion, but it happened and it was important that it

04:56:24.000 happened. And so the evidence that has been given before this inquiry is that the Emergencies Act

04:56:30.220 had not been raised with any of the first ministers of the provinces of territories

04:56:35.220 or any of the cabinet members of the provinces or territories.

04:56:39.660 So wouldn't you agree with me that whatever information it was

04:56:42.200 that Minister LeBlanc was bringing to the table,

04:56:44.680 it did not involve discussions about the Federal Emergencies Act?

04:56:49.780 Again, there, I would say this was an area of responsibility for Minister LeBlanc,

04:56:55.260 who I do absolutely believe does that very difficult job very well.

04:57:01.200 And I had confidence in how he did that job.

04:57:05.220 I'll move on to my second question.

04:57:11.200 We spoke about the call that you had with the banks on February the 13th.

04:57:16.020 There was another call with the banks on February the 21st, and I'd like to just pull up the

04:57:19.220 readout from that call if I may.

04:57:21.480 It's ssm.can401828.

04:57:38.360 And the section that I'd like to draw your attention to is close to the top.

04:57:41.320 It's the portion that reads from DPM, which I picked to be indicating that this is what

04:57:46.980 you said on the call as deputy prime minister would be dpm is that correct i think so okay thank

04:57:53.540 you and then uh the there's a paragraph that begins first and then the next little paragraph

04:57:59.540 says the rcmp has told us they have heard from protesters as they were leaving the blockades

04:58:05.380 but they did so because their family said their accounts were frozen so get the hell out of there

04:58:10.260 this is a much better and peaceful way to end things now freezing someone's bank account without

04:58:16.260 due process engages their personal rights and it also engages the personal rights of the families

04:58:20.980 that shared many of those bank accounts individuals who weren't even at the protest

04:58:25.940 you've stated uh here in this document that your view was that this is better and more peaceful

04:58:33.140 presumably than using the existing legal authorities which multiple branches of law

04:58:37.460 enforcement have testified that this inquiry were adequate to bring a peaceful end to the protests

04:58:42.500 and indeed they did so using those authorities so do you still hold that view today that freezing

04:58:48.740 the accounts was a better solution than law enforcement carrying out its legal authorities

04:58:54.500 in the responsible manner that they do the view that i do hold uh as we discussed earlier today

04:59:03.460 is one of my very grave concerns about bringing these illegal blockades and this illegal occupation

04:59:13.460 to an end was the danger that there would be violence and that there would be violence

04:59:19.140 directed towards the protesters. I was particularly concerned because of reports

04:59:26.040 that children were present and that was one of the reasons that i felt the financial

04:59:39.020 tools that were put in place by the emergencies act were a better option from my perspective

04:59:47.880 the job of these tools was to create a peaceful, nonviolent incentive for people who were doing

05:00:00.660 something illegal to leave. And I think those tools did work. And so I would just remind you

05:00:08.980 in that regard that the call that we're looking at this readout from in front of us was held on

05:00:13.440 that were the 21st and so at that time the coots blockade we can scroll up to the top of the

05:00:19.000 document we have monday february the 21st and you say it's hard to believe uh it was only a week

05:00:27.480 ago we were on a call last sunday which was february the 13th talking about this so this is a

05:00:32.500 call that was held on february the 21st after the enforcement actions had been taken out at coots

05:00:37.080 which were done before the emergencies act was invoked after the ambassador bridge was cleared

05:00:41.420 which was before the emergencies act was invoked and while the enforcement efforts in ottawa were

05:00:45.660 well underway and you would have had the knowledge at that time that there was peaceful resolution

05:00:50.860 by law enforcement at both of those border blockades and that there was no violence against

05:00:57.580 children and it was a peaceful resolution by law enforcement in ottawa and so with respect

05:01:05.660 to those comments about uh the fear of the prospect of violence i don't i don't know that uh

05:01:12.940 on the timeline of february 21st are you saying you still had them then and you would still have

05:01:17.020 those today no not at all on and so you express this view after no may i explain absolutely i

05:01:28.220 didn't realize you were talking i apologize no problem it can be hard on the video calls

05:01:32.460 So on February 21st, when I made those comments, it was looking back on the events of the week that had passed.

05:01:44.440 And I certainly believed then, and I believe today, that the financial tools we put in place aided in the peaceful resolution of all of those occupations and blockades.

05:02:01.300 The reports that we heard, the reports that were in the media, the reports from law enforcement were that many people did leave as a result of the incentives created by those tools.

05:02:15.720 And then the final thing that I think is important to emphasize is we said on February 14th, we are putting these tools in place, so please leave now.

05:02:29.280 so that these tools never need to be used so any person who had their account frozen

05:02:37.480 had due warning that they were engaged in illegal activity and that they should stop doing that

05:02:47.200 activity and the other thing that i would point to that i think did work well is the accounts

05:02:54.980 were very quickly unfrozen after the illegal activity ceased.

05:02:59.060 And with respect to the due warning, there were, as you acknowledged in your earlier testimony,

05:03:05.380 accounts of families, individuals who weren't present at the protests that were also

05:03:10.180 frozen. Would your view be the same with respect to those individuals?

05:03:13.060 again there um that was never the intent that to in any way affect family members

05:03:29.460 certainly the consequence the reality of people having joint bank accounts um made that

05:03:37.940 impossible to entirely avoid but i would say that the family members whose presence at the protest

05:03:53.300 at the illegal occupation and blockades caused the accounts to be frozen had a very easy readily

05:04:00.660 available remedy with a lot of notice they could have left before the freezing began and as soon

05:04:07.860 as people did leave the accounts were unfrozen thank you minister those are my questions today

05:04:14.260 okay thank you uh next i'd like to call on the city of ottawa please

05:04:21.140 uh the city has ceded its time to the government of canada

05:04:23.860 Alyssa Tompkins for the records.

05:04:27.000 Okay, thank you.

05:04:28.960 Council for former Chief Slowly, please.

05:04:32.140 Rebecca Jones for Chief Slowly, and we also have no questions for the Deputy Prime Minister

05:04:36.420 and have ceded our time to the Government of Canada.

05:04:38.580 Thank you.

05:04:39.600 Okay.

05:04:40.780 Next is City of Windsor.

05:04:42.900 good afternoon deputy prime minister my name is jennifer king and i am legal counsel

05:04:56.340 to the city of windsor um i only have a few moments with you this afternoon uh you have

05:05:02.060 testified about the macro economic impacts of the border blockades and the ambassador bridge

05:05:07.700 blockades specifically. In my few moments with you, I want to shift tracks a bit and ask you

05:05:13.280 to scope down and talk to us about the impacts of the blockades on the community and individual

05:05:19.480 level. As you may be aware, I hope you're aware, Windsor is not just a road to the Ambassador

05:05:26.120 Bridge. It's a community. It's a place where people live, work and study. Are you aware that

05:05:33.260 bridge lands in the community yes i am are you aware that for windsor and windsorites the blockade

05:05:40.620 of the bridge um was felt directly and immediately yes i am i understand from deputy minister sabia

05:05:49.260 that transport canada has not completed an analysis of the uh blockade and the impacts on the local

05:05:57.420 economy and local windsor businesses is that right that's right okay but you are well aware

05:06:02.780 of the importance of the automotive sector as an employer in the region right i'm very aware of that

05:06:08.940 and was um motivated by my awareness of that and some of the actions we've been discussing today

05:06:15.660 okay and you're aware that given the nature of the automotive sector the blockade had a significant

05:06:21.020 impact and resulted in almost almost immediately in shutdowns and partial layoffs yes um can you

05:06:29.180 tell us generally how impacts on the canadian economy at this kind of macro level that you've

05:06:34.220 been talking about trickles down and impacts local communities and residents particularly

05:06:39.100 communities like windsor that are reliant on these types of automotive industries i think

05:06:44.380 you've been doing a very good job of telling us that and certainly i'm you know very prepared to

05:06:53.180 agree with you that windsor was very specifically and meaningfully affected okay you also gave

05:07:02.220 testimony this morning about us ev incentives uh mayor dilkins gave evidence to this commission

05:07:07.660 about the five billion dollar investment announced in march uh through a joint venture between

05:07:12.140 stelantis and lg energy solutions to establish a battery manufacturing plant in the region

05:07:17.580 you're aware of that investment? Extremely. So this will be the first Canadian electric

05:07:23.600 vehicle battery manufacturing facility? Well, let's get it off the ground, but I'm very

05:07:30.340 optimistic about it. And Mayor Dilkens testified that these discussions and pre-planning about

05:07:37.480 this investment was underway at the time of the blockade? Yes, I believe that's the case.

05:07:42.800 Is this the kind of investment that you were concerned about that you were talking about

05:07:45.780 earlier today? A hundred percent. The Commission has heard evidence about the response in Windsor

05:07:51.840 at Windsor Police and its policing partners to peacefully clear the blockade of the bridge.

05:07:56.540 Were you aware at the time that the necessary policing efforts to maintain access to the bridge

05:08:00.920 after the blockade impacted Windsorites? Yes. Deputy Minister Sabia agreed that the reopening

05:08:08.020 of the bridge was key to avoiding greater damage to Canada's reputation as a good place to invest,

05:08:13.240 Canada's reputation as a reliable trading partner.

05:08:16.460 Do you agree?

05:08:17.660 Yes, I do.

05:08:18.960 For Windsorites, this is, of course, not about just what happened in February.

05:08:23.100 Windsor has been host to this critical piece of infrastructure for almost a century.

05:08:27.920 And Windsor keeps traffic flowing to this bridge every day.

05:08:31.180 And that benefits the entire country, doesn't it?

05:08:34.900 100%.

05:08:35.420 It helped us get the 3M masks, in fact.

05:08:39.620 Right.

05:08:39.860 So we've heard a number of witnesses recommend that the frameworks and laws to protect critical infrastructure should be studied and strengthened. Do you agree?

05:08:48.240 I do.

05:08:49.220 Would you also agree that Windsor is not only a stakeholder in debriefing the lessons learned and in developing these frameworks, but also an important partner?

05:09:00.360 Yes, Windsor is definitely an important partner.

05:09:02.980 Okay, thank you. Those are all my questions.

05:09:04.740 Okay, thank you.

05:09:05.900 Thank you. Next is the Windsor Police Service.

05:09:09.860 Hi there, Heather Patterson for the Windsor Police Service.

05:09:17.300 We have no questions for Minister Freeland and have ceded our time to the government

05:09:20.980 of Saskatchewan.

05:09:21.980 I guess then we go to the government of Saskatchewan.

05:09:26.100 Good afternoon.

05:09:29.340 My name is Mike Morris and I'm counsel for the government of Saskatchewan.

05:09:33.100 Minister, spoiler alert, I hope to get you to agree with me as much as my colleague

05:09:38.740 did just a couple minutes ago. I guess we'll see where we get to. But Minister, I think I can start

05:09:46.200 out with some easy ones. You're familiar with Farm Credit Canada, which is a federal crown

05:09:50.520 corporation. Is that fair? Not intimately, but I know it exists. You grew up on the prairies. It

05:10:00.440 used to be called Farm Credit Corporation. If I call it FCC, you'll understand what I mean. Is that

05:10:06.240 fair yes okay and are you aware that fcc is headquartered in regina yes okay and that it

05:10:15.440 provides loans to farmers correct yes and farm credit canada would have been a financial

05:10:22.640 institution subject to the emergency economic measures order correct i believe so and if i

05:10:30.480 just call that the order you'll understand what i mean is that fair yes okay i want to refer you to

05:10:40.000 an article from farm farmers forum which is self-described as the largest circulation farm

05:10:47.200 newspaper in ontario so i'm going to ask the clerk to pull up a document it's p o e s a s seven zeros

05:10:57.920 three and just while we're pulling this up it's the may 3rd 2022 article from farmers forum

05:11:07.680 entitled read the documents farm credit compiled list of nine names for possible blacklisting so

05:11:15.120 we can see that on the screen there now and i'm just going to read from the first three paragraphs

05:11:20.960 of the article um so we'll just have to go down there perfect farm credit canada compiled a list

05:11:29.440 of nine people to be potentially blacklisted because of possible participation in the freedom

05:11:34.880 convoy protest in february according to internal fcc emails acquired by farmer forum through an

05:11:42.000 access to information request the access to information documents revealed that fcc

05:11:48.160 employees were instructed to report the names of customers who were involved in the freedom

05:11:53.280 convoy in ottawa after the emergencies act was enacted on feb 14. the federal lending agency

05:12:01.920 compiled a list of nine people by viewing twitter accounts and online media posts

05:12:06.880 as well as drawing from conversations with customers now i expect we can agree

05:12:14.720 that it's not surprising that fcc instructed its employees to report in this manner

05:12:20.720 because fcc was required to do so under the terms of the order is that fair

05:12:26.080 well maybe not entirely um and i will say i am reading this news report for the first time as i

05:12:40.800 see it on my screen um so my response is a little bit limited but even in the paragraphs that you've

05:12:52.160 displayed for us the there is a misunderstanding if this email is genuine and i'm just saying

05:13:05.360 because i haven't seen it right and reporting emails no no no reporting is a hard thing to do

05:13:13.360 i used to be a reporter but the email that is reported on here saying if the federal government

05:13:22.480 directs us to that is a misunderstanding of how the order worked um we were always very conscious

05:13:35.360 that it wasn't the job of the federal government or the Ministry of Finance to name specific names

05:13:45.200 or to even know which names were involved. The way the order worked was that that was to be a

05:13:52.280 communication between law enforcement and the financial institutions. And I know it's not my

05:13:59.000 job to ask you to agree with me, but I hope you will agree with me that that was appropriate,

05:14:04.480 that elected ministers shouldn't be involved in naming specific names so that was a misunderstanding

05:14:12.080 i think we should look at the documents referred to from that access to information request so i'm

05:14:18.420 going to ask the clerk to bring up poe s a s seven zeros four and these are the documents which were

05:14:29.040 obtained by Farmers Forum and that are referred to in this article.

05:14:34.960 And I'm just going to ask that we go to the third page of this PDF, please.

05:14:41.620 There, perfect.

05:14:43.200 So we can see this is an email with a subject line,

05:14:47.140 How the Emergencies Act Affects FCC,

05:14:50.720 and it's to operations field staff dated February 23rd, 2022.

05:14:56.940 So I'd just like us to scroll down to the third paragraph, please.

05:15:01.840 Stop there.

05:15:03.480 The third paragraph begins, if you become aware of potential customer involvement in blockades, occupations, and other supportive activity related to the Freedom Convoy, you must submit a tip to the Customer Diligence Center, brackets CDC.

05:15:17.620 So, this is the morning of February 23rd, and we know that the order was no longer in place later that day because, of course, the emergency declaration was revoked on February 23rd later that day. Is that fair, Minister?

05:15:34.380 That, yes. Yes, exactly.

05:15:36.460 Okay. I'd just like us to scroll down to page 5 of the PDF now, please. And this should be an email dated February 25th. Yes, there it is.

05:15:47.620 So we see this as an email dated February 25th with the subject Emergencies Act Customers Identified.

05:15:54.920 And the content of the email indicates that the sender is telling the recipient that they'd like to follow up regarding customers that have been identified as possibly participating in the 2022 Freedom Convoy.

05:16:07.940 So we've agreed, I think, or we can agree that as of February 25th, there was no requirement under the order to conduct this follow up. Is that fair?

05:16:17.620 So, let me say a couple of things.

05:16:22.180 First of all, I'm seeing this email now for the first time, and as far as I know, it had

05:16:28.260 nothing to do with me.

05:16:29.780 I understand.

05:16:30.780 Second of all, it's certainly the case that the order ceased to apply after February 23rd.

05:16:39.620 maybe the third thing for people who are listening that it's worth pointing out is all the accounts

05:16:48.020 were unfrozen around that time. Okay I just want to continue on to the next page of the pdf which

05:16:58.560 is page six. I appreciate you're seeing this for the first time minister and I understand that's

05:17:04.640 difficult but this appears to be a spreadsheet entitled 2022 freedom convoy tips has a column for

05:17:11.360 tip for date for customer name and preliminary findings and i'd just like us to slowly scroll

05:17:19.360 to the very end of all of these pdfs looking at the dates as we can as it goes by yeah you can

05:17:26.480 keep scrolling that's a good pace so we've seen february 23rd keep scrolling now we see february

05:17:33.200 24th and keep scrolling i think there's one more page we'll get to the end here

05:17:41.040 another page more february 24th keep going yeah so the last one is number nine kick go up a little

05:17:48.000 bit and this would appear to indicate that the last tip in the spreadsheet was received february

05:17:55.120 25th um there's a description i gather of the preliminary investigation at this point so you

05:18:03.360 know it appears and i appreciate your viewing this for the first time that fcc was still

05:18:10.880 investigating tips relating to the freedom convoy 2022 as of february 25th and i don't know when it

05:18:19.920 stopped investigating tips and i expect you may not know either is that fair minister

05:18:27.600 with real respect i have to say i think these are questions for fcc and not for me okay i expected

05:18:37.440 you might answer that and that's a fair answer um aside from fcc can you identify any other federal

05:18:45.440 financial institutions which were subject to the order for us the order applied to all financial

05:18:56.320 institutions across the country okay no that's fair um uh it was a privilege to to speak with

05:19:04.720 you minister um thank you very much for answering my questions okay thank you uh so we now turn to

05:19:13.120 the government of Canada please. Good afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister.

05:19:27.040 As you know, my name is Stephen Hilbert. I'm one of the lawyers for the government of Canada.

05:19:35.840 My friend for the government of Saskatchewan just now took you to

05:19:40.160 a news article that referred to the blacklisting of account holders or the of borrowers under a

05:19:46.080 federal program is there anything in the emergency economic measures order uh that authorized or

05:19:52.320 required financial institutions to blacklist uh an individual no there was not was there anything

05:20:01.440 that prescribed any lasting impacts beyond the expiry of the designation of a person as a

05:20:08.080 designated determination that a person was a designated person or the expiry of the emergencies

05:20:13.440 act there absolutely was not um earlier my friend for commission council uh put it to you that uh

05:20:24.960 on the issue of foreign funding that there was no information that the government had

05:20:29.120 in relation to foreign funding at the time of the um declaration of the emergency

05:20:35.200 in your response you mentioned open source information i take it that would have included

05:20:39.600 uh news news articles yes it would okay and uh i won't take you to them but i'm just going to read

05:20:46.080 into the record the names of two such articles pb.can.401755 and pb.can17401756

05:20:57.120 uh my friend for uh the democracy fund uh mentioned to you certain uh uh letters from

05:21:11.840 the canadian truckers association in which they expressed concern in december of 2021

05:21:17.600 over the removal of the exemption for uh cross-border uh trucker trucking do you recall that

05:21:24.960 i do and uh if we could uh pull up mr clerk uh ssm.can.50335

05:21:38.240 and this document that's pulling up is a statement from the same organization

05:21:45.280 that was made in january of 2022

05:21:49.440 And if you see there, the statement says, the CTA does not support and strongly disapproves

05:22:02.340 of any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges.

05:22:09.440 CTA believes such actions, especially those that interfere with public safety, are not

05:22:33.620 how disagreements uh with governments should be expressed uh were you aware of that being

05:22:42.260 the position of the canadian truckers association at the time yes i was

05:22:48.020 and indeed if we could go to ssm.can.50987

05:22:54.820 this is a letter dated february 10th 2022 again from the canadian truckers association

05:23:06.340 and in this letter the canadian truckers association is asking the federal government

05:23:10.980 to take action uh to address the issue with the border blockades or were you aware it's a letter

05:23:16.980 addressed to the prime minister and uh minister al gabra but i'll just ask were you aware of the

05:23:23.140 canadian truckers association making such a request at the time i can't pretend to have memorized

05:23:32.100 the exact date and content of the letter but i was aware that minister al gabra was in touch

05:23:38.980 with uh the truckers association and that they were very concerned okay so if we talk about

05:23:46.100 economic impacts for a moment um you discussed with commission council earlier the uh a bloomberg

05:23:57.220 a briefing and as well a bloomberg article um if we could just pull up the news article uh com

05:24:05.060 five zeros eight three nine please and if we could go to the third page of that document when it's

05:24:13.780 ready this is the news article and apart from the uh reference to the 0.1 percent that you

05:24:18.900 were discussing uh earlier uh there are some discuss there are some um uh reporting in here

05:24:27.220 about other uh individuals that were commenting on the situation the border blockades at the time

05:24:33.540 And if you look under the heading there, we don't need this, there's a quote attributed to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, that was made on the Wednesday, so that would have been the day before this article, so on Wednesday, February 9th,

05:24:59.540 in which the governor of the bank of canada noted uh that we were having

05:25:07.620 we've already got a strained global supply chain we don't need this in reference to the border

05:25:13.140 blockade do you remember being aware of the comments of the governor of bank of canada at the

05:25:17.300 time i absolutely do and that's in my timeline i think it's in my notebook that when we spoke

05:25:27.380 earlier today about concerns around achieving a soft landing for the canadian economy concerns

05:25:36.180 about rising inflation concerns about the rise in interest rates which the bank of canada uh

05:25:48.340 with which the bank of canada would respond to rising inflation that was very much on my mind

05:25:54.020 and i mentioned that we had already had a january inflation number which was elevated

05:26:01.220 we expected inflation we expected an elevated number well the january the number that we had

05:26:07.860 in january was for december we expected in february to learn of an elevated number for january

05:26:13.460 we were aware that the bank was concerned and that made us concerned definitely okay so you spoke

05:26:22.180 earlier about some of your concerns around comments by public officials in the united

05:26:26.740 states i'd just like to go through the timeline of some of those statements because i think we've

05:26:31.140 heard a bit about them but i think it's helpful to look at actually sure and if i could just say

05:26:34.580 one more thing on the bank of canada that was that wasn't in an interview with bloomberg

05:26:38.900 governor macklem spoke at a press conference about it so that was widely reported no indeed

05:26:43.940 that was just one instance of a document that's in the record that records that statement

05:26:47.540 So February 7th, we know, is the day that the blockade begins at the Ambassador Bridge.

05:26:59.280 And so on February 9th, this is day three, that's the date of those comments by the Governor

05:27:07.860 of the Bank of Canada.

05:27:08.860 It's also the date of several statements by U.S. public officials.

05:27:13.380 If we could pull up pb.can.6023 and go to page three.

05:27:25.800 This is a tweet by Representative Alyssa Slotkin.

05:27:30.760 And I believe you may have indirectly made reference to this earlier this morning.

05:27:36.760 but I'd just like to put the tweet up and if you can see there, we have the representative

05:27:50.400 Slotkin saying, if we need another example of why supply chains matter, look no further

05:27:58.640 than the Ambassador Bridge, the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge, and then it continues.

05:28:04.940 And if you look at the second installation of the thread, or the second part of the thread,

05:28:12.900 says it doesn't matter if it's an adversary or an ally. 0.63

05:28:19.020 We can't be this reliant on parts coming from foreign countries.

05:28:28.100 Was that the comment that you were referencing earlier in your testimony?

05:28:31.980 Yes, it was.

05:28:34.940 I remember when that came out very, very clearly. And, you know, what was being publicly said

05:28:45.780 by U.S. officials, all of it worried me. But I think if I had to identify for people here

05:28:56.000 one particular line that worried me the most it's those two sentences um and in particular it

05:29:05.180 doesn't matter if it's an adversary or an ally we can't be this reliant on parts coming from

05:29:11.160 foreign countries that is a huge threat to canada's entire auto sector and and the point

05:29:22.940 especially there that she's underscoring adversary or ally because the point that we had been making

05:29:32.620 and actually we made successfully for example with the 232 steel and aluminum tariffs was those were

05:29:40.100 inappropriately levied against canada by the u.s because we were an ally and so you could rely on

05:29:47.920 us and that point there is saying you know what you shouldn't differentiate between for example

05:29:57.280 canada and china the united states is equally at risk if it has an economic dependency

05:30:04.800 and having u.s elected representatives assert that publicly and connect it to this blockade

05:30:14.640 and say look by relying on canada you're going to lose your job that was very very dangerous for us

05:30:21.920 and i will also just point out um this was a democratic member of the michigan delegation

05:30:31.040 and i think later on um in the tweet representative slotkin talks about being in touch with the white

05:30:38.560 house these were the people that the white house was talking to about this situation but also about

05:30:47.040 the ev incentives and their views mattered very very much and and on the white house point if we

05:30:55.600 look just further down this page uh the last line on this page of the document it's a headline from

05:31:01.360 an article from the detroit news white house worried worries about ambassador bridge blockade

05:31:08.480 and that article we don't need to go through the text but it references a statement by

05:31:13.120 uh then press secretary jen saki uh commenting on uh white house concern

05:31:20.080 and i take it you were aware of the of those comments at the time as well yes i was

05:31:24.880 And so then if we go to February 10th, that's day four of the blockades,

05:31:33.200 Commission Council mentioned earlier that the Department of Finance prepared an economic

05:31:38.160 analysis on February 10th that day, and we looked at it the other day with the Department of Finance

05:31:44.240 officials, and that backgrounder noted that at that time, as of the fourth day,

05:31:54.880 There were auto plant shutdowns at Ford, Stellantis, and Toyota plants that were caused by the Ambassador Bridge blockade.

05:32:08.760 Were you aware of that and were you surprised at how quickly those shutdowns occurred?

05:32:13.520 um i was aware of that and we spoke earlier this morning about my conversation that day the 10th

05:32:24.720 of february with brian deese where he said and i can't recall exactly but something like another

05:32:30.880 12 hours and all the northeast will shut down so i was aware of the impact and at some level

05:32:41.520 i wasn't surprised because i did know i knew two things that the auto sector is so hugely

05:32:49.280 integrated and you know the u.s plants are dependent on us but we're also dependent on

05:32:55.040 the u.s plants those parts go across six times right um so i knew that and the other thing

05:33:03.280 which i think reese mendes spoke to you guys about but is very true is the auto sector operates

05:33:11.040 on a just-in-time production process they don't like to hold big stores of parts because that's

05:33:21.280 expensive and so the industry requires very reliable and very speedy supply chains and if

05:33:32.000 there's a break in them yes it stops production so i knew that intellectually um i would say though

05:33:41.040 at a kind of emotional level, it still, you know, was breathtaking how quickly it had happened,

05:33:52.000 how quickly the effect mounted, how swift the political impact was. And I think that was the

05:33:59.700 case also for the White House. And that was reflected in my Brian Deese conversation where

05:34:05.000 he sort of said, yeah, you've been telling us about the integration, but now I really see it.

05:34:11.040 And so you mentioned you spoke to Brian Deese, and part of that was setting up a call with the president, between the president and the prime minister, which then took place the following day.

05:34:22.880 What was your reaction when you heard that the call, that that call had taken place the next day after you'd begun the process to set it up?

05:34:33.240 So I was glad that the conversation happened because I knew it was important and valuable for the prime minister to have a chance to explain the situation, to discuss the situation directly with the president.

05:34:50.660 So that was good. And I had asked Brian for that call to happen. But at another level, I was quite concerned by how quickly the call was set up, because the speed of response spoke to me about the degree of concern.

05:35:09.900 um we've heard earlier in this proceeding about a statement that was released by governor with

05:35:16.940 governor whitmer on february 10th um there was another a second statement that

05:35:23.580 governor whitmer released on february 11th um and if we could just

05:35:32.300 uh pull that one up it's pb.can.401840

05:35:45.100 and as part of that statement uh governor whitmer said we cannot allow another minute to go by

05:35:52.380 unnecessarily calling on the canadian government to act um was it unusual for the governor for

05:35:58.300 governor whitner to be issuing two statements on the same topic one day after the next uh very

05:36:06.460 unusual and her the content of her statement um was also very striking so she makes the point

05:36:23.420 first of all that she is talking to the white house she's talking to the congressional delegation

05:36:30.940 the people who we've been speaking about there is a real concerted push um and then

05:36:38.620 i can't quite see it um here yeah this um we can't let another minute go by um unnecessarily

05:36:48.780 That was also striking to me and speaks to how I perceived, and I believe rightly, the economic situation, that every minute, every hour counted, that the situation was deteriorating really hour by hour, and Canada was being very harmed.

05:37:16.940 And so that speaks to why I believed, and I think it was the right judgment, we needed to act really swiftly.

05:37:29.200 And if we fast forward then to after the events of January and February, have you heard anything from business leaders since that time about the impacts of the blockades?

05:37:44.860 I have. And I'll give you a couple of examples. PDAC is a big annual Toronto mining conference. If you're in the mining industry, you will have heard of it. It's famous among miners, and Canada is rightly proud to host it every year and to be the mining capital of the world.

05:38:14.860 PDAC this year, because of COVID restrictions, it's normally held in the winter, but it was

05:38:20.440 held in June. And at PDAC in Toronto in June, Jonathan Wilkinson, the Minister of Natural

05:38:27.540 Resources, and I convened a table to talk about critical minerals and metals and electric vehicles.

05:38:37.180 and one thing that really struck me was and we had sort of miners there processors and also car

05:38:47.140 companies and car parts people sort of the full circle of that sector um one of the people there

05:38:54.220 the canadian ceo of a japanese car company um proactively sort of went around the table everyone

05:39:02.000 raised their points about critical minerals and metals and evs and opportunities in canada

05:39:07.020 And this CEO, who is a guy whose job is to get his Japanese headquarters to invest in Canada, and he raised in his remarks, I think it was the first thing he said, I'm still getting questions around the blockades and the occupation.

05:39:30.280 And I need to be able to say to my headquarters in Japan that this is not going to happen again in Canada, that they can be confident that that access to the U.S. market is not going to be impeded.

05:39:48.420 So that was very striking to me, that still in June, even after our action, which worked, there were still those lingering concerns.

05:40:01.640 And it made me glad that we had acted when we did and not later.

05:40:05.680 um and then in just in october uh i was in windsor um which we've heard so much about earlier today

05:40:16.380 um speaking about the economy actually at a big car parts event and one of uh the car

05:40:26.320 industry journalists uh asked me a question um and i'm you know it's it's on the public record

05:40:34.180 exactly what he said, but I'm just recalling broadly. His question was basically, can you

05:40:42.380 offer assurances that something like the convoy and the blockade won't happen again? It continues

05:40:49.040 to be a major concern in the car industry here. And again, I was surprised that someone in October

05:40:59.560 was still asking the question and it was further evidence to me of how serious the threat had been

05:41:12.680 and you know while taking very seriously um the magnitude of our action um and the reluctance

05:41:23.480 that any government should have on ultimately acting as we did that question was a confirmation

05:41:31.400 for me that there was very great harm um that was in the process of being done and i was glad that

05:41:38.920 we acted to stop the harm thank you shifting gears if we talk about the economic measures for

05:41:45.000 My friend from the Government of Alberta put it to you that there was no need to adopt the economic measures,

05:41:56.000 that police had adequate tools to clear the blockades without them.

05:42:02.000 I take it that you did not direct the Commissioner of the RCMP to use any of the tools made available

05:42:12.000 in the Emergency Economic Measures Order?

05:42:15.660 I absolutely did not.

05:42:18.320 And so to the extent that police made use of those tools,

05:42:22.720 that was because they believed in their judgment

05:42:25.280 that it would be a useful thing to do in carrying out their duties?

05:42:32.320 Yes, that would be correct.

05:42:34.560 And have you heard anything from police officers

05:42:37.480 about whether they in fact found those tools to be effective

05:42:40.680 in dealing with the situation i'm not the main person who speaks to or hears from police officers

05:42:48.120 but it is my understanding that the tools were used and that they were effective

05:42:54.840 uh i'd like to ask you a couple more questions about the readout of the february 13th banks call

05:43:01.240 that commission council went through with you earlier this morning. First, commission council

05:43:11.800 took you to the email setting up that call from Tyler Meredith in which he alluded to previous

05:43:19.480 communications with the Canadian Bankers Association in which he relayed that the message from the

05:43:24.760 industry mainly speaking for their legal counsels is that we have this under control

05:43:32.360 and we're generally feeling comfortable with the existing with the current regime i do remember

05:43:37.640 that exchange i remember that exchange from this morning i didn't remember that email from the time

05:43:44.280 but i remember our conversation this morning so my question is just uh

05:43:48.680 in light of your call on february 13th with the bank ceos do you believe that statement

05:43:59.160 as expressed in the email that the banks believe they have the situation under control and are

05:44:06.040 comfortable with the current regime do you believe that was an accurate statement based

05:44:11.000 on the reaction of the bank ceos on that call i didn't write it and i can't remember whether

05:44:17.400 i read it at the time or not but what i can say a hundred percent based on the conversation that i

05:44:25.880 had which i both recorded and remember certainly parts of it with striking kind of branded on my

05:44:35.560 brain clarity is when i spoke to the bank ceos on the sunday they were very very concerned they

05:44:46.680 did not feel the situation was under control we did not discuss with them specific measures

05:44:53.400 i was sort of in listening mode apart from kind of saying to them you know

05:44:58.600 buck up gentlemen and do tell your investors that canada is great um and sort of wanting

05:45:06.520 to give them confidence uh in our leadership but as you have seen from the transcript

05:45:14.680 they volunteered, a number of them, two things. One, grave concern about the economic situation,

05:45:24.520 and two, absolute concern, and I would even say frustration, that the tools available to them

05:45:34.420 were both inadequate. You remember from that transcript, there was the point made of,

05:45:41.060 we tried to get a court order but it took four hours and by the time we tracked it down the

05:45:46.820 money had moved to another account um and then also the concern which i did take seriously

05:45:52.740 about uh the banks being concerned that acting absent some form of government instruction

05:46:04.080 would put them in jeopardy the fox news point that was there and so the the banks were effectively

05:46:10.740 asking for more government regulation? I suppose you could put it that way. And

05:46:19.000 I think what the banks were saying, and not I think, I mean, people can read through the

05:46:27.080 transcript, is they were saying, this is a real threat to our economy, and you, the government,

05:46:34.760 need to act. And I think they were right. And the other thing that I will say there is

05:46:44.540 it's not

05:46:46.020 in the ordinary way of things for leaders of big Canadian businesses to want the government

05:46:59.780 to do more in the economy. I would say quite the contrary. And at this particular moment,

05:47:10.320 the banks had reason to not be so happy about things the government was doing.

05:47:17.260 This followed our election, during which we had campaigned on the 15% COVID recovery dividend,

05:47:24.660 which would be levied on banks and financial institutions, and we had campaigned on a permanent

05:47:29.800 tax on the banks. So I would guess, and you could speak to them, but I would guess that if you had

05:47:38.360 spoken to the bank CEOs at the beginning of January and said, would you like the Liberal

05:47:44.140 government to take a more active position when it comes to economic management of Canada,

05:47:52.680 They would say, no, we wouldn't like that, and we would certainly like them not to impose these taxes.

05:47:59.320 So I just say that because the fact that they were saying the tools were not adequate and you need to do more was particularly compelling to me because they were not a constituency that was inclined to seek strong government action in the economy.

05:48:22.680 Just on the Fox News point that you just mentioned, in the Commission's overview report on fundraising, they trace the flow of funds through the crowdfunding platforms and show that there was a million dollars raised through the GoFundMe campaign that was paid into a TD bank account and that TD froze that account on Thursday, February 10th, so before the phone call.

05:48:48.120 and we uh there's uh so the fox news coverage when it says on the uh readout of there having

05:48:56.520 been fox news coverage that friday of a of an incident you're aware that was in reference to

05:49:02.360 td freezing that uh the million dollars from the gofundme campaign yeah that makes sense

05:49:08.840 um that makes sense that it was barat masrani speaking and uh barat masrani that would be the

05:49:14.600 ceo of td bank yes and uh so the concern was putting on any individual bank the back the

05:49:22.600 potential for backlash of uh public opinion of taking that step yes that was the concern um as

05:49:32.200 we have also discussed already today a concern about tellers um being in jeopardy um and the

05:49:40.440 Fox News reference there is especially significant because many Canadian banks have significant

05:49:49.320 operations in the United States. And so having Fox News attack you isn't a problem only because

05:50:01.380 Canadians might be watching. But if you have a big U.S. operation, it's a problem because your

05:50:07.080 American customers will be watching. And I do think that was a problem that was legitimate

05:50:16.580 to raise, and I was concerned about it. And so just briefly to conclude, earlier you

05:50:23.060 mentioned that you had relied on certain legal advice related to matters connected with this

05:50:29.800 inquiry. I just want to confirm with you, as Deputy Prime Minister, you don't have the authority

05:50:35.540 to waive solicitor client privilege on behalf of the government of canada and you weren't attending

05:50:39.540 intending to do so i was not intending to do so and to be clear i was speaking about the advice

05:50:47.540 we received which i think the commission some of which i think the commission has heard about um

05:50:55.140 earlier from officials thank you those are my questions thank you commissioner

05:51:00.820 Thank you. Any re-examination?

05:51:07.820 No re-examination, Commissioner.

05:51:10.820 Okay, well thank you very much for attending and for your testimony. We know you probably have other things to do but I appreciate your coming here and taking the Commission's work seriously.

05:51:27.820 um i guess i should say thank you very much and i will say to you commissioner and all the lawyers

05:51:36.460 doing this work um i do think it's really important work and it's important for canadians to be able to

05:51:45.100 see and hear you asking the government and other people questions about this very important and

05:51:50.700 serious decision. Okay, thank you. We'll take a short break. It should only be five minutes or so,

05:51:58.860 but I'll, if it takes longer, they'll let me know. Thank you.

Juno News - November 24, 2022

Chrystia Freeland Testifies ｜ Emergencies Act Inquiry

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