Juno News - Katie Telford and Senior PMO Officials Testify ｜ Emergencies Act Inquiry

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 I overdone that.

00:02:23.100 Order alert?

00:02:28.920 the commissioners we can win the commissary plan

00:02:49.400 okay good afternoon mr commissioner shantona showed you for the record

00:02:53.240 our next witnesses are from the prime minister's office

00:02:56.360 mr john broadhead miss katie telford mr brian clow

00:03:03.720 mr clow will you swear on a religious document or do you wish to affirm

00:03:08.520 i will affirm for the record please state your full name and spell it out

00:03:13.320 first name brian b-r-i-a-n last name clow c-l-o-w do you solemnly affirm that the evidence to be

00:03:21.800 given by you to this commission shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do

00:03:26.360 Thank you. Ms. Telford, will you swear on a religious document or do you wish to affirm?

00:03:32.240 A religious document.

00:03:33.500 We have the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah available? 0.53

00:03:35.720 Bible. 0.91

00:03:44.520 Stand.

00:03:46.400 Does it stand?

00:03:52.040 For the record, please state your full name and spell it out.

00:03:54.500 katherine telford k-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e telford t-e-l-f-o-r-d do you swear that the evidence

00:04:03.800 to be given by you to this commission shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but

00:04:07.400 the truth so help you god i do thank you mr broadhead will you swear on a religious document

00:04:14.580 or do you wish to affirm affirm please for the record please state your full name and spell it

00:04:19.040 out john broadhead j-o-h-n-b-r-o-d-h-e-a-d do you solemnly affirm that the evidence to be given

00:04:26.800 by you to this commission shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank

00:04:31.040 you

00:04:44.000 good afternoon thank you for being here um we're just going to start with a couple of routine

00:04:48.240 housekeeping items uh the first of which is introducing your interview summary so you'll

00:04:53.520 recall having sat for an interview with commission council on october 11th of this year and following

00:04:58.800 that interview commission council prepared a summary of the interview have you all three

00:05:03.200 reviewed that summary yes sorry just for the record i know it's a bit difficult with the three

00:05:08.800 of you but uh someone answer yes please yes okay and uh also present at that interview was your

00:05:14.560 colleague mr jeremy broadhurst yes can you confirm that mr broadhurst as well as reviewed that the

00:05:20.720 the summary of the interview yes and that it is accurate according to all all four of you

00:05:25.760 yes perfect um so mr clerk for the record that's wts6083 no need to call it up

00:05:34.320 and then the second small order of business is the pmo institutional report so the prime minister's

00:05:40.160 office prepared an institutional report for these proceedings um that the doc id number of that is

00:05:46.880 doj ir six zeros uh 14 and i just like you to confirm again that that report was prepared by

00:05:53.840 pco and that you have reviewed it and that is it is accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief

00:05:59.120 yes thank you okay um so the first thing i'll say is this is one of the the examinations that we're

00:06:05.280 doing as a panel there are three of you and some of my questions will be directed at one of you

00:06:10.720 specifically because it's something that's within your personal knowledge or a document or a

00:06:15.280 communication that you were involved in and some of them i will throw out more generally and the

00:06:20.400 person best place can answer and you can also feel free if it's appropriate and you have knowledge

00:06:26.240 to add to someone's someone else's answer you're you're free to do that um so the first question i

00:06:32.560 I think I'll address to Ms. Telford, which is just can you explain the mandate and the

00:06:37.320 structure at a very sort of general level of the Prime Minister's office?

00:06:41.240 What does the Prime Minister's office do?

00:06:44.820 The Prime Minister's office, we serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, which is different

00:06:50.040 than our public service colleagues in the sense that job security is a little different.

00:06:57.640 work between between elections as well and many of us though not all of us do take leaves during

00:07:04.120 election campaigns to work on election campaigns um but in between elections and working in

00:07:10.920 government our role is to facilitate information to the prime minister to facilitate his ability

00:07:17.800 to make the best decisions he can to advance the agenda that he was elected on by the canadians

00:07:24.440 So that includes everything from very operational work. So we have teams of tour advanced people,

00:07:31.000 as we call them. We have regional desks who coordinate with stakeholders, including different

00:07:36.280 levels of government in different parts of the country. I'm sure my colleagues can speak to

00:07:42.280 John is our director of policy and can speak to the policy team. Brian Clow is one of two

00:07:49.000 deputy chiefs of staff in the prime minister's office. The other deputy chief of staff is

00:07:53.160 marjorie michelle and um the other chief of staff uh since she's not here is primarily responsible

00:08:00.200 for a lot of the operational elements of the office ranging from human resources because we

00:08:04.600 are an office of uh roughly a hundred and um so the human resources side the public appointments

00:08:11.640 as well there's hundreds and thousands of public appointments that go through government and so

00:08:15.960 we act as a coordinating body in many ways on the political side between ministers offices as well

00:08:22.360 and but our primary job is getting the prime minister the information that he needs getting

00:08:27.160 him the best advice from all parts of government but also from outside of government that he needs

00:08:32.680 to be able to accomplish what he committed to canadians he would do if he were elected

00:08:39.080 and just building on that i'll ask you to explain this telford your specific role as chief of staff

00:08:43.720 and then i'll ask each of your colleagues to do the same so i view my role um in two ways

00:08:50.600 there's the day-to-day management role um so i manage uh the the um the prime minister's office

00:08:57.960 and uh of ex of an extraordinary group of people who work day and night particularly during this

00:09:02.840 time period they did and um so it's all these sort of operational scheduling um and day-to-day

00:09:11.400 management you can imagine of running an office of that size as well as coordinating between

00:09:16.360 other ministers offices as well so we have a weekly chief of staff meeting that involves the

00:09:21.560 chiefs of staff from all of the ministers offices across government as a way of touching base and

00:09:26.760 and sharing information sometimes best practices and then the other the other hat i wear at the

00:09:32.440 same time is being a senior advisor to the prime minister and in terms of bringing him the best

00:09:38.440 advice i can from everywhere i can but also facilitating other people being able to get

00:09:44.680 in front of him and provide him with all the advice and the inputs that he needs to make the

00:09:48.680 best decisions he can for canadians thank you and mr broadhead can you explain your role please

00:09:54.680 sure so as as director of policy um one of the the key pieces of my role is is to kind of work with

00:10:01.000 peace the privy council office very closely to coordinate the cabinet agenda so as you've heard

00:10:05.720 through these proceedings there's that we have many cabinet committees um and so we work with pco

00:10:11.960 to make sure um items are ready to go forward and there's agendas um any any kind of um remaining

00:10:20.920 issues to be sorted out between ministers or departments uh so that's that's one uh we have

00:10:26.200 a team of uh of 14 uh policy advisors so they cover um the all all the departments so they each

00:10:34.200 have policy files so they become um you know the links to the minister's offices as well as to the

00:10:39.320 content experts at pco and other departments and i think in that role we we provide advice

00:10:46.280 to the prime minister on on policy items so whether it's items going to cabinet uh other

00:10:52.680 items such as the budget um our team will often prepare memos along those lines and advise the

00:10:59.000 prime minister on the policy side of these things okay and we're going to come back in a minute to

00:11:04.040 you mentioned pco and we've heard from a few witnesses uh last week from pco um so we're

00:11:09.160 going to come back to the interplay a little bit between your office and pco but first i'll just

00:11:13.160 ask mr cloud to introduce himself and describe his role so i am one of two deputy chiefs of staff as

00:11:18.760 katie laid out and i oversee five teams in the office one is the policy team which john described

00:11:25.800 second is communications team it's it's the largest of the five they do exactly what what

00:11:30.440 their name says press releases all government communications media relations for sure

00:11:36.600 quite a range of activities in that department there's third is the issues management and

00:11:41.240 parliamentary affairs team that's one unit so everything that goes through parliament whether

00:11:45.880 it's legislation votes in the house debates in the house the the pmo parliamentary affairs team

00:11:51.960 engages in that space but they they also focus on issues management which i like to think of it as

00:11:58.520 the government has its proactive agenda which is largely driven out of the policy team

00:12:03.160 and then the issues management team days deals with day-to-day developments what whatever comes

00:12:08.280 at us and so certainly the issues management team was involved in in what's being studied

00:12:12.760 here quite early on and then there are two more units that i oversee their smaller units one is

00:12:17.640 a global affairs team they focus on all any number of international files and finally there's a unit

00:12:23.800 that was created a couple of years ago to deal with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

00:12:30.120 Thank you. And I should mention that the reason you've all been selected to be here today is

00:12:35.560 you were all involved in some way in assisting the Prime Minister in responding to the events

00:12:41.000 of late January and February that are before the Commission. Certainly not just you, but certainly

00:12:46.120 all of you. So just going back to that question of the interplay between PCO and PMO, I'm not

00:12:53.640 sure who's best place to speak to that between the three of you um but mr broadhead you brought

00:12:58.200 it up so maybe we'll start with you so what specifically what is of interest the general

00:13:05.880 relationship so that the lines of communication and the interaction between the public service

00:13:10.520 and the political side and advising the prime minister sure so i'll speak to my experience

00:13:15.480 because i i obviously cover one one part of that uh dynamic and um i interact with primarily two

00:13:22.920 parts of privy council office one is um the kind of uh priorities and planning uh group which is

00:13:28.840 michael vandergrift's group and then the other one is the operations team which is now run by

00:13:33.720 kaylee lebeck plans and priorities is really the the cabinet side and operations is more the the

00:13:40.120 execution and uh of of that so there is i would say a constant um flow of information back and

00:13:47.640 forth um they they provide us advice they convene meetings of departments across the government

00:13:55.640 um they um they really kind of hold the institutional knowledge on many of these

00:14:01.640 files and so we kind of work very closely together to to ensure we're aligned on the on the policy

00:14:07.640 agenda um that things are rolling out um they also have great experience in terms of execution of

00:14:13.880 policy so it's are things getting done are things happening that we brought into play are they still

00:14:19.160 going is it still moving uh so it's a it's a very constant uh and a very important relationship for

00:14:25.320 us mr alford do you have anything to add to that in terms of the lines of communication and in

00:14:30.520 providing advice to the prime minister i would just add that um and i'm sure you heard this from

00:14:35.720 the clerk uh who is who i have primarily the most contact with is with the clerk and the national

00:14:40.920 security and intelligence advisor and to only a slightly lesser degree the deputy clerk and

00:14:45.880 they're also the ones who have the most contact um with the prime minister and so the clerk meets

00:14:52.200 with the prime minister on a very regular basis um often meets with the prime minister and deputy

00:14:56.840 prime minister together and i will attend the majority of those meetings as well um and there

00:15:02.440 is and then and then she and i will talk regularly in between those meetings as well in terms of

00:15:07.880 planning out you know what needs to get covered and what's going on and prioritizing who else we

00:15:13.080 might need in those meetings and so as john said it's a it's a very um regular flow of information

00:15:19.560 back and forth but and that's true for the entire prime minister's office everybody has counterparts

00:15:23.800 of one kind or another on the public service side and um the flow of information is uh is

00:15:31.480 significant um though we do have clearly different roles um in terms of uh what our

00:15:37.240 responsibilities are to the prime minister and uh and of course as i said earlier how we're how

00:15:42.200 we're employed thank you okay um that introduction uh out of the way we'll turn to the the matters

00:15:49.560 before the commission um and starting with the very early days of the convoy can you describe to

00:15:57.240 to us when pmo first became aware that the convoy was a thing that was possibly rolling into ottawa

00:16:04.760 what your initial uh impressions of it were what your sources of information were and the sort of

00:16:10.760 pre-arrival early days so the week of january 17th there were a few interactions um on monday january

00:16:19.720 17th there was a report sent from pco to pmo i think one or two people in in the prime minister's

00:16:26.680 office it might have actually come from a minister's office as a flag that there was some

00:16:30.760 slow roll activity in emerson manitoba at that point though that information was not shared

00:16:36.520 beyond that it was just one of any number of of issues as the week went on though we started to

00:16:41.720 hear more and see more reports of the convoy protest on thursday january 20th there was an

00:16:49.960 email that came from pco to a number of people in pmo that laid out it was an update on the convoy

00:16:55.560 protest i think it was focused on it named three places specifically coots north portal saskatchewan

00:17:02.600 and ottawa and the update also included a press release from the canadian trucking alliance which

00:17:09.080 condemned the convoy activity um specifically proposed unlawful activity which even at that

00:17:15.800 point there what was coming out of the a number of the speakers was proposed unlawful activity

00:17:22.680 and road blockages specifically so it was that week january 17th when we started to hear about

00:17:28.760 this that weekend uh i'd say 22nd 23rd by then it was on everybody's radar the week of the 24th is

00:17:39.400 when the prime minister started to get updated daily on it okay um and that takes us mr clare

00:17:45.000 can you please bring up ssm.can.nsc402578 so mr clove if i take this correctly you were speaking

00:17:54.600 at that point of of pmos sort of monitoring of what was going on and i believe the 25th was the

00:18:00.120 first time uh you got a briefing from the pco so that the in addition to i'll look at this email

00:18:08.200 so there was email traffic and there there would have been phone calls the week of the 17th

00:18:18.120 between pco and pmo but tuesday the 25th i do believe was the first meeting scheduled

00:18:25.960 with pco and pmo staff to to go through all of the elements as were known at that point

00:18:30.920 okay so we're just going to look at what the content of that meeting was mr clerk if you can

00:18:35.480 scroll down keep scrolling okay there we go so this is mike mcdonald and we know can you actually

00:18:42.360 just refresh our memories as to who mike mcdonald is so he works in pco and he's part of the national

00:18:49.080 national security team that's right intelligence secretariat okay so mike mcdonald is explaining

00:18:54.360 and and briefing essentially on what the the state of knowledge there is at the time so he says uh

00:19:00.520 latest lay of the land security coordination national security apparatus what do we know

00:19:06.600 law enforcement across the country is learning more about the convoy and its organizers as they

00:19:12.120 interact with them and then there's some description of where it's coming from

00:19:17.080 the next bullet down says actively monitoring one thing they're picking up on is chatter on social

00:19:22.840 media so far rcmp telling us that the convoy itself is peaceful not causing problems along the

00:19:29.560 way their goal is to get to ottawa not have infractions along the way and then very small

00:19:35.880 online chatter that's where people are using disturbing language mr clerk if you can just

00:19:41.320 keep scrolling to the next page please there we go um following january 6 events last year which is

00:19:49.080 a reference to january 6 in capitol hill in the united states nsia worked with pps rcmp and

00:19:56.680 sergeant at arms for a scenario planning for regular protests push boundaries and plan out

00:20:02.920 for things like an insurrection this has been done then uh ottawa police and pps have an mou

00:20:10.120 have done exercises for these types of protests on the federal side we have governance in place

00:20:16.040 that is up and running adm national security operations center meeting every day to ensure

00:20:21.800 parts of the federal family are coordinated in efforts and can feed information through so

00:20:28.920 does that represent essentially first of all that the content of that briefing as as you were aware

00:20:33.960 of it that day so i wasn't a part of this specific brief but received this email and so i have no

00:20:40.600 reason to believe it doesn't represent what was discussed there but i would say it it's only a

00:20:45.400 piece of the picture of what we were watching at that time there's a reference in there to social

00:20:50.280 media chatter and disturbing comments and by this point it was a very significant issue and getting

00:20:57.640 a lot of coverage in media some of those comments this this email was sent on january 25th which is

00:21:02.440 the same day it was reported in media that some individuals who were planning to participate in

00:21:07.640 the demonstration were saying they wanted this to be there january 6th that's why you see i suspect

00:21:13.800 you see this in this email summary because there were individuals explicitly referencing january

00:21:20.360 6th and at this point as well it was known in public that some people planning to participate

00:21:25.960 in the demonstration had a proposal to replace the government by going to the governor general

00:21:31.160 and the senate and it was it's otherwise known as the mou okay um so just scrolling down a bit

00:21:37.880 again mr clerk there's a comment at the end there so you'll see at the end it says questions question

00:21:42.840 mark zed and i believe that's a reference to zeta astrovis phil blair's chief of staff yes mr blair

00:21:48.200 chief of staff um so she says curious to know how feed into political level from our perspective

00:21:54.680 feel assured having worked in the space of all work being done but ministers feeling on need

00:22:00.360 uneasy and keen on details i'm wondering if you can help us understand what is meant there by

00:22:06.280 sense of unease at the political level

00:22:12.840 i think there at that point there was a lot of conversation going on about what we were seeing

00:22:19.480 and what we thought this was going to be and there were a number of updates coming through

00:22:25.080 like the one you see here but we were also seeing a lot in open source and through the media which

00:22:31.800 was very concerning already mentioned the reference to january 6th so that's what i think this speaks

00:22:37.720 to okay so it is it fair to say then then in in mike mcdonald's email that we just read through

00:22:43.800 the message coming through is essentially well we've planned for this we did some planning after

00:22:48.920 january 6th and things are sort of under control and the machine is operating as it should but then

00:22:54.200 misastrovis raises a concern saying the ministers are actually pretty worried about this so is it

00:22:59.400 fair to say that there was some unease at the ministerial or the political level that that

00:23:04.520 maybe isn't reflected in the briefing yes okay um

00:23:14.760 so then just moving thank you mr clerk you can take that document down

00:23:21.080 so that's the sort of pre-arrival state um is there unless there's anything else you'd like to

00:23:25.480 add about what was going on pre-arrival but then the chronologically the next thing that happens is

00:23:31.240 the convoy arrives and doesn't leave when everyone expected it to do and then we head into

00:23:36.760 the first week of the protests if we can call it that um so i'd like you to pull up now mr

00:23:42.920 clerk ssm.nsc.can402941 and as that's being done maybe i can ask you to just describe to us from

00:23:56.200 your point of view what that first week was like and what was going on from your perspective in

00:24:01.720 in attempting to respond and the notes i'm pulling up here mr clow's notes from a february 3rd meeting

00:24:08.040 which i think can fairly be described as a brainstorming ideas kind of meeting but before

00:24:12.520 we get into the specifics of the notes um can you fill in a bit of the narrative of what was

00:24:18.120 happening when you're thinking and in your office at the time so we watched the convoy arrive not

00:24:29.240 only in ottawa but there was activity in coots very serious activity that first weekend emerson

00:24:35.480 we're starting to see some blockages there it was down to one lane would open up again

00:24:40.440 some trucks would move but there was activity in emerson so this was already a national issue in

00:24:45.240 in the first week and we were we continued to see very concerning statements from some

00:24:51.560 demonstrators including um from demonstrators and organizers that they were not going to leave

00:24:57.960 until the government changed this policy but in that first weekend law enforcement was

00:25:04.680 was responsible local law enforcement i should say and by the end of the weekend it was clear

00:25:09.880 they weren't leaving so i would say concern had increased at the end of the weekend

00:25:13.560 so we in the prime minister's office with pco with minister's offices with caucus with others

00:25:19.320 we were hearing a lot of concern and we were discussing internally and getting updates and

00:25:24.720 sharing information with each other as best we could before this meeting on the third which was

00:25:30.040 well into the second week there there had been a briefing of the prime minister by the national

00:25:35.660 security advisor and the clerk so there were discussions happening what what happened on

00:25:40.820 February 3rd and what these notes reflect is this was a Thursday the second weekend what was

00:25:47.620 approaching and law enforcement had not been able to contain the various protests and in fact in my

00:25:54.840 view they were getting worse so we assembled and basically covered the waterfront what's going on

00:26:01.980 who's talking to who what can we be doing more of what are different provinces and municipalities

00:26:07.260 asking are different provinces and municipalities asking questions that if they aren't asking for

00:26:13.280 support if they aren't can we have a conversation with them to see if they should be asking for

00:26:18.320 support so in these notes you'll see us cover quite a few different ideas thank you and you'll

00:26:24.480 appreciate we have an hour and a half so i'm skipping i know i'm skipping through weeks in

00:26:28.100 chronology very quickly but it's necessary and thank you for filling that in um so here we go

00:26:34.660 February 3rd. There's just a few points that I want to pick out here. So the first notation says

00:26:38.940 JB, that's John Broadhead, Mr. Broadhead? That was Jeremy Broadhurst. Oh, that's Jeremy

00:26:44.020 Broadhurst. Okay, this may get confusing. Jeremy Broadhurst, looks like OPS won't move,

00:26:50.240 weeks, not days, weird reinforcements problem or something reinforcements problem. Weekend

00:26:55.920 reinforcement problem. That makes more sense. Behind scenes, too deferential, need bad cop,

00:27:02.060 You've got to use tools you have.

00:27:04.280 Whether to change public message is different. 0.98

00:27:06.820 And then KT, that's Ms. Talford?

00:27:11.140 Yes.

00:27:11.640 I can't read the first part.

00:27:13.440 The second part says, what, if anything, can we do?

00:27:16.120 What are options?

00:27:16.960 So that's introducing this as a sort of a brainstorming of ideas.

00:27:20.840 And then we'll see a variety of ideas expressed here.

00:27:24.740 Mr. Clerk, can you just scroll down?

00:27:26.960 We see, sorry, just above there.

00:27:28.400 Anyway, we can get Bergen's help.

00:27:30.600 that's a reference to kansas bergen i believe she had just become leader that day okay um and then

00:27:38.680 we have ms astrovis saying blair doesn't want to call slowly but he's open to calling watson

00:27:45.160 and then rfa is a reference to a request for assistance and we're going to come back to these

00:27:49.800 in a moment but ontario could only ask if they have exhausted resources scrolling down again

00:27:55.880 please mr clerk until you get to the bottom of the page so here we have an intervention uh many

00:28:02.680 of the ideas that are expressed here we've already heard about so i'm skipping through them quickly

00:28:06.440 but at the bottom of the page here this is a yasser i believe so that was separate from the

00:28:11.880 meeting we just covered that was a phone call from uh ottawa center mps or nakvi he called me and i

00:28:17.160 wrote down what he told me okay that same day on february same day okay so and what he told you was

00:28:22.920 clearly ottawa police and city are unable to deal with this reinforcements coming this weekend it's

00:28:30.680 going to really embolden these folks my constituents near breaking point worried

00:28:36.920 people will take things into his own hands into their own hands i'm sorry so does that reflect

00:28:41.960 mr cloud what what mr nagfi was expressing to you absolutely and and this was on february 3rd

00:28:48.200 so by this point the ottawa convoy had been here for a full week a full seven days and ottawa

00:28:54.200 residents had experienced a lot and i think you see that reflected in mr knack these comments

00:29:00.200 okay um mr hook we just scroll down to the top of the next page

00:29:11.160 yeah there we go uh so i think this is a continuation of the phone call with mr knack

00:29:17.240 what i heard from slowly plea for help it's a plea for something something political

00:29:22.440 do you recall that reference mr cloud i believe that was a reference to

00:29:27.720 either the day before or earlier that week chief slowly said there was no policing solution

00:29:35.000 that's correct it was it was the day before and what i'm wondering is is can you what was

00:29:38.920 the reaction with within pmo to that statement here we have mr mr knock fees i think

00:29:45.960 interpretation of it which is it's a plea for something and then he says it's a plea for

00:29:50.440 something political does that reflect or was there any thinking among the three of you or

00:29:54.920 among your office within your office about what what chief slowly may have been expressing there

00:29:59.880 it definitely added to the concern of what we were seeing and to hear ottawa police say that

00:30:06.120 this was not a policing solution was very concerning and it told us that this was not

00:30:10.600 going to end anytime soon okay i think we can leave those notes for now thank you mr clark

00:30:17.800 um the next ones we'll pull up

00:30:22.840 well it's actually the same note sorry mr clark

00:30:31.640 keep scrolling down until you see february 6th

00:30:34.680 yeah there we go so fed says p.m february 6 6 to 8 p.m so i i assume this is a meeting that was

00:30:47.880 with the prime minister attended by as it says here the clerk the nsia and then john janice jody

00:30:54.920 sam that would be john broadhead mr broadhead janice is the clerk jody jomas the nsia

00:31:02.520 sam who's who's sam sam cleel is the director of issues management okay and there were probably

00:31:08.440 a few other people on that call not many more i'm confident katie was on that call

00:31:14.040 okay so if we just scroll down then uh until we see ops trying to reduce violence or taking some

00:31:21.400 steps um and then below that coots persists but traffic is moving a b this is alberta asked for

00:31:29.960 rfa we don't see caf uh canadian armed forces being able to help with that do you remember who

00:31:36.920 was making that statement there is this the the nsia's update there mr claire so one to situate

00:31:43.400 this conversation this was sunday february 6th in the evening so the end of the second weekend

00:31:47.960 prime minister was updated just as he was updated the previous sunday because a second weekend had

00:31:53.560 passed and ottawa had worsened and other situations were were becoming more difficult as well and i

00:32:01.320 note the nsa reported that 11 bc community communities have protests 35 across the country

00:32:08.760 so i i can't tell from the notes if that comment was jody thomas's comment of the one you asked

00:32:15.960 about but it looks like it was part of a list of updates from jody thomas were these briefings

00:32:21.960 happening daily there were multiple conversations happening daily at this point

00:32:29.320 and there were interactions with the prime minister every day at this point in some way or another

00:32:34.040 but this specific construct of a meeting with the clerk national security intelligence advisor and

00:32:39.640 staff didn't happen every day but it happened with increasing frequency okay um so the next point

00:32:45.320 that we want to look at here is is right at the bottom of the page here on that's a reference to

00:32:51.880 ontario pushed back and then uh the notation is pm established list of mandates i can't read the

00:33:00.520 next word something vaccines jim's vaccines all provincial okay and then under that it says dm

00:33:08.520 for solgen so that would be deputy minister deputy solicitor general pushed back um and that takes

00:33:14.760 us to an issue that we canvassed a bit here in the commission so far and i'd like to get your

00:33:20.440 perspective on this afternoon which is what was going on in those early days of the protest the

00:33:26.360 first week and first week and a half in terms of interaction between various levels of government

00:33:32.600 and the federal and provincial aspects and especially uh ontario's response or or perhaps

00:33:38.600 lack of response if we can characterize it that way mr broadhead i believe this is probably best

00:33:43.720 put to you within your purview sure i can start and then um folks can add in um so i would i would

00:33:51.880 say there was uh lots of conversations happening at this point with various governments at the

00:33:59.160 officials level at the political level across the country as as we tried to make sure we were

00:34:06.280 hearing from them on what was happening on the ground uh and making sure we had those that that

00:34:12.200 intelligence um i think with respect to ontario specifically i think there there was at the uh

00:34:19.720 outset um a different approach to uh to this uh um to the strategy uh and i i think as we get to

00:34:31.160 we were quite keen on this idea of a tripartite table that minister blair had um had been working

00:34:37.400 on and uh we thought that was a good way of getting everybody at the table making sure

00:34:42.200 resources were aligned making sure everyone uh looked each other in the eyes and uh and work

00:34:48.120 together and at that time ontario um was not as keen on that approach i don't really want to

00:34:55.320 you know speculate for what the solicitor general or deputy minister solicitor general uh

00:35:00.280 at this point wasn't um but from my conversations with them they did want to have ottawa the city

00:35:05.960 of ottawa and and the ottawa police service kind of play the lead role and and we're not as um

00:35:11.880 interested at that time in the the collaborative tripartite approach that that we were interested

00:35:18.040 in okay um uh mr clerk can you take those notes down for a second and pull up ssm.nsc.can403015

00:35:27.400 please. So Mr. Broadhead, I think this is a text that goes to the point you were just elucidating.

00:35:50.360 So we don't have a confirmed date for this one, but it must be February 8th. Thank you.

00:35:57.000 um and this is a text between you and ms astrovis a text exchange and uh she says to you like she's

00:36:03.880 in the blue here marco that's a reference to minister mendicino hasn't heard back from sylvia

00:36:09.240 jones that's a reference to uh the solicitor general of ontario on the meeting with the

00:36:13.960 three orders of government reference to the tripartite and you say yeah because they don't

00:36:18.440 want to be a part of it and she says oh i know and you say so anything i should do

00:36:24.600 we should just go ahead without them and then it goes on so can you contextual contextualize that

00:36:30.120 for us a little bit yeah as they were getting kind of pushed back and or just not support uh

00:36:38.280 from their counterparts the solicitor general particular they had asked me to connect with

00:36:43.080 my contact in the premier's office and to just check and see if if was this something that

00:36:49.880 the entire government or this minister just to kind of ascertain some of those

00:36:53.560 kind of contextual details so i did uh i chatted with with uh jamie wallace and it was clear that

00:37:00.760 that they were kind of they had a different approach and strategy um and the tripartite

00:37:06.040 table was not a priority for them at that time sorry who is jamie wallace sorry jamie wallace

00:37:10.760 is the chief of staff to premier ford okay so you had a conversation with mr wallace chief

00:37:15.240 of staff to premier ford and the message coming back to you was uh was this was not a strategy

00:37:21.480 they wanted to pursue at this time was there any reason given for that um it was i um you know i

00:37:29.240 think you know my recollection of that conversation was it was really they they wanted ottawa to be

00:37:37.080 the main uh driver of this and and did not want a kind of multi-governmental approach to this at

00:37:43.560 that time that that was the impression i got from that phone call okay

00:37:50.200 were you having interactions during this time with counterparts in other provinces as well

00:37:55.640 yeah so so previously previous to being a director of policy which i started in january um i was

00:38:02.360 senior advisor with a focus on intergovernmental affairs and so through that i got to work closely

00:38:09.480 with with a number of the provinces um the three i was having most contact with one was

00:38:15.720 yeah was british columbia because they were chair of the council of federation at the time so that

00:38:19.640 was an ongoing active discussion generally and i want to be clear not just about this for example

00:38:27.080 mr wallace and i were working on child care very actively at this time as well and other other

00:38:31.960 issues uh were very uh would come up so um and then other provinces as well but the other part

00:38:39.960 of our our pmo which is important in this is the regional desks uh who don't report to me they're

00:38:45.640 part of the operations team they have g they have geographical areas of responsibility so they're

00:38:52.600 often in touch with provinces and cities and we have kind of information sharing between us

00:38:57.880 So I'm in touch with them a lot there. They let me know when things are happening. I do, I do as well. So I know that from in those times, there was a lot of informal contact, as well as obviously from ministers and officials.

00:39:11.880 Okay, and we may come back to some of those interactions. But we'll stick to Ontario for now. Mr. Clerk, can you pull up SSM.nsc.can402935?

00:39:27.880 So, Ms. Talford, this is a text exchange between you and Minister Dominique Leblanc, who we

00:39:50.760 know is the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

00:39:53.940 And he writes to you and says, just got this from Vandergriff. So that's a reference to his deputy minister, Michael Vandergriff. Minister, want to let you know that the Ontario Solicitor General has again declined the invitation to attend the tripartite meeting today on the Ottawa occupation. And you say, I think we need to shine a light on that. He says, we'll say it.

00:40:15.320 Can you explain to us what was going on in this text message and what you meant by, I think we need to shine a light on that?

00:40:23.940 so i think this was a continuation of what john was just talking about this was um obviously a

00:40:29.940 further attempt at a meeting with the three levels of government and ontario was continuing to decline

00:40:35.780 um i don't recall when he says we'll say it um where that meant uh but it it putting myself back

00:40:45.700 in that time i think when i'm saying we should shine a light on it it's bringing some attention

00:40:50.420 to the fact that uh ontario wasn't at the table and we really did believe it would be a more

00:40:55.940 efficient and effective way to work would it be fair to say that there was some frustration

00:41:01.060 um with ontario's response at this point there was definitely some frustration because we believed

00:41:07.300 it could be easier than it was all things being very relative at that time but um but there was

00:41:12.980 ongoing communication with ontario bilaterally throughout it just meant that the conversations

00:41:17.620 were happening between ottawa and the federal government the federal government in ontario

00:41:22.020 ontario and so there were just numerous bilateral conversations that we just thought could have been

00:41:27.620 um better handled and more efficient if we could have all just come together because as i know has

00:41:33.380 come up uh throughout the inquiry there was a fair bit of confusion around numbers and requests and

00:41:39.780 the rfas the way they work the request for um assistance they do need to go through the

00:41:44.740 provincial level of government and so not having them as part of the conversation made things

00:41:49.700 that bit more complicated that's fair um mr clerk can you please pull up ont50159

00:42:02.980 so i'm going to ask you here about a meeting that was held on on february 6th uh that was

00:42:08.340 a sort of tripartite but not quite uh between the city of ottawa federal government and provincial

00:42:14.020 government and the exchange i'm going to take you to we've seen this document several times in the

00:42:18.420 commission so i'm not going to go through the whole thing but at the end of the the document

00:42:22.580 there's an exchange between the national security advisor and the deputy solicitor general of ontario

00:42:27.700 that i'd like to get your take on so it's february 6 and 11 o'clock meeting attended by officials from

00:42:35.220 three levels of government so mr clerk if you can scroll down to the very bottom of the document

00:42:44.020 You'll see it says there, Jody Thomas, National Security Advisor, noted that it was a positive

00:42:51.680 meeting and regrets to end on this following point.

00:42:55.660 Would the province be looking to the federal government if this protest was happening outside

00:43:00.200 the city of Ottawa, e.g. happening in other places like Kingston?

00:43:04.500 And the response from Mr. Di Tommaso was, this is a protest, an encampment moving against

00:43:09.480 federal mandate on trucks they came across they came to ottawa from across the country for that

00:43:15.560 purpose now mr g tomaso testified at the commission approximately two weeks ago and uh he expressed

00:43:23.160 that in his view ms thomas's he he interpreted ms thomas's comment as i'll quote the words here

00:43:30.200 the federal government wanting to wash its hands of the entire matter um and so i'd just like to

00:43:36.200 get your reaction in in terms of whether you think that was a fair assessment of what was going on

00:43:41.720 uh whether you think that that was what what was being expressed there and um what ms thomas was

00:43:48.360 trying to express when she said would this be would the province be looking to the federal

00:43:52.440 government if this was somewhere other than ottawa i might um start like i don't i'm not putting too

00:44:02.760 much weight into this like as i read it and i wasn't there but this strikes me as frustration

00:44:09.160 and a bit of a back and forth and that frustration happening and and and both sides kind of

00:44:14.440 articulating some of that frustration i think um we were trying to look for ways to work together

00:44:21.320 there were three levels of government and it was um it was a challenge to get these these these

00:44:29.080 machines um working in the right direction i think this is a this back and forth is a

00:44:35.880 would be my guess would be this is an outcrop of just a frustration around those those levels

00:44:41.080 of government and the and the two different approaches that i've outlined before fair enough

00:44:45.960 and you can appreciate that one of the issues that the commission is is looking into is is

00:44:50.120 the interaction between governments and and which is not always an easy thing but um how it all

00:44:55.400 played out here okay um so eventually um around this time around the time of february 7th 8th 9th

00:45:04.600 ontario became more engaged when the ambassador bridge blockade became entrenched and

00:45:10.200 And so we know that that has happened and I'll take you with that point too.

00:45:17.200 um

00:45:39.200 the witness summary i'm sorry mr clerk it's uh

00:45:43.200 wts six zeros 14 page 11.

00:46:02.720 oh i'm sorry 83 i'm sorry i got the wrong number 83. 14 is the ir

00:46:13.200 So if we scroll down to page 11, please, Mr. Clerk.

00:46:29.820 Keep scrolling, keep scrolling, okay, scroll up a bit, please.

00:46:41.140 i'm looking for is the panel was asked what in their view could be that i have the wrong page

00:46:47.500 number while they're looking for the reference mr broadhead what i what i want to ask you about is

00:47:01.740 what in in your view you were asked this during the interview and i'd like you to elaborate on it

00:47:07.660 what inspired the shift from ontario why did it happen then and um and how did that occur

00:47:13.820 and i'll preface my answer by saying this is me not in the government of ontario which i

00:47:22.240 i did spend a long time in the government ontario but i was not there at this point

00:47:25.320 um i i think it uh in a in a sense um it started to become absolutely clear that we had to work

00:47:36.600 together so it was almost the the increase of of things happening so you add the ambassador bridge

00:47:42.360 to the ottawa situation you have other things starting to happen around the province um

00:47:48.840 in new windsor sarnia cornwall and in all i i think it became clear and i'm hypothesizing here

00:47:54.440 that um but we did see an evolution of their strategy at that time in terms of at the political

00:48:01.000 level collaboration i think there's lots going on in other places that i don't want to comment to

00:48:05.960 but just that's what i i can specifically comment to okay and we know that there were several

00:48:11.560 important phone calls that happened around that time um certainly between the prime minister and

00:48:17.240 and premier ford which we'll talk about tomorrow when the prime minister is here

00:48:21.240 uh between minister leblanc we talked about when minister leblanc was here um

00:48:28.120 leaving ontario for a moment and talking about engagement with other provinces

00:48:32.360 um i do want to ask you some questions about another topic that's come up several times here

00:48:36.680 which is alberta's request for assistance so i'm going to put to you a few facts that that we know

00:48:44.200 and that have come out already at the at the commission and that are also brought out in the

00:48:48.840 pmo institutional report um so there's a notation in the in your ir that pmo staff engaged with

00:48:56.440 pam livingston so mr mr broadhead maybe you can tell us who pam livingstone is

00:49:01.400 pam livingston at the time was chief of staff to the premier kenny okay and there were two

00:49:06.760 interactions apparently between pmo and ms livingston about the alberta request for assistance

00:49:13.880 and that request for assistance we've seen several times before so no need to pull it up

00:49:18.360 but was for essentially assistance in in tow trucks and removing vehicles from the coots blockade

00:49:25.080 There's also a notation that the Prime Minister had a formal call on February 6th with Minister Blair

00:49:32.160 to discuss Alberta's request for assistance and the ongoing situation.

00:49:37.240 And then I'm going to ask the Clerk to pull up Mr. Cloud's notes again,

00:49:41.420 ssm.nsc.can402941.

00:49:54.440 So this is the notation I said we'd come back to. This is the meeting that you're having with the Prime Minister on February 6th. And the notation. There it is. Thank you. Coutts persists, but traffic is moving. Alberta asked for RFA. We don't see CAF being able to help with that.

00:50:19.220 So at that point, it's apparently been concluded or decided in some form that the Canadian Armed Forces is unable to assist. Is that correct, Mr. Klaff?

00:50:28.180 So the RFA came in the day before that, and it immediately spurred a number of conversations with different offices.

00:50:34.980 Ministers were consulted, and the Prime Minister was consulted on a few different occasions about this.

00:50:40.200 And yes, there was a general sense that CAF should be a last resort.

00:50:45.360 But also in this specific case, I think you've heard from other witnesses as well, but at the time, the discussion was that this was not an appropriate or even useful response to what the problem was.

00:51:02.600 And what I mean by that was, were these trucks actually going to be able to do the job?

00:51:06.480 That was all part of the discussion that ensued after the request came in on the 5th.

00:51:11.340 What I'm really wondering about all of these exchanges, and there was a further meeting apparently on the 9th where, again, this time it was Ms. Telford, Ms. Charette, the Prime Minister, and Ministers Leblanc, Mancino, and Blair all discussing the RFA during one of the meetings that was held.

00:51:31.740 Why was this RFA treated quite differently than most are?

00:51:35.980 This was elevated to the level of the PMO and the prime minister,

00:51:40.080 which most requests for assistance are not.

00:51:42.240 Can you explain or elaborate on that?

00:51:46.760 Just, and you might want to add to this,

00:51:48.460 but we are usually made aware of requests for assistance

00:51:52.780 wherever they're going in government.

00:51:57.380 And in this case, we were obviously following everything

00:52:00.340 to do with the blockades and the occupation very very closely and in this case because the the

00:52:06.660 feedback from departments was coming that there wasn't a way to help and our in our what we were

00:52:12.500 trying to do was support anybody who needed assistance on the ground um and so if alberta

00:52:18.180 was asking for help we wanted to be able to support them so it just led to a lot of conversations it

00:52:24.020 kind of comes to the role that our office often plays of coordination and facilitation because

00:52:28.260 we then started reaching out and asking questions of other departments saying does anyone else have

00:52:33.060 the equipment that they might be looking for it may not be appropriate for calf and they may not

00:52:37.060 have the equipment um but uh but is there that equipment somewhere else that could be found so

00:52:43.060 i think as is in the interview summary you know we even went so far as to say does parks canada

00:52:47.380 have this kind of thing um because the goal was to be able to assist if we could maybe if i can

00:52:54.900 just add i think you know we also looked at can we reimburse if they find them privately can can

00:53:01.220 should we reimburse that so it was it was it and and i kind of pushed back a little bit on that

00:53:07.380 this rarely happens like in in a case where the process comes through and it goes to the minister

00:53:15.540 and it's it's a i've known of other cases where it was like no we can't assist um the minister's

00:53:25.380 office will often flag it to us and we'll ask questions about well if we explored this and i

00:53:31.540 can i can remember other instances where where that was a case where we just pushed more to find

00:53:37.220 other solutions that in the in the kind of narrow band of the rfa process they may not have thought

00:53:42.660 okay that's fair it's a the request for assistance that we're dealing within the commission it's the

00:53:47.620 only one that we've seen this pattern in but that's fair explanation okay um i'm gonna want

00:53:52.420 to shift gears now and talk about uh what you were hearing during this process with various

00:53:59.620 uh stakeholders and interlocutors both nationally and internationally um so mr clow i'll start with

00:54:06.580 you um we know you had a few conversations with uh a man named juan gonzalez who's the special

00:54:13.300 advisor to president biden can you tell us about those conversations and what you were hearing

00:54:17.700 from him yes so i heard from juan gonzalez he is part of the national security team in the white

00:54:23.140 house and we'd interacted on a few files um before the convoy protests and he reached out i believe

00:54:31.780 on wednesday february 9th at that point it was a request to connect national security intelligence

00:54:39.620 advisor jody thomas with the white house homeland security advisor to urgently discuss the windsor

00:54:47.220 blockade but also other border blockades that were in effect at that time so juan and i had a bit of

00:54:52.820 back and forth about that that then led to a number of conversations some of which you heard

00:54:58.740 about this morning from the deputy prime minister um but there were there were various interactions

00:55:04.100 between the prime minister's office pco several ministers offices and their counterparts in the

00:55:09.220 united states in the white house and different departments in the united states because they

00:55:14.580 became seized with the border blockades that were impacting them quite significantly so you mentioned

00:55:19.540 that we heard this morning from the deputy prime minister that she was hearing a lot of concern

00:55:23.380 from officials in the United States about what was going on

00:55:27.140 and some encouragement, if we can put it that way,

00:55:30.020 to bring a swift end, given the impact this was going to have

00:55:33.800 on Canada-US relations and trade.

00:55:36.920 Were you hearing similar concerns from the people you were talking to

00:55:41.780 in the United States and or in other countries?

00:55:44.720 Absolutely.

00:55:45.680 And the concern was not only about trade, economics, dollars and cents.

00:55:50.500 It was for sure.

00:55:51.560 But there was also a discussion in many of these conversations, including between the Prime Minister and the President, that both countries were facing similar forces in certain ways.

00:56:02.780 For example, the United States also saw some convoy activity.

00:56:07.040 I think it was dealt with quite quickly by the Americans, but they saw a trucker protest heading to the Super Bowl.

00:56:14.300 There was one that was trying to be assembled to head to Washington, D.C.

00:56:17.840 So these were a part of the conversations as well.

00:56:19.920 It was viewed as a shared problem.

00:56:22.420 But for sure, the immediate issue was the blockades at various border crossings, especially Windsor, and how do we sort these out quickly.

00:56:30.020 And we understand you also had some conversations with Ambassador Hillman, Ambassador to the United States.

00:56:35.800 Can you tell us about those conversations?

00:56:37.960 Well, she was one of the key principals having interactions with the White House and various departments in the United States.

00:56:44.440 and the substance you know one example of substance within those conversations was how

00:56:51.620 can we introduce measures to end the blockades or or at least dissuade them from growing and

00:56:59.040 from new ones from popping up for example there was discussion of potential immigration measures

00:57:04.220 or penalties placed on people who conducted unlawful activity at these border blockades

00:57:09.080 there was definitely discussion of whether the united states could provide tow trucks to help

00:57:14.320 given it was virtually impossible to get tow trucks on the Canadian side of the border.

00:57:19.040 So that's the kind of thing that was discussed.

00:57:20.960 Did that ever end up happening?

00:57:25.540 I don't know.

00:57:26.620 So the immigration measures, I don't believe the United States implemented any measures.

00:57:30.680 We did in the Emergencies Act.

00:57:34.220 In terms of tow trucks being provided by the United States,

00:57:37.180 there might have been some in Detroit, Windsor, provided by Detroit or the government of Michigan.

00:57:42.260 I'm not sure about that.

00:57:44.320 Mr. Broadhead, Ms. Telford, were either of you having conversations with international counterparts? No?

00:57:52.100 Not during the occupation or when the blockades were on.

00:57:56.440 For months afterwards, I can say, including up until recent summits, though, this is a topic that continues to come up with counterparts from various countries.

00:58:07.020 And the prime minister also had calls during the occupation with other world leaders where this was a topic that was coming up because they were they were watching what was happening in Canada and concerned that they were starting to see the same thing in some of their countries and they were concerned about copycat situations.

00:58:23.820 So this has been an ongoing conversation with international leaders.

00:58:27.020 I would just add as well, another feature of all of the conversations between the Americans and us, including the call between the Prime Minister and the President, was the fact that a lot of the support for the unlawful activity here in Canada was coming from the United States in terms of money, in terms of people, and in terms of political support from some of the most prominent U.S. political figures.

00:58:49.220 millions of dollars came in from the united states according to published reports chief slowly

00:58:55.780 announced that there were american citizens who had traveled to join the occupation in ottawa

00:59:01.620 so that was also a feature of the discussions here the flooding of 911 phone lines here in ottawa

00:59:06.840 came largely from americans as as announced by chief slowly and the ottawa police so

00:59:12.580 this was very much a shared problem and we were talking about it in that sense we've heard about

00:59:18.660 some of that already at the commission um you speak of the foreign funding and we explored that

00:59:23.140 a bit this morning with the deputy prime minister and it was it was found in the end that there were

00:59:28.820 millions of dollars coming from um from the united states from private donors so there was no foreign

00:59:35.220 state funding coming in would you agree with that yes okay um and we've also established that there

00:59:42.740 there was little information available to the government at the time of the convoy

00:59:48.220 of how much money was coming in from the United States.

00:59:51.440 That wasn't really information that was available to the government at the time.

00:59:55.300 Would you agree with that?

00:59:56.240 It definitely became more apparent as time passed, and I totally agree with you.

01:00:00.920 It is cloudy and unclear, and it's concerning that it happened.

01:00:07.400 But one example I would give, I mean, we felt quite strongly at the time that it was happening.

01:00:13.800 And proof of that, I would say, is when GoFundMe paused the account, you saw some of the most prominent American political figures attack GoFundMe.

01:00:24.260 And they didn't do that for no reason.

01:00:27.000 They did it because it was clear to them and it was clear to us that a lot of the funding was coming from Americans.

01:00:34.200 Okay. So you've taken me to what I actually wanted to ask you about, which is one thing we haven't heard much about so far is political commentary coming from the United States. So you mentioned prominent political figures who are weighing in on all of this. Can you tell us about some of that, some of what you were hearing or observing on that front?

01:00:53.420 the issue there there were there were a number of examples from senators from governors from

01:01:00.500 the former president and the issue there is not that individuals and politicians aren't allowed

01:01:06.660 to comment on politics and policies in other other countries it happens all the time but the

01:01:12.060 concern for us was it was direct encouragement for unlawful activity that was hugely damaging

01:01:18.000 to the country including the border blockades so that's that's why i raise it here and that's why

01:01:22.980 the president the prime minister spoke about it it was the support for unlawful activity okay um

01:01:30.900 mr clerk can can you please pull up mr clow's notes again so that's ssm.nsc.can402941

01:01:38.660 Remarkably effective note taker.

01:01:53.340 Now it's going to be a little challenging to find the page here because we don't have

01:01:57.040 a date for it, so just keep scrolling down until you see talked about the Emergencies

01:02:07.300 Act.

01:02:08.300 So scroll down again, please scroll down.

01:02:23.300 Keep scrolling.

01:02:29.300 Keep scrolling.

01:02:37.300 Keep going. I think it's just after this. Keep going, please.

01:02:56.300 There's a lot of blackout in this, so it's a little challenging.

01:03:00.300 Oh, we're at the FMM already. So it must be before that.

01:03:07.300 I think I saw it.

01:03:10.300 Did you?

01:03:11.300 A few pages up. Yeah.

01:03:12.300 Can you zoom out a little bit, please, Mr. Quirk, so we can see?

01:03:16.300 Thanks.

01:03:17.300 Keep going up a little bit.

01:03:27.300 so a little bit further up a little bit further so i think you see yeah there we go okay so first

01:03:36.020 question we don't have a date on this because it's sort of there's some blackout before that but

01:03:40.080 do you remember the date of this mr claude i believe it was february 9th okay so it's a meeting

01:03:45.040 on february 9th and um this is various things happening over the course of the day why don't

01:03:49.940 you tell us one meeting why don't you tell us what was happening so february 9th was there were

01:03:56.280 a few conversations going on. I don't specifically remember what meetings at what times, but

01:04:02.240 I did write down and it was reported to us that Minister Blair had spoken to the clerk

01:04:08.240 about the Emergencies Act. And that was in the lead up, I think just one day before the

01:04:15.100 incident response group meeting where the Emergencies Act was discussed in some detail

01:04:19.500 in addition to other things. So this was just a report to us that that conversation had happened

01:04:24.780 between the minister and the clerk okay so around february 9th we're getting to the point as we know

01:04:28.940 where the federal government um felt a need to perhaps intervene in the situation and and uh

01:04:35.420 and bring this to a close in some way so as you say uh blair spoke to the clerk and talked about

01:04:41.420 the emergencies act on the options can you just read read your handwriting there didn't commit on

01:04:47.260 the options emergency could be peace if that sounds like we have authority then a reference

01:04:53.580 to natalie the deputy clerk and i see this as discussions are happening about how we can help

01:05:03.820 what more we can be doing and the emergency that could be a piece of that okay and we know that

01:05:12.380 the following day the prime minister convened the first incident response group meeting yes so i'd

01:05:18.460 like to tell us a bit about that meeting the decision to convene the irg and what that meant

01:05:23.820 um in the prime minister's eyes in your eyes and what an irg really is

01:05:31.180 um i think as the clerk may have spoken to already and i think as these notes show too

01:05:37.100 the meetings were becoming increasingly frequent with added ministers and different departments

01:05:44.540 getting involved because of the request for assistance um amongst a growing number of

01:05:51.180 blockades now as well as protests in different parts of the country and the occupation of course

01:05:57.260 is now really entrenched in ottawa um and so as we were having these meetings the clerk i believe

01:06:04.700 advised the prime minister though it made it made good sense to the group of us at the time as well

01:06:09.500 that it was time to formalize our structure moving forward and that we were at a point

01:06:14.300 of national crisis. And that's what the incident response group is put together for. It was

01:06:18.800 a group that was it was a cabinet committee that was created, I believe, in the first

01:06:24.720 mandate of the government midway through. And it is chaired by the prime minister. It

01:06:31.100 does not have a set permanent membership. It is it is convened with the ministers appropriate

01:06:37.500 to whatever the incident is um that is being discussed and the thing that makes it very

01:06:42.620 different from other cabinet committees is where in another cabinet committee uh that it tends to

01:06:48.220 be policy focused in a little longer term this is obviously dealing with something um in real time

01:06:54.460 and something that's a crisis like in nature um but the the structural difference too is that

01:07:01.740 officials lead, in many ways, the conversations within the IRG meetings space, and they are

01:07:08.880 right at the table. So whereas at a cabinet committee meeting, the ministers would be

01:07:12.920 sitting around the cabinet table and the officials might be sitting to the side, they may very

01:07:17.560 well be making presentations, and then the ministers would be discussing those presentations

01:07:21.300 or they might speak up to make clarification when their ministers call on them for that

01:07:26.240 clarification. At an IRG meeting, the principal presenters are officials. And so whether it's the

01:07:33.860 NSIA, whether it's the commissioner of the RCMP, whether it was the head of CSIS, depending on the

01:07:39.140 incident in past, it might be the CAF and the chief of defense staff. And then the ministers

01:07:45.340 are called on by the prime minister to add anything that they might see as not having been

01:07:50.980 covered, to add any thoughts they have on the basis of the information that's been presented.

01:07:56.240 but they are all sitting around the same table which makes it quite a different meeting than

01:08:00.880 than really any other and what's the purpose of that why is an irg structured like that

01:08:05.200 with direct input from officials i think um for a number of reasons it's their expertise um and

01:08:13.040 getting it in real time to the prime minister and uh and to the to the ministers and things are

01:08:18.800 moving very quickly um and it's uh so it's an efficiency and an effective kind of tool to bring

01:08:26.720 everybody to that same table and convene the leadership of the different security agencies

01:08:31.680 for whatever the security incident is and to hear from people directly okay so essentially you remove

01:08:38.480 the sort of the layering up and instead the prime minister has direct access to all of the inputs

01:08:43.920 that uh that you may want or need as do all of the other ministers because they then get to hear

01:08:49.760 from directly from the heads of the different agencies or law enforcement uh heads okay fair

01:08:55.920 enough um so we've been through the content of many of the irgs one theme i want to pick up with

01:09:05.200 you is something that was eventually brought to the irg on february 12th but um uh has been a

01:09:12.960 discussion at the commission throughout which was the idea of whether the the prime minister or

01:09:18.800 anyone from the federal government should engage with the protesters and attempt to bring this to

01:09:24.720 a close through either some sort of negotiation some engagement some speaking um so the first

01:09:31.760 thing i'll bring up on that point is mr clerk it's pb dot can dot four zeros 1184.

01:10:01.760 It might be 1844, sorry.

01:10:18.380 Ms. Dulford, this is a text exchange on February 6th between you and Minister Manichino.

01:10:24.160 so it's it's early days because as i said this theme of of interaction negotiation

01:10:30.960 is uh something that came up okay can we scroll down please mr clerk

01:10:41.360 going keep going

01:10:47.600 going

01:10:54.160 Page eight, please.

01:10:58.880 Okay, here we go.

01:11:00.200 So if we can blow that up, it's really hard to read,

01:11:03.160 but you'll see a notation here,

01:11:05.220 lawyer, arbitrator, mediator, author,

01:11:08.540 suggested by Anne McClellan as a possible interlocutor.

01:11:12.060 Again, I think it's a long shot

01:11:13.700 for the reasons we discussed.

01:11:15.520 Also, I noticed after we hung up

01:11:17.920 that we didn't even spend a moment on politics and readiness.

01:11:20.860 Okay, so that part of it

01:11:23.180 not be all that relevant but can you do you remember this tax exchange miss dalford

01:11:28.940 now that i see it okay and you remember the idea of discussing a possible interlocutor

01:11:34.780 at that point and what was going on can you fill that in for us please look i think over the course

01:11:41.180 of right from the beginning of the occupation um when it became an occupation uh there were

01:11:47.980 numerous people who were trying to suggest anything they could to try to find a way to assist and i

01:11:54.940 think that's what ann was doing here um and uh i've received and i believe it's it's part of

01:12:01.180 the documents as well that you've you've received i received suggestions from numerous other people

01:12:06.620 as well uh mps were raising names with us uh there were suggested names of mps from other parties who

01:12:13.980 who were coming forward wondering if they could help there was there was a lot of people that

01:12:18.460 were trying to find a way um to figure out if an engagement could work and no one was able to take

01:12:26.060 it past that first thought and so um no one could figure out who they should talk to there was no

01:12:34.620 clear leadership on the other side there was no clear understanding of what they would even be

01:12:38.700 talking about uh the police were already as we were being informed through the incident response

01:12:45.100 groups they were already engaging at a at a certain level and so it wasn't clear what this

01:12:51.420 engagement strategy would be um let alone if it could have any effect and you know i think there's

01:12:57.980 a difference too between engagement um and negotiation and the prime minister and the

01:13:04.140 cabinet the government wasn't prepared to negotiate public health measures that were rooted in science

01:13:10.860 um i'm not i also am not sure and i think a lot of people weren't sure at the time that really

01:13:18.060 that that's what this was all about and so figuring out what the topic of the conversation

01:13:22.860 could be let alone who it could be with that could have any effect on changing the circumstances

01:13:28.780 when no one could answer that question really these conversations couldn't didn't move past

01:13:34.140 the initial suggestion of i wonder if okay so at this point this is part of the conversation

01:13:39.340 we're still in sort of early days of the protest and i think you're what you're taking us to now

01:13:43.580 is um what what's come to be known as the engagement proposal and we've heard some

01:13:47.660 evidence on that and mr clerk you can take that one down please and pull up following

01:13:53.580 SSM.nsc.can402958. So, Ms. Telford, I think what you've just been referencing has been

01:14:04.980 canvassed before the commission a bit, and it's Mr. Deputy Minister Stewart's engagement

01:14:10.980 proposal that he prepared with the assistance of Marcel Bowden from the OPP PLT. And this

01:14:19.500 is now we're the evening of february 11th it's a text that mr minister mendicino sent to you

01:14:26.620 saying hey there we got some very last minute and thin paper tonight on an engagement strategy

01:14:31.740 uh from my deputy minister apparently socialized it with several people including the ontario

01:14:37.820 government not me and we'll just scroll down and see the rest of the text please

01:14:43.420 um he says it's unclear whether pco or cmp or ontario supports this but he's flagging this as

01:14:50.460 a concern uh about information flow and then he says at the bottom sorry but had to let you know

01:14:56.860 um marco um so can you tell us a bit from your perspective we've heard mr minister mendicino's

01:15:03.260 perspective on it but what was your perspective receiving this text and do you know why mr

01:15:09.260 minister medicina was essentially apologizing saying sorry i'm just letting you know about this

01:15:16.540 when the irgs began convening um just the day before i believe um one of the things

01:15:24.700 that was stressed at the first irg or in and around the irg really was just the need for

01:15:30.780 appropriate information flow and for regular and constant and information flow and so i believe

01:15:38.060 that's what he's he's saying sorry for there is he's he's letting me know that there's this

01:15:43.420 information that is now floating around that has already gone to some people and it had not kind

01:15:48.220 of followed the usual channels um and i think he was sorry that it was the hour that it was that

01:15:54.220 we were all trying to grapple with what to do here um but uh i had also just received the paper

01:15:59.980 previously from the clerk i think about an hour before by the looks of this um and so

01:16:08.220 i would i wouldn't read too much into the story and we were much more focused on the uh on the

01:16:13.340 draft and ultimately what was decided later that night um after i talked with the clerk and i then

01:16:21.820 called the prime minister and the prime minister agreed to put it on um with the suggestion that

01:16:26.140 was coming from the clerk he agreed to put it on the agenda for the irg the next day for discussion

01:16:31.020 and we've seen that it ended up on the agenda and i think you just started to tell us a little bit

01:16:35.260 but maybe you can finish that answer um why ultimately it was decided not to pursue that

01:16:40.380 that engagement strategy in in some ways it's it's what i already touched on uh which is this

01:16:47.420 was one more proposal that was not yet at the place that one could act on there were too many

01:16:53.500 unanswered questions uh there was no clarity in terms of who the discussion would be with

01:16:59.820 um on either side of the discussion and what the discussion would be about and what it might result

01:17:04.940 in and so you know while while everyone including the prime minister was encouraging everyone to

01:17:10.620 put every option on the table and it's why this was was put on the agenda ultimately uh there

01:17:16.540 wasn't anything further to pursue on this at that time okay um thank you mr clerk you can take that

01:17:22.060 one down um so we're going to skip a little ahead in the chronology again the following day february

01:17:33.580 13th is obviously key there's the the incident response group meeting in the afternoon followed

01:17:38.700 by the cabinet meeting in the evening the decision coming out of the irg is to have the cabinet

01:17:44.060 meeting and then the decision coming out of the cabinet meeting is to have a first minister's

01:17:48.220 meeting to consult on whether or not to invoke the Emergencies Act. Mr. Clerk, can you pull up

01:17:55.080 ssm.nsc.can402941? It's Mr. Clow's notes again, this time at page 22.

01:18:06.320 So when Minister LeBlanc testified a few days ago, we went through some of the comments that

01:18:11.980 with the record of the readout of the first minister's meeting and some of what was expressed

01:18:16.360 by the provinces there and these i believe are mr clow's notes of that same meeting um and i'm

01:18:22.920 wondering whether we can go through a bit of these and mr broadhead maybe this is best directed at

01:18:27.480 you but whether you can fill in about a bit of the context about what was what was being expressed

01:18:33.720 during the first ministers meeting by these various premiers and um whether or not in your

01:18:39.080 view it coincided with uh what you've been hearing up to then about uh solving the problem of the

01:18:45.720 convoy sure i'll start and then um my colleagues can uh can add um i you know i think it was uh

01:18:54.440 quite consistent with what we had heard before but i think it was a very robust conversation

01:19:00.680 um you know we had the ministers minister lametti and i believe minister mendicino or leblanc

01:19:07.800 uh and the prime minister speak then we went uh the prime minister went across the country

01:19:13.160 um in terms of making sure he heard from each of the provinces and territorial premiers um

01:19:20.120 i think you know we had we had known on on where you know not that specifically on the emergencies

01:19:25.880 act um but we had known from conversations with ontario uh what they were kind of feeling

01:19:32.040 generally we had heard from a lot of the provinces so um i think it was it was quite an interesting

01:19:37.960 conversation i think um we did learn a lot and just to use you know a couple quick examples

01:19:44.920 you know some of the some of the issues around supply chain that that newfoundland and and

01:19:49.560 nunavut brought up and concern from the premier in the northwest territories about a blockade

01:19:55.400 um concerns from premier horgan about rcmp being stretched too thin um as they were a contingent

01:20:03.400 had been sent to to support another part of the country and it really kind of showed that the

01:20:09.320 national nature of it and and the kind of variety of issues folks were facing um and and even the

01:20:16.520 folks who were i would say um more concerned um such as the the premier of alberta or the premier

01:20:23.560 saskatchewan you know even they had said things like well i won't quibble with the use of the 0.99

01:20:28.200 the emergencies act but i'm worried about inflaming folks which was something we were concerned about

01:20:34.040 had talked about at irgs was a real cause um of discussion um and and same with with with premier

01:20:41.640 mo who said you know the the six things you've mentioned sound reasonable but i'm worried about

01:20:47.400 inflaming so um you know and and even even you know premier will go talking about um you know

01:20:54.120 the certez de quebec and um you know and the dynamic between the the certez and and the rcmp

01:21:01.560 um and us having to kind of you know discuss where those boundaries were with them uh in calls mr

01:21:08.040 leblanc mentioned after with uh with minister labelle i believe it was um uh really showed

01:21:13.640 like it was a very meaty conversation i found and um but not a not a not one where i think we were

01:21:21.800 um shocked by by what we were hearing because of the outreach that had happened in advance

01:21:28.200 mr alford i would just add that this was um i'm not sure there's a prime minister

01:21:32.680 in canadian history that has had as many first ministers meetings as this prime minister has

01:21:37.240 because of the pandemic and uh so they were such a regular occurrence and this group of premiers

01:21:43.880 know each other quite well because of that and while you know there are perhaps sometimes

01:21:49.720 more pointed and more partisan statements made in public facing environments in these meetings

01:21:57.220 that they have and I think you can see that in the notes and in the descriptions of it

01:22:01.500 they really they are thoughtful conversations and they do come at things differently there's no

01:22:08.060 doubt they have different you know regional needs and we're facing different things in different

01:22:14.460 parts of the country but as as premier king i can still remember saying you know toward the

01:22:20.140 end he was one of the later speakers as per the notes and him saying to the prime minister i know

01:22:25.100 you don't take this lightly and this was a thoughtful conversation and because they they

01:22:30.780 really were grappling with you know even those who were concerned about the potential for

01:22:36.540 inflammation if the emergencies act were invoked even those who were concerned about it in their

01:22:41.020 specific regions understood there was a broader national um potential national need here and that

01:22:48.540 the prime minister had uh the authority ultimately and potentially and the need to do this and so

01:22:55.900 even those who were showing some reluctance um from their kind of premier perspective of their

01:23:02.300 particular province were showing an openness or a recognition as premier kenny did and sort of

01:23:08.300 saying i won't quibble with you um on whatever you have to do with the emergencies act ultimately

01:23:13.420 and i think that speaks to they'd had an fmm just a couple of weeks prior to this um that was solely

01:23:19.740 focused on before all of this had started um as part of par for the course now during the pandemic

01:23:25.420 because we need to remember the time we were in which was the height of omicron and so they'd

01:23:29.660 actually had an fmm just i think it was january 10th where they were talking about the new mandates

01:23:35.100 that the provinces were having to put into place and we were looking to support them on that front

01:23:39.900 so this is a group that has navigated crises for a couple of years together and in many if not most

01:23:44.940 of their cases that's helpful context in understanding comments like you just brought

01:23:49.180 up i don't miss premier kenny saying i don't quibble with the use of the act mr cloud do

01:23:53.820 you have anything to add on that on this front i think it's been well covered i would just

01:23:58.700 emphasize i know it's been addressed here and elsewhere in the past couple weeks

01:24:02.860 but premier kenny's comment on this phone call that there was a potentially violent hardcore

01:24:10.940 group of individuals at the center of the coots blockade who were ready to die for a cause and

01:24:16.380 we had heard that through other reports and from our own officials but it was a recognition that's

01:24:22.220 just one example of the very serious potential for violence that was posed by many of these

01:24:27.820 demonstrations thank you mr clerk you can you take that one down so we know that what happened after

01:24:36.140 the first minister's meeting which lasted about an hour um there was then i believe a call with

01:24:41.900 opposition leaders and uh then some point that afternoon the prime minister received a decision

01:24:48.140 note from the clerk and fairly shortly thereafter took the decision to invoke the emergencies act

01:24:54.460 one thing i wanted to ask from your perspective was any consideration given in in any of this

01:25:00.620 to holding a debate before parliament uh not to decide of course but to to engage in a debate

01:25:08.140 over whether the emergencies act should be invoked so there was an emergency debate about the convoy

01:25:14.460 and the demonstrations about a week about i think exactly a week before the invocation of the

01:25:19.500 emergencies act um the emergencies act itself contains parliamentary process and provisions

01:25:25.180 that debate and the vote in the house did happen um but the decision to invoke on february 14th

01:25:32.300 was made after a series of discussions and inputs the fmm that morning being a critical one the

01:25:39.100 opposition leader called being a critical one the view was time was up and it needed to be enacted

01:25:44.700 right away and recognizing that the parliamentary process is built into the act and was to come in

01:25:49.660 the days ahead we we thought that that was robust so did so essentially that conversation didn't

01:25:56.380 happen because it didn't have to there was already a parliamentary process built in yes is that fair

01:26:01.580 okay um and i just want to turn briefly now to the the the topic of revocation of the act which

01:26:08.460 which I know is skipping ahead again.

01:26:16.120 Mr. Clerk, if you can pull up Mr. Clough's notes again.

01:26:18.700 I don't know what we do without Mr. Clough's notes here.

01:26:21.160 SSM.nsc.can402941, page 28.

01:26:34.900 The only thing missing from the notes is clear page numbers.

01:26:37.580 always number the pages so this is february 19th uh it's a staff call and right at the bottom there

01:26:45.500 you say parliament's job is to confirm or confirm or revoke doesn't impact changes i believe after

01:26:53.020 revocation what happens to frozen accounts so that's a topic we've explored a bit with um

01:26:58.060 finance at what point do we withdraw based on what inputs um so is it fair to say at this point this

01:27:06.060 is a discussion of almost first principles um we we don't really know what the criteria are to

01:27:11.980 revoke we need to figure out what those criteria are was that an accurate reflection

01:27:18.700 it's hard to say for sure what that specific note refers to but

01:27:23.660 there was progress by that point the february 19th we were far from out of it there were still a lot

01:27:30.060 of situations there were still many threats and if i remember correctly ottawa was there may have

01:27:35.980 been the beginning of action but it wasn't done um so definitely at the irgs and on staff calls

01:27:42.700 and in other conversations we were beginning to ask ourselves okay what how long is this needed

01:27:49.020 and it was always understood and it was made clear by the prime minister

01:27:52.540 this should only be in place as long as it's needed so we were constantly asking ourselves

01:27:57.420 that very question what are what do we need to assess and what will feed into the decision

01:28:04.220 to revoke okay and there was no what i think what i was saying was there's no playbook for it so it

01:28:09.180 was essentially a discussion from first principles of trying to figure out what these criteria should

01:28:13.660 be we could scroll down a bit please mr clerk to the following day you'll see irg um not that one

01:28:20.860 on February 20th, so keep going.

01:28:33.640 So the first notation there says IRG February 20th,

01:28:37.960 RCMP slash officials public brief

01:28:41.000 on how long emergency act is needed.

01:28:43.560 Now we're gonna take this down

01:28:45.620 and bring up a different document, Mr. Clerk,

01:28:47.940 which is ssm.can.nsc402910.

01:28:54.580 This isn't something that's recorded in your notes, Mr. Clow.

01:28:57.340 What I'm gonna bring up is Commissioner Luckey's

01:29:01.060 key messages from that date.

01:29:02.980 So it's an RCMP document and I'm gonna take you through

01:29:06.760 and ask you whether your recollection

01:29:08.820 is that that was expressed during the IRG.

01:29:16.340 So there we go.

01:29:17.940 So the key messages are, as I said yesterday, the situation across the country remains concerning, volatile, and unpredictable.

01:29:25.960 We are continuing to see a range of protest events and solidarity actions across the country with Port Sventry and legislatures the key targets.

01:29:34.100 I want to underscore two key bottom lines off the top.

01:29:37.480 First, as it relates to Ottawa and Ontario, there is an operational need to maintain access to these powers to ensure that we can finish what we started and prevent any retrenchment, even for the next two to three weeks.

01:29:52.440 And then after that, it is important that we retain the ability to maintain the perimeter, restrict travel, and ensure we can continue to choke off financial support and other assistance to the protesters in Ottawa.

01:30:06.460 And then it goes on. Do you recall this having been expressed at the IRG that the emergencies act should stay in place by the RCMP, by Commissioner Lucky for another two or three weeks?

01:30:17.880 my colleagues may have stuff to add but I don't know if it was conveyed on the

01:30:23.380 20th but that was definitely a message right up to the revocation that the

01:30:27.540 RCMP believed that the powers were critical and they argued that they

01:30:32.560 should stay in place for a period longer in order to prevent additional

01:30:40.000 blockades from starting or from people from returning to the ones that existed

01:30:43.620 Okay. Ms. Telford, Mr. Broadhead, do you have anything to add to that?

01:30:48.340 No, that's...

01:30:48.900 I agree.

01:30:49.720 Okay. And as we know that that's not what happened in the end, the act was revoked three days later.

01:30:55.800 So is it fair to say that that input was received but not followed by, in the end, the government?

01:31:02.980 Important to point out is that both for the invocation and the revocation, the RCMP was one of many inputs.

01:31:09.420 So, for sure, this view would have been considered and was considered, but ultimately, the Prime Minister and the IRG decided to revoke when they decided to revoke, based on many different inputs.

01:31:22.320 Okay. One thing I wanted to ask you while about the revocation decision is there have been some suggestions that the motion to confirm the declaration of emergency had been passed through the House of Commons but was up for a vote in the Senate.

01:31:37.000 And that part of the timing of revocation may have been due to some perhaps lack of confidence around whether the Senate would confirm the declaration. Can you speak to that?

01:31:50.880 so quite the opposite actually and and yes i am aware of that suggestion that perhaps there's an

01:31:57.920 attempt to revoke before the senate got to its vote we actually wanted the senate to move as

01:32:04.000 quickly as possible and i think it did too but it was as it was reported to us the senate was delayed

01:32:10.080 in convening partly because of the ottawa very significant continuing ottawa demonstrations

01:32:15.520 that were happening right on the senate's doorstep they did begin their debate at a certain point

01:32:21.840 but that was not considered when it came to revocation the decisions around revocation

01:32:27.440 was what's the situation is this act still needed are these powers still needed um we would have

01:32:34.000 liked the senate to have its vote but i will also say i know of no reason to believe that the senate

01:32:38.720 would not have endorsed it and i i do believe that um i'm not sure about this but i do believe that

01:32:45.760 this commission has seen evidence that the chief of staff to senator gold the govern the the

01:32:52.080 government leader in the senate was doing vote counting and they were quite comfortable that

01:32:57.520 they were in a good place anything to add on that point just offered mr brada no i i completely agree

01:33:04.960 with what brian was just saying and i would just add that it was extraordinarily important to the

01:33:10.000 prime minister that it be that he'd be true to what he said out in the beginning when he invoked

01:33:15.920 the act and that it wasn't going to last one minute longer than absolutely necessary and so

01:33:20.800 that was the entire motivation behind when the revocation happened and the same way you know

01:33:26.080 safety and security was at the core of every meeting he was having throughout the politics

01:33:30.960 and parliamentary issues we're on a completely separate track from that decision making okay

01:33:37.040 um those are actually all the questions i have for you since given that the prime minister will

01:33:42.640 be here tomorrow and your boss will be speaking for himself um those are the questions that i

01:33:46.560 have for you this afternoon but before i sit down is there anything that we haven't covered here

01:33:50.400 today that you would like to say now that you have the opportunity i think we're good nope pretty

01:33:59.360 okay thank you commissioner those are my questions okay thank you very much um i think probably this

01:34:08.080 is a good time to take a 15 minute break and let everyone get up and stretch and so we'll come back

01:34:17.920 in 15 minutes thank you the Commission is in recess for 15 minutes

01:34:47.920 Thank you.

01:35:17.920 Thank you.

01:35:47.920 Thank you.

01:36:17.920 Thank you.

01:36:47.920 Thank you.

01:37:17.920 Thank you.

01:37:47.920 Thank you.

01:38:17.920 Thank you.

01:38:47.920 Thank you.

01:39:17.920 Thank you.

01:39:47.920 Thank you.

01:40:17.920 Thank you.

01:40:47.920 Thank you.

01:41:17.920 Thank you.

01:41:47.920 Thank you.

01:42:17.920 Thank you.

01:42:47.920 Thank you.

01:43:17.920 Thank you.

01:43:47.920 Thank you.

01:44:17.920 Thank you.

01:44:47.920 Thank you.

01:45:17.920 Thank you.

01:45:47.920 Thank you.

01:46:17.920 Thank you.

01:46:47.920 Thank you.

01:47:17.920 Thank you.

01:47:47.920 Thank you.

01:48:17.920 Thank you.

01:48:47.920 Thank you.

01:49:17.920 Thank you.

01:49:47.920 Thank you.

01:50:17.920 Thank you.

01:50:47.920 Thank you.

01:51:17.920 Thank you.

01:51:47.920 Thank you.

01:52:17.920 Thank you.

01:52:47.920 Thank you.

01:53:17.920 Thank you.

01:53:47.920 Order alert.

01:54:07.420 The Commission has reconvened.

01:54:08.420 The Commission of Plans.

01:54:11.420 Okay.

01:54:14.620 Now the next stage.

01:54:17.020 i'd like to call on a government of alberta please

01:54:23.340 good evening um to this panel my name is stephanie bows i am counsel for the province of alberta

01:54:30.300 um i just want to start with um the statement in the pmo institutional report which indicates that

01:54:37.420 pmo staff engaged with premier kenny's chief of staff miss livingstone on february 5th and 12th

01:54:44.700 i just want to confirm that during that time the pmo did not discuss the possible use of the

01:54:49.900 emergencies act during those engagements is that correct that it was not me having that

01:54:55.660 those conversations but that is my understanding yes okay thank you and with respect to the first

01:55:01.500 ministers meeting mr broadhead you were asked about your understanding of the various positions

01:55:07.580 of premiers at that meeting i'd like the clerk to pull up ssm.nsc.can 50625

01:55:21.100 and these are some expanded notes prepared and produced by the government of canada describing

01:55:26.860 that meeting once we have them up i'll ask the clerk to please scroll down to page three

01:55:31.980 okay so we can see here that there's some some further notes about the comments of premier

01:55:41.340 kenny at this meeting and i'll just walk through some of these right now um he starts by describing

01:55:46.500 the situation in coots and how it went from a thousand trucks on a rolling protest to 900 going

01:55:53.120 home with 100 staying behind and then down to a group of 40 which he described as a core group

01:55:59.460 then you'll see him describe the arrests at the border and indicate we believe the situation has

01:56:05.780 been secured and further down there have procured on market for equipment and have drivers in place

01:56:13.180 unless an unexpected surprise should open codes border crossing today a little farther down again

01:56:21.120 would be problematic to declare emergency today to take momentum of arrest last night

01:56:27.640 declaration risks further radicalizing thousands of sympathizers in alberta know you have a lot

01:56:34.360 of serious issues to balance off including in ottawa but i am suggesting this could create

01:56:40.200 a net negative for alberta if we need to seize or compel people we are prepared to use our own

01:56:47.080 emergencies act so you would agree that it's fair to say that the premier's position

01:56:52.360 at this first minister's meeting was that invoking the federal emergencies act was

01:56:57.800 neither wanted nor needed in alberta correct

01:57:01.240 yeah i would i would say he he was um definitely clear that he did not believe it was needed in

01:57:10.720 alberta at that time okay thank you and i'd like to um switch tracks with you and ask about what

01:57:18.140 was done to prepare the prime minister for the february 13th cabinet meeting and specifically

01:57:25.100 where his inputs of information came from so i'm going to ask you you can answer yes or no

01:57:30.880 whether the pmo was responsible for providing the prime minister with the following information

01:57:39.500 and that's about the status of the rcmp operation in coups was it the print the pmo that was

01:57:47.220 responsible for providing that information to the Prime Minister? No. How about the status

01:57:53.380 of Alberta's acquisition of tow trucks from the private market? The Privy Council leads these

01:58:02.360 briefings that you're referring to. Okay, so I'll just name off a few more, and maybe then you can

01:58:08.540 tell me if there was anything in my list that the PMO was responsible for providing the information

01:58:14.400 to the prime minister and those are the status of the protests in windsor at the ambassador bridge

01:58:19.840 the status of opening of the ambassador bridge the status of the ops operational plan with respect to

01:58:26.160 the protests in ottawa or that the commissioner commissioner lucky was of the view that not all

01:58:31.920 tools available through existing legislation had yet been exhausted we may have added information

01:58:39.360 if we'd heard it through minister's offices or um through open source information but the briefing

01:58:45.760 on all the matters you would have been led by the clerk of the privy council the deputy clerk of the

01:58:50.880 nsia okay thank you i would just add that we heard at various points in the weeks leading up to

01:58:58.720 invocation of the act that action was about to be taken in some of the places that you mentioned

01:59:03.920 and on the point about rcmp stating that not all tools have been exhausted that was obvious to

01:59:10.400 everyone in various locations law enforcement had tools that they weren't able to enforce

01:59:15.860 because there were other more serious issues preventing that and that's partly why decision

01:59:21.520 was making to made to invoke the act the next day okay and so you would agree that the prime

01:59:27.260 minister had that information as well that there were tools available but that they weren't being

01:59:31.120 used as i said that was obvious to everyone who was watching what was going on the ground

01:59:36.240 okay thank you um i would like the clerk to please pull up ssm dot nsc dot can four zeros

01:59:45.200 two nine four one and this is a record that um commission council has taken you through

01:59:51.840 in some detail already there's just a few places where i was hoping you could help me

01:59:55.920 me read some of the writing. So, Mr. Clerk, if you could please scroll down to page 12.

02:00:14.780 Actually, this is not something that I need clarification on the writing on,

02:00:17.740 but something I do have a question on. Let me just make sure I'm in the right place here.

02:00:25.920 So if you see on the right-hand side, there's a note beside Brenda, and I'm assuming this is Commissioner Luckey, is that correct?

02:00:33.980 Yes.

02:00:34.900 Okay. And she indicates with respect to Coutts, they were almost gone, but a pastor incited them to stay, was 250 vehicles, now down to 40, and weapons are in the protest, need to go slow here.

02:00:51.440 Was the Prime Minister part of this conversation?

02:00:54.060 Yes, he was.

02:00:54.600 This was the February 10th incident response group meeting.

02:00:57.800 Okay, good.

02:00:58.520 Thank you.

02:01:02.240 And then if we go to page 23, here's where I'll need your help interpreting the writing.

02:01:10.960 Thank you.

02:01:11.700 So we can see about a quarter of the way down the page.

02:01:14.980 There's an arrow and it says specific.

02:01:17.160 And what's the next word after that?

02:01:23.580 to be honest i can't read it either the quality of the photocopy is not it's not strong okay

02:01:34.140 so specific something draft list using the money as uh and then what's that next word there as a

02:01:42.300 hook for the national stuff so this was a reference to there we knew and we heard on the fmm call

02:01:49.580 that some premiers and some people felt that the act should not be provided applied nationally

02:01:56.540 and this comment referred to needing to underscore in the communications that part of the reason the

02:02:02.060 act needed to apply nationally was so that it would apply to financial transactions across

02:02:07.580 the country given many of the demonstrators were from across the country and do yeah i think you

02:02:14.140 just said that this was about needing to refer in the communications what communications are you

02:02:18.860 talking about so this was february 14th 12 30 pm after the fmm as preparations were underway for a

02:02:27.660 potential prime ministerial announcement later that afternoon prime minister took the decision

02:02:33.260 to invoke the act later that afternoon and he went out and announced it okay now i'd like to talk a

02:02:40.700 little bit about that announcement if we can go to um ssm.can402665

02:03:03.900 and if we go to the very last email in this record

02:03:11.580 there's a discussion of a press conference that was at that time scheduled for noon on february

02:03:17.260 14th and we'll see the time of this email is listed as february 13th 8 pm now i'm not sure

02:03:23.740 if this is one of the emails that's caught with the time difference related to greenwich mean

02:03:29.100 time but it's either 3 pm or 8 pm on the 13th in either event that's before the cabinet meeting

02:03:37.340 correct i can't i can't confirm the timing of the email but it could be okay and it indicates that

02:03:50.860 there was going to be a press conference the next day with the prime minister the deputy

02:03:55.500 prime minister minister blair minister mendicino and minister limetti there's a bit more discussion

02:04:03.260 in other emails, including that Minister Lemony is there just to answer questions, and that only

02:04:08.860 the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister will provide comments. Is this because that was

02:04:14.060 the press conference that was intended to announce the invocation of the Emergencies Act?

02:04:21.100 So what I would say is, at this point, there were numerous statements being made by the Prime

02:04:26.780 Minister and other ministers to media, sometimes in the form of a press conference. My recollection

02:04:32.700 was this was planning for a statement of some sort and yes given the emergencies act was under

02:04:38.860 consideration it was a scenario at that time that they could be making announcements about

02:04:44.060 the emergencies act the next day but the decision had not been taken at that point so you'll see

02:04:49.420 that it says as you know the presser is to provide an update on the federal government response to

02:04:53.740 the blockades as well as the ukraine and i'll take it from your answer that there was some anticipation

02:04:58.700 that maybe it might be about the emergencies act but what other announcement was going to be made

02:05:03.820 about the blockades the next day there could have been any number of of measures taken and

02:05:11.580 that's that was the examination going on exactly at that time what tools could exist

02:05:19.020 is it going to be enough decision was emergencies act had the tools required

02:05:23.500 and that's why the decision was taken the next day

02:05:25.420 and i understand that part of the dmo's role is to prepare speeches for the prime minister is that

02:05:33.820 correct the dpmo no the prime minister's office and pco prepare speeches for the prime minister

02:05:43.900 sorry i thought in the institutional report that there was mention of drafting speeches by the

02:05:50.300 prime minister's oh did i'm sorry by the prime minister's office yes absolutely okay i'm sorry

02:05:55.340 I misspoke there. Did the Prime Minister's office… Just to let you know, I think you're

02:06:01.500 over your time, so you're going to have to wrap up pretty soon. Okay, I'll just finish this area.

02:06:07.020 Did the Deputy Prime Minister's office draft a speech for the Prime Minister for the press

02:06:11.500 conference on February 14th? I'm not aware. You're not aware, okay. Thank you,

02:06:16.700 those are all my questions tonight. Okay, thank you. Next call on the convoy organizers, please.

02:06:25.340 Sir, before I begin, I have an issue that I need to address.

02:06:39.180 As you know, and I've made applications several times, the disclosure in the record is entirely

02:06:46.800 deficient.

02:06:47.800 We've been trying to deal with these redactions.

02:06:51.300 There's still redactions for parliamentary privilege which the government has not removed.

02:06:56.260 There's no legal basis for, as you've already ruled, to redact any document on the basis

02:07:02.880 of parliamentary privilege.

02:07:04.760 There's also the issue, as I've re-raised by email as well, the issue with the notes

02:07:11.340 of this witness, the process that was used in dealing with that needs to be reassessed.

02:07:19.260 These are important witnesses.

02:07:20.880 I need rulings and so does everyone here.

02:07:25.920 The rulings on the redactions are so important and, for example, Ms. Jodie Thomas testified

02:07:34.400 and said that she supported the invocation of the Emergencies Act but there's a note

02:07:42.120 that we got after we fought for the one redaction we got that said Jodie Thomas did not.

02:07:50.580 it was put up on the screen it was notes taken it had one section 39 redaction on it so if that's

02:07:56.180 a cabinet document we can assume cabinet knew about it and it states that section 2 no violence

02:08:03.860 and they're trying to come up with a way how to make this work anyway that would have been very

02:08:09.700 helpful to have when she was on the stand under oath this is happening constantly there is thousands

02:08:19.860 of documents if you can i'm not looking for a speech i understand there has been have been

02:08:26.980 issues about uh redactions i believe that one is one i already disclosed and i believe you

02:08:32.500 questioned somebody about it as recently as yesterday or the day before um i am not sure

02:08:41.140 about the redactions certainly for just to qualify the redactions with respect to parliamentary

02:08:46.260 privilege i didn't say it doesn't exist i said i said it was novel and that the arguments presented

02:08:55.140 were insufficient and i ordered the three redactions disclosed we received something i

02:09:01.300 i think it's yesterday or maybe it was even today and i apologize i haven't yet ruled on it that's

02:09:07.780 true but i do my very best to make decisions i try my very best to make them intelligent and

02:09:16.820 thoughtful and that sometimes is not done immediately so that's that's sort of how i

02:09:23.540 can respond to those points sir i can make it very easy and we've written your council uh for

02:09:30.340 a set of them so the law is such that where a redaction is sought on the basis of irrelevance

02:09:37.540 it is not the onus of the person seeking to have it redacted on the basis of irrelevance it's the

02:09:44.340 onus on the person seeking for it to be redacted and the purpose for that is is that all of the

02:09:49.620 documents given to us are subject to the implied undertaking rule so they're they don't become

02:09:53.940 public until a ruling on their relevance is made okay well i i'm not in a position to rule on

02:10:02.020 that i i suspect that's the mode the the request you made either yesterday or today i don't know

02:10:07.860 which and i'm sorry i'm not in a position to rule on it right now sir but so what i'd like you is

02:10:13.700 if you could proceed with your examination or that would be i think ideal at this stage and

02:10:20.260 and I'll do my best to deal with the motion

02:10:23.000 of the redaction issues as soon as possible.

02:10:27.200 Okay, but I just wanna put on the record

02:10:29.500 that throughout this entire proceeding,

02:10:32.600 all council here, and we're on national television,

02:10:35.980 this is supposed to be completely transparent.

02:10:37.780 This is the purpose of this.

02:10:39.140 I'm doing my very best.

02:10:40.340 It's not your fault, it's just the fault

02:10:43.960 that nobody's ordering DOJ to actually produce

02:10:46.660 what they're obliged to do.

02:10:48.480 Well, that's something you can deal with in another forum.

02:10:52.240 I'm doing the best I can here.

02:10:53.840 I think we've gotten a lot of disclosure.

02:10:57.040 There are issues, and we're dealing with those issues that are raised as they are raised.

02:11:01.940 We dealt with the ones you raised, I believe, at the end of last week,

02:11:06.440 made some orders, confirmed some of the redactions,

02:11:10.920 and we'll deal with your most current application.

02:11:14.800 But could you just not order that the redactions for parliamentary privilege, because I can tell you, I've studied that area in and out.

02:11:27.700 And the reason no one could provide you an authority for the purpose of a redaction on the basis of parliamentary privilege is it doesn't exist.

02:11:35.980 And parliamentary privilege is, of course, an ancient doctrine.

02:11:38.580 And if you would just order the production of the records without those redactions, it would remove a whole bunch.

02:11:46.960 Then if you would order the production of all relevant records with respect where relevant is claimed, those records are then subject to the implied undertaking rule.

02:11:58.180 And there's no national security issue with those.

02:12:00.820 If they were, Section 38 would be claimed.

02:12:03.180 There's no Cabinet confidence because Section 39 is not claimed.

02:12:06.180 and that's it that has been the law it's time immemorial how can you contest if something's

02:12:12.500 relevant if you don't know what it says and my problem is is that this witness is now on the

02:12:21.820 stand one of the documents is key in my submission it is the notes of miss jackson which is the office

02:12:29.860 assistant to this witness there are redactions therein on the basis of irrelevance and there

02:12:36.160 There are redactions therein, also I believe on one of the other grounds that I've sent

02:12:42.220 a written motion, if you will, email to your council.

02:12:46.980 We've been asking for these things and asking for proper production throughout this proceeding.

02:12:51.840 All council are in agreement that we don't have proper production, sir.

02:12:55.020 Okay, well, I'm not sure you can speak for all council and I'm sure they can speak for

02:12:58.980 themselves as to whether or not you've been asking for this a long time.

02:13:03.740 i'm not aware that you asked about those redactions so uh but but maybe i don't have the

02:13:10.300 records but anyways we're gonna have to stop this and and despite your belief that the law is always

02:13:17.260 very clear my experience of 20 years is there's that's why judges have are around and so if you

02:13:23.900 could proceed otherwise you know we're not going to get anywhere so so if i could bring up uh the

02:13:30.380 notes of miss jackson which are at

02:13:50.460 uh sm.can.7719

02:14:00.380 Okay. So, Ms. Telford, Sarah Jackson, she's your office manager, is this correct?

02:14:09.380 Yes.

02:14:11.380 All right. And so, obviously, she's a scribe and does scribing for you when you're in meetings?

02:14:18.380 No.

02:14:19.380 All right. So, the notes that she takes, she has, if we can scroll down.

02:14:25.380 and down

02:14:30.100 right so that says kt call and i take it that's you

02:14:36.020 kt usually does refer to me right so she's taking notes of a phone call she has with you

02:14:42.600 i don't know you don't know so that's on february 4th do you remember february 4th

02:14:50.660 yes okay so what happened on February 4th um well no I don't remember in that level of detail

02:15:02.980 okay is there something you're looking for in particular well I'm trying to find out

02:15:06.660 because I have to build a record for this do you have any idea why

02:15:11.700 anything in your conversation on February 4th in that note would be irrelevant

02:15:16.900 i don't know and i take it when you spoke to miss telford or sorry to

02:15:23.400 uh this uh individual at the time there was no lawyer present was there i don't know what this

02:15:31.820 call is okay so can we scroll down then so you see there the government has claimed solicitor

02:15:37.600 client privilege okay and you don't remember speaking with a lawyer on february 4th do you

02:15:43.980 as i said i don't know what this call is right so how would the government know

02:15:50.900 if you don't know that this is solicitor client privileged

02:15:55.720 they couldn't could they so it's redacted and this is the problem sir uh you have irrelevant

02:16:04.840 irrelevant is there a question yes and so if we can scroll down

02:16:08.300 okay and in that note on february 4th i know you don't have a good memory but in your conversation

02:16:16.580 that's that's it no i know good memory of february 4th i know she doesn't have a good

02:16:21.080 memory of it but it wasn't an insult uh blair's current strategy emergencies act right

02:16:27.500 so i take it you're understanding she's writing down what you're saying and you told her that

02:16:35.520 blair's current strategy is the emergencies act so it was ministers blair's strategy to invoke

02:16:43.400 the emergencies act on february 4th that's your understanding isn't it no that's not my

02:16:48.560 understanding so what was blair's current strategy emergencies act on february 20 or february 4th

02:16:54.760 2022 i can't speak to what's written here you don't remember no if you wanted to

02:17:05.480 pull up notes of mine from february 4th that might be helpful but i can't speak to these do you have

02:17:10.600 notes from february 4th notes from a lot of days that have been provided you've been provided okay

02:17:17.560 have you provided all of them to the department of justice okay and would you say that you provided

02:17:23.720 notes from each and every single day from any day i have notes on okay and with respect to this

02:17:32.040 meeting do you remember what you and uh miss jackson were talking about

02:17:38.440 i unfortunately don't know what meeting she's taking notes from here without more context

02:17:43.960 it may or may not even be a meeting i was in but obviously you were discussing the emergencies act

02:17:52.280 the emergencies act came up at numerous occasions as we've said earlier in

02:17:55.960 okay earlier today do you think it would assist the tribunal in this inquiry if miss jackson

02:18:01.400 testifies no i think i can answer any questions you might have but you can answer what that note

02:18:07.640 says is there something you're curious about that note in particular well on february 4th of 2022

02:18:15.320 miss jackson in a conversation with you writes down blair's current strategy emergency sack

02:18:21.640 right and we you hadn't even had an irg at that point i believe you've had an opportunity to speak

02:18:29.000 with minister blair yeah and i put this to him and he said that it wasn't true

02:18:33.960 so wouldn't it be helpful if you can't remember i'm not sure that was correct

02:18:39.800 that he said he said that he never had i put the note to him and he said that

02:18:44.360 that's not wasn't a strategy that that's incorrect that doesn't mean it isn't true i mean all this

02:18:51.240 note says is blair's current strategy and emergency act underneath it so on february 4th

02:18:59.000 When was the first time that the government came out and spoke that they were considering invoking the Emergencies Act? Do you remember?

02:19:08.300 Publicly?

02:19:09.160 Yeah.

02:19:11.500 I mean, there were questions from the media where ministers were speaking about the Emergencies Act long before it was invoked.

02:19:19.960 Yeah. And Minister Blair, I discussed this with him, on February 13th, for the first time he went on a show and he talked about that it was under consideration from the outset.

02:19:34.860 But then when he testified here, he said it wasn't.

02:19:39.280 So was the invocation of the Emergencies Act under consideration from the beginning of the protest in Ottawa?

02:19:46.560 the emergencies act was something that was discussed at the beginning of the pandemic

02:19:52.880 and it was a public conversation at that time as well as a private conversation there were

02:19:57.880 calls for the prime minister if we can put the document back up please

02:20:00.920 perhaps it's brian gover for the government of canada perhaps the witness could complete

02:20:06.640 her answer to the question without interruption oh no i've just the document went down i'm not done

02:20:11.000 i apologize so thank you so and i understand that there was a consideration of a public welfare

02:20:21.480 emergency right that's very different than a public order emergency you know that there

02:20:26.040 doesn't have to be a section two security threat right and are you talking about i'm not sure when

02:20:33.160 you're talking about we're talking about from covid because you said it was under consideration then

02:20:37.080 They did look at the Emergencies Act at that time, and there was a public call for that at the time, and it was determined because the Prime Minister was very reluctant, as he was during the occupation this past February, to invoke it.

02:20:51.480 And so there's been conversations on various occasions about the Emergencies Act over time.

02:20:56.040 So when that note's taken on February 4th, 2022, are you saying that you're talking about it in relation to COVID?

02:21:04.320 i genuinely don't know what this note is as i've already said to you a few times

02:21:10.640 okay so if i can scroll up or down or up please or down but we'll go down down's fine

02:21:18.920 okay so that says flag 2kt february 10th and it's written in there that this is irrelevant

02:21:29.480 what does that mean why is it irrelevant do you know because i don't know specifically

02:21:36.760 i don't know either i could surmise that flag to katie means it's probably a bit of a to-do

02:21:42.620 list of things she wanted to flag to me that were obviously deemed irrelevant to what we

02:21:47.460 are talking about today okay and could we scroll down again and this one where it says staff

02:21:53.220 blockade right and then it has section 39 invoked do you know what that means i don't know why they

02:22:02.180 invoked it there right and so i take it when you were having this phone call there was no one else

02:22:09.380 present on the phone other than you and miss jackson was there i don't believe that this is

02:22:13.380 a phone call any longer well if we scroll back up this is the second page it's the way it's

02:22:17.540 said flag to Katie at the top. Flag to Katie okay and so on February 10th do you remember if Ms.

02:22:25.540 Jackson was in a meeting with cabinet? She is not normally in meetings with cabinet. So how could

02:22:32.100 section 39's cabinet confidence so how can so it this is the problem those are my questions.

02:22:41.140 Thank you. If we could now call on the Ottawa Police Service, please.

02:23:01.780 Good evening. My name is David Michikowska. I'm a lawyer for Ottawa Police Service.

02:23:05.540 um miss telford my questions at least initially will be directed to you

02:23:13.140 i understand that the pmo relies on the rcmp

02:23:18.980 generally but what do you mean uh well you really i i guess pmo relies on the rcmp to protect the

02:23:25.300 prime minister and others yes and you trust the rcmp you do um the rcmp has kept the prime minister

02:23:33.860 and his family safe? They have. And the RCMP takes security very seriously? They do. And one of the

02:23:45.540 documents, I won't take you to it, but I believe the Commission took you to it, one of the documents

02:23:53.060 that you were taken to reference the intersect group. You're familiar with the intersect group?

02:23:58.100 can you remind me sure um it was described in that document as a group that gets uh stood up

02:24:08.020 and is um composed of the ops the rcmp pps opp you're familiar with that yes and all of them

02:24:18.360 are involved in decisions and discussions about these types of protest events and security concerns

02:24:25.620 correct that sounds right and in fact in that chain of the emails that you were

02:24:33.840 taken to there's reference and it was on January 25th miss powers indicates that

02:24:40.880 the key will be tomorrow's intersect meeting and how law enforcement will

02:24:45.920 pre-mobilize so you're obviously aware that the RCMP whom you have a lot of

02:24:52.260 confidence in is monitoring the protest as it's approaching ottawa correct yes and on um january

02:25:03.620 27th um and i i won't pull it up but i'll give the reference for the record it's pb dot can four zeros

02:25:13.780 one eight four four um there's a series of um text messages uh i believe between minister

02:25:22.580 mendocino and yourself and you indicate that the rcmp or he indicates to you that the rcmp on

02:25:30.100 january 27th says that the current estimate is about 2700 trucks but the numbers could fluctuate

02:25:37.940 do you recall that that sounds right and uh there's another um document um from the pmo i

02:25:47.060 believe it's from ms power um she's the issues advisor she's one of several issues advisor but

02:25:54.100 she holds the file for public safety and so there's an email from her on january 28th

02:26:01.300 um again uh the reference number is ssm.can.nsc402795 and she gives some more uh data as to what the

02:26:14.100 status is one of the things that she references in that uh report on the latest numbers is um

02:26:22.660 Project Hendon and we've heard a lot about Project Hendon uh was that something that you were familiar

02:26:28.820 with as well? Not at the time. I'm sorry? Not at the time. Okay. Subsequently, you did hear about

02:26:35.540 Project Hendon. Is that right? During the inquiry, I've heard a fair bit. Right. And so she's

02:26:40.840 referring to, so obviously, the RCMP, I'm assuming, has access to the same Hendon data as the other

02:26:48.780 security services. Fair assumption? I couldn't speak to what information they had access to.

02:26:55.600 okay um and so what we see when we look at all of these um documents that i'm referring to is

02:27:02.880 the numbers of vehicles of trucks in the convoy in the last couple days before it arrives is a

02:27:11.040 constantly fluctuating number nobody seems to be able to get a full grasp on is that fair it certainly

02:27:18.720 felt that way and certainly nobody uh even the rcmp up until that day the friday were saying that

02:27:27.120 this protest was going to become an occupation correct i will say in those in those updates

02:27:34.720 that were coming from mary liz power and they were more than once daily by the end of the week

02:27:41.040 there were some references and i do believe this commission has seen in those emails and i think it

02:27:45.200 was attributed to op intersect that this could be a prolonged demonstration but you are right there

02:27:53.920 was a lot of uncertainty about what was coming and so you understood that even the law enforcement

02:28:01.200 community couldn't predict exactly what occurred and what did in fact occur fair

02:28:09.760 i agree this was a challenging situation for everyone and you wouldn't fault the rcmp for that

02:28:14.560 would you? No. You've talked about what you saw on social media in the days leading up to it,

02:28:25.760 and CSIS has told us that analyzing social media is rather complex and requires more than simply

02:28:34.080 scrolling through social media. You wouldn't have any reason to disagree with that, would you?

02:28:38.720 I think it's a fair statement, but there are some things said on social media that represent clearly the views of the person expressing it.

02:28:53.720 And in this case, in this demonstration, there were statements made on social media about threats of violence, threats to individuals, and aims and motives that they had.

02:29:03.820 I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but I have a very limited amount of time.

02:29:07.680 My question was more related to the numbers of people that are coming on social media, because what Mr. Vigneault said is it is difficult to tell.

02:29:18.620 It's a challenge, I think he said, to know when someone moves from the online space to physical space and the social media is full of misinformation.

02:29:29.840 Ms. Telford, you wouldn't disagree with that, would you?

02:29:31.920 I think it was challenging for everyone. And that's why it was important to bring everyone together at various points. But I do think there was, I think, you know, I think the number of people, including Mr. Vigneault, have spoken about how figuring out the social media space is something that needs to be done coming out of this.

02:29:51.480 right um and you recognize um just moving on to another area you recognize that police and we've

02:29:58.920 heard from a number of ministers that police need to have operational independence from governments

02:30:05.720 absolutely and that police have to make operational decisions in real time for reasons that may not

02:30:15.240 be evident to the government and or to the public fair of course and that's something we took very

02:30:21.080 very seriously and uh again you respected that operational independence you wouldn't want the

02:30:27.000 police whether it's the ottawa or opp or the rcmp to take action without considering what impact

02:30:35.000 that action would have on officer safety or crowd safety or children in the crowd of course

02:30:43.320 and in fact one of the lessons of ipriwash that we've heard is that governments should not be

02:30:48.920 allowed to influence specific law enforcement operational decisions you'd agree with that

02:30:55.000 fair it was actually something i asked after and we got a verbal brief on very early on i think it

02:31:02.200 was actually even before uh it all got uh before it became even an occupation um because it was

02:31:08.920 something we were very preoccupied about respecting and that did and it's because decisions those type

02:31:15.560 of operational decisions belong to the police based on their expertise and their discretion

02:31:21.720 correct yes and there's nothing to suggest that the ottawa police service did not exercise their

02:31:29.320 discretion legitimately and in good faith in this case is that fair fair um the situation we've heard

02:31:39.880 in ottawa was i'm going to use a word that we've all heard a lot in this was a volatile one um you

02:31:47.080 wouldn't disagree with that it was extremely volatile and ultimately that situation was

02:31:53.560 diffused uh but you'd agree with me that diffusing a situation like this one uh is something that

02:32:01.880 takes time in fact the prime minister in a conversation with the governor general on

02:32:07.800 February 5th specifically made that point when he said it's going to take time to defuse this.

02:32:15.560 You wouldn't disagree with that, would you? I believe that conversation was a ways into

02:32:19.880 the occupation already. So I don't think I can agree or disagree with whether or not

02:32:27.240 these things always take time. And ultimately in addition to time,

02:32:31.880 it took a massive amount of additional resources as well, correct?

02:32:37.800 It certainly did in this instance.

02:32:39.360 And those, let me just finish off my remaining minute or two.

02:32:47.920 Negotiations, you understand that before police execute a tactical operation,

02:32:53.820 they will try and diffuse the situation and try to negotiate, right?

02:32:59.200 These were things we were briefed on, yes.

02:33:01.160 And in fact, you'll recall that the Prime Minister and Minister Blair met with opposition leaders

02:33:07.360 leaders and provided a briefing on february 10th and if that briefing the national security and

02:33:13.840 intelligence advisor specifically said law enforcement activities are in line with

02:33:20.400 negotiations with organizers to ensure there's no violence that makes sense to you doesn't it yes

02:33:28.640 and she also uh indicated that minister uh blair um talked about the importance of negotiation by

02:33:36.560 the police and you wouldn't disagree with what minister blair said no i believe and i believe

02:33:42.480 this was the first call with the opposition leaders that was earlier on in the occupation

02:33:46.320 is that right uh i'm not sure if it was the first or the second i'm pretty sure it was the first

02:33:52.000 um now we we talked about the um engagement proposal that was prepared as a framework for

02:33:58.400 negotiation and i understand that deputy minister stewart on february 11th advised that that

02:34:06.320 engagement proposal had been prepared and validated with the opp expert marcel bodin

02:34:13.600 do you recall that i know he worked with somebody in the opp and in fact chief slowly had earlier on

02:34:20.960 also requested an interlocutor uh be used uh as a method of achieving a breakthrough you're aware

02:34:27.920 that? I'm not sure. And one of the rationales, and I'll just finish off this point if I may,

02:34:37.920 Commissioner, one of the rationales that you mentioned in your witness statement for why the

02:34:44.720 engagement proposal went nowhere was the what happened in Windsor. And when I looked at the

02:34:54.800 record there's an indication um in a document that we'd seen previously it's pbnsc.can402963

02:35:08.160 deputy minister stewart said that the reason the letter from ontario minister jones didn't have

02:35:14.800 much effect was owing to the late hour of the day in which it was given out and the enforcement

02:35:21.120 starting the next morning you wouldn't have any reason to disagree with that would you

02:35:27.200 i i do believe that's what deputy the deputy minister said right and after the engagement

02:35:33.440 proposal was um discarded as an idea nobody went back to the police and said or marcel

02:35:41.360 bodin and said hey what else should we do is that fair it wasn't discarded as an idea

02:35:48.640 there was nothing to act on i do think those are different things okay thank you very much

02:35:54.720 uh those are my questions thank you if i could uh now ask for the ccla please

02:36:18.640 Good afternoon. My name is Kara Zwiebel. I'm counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties

02:36:25.160 Association. Mr. Commissioner, my friend Mr. Honor from the Democracy Fund has given

02:36:30.040 me five of his minutes, and he's going to limit his questioning to five minutes, so

02:36:34.360 I have 15 now on my count.

02:36:37.360 Okay.

02:36:38.360 So, I want to ask you about a theme that my friend Mr. Michikowski was just asking

02:36:45.000 you about um around sort of this this question about um uh the proper relationship between

02:36:52.840 police and government um and i would imagine that as um both you know employees in the prime

02:36:58.520 minister's office and obviously residents of ottawa um it might be difficult to sort of

02:37:04.520 separate the fact that you're looking at at what's going on both from a policy perspective but also

02:37:10.360 living through it um on right you live here i don't oh you don't live i live in toronto oh okay

02:37:16.760 um so so some of you live here um um now i i know you have access to uh to briefings from the rcmp

02:37:27.880 um i'm not sure if you get if you get uh briefings or sit in on briefings from any of the intelligence

02:37:34.680 uh bodies um but i i think we've seen some documents um that also sort of show you doing a

02:37:42.040 bit a bit of your own you know getting information as we all do from media sources from uh social

02:37:48.920 media um so for example can we can we pull up ssm nsc can four zeros two nine four zero

02:37:57.000 And I think, Ms. Telford, this is a text message between you and the Prime Minister.

02:38:09.980 I think it's a tweet from a reporter.

02:38:15.100 An admission police can, this is February 2nd, an admission police cannot control the situation.

02:38:21.000 This is a complete mess and textbook mismanagement.

02:38:23.360 they allowed the truckers to set up shop next to the pmo and west block and where tens of thousands

02:38:28.540 of people live and now realize the problem they helped create unbelievable and i i think this is

02:38:33.640 the prime minister writing to you the pps i think that's parliamentary protective service

02:38:39.200 rcmp guy and caucus said as much he said he didn't want to let them onto wellington

02:38:43.600 but it wasn't his call um so so are you sharing this with the prime minister as just sort of

02:38:50.840 here's what's happening on the ground, here's what people are talking about,

02:38:54.340 here's what's in the zeitgeist?

02:38:57.120 In a manner of speaking, you'll find through a lot of the texts that I submitted

02:39:02.760 a lot of different tweets, as well as information from the Prime Minister's

02:39:10.780 executive assistant who lived right in Centre Town and was keeping him posted

02:39:15.960 on what it was like on the ground.

02:39:17.460 Okay. And then can we also pull up SSM CAN 407729?

02:39:41.100 I forget that they're also here, but I can't really see them.

02:39:44.140 so um so over here uh again i think can we just scroll down just a little bit so this is evan

02:39:50.780 solomon just walked through the protest on parliament hill tonight and i spoke to two

02:39:54.940 guys carrying fuel containers past police the police chief said protesters would not be allowed

02:40:00.060 to bring fuel to i think that's trucks but these two said police aren't bothering them at all no

02:40:05.340 enforcement um and i i think this is you uh sorry can we scroll up was this one of your texts no

02:40:11.980 it's not actually so what you can't see there is that also in this chat is um is the prime minister's

02:40:18.620 uh executive assistant or was executive assistant at that time okay and so that's an example of what

02:40:23.900 i was just describing okay um and can we scroll down um so saw this type of thing happen when i

02:40:29.180 left hill gas coming in and cops were just standing looking at them walk by and we've heard evidence

02:40:35.180 in the commission that um at some point protesters started filling jerry cans with water um as a bit

02:40:41.660 of a tactic so that it looked like the police weren't doing anything about gas being brought

02:40:46.700 in but in fact it was it was water is that something that you were aware of or have you

02:40:50.940 have you heard about that uh during the course of the commission i've heard a number of things to do

02:40:57.180 with the jury cans over the course of the commission okay um is it fair to say that what you were

02:41:04.540 seeing both on social media and in the media and on the ground here in ottawa as as residents um or

02:41:11.660 part-time residents maybe um weren't sort of matching what you were hearing from from the

02:41:17.820 police from uh briefings from the rcmp i think especially in the early days there were a lot

02:41:26.220 of different numbers uh coming from what we were seeing on social media what we were seeing reported

02:41:31.660 from mainstream media who were you know walking around and and doing their own counts um as well

02:41:38.060 as what was coming in from different law enforcement agencies okay um can we go to um

02:41:45.100 mr clow's notes ssm nsc can four zeros two nine four one it's page 11 of the pdf

02:41:53.420 And if you can make it just a bit bigger. So I think I don't think we have a date on

02:42:11.500 this, although I think based on where it's placed in the

02:42:17.240 document, we're maybe I think it's after the note that you

02:42:24.400 identified Mr. Clow as being on February 9. And it's February

02:42:27.640 10. Okay. So February 10. So this is I think that is this the

02:42:32.120 three of you? Or is this the other JB? The other JB? Okay,

02:42:36.300 the other JB and the Prime Minister. Katie will call

02:42:40.900 clerk next you're not being briefed by intel officials someone on us side who can give best

02:42:47.700 advice um surely someone in system someone played out plan uh and i'm not sure what rcmp intel lucky

02:42:59.540 anyone else to report on this so what is this can you tell me what this note means not being briefed

02:43:04.420 by intel officials yes so that morning so this was february 10th there were a series of meetings that

02:43:09.940 led up to the incident response group that happened later that day so right before this

02:43:14.820 note a meeting a discussion happened between the prime minister and several ministers including

02:43:20.740 minister medicino minister blair where he was updated and went around the table full discussion

02:43:27.060 of the current situation this discussion was a debrief of the prime minister and a few of us

02:43:33.940 staff members coming out of that meeting so you see some next steps and i believe the comment

02:43:39.860 about intel was a reflection that we were absolutely getting a lot of information

02:43:43.620 particularly from the national security intelligence advisor but there was an interest in

02:43:48.340 more of it and there was still an incomplete picture when you looked at the various

02:43:55.700 blockades and demonstrations across the country and what was behind it and what was going into

02:44:00.020 it and where was it going okay so so not a lack of intelligence but not as much as you wanted

02:44:07.380 is that fair right okay um in your witness um summary and i can bring it up if you'd like but

02:44:14.900 there's the lessons learned sort of section or a place where you're you're pointing out some um

02:44:21.700 you know areas that you hoped the commission could comment on and one of the things you say there um

02:44:27.860 The panel suggested that the Commission provide further guidance on the independence of police

02:44:33.560 operations. Mr. Broadhurst, so that's the other one who's not here, sorry, underscored that the

02:44:40.620 government understands the importance of not dictating police operations, and at times it was

02:44:45.460 difficult to know whether the police and the government shared the same ultimate goal. The

02:44:50.260 government should be able to discuss a desired outcome, for example, to clear the occupation and

02:44:55.000 blockades and share concerns about the consequences that the country would face if that does not

02:44:59.800 happen. Did you, during the time that the blockades and occupation were happening, did you have

02:45:07.960 doubts about whether the police planned to clear them? I don't think it's a question of whether

02:45:16.460 they planned to clear them, but that there were on multiple occasions where we were being briefed

02:45:21.960 that things were going to happen that then didn't happen.

02:45:25.060 So we found ourselves three weeks in with with things continuing to escalate.

02:45:34.460 OK, but you would say that you you did believe that you that police

02:45:37.860 and government had the same ultimate goal.

02:45:40.160 There were frustrations and maybe mismatches in terms of timing.

02:45:44.460 But was there a doubt in your mind that the did like I know it sounds silly,

02:45:50.760 but did you think that the police's plan was to was to just allow this to continue no the concern

02:45:55.720 was do they have the tools or is there more that could be done by the federal government provinces

02:46:02.440 municipalities could we support them more that was the discussion and concern okay um and once

02:46:08.760 the emergencies act what was invoked um i've talked to this about some other witnesses and

02:46:13.320 and i think they've agreed that um although government can't direct police one of the things

02:46:18.200 that a public order emergency does is communicate very clearly to police that there are certain

02:46:24.680 things that the government wants to happen and they're giving them the tools to make those

02:46:29.400 things happen do you agree with that so in this case the government wants uh the flow of funds

02:46:39.240 to stop going to people that are funding the blockades right and it's giving the rcmp

02:46:45.800 and financial institutions the tools to make that happen the government the cabinet the

02:46:51.080 prime minister wanted the unlawful activity and the threats to stop and the emergencies act and

02:46:57.720 the measures in it was the best assessment of what could be provided as additional tools

02:47:04.520 to help the unlawful activities stop okay um and once the emergencies act was in place and

02:47:11.400 the orders were in place um i know the irg continued to meet um and there was some tracking

02:47:18.440 of of the measures of how the measures were working right there was an attempt to collect

02:47:23.080 that information so that you could see um what impact the orders were having is that fair

02:47:30.520 yes okay thank you um one other area i want to talk about i i understood your evidence on the

02:47:36.680 the engagement proposal and why that didn't go further because there wasn't sort of a

02:47:41.160 tangible plan there i just wanted to ask you about a different aspect of this and if if we can pull up

02:47:48.280 um uh sorry it's i hope i have it here yeah ssm nsc can five zeros 292

02:47:59.320 This is one of the, I think it's an SSE meeting notes. Sorry, let's just take a look. Yes,

02:48:12.160 SSE, and it's from February 3rd. And if we can scroll, it would be probably, I think it's page

02:48:20.300 eight. And Mr. Clerk, you might need to, oh, you don't have to rotate it. But if you can just move

02:48:27.400 it over yeah so i just want to ask about these creative some of these creative alternatives on

02:48:32.920 this side of the screen um one is um le grand debat modeling after 2019 yellow jackets protest in

02:48:40.280 france the country launched a national listening listening exercise cross-country meetings french

02:48:46.280 president attended some did that suggestion make it to the irg or to cabinet was that something that

02:48:54.680 that was explored um beyond i guess beyond this sheet of paper and sorry what date was this from

02:49:02.440 uh february 3rd i believe february 3rd so that was the first meeting of that cabinet committee

02:49:09.320 my assessment of this document is that it's a public service document which is

02:49:14.680 fairly normal for these discussions to fuel a discussion i would say on that i can't speak to

02:49:20.760 what was discussed or whether that was addressed in the meeting but i would say in february there

02:49:26.440 was a very specific urgent need and my view is that that would not have been appropriate to

02:49:33.000 address that urgent national challenge that we were facing right in that moment okay and just

02:49:38.440 um if we can scroll down just a little bit the last item there communications shift encourage

02:49:43.800 shift in communication we hear you we understand go home question does this legitimize protest

02:49:51.720 um what about that discussion was there a discussion about um and i know we saw a text um

02:49:57.960 a message that was communicated i think through minister leblah from jason kenney um saying

02:50:04.040 you know something about calling them all nazis didn't help um i think here what what someone's

02:50:09.240 getting it is maybe we should tone down the rhetoric and and try to um even if we're not

02:50:14.920 going to meet with them try to in a communications way tone it down um was that something that was

02:50:21.160 discussed um or or considered there were constantly discussions like that is there something we could

02:50:28.120 say something we could do just like there were lots of discussions about the engagement proposals

02:50:33.240 but the wall we would always hit is the assessment was given the demands of the convoy which was to

02:50:42.200 drop all the mandates we weren't going to get very far with this kind of uh this kind of suggestion

02:50:48.180 okay um last thing i'm going to ask um i know i'm almost out of time i just want to ask about

02:50:54.460 um and if we could pull up um sorry mr clow's notes one last time uh i think the clerk probably

02:51:03.740 knows that um and here it's page 23. it's not almost by the way oh okay may i get one last one

02:51:13.500 in thank you um so uh so we're at uh february 14th and um maybe we can make it just a little

02:51:23.580 a little bigger thank you um so february 14th 12 30 um pm i'm gonna look on my paper here um

02:51:35.740 p.m taking i think that's maybe time taking time now then it says he'll depart from the hill

02:51:42.620 to head to west block okay and then jagmeet singh opposition leader uh can do it whenever

02:51:48.780 the part that i'm interested in is um this discussion about quebec um and you know i

02:51:54.940 gather that i'm not sure this is i guess this is after the first minister's meeting so um we know

02:51:59.740 that quebec is a bit concerned about the application of the emergencies act in the province um and it

02:52:05.580 says um without sending without saying we're sending rcmp to quebec pm call ago no intention

02:52:15.980 to do anything in quebec other than ottawa uh pablo i assume that's minister rodriguez called

02:52:21.580 to lego military isn't a part of this not looking to take over won't go to quebec border um

02:52:29.660 um so it it it seemed if you don't need it then we're not going there so this was a staff debrief

02:52:39.140 following the fmm on that day ahead of the prime minister's conversations with the opposition

02:52:44.720 leaders so at this time the consideration was considering continuing around the emergencies act

02:52:51.200 so this was a quick discussion of staff of things we should be considering or doing coming out of

02:52:57.380 fmm given the premier of quebec communicated so clearly that he didn't want the act applied in

02:53:05.060 quebec that's what that discussion reflects it was a very brief staff discussion okay it wasn't

02:53:11.300 ever communicated to the premier of quebec that the act wouldn't apply there or that the police

02:53:16.180 wouldn't take action there because that's not something that would have been possible given

02:53:20.340 what the orders said right the act did apply there okay thank you thank you for answering

02:53:24.740 Thank you for hearing my questions.

02:53:25.740 Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.

02:53:26.740 Mayor Paterson- Okay, thank you.

02:53:27.740 The Democracy Fund, JCCF, please.

02:53:39.740 Good evening.

02:53:40.740 My name's Alan Hawner.

02:53:41.740 I'm a lawyer from the Democracy Fund.

02:53:43.740 I just have a few questions for you,

02:53:44.740 and they're directed to anyone at the panel.

02:53:49.740 You were asked about political commentary

02:53:51.740 from the United States.

02:53:53.740 If I recall correctly, that was something that President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau

02:53:59.260 spoke about.

02:54:00.260 Yes.

02:54:01.260 Okay.

02:54:02.260 And I just want to ask you about some of the political commentary which happened after

02:54:06.280 the invocation of the Emergencies Act, which, and after the meeting with President Biden,

02:54:10.880 which I understand to be February the 11th.

02:54:13.900 The phone call was February 11th, yes.

02:54:15.860 Pardon me?

02:54:16.860 The phone call was February 11th.

02:54:18.060 Yes, thank you.

02:54:19.500 Can we pull up pb.can6069 underscore REL.0001?

02:54:35.260 This is a letter from Premier Kenney, Premier Moe,

02:54:38.900 and 16 governors from the United States of America,

02:54:42.500 and I believe it's dated February the 16th.

02:54:47.240 And my friends, and correct me if I misconstrue this letter, but the signatories here are

02:54:54.120 expressing concern over vaccine requirements and the impacts of those requirements on the

02:54:59.900 North American supply chain, the cost of living, and the availability of essential products

02:55:05.520 for people from both countries.

02:55:09.580 My question for you is, how does a letter like this get before the Prime Minister?

02:55:13.520 Could I see the signatories?

02:55:15.600 Yes, of course.

02:55:16.600 so in general when correspondence comes in especially at this moment

02:55:25.000 on this issue given the emergency act was in place february 6 february 16th letters get to him

02:55:33.240 sometimes through a normal course that may take some time other times letters are elevated more

02:55:39.640 urgently and this letter here i i assume it's important because we got 16 governors from united

02:55:46.520 States. It's our biggest trading partner, our best ally. Notably, it's signed by the

02:55:51.960 governor of Montana. Of course, Montana is right across from Coutts, Alberta. Did this

02:55:58.360 letter get to the prime minister? Do you know?

02:56:01.280 So I can't recall if this got to the prime minister, but I would say the views expressed

02:56:04.980 are matched the views that we heard from a lot of people, but the government did not

02:56:11.360 agree with that. Okay, thank you. Can we pull up pb.can.401045 underscore REL dot 0001?

02:56:25.680 And the document we're going to see here, it's not dated, but the top words are congressional

02:56:32.080 reaction and it contains a number of tweets including a tweet from Matt Rosendale. He's

02:56:38.720 a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana and it's supposed to be after the

02:56:46.160 invocation of the Emergencies Act and he says that he led 63 Republican colleagues in support

02:56:52.800 of the truckers protesting COVID-19 mandates and urging President Joe Biden to work with Canada

02:56:59.440 to lift the mandates on essential travel at the border. Do you know if this was ever brought to

02:57:04.720 to the prime minister's attention. This specifically, I can't speak to that. I

02:57:10.400 don't know if it was brought to his attention. Okay. One more document, ssm.nsc.can50172.

02:57:23.320 And this is when it comes up, so I got the number right.

02:57:38.040 So this is an email from Deputy Jack Adam to Deputy Minister Jack Adam to Deputy Minister

02:57:45.220 David Morrison.

02:57:46.220 I'm not sure if they're both from Global Affairs Canada, but the email sets out U.S. political

02:57:51.820 reactions to Canadian measures. It's dated February the 16th. And if we can just look

02:57:57.000 at item number two here. We see that there are different comments. One of the comments

02:58:03.860 here is Canadian truckers being fired and now targeted as terrorist by your woke government.

02:58:10.860 And it is attributed to a US House of Representatives member. And there are other remarks from other

02:58:18.640 politicians which are somewhat uncomplimentary towards our country do you know if this document

02:58:26.560 was ever brought to the prime minister's attention i don't believe this document would this looks

02:58:31.440 like an internal document at the department of trade but prime minister we were all well aware

02:58:37.920 that these views were being expressed by a certain segment in u.s politics okay thank you very much

02:58:44.000 those are my questions thank you and next the canadian constitution foundation please

02:58:55.360 yes thank you my name is jenny shen mcgonathan and i am counsel for the canadian constitution

02:59:02.320 foundation and my questions are for mistelford so we know that there were three irg meetings

02:59:09.520 that took place on february the 10th the 12th and the 13th and while cabinet ministers were present

02:59:16.640 at this meeting at these meetings it's not a meeting of the entire cabinet right correct

02:59:24.640 and we do know that there was a meeting with the entire cabinet that took place the evening of

02:59:30.720 february the 13th right that's right and the following morning on february the 14th there

02:59:37.920 was a meeting with the first ministers and then later that day on february the 14th or at some

02:59:43.840 point that day there was a decision made to declare the public order emergency later that day that's

02:59:50.160 right thank you and so i just have a few questions about cabinet meetings does the prime minister's

02:59:58.640 office advise the prime minister on the agendas for cabinet meetings usually the um privy council

03:00:07.120 office led by the clerk puts forward an agenda for a cabinet meeting and actually usually

03:00:15.840 john's team here will go back and forth with them a bit on it in case there's any insight

03:00:21.680 into particularly into time management of the meeting but they will present that to the prime

03:00:27.440 minister okay so it's fair to say though that you have some input the prime minister's office has

03:00:34.560 some input into the agenda input would be fair yes all right and who ultimately decides the

03:00:43.920 agenda at cabinet meetings like who has the final say the prime minister and does the prime minister's

03:00:51.120 office advise the prime minister on which non-cabinet officials attend cabinet meetings

03:00:57.840 no not really i mean the the the clerk of the privy council uh would be the person who would

03:01:05.600 advise and um advise on officials uh in terms of who should attend and uh and then there's usually

03:01:14.640 a few from the prime minister's office who attend and the prime minister agrees with who those are

03:01:19.120 okay so does the prime minister's office offer any input in terms of suggestions of who could

03:01:26.460 or who should attend these meetings that are non-cabinet members only of our own team

03:01:33.180 okay and who ultimately decides which non-cabinet officials attend these cabinet meetings

03:01:42.220 i think i just said that but i'll try again um is so the clerk in terms of officials on

03:01:47.340 the public service side um and ultimately it's the prime minister who decides who

03:01:52.460 who he welcomes in the cabinet room uh but the clerk will advise and uh and sign off on a on

03:01:59.660 a list from from an official's perspective and then there's usually some representatives from

03:02:03.500 the prime minister's office okay but the prime minister i take it has the final say of who

03:02:08.540 attends of course all right and um does the prime minister's office advise the prime minister on

03:02:15.980 what information should be shared at these cabinet meetings again the privy council office

03:02:23.500 um and so it's the clerk who will and her teams uh who will put together the information

03:02:30.940 and we may have some supplemental or additional information from a political perspective that we

03:02:35.980 may provide in a in a pre in a briefing ahead of cabinet but the documents come from the public

03:02:43.420 service side okay so leaving aside the physical documents that are coming in it's fair to say

03:02:49.260 though that the prime minister's office has some input into the kinds of documents that

03:02:53.980 are provided at the cabinet meetings uh yes i mean we will provide feedback uh sometimes

03:03:02.220 they'll ask us from the public service side what our thoughts are around especially as it relates

03:03:06.460 to meeting flow and what might be most useful that kind of thing for the ministers okay and

03:03:11.500 i take it it's fair to say that it's again the prime minister who's got the ultimate say

03:03:16.140 of the information that's provided at these cabinet meetings yes and in terms of documents

03:03:23.100 at the cabinet meetings i take it you also have the prime minister's office also provides some

03:03:27.980 input into the kinds of documents i think we've already touched on this the documents as well

03:03:32.300 yes okay and so in terms of the february 13th meeting the evening meeting with the full cabinet

03:03:43.500 who sort of set the agenda for the cabinet meeting

03:03:48.700 same process as i just described okay and did the prime minister's office

03:03:53.900 offer any input for the agenda for that february 13th evening cabinet meeting

03:03:59.980 So things were moving very quickly that day, and we were on the brief ahead of the Cabinet meeting,

03:04:07.480 and so I imagine we probably added some thoughts in terms of how the meeting might flow,

03:04:13.660 but that would have been the extent of it that day.

03:04:16.880 Okay, and what about the information that was provided at that February 13th evening Cabinet meeting?

03:04:25.040 did the prime minister's office offer any input on the information that would be provided

03:04:30.640 i'm not even sure if we would have i don't recall doing that no

03:04:34.560 okay what about the documents at that february 13th evening meeting did the prime minister's

03:04:40.000 office offer any input sorry i'm not sure i know the difference between the last one and this one

03:04:46.320 i thought we were just answering about documents so same same answer so information it could be

03:04:53.680 things that are said vocally out loud to the cabinet members versus physical documents that

03:04:58.960 are provided to the cabinet members so as i said a couple of times in in the briefing ahead of

03:05:04.640 cabinet we will provide our our insight our advice our best advice and feedback in terms of how the

03:05:12.880 flow might work and um and just ways of approaching different things um but that's really the extent

03:05:21.600 of our involvement and in preparation for the meeting whether it be documents or information

03:05:27.200 and again i guess it's fair to say for that february 13th evening meeting it's the prime minister

03:05:32.640 who had the ultimate say over the agenda the information that was provided in the documents

03:05:38.240 that were shared is that fair yes and just my last few questions i have um we've heard about

03:05:45.360 this assessment from CSIS, an assessment that ultimately concluded that the situation did not

03:05:54.000 amount to threats to the security of Canada as set out in the CSIS Act. Was this a threat assessment

03:06:02.160 provided to the cabinet members at the February 13th evening meeting with the full cabinet?

03:06:08.800 i am not sure whether i think the deputy clerk and clerk and it's like i i think their testimony

03:06:18.000 was on this on this they they led that process so i would refer to their testimony i don't recall

03:06:23.000 anything more than that but none of you know okay what about an alternative threat assessment

03:06:31.220 you know a threat assessment that's different from the cesus threat assessment was that provided

03:06:37.380 was any such assessment provided to the cabinet members at that evening February 13th meeting with the entire cabinet?

03:06:46.260 So all of these assessments were provided to the incident report, the IRG, earlier that day.

03:06:53.640 And then that was really rolled up and reported out to cabinet in the evening.

03:06:58.720 Okay, so, but the members of the IRG meeting, you know, it's not the entire cabinet, right?

03:07:08.260 correct and so i'm just asking about the actual was there a document with a threat assessment

03:07:15.620 that's different from the cc threat assessment was there a document that was shared at that

03:07:20.420 february 13th evening meeting i can speak to that and can either the other two refer back to

03:07:28.500 the deputy clerk's testimony okay and we've heard about this legal opinion that was created that

03:07:36.740 talked about how the definition of threats to the security of Canada in the CSIS Act

03:07:42.820 has a different interpretation when applied to the Emergencies Act. I'm not asking about

03:07:47.460 the content of that opinion. I just want to know, do you know if that legal opinion

03:07:52.580 had been provided at that february 13th evening meeting with the entire cabinet

03:08:08.100 i'm not sure what we can say i'm not sure what we can say on that i think there's that's

03:08:12.660 there's some cabinet confidence issues there so i don't see anyone objecting and i think

03:08:19.700 someone can correct me if i'm wrong but the input that's provided to cabinet in terms of

03:08:24.740 what information was provided is not covered by cabinet privilege i'm not asking about what was

03:08:29.780 discussed or the deliberations i just want to know if that legal opinion had been provided

03:08:35.380 at that february 13th evening meeting with the entire cabinet commissioner it's brian gover on

03:08:41.380 behalf of the government of canada the government of canada maintains the objection that you heard

03:08:45.940 yesterday from government counsel then about solicitor client privilege pertaining to the

03:08:54.740 information provided by attorney general minister of justice lametti

03:09:02.900 okay so i think we're stuck on that

03:09:07.940 and just so i'm clear that objection means i can't ask whether that opinion had been provided during

03:09:14.180 that meeting sorry I can't see anyone yeah I'm just waiting for an answer

03:09:23.240 Brian go over you may not consistent with maintaining the objection inquire

03:09:30.320 into the content of any advice given by the Minister of Justice and Attorney

03:09:35.360 General and the question is does that include the fact of or of the opinion or

03:09:43.220 not my friend may inquire as to whether an opinion was expressed the fact of the opinion not the

03:09:54.340 content so to be clear i was never asking about the content of the opinion was the fact of this

03:10:01.940 you know was this legal opinion the fact that this legal opinion existed and whatever its content may

03:10:07.620 have been, shared at that February 13th evening meeting with the full cabinet?

03:10:15.660 I'm not sure. From a document perspective, there were certainly discussions around it.

03:10:22.240 Okay. And the final question I have is, there was this Ottawa Police Service POU plan.

03:10:30.840 Was that plan shared to the cabinet members at that February 13th evening meeting with the entire cabinet?

03:10:44.060 We had heard at various points in the lead up to the invocation that there were plans or action was about to be taken in various situations, including Ottawa.

03:10:55.540 absolutely that was part of the discussion and consideration the fact that action had not been

03:11:04.340 taken up until that point and the assessment was that was because law enforcement did not

03:11:09.380 have the tools they needed okay but was that plan the document the plan you know there's a there's

03:11:16.000 a document that's called the op spou was that document shared with the february 13th cabinet

03:11:24.080 members it's hard to comment because we don't have the document we don't i don't know i'm not sure

03:11:27.440 what document that is sure um i'm not sure how much time i have left commissioner below i can

03:11:32.800 just bring up the document just to ask them if this was something that was shared during that

03:11:36.240 meeting you're over time so if you want to put up the document that'll be yeah that's fine i'm just

03:11:42.800 i'm not sure they understand what it is a pou plan is a public order unit which is are the police

03:11:50.880 officers who go in on a police uh uh public order uh process or

03:12:01.520 so i can't speak to that specific but cabinet was definitely aware that on february 13th when they

03:12:06.880 were discussing the situation in ottawa was worse than it had been at any point and the threats of

03:12:12.400 violence the actual violence was terrifying that's what was discussed at cabinet okay but you can't

03:12:19.200 say whether that document had been shared during that meeting and i just want to be fair to the

03:12:24.000 witness sorry oh sorry it's pbnsc can uh four zeros seven seven three four that's the document

03:12:37.840 and i'll just ask them if this is something they've recognized and whether they know if it was shared

03:12:49.200 just on that page so i take it from shaking your head now we need an audible answer that's not

03:13:02.960 familiar to me i've never seen this one okay thank you very much those are all my questions

03:13:07.120 Okay, next is the City of Ottawa, please.

03:13:26.120 Good evening, my name is Alyssa Tompkins, I am a Council for the City of Ottawa.

03:13:32.120 I just want to ask you a couple questions about some comments in the witness summary.

03:13:37.520 So, Mr. Clerk, if we could bring up the witness summary, it's WTS, however many zeros, 83.

03:14:02.120 And if we could go down to page four, bottom of page four.

03:14:13.520 So I'll start by directing my questions to Mr. Clough because these comments are attributed

03:14:18.680 to him, but obviously the others can add in.

03:14:22.120 So there's a comment here at Mr. Clough noted that the city was clearly struggling to manage

03:14:27.360 the occupation and that this was reflected in most conversations and media reporting

03:14:32.000 and reaction from residents so mr cloud did you understand that the response to the protest was

03:14:38.080 a police-led operation absolutely i understand that okay so you understand that the city

03:14:46.880 cannot direct law enforcement as to operational matters when i said city there

03:14:52.640 i believe i would have meant the city holistically so all of it the sum of its parts clearly the

03:15:00.560 situation in ottawa was out of control and that's what i was referring to okay so in terms though

03:15:06.280 of it it you understand it was managed by the police though which reports into the city of

03:15:12.980 ottawa i mean all of this is is the different levels are relevant here okay so the police

03:15:19.140 you understand there's a police services board that is independent from the city so i've answered

03:15:25.060 the question my comment was that the city of ottawa was out of control in especially in the

03:15:32.040 downtown okay okay i just wanted to be sure that that you weren't suggesting the city itself could

03:15:39.320 be doing more i'm not speaking to i wasn't here or am i now speaking to specifics of the arrangement

03:15:45.720 within the city of ottawa okay and if we could just go to the next page please

03:15:53.560 and uh again it's it's you mr clow uh referring to a meeting you had um and i think if we were to

03:16:03.640 actually look at the footnote i won't take you to it but i think it's a february 3rd

03:16:07.720 and it's noted that one issue identified in the notes of this meeting was the fact that the

03:16:12.120 request from ottawa did not come from ontario and it was unclear whether provincial resources

03:16:17.880 had first been exhausted so this is prior to the letter from the mayor so we're in the first week

03:16:24.040 and i i just um commissioner lucky and minister blair have both testified that it's in fact very

03:16:30.200 common for the city of for ops to reach out to the rcmp directly because of ottawa's status as

03:16:36.920 the national capital and I just want to make sure you don't have any evidence to contradict them

03:16:42.280 that this was actually a quite a normal process at this point. I don't have any evidence of that

03:16:49.240 effect and I stand by what's what appears here. Okay thank you those are my questions. Okay thank

03:16:54.840 Thank you. Next is the Ottawa Coalition, please.

03:17:12.840 Good evening. My name is Christine Johnson.

03:17:14.840 I'm counsel for the Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses.

03:17:18.840 I want to ask you a few questions this evening about your experiences

03:17:22.840 in Ottawa and also some of the experiences you were hearing of staff members that you work with

03:17:30.080 in Ottawa. And I understand, Mr. Broadhead, that you live in Toronto and we're not here for the

03:17:34.800 Ottawa protests. So I will direct my questions. Okay, so I will direct these questions to Ms.

03:17:41.360 Telford and to Mr. Clough. So you were both here living in Ottawa during the demonstrations?

03:17:47.840 Yes. And in the witness statement, and to save time, I don't think we need to pull it up unless I hear otherwise from you, but your colleague, Mr. Broadhurst, noted that at least some protesters engaged immediately in illegal activity by blocking and occupying city streets, defacing public property, harassing residents.

03:18:12.680 Was this also your observation, that this kind of illegal activity was occurring as early as the first weekend in Ottawa?

03:18:20.680 Yes.

03:18:21.680 Yes.

03:18:22.680 And Mr. Clerk, I will ask for you to pull up a document, SSM.CAN.00007737.

03:18:35.680 And as this is coming up, I can advise that this is a set of text messages that we see at the top.

03:18:46.720 It says Katie and JT.

03:18:48.800 I presume this is text between you, Ms. Tilford, and our Prime Minister.

03:18:54.440 And I believe it doesn't show at the top of this document,

03:18:57.520 but the way this document's labeled in our disclosure, our discovery database,

03:19:01.600 it also says it involved um phil prue who i believe is the executive assistant or was the

03:19:06.640 executive assistant that's right and you've testified here tonight that mr prue lives in

03:19:12.640 center town yes yes um and we see here uh you can see faintly at the top these are uh texts shared

03:19:22.480 on february 2nd um and it looks like miss telford you share a tweet um from city councillor katherine

03:19:30.400 mckinney describing the situation in center town and then we see this blue box below and i'm not

03:19:38.480 sure do you recall if this was from mr prue or was this from our prime minister that would be

03:19:42.640 phil prue okay and he says yep the honking wheel spinning went on late again last night it was all

03:19:49.280 day yesterday again i put earplugs in at times during the day yesterday to make it less aggressive

03:19:55.600 It has already started again this morning.

03:19:59.300 They have some periods of calm now, but then start nonstop for a period of time.

03:20:03.760 It is enough to absolutely drive you absolutely nuts.

03:20:07.200 The truck horns especially, they sound like they are right in the middle of your home.

03:20:12.280 So would you agree that this statement seems to convey that for residents living in the heart of Centretown,

03:20:19.360 the honking could be heard very loudly inside homes and not just on the street?

03:20:23.140 that's certainly what he was conveying and did you hear about this experience from other residents

03:20:29.620 as well through your conversations with um city councilor citizens groups yes uh we were hearing

03:20:36.980 it from local members of parliament um and and they were hearing it from many other constituents

03:20:42.500 we were hearing it from staff we were hearing it from members of parliament who were in town

03:20:46.980 um it was uh and and everyone was from a staff perspective was having to work from

03:20:53.380 home during this period or almost everyone was there were a few essential staff able to go in

03:20:58.820 um but both because we couldn't access our offices because of the occupation

03:21:04.100 um as well as omicron we we were working virtually during this whole period

03:21:10.340 right and on that point i i think i saw in the witness statement that there was actually a

03:21:14.500 direction at some point that staff should work from home for their safety and it was mentioned

03:21:19.220 that this was uh never done before it was never communicated that staff should work from home for

03:21:23.700 their safety before that was unusual and significant that's right for a demonstration

03:21:29.300 staff had been advised to work from home during covet pandemic at different periods but for a

03:21:33.060 demonstration as far as we can recall we've never had to send a notice like that saying stay away

03:21:38.420 And in terms of safety concerns regarding staff, we saw in your witness statement, there was mention of a particular incident where a convoy participant threw coffee at a pregnant staff member. Do you recall that incident?

03:21:54.420 That's right.

03:21:55.420 And do you know if this incident was reported to police at all?

03:21:58.860 I'm not sure.

03:21:59.440 Are you aware that there were incidents of threatening and assaultive nature going on that were not, in fact, always reported to police at this time and where they were, residents were not always receiving feedback that these complaints were being followed up on?

03:22:19.140 Yes.

03:22:20.820 Okay, those are all my questions for you this evening.

03:22:22.900 Thank you very much.

03:22:23.840 Thank you.

03:22:25.260 Next is the Ontario Provincial Police.

03:22:29.440 good evening it's chris diana council to the opp and commissioner i can advise that i've been

03:22:43.980 gifted five additional minutes from the windsor police service for which i'm very grateful

03:22:47.480 i may not need that time but i appreciate the gift and if i need it i will use it

03:22:52.040 yeah and if you don't use it they don't get it back

03:22:54.520 won't be my concern at that point i wanted to ask about nipper wash you mentioned nipper wash

03:23:02.480 in your witness summary and as far as who answers this it doesn't really matter whoever has knowledge

03:23:06.640 i was going to bring up your witness summary but i don't think that's necessary

03:23:10.080 you referenced that there was a verbal briefing you said that in your evidence-in-chief

03:23:14.300 and i wanted to ask you about that verbal briefing what did that come out of

03:23:19.260 why was there a purple what do you mean yes um so as i think i mentioned earlier

03:23:27.440 today i um it was actually something that i raised very early on in all of this um perhaps

03:23:36.140 because i i worked at queen's park uh once upon a time uh but it was something i was just very

03:23:41.300 conscious of and wanted to make sure we knew where all the lines exactly were and um the deputy clerk

03:23:47.700 who's a former deputy minister of justice made sure to get us information on that right and the

03:23:53.620 reason i wanted to ask was because i mean that's very preemptive of you but were there any concerns

03:23:59.120 that you had about comments that had been made by anybody at that time no it was literally day one

03:24:03.880 that i asked these questions and when you say day one like the first day the day of the arrival of

03:24:07.980 the protesters approximately i might have even been just before it was it was the very first

03:24:15.700 meeting i was in talking about these kinds of things and hearing about potential how the police

03:24:20.260 were going to be handling things were any members of cabinet asking you kind of how far can we go

03:24:24.820 as far as police because understandably there was some frustration that we've heard about

03:24:28.900 police enforcement uh no if anything it was uh everyone was extraordinarily cautious on that

03:24:38.500 All right, Mr. Clerk, if you can bring up pb.can.1870 and Mr. Cloud, these are some text messages I believe that you were involved with, so I'd like to ask you because I think you may have some specific knowledge.

03:24:56.500 all right and it's not entirely clear from the text themselves although the description of the

03:25:05.780 text in the database suggests that this may have been a text exchange with chief of staff

03:25:10.260 mike jones who i believe with the chief of staff for the minister mendicino yes that's from mike

03:25:16.420 jones to me okay and so i wanted to ask and that's what i thought based on the content so this is an

03:25:22.580 email exchange you had sorry a text exchange with mike jones on february 6 240. do you remember this

03:25:30.260 exchange i do yes all right and so mike jones writes he expressed some concern about ops

03:25:38.580 enforcement and concern for the safety of the pm i assume he's referencing the prime minister there

03:25:45.060 yes and he says he wants to go out and say that ops needs to get control over the situation

03:25:51.940 and if they need more from opp they should make that clear but they should get working on removals

03:25:57.140 within the next 24 hours now i take it that when he says he wants to go out he's referring to

03:26:02.740 minister mendicino is that correct i would assume so do you know if that if mr minister mendicino

03:26:10.020 or anybody else actually went to ops with that kind of direction to try to remove people within

03:26:15.300 the next 24 hours so first thing i'll say is these updates came in there was a lot happening there

03:26:21.620 were a lot of conversations going on so i you'll note i didn't even have a chance to reply to this

03:26:26.100 or i didn't reply to it but i would have received the update my recollection is that did not happen

03:26:32.260 what is proposed here um and i don't want to read too much into the specifics of what is written

03:26:39.540 here but absolutely as katie said we were always incredibly careful and aware that politicians

03:26:48.820 don't direct the police right and when you say we were aware you're talking about the prime

03:26:53.300 minister's office or are you talking about all of cabinet both these this was discussed and mentioned

03:26:59.380 on various occasions throughout the convoy and is it because people were expressing concerns

03:27:04.660 about police enforcement it was because this clearly policing was a central part of this

03:27:12.580 and a lot of us are aware of issues from the past everyone here is aware of it for wash

03:27:18.980 for example so we were highly sensitive right out of the gate that politicians do not instruct the

03:27:26.420 police yes and i would have asked to be clear i would have asked minister mendicino but we didn't

03:27:30.100 get this in time for me to do that which is why i'm trying to understand from you whether or not

03:27:35.460 minister mendicino or anybody else actually contacted anyone from ottawa police service

03:27:40.580 or even the rcmp to say we want people gone we want them gone quickly i have no knowledge of

03:27:47.380 that okay but you would agree i don't believe that happened no certainly and it sounds like

03:27:51.300 the prime minister's office was very aware of upper wash which is great and i'm sure you would

03:27:55.620 agree that if that had been communicated to the police service that would have been inappropriate

03:28:00.580 correct if what is written here is a faithful and accurate description of of what it appears

03:28:09.060 we were in here i do agree direction should not be given to the police by politicians right and you

03:28:15.700 would have no reason stout that you know what his chief of staff was saying you wouldn't have a

03:28:20.900 reason to believe that wasn't what he was hearing from his own minister correct i have no reason

03:28:24.420 to believe that but i i can't and shouldn't speak to that um i do actually believe this text message

03:28:29.380 was put to minister mendicino this week but that really would be a question for for him

03:28:34.580 do you know when you talked about the briefing that was done on ipra wash

03:28:39.800 were the ministers involved in that briefing i mean it sounds like there were a number of

03:28:45.000 discussions but miss telford you mentioned there was one briefing in particular at the beginning

03:28:49.680 was that a a cabinet briefing no that was that was something we received um on our request but

03:28:56.900 um but it was something reinforced on numerous occasions throughout the process and again when

03:29:02.680 say we i just want to make sure i drill down on who who who are we are they the the politicians

03:29:08.360 their staff members kind of who is we uh so we within prime minister's office who are here we

03:29:14.600 were briefed early on on our request but then the the um the principles were repeated on numerous

03:29:23.960 occasions uh certainly through irgs and through other discussions throughout i don't think there

03:29:30.120 there was anyone that I worked with who was not conscious of of the need to be

03:29:34.300 cautious correct thank you and just to confirm the record it was put to

03:29:41.660 Minister Mendocino okay we all make mistakes and so council for former chief

03:29:57.120 Chief Sloley, please.

03:30:06.120 Thank you, Commissioner.

03:30:08.120 Panel, Tom Curry for the former Chief of the Ottawa Police Service, Chief Sloley.

03:30:14.120 Just a few questions, if I can, please.

03:30:18.120 These events have been described by probably everyone who has appeared here as unprecedented.

03:30:23.120 And certainly in your collective tenure in the Prime Minister's office, that would be true.

03:30:29.280 Yes.

03:30:30.260 And the circumstances were also, I think she slowly described the volatile nature of the events here in Ottawa, and you share that view.

03:30:42.300 Yes.

03:30:42.640 I think he may have described or others have described a tinderbox risk of violence, present always, it seemed, and growing.

03:30:54.180 Yes, and we saw it ourselves as well as had it reported to us, the threat of violence both to people and property.

03:31:02.180 It was significant throughout and escalating.

03:31:04.440 And although it may not have been clear at the outset of the demonstration and the protest,

03:31:13.360 but as it evolved, did you come to understand that there were significant limitations

03:31:18.560 on the ability of the Ottawa Police Service to manage it with its own resources?

03:31:24.500 It certainly seemed that way.

03:31:27.240 And were the briefings that you received always through RCMP officials, briefings on police operations or updates, did they come from Commissioner Luckey?

03:31:41.680 Yes, though also the Deputy Minister of Public Safety, the NSIA, would have different parts to the briefs as well.

03:31:48.280 Understood. So just a couple of things, if I can get, and I think they're Mr. Clow's notes.

03:31:52.140 So could we please just get your help with a couple of things?

03:31:55.440 This is for our registrar, SSM NSCCAN 2941, please.

03:32:07.540 If that, yeah, thank you.

03:32:09.580 Just a little larger, thank you.

03:32:14.220 So this is just to situate you.

03:32:16.320 Do you see February 3rd, 1115?

03:32:18.860 Yes.

03:32:20.520 And you've looked at some of these notes previously.

03:32:23.200 that says it looks like ops won't move weeks not days um weekend reinforcements problem

03:32:34.720 behind the scenes two deferential need i think you just i want to just confirm this says need bad cop

03:32:42.560 you've got to you've got to use the tools you have whether to change public message is different

03:32:50.240 Those are references. Do you know what those are references to? Is that reference to the idea that that at that time, at least someone was expressing the view that police were taking a standoffish position with the demonstrators?

03:33:06.860 I think that's a fair assessment of that comment.

03:33:08.740 And then just in the second one, it looks, the second set of comments, just as to this, RCMP, does it say through OPS under bus at caucus?

03:33:24.360 Yes.

03:33:24.760 Yes, it does.

03:33:25.240 How do we get right people on the path to driving somewhere?

03:33:31.200 Any way to get, well, and you talked about that earlier.

03:33:34.220 Is that, to the extent that you can recall this, does, is that an indication that the RCMP was, was pointing to OPS as the police of jurisdiction responsible for doing this and that they weren't taking sufficient action at that time? Or can you help us?

03:33:51.540 It was, that's me recounting from a national caucus meeting that, I believe that morning, where there was a presentation given to caucus members.

03:34:05.260 The large part of the discussion was actually around personal security and security of the building.

03:34:11.400 There were significant concerns for members of parliament being able to get from the airport to downtown, let alone from downtown up on the hill.

03:34:17.600 And actually getting off the hill was a bigger problem than even getting on it.

03:34:21.540 But also as part of that, it was discussed or it was caucus were told that if it had been up to anyone other than the OPS,

03:34:32.740 that they would not have allowed the trucks onto Wellington and that they had given that advice and it wasn't taken.

03:34:39.400 Right, all right. Did you learn at that time from anyone in that briefing from RCMP that some RCMP officials had seen and reviewed and approved the OPS plan in advance of the protest?

03:34:54.140 They did not get into that level of detail with caucus.

03:34:56.500 Okay. Could I ask you just to look, please, at page seven of this record, Mr. Registrar, just for a couple of other things.

03:35:03.280 Now, of course, I've got to pick it out where it was.

03:35:16.180 Ah, about the middle of the page, you see there's a reference to,

03:35:22.640 this is obviously a cabinet, it looks like it might be a cabinet committee briefing,

03:35:26.020 but it it says too high about the middle 250 rcmp assisting some holding back for surge

03:35:33.940 and there's reference to the ambassador bridge up above did you did you come to realize as this

03:35:38.580 evolved that there was some misunderstanding about how many rcmp officers were made available

03:35:46.260 to ops at any given time matter of shift counting and the like did you learn that

03:35:50.660 there definitely appeared to be some confusion over several days about the numbers right i think

03:35:59.540 the mayor of city of ottawa had said that what was represented as the number that had been deployed

03:36:05.380 to ottawa was was smaller than the number that had been represented in to pub the public and so on

03:36:13.060 and then just a couple of other lines if i may ops trying to reduce violence are taking some steps

03:36:20.660 um and then there's a likening to ottawa's strategy to to d-day that is that a reference

03:36:29.740 to the idea that there was a plan in place to try to dismantle the occupation but that it was going

03:36:35.860 to require significant additional resources it could be but i don't know that um this was an

03:36:42.340 update from the nsia to the prime minister that sunday evening on february 6th right and then

03:36:49.300 And Mr. Commissioner, your indulgence for one more question with Mr. Clow's benefit, page 12, if you don't mind.

03:36:58.400 Of course, you were following this as this page is coming up.

03:37:02.540 You were following this across the country.

03:37:04.320 These, as you've described, Ambassador Bridge and the like.

03:37:09.040 If you look at, if you scroll down a little bit, Mr. Registrar, there we go.

03:37:15.020 I just want your help with this.

03:37:16.260 Brenda, of course, you've described as Commissioner Lucky.

03:37:19.300 um certain references to rcmp ottawa team headed to windsor york waterloo opp plan is to remove by

03:37:29.300 morning because auto workers uh counter protest we've heard some evidence about that mayor wanted

03:37:39.620 to remove chief so then chief sent letters is that a reference to letters that were received

03:37:45.940 by I think either the Prime Minister or Minister Blair requesting resources from RCMP you recall

03:37:54.040 that I'm not sure what that final line refers to but this looks like a discussion of an update we

03:38:00.560 received this was February 10th at the IRG that Windsor action was anticipated the very next day

03:38:06.460 thank you and then the last very last thing on February 5th Chief slowly noted at a Police

03:38:13.300 services board meeting that quote something has changed in our democratic fabric and we do not

03:38:18.740 have the legislation or the resources to manage such situations we do not have the justice system

03:38:24.740 framework or the needed coordination between all levels of government to predictably manage

03:38:29.540 these demonstrations going forward you described a threat to national security do you share those

03:38:34.420 Can any of those views?

03:38:35.420 Mayor Mrakas- Largely yes.

03:38:40.420 Mayor Mrakas- Thank you.

03:38:41.420 No other questions for you.

03:38:42.420 Thank you.

03:38:44.420 Mayor Mrakas- Okay, next is the city of Windsor.

03:38:48.420 Mayor Mrakas- Good evening Graham, reader for the City of Windsor.

03:38:51.420 We have no questions, we ceded our time to the Government of Canada.

03:38:55.420 Mayor Mrakas- Okay.

03:38:56.420 Government of Saskatchewan, please.

03:38:58.420 please uh good evening panel my name is mike morris and i'm counsel for the government of

03:39:05.620 saskatchewan uh mr broadhead just at the outset i want to make something clear at the first

03:39:12.340 minister's meeting premier mo expressed the view that the emergencies act was not wanted

03:39:18.260 and not needed in saskatchewan correct i i believe he also said these the six items

03:39:26.260 sounded reasonable uh might maybe sounded reasonable but wouldn't be perceived that way

03:39:33.620 is that fair i think that's fair yes and and certainly did not want the act to apply to

03:39:40.740 saskatchewan correct i think that was clear from the premier yes okay thank you i'd like us to take

03:39:47.220 a look at a document so i'm going to ask the clerk to pull up ssm can four zeros six nine two zero

03:40:00.420 and while we're waiting i'll let you know that this is an email from ms charette clerk of the

03:40:05.140 privy council to actually everyone on this panel at 8 24 a.m on february 14th

03:40:19.220 so we can see there 8 24 a.m uh from ms charette good morning all there's something that's

03:40:25.460 privileged but then she is detailing uh work that seems to be going on other products in train

03:40:32.660 fmm script with q's and a's comms news release and bg which i expect means background decision

03:40:40.660 note for pm uh then at the end she says others still in the machine uh mr broadhead when she

03:40:47.780 says others still in the machine can we take that as they were being worked on at that time

03:40:54.820 i don't it's not a very common phrase like i don't totally know what she was referring to here

03:40:59.460 um well she says only one i have seen is fmm script and then she says others still in the

03:41:07.480 machine so i i take it that means those are in progress would that be fair

03:41:11.220 i don't really want to speculate on what the clerk of the privy council was thinking with that

03:41:17.140 okay um if we could go on to a different document then uh well before we do does anyone else have

03:41:26.320 view on that that they're able to express are you specifically asking others still in the machine

03:41:32.880 or just yes the whole statement absolutely it could mean a number of things i i don't think

03:41:39.760 we can speculate okay i'm going to ask the clerk to pull up the email that was referred to by

03:41:46.000 council for alberta before it's ssm can four zeros two six six five and this is the email thread that

03:41:58.880 was entitled presser tomorrow and i'd like us to go down to the bottom of the second page of the pdf

03:42:12.400 right there is good uh we can see an email from a person named vanessa at the pmo

03:42:22.240 to a number of other people including others at the pmo indicating presser tracking for 4pm

03:42:29.040 this is not to be shared publicly until fmm over and pm updated itinerary is available or is out

03:42:37.280 please and uh her her email there of course is is at 1105 i believe if we just go up

03:42:48.240 11.05 a.m so my understanding is the first minister's meeting would have been going on at

03:42:53.280 that point um miss telford was the purpose in delaying the announcement of the press conference

03:43:00.480 so that the premiers would not be offended no the um there was a lot of work happening

03:43:08.320 concurrently at the time and uh to be ready for whatever scenarios and whatever decision ultimately

03:43:14.320 the prime minister came to and so vanessa um who you named there who's our excellent deputy

03:43:20.880 director of communications was making sure that all those tracks were were heading in the right

03:43:26.160 direction um at any point things could have been stopped and uh and things could have changed just

03:43:32.960 as they were okay i'd like us to go to the middle of the first page of this pdf and it'll be an

03:43:39.360 email at 1 43 p.m there it is from vanessa again uh to uh david taylor and and others stating we

03:43:48.960 just finished speech prep with pm alex is editing his remarks and we'll be able to share with this

03:43:55.840 group as soon as he is done so i i gather at this point in time 1 43 p.m on the 14th

03:44:04.880 the prime minister has already rehearsed his speech that he's going to be giving at 4 30 p.m

03:44:10.320 is that fair speech prep speech prep is our shorthand uh for going through his remarks uh

03:44:19.840 which we would have definitely returned to again uh that afternoon and so that means they would

03:44:25.840 have done a once through with him on what things could look like okay um he wasn't rehearsing two

03:44:33.920 versions of a speech was he one where he was announcing the the invocation of the emergency

03:44:39.440 act and another where he wasn't was he to be clear i wouldn't call it rehearsing um the words speech

03:44:47.280 prep literally mean preparing a speech and so they would have been discussing what what would have

03:44:53.760 been going into the content in it whether he was comfortable with where the drafts were at at this

03:44:57.520 point okay um we heard evidence from the clerk of the privy council some time ago and her evidence

03:45:08.320 was that the decision note was sent from the pco to the pmo at 3 41 pm on february 14th

03:45:21.440 we can pull up a document if you need me to or i can just ask you to take my word for it

03:45:26.560 and if if that's the case um are you familiar with the decision note i i gather you've likely

03:45:35.360 seen it before is that fair we're familiar with the decision though okay a fairly lengthy document

03:45:42.480 with a number of appendices correct yes and if it was received at 3 41 pm do we know at what time

03:45:52.800 uh it would have been returned with the prime minister's initials to the pco

03:45:58.480 it was at some point between receipt and when the prime minister made the announcement

03:46:07.840 okay so it's obviously sometime before 4 30 in the afternoon then correct

03:46:14.080 um that would not have given the prime minister much if any time to have read all of that

03:46:19.920 material would you agree with me well a couple comments one he did read the note

03:46:25.040 to the start time in the press conference it may be a bit absurd to dig in on the minutes but the

03:46:31.340 minutes are important here i don't know that it started precisely at 4 30 i think there might have

03:46:36.400 been some delay there but after it was received the prime minister did review the note signed the

03:46:41.660 note made the announcement and that signing of the note um was came after the fmm came after the

03:46:48.980 opposition leader consultation and that was the prime minister making the decision there before

03:46:55.400 he announced it. Okay I'm going to ask each of you a very similar question. Ms. Telford what I'd

03:47:01.940 like to know is when you found out that the prime minister would be announcing the invocation of

03:47:06.880 the emergencies act at the 4 30 p.m press conference. He and I would have been discussing

03:47:15.020 the possibility throughout the day until he signed the decision note uh there was there was nothing

03:47:23.580 confirmed um okay do we know when the announcement went out to the press gallery that the conference

03:47:32.620 was going to be held at 4 30 p.m i don't know what time that went out mr clow i believe went

03:47:39.980 out earlier that afternoon around around or shortly after one o'clock and the decision

03:47:46.860 at that point to issue the itinerary was to notify media the prime minister would have

03:47:50.940 something to say and it is absolutely possible that the prime minister could have decided

03:47:57.500 not to proceed down this path before he addressed the media that afternoon and it happens not

03:48:03.980 infrequently on an issue that scenarios are planned a track may be on a certain track but a decision

03:48:13.900 a different decision is taken at a certain point even at the last minute so no the decision was

03:48:19.420 not taken until shortly before it was announced to media okay i'll explore that just briefly if

03:48:24.940 i can let's call the emergencies act track one and let's call whatever the other decision could

03:48:31.100 have been track two was there material prepared for a track two presentation at 4 30 pm

03:48:39.180 if the decision was taken not to invoke the emergency act on that day the remarks

03:48:44.540 and announcement would have been changed

03:48:48.460 they would have time you're well over your time so you're gonna have to wrap up

03:48:52.620 um last question but was there any draft material prepared uh in the event that the decision was to

03:49:02.140 not invoke the emergencies act i'm not sure if there was you would be familiar if there was

03:49:09.180 though wouldn't you but my point is even if there wasn't a draft this can be done quite quickly if

03:49:15.340 in order to redraft materials um and it has happened before in different issues we got very

03:49:21.420 nimble during the pandemic where we were putting out advisories for things where we weren't sure

03:49:27.020 what the content was going to be a couple of hours later and that's what you need to do in

03:49:31.420 times of crisis yeah i appreciate uh the entire panel answering my questions thank you very much

03:49:37.820 Okay, now we go to the Government of Canada, please.

03:49:44.820 Thank you, Commissioner, and my name is Brian Gover.

03:49:55.820 I'm one of the lawyers for the Government of Canada.

03:49:58.820 And good evening, Ms. Telford, Mr. Clough, and Mr. Broadhead.

03:50:05.820 Go ahead. By my count, Commissioner, I believe I have 20 minutes with the kind donation from the City of Windsor. I hope to be substantially less than that.

03:50:15.820 That'll probably be a happy event for a lot of people, but don't feel on my account.

03:50:22.820 Well, let's see how we do.

03:50:27.180 First of all, the Order in Council sets out terms of reference directing the Commissioner

03:50:34.380 to examine the, to the extent relevant, the impact, role and sources of misinformation

03:50:41.280 and disinformation, including the use of social media.

03:50:46.500 And by misinformation, we understand that to mean unknowingly or unintentionally spreading

03:50:52.360 false inaccurate or misleading information we understand disinformation to be deliberately and

03:50:58.600 intentionally spreading false inaccurate or misleading information ms telford at any point

03:51:06.600 during the convoy occupations and blockades did you become aware of any misinformation or

03:51:13.320 disinformation that was affecting the situation um there was i became aware of a lot of of both

03:51:21.880 misinformation and disinformation over the course of the um the occupation and the blockades um

03:51:29.160 to name just just a few examples even even leading into the first weekend um one was

03:51:36.920 that this was even solely a trucker um protest and let alone the fact that it was solely about

03:51:46.120 uh federal vaccine mandates it was quite clear from very early on and even leading into the first

03:51:52.760 weekend we knew from the canadian truckers alliance as was mentioned earlier and also

03:51:58.440 from data that we had that over 90 of truckers were vaccinated we also knew that a lot of the

03:52:07.320 mandates that were being talked about were ones that were actually responsibilities and put in

03:52:12.440 place or imposed by provincial level governments or or even other levels of governments or

03:52:17.320 jurisdictions whether they be school boards or cities and uh and then of course there's a lot

03:52:22.200 of misinformation disinformation around vaccines themselves and then personally in terms of our

03:52:27.240 office we dealt with a number of different instances um our official photographer was drawn

03:52:33.800 into a conspiracy theory uh unfortunately where he was being alleged to be out taking a picture

03:52:40.760 of some um hate film flags and uh he at the time was actually in isolation with covid himself

03:52:49.720 there was no chance he was doing that we began trying to correct that he began receiving death

03:52:54.280 threats during that period um there was also a fake letter distributed amongst um people within

03:53:02.360 the occupation that was signed allegedly it was not signed by us but it was it was signed using

03:53:09.480 my name and the prime minister's name uh and uh suggesting ways in which we might agree to

03:53:16.600 some kind of i i don't even know what but this fake letter was corrected um and actually made

03:53:23.000 international news it was corrected on cnn at the time and then i personally was actually asked to

03:53:28.920 stay away for quite some time um from the downtown core because there was a it started on telegram

03:53:36.200 and then moved on to other social media channels a story that was created uh that i was going to

03:53:42.200 create a false flag operation and have a horse killed um and then blame it on the occupiers

03:53:47.800 so there were concerns for my security during that period as well and i understand uh commissioner

03:53:53.880 that the the fake letter that has been alluded to by ms telford can be found at pb dot can dot

03:54:01.720 four zeros one eight two one and the the false flag regarding Ms. Telford and the horse

03:54:10.200 is in evidence as pb.can.00001822. Ms. Telford how was misinformation and disinformation

03:54:23.000 conveyed or distributed in the course of the weeks that we're concerned with here?

03:54:28.920 we saw it being conveyed and distributed in multiple different ways the letter for example

03:54:34.800 was you know both screenshots of it floating around on social media but it was actually

03:54:38.640 being distributed in hard copy um and uh the other things as i mentioned were moving from

03:54:44.500 different social media platforms from one to the other uh but it was also we were seeing people

03:54:49.500 doing podcasts and youtube videos and different things where they were disseminating this

03:54:54.660 information as well moving to my second area mr cloud you've testified in response to a question

03:55:02.900 from commission council about communications with juan gonzalez whom you described as a member of

03:55:09.940 president biden's national security team on february 9th and commissioner we have in evidence

03:55:17.780 and I won't take the witness to it, the text message at SSM.CAN.407744.

03:55:31.080 And Mr. Clough, in addition to the text exchange,

03:55:34.120 did you have a telephone call with Mr. Gonzalez that you recall?

03:55:38.040 I believe we did speak at one point.

03:55:41.320 And when was that in relation to February 9th?

03:55:44.580 I can't remember the precise date, but the first exchange, there was an email exchange, a text exchange with him on the 9th,

03:55:56.120 and the interactions continued until about the 15th or 16th.

03:56:01.380 Thank you.

03:56:02.580 The third area relates to federal-provincial-territorial consultations and the first minister's meeting,

03:56:10.780 And we have the readout at ssm.nsc.can50625, and perhaps I'll ask our registrar to display that, please.

03:56:23.000 and perhaps i'll ask if we could go to the second page and

03:56:40.140 you'll recall that my friend for the province of alberta said that premier kenny was clear that

03:56:50.700 the Emergencies Act was not required in Alberta and referred to the situation in Coutts having

03:56:56.840 been addressed. Can anyone on the panel assist me with this question? Do you know where the

03:57:03.980 additional RCMP resources came from to address the situation in Coutts, which we've heard was

03:57:11.540 the subject of a police operation in the early morning hours of February 14th? Mr. Broadhead.

03:57:17.480 My understanding is that there was a contingent sent from British Columbia to assist at COOTS.

03:57:23.760 And in fact, at the second page, we have Premier Horgan from British Columbia indicating that his only concern is that the measures would be implemented by RCMP and BC, which are already fully taxed.

03:57:37.680 Not sure where you're going to find the people. We've already sent an RCMP contingent east.

03:57:43.220 Is that what you're referring to in that respect?

03:57:45.280 yeah and i would just add what what this illustrates is an example of something we heard

03:57:50.400 from officials um in the lead up to february 14th and the invocation which was yes there was some

03:57:56.800 progress in certain places and certain blockades but the progress was done with the help of

03:58:04.320 additional resources in in certain cases so in bc for example it was definitely concerning that

03:58:12.080 Alberta was cleared with BC not concerning it's good that Alberta progress was made with additional

03:58:17.760 resources but BC was facing its own problems there were arrests at the Pacific Highway there

03:58:23.440 was there was a military style vehicle there when convoy activity happened in BC so part of the

03:58:29.660 concern across the country was was there enough resources across the board to handle all of the

03:58:37.620 pop-ups that were happening and we were seeing in increasing numbers that weekend and Mr. Clough in

03:58:41.920 course of your evidence already you've referred to this phenomenon of stretching police resources

03:58:47.120 is that correct yes and this was in the context this conversation of declaring a public order

03:58:53.680 emergency which itself involves a national emergency is that right yes now you were taken

03:59:01.200 by the way to page three and what premier kenny said and if my friend from alberta said this i

03:59:09.600 didn't hear it but she referred to uh if we look down page three would be problematic to declare

03:59:20.560 emergency today uh and referred to what we see following the the next point starting with

03:59:29.040 invoking what they see as martial law what we didn't hear was what's in between two sentences

03:59:38.480 folks at the core of this movement are not rational they are prone to conspiracy theories

03:59:45.280 have i read that correctly yes and was that to the best of your recollection a feature of what

03:59:53.360 premier kenny said during the first minister's meeting yes can i can i add to that just the

04:00:00.160 other one that i think uh struck me in his comments was this line at the bottom of the page that

04:00:07.920 i don't quibble using the emergencies act which is particularly interesting considering his

04:00:14.000 previous roles with the with the federal government in uh in that kind of national and i think

04:00:20.800 there you know i i i certainly interpreted that uh as an important distinction between

04:00:27.040 what he felt was needed in alberta versus what uh we knew we were looking at from a national

04:00:33.920 perspective and having to take into consideration the stretch resources the diff the movement the

04:00:39.040 differing um situations across the country and and mr broadhead to elaborate if you would

04:00:45.360 when you refer to premier kenny's previous roles with the federal government to what are you

04:00:50.080 referring i believe he was minister national defense uh in particular so that was the

04:00:56.880 one i was thinking of right uh the uh and we're moving right along to the fourth area

04:01:02.320 could we take that down mr registrar and could we go to and display ssm.can.407721

04:01:15.520 and i come to this panel because i believe this was alluded to by my friend mr miller on behalf

04:01:24.400 of the convoy organizers and i really seek your assistance in interpreting what i understand to

04:01:32.480 be a note written by alex jerek first of all i've probably mispronounced his name but did you know

04:01:41.680 who that is yes he's uh part of the issues management parliamentary affairs team with a

04:01:46.800 focus on parliament and so a member of the pmo yes and if we look at this maybe we could scroll

04:01:58.320 down just a couple of lines perfect thank you uh and we see uh something attributed to someone named

04:02:05.760 rayal do you see that mr clow yes that's rayal lewis he's the chief of staff to the government

04:02:11.040 house leader and uh this says uh confident will win those votes need to do more in senate to win

04:02:21.360 that vote have i read that correctly that looks correct and uh how does that accord with your

04:02:27.680 recollection of the discussion surrounding the pending senate vote around the time when revocation

04:02:35.440 of the declaration i'm gonna object he's misrepresenting the document that document is

04:02:39.680 in fact prior to the uh invocation though doesn't have a date on it and it talks about the announcement

04:02:46.240 on the monday and it's quite clear that that record uh is in fact from prior to invocation

04:02:52.640 and it actually says in it that there's no violence under the cesus act i'm not sure what

04:03:00.080 the date is is there a date on the document no the doj never provided a date unfortunately

04:03:06.880 i'm not yeah well i i'm just looking at it so it's unclear what the date is i guess is what

04:03:12.960 you're saying it does say that it's uh before a monday where there's an announcement and of course

04:03:17.600 that the announcement of the emergencies act was on monday the 14th on valentine's day

04:03:24.080 uh if i may continue commissioner what i'm endeavoring to do is to ask for the

04:03:30.080 panel's interpretation of this so that we clarify these areas okay thank you thank you very much

04:03:36.560 and uh this continues and this is a part that i believe mr miller had referred to in his

04:03:44.000 cross-examination uh earlier or his commentary earlier nes spoke with nsia and jody thomas and

04:03:52.800 then there's an arrow s2 of cesus act colon violence not met new arrow wonder if need full

04:04:01.600 30 days if Ottawa cleared, then speech Monday morning. Are you able to help us, Mr. Clough,

04:04:09.320 understand the context of this? First of all, what does NES stand for?

04:04:14.500 So this whole page, reviewing it, this does look like it's well after. It could be a full

04:04:19.340 week after the invocation of the Act. Clearly, they're talking about the parliamentary process.

04:04:23.960 So the first part, Raelle Lewis saying he's confident when the votes need to do more in

04:04:27.520 senate so i addressed that in an earlier question that i know of no reason to believe the senate was

04:04:34.320 not going to endorse that and as i said earlier the chief of staff to the government leader in

04:04:38.880 the senate was doing vote counting and i believe that evidence was presented here and they were

04:04:43.520 quite confident they would win that vote the rest of the page looks like more parliamentary process

04:04:50.800 and an individual caucus member who is that individual caucus caucus member nader skin smith

04:04:56.960 and whose view did you understand to be that uh section two of the CSIS Act uh had not been met

04:05:04.800 it's hard to say I don't know what this refers to but there there was a public discussion going on

04:05:11.040 about this very fact as there is in this commission but I don't know specifically what

04:05:16.080 this refers to in this note right all right well we've done our best to interpret that and thank

04:05:21.520 you for that sir sir sorry i'm giving the dates well i understand but we don't have a date for

04:05:27.840 that document yeah and he gave his best evidence and there's not much we can do so please let let

04:05:34.160 the let uh council proceed thank you the the second to last uh area has to do with the process

04:05:44.880 that the three of you observed surrounding the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act

04:05:53.040 and how would you describe the process surrounding the invocation of the Emergencies Act, the

04:06:03.920 evolution of the thinking of the Government of Canada on that issue? Perhaps I'll ask you first,

04:06:10.800 Ms. Telford. I think the process was it was we tried to be methodical about it. It was very

04:06:19.520 step by step and it was seeking advice every step of the way from multiple parts of government.

04:06:26.640 It was taking in a lot of different inputs and it was doing a lot of consultation throughout.

04:06:32.480 And so actually even in processes that that are that often go on much longer than this one

04:06:38.080 could afford to. I would say this is actually one of the more robust processes I've seen.

04:06:44.340 Thank you. Mr. Clow, same question for you. Your description of the process.

04:06:49.180 I would absolutely agree with that. I don't know that I have much to add other than as has been

04:06:52.660 covered at some length here today and at this commission, especially in those days leading up

04:06:58.820 to the invocation from the IRG and even before that, the steps that were taken were careful,

04:07:05.840 considered and there were a number of conversations involving a number of senior officials and

04:07:11.040 ministers ultimately leading to the cabinet meeting on the sunday night um so it to me it was very

04:07:18.160 methodical thank you and mr broadhead the only thing i would add to what i obviously agree with

04:07:25.340 uh my two colleagues i think um watching the incident response the incident response group

04:07:31.360 And I say this as a policy wonk and somebody who spends a lot of time with cabinet committees and these processes, it really helped facilitate the type of discussion.

04:07:42.880 Having the experts, the civil servants, the key folks at the table, all the ministers there, that type of open discussion, it just meant we could move at a speed that the other institutions, the other parts of our apparatus don't allow.

04:08:00.680 and so i think that the combination of that and um and all the external advice we were getting

04:08:06.360 i think it was agree that it was a very kind of methodical process and i think that i think the

04:08:11.560 prime minister um was very clear about how methodical it needed to be um both in the

04:08:21.640 both before and and uh and after so i'll leave there and finally our last question is to you

04:08:28.680 miss telford if anyone were to suggest that the decision to invoke the emergencies act was

04:08:35.560 politically motivated what would you say to that it was absolutely not uh it was um it was driven

04:08:45.160 at its core in every meeting the prime minister began and ended and it was discussed throughout

04:08:52.600 how do we ensure the safety and security of canadians and there wasn't time space or desire

04:08:58.760 to talk about anything else thank you very much those are my questions okay thank you um any uh

04:09:08.280 re-examination no re-examination commissioner okay well thank you uh very much for uh sharing uh

04:09:17.560 for not sharing your thoughts responding to questions and uh coming to testify much

04:09:23.480 appreciated and it's appreciated that you accommodated the late hour i'm sure it's not

04:09:28.360 your first late nights but it is uh appreciated so uh i think we'll take a short break uh to move

04:09:36.120 We'll move to the next witness and we'll take to reorganize and so on.

04:09:45.120 So we'll take five or ten minutes for a break.

04:09:55.120 The Commission is in results.

04:09:56.120 The Commission is in a way.

04:10:06.120 Thank you.

04:10:36.120 Thank you.

04:11:06.120 Thank you.

04:11:36.120 Thank you.

04:12:06.120 Thank you.

04:12:36.120 Thank you.

04:13:06.120 Thank you.

04:13:36.120 Thank you.

04:14:06.120 Thank you.

04:14:36.120 Thank you.

04:15:06.120 Thank you.

Juno News - November 25, 2022

Katie Telford and Senior PMO Officials Testify ｜ Emergencies Act Inquiry

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