Juno News - Marco Mendicino Testifies - Emergencies Act Inquiry

00:00:00.000 Thank you very much.

00:00:30.000 Your name is Marco Mendicino, M-A-R-C-O, M-E-N-D-I-C-I-N-O.

00:00:54.060 Gérez-vous que le témoignage que vous allez rendre aujourd'hui sera la vérité et rien d'autre que la vérité que Dieu vous internaide? Je le jure.

00:01:15.060 So, we'll just start with a little housekeeping, which is the entry of your witness summary.

00:01:19.060 You'll recall sitting for an interview with Commission Council on September 5th this year?

00:01:23.060 Yes. And after that interview, Commission Council prepared a summary of the interview.

00:01:28.500 Have you seen and reviewed that summary? I have. Yes. And can you confirm that it's accurate to the

00:01:33.700 best of your knowledge and belief? Yes. Okay. For the record, Mr. Clerk, that's WTS 5054. No need to

00:01:40.460 pull it up. So, Mr. Mendocino, I understand you were appointed Minister of Public Safety in October

00:01:47.300 2021. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. And can you briefly outline, well, first of all,

00:01:52.880 your background before that the background in politics and then and what you did before that

00:01:57.120 i was first elected in 2015 and have been serving as the member of parliament for eglinton lawrence

00:02:05.100 which is a constituency in north toronto uh have been re-elected twice both in 2019 and in 2021

00:02:12.440 and prior to getting into politics i was a practicing lawyer in ontario where i served

00:02:19.380 for about a decade as a federal prosecutor and then subsequently

00:02:49.380 ... receiving information and sharing information from law enforcement to colleagues within

00:03:12.000 the federal government, making sure that we were staying in touch and engaging with different

00:03:17.240 levels of government, both provincially and municipally, making sure that we gave advice

00:03:23.820 to the government with regards to the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act and then subsequently

00:03:29.420 to revoke the Emergencies Act, being a communicator on behalf of the government to Canadians to

00:03:35.420 keep them apprised of the situation last winter, and a number of other roles, but those are the

00:03:43.740 was okay and we're going to explore a lot of uh the details of what you what you just outlined

00:03:48.380 today so we'll start with the time period before the convoy arrived in ottawa so mr clerk can i

00:03:54.780 ask you to pull up ssm.nsc.can401790

00:04:11.260 so mr manchino to situate you um this is just on january 26th i believe um oh i'm sorry if you

00:04:19.580 just scroll down a little bit you would ask commissioner lucky i believe to to brief you on

00:04:24.540 the convoy do you do you recall that i do recall that by the end of january there were reports

00:04:31.820 about a massive protest that was mobilizing from across the country and so to to be sure that we

00:04:39.020 were again kept aware of of how police were going to respond to that protest we asked for briefings

00:04:47.900 okay and the next document i'll ask you to pull up mr clerk is pb.nsc.can 50992

00:04:58.060 so these uh to situate you again as the documents being pulled up minister are uh talking points

00:05:05.340 for the briefing on january 26 i believe the commissioner lucky's talking points

00:05:10.620 um so they're not yours but i'm going to take you through them and you can confirm to us whether

00:05:15.660 this was the sort of information that was being provided to you that day so 26 before the convoy

00:05:21.100 arrives we scroll down mr clerk to where you see the goal uh there we go so the goal of the

00:05:27.580 nationwide protest is to disrupt traffic flow and general business of government in the hope

00:05:33.500 that the canadian government will lift all covet 19 related restrictions below that although the

00:05:39.660 majority of information indicates organizers are planning a peaceful event. Many social media posts

00:05:46.220 suggest some participants may attempt to disrupt government buildings and further

00:05:51.900 cause disruptions throughout the city. Was that information conveyed to you? Yes it was. Okay

00:05:57.500 scrolling down again to page two please.

00:05:59.580 it is unknown how long the protesters plan to stay in ottawa however the rcmp has located

00:06:10.200 social media posts indicating some participants may stay around the downtown core until january

00:06:17.540 31st in hopes to disrupt the house of commons sitting that day so with that information

00:06:23.840 conveyed to you and more broadly can you tell us what your expectation was before the convoy

00:06:29.180 arrived of how long it would or might stay. That information was conveyed to me and a number of

00:06:36.260 other colleagues at cabinet level and my immediate reaction was to question the quality of the

00:06:48.260 intelligence about the duration with which this protest was going to occur. One of the things

00:06:55.040 that struck me was that there were reported reports about a significant number of vehicles

00:07:01.040 that were coming from across the country and it certainly seemed to me that that just given the

00:07:10.040 amount of time that it would take to get to Ottawa and other locations in the country where

00:07:15.720 these demonstrations would occur that there there may very well be an intention to stay

00:07:21.940 longer than the short period of time that some of those initial briefings had suggested that they

00:07:27.620 would stay there combined with some of the public statements around the original manifesto

00:07:33.120 which in my opinion was the spark for the so-called freedom convoy the stated political

00:07:39.720 and ideological objectives within that document to force the government to reverse course on

00:07:46.940 pandemic policies or else to see the government overthrown or resign suggested to me that there

00:07:53.100 may be an entrenchment and as time went on we certainly started to probe those questions more

00:07:59.100 once they arrived at the end of january okay so just to sum that up and to make sure i have it

00:08:04.700 right when you say uh question the intelligence you sort of do you mean question the assessment

00:08:09.260 in the end of the conclusion that this is likely going to be gone by the end of of the weekend

00:08:13.500 you were you were concerned that it would stay longer than that that's correct okay um scrolling

00:08:19.180 down to page three please mr clerk we see there we go perfect with respect to the threat picture

00:08:27.260 there has been an increase in online narratives supportive of the convoy among both ideologically

00:08:33.020 motivated networks we've heard a lot about ideologically motivated networks and imvu over

00:08:38.060 the past week or so, as well as in general public discourse. And then scrolling down a little bit

00:08:43.660 more, the Convoy is attracting individuals who are not aligned with any specific ideology or group,

00:08:50.940 but who have experienced personal hardships such as job loss due to COVID-19 and are upset with

00:08:57.020 provincial or federal government responses as COVID continues to impact daily life.

00:09:01.820 open source monitoring has identified associated posts advocating violence and there's potential

00:09:09.740 for anti-government groups to join the demo with violent intentions um then it talks about online

00:09:16.620 posts feeding the conspiracy narrative with misinformation and disinformation

00:09:21.500 raising tensions scrolling down a little bit more please mr clerk um open source reports

00:09:28.780 also suggest that police are setting up roadblocks and such reports seem to fuel unintended some

00:09:35.020 truckers agitation uh a post to the event facebook group asked for known mp's addresses in ottawa

00:09:42.060 including the pm's residence and cottage and this suggests that the convoy should break apart

00:09:46.940 to to these locations is that all information that was conveyed to you yes and if i could just

00:09:51.180 be permitted to expand uh briefly because you touched on a few important points and if i could

00:09:56.860 just ask for the technicians to scroll back up. So right under the words on January 22, 2022,

00:10:07.980 there's a number of bullet points that I just want to shed some additional light on. So the

00:10:14.540 fact that the convoy was attracting individuals with different grievances was one of the

00:10:20.780 phenomenon around the expressly stated ideological political and in some cases extremely uh extreme

00:10:29.660 stated objectives of the freedom convoy um and this was something that that again was the

00:10:38.220 a recurring theme in our discussions with law enforcement with the security and intelligence

00:10:42.860 community the fact that um it was pulling uh in people with different grievances not just in

00:10:49.180 relationship to the pandemic but grievances regarding the government and other democratic

00:10:55.740 institutions similarly the the potential for violence was stated at the outset i mean there

00:11:03.100 were a number of very public statements by individuals like pat king who had said that

00:11:10.780 that this could end in bullets or that it would end in bullets potentially

00:11:13.820 was a signal of intent, at least that was my opinion, that certainly not all, I mean,

00:11:21.540 there were many thousands of Canadians who participated in these demonstrations and in

00:11:26.600 the blockade who were there for entirely legitimate and lawful purposes, but some were prepared to

00:11:32.920 become violent. There's a bullet point there about threats to public figures. We were concerned about

00:11:40.900 whether or not the blockade might target the prime minister. And then, as you will have heard

00:11:46.560 by now, there were subsequent many threats that were made towards not only elected public figures,

00:11:52.080 but equally law enforcement and representative of the media, which to me, again, signaled that

00:11:59.080 this was a movement that in some cases was prepared to attack our democratic institutions

00:12:06.520 to force change around policies.

00:12:10.000 Okay, I'll just stop you there and scroll down to the next page, Mr. Clerk,

00:12:13.980 because I think this is, or actually I think it's page six.

00:12:17.440 This is touching on the point that you just made, Minister Mendogino.

00:12:20.840 So at the top of that page, it says effective January 11th something

00:12:27.160 for announcements and public functions has been put in place for eight individuals

00:12:32.400 and it lists off Minister Jairi, Freeland, yourself, a few other ministers, and Dr. Tam,

00:12:37.660 and without obviously getting into what's behind that Section 37 redaction, is it fair to assume

00:12:42.140 that that means that some sort of, there was a security risk identified?

00:12:46.660 That's exactly correct, and the RCMB had briefed in the early days of the convoy,

00:12:52.620 certainly within the first week, that there needed to be a significant change in the security posture

00:12:58.900 regarding the ministers that are in that paragraph.

00:13:04.080 And in part, I think that was a response

00:13:06.100 to the heightened degree of posts

00:13:08.840 that were violent in nature,

00:13:12.000 the overtly criminal threats that were being made

00:13:14.700 against the lives and the security and safety

00:13:17.340 of identifiable public figures.

00:13:20.600 And so as a result of that,

00:13:22.240 the security detail did change around a number of

00:13:25.660 both me and my colleagues in cabinet.

00:13:27.720 Okay, and last point on this, if we just scroll down a little bit more, there's, you'll see a line that says concerns from Minister LeBlanc specifically, and what we'll be hearing from Minister LeBlanc early, later on today, but it says Minister LeBlanc has reached in to Minister Mendicino, noting MPs are concerned for their safety and amid reporting of demonstrators attending their residences. This is being taken into consideration as part of the above planning for deployment of resources.

00:13:56.380 And I think that that is worth emphasizing as well, because in addition to the security that was provided to ministers and cabinet, there was a heightened security posture around the Hill and around being able to access Parliament.

00:14:10.800 And indeed, one of my main concerns was that given, again, some of the stated objectives by some, including the potential to become violent, that that we were just returning from winter session.

00:14:26.580 And the first day of the resumption of Parliament coincided with one of the early days in in the blockade and subsequent occupation right here in Ottawa.

00:14:39.880 And I was worried about a significant number of people being able to both ingress and egress from the hill.

00:14:50.880 And so there was a heightened security posture so that we could continue to host Parliament or to hold Parliament.

00:15:00.240 It was a very important priority that Canadians see that the business of government continue, notwithstanding the blockade and the convoy.

00:15:09.060 But there were challenges. And I had many conversations with parliamentarians, disproportionately women, I would point out, who were the recipient of harassment, intimidation, expressions of hate through the convoy.

00:15:24.960 So that additional security was very much driven by the reality on the ground.

00:15:29.920 Okay, that was actually my next question, whether these concerns were based on identified threats having been identified, I'm going to use that word twice, but by the intelligence services or by law enforcement, or whether these were based on what was being seen on social media, or based on essentially complaints or worries expressed by members of parliament and the individuals involved.

00:15:52.440 All of the above. And so it was a combination of what we were seeing on the ground in the activities of the convoy and probably the most aggressive demonstration of their presence was the parking of ultimately hundreds of trucks on Wellington Street, which is one of the main arteries that runs through the parliamentary precinct.

00:16:15.500 and again I'll just pause here I mean that that visual suggested to me that we were going to be

00:16:25.160 in it for quite some time rather than just the weekend but I'll come back to that we were I'm

00:16:31.920 sure that the RCMP were taking into account what they were seeing online what they were hearing

00:16:37.520 from various parliamentarians regarding potential security threats and so for all of those reasons

00:16:43.380 again, security was elevated, not only for cabinet, but for parliamentarians and for staff

00:16:48.100 who were working in the parliamentary precinct. Okay, and we will get to the actual arrival of

00:16:53.260 the convoy, but there's one more document I'd like to pull up before we get there. So,

00:16:57.880 So, Mr. Clerk, that is SSM.nsc.can401809, and so this, Minister, may go to what you were

00:17:18.080 just expressing about your heightened level of concern.

00:17:21.840 This is Friday, January 28th at around noon, so this is as the convoy would be starting

00:17:27.640 to roll in you send an email to mike jones can you tell us who mike jones is because his name

00:17:33.320 will come up a few times i think this morning mike jones is my chief of staff and the email that you

00:17:38.840 put up which is dated friday january 28th at about 5 38 pm reflects the questions that i

00:17:47.720 intend to put to the table so looking at latest estimate on numbers both in terms of vehicles and

00:17:54.280 people, trying to ascertain whether or not there was any intelligence of individuals who may be

00:18:01.480 on a watch list regarding threats to national security. The third question that I put in the

00:18:11.780 email there, which is written as latest on what-if scenarios, what I was really, I think,

00:18:19.500 foreshadowing was a discussion around potential contingencies. Like, what if the convoy doesn't

00:18:29.740 disengage? What if they don't leave? And from a very early point, as I had said earlier, had

00:18:38.460 concerns that this was not just going to be a one or a two day event, that it was going to last much

00:18:43.980 longer and so i wanted to extract from um the community the law enforcement community the

00:18:50.700 intelligence community what do we do if that's the case how do we make sure that we keep public

00:18:56.620 safety um and and what are the contingencies around that okay um so just a couple of things

00:19:03.100 the first is is for the record and and for ease of understanding you'll see the the notation plus

00:19:09.420 four zeros there. That means that the timestamp is in Greenwich Mean Time, so it's minus

00:19:14.420 five hours. So that was around 1230. And as you say, you're asking, what if scenarios?

00:19:20.340 What if they don't leave? What if it lasts beyond Monday? What if it turns violent? What

00:19:26.500 if they come before parliamentary residences? And we know now at this point that what ended

00:19:34.080 up happening as of i think january 28th was uh a group of ministers consisting of yourself

00:19:41.040 i believe minister leblanc minister uh blair and minister al gabra were briefed daily by

00:19:48.000 uh a variety of officials from pco and various agencies under public safety

00:19:54.080 would that have been done in response to this request um i i think it was understood

00:19:59.920 early on that we were going to need to take a whole of government approach responding to the

00:20:05.400 convoy. So the initial group that you just highlighted of ministers was eventually expanded

00:20:11.360 and then ultimately, as I'm sure we'll get into, the Prime Minister convened a meeting of the

00:20:16.400 incident response group, which included a number of others. But I should highlight the two last

00:20:21.480 points which are in the email to Mike Jones, which suggests that at the time I was also

00:20:29.400 concerned about making sure that we were staying up on threat assessments as well to senators as

00:20:36.640 well as the governor general in addition to elected parliamentarians and finally I wanted to get a

00:20:42.360 sense of what outreach was being done to the organizers and my thinking there was let's try to

00:20:50.120 allow for the space for a lawful protest keep it within the boundaries of the law because it is a

00:20:56.520 hallmark of our democracy that people can take opposing different views um and and so i wanted

00:21:04.200 to make sure that there were some lines of communication with the organizers of the of

00:21:08.340 the convoy from the early days okay so we'll just skip a little bit ahead now uh so the convoy

00:21:14.420 arrives it doesn't leave on sunday or monday as expected and then we're into the first week of

00:21:20.340 the protest so i'll ask you a few questions about what that first week was like from your perspective

00:21:26.300 And with the assistance right now of the following document, pb.can401870, please.

00:21:46.660 Okay, so, Minister Mendocino, this is a text from Mike Jones, who's in the blue.

00:21:52.600 well if there's no one there's no one else i think in the and it's not blue but there we go now it's

00:21:56.840 blue um and the text is to brian clow can you tell us who brian clow is yes brian clow is the deputy

00:22:04.440 chief of staff to the prime minister okay so just scrolling down a little bit please mr quick so we

00:22:08.920 can see the text so this is sunday february 6th and and mr jones mike jones writes to mr clow so

00:22:16.920 my boss that would be you yes is pretty amped up he's concerned that ops have lost jurisdiction

00:22:23.560 as there's no control at all over what's happening on wellington also concerned for pm safety if he is

00:22:30.360 returning to this this week what does that mean if he was returning this week just pausing there

00:22:37.160 my recollection is that he was out of ottawa for some period of time and then would be returning

00:22:42.600 to to ottawa and to ultimately the house of commons and and so i was i was outlining my

00:22:52.360 concern about his ability to for him and his uh his staff and and and the rcmp that work with him

00:23:01.320 to protect him to get into and out of parliament safely because by then and the date of this text

00:23:09.800 is Sunday, February the 6th. So we're fully now, I think, about a week into the convoy. And this

00:23:17.060 would have been after the first weekend. And the concerns that I was expressing was that

00:23:24.580 by that first weekend, it was my opinion that it was virtually impossible to enforce the law

00:23:32.460 on Wellington Street. Given the rampant behavior, not only the noise that was being made by

00:23:42.340 the excessive honking of horns well into the evening, but some of the early reports,

00:23:49.140 and again, bear in mind, this is Sunday, February 6th. By then, there were a number of press

00:23:56.920 conferences that the Ottawa Police Service had held expressing serious concerns around

00:24:01.800 the reports of intimidation, harassment, and violence, if memory serves. I think there was

00:24:07.540 a press conference where the Ottawa Police Service had indicated that there were reports

00:24:13.520 of firearms that had been brought into the nation's capital. And subsequently, again,

00:24:19.280 I'm going from memory, but there was at least one arrest that was reported of somebody that

00:24:24.640 was making their way potentially to the convoy where the firearm was seized. You know, there were

00:24:32.300 efforts, I think, by law enforcement to try and get the situation under control, but they were

00:24:38.820 overwhelmed. So there were a series of events leading up to the text that Mike Jones had sent

00:24:46.220 to Brian Clough that had led to my concerns being elevated about our ability to restore public safety

00:24:57.900 on Wellington Street in the nation's capital, which is the seat of the federal government.

00:25:03.860 I would also just add that my concerns were not just about Ottawa, that by then there were already

00:25:08.960 reports as well about borders being uh blockaded and i would just recall for you uh and and uh and

00:25:17.840 for judge rouleau that in my job as minister of public safety i'm not just looking at the nation

00:25:24.880 the nation's capital or the parliamentary precinct i'm looking at the entire country and so by then

00:25:30.560 a number of critical infrastructure and borders had become either the target of or in fact

00:25:38.880 blockades which had a significant impact on critical supply chains so there was a lot that

00:25:44.080 was i think um i'm i'm interpreting and extracting a little bit exactly uh from the language but i

00:25:51.120 think that's what mike jones was conveying to brian cloud okay so it just scroll down a little

00:25:55.600 bit more mr clerk so the next part of the text says he wants to go out that would be you want to

00:26:01.200 go out and say that ops needs to get control over the situation and if they need more from obp they

00:26:08.240 should make that clear but they should get working on removals within the next 24 hours and if they're

00:26:14.000 not if they aren't going to do it then we may need to look at other measures let me know if you want

00:26:18.400 to discuss so this represents where your your thinking is as you say at the end of the first

00:26:24.720 week so this is sunday february 6 and you've just told us why you've come to this this uh viewpoint

00:26:31.040 can i ask what you meant by we need we may need to look at other measures at that point

00:26:36.400 At that point, I think looking at offering additional resources to local police and, you know, there had been informal requests communicated to me and to my office for additional RCMP services, which we provided on a number of different occasions prior to the invocation of the act.

00:26:57.760 So that was certainly one of the other potential measures

00:27:02.200 that we could explore, which was,

00:27:03.600 how do we get more boots on the ground

00:27:06.680 to help the Ottawa Police Service?

00:27:09.580 And let's not forget the Ontario Provincial Police

00:27:12.460 who were the first stop if OPS or the Ottawa Police Service

00:27:18.000 could not restore public safety.

00:27:22.060 And so that's what I believe I was foreshadowing at the time.

00:27:25.600 okay uh well we're about to get into some of those resourcing discussions because the next topic

00:27:30.000 we're going to cover is the tripartite meetings right we've come to know as the tripartites so

00:27:35.280 um mr clerk if you can pull up while while i'm talking pb.nsc.can402335

00:27:45.440 so you meant you mentioned minister manichino that at this point there'd been a number of

00:27:55.340 requests made from uh from the ottawa police from various i think provinces at this point

00:28:01.100 even there'd been an approach from alberta but we're not really getting into alberta right now

00:28:05.620 but uh in any event around the 7th or 8th of february the 7th a decision was made that it

00:28:12.140 be a good idea to convene the federal provincial and municipal governments to discuss the situation

00:28:18.540 in ottawa and the way forward from there including the provision of resources as you mentioned

00:28:23.740 uh there are a lot of issues to cover that come out of the tripartites we're going to focus on a

00:28:28.300 few a few of those issues are the rcmp resources there's the lack of the ops plan and there's uh

00:28:34.620 what seems to be expressed as a a lack of engagement from the province of ontario so

00:28:39.740 I'm going to take you through a few extracts that focus on some of those topics. So the document in

00:28:46.460 front of us now is a readout of the February 7th tripartite, and that was the first tripartite

00:28:52.300 meeting. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Scrolling down, Mr. Clerk, when you see the initials,

00:28:59.100 M-M. Okay, M-M. M-M is Marco Mendocino. That's you? Yes. Okay. Minister Mendocino or Marco

00:29:05.420 managino one of the two so mm call last week with watson was productive it is stressful period for

00:29:13.100 you and chief feels like things have turned around a bit today we have confirmed 250 mounties have

00:29:19.740 been deputized supporting local law enforcement we have been timely and responsive in putting our

00:29:25.180 response together minister jones will want to have a discussion with what they can contribute

00:29:31.740 uh letter addressed to and scroll down yeah there we go both pm and premier we are going to be in

00:29:37.740 touch okay so from your recollection minister who attended that first tripartite meeting

00:29:44.540 um well from the federal level of government myself minister blair our officials some of

00:29:51.100 our political staff mayor watson i believe his chief of staff and um i'm trying to recall

00:30:00.940 whether or not uh there were any officials from the ontario government not elected um or not but

00:30:08.460 but i mean the majority of the participants were um the political levels from the city of ottawa

00:30:15.180 the federal government and supporting staff and officials okay and that's fair this isn't

00:30:19.100 a memory test anyway but um so minister jones obviously did not attend because you were talking

00:30:23.580 about getting her to attend in this in this uh exchange here okay um can we just scroll down

00:30:29.580 again to page two please keep going a little bit please mr clerk there we go where it says watson

00:30:39.020 on tripartite table so the discussion before this pertains to um rcmp numbers how many resources

00:30:47.340 are being provided there's some frustration expressed throughout this by the mayor of

00:30:51.820 ottawa mayor watson about how many rcmp boots are actually on the ground so that's being discussed

00:30:57.820 and then we get to Watson on tripartite table has the province agreed to this and Minister Blair then

00:31:05.660 says both of us have reached out mm that would be you and I she wasn't able to join today

00:31:11.100 unfortunately we'll continue to engage to encourage them to join these talks and then

00:31:18.300 Mayor Watson expresses an opinion that the province is reluctant to be a part of what's going on

00:31:23.260 and then expresses some frustration about that.

00:31:27.000 Would you agree with that characterization of Mayor Watson in that line?

00:31:31.460 The province was reluctant to be part of what was going on.

00:31:36.460 I would agree that at that particular point in time that there was a common desire to have Minister Jones

00:31:46.460 or additional representation from Ontario at the tripartite meeting for the purposes of

00:31:53.140 cooperating and coordinating the response to the convoy in Ottawa. Now, I would add that that's not

00:32:00.460 to say that the province was not engaged at all. And I know, for instance, that Premier Ford had

00:32:07.440 made a number of very strong statements about the state of the convoy, condemning it, saying,

00:32:13.360 you know it was out of control it pronounced very definitively and declaratively that it was time for

00:32:19.840 for people to go home if i recall correctly that would have been before this tripartite there were

00:32:25.760 other conversations that i was having bilaterally around around the tripartite so i would say

00:32:33.200 despite the fact that they were not at that table there were still conversations with ontario but

00:32:38.880 yes we would like to have seen them at the tripartite there's no doubt about that

00:32:43.200 okay um can we just scroll down again please mr clerk last point i think on this one page three

00:32:50.720 please sorry there we go where it says mm again wellington so mm wellington has invoked a lot of

00:33:00.000 images but the site of a crane trucks in front of pmo pco were particularly concerning uh need

00:33:06.560 to know from the chief what the plan is and chief there is chief slowly what the plan is

00:33:11.440 to have those vehicles removed with appropriate boundaries on operational independence how is the

00:33:17.280 convoy being broken up and disengaged can i just ask you to speak at this point on what you meant

00:33:22.960 there by appropriate boundaries on operational independence in this context well that's a very

00:33:29.520 important uh question because um the principle of operational independence has to guide the

00:33:35.520 relationship between police and the elected branch of government and again from my past professional

00:33:44.480 experience as a prosecutor and as a practicing lawyer i would have been very familiar precisely

00:33:49.200 because i had worked closely with police in a variety of different cases and the need to in

00:33:54.400 respect that principle at all times so i wanted to be sure that even as though we were asking

00:34:02.400 questions of police to provide some detail and some clarity around how they intended to restore

00:34:09.280 public safety that at all times it was respectful of that principle at the same time i do think it

00:34:15.120 bears emphasizing that police and the elected branch of government do not operate in two silos

00:34:21.040 and nor should we that there needs to be a dialogue between both branches to be sure that

00:34:26.400 police have the resources that they need which was one of my core responsibilities in the response

00:34:31.760 to the blockade as well as potentially additional tools to respond to the unique and unprecedented

00:34:37.360 nature of this convoy which is something that we ultimately came to so i know you may have

00:34:42.720 more questions about operational independence but i wanted to flag really early on that that

00:34:47.680 you know as we were asking questions we were mindful of that the other thing i would just

00:34:51.920 stress if i could is that in ultimately forming the opinion that we needed to invoke the emergencies

00:34:58.640 act one of my main concerns was the inability to enforce the law adjacent to critical infrastructure

00:35:06.240 and that would have included parliament and the nature of the parliamentary precinct is such

00:35:11.840 that wellington street falls within the jurisdiction of the ottawa police service

00:35:16.320 so i was certainly trying to reconcile in my mind that these are federal democratic institutions

00:35:25.920 But we did not have total jurisdiction over that space.

00:35:30.300 In other words, it wasn't at the sole or exclusive discretion of the RCMP, which is the Federal Police Service, to go and assert itself on Wellington Street to bring the situation back into control.

00:35:44.940 So we had to navigate different levels of government, including municipal and provincial, because Ottawa Police Service has that jurisdiction as of this moment.

00:35:54.620 And if they did not have the resources to respond to the occupation at that point, including the ability to remove hundreds of large vehicles on Wellington Street, including the ability to remove a crane, which had been parked right adjacent to the Prime Minister's office and the Privy Council office, including the ability to simply enforce the law,

00:36:21.660 then they could then next go to they then statutorily under the Ontario Police Services

00:36:28.040 Act could go to the Ontario government to ask for the Ontario Provincial Police Service

00:36:32.560 to backstop any gaps there but I would point out that there is no statutory link beyond that

00:36:39.440 to go from the Ontario Police Service Act to the Emergencies Act and I know that's something we're

00:36:44.280 going to come to. Okay there's a lot you've said there and we'll unpack that slowly but surely

00:36:49.760 But for the purposes of the discussion we're having right now about the tripartites,

00:36:55.100 would it be fair to say that part of the idea in holding the tripartites

00:36:59.180 would be to sort out the jurisdictional issue?

00:37:01.840 All of that.

00:37:02.320 It was really to make sure that all of the key players at all three levels of government

00:37:08.500 were able to navigate around the jurisdictional challenges and complexities.

00:37:15.120 But beyond that, the situation on the ground, which, you know, by then, as you pointed out in an earlier exhibit and text, it was on the brink of being completely ungovernable, if not already by then.

00:37:33.440 Okay. We'll go now to the next tripartite, which is the following day, February 8th.

00:37:39.720 Mr. Clerk, that's ssm.nsc.can402052.

00:37:56.160 So, these are notes taken of that tripartite.

00:38:00.640 Just again, to situate us a bit with the names here, Zita Astrovis, we've heard, is Mr. Blair's Chief of Staff.

00:38:07.660 Samantha Khalil, can you tell us who that is?

00:38:11.800 Samantha Khalil works in the Prime Minister's office, and I believe she works in the Issues Department of the Prime Minister's office.

00:38:19.040 Okay, so this is essentially a readout or notes from that tripartite on the 8th.

00:38:23.900 Scroll down a little bit, Mr. Clerk.

00:38:26.420 There we go.

00:38:27.540 MM, good to be back on these calls.

00:38:29.520 it's only been a day stay focused on the task at hand received your letter and the mayor then says

00:38:35.380 why no soljan attendance soljan is is minister jones that's correct okay and you say no word

00:38:42.180 back so you're conveying there that you you attempted to call or attempted to contact minister

00:38:47.340 jones and and had not heard back at that yes that's right okay and then uh the mayor says

00:38:53.260 he's speaking to the premier tomorrow and he will ask that his minister be at the table he goes on

00:38:59.820 to talk about a call that he'd had with the prime minister which we we went through in some detail

00:39:04.540 a few weeks ago um and then minister blair chimes in on ontario involvement and says i know marco's

00:39:12.860 been having good conversations with ontario they are worried about being visible and then being

00:39:18.700 asked about what the province is doing. Now, I appreciate that these are Minister Blair's words,

00:39:24.140 not yours, but do you know, do you recall what he was talking about when he said they were worried

00:39:28.540 about being visible? Well, again, as you pointed out, these are my colleague Minister Blair's words

00:39:36.620 that are being captured in a summary of a readout. I believe he was referring to the fact that at the

00:39:45.240 point in time that we were having these trilateral conversations that there was a lot of attention

00:39:50.440 that was being placed on both the city of Ottawa as well as the federal government and you know I

00:39:56.880 believe he was conveying a perception that that Ontario wasn't at the table at the time and so

00:40:03.780 again what we really were driving at here and as I think the summary communicates was an effort to

00:40:11.640 bring Ontario to the table. And I had reached out to Minister Jones, had not heard back at that

00:40:18.560 point, I believe, if memory serves, I was able to get in touch with her shortly after that

00:40:23.820 time. But it was it was really a full court press to try and have everybody at the trilateral table

00:40:31.940 because as we've discussed, there were operational complexities and jurisdictional complexities. And

00:40:38.180 to the extent that we could be all aligned, then that would help to restore public safety.

00:40:44.700 Okay. And we'll get back to that topic. I'm going to scroll down and take you to something else I

00:40:49.980 want to ask you about here. This is, sorry, scroll down a little bit, Mr. Clerk, until you see page

00:40:57.800 three slowly for every action should be a little bit down from there there we go so just scroll

00:41:08.680 down there we go thank you slowly so there's a chief slowly speaking and you're asking what

00:41:16.440 does the trend look like for removal is it going slow slowly going down or is it stop and start

00:41:21.960 and she slowly says for every action we do there is a counter reaction then that can exceed our

00:41:28.800 resources we saw that in coventry so he's discussing there the the give and take or the

00:41:34.160 the reactions and counter reactions in ottawa specifically but then he then says our public

00:41:40.600 request for more uh for 1800 more people resulted in the activity in windsor plus a national call

00:41:48.840 for protesters to drive to Ottawa so they can outnumber even increased police presence. Their

00:41:54.440 national implications and local implications here, they are very well organized and able to

00:41:59.560 mobilize people. So can you tell us, expand a little bit on what you were hearing about that

00:42:04.920 at that time, the level of organization and to the extent that you were hearing this and

00:42:12.280 the interconnectedness or not of what was going on across the country?

00:42:16.520 That is a critically important intervention by Chief Slowly at the time for a couple of reasons.

00:42:24.480 First, he's flagging as a very serious concern that locally they are outnumbered.

00:42:34.620 And he says that it is exceeding their, or he suggests that it is very close to exceeding their current resources,

00:42:43.920 which is why they had asked for some additional help, including from the RCMP, which by then we would have responded to.

00:42:51.060 There were a couple of installations prior to the invocation of the act that I think numbered in the hundreds,

00:42:59.540 somewhere between, you know, 200 at the outset and then eventually getting up to about 500 all told.

00:43:05.960 There were questions about exactly how those resources were being deployed by the RCMP in conjunction with Ottawa Police Service.

00:43:13.140 But the real important point is he's saying, we're outnumbered and we need help.

00:43:18.960 That's what I took from that intervention.

00:43:21.960 The other thing that he mentioned in that intervention is Coventry.

00:43:30.460 And through a number of briefings in the lead up to the invocation of the Emergencies Act,

00:43:38.020 there was a discussion of two different groups that were at play in the blockades.

00:43:42.440 There was a large group, again, of Canadians who were exercising their lawful right to protest against certain policies by the government.

00:43:50.740 But then there was another group that had other more extreme objectives that was much more sophisticated and organized.

00:44:00.460 And it's my recollection that that latter group was interspersed in a number of different locations very tactically,

00:44:07.160 but that there was a concentration of that latter group at Coventry Road that was made up potentially of individuals who had previously served in either the military or in law enforcement.

00:44:18.800 And that, to me, raised a concern, a very serious concern, about some of the counter operations that could be run by that group to overwhelm legitimate law enforcement.

00:44:32.680 And that, I think, is exactly what Chief Slowly is getting at when, you know, if numbers are being reported publicly about how many additional reinforcements are being sent in, then the word could go out to call for more protesters to descend into the nation's capital or, you know, again, quite frankly, to deploy across the country.

00:44:56.820 And again, I would hasten to add, this was not just about Ottawa.

00:45:01.280 This was about the entire country, where we would see the levels of protest go up and go down.

00:45:07.920 And the time that I thought was most dangerous were typically the weekends.

00:45:13.600 And that's when there was a surge of people who came and descended into the parliamentary precinct.

00:45:22.740 And that, if I read Chief Slowly Wright, was in part a tactical decision that was being informed by some within the group who had the skills and the experience to overwhelm whatever police resources were available at the time.

00:45:41.100 Okay, so going back to a few things you said, the first one you mentioned that there were some questions about boots on the ground and how many RCMP officers were being provided.

00:45:50.320 And we've heard about that, but from your perspective as Minister of Public Safety, what was your understanding of what was going on there and why?

00:45:58.960 Well, my understanding was that Ottawa Police Service did not have the resources to respond at the time.

00:46:07.760 And therefore, they were putting out a request for assistance from different levels of government and different levels of law enforcement, including the RCMP.

00:46:16.940 and that is one of and so my response as minister of public safety is let's get you what you need

00:46:22.340 let's get you the additional boots on the ground and in dialogue with commissioner the commissioner

00:46:28.340 of the RCMP we were responsive to that request on more than one occasion deploying additional RCMP

00:46:35.620 members to to assist to restore public safety here in the nation's capital there was also

00:46:43.800 other requests including in alberta but we can come back to that well i was uh before we get to

00:46:48.280 alberta when you say let's get you what you need do you mean let's let's get you what you need from

00:46:52.600 the rcmp or let's get what you what you need from the opp and then only then from the rcmp i wouldn't

00:46:59.560 say that there was necessarily that strict sequencing my my job as minister of public safety

00:47:06.360 was to be responsive to the requests that were coming in from the city of ottawa

00:47:13.480 vis-a-vis the ottawa police service and so we facilitated those requests they were not you know

00:47:22.040 they were not necessarily subject to the ontario provincial police responding at the time i wanted

00:47:27.880 to be as supportive as i could i was very much sympathetic to the plight of the residents in

00:47:35.560 Ottawa. I was very concerned for their safety and their security. We were beginning to see

00:47:40.440 counter-protests manifesting because I think at that time residents felt that they had to

00:47:44.840 take matters into their own hands. That was extremely concerning to me because I thought

00:47:48.920 that it represented a significant risk of more serious violence as a result of frustration and

00:47:55.400 fatigue and we were seeing an abundance of expressions of that in reporting and on social

00:48:01.160 media so i wanted to be as supportive as i could to the city of ottawa and to the ottawa police

00:48:06.200 service and chief slowly i think rightfully was was flagging his concerns about resource capacity

00:48:13.720 and potential counter operations that were being run by um the blockade and the occupation so

00:48:19.240 getting back to that last concern about the uh the counter operations the action the reaction

00:48:26.200 Were you concerned then that this could spiral into something where police resources would actually be overwhelmed and stretched beyond capacity across the country?

00:48:38.340 Was that the nature of your concern, or was it in specific areas there wouldn't be enough available locally?

00:48:44.880 Or was it a broader concern than that, or was it just the specific instances?

00:48:49.980 It was a broader concern that was national in scale.

00:48:53.320 At the end of the day, in my opinion, this was an illegal protest that was national in scale, that occurred at critical infrastructure, including a number of borders and ports of entry, including at legislative assemblies, including here at the seat of the federal government.

00:49:15.220 and the initial responses of law enforcement to get the situation back under control

00:49:22.980 were clearly overwhelmed and as a result of that the consequences were devastating to people to

00:49:30.900 the economy to our international relations and so at all times I was assessing not any one of

00:49:39.840 these events in isolation, but rather the situation in its totality. And when looking at

00:49:46.800 the timing of it and the concurrence of all of these events in the same short critical period

00:49:52.840 of time, the types of targets where the individuals were showing up for the express purposes of

00:50:00.620 creating a disruption and undermining public safety, and the type of tactics that were being

00:50:06.740 used which was through sheer size and force of people of vehicles and behavior that this was a

00:50:14.660 very singular and unprecedented event so being able to assess all of that in its totality

00:50:21.060 was very much part of my job to restore public safety and to maintain it did you have any actual

00:50:27.700 evidence of what chief slowly is referring to here that interconnectedness or was this this

00:50:32.740 more you saw correlation or chief slowly is here but you agreed with it that one one action then

00:50:39.860 seems to have a counter reaction or provoke a response amongst protesters nationwide but did

00:50:45.700 that come from evidence or did that come from essentially observation it it came from observation

00:50:50.540 uh what what i was seeing with my own eyes on the ground uh was that when police tried to enforce

00:50:57.840 the law they were overwhelmed they were swarmed there were reports about there being threats made

00:51:03.920 to them as they tried to do their job and they were clearly identifiable in uniform you know

00:51:09.760 indicating that it was time to go home and these were not just interactions i mean they ultimately

00:51:15.440 did lead to hundreds of criminal charges being laid including assault peace officer which is a

00:51:21.440 very serious offense to be charged with this was all a counter reaction to the reaction of law

00:51:28.000 enforcement to try and restore public safety on the ground and it wasn't just in ottawa it was at

00:51:34.320 ports of entry in uh at the pacific highway in surrey in british columbia where again there

00:51:41.040 were very clear statements by canada border service agents as well as local law enforcement

00:51:46.080 there through the RCMP, that it was time to go home. And in the face of those instructions,

00:51:52.020 not only did members, participants double down, I mean, there's a very notorious incident

00:52:00.060 involving a large vehicle that was painted with military fatigues that tried to crash

00:52:05.020 a barrier. To me, that poses a serious threat of violence. And I think we'll come to Coutts,

00:52:13.160 Alberta which was again a very and arguably the most egregious risk that coincided with the

00:52:19.880 blockade but I was at all times both using the observations that I was making for myself as well

00:52:26.700 as the advice and the intelligence that I was receiving in my capacity as Minister of Public

00:52:31.280 Safety. Okay and we will come there but first I'm going to take you three now to sort of close the

00:52:37.940 loop. Sorry, you can take this one down, please, Mr. Clare. So, can you just pull up quickly

00:52:49.360 SSM.CAN.NS C402676. This is the third and last tripartite, and there's just a couple

00:53:00.320 of things i want to highlight here minister i'll ask you about which is sorry here we go

00:53:08.240 let's just scroll down a little bit more thanks latest from rcmp okay

00:53:16.400 so towards the middle of that paragraph you say phase has moved beyond inconvenience or

00:53:23.280 disruption so this is now february 10th they have moved to disrupting the economy we are having

00:53:29.360 very intentional conversations with the province about how confident they are around enforcement,

00:53:35.120 the ability to take appropriate action quickly and decisively, whether in Ottawa, Windsor, Sarnia,

00:53:40.480 etc., spoke to Minister Jones. It was a focused conversation, and I'm looking forward to hearing

00:53:46.240 back from her on what OPP can do to assist you. Okay, so I'll take it from that, and we'll get

00:53:51.440 back to the conversation with Minister Jones, but Minister Jones was not at the third and last

00:53:57.360 tripartite here is that correct that's correct okay um so thank you mr clerk so i'm just going

00:54:04.800 to try and put together the chronology of what happened here and i'll take you back to february

00:54:09.360 5th ssm.can407854

00:54:33.200 this is a text exchange between you and minister david lametti

00:54:38.320 um just scroll down a little bit please mr clerk not sure what you're referring to you say uh you

00:54:44.240 were perfect today thanks so were you buddy then should i so the blue is a little collegial

00:54:49.600 support at a very stressful time slash bromance okay um i think he might he might resent that

00:54:56.320 suggestion so were you buddy should i call downy you've spoken to sylvia downy there would be a

00:55:02.320 a reference to Doug Downey? That's correct. Okay. Can you tell us who, just for the record,

00:55:09.220 can you tell us who Doug Downey is and why Minister Lametti might be calling him?

00:55:12.400 He's the Attorney General of Ontario. He's Minister Lametti's provincial counterpart.

00:55:16.620 Okay. And so you have spoken to Sylvia, he says, and you say, I have spoken with Sylvia. You should

00:55:23.020 call Downey. We need them in the right space to respond to any RFA for OPP assistance. And then

00:55:29.560 And Minister Lamedi replies, spoke to Doug Downey, needs slowly to be quick, quick, quick.

00:55:36.880 Can you tell us why would Minister Lamedi be calling Doug Downey about this?

00:55:41.160 So you're speaking to your counterpart, he's speaking to his, and what capacity would that be?

00:55:46.360 Well, again, I mean, you're asking me to interpret or infer why Minister Lamedi has reached out to Doug Downey.

00:55:55.980 The best answer that I can offer is I believe he is reaching out to a provincial counterpart to understand what Ontario's response is to the situation, not only in Ottawa, but elsewhere, including in Windsor at the Ambassador Bridge.

00:56:11.780 And by then, the blockade was causing significant interruption to the economy.

00:56:17.200 Again, thousands of people were temporarily laid off.

00:56:20.520 Businesses were impacted in the auto manufacturing sector.

00:56:23.440 So I think he's trying to gain some understanding from the Attorney General of Ontario about perhaps what advice he is offering to the Ontario government.

00:56:34.260 Again, I'm drawing some inferences here, but I think it's a combination of that.

00:56:39.640 But I think more broadly, just to keep lines of communication strong between the federal government and the government of Ontario.

00:56:45.520 Okay, so you actually asked him to call Downey. So do you have a recollection of why or is it essentially what you just told us?

00:56:53.440 Um, yeah, no, actually, there it is right there. Yes. So I would say that was my thinking at the

00:57:00.080 time was to, to try and keep lines of communication open, and to be sure that, that we had some

00:57:07.840 understanding about, you know, what advice may be provided to the Ontario government.

00:57:13.100 Okay, thank you, Mr. Clerk. Next document is ONT401141. So, so I understand that there was a call

00:57:21.480 that took place between you and Minister Jones on the 7th.

00:57:26.120 And in that earlier text exchange,

00:57:27.720 you seem to refer to an earlier call before the 5th.

00:57:31.160 I don't know if you...

00:57:31.800 Do you have any recollection of that one?

00:57:35.520 I'm sorry, which document am I looking at here?

00:57:38.500 Sorry, yeah, that's my fault.

00:57:40.320 The last document, the text exchange with Minister Lamedi,

00:57:43.720 you say, I have spoken with Sylvia,

00:57:45.900 and that appears to be on the 5th.

00:57:47.780 So do you remember a conversation prior to the 5th?

00:57:51.480 um in the context of the blockades uh i not off the top of my head okay this moment well we know

00:57:58.920 that one happened on the 7th and uh this this document is minister jones's notation of that call

00:58:05.800 and she says uh so she's talking to you marco medicino jim watson wants an interlocutor i think

00:58:13.400 that may have mean interlocutor but i'm not sure um wellington will be uh fast and jurisdiction

00:58:21.960 fpt ftp table to support the city 1500 obp 38 kitchener um can you tell so so the interlocutor

00:58:31.640 that is that a reference to an interlocutor was that part of the discussion you were having um

00:58:37.800 you know again if if if we could have the document just scroll back up to the top

00:58:41.960 i just want to february the 7th jim watson watson i i agree with you i think that

00:58:49.560 the word there may be misspelled and is referring to an interlocutor

00:58:56.680 and you know beyond that i i i couldn't say much more about that particular uh note but i did have

00:59:05.000 a conversation with uh minister jones yes you did and uh around that around that time or shortly

00:59:12.520 thereafter okay and we're gonna get to a report of what was said in that conversation as well

00:59:18.520 but before we get there i want to just go through a little bit um the call you subsequently had with

00:59:25.080 uh minister minister with premier ford because at this point so can you take us through that

00:59:30.360 minister jones doesn't you have a conversation on the seventh actually why don't we go there now

00:59:35.000 So that conversation is reported in a text exchange.

00:59:40.180 Can you pull up, Mr. Clerk, ssm.nsc.can403127?

00:59:50.380 So while that's getting pulled up, this is a text exchange on February 11th between Samantha Coyle, who you've told us is a PMO staffer, Mike Jones, your chief of staff, and Seda Astrovis.

01:00:01.720 and uh so smith says thanks guys long day okay so writing here is mike jones your chief of staff

01:00:10.800 and oh no i'm sorry this is i this is sam kalil i think writing here she says

01:00:17.460 hey so on trilateral meeting got it wrong again it's zeta writing so ms astro says hey so on

01:00:24.740 trilateral meeting sam i don't know what you think but i really think we need jones at the table

01:00:29.460 perhaps your boss can push again your boss there so mike jones he's talking about you

01:00:35.700 he says by jones i assume you mean ontario and can have my boss reach out again but the last

01:00:42.080 call got pretty frosty at the end when he was saying we need the province to get back to us 0.97

01:00:47.440 with their plan quote unquote i don't take edicts from you you're not my fucking boss uh scroll down 0.99

01:00:54.380 again. Yes, obviously not you. She said that. Does that accord with your recollection of the 0.99

01:01:01.080 conversation you had with Minister Jones? There was definitely some colorful vernacular

01:01:06.580 towards the end of that call. I'm happy to say that both Minister and Jones and I still enjoy

01:01:13.920 a very productive and positive rapport. But the real thrust of the call was to engage Minister

01:01:25.160 Jones to understand exactly where her thinking and where the Government of Ontario's thinking

01:01:31.500 was at in responding to the requests of Ottawa Police Service to get additional resources,

01:01:37.280 And more broadly speaking, to restore public safety on the ground.

01:01:42.880 And, you know, I think certainly by the end of the call, it was quite clear that the inability

01:01:53.140 of law enforcement using existing authorities to restore public safety on the ground was

01:02:00.940 of increasing concern to me in my capacity as the Minister of Public Safety, as well as

01:02:07.720 the federal government. And we wanted to be sure that Ontario was exercising all of its capacity

01:02:15.580 to support not only Ottawa, but other communities as well in this province, including Windsor. So

01:02:23.120 it was an important engagement. It was obviously a very stressful time. And, you know, I

01:02:30.180 I think that we could all be forgiven for some rather blunt language.

01:02:35.620 I'm sure, you know, we've all heard it in various interactions.

01:02:39.820 But having those lines of communications open was critically important at that time.

01:02:45.120 Okay. So regardless of the language, it's fair to say you were encountering some resistance

01:02:49.820 in obviously coming to the tripartite table, and it was described as a call that didn't go well.

01:02:55.600 And we know that on the 9th, you spoke directly with Premier Ford.

01:02:59.960 So we can take that document down, please, and we'll pull up the readout of your call from Premier Ford, which is ssm.can.nsc402832.

01:03:11.720 How did that call arise? Did you call Premier Ford? Did he call you? Tell us how that happened.

01:03:17.240 The Premier called me. And by then, again, it's important to place the timing and the

01:03:26.240 chronology of this call into the broader context. This would have been February 9th, so we're now

01:03:32.120 beyond a week into the occupation here in the nation's capital and with significant interruptions

01:03:41.220 at critical infrastructure and borders, including at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, at the

01:03:47.540 Windsor-Detroit border, which quite clearly is in the province of Ontario.

01:03:53.100 The Premier called me to, I think, express a few things, and the readout is there on

01:03:58.500 the screen, but one, I think he was calling to keep lines of communication open with the

01:04:03.600 federal government.

01:04:04.500 Two, he was indicating to me that his chief public health officer was going to be going

01:04:10.800 out in the very short term to communicate the end of vaccine passports and the end of mandates.

01:04:18.920 But he also was very supportive and said that he was prepared to stand with the Prime Minister,

01:04:26.300 which I took as a, again, as a very constructive suggestion to show unity across different levels

01:04:33.040 of government responding to what was then a very urgent state of crisis and emergency,

01:04:38.880 and having that demonstration of solidarity I thought would reassure Ontarians and Canadians.

01:04:46.040 I also did say to him that I would relay what I interpreted to be a bit of a nudge

01:04:54.280 by Premier Ford around the federal government's posture around pandemic policy to the Prime

01:05:01.140 Minister, more broadly just the fact that the call had occurred. And I did take the opportunity to

01:05:08.160 expressed two really important things. First, I was really concerned about restoring public safety

01:05:17.540 at critical infrastructure, including the Ambassador Bridge. And I also said that I was

01:05:23.960 concerned that even if there was an announcement around a change in pandemic policy, that they may

01:05:28.720 not leave. I think in the end, that proved to be true. And then finally, I said that we needed

01:05:36.240 sylvia and there i'm referring to minister jones at the table and i'm referring to the tripart table

01:05:41.200 and i ask that the premier instructor to be there okay um so i think you've taken us through pretty

01:05:47.600 much all of that um on the point of stand with the pm we'll just pull up another document um which is

01:05:56.560 ssm.nsc.can402952 so this is a a text while it's being pulled up to katie telford who's

01:06:10.960 the prime minister chief of staff you send her a text sort of reporting on this call with premier

01:06:16.000 ford and uh did i get the wrong document number it appears that i did

01:06:26.560 um okay you know what i'll just i'll read it to you we can we can look for the document number

01:06:33.560 in a second it it says just got called from ford they're pivoting he will announce they're lifting

01:06:42.020 passports possibly more measures said he would stand with the p.m said i and then he said said

01:06:50.080 i would relay i said the situation at ambassador bridge is serious it's hurting working families

01:06:55.720 killing jobs. So by stand with the PM, you said, I didn't quite catch what you said you thought

01:07:02.280 that meant. Stand beside the PM and... My interpretation from Premier Ford saying that

01:07:10.720 to me directly was that he wanted to show solidarity with the federal government in

01:07:16.500 responding to this emergency. And I thought that that was a constructive suggestion because it

01:07:23.480 would reassure Ontarians and Canadians more broadly that different levels of government

01:07:28.320 were working together to restore public safety, to keep people safe, which was my job.

01:07:34.040 And my request to him to have Minister Jones attend the tripartite was an effort to show

01:07:41.500 that alignment at all levels of government, not only from Premier to the Prime Minister,

01:07:45.920 but equally from at the ministerial level in the portfolio of public safety, because

01:07:51.260 by being at the same table at the same time, we could really troubleshoot issues together,

01:07:56.620 including, again, some of the operational challenges that police were having, again,

01:08:01.180 not only in Ottawa, but right across the province, and equally, some of the jurisdictional complexities,

01:08:07.620 and whether or not there were any other measures or tools that we could offer

01:08:10.840 from the elected side of the government to police if it were necessary.

01:08:14.960 Okay. For the record, Mr. Clerk, the document number is ssm.nsc.can402952. So what I wanted to ask you, Minister Mendicino, was did you sense that that, or was your interpretation that standing with the PM was any way tied to what you described, I think, as a gentle nudge to ease public health measures?

01:08:37.100 No, it wasn't. And again, I think we saw subsequently in the lead up to the invocation of the Emergencies Act that following the first minister's meeting that the Prime Minister and Premier Ford were very much on the same page about the necessity of having to invoke the Emergencies Act.

01:08:55.740 And at that point, the government had not yet taken a final decision with regards to pandemic policy and in specific regards to vaccines.

01:09:05.460 Okay. The last point I want to ask you about on all of this is to get your reaction to something we heard from Mr. Mario Di Tommaso when he testified, which was, and I'll paraphrase what he was saying, but essentially part of his thinking or his explanation of why Ontario was reluctant to participate in the tripartites is that, insofar as these were a forum to discuss policing resources,

01:09:33.900 Ontario, governmental officials shouldn't be participating in that because that's a law enforcement matter.

01:09:39.720 The question of deploying police resources is something for law enforcement, not for governmental officials.

01:09:46.840 What's your take on that in the context of what we'd raised earlier about the lines of operational dependence of the police?

01:09:55.440 Yeah, here again, this is a very important question.

01:09:58.360 First, I can't speak for the Deputy Minister of Public Safety or the Solicitor General in Ontario,

01:10:05.760 but from where I sat, the Premier of Ontario actually showed very important leadership in the early days of the blockade,

01:10:16.840 going out publicly, saying that this no longer was a lawful protest and that people needed to go home.

01:10:26.200 And that was a signal, I think, to any fair-minded individual who abides by the law that the situation was no longer safe.

01:10:36.280 I would also point out that, you know, in the context of the discussion around operational independence, and I've obviously given this a fair bit of reflection since the occupation, and I did touch on it a little bit earlier, that there are important boundaries that should not be crossed by elected officials.

01:10:58.140 and for good reason. We do want to safeguard against the politicization or making partisan

01:11:08.280 important and independent decisions which are made by law enforcement and the prosecution

01:11:17.540 services around the country so that we can preserve the integrity of the administration

01:11:24.060 of justice. And at all times, we adhere to that principle in the federal government.

01:11:31.260 That having been said, there does need to be a dialogue and there is a dialogue between police

01:11:38.460 and the elected branch of government when it comes to providing additional resources and tools. And

01:11:46.080 I can offer a number of, you know, very concrete examples, not only in the general, but in the

01:11:52.220 specific context of our response to the blockade. So if I could, when I received a call at the

01:11:59.420 beginning of February from the Premier of Alberta, the then Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney,

01:12:06.120 one of the concerns that he'd expressed is that he and Alberta did not possess either the resources

01:12:11.880 or the tools to clear the blockade at Coutts, which had mobilized pretty much since the end

01:12:18.040 of January or beginning of February. And as part of the federal government's response to that

01:12:25.020 situation, I authorized under Article 9.3 of the existing police services agreement between Canada

01:12:32.660 and Albert, the deployment of additional police resources. That is a very concrete example of how

01:12:39.660 we have customized through convention the relationship between the elected government

01:12:45.700 and the authorities that are exercised through this office, the Minister of Public Safety,

01:12:50.200 in response to the operational decisions that are taken by police to restore public safety.

01:12:57.520 I would say, more broadly, there are other important examples where elected representatives

01:13:04.360 that occupy this office are responsive to the needs of police around tools,

01:13:10.620 You know, be it in, you know, responding to either this situation or others.

01:13:17.280 And obviously there are the priorities around the foreign deployment of RCMP in different countries, for example, in Ukraine, which are priorities which can be set by the elected branch of government where conventional police forces are deployed.

01:13:33.560 So I guess my broader point is that both in the specific context of the blockade, but even beyond in the general, there does need to be a dialogue.

01:13:44.540 And there was a dialogue between the elected branch of government and the police who were exercising operational independence at every time to ensure that we could get them the additional resources that they need in the parts of the country where they needed it.

01:13:59.700 And again, I emphasize and stress this was not just an isolated incident, that these events were occurring across the country so that we could restore public safety.

01:14:11.520 When the RCMP officials testified last week, so Deputy Commissioner Duhame and Commissioner Brenda Leckie testified, there's a few things that came out of their evidence that I want your reaction on.

01:14:24.620 One of them is that I believe Commissioner Luckey said that there were times, or I think it was Deputy Commissioner Duhaime,

01:14:35.180 said that there were times where it may have felt to him like officials may have stepped a little over that line, that line between church and state.

01:14:43.940 Now, I think they did say specifically, I remember, I recall Commissioner Luckey saying that she never felt pressured by her ministers, you and Minister Blair.

01:14:52.620 She did say that at some point you sort of had to educate or educate it.

01:15:00.060 And she didn't point to any sort of instance where it was necessary,

01:15:03.220 but she said you educated and it fell to you essentially to educate the rest of Cabinet, I think.

01:15:08.880 It was the February 10th IRG on where that line was and the importance of operational dependence.

01:15:15.620 Do you recall that?

01:15:16.380 I do. And I wanted to be sure that as colleagues around the cabinet table were expressing the same concerns that I had, that others had about the ineffectiveness of existing authorities and resources to restore public safety up to that point, and we are approaching now two weeks into the blockade, that nevertheless, we should not violate the principle of operational independence.

01:15:41.680 Because, again, just situate yourself in our shoes for just a moment.

01:15:47.960 Our paramount concern is restoring public safety.

01:15:52.040 And by then, there were countless reports of the very dire consequences that had been visited upon Canadians.

01:16:00.100 But that could never be a license for assuming the roles and the responsibilities of police

01:16:08.680 when it came to making the tactical and operational decisions around how to restore public safety.

01:16:14.640 So it was important to strike a balance between respecting that principle,

01:16:20.640 but also fulfilling my role specifically in holding the RCMP accountable

01:16:27.760 for their role in restoring public safety,

01:16:31.800 and more broadly, the government's role in understanding why it was

01:16:37.900 that despite existing authorities and resources, we could not achieve the goal of getting a law

01:16:46.960 and order back on the ground. And when I look back now, and I ask myself why it was in the

01:16:54.640 perception of the commissioner that she felt that some, not all, were coming up to the line,

01:17:00.780 it is because of the unique and singular nature of this public order emergency.

01:17:08.700 It was the fact that the scale of this was national.

01:17:12.420 It was the fact that what sparked this movement in the opinion of the government

01:17:16.440 was an expressly stated political objective that at times was expressed in violent terms

01:17:24.320 that led to the entrenchment of a significant number of individuals to ignore the direction

01:17:32.720 of law enforcement at the risk and at the peril of Canadians. It was the challenges that we had

01:17:39.520 in government around having the appropriate intelligence tools to understand how those

01:17:46.420 initially stated objectives could pull in people from many different walks of life with different

01:17:52.220 backgrounds and different grievances and coalesce them around something that so significantly and

01:17:59.380 persistently caused significant interruption to public safety, to the economy, to our international

01:18:05.780 relations. And all of that was, I think, part of the reason why people were really trying to probe

01:18:13.460 and understand that despite the fact that you had a criminal code, you couldn't use it. Despite the

01:18:19.480 fact that you had provincial statutes around the Highway Traffic Act, they couldn't be effectively

01:18:24.300 used, despite the fact that we had tow trucks, you had many tow trucks, that they could not be

01:18:29.960 deployed to clear the blockades. And all of that was leading to an escalation of the risk and the

01:18:38.980 threat of serious violence as time went on. And that is why I think that the commissioner both

01:18:44.560 signaled her concern, but also appreciated my intervention, that we still had to be respectful

01:18:50.220 of that principle of operational independence. Okay. So just to go back on that a little bit,

01:18:55.440 I mean, what we've heard over the weeks that we've been here at the commission,

01:19:01.320 there's what could be described as, quote unquote, pressure all over the record. So there's a real

01:19:05.720 sense of urgency from politicians and from officials. We need to do something about this

01:19:11.160 now we need to do this quick quick quick we need to do this has to end etc etc and how does that

01:19:18.040 not constitute can you explain how that does not constitute pressure on law enforcement to do

01:19:23.800 something to clear up this protest in whatever way they can well to be clear there was pressure

01:19:29.080 on all of us i mean this was an extremely tense situation uh so i mean i think that is just a

01:19:35.160 natural reaction to all of the events that were occurring but the reason why i'm confident and

01:19:40.600 the reason why i believe commissioner lucky testified that we didn't violate the principle

01:19:45.400 of operational independence is because at no time um were we instructing police on how to do their

01:19:52.120 job on the ground so at no time were we were we saying you must arrest uh people under the

01:19:58.680 following provisions of the law you must prosecute these people um you know in it to the fullest

01:20:06.680 extent you must um you know to the granularity of detail deploy you know five people here and

01:20:14.440 100 people there and to prioritize all these operations we at all times steered clear of

01:20:21.000 that zone which would have been a violation of the principle of operational independence

01:20:26.360 and that's why i think i'm you know very confident that uh that that we didn't cross that boundary

01:20:33.720 okay so the line is politicians and the government has a role to play in in expressing a desire let's

01:20:41.560 say to or the need to solve a situation but not in telling the police how to do it that's right

01:20:47.320 you don't want me as an elected official putting on a badge or a uniform uh and going out there

01:20:52.920 and uh and doing the job that that police are there to do that's not my role that's not my

01:20:58.120 responsibility however it is my responsibility as minister of public safety to be accountable

01:21:04.440 to Canadians when it comes to equipping police with the tools and the resources that they need

01:21:12.200 to restore public safety and by then on February 10th we did not have public safety in the nation's

01:21:19.320 capital and at other critical infrastructure across the country and so because of that we

01:21:24.520 really wanted to understand why existing authorities were ineffective at that point and

01:21:31.160 that was the balance that we struck another issue that we we've heard a lot about over the last few

01:21:37.880 weeks is the idea the notion of um one could put it as negotiating or we put it as engaging with

01:21:46.840 demonstrators or protesters um so we've heard that that was an issue that was discussed is there a

01:21:53.880 way to sort of to to end this or to ameliorate this um by engaging directly with demonstrators

01:22:02.440 there's reference in the in sylvia jones's notes of the february 7th call to having an

01:22:07.480 interlocutor um engage with the protesters and we've heard a lot about uh an effort by your

01:22:15.000 deputy minister deputy minister rob stewart uh around the 10th 11th of of um february to create

01:22:24.840 what's become known as the engagement proposal so can you tell us a little bit from your perspective

01:22:32.040 how those engagement efforts if i can put it that way and eventually the engagement proposal

01:22:37.640 uh came to be and uh and evolved engagement was always an option and i had articulated

01:22:46.600 on a number of occasions that law enforcement should be the last resort um and and you saw

01:22:53.240 from one of the exhibits that you had put to me a little bit earlier in my testimony this morning

01:22:57.640 that i had turned my mind right at the very beginning of the briefings that it was important

01:23:04.360 for uh there to be some engagement with uh those who were participating in uh the convoy and the

01:23:11.800 blockade and wanted to be briefed on that by law enforcement who i thought was the most appropriate

01:23:17.080 actor in this um in this context uh to be engaging with um given that you know in my estimation that

01:23:25.560 it was operational and tactical that didn't mean that um that i wasn't still having conversations

01:23:31.080 with individuals outside of law enforcement about an engagement proposal,

01:23:36.480 but there was early contemplation and reflection about having an engagement strategy.

01:23:43.980 I would say beyond that, there were conversations between the Prime Minister and myself

01:23:49.060 about searching for a suitable mediator or interlocutor,

01:23:54.320 someone who would have had the experience to de-escalate and resolve situations that are

01:24:01.720 complex. And beyond that, by the time we got to the ERG, there was a report that was given by

01:24:10.240 Deputy Minister Stewart about information that he had gleaned from conversations that he was having

01:24:16.880 with the Ontario government and the OPP around the intelligence of what the group was constituted of

01:24:23.960 in terms of adherence to, you know, ideology, the desire to, you know, double down and hold

01:24:30.240 the line and et cetera, and all that versus everybody else who might have just been there

01:24:35.380 to express another point of view. And so as a result of that report that he offered at the ERG,

01:24:42.540 there were taskings that were listed by the clerk of the Privy Council at the end of that meeting,

01:24:48.800 one of which was to continue to develop a potential engagement strategy.

01:24:53.760 And so that's what the deputy minister set about to do.

01:24:57.580 And I know that there was some additional work on that front.

01:25:01.340 Okay, so you knew that this was, you were aware that this was being worked on by your deputy minister?

01:25:06.680 Yes.

01:25:07.220 Okay.

01:25:08.540 Mr. Clerk, can we pull up ssm.nsc.can40's 2958?

01:25:18.800 so minister this is a text from you to katie telford the pm's chief of staff um the date of

01:25:38.320 it is february 11th it's at 6 49 p.m so just to situate you in time the erg happens on february

01:25:45.840 10th uh there's no org i think on on february 11th um so you write to ms telford hey there

01:25:53.360 we got some very last minute and thin paper tonight on an engagement strategy from my dm

01:25:58.880 who apparently socialized it with p pco rcmp commissioner and the ontario government and not me

01:26:06.480 we only found out about it during a call tonight i placed to him the dm's outreach during the day to

01:26:12.080 the Ontario government on this engagement proposal resulted in the Ontario Deputy Solicitor General

01:26:18.240 sending my DM a draft letter addressed to unnamed protesters proposing engagement,

01:26:23.760 which would be co-signed by Ontario government and an unnamed official from the federal government.

01:26:28.400 It's unclear whether PCO, RCMP, or Ontario government has given their support to the

01:26:35.200 engagement proposal. Flagging as a concern and inconsistent with good info flow, I've addressed

01:26:41.600 with him wanted you to know i will be replying to dm and letting him know that there's some

01:26:46.080 redactions and the last thing you say is sorry but had to let you know can you explain to us

01:26:53.040 what you were expressing in this text i'm expressing a concern that the deputy minister

01:26:59.440 had socialized with a different level of government and engagement proposal that i

01:27:04.560 would have wanted to have some input into prior to that and you know again admittedly

01:27:13.040 in this particular moment everybody is working extremely hard long hours trying to quickly

01:27:20.240 fulfill the tasks that had been accomplished or i fulfill the tasks that had been assigned i beg

01:27:26.400 your pardon at the end of the last erg and so i wanted to be sure that we were together

01:27:32.480 thinking through not only the engagement proposal, but also mitigating and thinking through

01:27:41.580 some of the very real and practical considerations that had to be woven into the strategy

01:27:49.140 if one was going to be deployed.

01:27:51.620 For example, and I pose some of those questions, who are we going to send this to?

01:27:57.740 Where is it going to take place?

01:28:00.560 How can we be sure that if we do engage in it, that we can maintain public safety?

01:28:05.440 Because the situation was extremely volatile and very tense.

01:28:10.520 And among the concerns were whether or not there was actually any cohesive structure to the occupation at that moment in time.

01:28:22.020 And so understanding who we were sitting down with was critically important.

01:28:26.760 and so I just was I wanted to be sure that that that Ms. Telford was aware of that because

01:28:35.260 ultimately when we go back to cabinet I am responsible and accountable for my department

01:28:40.980 including the deputy minister and wanted to be sure that I was equipped to answer any questions

01:28:47.040 from colleagues about what this engagement proposal would look like so you know I say

01:28:51.880 again in fairness to everybody this was an exceedingly difficult and challenging time and

01:28:57.420 I know that that Deputy Minister Stewart was doing his level best to fulfill a task that had been

01:29:04.140 assigned to him after the ERG and was I think trying to action it and and get some traction

01:29:11.200 at the Ontario level of government and we did have a good conversation about that and you know

01:29:16.860 Subsequently, I think as we saw on February 14th, that despite the efforts of the City of Ottawa to engage some of the members of the occupation here in Ottawa,

01:29:29.480 that it ultimately unraveled, I think, for many of the reasons and concerns I previously articulated.

01:29:34.800 Okay, so your concern, if I understand it then, is not with the engagement proposal itself, with the work that was being done, it's the information flow?

01:29:44.460 Correct.

01:29:44.740 and the fact specifically that it had been uh socialized as you put it with the ontario government

01:29:51.380 without you knowing about it at that at that particular moment in time and just wanted to be

01:29:55.700 sure that i had a line of sight and understood it and also that it was part of a broader effort

01:30:02.020 by both me and others from within the government to explore engagement and as i pointed out

01:30:06.660 seeking and briefings and information from police right from the beginning about how we were engaging

01:30:14.180 with members of the occupation equally the conversations that i had with the prime minister

01:30:19.460 around finding potentially a mediator to de-escalate so we could avoid law enforcement

01:30:26.820 as much as possible and you know ultimately this engagement proposal as well it was

01:30:31.780 all a suite of things that we were doing together uh to to really try to restore public safety as

01:30:38.660 quickly as we could i believe deputy minister stewart's evidence was that he he hadn't

01:30:45.140 socialized it with uh mr de tomaso but with commissioner korea so would that change your

01:30:51.940 view at all as to as to whether that engagement was appropriate um i i'm not sure i i i think

01:31:02.180 the the the broader concern was just making sure that i could stay up to speed

01:31:06.660 um and recognizing again the pressures on everybody to go about and complete these taskings

01:31:13.860 um i just wanted to be sure um both me and and my staff had an opportunity to contribute

01:31:20.580 uh to the idea before it got um um before it was shared with other not only other branches

01:31:28.260 of government but as you pointed out other branches of law enforcement and i wanted to

01:31:32.900 be sure we were really um you know staying on the same page but it was it was an exceedingly

01:31:39.780 difficult time in fairness to uh to the deputy minister everything was happening very quickly

01:31:44.900 there's no doubt about that um the other the reason i asked you whether you were concerned

01:31:50.900 about the the proposal itself is because one of the one of the bits of evidence we've heard

01:31:56.180 is that commissioner lucky and the rcmp may have had some concerns about it or uh about the proposal

01:32:01.620 in the sense that it may cross the line between church and state.

01:32:05.860 So again, we're back to this issue of police independence, operational independence.

01:32:10.840 And I'd like you to speak for a moment, if you could, about how the idea of where does political negotiation fall into that piece?

01:32:19.160 And just for a little to situate you in background, what we know now is that there were different lines of potential engagement going on almost simultaneously.

01:32:30.000 There was an attempt at engagement in Windsor, there was an attempt on the part of Mayor Watson to corral trucks up onto Wellington Street and get them off the residential streets where they were disturbing the residents on those streets.

01:32:47.100 and then there was the federal government's engagement proposal so we have these different

01:32:51.580 lines going at the same time um and that could arguably at least be put as something that makes

01:32:57.900 it difficult for law enforcement to do their job um what's your reaction to that yeah i i would

01:33:03.180 agree with you i i think it was extremely difficult for law enforcement to figure out how to engage

01:33:12.140 in a constructive way with the occupation and the blockades not only here in ottawa but across the

01:33:18.220 country i know from the early days that members of police liaison units these are individuals

01:33:26.140 within law enforcement who have very specific expertise in engaging with people who protest

01:33:35.020 to sort of set the boundaries of what just just to be sure that everybody can be safe

01:33:42.060 um so here's here's what we can all sort of agree to and i think that there as you've heard

01:33:48.060 previously there was some effort to do that certainly at the local level here in ottawa

01:33:53.500 but to come back to what i think that like the core of your question is you are absolutely right

01:33:59.820 that it becomes a lot trickier and more complex once elected officials start to penetrate into

01:34:09.600 the terms and the conditions by which you negotiate a disengagement of the blockades

01:34:16.520 and the occupation if it involves let's say you know the moving of vehicles the moving of people

01:34:23.380 the moving of police officers, all of that I would submit is much more within the operational domain

01:34:31.260 and by extension independence of police, which was one of the concerns that I had in navigating this

01:34:40.160 appropriately. So that was, I think, part of what I was getting at in my text to Ms. Telford was just

01:34:45.460 I wanted to be able to think that through with everybody, and especially if we were going to be

01:34:51.840 sharing it with other levels of law enforcement so that we were respectful of those principles

01:34:57.300 of operational independence as well.

01:34:59.540 Okay, I now want to ask you, turning to, we know the engagement proposal didn't go anywhere

01:35:05.100 in the end, and chronologically, we're now getting to the crux of events and when the

01:35:12.020 Emergencies Act was actually decided on.

01:35:15.820 So I know it wasn't decided necessarily on the 13th, but that's the day we're going to

01:35:19.700 talk about.

01:35:20.320 um there's some evidence uh and i'll ask you if you you know about this first um so shortly before

01:35:30.300 we understand there was a an erg irg meeting the afternoon of the 13th followed by a meeting of the

01:35:36.200 full cabinet uh in the evening at 8 30 p.m the commission has seen evidence shortly before that

01:35:43.600 8 30 meeting uh commissioner lucky sent an email let's get the email up uh it is ssm.nsc.can402280

01:35:57.200 so

01:36:11.440 this is an email the time stamp on it is it's just shortly before eight o'clock once you do

01:36:16.480 the greenwich mean time adjustment this is your chief of staff mike jones sending this to you

01:36:21.840 and copy to deputy minister stewart evening minister responses from the commissioner below

01:36:28.400 uh and this is we've seen this already in the inquiry so i won't go through it at length but

01:36:32.880 there's a sort of a wish list or these are these are tools that could be effective and then at the

01:36:38.640 very bottom of the email there commissioner lucky says this said i am of the view that we have not

01:36:47.680 yet exhausted all available tools that are already available through the existing legislation

01:36:53.760 there are instances where charges could be laid under existing authorities for various criminal

01:36:58.560 code offenses occurring right now in the context of the protest the ontario provincial emergencies

01:37:04.800 act just enacted we skipped that in the narrative but we know that happened february 11th will also

01:37:10.480 help in providing additional deterrent tools to our existing toolbox so my first question mr

01:37:16.000 mendicino is did you see this before the cabinet meeting i don't recall exactly when i would have

01:37:22.960 seen it um this as you pointed out was sent just prior to the commencement of of the cabinet

01:37:30.160 meeting i will say to you importantly that a couple things first the commissioner did not

01:37:36.800 express that opinion to me at any time directly and um and i actually spoke to the commissioner

01:37:43.520 earlier that day on February 13th. And while she did not at all address that last point that you

01:37:53.000 raised in the email, she did call me and only me, this was a conversation between just her and I,

01:38:00.200 to be clear, to express her very grave concerns about the situation in Coutts. And she underlined

01:38:09.060 for me that the situation in Coutts involved a hardened cell of individuals who were armed to

01:38:18.260 the teeth with lethal firearms, who possessed a willingness to go down with the cause.

01:38:27.720 And the reason why this was such a sensitive conversation was that we had RCMP

01:38:33.280 undercover personnel deployed in the field and she was justifiably concerned that there not be

01:38:41.140 any leak of this information because lives literally hung in the balance and for me this

01:38:45.800 represented far and away the most serious and urgent moment in the in the blockade to this

01:38:54.740 point in time and so it also spoke volumes to me about the commissioner's state of mind which was

01:39:01.780 that we were potentially seeing an escalation of serious violence with the situation in Coutts.

01:39:10.200 And it certainly, I think, was in the broader context of the preponderance of the advice that

01:39:18.680 we were getting from the commissioner at that time as a result of conversations not only in

01:39:23.820 the ergs about where there were gaps in authorities, in existing authorities to return public safety

01:39:32.560 to the ground, could not have drawn any other inference that she was supportive, as she later

01:39:40.760 expressed that she was, of the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act. This was a singular moment

01:39:46.720 for me in my mind. And it was so urgent that I said to her, well, look, I can't just keep this

01:39:55.260 information to myself at a minimum. I have to be able to share it with the prime minister,

01:39:59.280 which I then subsequently took steps to do. Shortly thereafter, I reached out to Ms.

01:40:05.440 Helford. Sorry, just to be clear, which information are you talking about?

01:40:09.000 About Coutts and about the potential for gun violence and for the loss of life and the fact

01:40:15.660 that there were RCMP personnel that were in the field, and all of this occurring literally within

01:40:21.660 hours, not even days, of the invocation to the Emergencies Act, I was extremely concerned that

01:40:28.200 this had reached a new height of both urgency and emergency, and so I felt I had a responsibility

01:40:33.400 to let, at a minimum, the Prime Minister know and his staff know, while respecting the operational

01:40:41.220 sensitivity at the most delicate levels to protect the people on the ground. And so I did that. I

01:40:48.660 spoke to Ms. Telford afterwards, where I conveyed to her both the best information that I had at

01:40:55.300 the time around COOTS, and asked her to keep this, to respect, in effect, the Commissioner's

01:41:03.820 request that we treat this information with the utmost sensitivity, so that we could ensure that

01:41:10.640 we were keeping people safe but this was this was a threshold moment for me there's no doubt about

01:41:16.520 it and that was on you had that conversation on the afternoon of the 13th that was the same day

01:41:21.640 yes okay so just to recap a little bit you didn't see this email from commissioner lucky before the

01:41:28.380 cabinet meeting again i i i i'm trying very much to reconstruct the the sequence of events things

01:41:36.680 moved very very quickly it literally came in inside of a half hour of the commencement so

01:41:41.960 i don't want to say definitively i didn't see it i was much more preoccupied with the actual

01:41:47.560 direct conversation that i had with commissioner lucky earlier that day where she had imparted to me

01:41:54.360 perhaps the most um urgent information to date with regards to uh the the occupation and the

01:42:01.160 blockades and that was a threshold moment okay fair enough so if you did see it it didn't register

01:42:07.720 as much as what she said about coots put it that way in your recollection was that information put

01:42:13.240 before cabinet so we know that that commissioner lucky wasn't called on to speak um do you recall

01:42:19.080 this being expressed to cabinet that evening no okay um and you certainly obviously and i wasn't

01:42:27.400 permitted to share or i was asked not to share the information about coots with anyone else except

01:42:33.800 for the prime minister which um which i did okay if you had known this information and i appreciate

01:42:41.960 you're not entirely sure on whether you saw this information or didn't would it have changed your

01:42:47.000 mind at all i i don't think so at that point um my interactions directly with the commissioner

01:42:52.440 were actually going in the opposite direction, and certainly the fact that we were on the

01:42:59.540 precipice of engaging in an operation in Coutts where people were armed with a significant

01:43:09.680 number of lethal firearms where they possessed body armor, where there was intelligence or

01:43:15.520 information that they had ideologically extremist views and symbolism that was attached to the

01:43:21.060 group that they were prepared to go down with the cause was a very strong signal to me that

01:43:26.200 the commissioner was of a heightened concern around the state of affairs. And again, it was

01:43:31.280 consistent with the advice that we were getting contemporaneous to the decision of the invocation

01:43:37.080 of the Emergencies Act around tools to address the gaps that existed. So, you know, the need to

01:43:44.720 deploy RCMP officers, the need to procure essential services, importantly the need to declare

01:43:51.400 no-go zones or prohibition of assemblies. Let me just say on that last point that I wasn't just

01:43:57.900 hearing about that from the RCMP. The CBSA had briefed cabinet on at least one occasion for sure

01:44:06.580 if not more about their explicit concerns about the lack of their authority and jurisdiction to

01:44:13.080 clear roads on the way to the border. And so, you know, all of those powers were subsequently

01:44:22.360 included in the declaration and the regulations under the Emergencies Act.

01:44:27.820 Okay, well, let's actually stop there for a moment. I'm going to go back to what we

01:44:31.360 were talking about. But PB.CAN 1864, please, Mr. Clerk.

01:44:43.080 So, this is a text from John Ossofsky, president of the CBSA, the evening of February 13th.

01:44:59.300 And he says, the gap, well, you asked, is it possible to direct CBSA officials to take

01:45:07.560 a harder line or the heightened sense of vigilance as far as it goes?

01:45:11.400 And he writes back, the gap is the fact that there is not an inadmissibility in IRPA,

01:45:18.440 Immigration, Refugee, and Protection Act, for coming to a protest. We have directed back 29

01:45:24.120 so far for other reasons as part of our enhanced vigilance. And you say, right, okay, so nothing

01:45:29.560 we can do to strengthen our position there. I think our position broadly is that it's an illegal

01:45:34.440 blockade and it goes on so that is sorry go on um so i scroll down a little bit please

01:45:43.400 if you're blocking a border hurting canadians it would warrant a tougher position and then you ask

01:45:47.720 the 29 were sent back because it was believed they had violent intentions or on what grounds

01:45:52.680 were they sent away we don't have the text after that but first of all is this a is this a text

01:45:56.760 conversation that was happening during the the cabinet meeting that evening um well i'd have to

01:46:02.360 go back and take a look at the time stamps uh about 9 23 pm i think could could very well have

01:46:08.600 been uh i assume it was this is february 13th right that's right yes so i uh would have been

01:46:15.720 trying to really get a clarity of understanding about what the gaps were and what the then

01:46:23.640 president of the cbsa is expressing to me is that they need something that they don't have

01:46:28.520 and what they don't have at this moment in time is any existing authority to turn away foreign

01:46:35.780 nationals who are attempting to enter into Canada where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that

01:46:42.160 they may want to support what at this point is an illegal blockade and so that is again a cry

01:46:51.180 an obvious request for some assistance here as a result of a gap in an authority and there is a

01:46:59.020 direct line between that gap and the subsequent powers which were included under the emergencies

01:47:06.380 act there is no other way for me to interpret the information that i'm getting from john azowski

01:47:12.300 is certainly not to do anything about it and subsequently we did provide that authority and

01:47:18.220 And there were, as my understanding recollects, at least, I think, one or two individuals who were turned away on February 19th by CVSA on the strength of the Emergencies Act authorities that were provided to them.

01:47:31.260 I think we know it was two. And the answer to the question here is that the 29 were sent back because under enhanced vigilance, because generally speaking, I think because they weren't they didn't meet the vaccination requirements.

01:47:45.260 requirements i think your interpretation is right and i think mr zowski is is he's communicating to

01:47:52.460 me that we're we're working with what we got but it's not it's not enough and we're concerned that

01:47:57.980 we don't have the authority that we need and this was in addition to what i think is one of the other

01:48:03.980 significant concerns that cbsa expressed to me and to other cabinet colleagues which is that

01:48:09.740 they did not have the authority or the jurisdiction to clear the roads leading to the border

01:48:15.260 And certainly that limited their capacity to keep the border open and by extension, critical supply chains, food, fuel, health supplies, all the like.

01:48:25.780 The people in the border communities, and I'm certainly familiar with the community in Windsor as a result of some family relationships, but people got to go about their daily lives.

01:48:36.560 And this was completely impossible at that time.

01:48:40.920 And so, you know, I think he's expressing two very legitimate gaps.

01:48:46.920 And and so, again, the only interpretation for me is that we need some help here.

01:48:51.920 And so we endeavored to provide that help to them through the Emergencies Act.

01:48:55.920 OK, I'm at the end of my time.

01:48:57.920 Mr. Commissioner, I just wanted to just clarify, because I think the impression was left inadvertently or otherwise, that these are the ministers, Texas, opposed to the chief of staff.

01:49:05.920 I'm sorry. You're right.

01:49:07.920 I apologize for intervening.

01:49:08.920 for interviewing no thank you that's helpful um mr commissioner i'm at the end but if i can ask for

01:49:14.760 five minutes to ask some concluding questions oh it's your call when you uh you you still have time

01:49:21.800 so not a lot oh actually no i do have my account you have lots of time actually you can count better

01:49:29.800 than i am but better than i can i was thinking of the old time allocation okay so something rarely

01:49:35.080 heard in a in any kind of a proceeding no well i have a lot of experience following time

01:49:42.920 or not following it um so it's just uh just wondering if you wanted the break now or later

01:49:47.800 sure let's take the break now sir before we take the break um i just have a quick application i

01:49:54.200 apologize sir uh i think it's important i've just met mr alexander cohen he's present uh in this

01:50:02.440 room and sir mr cohen as we have heard throughout this proceeding has relevant and material evidence

01:50:13.240 to this proceedings mandate he has very relevant evidence with respect to the inquiry as to the

01:50:21.400 circumstances as to the invocation of the emergencies act he also has relevant and

01:50:27.720 material information with respect to misinformation of which this commission has been tasked with

01:50:34.920 exploring beginning with the text messages between himself and mary liz power that are already in

01:50:42.200 evidence in building the narrative with respect to the protesters in ottawa being extremists

01:50:49.640 and thereafter essentially setting out that they are, in fact, proprietors of Nazi symbolism.

01:51:00.420 Sir, this commission is in hearing from various...

01:51:06.780 Can I just interrupt? What's your application?

01:51:09.500 I'd like to call him as a witness, sir.

01:51:11.660 Have you written any... Is there a...

01:51:13.780 I didn't expect that we would have the opportunity.

01:51:16.940 you haven't at the moment there's no application so well this is my application sir i'm making it

01:51:22.640 orally and i'm asking for the commission to have him testify after the minister he has

01:51:31.020 relevant material information i'm not going to do this orally right now well so we're given 15

01:51:37.600 minutes to cross-examine to elicit relevant material evidence and we have relevant and

01:51:44.300 witnesses here. The government of Canada has redacted without lawful authority all of these

01:51:51.160 statements from these staffers and have suppressed records. I have no idea at this point where this

01:51:56.520 is going so I'm going to take the break and if you can speak to Commission Council which I think

01:52:03.460 I've repeated many times is the way to at least raise the issue and then we'll see if they can

01:52:09.680 resolve it or not but we have a schedule and sir this is the schedule is not as important

01:52:15.980 as getting to the truth there's no question we want to get at the truth but you know what

01:52:20.880 it's a very complex issue and it's not all about what you want it's about what the commission

01:52:27.740 needs to do what the parties want to do and I'm trying to control a process and we have witnesses

01:52:37.460 we have a schedule it's been going for a while please speak to commission council

01:52:43.660 we'll see where we go and the we'll take the morning sir i understand but i just ask for

01:52:50.820 a ruling after the morning break thank you so we'll take 15 minutes the commission is in recess

01:52:57.600 for 15 minutes to let me see on the vipokans minute

01:53:07.460 Thank you.

01:53:37.460 Thank you.

01:54:07.460 Thank you.

01:54:37.460 Thank you.

01:55:07.460 Thank you.

01:55:37.460 Thank you.

01:56:07.460 Thank you.

01:56:37.460 .

01:57:07.460 Thank you.

01:57:37.460 Thank you.

01:58:07.460 Thank you.

01:58:37.460 .

01:59:07.460 Thank you.

01:59:37.460 Thank you.

02:00:07.460 Thank you.

02:00:37.460 Thank you.

02:01:07.460 Thank you.

02:01:37.460 Thank you.

02:02:07.460 Thank you.

02:02:37.460 Thank you.

02:03:07.460 Thank you.

02:03:37.460 Thank you.

02:04:07.460 Thank you.

02:04:37.460 Thank you.

02:05:07.460 Thank you.

02:05:37.460 Thank you.

02:06:07.460 Thank you.

02:06:37.460 Thank you.

02:07:07.460 Thank you.

02:07:37.460 Thank you.

02:08:07.460 Thank you.

02:08:37.460 Thank you.

02:09:07.460 Thank you.

02:09:37.460 Thank you.

02:10:07.460 Thank you.

02:10:37.460 Thank you.

02:11:07.460 The Commission has reconvened, La Commissaire La Plane.

02:11:23.880 Sir, the Commission Council has not completed her application.

02:11:28.840 I understand that sir, and your Council has advised you that.

02:11:31.860 No, I know you've directed, you wanted the application.

02:11:34.560 I'm sorry, I'm speaking.

02:11:36.060 Yes sir.

02:11:37.060 The application, if you want to do it, you've been advised it's to be done in writing, not in the middle of the presentation.

02:11:44.900 Sir, we filed two motions in writing at your direction that you've refused to rule on with respect to the redaction of documents from the government of Canada.

02:11:52.600 You're speaking.

02:11:53.400 That has not been ruled on and has been filed for days.

02:11:56.180 I will take a break while you're asked to leave.

02:12:00.720 I will return in five minutes if security could deal with the council.

02:12:07.060 Commission the research looks going to me

02:12:37.060 Thank you.

02:13:07.060 Thank you.

02:13:37.060 no need to stand I'm not a judge here just a commissioner the commissioners reconvene

02:13:52.820 Okay, thank you, Commission Council.

02:14:01.820 Welcome back, Minister.

02:14:07.820 I want to take you back to something you touched on before the break, and I'd like to get your reaction on.

02:14:14.820 I asked you whether if you had seen and absorbed, let's put it that way,

02:14:19.820 Lucky's statement that they had not yet exhausted all available tools. Law enforcement still had

02:14:26.240 tools available. I asked you whether that would have changed your mind as to the necessity of

02:14:30.860 the Emergencies Act, and you answered no, and you explained that you're concerned about COOTS.

02:14:35.620 How do you reconcile that position with the notion that the Emergencies Act is a measure of a last

02:14:41.960 resort well first i would say that the absence of having a direct conversation with commissioner

02:14:52.360 lucky and i pointed out the call that we had earlier today but that wasn't the only one

02:14:57.080 there were other meetings at ergs and daily briefings um really uh was an impediment at

02:15:04.040 that point to have the kind of back and forth exploration of that advice uh which she had

02:15:09.560 included in an email to to my chief of staff mike jones i think the other thing the other reason why

02:15:17.880 i don't believe it would have substantially changed my views at that point are twofold one

02:15:23.960 it didn't really expand at all on how she had come to that point of view so when she talked about a

02:15:36.080 plan um there was no elaboration on it and i would point out that for the better part of the

02:15:44.480 two weeks leading up to the uh to february 13th that there were times where the commissioner and

02:15:51.280 others uh at those daily calls that we were having were expressing concerns about the absence of

02:15:56.480 a plan with existing authorities so um at that particular moment in time it

02:16:04.000 It seemed to me as a conclusory statement that was not substantiated with any kind of particular detail.

02:16:13.240 And the second reason why I don't believe it would have changed where my thinking was at that particular moment in time was predominantly because of the call earlier that day, which was top of mind.

02:16:26.840 And as I explained before the morning break, I beg your pardon, it just spoke volumes about what her state of mind was, which was that this was potentially an escalation of violence that could result in there being gun violence and potentially serious injuries or even fatalities to members of law enforcement and Canadians.

02:16:53.300 One thing I didn't mention was that my worry, my real fear, was that had that operation not gone down peacefully, that it might have sparked other gun violence across the country.

02:17:13.400 And I recall early reports from the Ottawa Police Service that guns had been brought into the National Capital Region and potentially into the parliamentary precinct.

02:17:30.100 And there wasn't a lot of detail around that, I want to be clear, but we were operating with the best information that we had available to us.

02:17:39.160 So that elevated my concerns. And so that was where my state of mind was, as opposed to the one bullet point that she had sent to my chief of staff shortly before the cabinet meeting on February 13th.

02:17:54.460 So you're expressing here a concern that what was going on in Cootes might be going on in other places. Not evidence of that, but you were nevertheless concerned about it.

02:18:05.100 on the basis of both previous information and reports publicly available from Ottawa Police Service

02:18:14.460 that firearms had made their way into the Capitol, and as well, again, a report about an arrest

02:18:22.220 involving someone who was participating in the convoy here that ultimately resulted in the seizure

02:18:29.940 of a firearm. So I was worried about the potential chain reaction, that if the operation

02:18:42.100 did not go flawlessly, that it might actually escalate in more violence. And that's why

02:18:48.940 I think she communicated that, you know, very clearly, and rightfully so. I want to be clear

02:18:54.100 that Commissioner Luckey was entirely appropriate and justified in signaling that this was a,

02:19:00.460 you know, potentially much higher level of concern around the state of affairs.

02:19:05.420 Okay, so I'll put this to you and you can tell me right or wrong, but are you sort of saying

02:19:10.360 your concern was okay, but what if it gets worse?

02:19:14.180 my my concern was um that this was that this information was highly sensitive it involved

02:19:26.020 a hardened cell it involved guns it involved ideological symbolism potentially and

02:19:33.960 that if that operation to arrest those individuals did not go efficiently and smoothly and peacefully

02:19:43.380 that it may have created a chain reaction elsewhere across the country,

02:19:47.800 because there were past reports about the presence of guns.

02:19:51.500 Okay, so I should have put my question more clearly, maybe,

02:19:54.720 but with respect to the availability of tools and whether law enforcement had what it needed,

02:19:59.640 are you saying, and you may not be, so I'm asking you,

02:20:02.820 but are you saying that regardless of whether there may have been tools available,

02:20:08.060 there was a concern that the situation would get worse?

02:20:11.840 Yes. And again, the urgency with which we had that conversation, the confidentiality around it, the operational sensitivity about it, the jeopardy of having lives at stake, the potential chain reaction of other gun violence across the country on the basis of reports, and the concurrent advice that we were getting about tools that could only be granted in the Emergencies Act because resources were ineffective at restoring public safety.

02:20:40.500 and there were gaps around deploying RCMP efficiently.

02:20:45.940 I mean, you'll recall the swearing provisions, the no-go zones, the procuring of tow trucks.

02:20:52.200 All of that was where my state of mind was.

02:20:56.180 Okay.

02:20:58.440 And by the way, those were conversations that we did have in person at the ERGs

02:21:03.960 and at the cabinet table around where those gaps were.

02:21:07.200 Where the gaps were.

02:21:08.100 Yes.

02:21:08.260 so we have heard evidence about gaps that have been identified that were identified we also heard

02:21:13.620 um from a number of officials and we saw in documentation a lot of hesitancy around the idea

02:21:19.300 of using the emergency fact and the possibility that it may inflame tensions that may make things

02:21:25.060 worse uh there was a lot of if i could put it this way doubt around that um in light of that

02:21:33.780 and in light also of a lot of discussion that we've had here in the commission

02:21:37.820 about whether the threshold itself was met under the Emergencies Act.

02:21:43.940 Can you go there at this point and explain to us your understanding

02:21:47.580 of why the threshold was met and why it was necessary

02:21:51.620 in light of the hesitancy that had been expressed about the need to invoke it?

02:21:57.560 Well, you've touched on a few important points in your question,

02:22:00.020 So I'm going to try and unpack the questions that you put to me.

02:22:05.780 Just first on hesitancy, I would be more inclined to describe it as reluctance.

02:22:12.180 And I think that that instinct was the right one, that this was a statute that was created

02:22:19.160 coming out of the aftermath of the October 1970 crisis and there being real concerns

02:22:25.900 about using, resorting to the War Measures Act and using the military to restore public order,

02:22:32.600 which is not the mandate or the expertise of the military, a very blunt instrument.

02:22:39.920 And the creation of the Emergencies Act, which very consciously and deliberately

02:22:47.140 does not make any reference to military powers, but nevertheless affords the government

02:22:54.160 broad scope to respond to public order emergencies.

02:22:59.560 And just by virtue of its title, you know, if you're into an emergency,

02:23:06.320 this is obviously a very serious situation.

02:23:08.440 So you don't want to have to use it unless it's necessary.

02:23:11.540 So that is the right posture, I think, of every government,

02:23:15.340 that this is not a piece of legislation that we should be using

02:23:20.320 in a way that is anything reserved but for the most serious situations.

02:23:27.580 So that's my answer in regards to the reluctance around it.

02:23:33.340 You also mentioned in your question that this business about there being the concern

02:23:40.420 that if we invoke the Emergencies Act, that it might actually lead to more violence

02:23:43.820 or radicalization, as I believe you heard from Mr. Vigneault and CESIS.

02:23:48.900 I was very mindful of that, but I also and colleagues at the cabinet table also had to weigh the risks of not invoking the Emergencies Act because there were the materialization of counter protests from individuals, specifically in Ottawa, because they were so frustrated at their inability to go to their jobs, take their kids to daycare,

02:24:18.100 get access to emergency medical services, their prescriptions and the like, I mean, it was utter

02:24:22.780 and total mayhem. I mean, let's call a spade a spade. And so that frustration was boiling over.

02:24:29.540 And my concern in my capacity as the Minister for Public Safety is that if we don't equip police

02:24:36.400 with the additional tools and the authorities that they need to specifically address the gaps

02:24:41.840 that they had been consistently briefing us on, then that might lead to more violence.

02:24:46.420 And so we also had to weigh the risks of not taking the decision to invoke.

02:24:53.100 And so we weighed in the potential concerns around radicalization, but ultimately we came down on the side of invoking.

02:25:03.960 Okay. On this point then, Mr. Clerk, can you pull up ssm.nsc.can50290?

02:25:16.420 Excuse me. 0.93

02:25:34.880 So this is a readout of minutes of the guns and gangs.

02:25:41.720 Can you situate us actually, Mr. Menachino, and tell us, guns and gangs, what does that

02:25:45.800 refer to that meeting um sorry this is a document published by it's a it's a reading or minutes of

02:25:54.800 a meeting that was held date alex okay the date of it isn't clear actually but we know that it's

02:26:01.820 post invocation because it refers to the invocation of the emergencies act um and it says schedule

02:26:08.800 was changed guns and gangs instead it's it's a guns and gangs meeting and there's a report from

02:26:15.740 you. M3, I think, refers to you. That's a notation that's often used to describe you. MMM3. Why M3?

02:26:23.540 Minister Marco Mendicino. I should have been able to answer that. Okay.

02:26:28.280 Bullet number three here. You're discussing, okay, well, let's go from the bullet number one.

02:26:33.380 Update on current state of affairs. The blockades that started a month ago aiming critical

02:26:37.980 infrastructure had a very significant and negative impact on our security, sovereignty,

02:26:42.760 and integrity at the borders. We worked very closely with FPT to get a grasp of the risks to

02:26:48.440 public safety and international security. The important one, which I'll slow down on, is the

02:26:54.380 third one. We took unprecedented decision to invoke Emergencies Act on the advice we received

02:27:02.280 from many branches of enforcement on every level. What I want to ask you about here is

02:27:08.900 the advice you received from branches of enforcement, was that advice to invoke the

02:27:15.820 Emergencies Act specifically? The advice that we received was around tools that could only be

02:27:24.240 granted through the Emergencies Act. And the reason why I say that is that there's an express

02:27:32.700 element of the test that says that you don't get to the threshold unless you've exhausted

02:27:38.680 authorities or if you unless unless it can be established that existing authorities are

02:27:45.100 ineffective at restoring public safety and for me that is the operative word because there were

02:27:51.620 authorities that were on the books but the fact is that on the basis of what I was seeing

02:27:56.840 and what I was hearing that those existing authorities were not sufficiently effective

02:28:03.120 to restore public safety and that is consistent with the advice that we were getting from various

02:28:08.360 partners within the public safety community, including law enforcement, including CBSA

02:28:14.100 and other officials, as you've heard. Okay, so just to recap then, the advice you're talking

02:28:22.080 about is the advice that's identifying gaps in tools, not specifically advice to invoke the

02:28:29.560 Emergencies Act, but advice that goes to identifying gaps or tools. And tools, as you

02:28:36.360 actually saw in the email from Commissioner Luckey on February 13th that would be invoked

02:28:42.820 in the Emergencies Act. She used that language in her email to me. Okay.

02:28:50.460 Then the very last question, I think I actually am now out of time. So the last question I want

02:28:56.300 to ask you, Minister Medellino, and your legal background shows and how you unpacked my triple

02:29:02.280 barreled question last time around so this is the last barrel the third barrel that we that you

02:29:06.520 didn't get to in your answer which is the threshold for for invoking uh a public order

02:29:12.760 emergency as you know depends on identifying a threat to the security of canada with reference

02:29:18.280 to the cesus act we've heard a lot of discussion at the commission about how that threshold

02:29:23.880 may or may not have been met and we know that there was no specific threat to the security of

02:29:28.760 of Canada, assessed by CSIS. Nevertheless, the government concluded that the threshold was

02:29:36.880 met, presumably, because the Act was invoked. How, in your view, was that threshold met?

02:29:42.820 Well, first, let me address the piece about CSIS's conclusion, and I know you've heard some

02:29:48.080 evidence about that. But I do think it is important to emphasize that they are assessing

02:29:53.000 through their mandate, which is conventionally confined to espionage and foreign interference

02:29:59.620 and potential threats to cybersecurity for the purposes of establishing a legal threshold under

02:30:06.560 that statute, which then leads to potentially obtaining warrants judicially authorized so that

02:30:13.720 we can mitigate against those potential security threats. This was very different. This was not

02:30:20.520 about isolating a lone wolf or a small group. Rather, it was about looking at a protest

02:30:29.100 which became illegal at a national scale. And completing that exercise also had to take a look

02:30:39.560 at the broader objective and scope of the Emergencies Act, which means looking at Section

02:30:45.620 two of that statute where it talks about the presence of a serious threat or a threat of

02:30:54.520 serious violence so as to exceed the capacity of any province to respond on the basis of authorities

02:30:59.820 that exist. And so in my judgment, you need to kind of look at both. And that was precisely

02:31:06.640 the skill set that I was applying in my role as Minister of Public Safety, drawing on my

02:31:14.780 understanding of the law and the principles as they were being applied to the facts that existed

02:31:21.280 on the ground at the time. And so looking at everything in its totality, we had a situation

02:31:28.800 where for two weeks we had a protest that was national in scale that overwhelmed the resources

02:31:37.580 of police and other border officials very deliberately for a protracted period of time

02:31:43.940 were despite the existence of statutes and resources, and in my view, as informed by

02:31:52.000 counter operational tactics that were specifically deployed to stop people from restoring public

02:32:01.800 safety, the extraordinary jeopardy that it placed our economy and the thousands of Canadians who

02:32:08.280 had their jobs interrupted, the fact that businesses were shuttered, that sectors were compromised,

02:32:12.920 that are the literal and figurative engine of our economy.

02:32:16.380 The fact that all of this was tied to a politically stated objective

02:32:23.120 to overthrow the government if it refused to reverse course on pandemic policy

02:32:28.360 and the challenges that were presented to the security and intelligence community

02:32:33.340 and the broader law enforcement community in understanding what the nature of this protest was

02:32:38.600 and why it was so difficult and challenging to restore public safety,

02:32:42.040 all drew me to the conclusion that we met the threshold.

02:32:46.940 And ultimately, for me, at the end of the day, it worked.

02:32:50.960 I'm not saying that the Emergencies Act is a perfect instrument,

02:32:54.120 and my sincere hope to the Commission is that there will be some reflection about that.

02:33:00.040 But it was a measure that was successfully deployed by law enforcement

02:33:05.400 to restore public safety without significant injury or any fatalities at all.

02:33:10.320 And the fact that that as part of the invocation of this act, that we now have an opportunity to go over the circumstances that led to that decision in great forensic detail with witnesses testifying is, I think, an important pillar of our democratic process, which, of course, was one of the things that we were very much concerned with preserving throughout.

02:33:33.700 so i mean that that's that that is my answer with regards to the threshold and

02:33:38.340 um why i think it's important that i'm here today mr questioner those are my questions i'll pass the

02:33:44.740 baton okay so now uh cross-examination start with the convoy organizers please

02:33:52.020 good morning good morning sir my name is keith wilson council for the convoy organizers

02:34:02.200 I apologize for my voice. I'm recovering from a cold.

02:34:05.840 I have a bit of the same.

02:34:07.880 Thank you, sir.

02:34:09.400 Sir, we're not in a position to proceed with CROSS at this time, and there's two reasons.

02:34:13.980 One is the federal government has disclosed over a week ago an extension volume of documents that are highly redacted.

02:34:24.700 It is obvious from the face of the documents that they don't meet the criteria for lawful redactions.

02:34:32.200 a motion was made last week for those redactions to be lifted the submissions closed on Thursday

02:34:39.580 evening we still have no ruling a number of days have passed for the cross-examination and the

02:34:47.380 discovery of truth process to be valid and effective the parties require access to the

02:34:53.380 documents we don't have that so we would appreciate some indication as to when the

02:35:00.040 Commission is actually going to rule on that and hopefully compel the proper disclosure of the

02:35:06.620 records so that cross-examinations can be effective. I emphasize that these documents are not related to

02:35:12.740 future witnesses but present witnesses. So we're making the process inefficient with all due respect

02:35:18.640 by not allowing the parties to have access to unredacted documents. Second reason we're not

02:35:25.540 in a position to proceed with our cross-examination at this time with this witness is uh our lead

02:35:31.540 counsel mr brendan miller who had prepared for the cross as you know sir has been removed from

02:35:36.580 the room by you when he was raising a motion to find a way around the absence of a ruling on the

02:35:43.540 redaction so we're just not in a position to proceed on crosser okay well just on your your

02:35:51.300 first question it uh it is uh expected that the ruling will come out at the during the lunch hour

02:36:00.980 it's there have been a fair amount of back and forth without going into detail there's there's

02:36:07.700 some let's say uh innovative type of issues that had to be dealt with uh so that should come out

02:36:18.980 at lunchtime which I'm happy to I will do my utmost it's going to come out

02:36:25.660 unfortunately probably and not on the record the website because it won't be

02:36:31.520 translated which is one of the issues we have to deal with but we will in light of

02:36:36.440 what you say you'll issue it in English only for the moment and it will become

02:36:41.360 be posted when it's bilingual but I understand that submission so that that should enable you

02:36:49.820 so we can put off the cross-examinations till after the lunchtime in terms of the other problem

02:36:56.020 that's not something I can deal with I've dealt I'm trying to deal the best I can with

02:37:02.440 the situation and quite frankly if the issue had been raised the way you

02:37:10.380 have now i would have given the answer i'm giving now so um what i propose then since this witness

02:37:18.540 will be here after lunch we simply delay till after lunch if you could endeavor because i see

02:37:24.460 you have uh uh mr will uh you have a co-counsel so can sort out how that can be done that would

02:37:31.420 be appreciated thank you sir okay so the next i'll call on the opp please

02:37:39.820 good afternoon afternoon minister chris diana council to the opp good afternoon we received

02:37:58.700 some documents last night that we're all frantically trying to review some of them

02:38:02.460 are quite interesting and one of the ones that i'd like to start with mr clerk is pb dot can

02:38:08.380 And this appears to be a text exchange with you and an unidentified person who I'm hoping you'll be able to help us identify.

02:38:23.660 And if we can go to page 26.

02:38:38.380 All right. So if you could help situate us as to kind of context here, this appears to be a text with someone, I believe you're on the left and somebody else is on the right.

02:38:48.520 If you could scroll down a little bit so that the witness has a chance to review it.

02:38:52.440 Do you know who this text exchange was with?

02:38:54.300 I believe it's Mike Jones.

02:38:55.460 And he would be your chief of staff, correct?

02:38:57.160 Yes.

02:38:57.540 And someone who you would have been in touch with, obviously, every day that you're closest to contact within your system.

02:39:05.140 All right, and so we scroll to the top again to set the time context here.

02:39:10.660 Monday, February 14th at 12.48 a.m., so very early in the morning, February 14th.

02:39:15.320 So basically the night of February 13th, if we were to look at it that way.

02:39:19.380 And the context here is that the Ambassador Bridge had just been opened to traffic, I believe, about 30 minutes earlier.

02:39:27.400 Is that correct?

02:39:28.220 Yes.

02:39:28.660 That, of course, with your recollection of when this text exchange took place?

02:39:31.580 It does.

02:39:32.180 there were some questions about whether or not it was fully opened and exactly when CBSA would

02:39:36.800 declare that it was officially open. But on the whole, yes, there were reports that it was opened

02:39:41.460 in the early hours of February the 14th. Yeah, but I think for clarity, I think the Windsor Police

02:39:46.180 Service Institutional Report identifies 1212 a.m. on that day. So that sounds about right to me.

02:39:52.080 All right. And so you would agree that everything you had heard was said while it was open,

02:39:55.560 there was still a concern about potential volatility, correct? That's right. All right.

02:39:59.560 There were reports of flare-ups, if I'm not mistaken, either on the 13th, but certainly after the 14th as well.

02:40:06.220 All right.

02:40:06.480 So I'm interested in the text that says, and I'll read it, following the declaration, we should go to Ambassador and inspect the bridge reopening and thank law enforcement and RCMP, assuming things go according to plan.

02:40:20.260 So I'd like to follow up on what, and this is you texting Mike Jones, correct?

02:40:24.460 Yes.

02:40:25.280 Your term following the declaration, I assume you're talking about the Emergencies Act declaration?

02:40:30.940 Yes.

02:40:31.740 And you would agree the Emergencies Act had not yet been invoked at this point, correct?

02:40:35.340 That's correct.

02:40:36.300 And in fact, there had not even been consultation with the provinces at this point, correct?

02:40:40.660 That's, well, to be clear, the first minister's meeting had not yet occurred, which occurred the next morning.

02:40:47.960 There were conversations with provincial and territorial counterparts, but it was before the first minister's meeting.

02:40:53.520 Right. But I think and I'm not going to go to the document for lack of time, but I think it was made very clear by the prime minister and others that that his mind hadn't been made up yet, that the consultation was essentially being done in good faith.

02:41:05.340 Yes. Correct. Yes. And I wasn't communicating that the decision had been finally taken, but rather the assumption that it it may have been.

02:41:12.520 Not may have been following the declaration. It sounds to me like you're pretty convinced that it was going to be made regardless of what happened at the consultation.

02:41:19.240 I won't dispute we were definitely trending very much in that direction. Yes.

02:41:23.520 Okay. Assuming things go according to plan. And so what plan are you referring to here?

02:41:30.040 Restoring public safety. And Ambassador Bridge was one of the real flashpoints, as you'll recall, because not only of the impact domestically in Windsor, but Ambassador Bridge was one of the reasons why I was engaged by my American counterpart, Secretary Mayorkas, who had reached out and was very concerned that it was going to have an impact on two-way trade.

02:41:53.560 And you will be familiar with this by now, I assume, but at Ambassador Bridge, we do the most significant amount of our day-to-day land trade.

02:42:01.420 So there was a lot at stake in restoring public safety at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Detroit.

02:42:07.420 Right. So a cynic might suggest, and we're both lawyers and there are a number of us in that category, a cynic might suggest that it appears here, you're talking about setting up a photo op in Windsor, even before the Emergencies Act is invoked.

02:42:22.060 i i agree with you a cynic may suggest that but that was not my um my my intent um the the point

02:42:29.980 was this was a very stressful uh time and um i wanted to be in a position to reassure canadians

02:42:38.180 that we were storing a public safety uh right across the country including in windsor detroit

02:42:44.060 and and that was an idea that i had uh proposed at the time to my chief of staff okay so let's

02:42:50.820 read the rest of it. Your chief of staff says, okay, do you know when that will be? Presumably

02:42:55.520 being the invocation of the act, correct? Yes. Your response, I'm hearing it's late as tomorrow

02:43:00.960 morning. I think it's a powerful visual. Otherwise, it's just tweets. So basically what you're saying

02:43:06.820 is I should go there, get some pictures, get some video because it sends a better image than just

02:43:12.160 tweeting about it. Fair? Well, I think what I'm getting at is that people are anxious and are

02:43:19.120 concerned and want to be confident that we are restoring public safety. I mean, I would point

02:43:25.920 out that that is not the end of the matter. And there's some additional back and forth between

02:43:30.360 my chief of staff and law enforcement. Ultimately, I chose not to go on sober reflection.

02:43:36.260 All right. So let's go to that then. The OPP was not impressed with this idea. Is that fair to say?

02:43:42.560 I didn't speak directly with the OPP, but it was expressed to me that law enforcement had concerns

02:43:48.220 about me or any other elected official going all right if we can take up the document id opp4582

02:43:56.540 and i'm going to be taking you to text message messages between commissioner kareek and deputy

02:44:01.100 commissioner chris harkins on february 14th and once that's up if we can go to page 71

02:44:18.220 all right so you can see the top it says dana called and that would be a reference to dana

02:44:26.020 early as you know and this is from chris harkins dana called she is not happy the rcmp called and

02:44:31.960 the federal public safety minister and that would be you correct yes is coming tomorrow for a photo

02:44:37.760 op tour the command post etc not appropriate optics are terrible can we stop it commissioner

02:44:44.880 Karik responds a little while later saying visit is being postponed so you could see here that

02:44:50.720 obviously the OPP was not happy with the idea and described it as a photo op. Yeah their advice

02:44:54.920 changed my mind. Part of the reason that they were concerned of course and I think you heard

02:45:05.920 this from the RCMP as well was the potential that it could further inflame the situation if you

02:45:10.960 actually showed up and took pictures. Fair? And I had to balance that against what my initial

02:45:15.940 thought or objective was, which was to assure, to be accessible and to assure people that we had

02:45:22.060 restored public safety. So in the end, I took that very much into consideration and was actually

02:45:28.280 quite deferential and respectful to the advice that we got back from police and chose not to go.

02:45:32.980 Okay. Can we go back to the other document, which is pb.can.1849? And this is back to your

02:45:39.660 text exchange with Mike Jones. And page 32. Here it says RCMP and this is I believe Mike Jones

02:45:56.880 saying RCMP Commissioner also strongly advising against a trip to Windsor concern that is still

02:46:02.400 quite volatile and things have been inflamed by today's announcement. Someone drove at an officer

02:46:07.280 again i want the visual as well but with two levels of forces asking us not to my two cents

02:46:13.280 is that it's not worth the risk of going and something happening in response delaying gives

02:46:18.080 us more time to plan etc scroll down okay i hear you let's discuss so essentially it was your chief

02:46:25.520 of staff that was saying look we've heard from two police services let's not do this yeah solid

02:46:30.560 advice and i took it in retrospect and i raise this because you know i think you would agree

02:46:36.400 that sometimes having politicians attend these kinds of sites can have perhaps unintended

02:46:41.360 consequences fair absolutely yes and that in retrospect you would agree that it probably

02:46:46.880 wasn't a good idea to have gone yes that's why we didn't go yes

02:46:55.520 and in my last minute i'm going to ask you about consultation and i've put these questions to other

02:47:01.360 witnesses but i'm just simply going to ask you or put to you the proposition about consultation

02:47:06.240 with law enforcement and the suggestion that i'll put to you is that it's a good idea that

02:47:13.200 when there is consultation with law enforcement on tools that that be done in writing for purposes

02:47:18.720 of accountability so we can go back and check exactly who said what to whom right would you

02:47:23.360 agree that's a good idea totally and and you would have heard my um my evidence a little bit earlier

02:47:29.120 this morning where i talked about navigating the principle of operational independence i referred

02:47:33.600 to Article 9.3 under police service agreements, which we reach with provinces, which actually do

02:47:39.580 set out a mechanism and a protocol by which additional resources are requested from the

02:47:45.780 Office of the Federal Minister of Public Safety, as well as the Office of the Provincial Ministers

02:47:53.340 of Public Safety. One thing I didn't mention, but I do think is really relevant, is that in those

02:47:59.280 police service agreements, it is expressly contemplated under either 9.1 or 9.2 of those

02:48:05.080 agreements that prior to the deployment of intra-provincial RCMP resources, it is the elected

02:48:13.400 provincial minister of public safety who has to form the opinion that there is a state of emergency

02:48:20.800 before they can be deployed. And it is only if existing RCMP resources within the province

02:48:28.820 are overwhelmed or insufficient to deal with that emergency, that you then take the next step of

02:48:36.120 requesting for the deployment of RCMP resources outside of the province to deal with the situation,

02:48:42.580 which is Article 9.3. And that is a request that comes to this office. My point is, I agree with

02:48:49.400 you that there is a protocol there. The Emergencies Act, unfortunately, does not prescribe that

02:48:56.900 process. So what we did instead was we did the best that we could having various meetings daily,

02:49:05.340 ultimately in the ERG and the cabinet meetings where we were soliciting inputs, including as

02:49:10.800 you saw in the email that I received from Commissioner Lucky the day before, where she

02:49:16.340 very specifically and thoughtfully prescribes tools that could only be granted under the

02:49:22.420 Emergencies Act. But I agree that maybe some additional thought ought to be given to this

02:49:26.420 protocol. Right. And I am out of time. So as I'm leaving, I'm just going to say that we've heard

02:49:29.900 evidence that some ambiguous evidence spoke conversations within the RCMP, perhaps with

02:49:34.660 others that haven't been written down. And I think you would agree that it'd be helpful to have

02:49:38.060 everything clear and ambiguous. So there's no room for doubt. Yes. Thank you, Minister. Thank

02:49:43.120 you. Okay, next call on the Ottawa Police Service, please.

02:49:56.420 Good afternoon, Minister. My name is Jessica Barrow, and I'm one of the counsel to Ottawa Police Service.

02:50:04.280 Good afternoon.

02:50:06.120 Prior to the arrival of the convoy, would you agree with me that there was conflicting information about how many protesters may participate in Ottawa, as well as how long they may stay?

02:50:16.500 I do agree. And by the way, the range was very broad. I mean, I'd heard something in the low thousands and then it quickly escalated as we got closer to the weekend, upwards of seven or eight thousand. So, yes.

02:50:27.780 And so that was a real difficulty from a planning perspective at all levels of government and law enforcement. Is that fair?

02:50:33.920 Yes.

02:50:34.160 and in fact you testified earlier that you were concerned that even the intelligence you were

02:50:40.560 receiving from your team maybe didn't fully capture all of what you were seeing in terms

02:50:45.380 of public narrative is that fair i recall that yes and deputy minister stewart testified last

02:50:51.600 week that there was a difficulty amongst the intelligence community at that time in assessing

02:50:56.620 the information that was being received because much of that evidence was open source and there

02:51:01.380 was difficulty ascertaining the credibility of that information. Would you agree with that?

02:51:05.720 I would agree with that. And so again, that's something that all levels of law enforcement

02:51:09.760 would have been grappling with at that time. I agree. And so ultimately, no one really had a

02:51:14.700 very clear picture in advance of the scope of the event, as well as the behavior of the protesters

02:51:20.380 before it arrived. Is that fair? Yes. And I think you've heard from a number of individuals,

02:51:25.260 including me, that that posed challenges with regards to assessing the intelligence and the

02:51:30.380 information about who the protest was made up of how many would participate how long they would

02:51:37.180 stay what would be the kind of conduct they would be engaging in could it become violent there was

02:51:42.780 a lot of information to have to sift through and assess and it was as you pointed out at times

02:51:49.180 varying and conflicting and so that that definitely posed some challenges and ultimately what we did

02:51:55.260 see here in ottawa as well as elsewhere in the country was entirely unprecedented both in terms

02:52:01.180 of the scope as well as the behavior we ultimately saw from protesters is that correct yes it is

02:52:08.380 i want to move on to the police response once uh the protesters arrived here in ottawa and

02:52:13.420 we've heard considerable evidence to the effect that when ops and its partners engaged in ad hoc

02:52:19.580 enforcement actions or ticketing bylaw enforcement things like that it could create dangerous

02:52:24.780 situations for officers we heard about swarming uh harassment i think you spoke to earlier so

02:52:29.980 you would agree that that type of thing was occurring in ottawa correct it was and i was

02:52:34.540 worried as i said earlier that it was the um the function of some counter operational advice that

02:52:41.020 was being provided to uh the uh the block in the occupation and it was in addition to police

02:52:47.260 officers it was public figures and we've heard many reports about serious criminal violent

02:52:53.580 threats, including death threats. I received a death threat. My family received a death threat

02:52:58.180 throughout the convoy. It was members of the press who were trying to report on

02:53:04.880 the facts that were occurring on the ground. There were many, many, I think, efforts to try to

02:53:13.460 crowd out legitimate law enforcement. Right. And so that was a real difficulty for law

02:53:18.480 enforcement on the ground, particularly OPS, since that was the bulk of the officers, obviously,

02:53:22.540 at that time, that to be able to engage in any real enforcement was a real challenge as a result

02:53:28.400 of what they were facing in response. Yes. And that remained the case until they had sufficient

02:53:33.600 resources, correct? That's right. And at that time, they did not have the sufficient resources

02:53:39.500 to really engage in meaningful enforcement in a way that people could maybe see it as meaningful.

02:53:45.520 Is that fair? And I would say both Chief Slowly and then Interim Chief Bell both expressed

02:53:51.620 concerns about having sufficient resources in the ground, which is why in my capacity as Minister

02:53:57.240 of Public Safety, I was facilitating additional help with the assistance of the Commissioner of

02:54:02.680 the RCMP by providing those resources. And when that didn't work, looking at other tools leading

02:54:08.560 up to the Emergencies Act. So specifically with respect to the resources, you would obviously

02:54:13.180 agree that that messaging coming from both OPS and Chief Slowly was from the very beginning,

02:54:19.020 essentially. Once it became apparent that these protesters were not leaving, it became equally

02:54:23.440 apparent that there was insufficient resources. Is that fair? That came very early on, yes.

02:54:28.760 And would it be fair to say that any concerns in relation to operational plans or the level

02:54:34.420 of enforcement should not be taken as some kind of suggestion that OPS should have engaged

02:54:39.760 enforcement action without the resources they needed? Well, that was certainly the subject

02:54:45.720 of discussion that was going on between the rcmp the opp and the ops as it was reported to me

02:54:54.040 it was about making sure that we understood what the plan was and what was needed by

02:55:00.840 the ottawa police service to restore public safety and from where i sat one way in which

02:55:06.280 we could support the formulation and the ultimate implementation of a plan would be to offer

02:55:12.120 additional rcmp resources and that we did right and so none of the sort of like we could call it

02:55:18.120 criticisms about uh the lack of enforcement or the lack of a plan should be pers uh perceived

02:55:25.320 as a suggestion that there was that ops should have been engaging in enforcement notwithstanding

02:55:30.040 the fact that they didn't have the resources to do that safely i would agree that um we shouldn't

02:55:35.560 be sending out any police officer into the field if they can't be safe right and and so this

02:55:42.680 particular event was singular and unprecedented as you pointed out earlier and therefore it did

02:55:48.920 require sufficient and significant resources to restore public safety and something you said

02:55:54.520 earlier and i just want to expand on it if i can you indicated that it was essentially impossible

02:56:00.840 to police those on wellington street do you recall making a statement to that effect

02:56:05.160 yes i held that view throughout the entirety of the blockade and the occupation until we invoked

02:56:10.280 the emergencies act and and that's because if you compare the sort of lawlessness of the behavior

02:56:16.280 of the protesters as compared to the resources that were there to deal with that situation

02:56:21.000 there was a disconnect is that fair it was disproportionately skewed towards those who

02:56:25.800 were participating in the occupation and um and i believe at times that was a tactical decision

02:56:33.960 and when police tried to enforce you know they were they were crowded out they were swarmed they

02:56:40.280 were intimidated in some cases uh reports of of assaults so yes they were overwhelmed

02:56:48.840 and so when we talk about the operational plans and you've touched on it a couple of times

02:56:53.240 would it be fair to say that the reason the plans were required was to ensure that if the resources

02:56:58.200 were provided there was an understanding by those agencies about how they would be used

02:57:03.160 to safely and productively contribute to an end of the event yes and so it wasn't a question of

02:57:10.760 undermining the actions of ops it was about ensuring collaboration is that fair yes and

02:57:17.400 there was never any suggestion that ops should have engaged in an overall operation to end the

02:57:23.480 event before it had the resources to do that safely i think that makes sense okay i want to

02:57:29.480 move on and quickly uh discuss a couple of points referenced in your witness statement

02:57:33.960 in relation to the engagement proposal um i don't think i need to bring up your witness statement

02:57:38.600 but i'm happy to if that's necessary um deputy minister stewart testified that the purpose of

02:57:44.120 the draft engagement proposal was to give protesters in ottawa a potential exit strategy

02:57:49.720 do you agree with that statement uh to the best of my recollection yes that sounds right

02:57:54.440 and that view came from deputy minister stewart's conversations with the inspector bowden who you

02:58:01.000 may or may not know is an expert from opp on protester engagement through his plt work are

02:58:06.120 you aware of that yes i have some recollection of that and he also testified he being uh

02:58:12.440 deputy minister stewart that the proposal had buy-in from both opp and ops were you aware of that

02:58:18.040 i believe so yes and you testified earlier that you saw it to be your job during this time or

02:58:25.000 perhaps the job of your department to ensure that law enforcement had both the resources

02:58:30.040 and the tools they required that's correct and so in your witness statement you indicated that

02:58:37.480 there were two issues with respect to why the enforcement or sorry the engagement proposal

02:58:43.400 didn't come to fruition. The first was questions that were left unanswered about the convoy

02:58:50.280 organizers, who they are and who was in charge. And the second related to safety concerns about

02:58:56.120 the person engaged in the proposal. Do you recall saying that? Yes. And in addition to that, the

02:59:01.180 logistics of where engagement would occur. Okay. So I just want to pull up a couple

02:59:05.240 documents in relation to that. The first is OTT 405318.

02:59:35.240 If we could scroll to the bottom.

02:59:42.160 So this is an email, sorry, up a little so we can see who it's to, yeah.

02:59:47.000 Sorry, the email at the bottom of the first page.

02:59:52.480 Yes, there.

02:59:56.560 So this is an email from someone at Ottawa Police State, Vicki Nelson, to a number of

03:00:00.740 people, including Deputy Minister Stewart, and as you can see, it says,

03:00:05.060 good morning on behalf of general counsel, please find attached the list of the convoy leaders and

03:00:09.580 their affiliates. That's on February 7th. And then if you scroll to the top, it's an email back from

03:00:15.500 Mr. Stewart saying thank you. And so you would agree with me that there is some level of engagement

03:00:20.300 with OPS to get the information your department needs about those convoy organizers and their

03:00:26.460 affiliates to assist with this proposal. It would appear so on the basis of that email exchange. I

03:00:33.440 i don't uh recall being briefed at the time about who those individuals were or moreover

03:00:40.800 how those individuals would help to ensure the clearing of the of the convoy but yes on on what

03:00:47.760 you're showing me it does seem that there is a back and forth between um deputy minister stewart

03:00:52.960 and uh the ottawa police service on who the leaders of the organization of the organization

03:00:59.760 might be. Thank you. I'm just going to bring up one last document. This one's pb.nsc.can2963.

03:01:29.760 If we go to the second page right there, we see the first bullet.

03:01:45.540 Would the signatory of the letter or the person who goes to the meeting be putting themselves

03:01:49.520 at risk?

03:01:50.520 Is that a big concern?

03:01:51.520 And this is an email exchange between yourself and Mr. Stewart amongst various other people.

03:01:57.920 this reflect the concern that you're referencing in relation to whether there would be a risk to

03:02:02.600 the person engaging with this proposal? Sorry, can we just go back up to the top of that document

03:02:07.680 from Rob to, right, sorry, scroll down a bit, and again.

03:02:15.400 so the way i i recall this is that the deputy minister stewart is responding to concerns that

03:02:31.960 i had raised with him about the engagement proposal right so if we scroll then to the

03:02:36.280 back up to the first page of the document it looks like we have the answers to those questions

03:02:41.880 um and if we look at the last or the second bullet we see uh the risk to the signatory

03:02:50.280 and government rep at a later date meeting is low assuming the meeting is virtual so again

03:02:56.580 would you agree that the concern that you've raised has been addressed as a result of a

03:03:01.880 conversation between uh deputy minister stewart and his opp expert i would say it begun to address

03:03:09.340 the concerns. I don't think I was wholly satisfied by the answers that I had gotten at that stage.

03:03:15.180 In particular, I would have explored the assessment that the risk to the signatory and to the

03:03:24.640 government rep was low because I needed to understand exactly where the setup was going

03:03:29.500 to be, how it was going to be undertaken. And bearing in mind at the time, the situation on

03:03:34.300 the ground was volatile and at times extremely chaotic and certainly with a very compromised

03:03:40.320 ability to enforce the law. I really wanted to be satisfied that those answers, that those

03:03:48.180 questions would be answered because if I went back to cabinet and was asked about the engagement

03:03:53.580 proposal that was being worked up by my deputy minister, I had to be accountable and I had to

03:03:58.280 be in a position to answer them. So if begun to answer some of those questions, I would say

03:04:02.400 not completely so you you said i would have as though it were hypothetical did you ultimately

03:04:08.120 continue that conversation or was the decision made at this point to kind of stop the process

03:04:14.560 no there was no decision to stop the process um and there were um some ongoing conversations

03:04:20.920 uh about about engagement and you know ultimately i mean this is february 12 12 25 um the following

03:04:29.800 day we have an erg and then a cabinet meeting and then the 14th is the day in which it's about a

03:04:37.580 about a day and a half after this email exchange we saw that the efforts of the city of ottawa

03:04:42.740 were not successful in the engagement proposal and by then we were into the invocation of the

03:04:48.000 emergencies act so you would say sort of events overtook and and and the proposal fell by the

03:04:52.460 wayside i would say there was a lot of work that was going on and i know that the deputy minister

03:04:56.880 at the time was working very hard to fulfill this task around the engagement proposal but we were

03:05:01.840 also you know meeting with enforcement officials meeting with cabinet meeting with and engaging

03:05:08.320 with provincial and territorial colleagues and then yes the the sequence of events that had to

03:05:14.240 be fulfilled prior to taking a decision on the invocation emergencies act was was pressing okay

03:05:21.200 thank you those are my questions thank you thank you uh next uh council for former chief slowly please

03:05:39.520 thank you minister tom curry for the former chief good afternoon um just on the point that was

03:05:48.240 last raise did you were you briefed on the outcome of the effort to try to engage protesters in

03:05:57.200 windsor by minister jones or by the opp and the letter from minister jones i recall some information

03:06:04.880 coming to me about that engagement and it being similarly unsuccessful i recall there being a

03:06:13.760 report about a letter being circulated to individuals who were part of the blockade

03:06:21.600 in Windsor and that my recollection is that it did it did not gain any traction with them

03:06:29.120 and so likewise here in Ottawa a lot of the concerns around the cohesive structure

03:06:35.680 of the blockade and the occupation raised legitimate concerns about whether or not even if

03:06:41.360 If a negotiated settlement had been reached, whether or not it would have been successful in disengaging and clearing the block in the occupation.

03:06:50.900 Thank you. The issue about whether a negotiated resolution was possible, was that taken eventually to cabinet and discussed?

03:07:04.920 It was discussed at definitely one of the ERGs where, as I said earlier today, my deputy at the time had briefed the members of the ERG on the constitution of the individuals that made up the occupation here in Ottawa and the degree to which they were entrenched and dug in and how we might shake in or loosen that through engagement.

03:07:31.640 So it was discussed, yes.

03:07:33.200 And similarly, did you become aware that the mayor of Ottawa had negotiated successfully for the relocation of some of the vehicles away from residential neighborhoods and that that was thought to represent a possible breakthrough?

03:07:51.120 I do recall there being discussions between Mayor Watson and I think there was an appointed

03:08:00.480 mediator that he had managed to secure. But I also remember being very concerned that the vehicles

03:08:08.720 that were clearing out of neighborhoods were actually coming back downtown into the parliamentary

03:08:14.320 precinct, and that that created a surge of vehicles that were, again, entrenching at the

03:08:23.900 seat of the federal government. And my concern was that it was actually growing the scale of

03:08:30.460 the occupation here, and that would have made it even potentially more difficult and challenging

03:08:37.020 to clear. A couple of things, if I could, just about the resources. The information that you

03:08:42.900 received about resources came principally from Commissioner Luckey. That's correct. Yes. And

03:08:49.140 did you become aware that the information that you were receiving from the commissioner

03:08:55.940 did not accord with the provision of resources to the OPS? Yes. In trilateral meetings with

03:09:05.040 Mayor Watson and in discussions with some of his officials, I think he articulated a concern that

03:09:11.920 perhaps there was a need to look more carefully at the number of, one, the number of RCMP

03:09:19.060 that were actually deployed, and two, what their taskings were. And I know that he

03:09:24.920 sort of underlined that latter part on a couple of occasions, that it wasn't just the numbers,

03:09:30.460 it was what were the RCMP going to be dispatched to do. And in fairness, those were questions that

03:09:35.300 we did put to Commissioner Lucky at the time, and I think she did her best to answer them.

03:09:40.140 Right. Understood. And you you relied in making you made very I won't take you to them in the time I have, but you made various public statements in response to questions from the from the media about what you were doing, what the federal government was doing to help the Ottawa Police Service.

03:09:54.600 And in reliance on the information you had from Commissioner Luckey, you made those statements, including naming the numbers of officers, I think at one time, 250 or 275.

03:10:04.680 In that range. Yeah. The reason why we were trying to we were trying to get the message out was that there were, I think, increasing questions and concerns from the city that they didn't have enough personnel.

03:10:18.900 And I wanted to communicate that on behalf of the federal government, that we were acting quickly and decisively to respond to those concerns by dispatching RCMP personnel.

03:10:28.120 And the idea that all you can do in your position, I presume, is rely on those, in this case, the commissioner, to provide you with information to the best of her ability, and then you can rely on that and convey it.

03:10:44.840 As it turns out, in this case, you learned that the information that you had and conveyed was not accurate.

03:10:51.480 Well, I would say a couple things.

03:10:53.260 One, when the commissioner is briefing me, I take that information, you know, specifically around operations very much into account as we're making decisions about what additional resources we can offer.

03:11:08.480 I was nevertheless interested to know whether or not we needed to do more to coordinate because the mayor and certain officials were saying it wasn't just about numbers, it was about tasking.

03:11:22.320 So there was a free flowing dialogue there. The numbers was the number, the issue of whether or not to be public about the numbers was also a concern because the commissioner said that she was concerned that if we posted numbers or we published numbers, that that might actually lead to a surge. And so we had to try to find a balance.

03:11:45.820 Right. And just for the, I'm not going to take it up, but in one of the statements that you made, it's captured at OPS 8365 at page five.

03:11:58.280 That's just for the record. I don't need it, Mr. Registrar.

03:12:01.520 You described, again, based on information that you had from the commissioner, that the RCMP had added 275 Mounties in the Ottawa deployment.

03:12:09.700 And as you pointed out, we learned later, and the commissioner and the deputy commissioner, I think, described it essentially as a mix-up about the numbers, that it wasn't actually that many Mounties.

03:12:21.740 It was a way of accounting for them that added up shifts and the like.

03:12:26.540 Did you subsequently become aware that that's how the numbers became, as they said, mixed up?

03:12:31.220 I was aware that there was an ongoing conversation between the RCMP and the OPS about exactly how many RCMP had been deployed to respond to the occupation and the blockade.

03:12:44.960 I will say, you know, ultimately, in the lead up to the invocation, my recollection is we did dispatch about a thousand RCMP officers.

03:12:53.420 Yeah. In the end, it was a massive deployment, which gets to the point you've already touched on.

03:12:58.180 And Chief Slowly has described this as unprecedented and representing a paradigm shift in the way we think about policing public protests.

03:13:06.340 Do you agree with that?

03:13:07.420 Yes.

03:13:08.060 And in terms of the circumstances in which every one of you found yourselves in, all of the participants,

03:13:13.960 and I include the convoy organizers who seem not also to have appreciated how many people were going to attend and maybe the nature of their sense of protest.

03:13:23.060 this this resulted in great frustration at all levels as you've expressed you were you were

03:13:30.740 frustrated about the pace at which this was being resolved fair i i was concerned about the fact

03:13:36.300 that for two weeks we could not enforce the law and maintain public safety in the capital and at

03:13:42.720 border communities across the country yes in your communications in the communications of

03:13:48.040 some of your ministerial colleagues um do you agree that in hindsight some of the language that

03:13:54.660 was used even internally was unhelpful to the to the cause because it added uh concerns and doubt

03:14:02.540 about the if the effectiveness of for example the ottawa police service or the chief in being able

03:14:09.060 to deal with the problem that had overwhelmed their service i think with the benefit of reflection

03:14:14.420 And, you know, you always look back and, you know, ask yourself, could you have expressed a sentiment with more diplomacy?

03:14:22.780 I mean, we've heard earlier today that there were some rather, you know, tense and terse exchanges.

03:14:27.760 I think it is completely understandable in the moment.

03:14:32.220 And it wasn't just government and police who were concerned and frustrated.

03:14:36.360 The people that I was most worried about were Canadians.

03:14:38.840 And the materialization of counter-protests and just the ability to be able to go about daily lives was my paramount concern.

03:14:49.200 And the only way we could get life back to normal is if we could uphold the law.

03:14:53.360 Right. And although you were expressing and Minister Blair expressed, I think, yesterday, and no doubt this has appeared in media because it was found in some of the documents, that he expressed his embarrassment about his former profession of law enforcement because of these circumstances.

03:15:11.320 We should not take any of those comments as reflecting on the hard work that was done by the OPS or Chief Slowly at the time.

03:15:19.600 No. And I know how much regard Minister Blair holds for law enforcement. I mean, he was a member of that community for decades. So, you know, look, this is a really tough moment for the country. It was a tough moment for the people who were impacted by the occupation. And at times, yes, emotions were definitely running high and it was challenging. But, you know, ultimately, we got the right players at the table to restore public safety.

03:15:47.020 Can I just ask one last thing, get your help with this, please, Minister. The issue that you've been asked about in terms of the difference between setting priorities in your role as Minister of Public Safety and interfering with operations.

03:16:02.400 Do you agree with me that describing for the commissioner the importance of, for example, the circumstances that the country found itself in with border blockades, having that discussion with the commissioner doesn't interfere with operational autonomy?

03:16:20.340 No, I don't think so. And I think, again, this is an area that is really important to this inquiry, which is to understand where those boundaries are within the context of an emergency.

03:16:32.580 So it is important that in my job as the Minister of Public Safety that I am holding the RCMP and other line agencies in the public safety portfolio accountable for doing the job of finding ways to restore public safety, exhausting every effort, using statutory authorities which exist, using authorities and resources that exist, and failing that to look and scan at what's left.

03:17:02.580 And so that is what took us to the Emergencies Act.

03:17:05.880 But throughout finding that, you know, that right balance of ensuring accountability without crossing the boundary is an extremely important part of this exercise.

03:17:16.940 I agree with that.

03:17:17.800 At the level both of the federal and provincial ministry, because both of the commissioner has seen expressions of of priorities by the provincial and federal government as to, for example, the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge.

03:17:31.920 That's appropriate in your judgment.

03:17:33.820 Yeah, that's right.

03:17:34.580 And, you know, I do think that there are some existing conventions that we can look to to have like an important conversation about what those principles are.

03:17:44.960 And I mentioned one under the police services agreement where there is the relationship between the elected branch of government and police when it comes to forming the opinion that an emergency exists and then the elected government responding to requests from police to deploy resources and additional tools which may not exist in any other statute.

03:18:08.380 Right. Including the commissioner might think about recommendations for how those priorities can be set so that, for instance, if this occurs again, the an entity or a police service like the Ottawa Police Service isn't caught between the federal and provincial government deciding which which is the first port of call, for example.

03:18:29.420 I think that's a very important question, because right now the linkages between municipal to provincial police services is clear through provincial statute, through the respective provincial police services acts.

03:18:44.860 But there is no direct link following that to federal law enforcement resources.

03:18:51.660 And that was something that we did have to navigate, given the unique circumstances that we found ourselves in.

03:18:58.280 And I do agree with the suggestion that was put to me earlier from a council for the Ontario Provincial Police that it may be appropriate to look at developing some protocols around that.

03:19:10.140 Final thing, in your dealings with Chief Slowly, do you agree that, to your observation, he performed his duties in good faith to the best of his abilities?

03:19:19.120 I think Chief Slowly did the best that he could in those circumstances, yes.

03:19:22.740 Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Commissioner.

03:19:24.940 Thank you. Next is the Ottawa Coalition, please.

03:19:28.280 good morning minister my name is paul champ and i'm counsel for the auto coalition of residents

03:19:48.640 and businesses hello hi uh i just have some questions for you uh today i'm going to cover

03:19:53.380 just two issues the time that i have um parliamentary staff are many of them are

03:19:59.680 residents of downtown ottawa are they not yes and and obviously their workplace was also right in

03:20:05.580 the middle of this this occupation as well yes and uh were you hearing from parliamentary staff

03:20:11.460 who were sometimes concerned about coming to work in the circumstances frequently yes and or were

03:20:17.080 experiencing other personal impacts due to the convoy occupation? Yes. I wonder if I could ask

03:20:24.360 the registrar to pull up a document, pb.can.0001850. And while he's pulling that up, Minister,

03:20:37.580 I just want to confirm, Mike Jones, he's your Chief of Staff, is that right? That's correct.

03:20:42.020 And I gather that Mr. Jones, he was advising you of information that he received from many sources?

03:20:49.680 Yes.

03:20:50.380 Okay.

03:20:50.860 So what I've pulled up here is text messages between Mr. Jones and an Ottawa City Councillor, Matt Luloff.

03:20:59.460 In blue is Mr. Jones and in grey is Mr. Luloff.

03:21:04.260 I was wondering if we could just scroll to page two.

03:21:07.500 Perfect.

03:21:07.940 And here you'll see in blue, Mr. Jones writes, maybe not for a public avail, but heard about an incident that's pretty angering. And Mr. Luloff says the small woman moved from blocking traffic. And then Mr. Jones writes from one of my staff, I won't be coming into the office while Convoy is there. However, my friend was directly threatened of rape yesterday because she was wearing her mask.

03:21:36.280 and that is super triggering for me as a survivor of sexual assault i know yasser sharing how

03:21:42.200 residents feel i gather just that's probably mr knack the mp for downtown ottawa but i would be

03:21:48.040 remiss if i didn't share that i don't even feel safe dropping my son off at daycare downtown and

03:21:54.680 kids have not been outside because of fear the educators will be yelled at for wearing a mask

03:21:59.480 understood uh were you hearing those kinds of stories uh minister i was and as i said i was

03:22:05.960 hearing them frequently and i was very concerned about the safety of the people that were working

03:22:13.240 on the hill i mean i think i testified earlier that i had expressed the view that we may want

03:22:20.360 to consider going completely virtual in parliament because i was worried about the concentration of

03:22:28.120 people um the fact that some of the expressions that you uh have pointed out today were were

03:22:34.680 were being targeted again disproportionately at women i was hearing from a lot of of of staff and

03:22:41.400 and from people on my team along the lines of of these types of incidents and that that really

03:22:47.160 preoccupied me and as you may recall i mean there was one day on which we did actually have to shut

03:22:53.800 down parliament i mean that is only the second time in the history of this country where that

03:22:59.160 has had to occur and that was uh entirely because of security concerns so this was very serious it

03:23:05.080 was uh if you just scroll to the next page uh mr you see understood and then uh mr jones says

03:23:13.400 when she reported to police they told her quote well maybe take your mask out when you're walking

03:23:18.600 outside so reduce any intention to you and um mr law says the city councilor of ottawa says yes

03:23:25.400 i've heard of these incidents too um so the um were you hearing about that as well that ottawa

03:23:32.360 police sometimes weren't following up on uh complaints uh from ottawa residents well i i can't

03:23:39.160 i i i don't know why but i do know that at the time that law enforcement was overwhelmed yeah

03:23:46.200 And so my interpretation of that was just by the sheer number of incidents, and I think at one point they numbered in the thousands, that it was difficult to investigate or take any kind of appropriate action to hold those who are responsible to account.

03:24:05.720 But there were hundreds of criminal investigations and charges that were subsequently laid.

03:24:11.180 Yeah, and indeed, Minister, we've heard a lot of witnesses in this proceeding, including many Ottawa police witnesses, and the thrust of the evidence, as I heard it, is just simply capacity. They were just so overwhelmed. They didn't have an opportunity.

03:24:24.860 Okay, thank you. Just the second issue I wanted to speak to you about, thank you for that, is, of course, as Minister of Public Safety, the RCMP and CSIS both report to you, is that right?

03:24:39.180 Yes.

03:24:39.440 And, Minister, you were receiving a range of information about the risks and threats from those agencies that were being posed by the Ottawa occupation?

03:24:51.540 Yes.

03:24:52.260 And we understand, we've heard other evidence, there were former military and law enforcement members who were participating in and assisting the convoy.

03:25:01.180 You were hearing that information?

03:25:02.980 I'd heard those reports, yes.

03:25:04.240 And I gather that was a concern for public safety because those types of individuals would have certain skills and expertise that could, you know, present some logistical or greater threats.

03:25:15.940 Yes, that's correct.

03:25:17.320 And now, have you also heard information that former CSIS officers were participating in the protests?

03:25:23.660 i i don't recall off the off the top of my head but i you know as you pointed out had the

03:25:32.060 concern generally about individuals and in the who had previously served in the military and

03:25:38.540 law enforcement for sure um and um would really need to um jig my memory about whether or not

03:25:46.840 that also included members from the service and were you also hearing information that current

03:25:51.540 members of law enforcement or military might be participating in the protests well there were

03:25:57.300 reports about leaks of information um during operations and um you know involved or entailed

03:26:05.540 some um what appeared to be snapshots of of of texts and so i do recall there being some concerns

03:26:13.780 about um active members being potentially sympathetic and uh do you know are you aware

03:26:19.300 minister are there any investigations of those issues internally within uh rcmp or any other

03:26:23.620 agencies i know that the rcmp um certainly uh wanted to to be sure that they were getting

03:26:31.620 to the bottom of any potential security um lapses and and that uh those investigations

03:26:38.980 were conducted okay thank you very much minister those are my questions thank you i know i've still

03:26:43.060 got some time maybe i'll try to roll it over to the next one that's to be encouraged um i may even

03:26:49.300 Allow that. So I think we'll take the lunch break now and come back.

03:26:56.460 Commissioner, if I may, just a couple of comments before lunch.

03:27:00.660 Rob Kittredge for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

03:27:03.740 I just wanted to express regarding the removal of my friend, Mr. Miller, this morning.

03:27:11.720 I wanted to express the Justice Centre's position on asking that you make a decision about his return to the room

03:27:18.820 during the lunch break and express our support for his room or for his return to the room

03:27:25.060 at the earliest convenience and i'm a big supporter of constructive communication

03:27:29.860 and i understand that may not have taken place this morning but i think his clients have a right

03:27:34.100 to representation here and we'd like to support his ability to cross-examine mr banditino today if

03:27:41.220 if you can make that decision at lunch that would be very much appreciated on our part

03:27:46.740 i'm certainly a favor of communication i believe uh that uh the convoy is still represented so it's

03:27:55.700 not a question of no representation i'm not aware of a request that he returned to uh the uh the

03:28:05.140 the room but if he's requests it uh i will consider it all right well thank you very much

03:28:10.980 The Commission is in recess until 2 o'clock.

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04:28:40.980 Thank you.

04:29:10.980 Thank you.

04:29:40.980 Thank you.

04:30:10.980 Thank you.

04:30:40.980 Thank you.

04:31:10.980 Thank you.

04:31:40.980 Thank you.

04:32:10.980 Thank you.

04:32:40.980 Thank you.

04:33:10.980 Thank you.

04:33:40.980 Thank you.

04:34:10.980 Thank you.

04:34:40.980 Thank you.

04:35:10.980 Thank you.

04:35:40.980 Thank you.

04:36:10.980 Thank you.

04:36:40.980 as reconvene la commission okay i think the next up is the government of alberta please

04:36:53.860 good afternoon sorry i'm having an issue i'm unable to start my video

04:37:09.620 okay uh do you want to take a minute or do you want to oh there you go

04:37:15.540 thank you good afternoon minister manichino my name is mandy england i'm counsel for the

04:37:20.500 government of alberta good afternoon i'd like to just take you back to something that you said

04:37:25.460 earlier in response to a question from commission council um i believe you said that premier kenny

04:37:30.820 expressed to you that he had neither the resources nor the tools to deal with the blockades in alberta

04:37:36.340 and i just wanted to clarify what you meant by tools often in this inquiry that term has been

04:37:42.020 used to refer to legislative tools or authorities such as you know being able to use the criminal

04:37:46.580 code and so i was hoping you could clarify what you meant by using that word yeah that's a fair

04:37:51.300 question what i was referring to were conversations that we had at the beginning of february where he

04:37:57.540 had indicated that he needed physical tools and assets to help clear the blockade i believe he

04:38:04.740 was expressing a concern that he was having a really hard time getting access to those assets

04:38:11.060 through either the rcmp or through provincial police services so he was putting to me the

04:38:18.180 suggestion that we might be able to assist him through military assets and i i'd said to him that

04:38:27.700 although statutorily requests for assistance were still within my office's authorities that they

04:38:34.340 were in practice being addressed by my colleague minister blair in the new ministry that was

04:38:39.220 created following the 21 election through the ministry of emergency preparedness and i took

04:38:45.460 that conversation and i committed to then premier kenny that i would relay it to both ministers

04:38:50.820 anand and blair okay thank you so you meant physical tools as opposed to legislative authority

04:38:56.740 at that point yes that's correct okay thank you um if i could could i please take you to document

04:39:03.060 ssm.nsc.can403069

04:39:24.260 and this is a text um the the portion that i will be reading will be a text between

04:39:30.420 zita estravas mr blair's chief of staff with mike jones your chief of staff and you can see the date

04:39:37.540 as we're scrolling is february the 6th at 8 49 p.m and in this text mrs strava says

04:39:45.460 your dm mike said the following heads up i've spoken to my alberta counterpart and flagged

04:39:50.660 that we are likely to decline the rfa so request for assistance as you were just mentioning

04:39:55.300 for a CAF equipment and optics and precedent

04:39:59.180 and provincial authorities not fully explored reasons.

04:40:03.080 She was not surprised, but said Minister McIver

04:40:05.340 would want to call Minister Blair and Mr. Jones says thanks.

04:40:10.760 And so I'd just like to break down this text.

04:40:14.400 The reference to your DM would have been a reference

04:40:17.760 to Deputy Minister Stewart, is that correct?

04:40:20.320 That's how I read it.

04:40:21.400 Can I just clarify, though, that you said Zita Estraves,

04:40:24.240 i note at the top of that text chain that the initials are mj and sk and previously we've read

04:40:31.760 email or sorry text exchanges uh where sk was sam khalil so i just thought i would

04:40:38.080 offer that clarification i'm not sure if if that makes any sense to you it makes sense um and i

04:40:44.480 actually i should have clarified at the beginning myself i believe it's a group chat in which all

04:40:48.640 three of them were present and so um it the uh indication with the document is that this is taken

04:40:54.080 from mrs stravis's phone um and then it indicates at the top of her screen the other two individuals

04:40:59.040 that she's texting with okay does that help clarify yes okay thank you and so uh would you

04:41:06.800 understand the reference here uh to uh deputy minister stewart what do you understand here um

04:41:14.240 in terms of what that means of the reference to deputy minister stewart having said that

04:41:18.320 your ministry was likely to decline the request for assistance because of optics um well i'm not

04:41:25.360 privy to this exchange um but uh it seems on the on the text that what's being indicated is that

04:41:35.280 your dm and so i agree with you i i infer that that is dm stewart said the following and a heads

04:41:42.000 up that dm stewart has spoken to as i interpret it his alberta counterpart and flagged that we

04:41:50.080 as in the federal government are likely to decline the request for assistance for calf equipment

04:41:56.960 and optics and precedent and provincial authorities not fully explored reasons of all of those

04:42:04.640 of all those itemized reasons the one that i have the least insight to is the optics

04:42:08.880 And to be clear, following my conversation with Premier Kenney, I really did delegate that task to Minister Blair and his office.

04:42:23.420 And just so that we are clear on the dates here, though, this text does predate that conversation with Premier Kenney, would that be correct?

04:42:32.680 This is Sunday, February 6th, the day after the request for assistance was sent.

04:42:36.920 I have to, again, try to jig my memory.

04:42:43.460 There may have been a conversation with Premier Kenney before the 6th.

04:42:48.320 It was certainly at the very beginning of February.

04:42:52.180 In any case, it actually seems to me to make sense that,

04:42:56.660 given the sequence of events as we've been discussing them this morning,

04:42:59.100 that I spoke to Premier Kenney,

04:43:01.100 indicated that Minister Blair would be the lead on processing the request for assistance.

04:43:05.440 And this then seems to be the follow through, if you will, of that exchange with his staff being on the email chain.

04:43:15.820 The reason why Deputy Minister Stewart is there is that he is both accountable to both me and Minister Blair.

04:43:25.360 I see.

04:43:26.120 And so you don't have any insight then is what you're saying into why Deputy Minister Stewart would have communicated to Alberta that a reason for declining the request was optics.

04:43:36.900 On the optics part, no, I was not privy to that exchange or that conversation at the time.

04:43:43.620 And did you have a concern about optics?

04:43:45.300 I had a concern about clearing Coutts, and I know that Premier Kenney was expressing the impasse that he found himself in and was, I think, engaging me to encourage both Ministers Blair and Anand to strongly consider a request for assistance which would provide him with military assets.

04:44:08.220 In the context of conversations that I had with Premier Kenney, he'd suggested that his provincial RCMP were saying to him that they had the appropriate equipment to remove the large commercial vehicles that had blockaded Coutts since the beginning of February.

04:44:28.120 So I think in essence what he was conveying to me is, look, I need help, and one of the ways in which you can help me is by looking very carefully at military assets which could help to clear the blockade in Coutts.

04:44:46.280 And he said he had a really hard time getting access to tow trucks that were large enough to accomplish that job.

04:44:53.640 Okay, thank you.

04:44:54.580 And in terms of the next reason that's given for declining the request, do you have any insight into why Deputy Minister Stewart might have said it was due to precedent?

04:45:07.940 Again, I'm extrapolating a little bit here, but I assume one of the concerns was that was being weighed in the mix was that if the request for assistance was granted.

04:45:19.660 in the case of Alberta that potentially others would. And, you know, again, I'm inferring a bit

04:45:28.880 here, but the use of military assets is something that is done on a very exceptional basis. So I

04:45:38.940 think there was a concern about potentially opening up the door to other requests to insert

04:45:47.540 the military and and as you've heard you know there was a lot of reluctance and restraint around

04:45:55.140 resorting to military um resources and authorities in the context of the blockade and the convoy

04:46:02.580 okay thank you um and as noted previously the text is sent voter of request was february 5th

04:46:09.140 this uh text is sent uh on february the 6th indicating that there was a conversation

04:46:15.060 at some point between the fifth and the sixth between Deputy Minister Stewart and someone

04:46:19.620 from Alberta would it be fair I also note that nowhere on the list of reasons does it say

04:46:26.740 that the request for assistance would be denied because CAF equipment wasn't suitable or they

04:46:32.820 didn't have suitable equipment would it be fair to say that the communication by Deputy Minister

04:46:38.820 Stewart was made before the possible CAF equipment options were fully explored?

04:46:45.620 I'm afraid I couldn't answer that. I don't know at that point exactly what Deputy Minister

04:46:50.420 Stewart has said or not said to the province of Alberta. And again, owing to machinery,

04:46:58.340 he would have been reporting the RFA to Minister Blair in conjunction with any dialogue that was

04:47:04.420 going on to minister anand okay thank you had you discussed the suitability of caf equipment

04:47:11.540 with mr anand before the evening of february the 6th i know we had an exchange i know i flagged for

04:47:17.460 her that premier kenny had engaged me to uh to to get some assistance and that i anticipated that

04:47:27.220 there would be an rfa a request for assistance that was submitted to us and i anticipated that

04:47:32.980 it would uh that it would engage uh her and her authorities so i just wanted to give her a heads

04:47:39.300 up but as to precisely what equipment was used what was suitable to remove or clear the blockade

04:47:46.340 in coots um i would have deferred appropriately to uh to her and the calf's assessment about that

04:47:54.340 in conjunction with minister blair's responsibilities and roles around processing

04:47:58.340 requests for assistance that related to CAF. Okay thank you very much.

04:48:07.220 Okay your time is up so if you can try and wrap up please. Okay certainly.

04:48:16.900 I just wanted to confirm very quickly on one quick point. You're familiar with the

04:48:24.260 report of the houses of parliament um the emergencies act consultations table february 16th

04:48:30.020 is that right yes so i'd like to pull up ssm dot can dot five zeros one two four and take you to

04:48:39.860 page three please and if we could scroll down to the bottom of that page um yep right there

04:48:58.900 so we can see that there's a discussion of engagement uh and under the first sub-bullet

04:49:04.660 point the Minister of Public Safety engaged with the Premier of Alberta on February 2nd and 9th

04:49:09.860 and then with the Premier and the Acting Minister of Justice and Solicitor General on February the 7th.

04:49:16.160 You also engaged with the Acting Minister of Justice and Solicitor General on February 1st, 5th, and 9th.

04:49:22.300 Can I confirm with you that in none of those conversations,

04:49:26.860 did you discuss the potential invocation of the Federal Emergencies Act with either Premier Kenney or Acting Minister Savage?

04:49:35.260 certainly with uh premier kenny i i can confirm that i would also note that it does confirm what

04:49:43.580 i had mentioned earlier which is that he and i had had a conversation on february the 2nd as i

04:49:48.940 recalled it which was prior to the february 6th exchange that you had pulled up earlier so i do

04:49:54.620 think that that does uh sit more neatly with the chronology and the sequencing of events as we

04:50:00.220 described um i i would say that my engagements with um the then minister of justice and solicitor

04:50:09.020 general uh sonia savage um very likely did not in in include any of any express references to

04:50:19.500 uh the emergencies act but i believe there would have been general references to whether or not

04:50:24.940 existing tools and authorities beyond physical assets were going to be sufficient to restore

04:50:33.180 public safety and it would have been in the very general nature so minister savage's evidence has

04:50:39.900 summarized in our institutional report is that you did not discuss the pedro emergencies act

04:50:44.860 would that be something that you would agree with or would you yes no i i agree with that yes

04:50:50.540 okay thank you um and i i know i'm out of time and so perhaps i don't have time

04:50:54.780 to take you to this um but there are emails um and text exchanges confirming that it was the

04:51:00.700 conversation on february the 7th um there's a readout um and text exchanges with uh yourself

04:51:07.020 and minister blair um that it was on that date that you had had the conversation with premier

04:51:11.340 kenny about the tow trucks with the agreement to relay it uh to minister blair and minister anand

04:51:17.580 would that uh you know uh jog perhaps your recollection on the chronology of when that

04:51:23.260 conversation might have taken place that sounds right okay thank you very much those are my

04:51:28.460 questions okay thanks next if i could call on the union of british columbia indian chiefs please

04:51:38.860 good afternoon minister my name is cheyenne arnold cunningham and i'm counsel for the union of bc

04:51:44.780 indian chiefs we've heard a lot today already on the topic of consultation so we'd like to ask did

04:51:52.460 you consult or cooperate with local First Nations or Indigenous groups during the Freedom Convoy

04:51:59.020 situation and or the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act? I would say that I've had

04:52:06.460 broad and ongoing conversations with representatives and leadership within

04:52:12.060 First Nations and Indigenous communities in my role and in my capacity as Minister of Public

04:52:18.140 safety i know that um you know in in the lead up to the invocation that a number of colleagues

04:52:27.500 that sit at the table including ministers miller and haidu are in routine and constant engagement

04:52:34.940 with first nations and indigenous peoples and the communities so there's a broad range of ongoing

04:52:42.300 dialogue that uh that that that is undertaken by representatives of the cabinet okay thank you um

04:52:50.700 from a public safety viewpoint do you think that it's important during a public order emergency

04:52:56.780 event for public safety canada and police services to engage with first nations in the local

04:53:03.180 territory i do uh so in your um mandate letter dated december 2021 you were directed um to

04:53:13.660 implement the united nations declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples which is also known

04:53:17.980 as undrip um are you familiar with bill c15 which came into force as federal legislation

04:53:25.260 in june 2021 to adopt and implement under it yes and i would just add to that that we are

04:53:33.180 leveraging UNDRIP to advance important reforms within the RCMP around First Nations and

04:53:40.940 Indigenous policing. And so, for example, over the last number of weeks and months in my capacity

04:53:47.620 as Minister of Public Safety, I have been deeply engaged with First Nations and Indigenous and

04:53:55.100 Inuit communities for the purposes of ensuring that there are more Indigenous-led public safety

04:54:02.960 initiatives including the creation of indigenous led police services which are independently

04:54:08.880 created we have also are in the process of co-developing legislation that expressly 0.99

04:54:16.480 recognizes that indigenous policing is an essential service so that we can move away

04:54:22.320 from the current first nations and indigenous policing program based approach to one that is

04:54:27.840 more structured and enduring and uses UNDRIP and the principles of reconciliation as the anchor for

04:54:35.920 a relationship between the federal government and First Nations and Indigenous policing. And then

04:54:40.900 the last thing I would point out is that we are currently debating Bill C-20, which is before

04:54:48.180 Parliament, which is an act that would create a new Public Complaints and Review Commission,

04:54:53.940 what we are referring to as the pcrc and we are again very engaged with first nations and

04:55:00.260 indigenous communities to to ensure that there is representation on that commission so that there

04:55:05.540 can be appropriate civilian review and accountability in the way that uh in the way that we police and

04:55:11.780 uphold the law in indigenous communities great thank you so much um i'll actually i'll jump off

04:55:18.260 um the last um few points that you made there so um speaking of lc20 and the work that that

04:55:25.620 you're doing there would you agree then that ensuring indigenous participation and presence

04:55:31.540 on oversight bodies of the rcmp as either decision makers or complaints investigators

04:55:38.500 would assist in that acceleration of rcmp reform moving forward i agree it's essential and that's

04:55:45.380 one of the things that um we talk about in our engagements and it's one of the reasons why we are

04:55:51.220 um co-developing the legislation around uh recognize the recognition that indigenous

04:55:57.220 policing is an essential service and in order to uh to to uh give life and and breath to that

04:56:04.980 principle um it means being at the table together uh starting from the premise that there needs to

04:56:10.980 be a recognition of the inherent right of indigenous peoples to chart out their own courses

04:56:15.940 to implement their own priorities as it relates to public safety including and leading up to

04:56:21.300 indigenous police services which are self-governed so both in that co-development

04:56:27.300 exercise as well as in bill c20 we are very much engaged with first nations and indigenous

04:56:33.620 people so that so that they are reflected in our institutions including when it comes to public

04:56:38.660 safety uh what about this the cesus act um are there any plans to ensure modernization of this

04:56:46.420 legislation in alignment with under it um well the reforms that i'm carrying out in my capacity

04:56:53.860 as minister of public safety has as part of the overarching mandate given to me by the prime

04:57:00.580 minister the need to adhere to the principles of reconciliation and part of that is addressing

04:57:06.660 long, enduring, systemic, structural challenges in the relationship between the federal government

04:57:17.560 and Indigenous peoples that go back to the origins of colonialism. And that would apply

04:57:26.640 not only to RCMP and CBSA, but right across all of my line agencies, including CSIS. So

04:57:33.280 So we are really trying to get at some of those inherent biases, which have led to the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples interacting with the justice system and using UNDRIP as well to make sure that we reduce and ultimately eliminate those barriers.

04:57:54.100 Okay, thank you.

04:57:55.300 So in considering all the work that you're doing to implement UNDRIP and your mandate and Bill C-15

04:58:04.500 and another piece of your mandate, which is to work in partnership with Indigenous peoples to

04:58:10.940 advance their rights, considering UNDRIP's implementation, do you think that there should be

04:58:17.900 than distinct considerations on CSIS and the RCMP and their ability to monitor and respond

04:58:25.440 with enforcement action against nonviolent and unarmed First Nations people who engage in

04:58:31.860 activism pertaining to their lawful and distinct rights, even in situations that might be perceived

04:58:38.500 or profiled as being a public order event. I do, and that's one of the reasons why it's

04:58:45.420 really important as we implement these reforms that we modernize training to be culturally

04:58:50.640 sensitive of Indigenous language, of Indigenous culture and tradition and Indigenous laws,

04:58:56.820 and that is something that we are actively doing right now. And the hope is that by doing so that

04:59:05.040 we will create a relationship that is based on respect, on the nation-to-nation principles and

04:59:12.180 values that are informed by UNDRIP. And again, this is not just with regards to the line

04:59:21.060 agencies in my portfolio. This is work that has to be done right across our government.

04:59:27.320 Okay, thank you. And then in thinking about the practice of consultation and cooperation

04:59:34.860 with Indigenous peoples and in the context of responding to a situation like the Freedom

04:59:41.300 convoy situation or public order emergency events um and looking at it in this context of a multi

04:59:48.420 jurisdictional landscape and first nations jurisdiction and sovereignty and rights and

04:59:54.260 territories how is public safety canada then now going to build in consultation and cooperation

05:00:02.660 in these contexts by listening and that is one of the the the core principles that that that i feel

05:00:10.500 very strongly about and my department and my officials are in frequent contact building the

05:00:18.420 relationship on the on the ground i am also traveling with increasing frequency to indigenous

05:00:24.500 communities across the country to meet in person with indigenous leaders with residents i recently

05:00:30.980 had the chance to visit with the james smith creed nation following the mass casualty there

05:00:37.140 at the beginning of or at the end of summer I beg your pardon and so that that direct personal

05:00:44.340 experience is meant to foster a relationship so that we can move forward with the kinds of reforms

05:00:51.460 that are inspired and governed by UNDRIP and by the principles of reconciliation which have been

05:00:58.180 documented in the truth and reconciliation calls to action the mmiwg calls to justice

05:01:06.820 it's a full court press from the federal government to really move forward with those reforms

05:01:12.180 but you have to you have you have to meet with people and you have to respect um that inherent

05:01:18.020 right of of self-government and and that inherent right of self-determination and that includes when

05:01:25.620 it comes to public safety initiatives and i think by doing so we can break that intergenerational

05:01:31.140 trauma that that endless cycle that has seen a disproportionate number of indigenous peoples

05:01:36.420 caught up in in the criminal justice system for example and so that is work that i am deeply

05:01:43.220 committed to thank you so much for your time today those are all of our questions thank you

05:01:49.140 to the commissioner as well okay thank you uh next if i could call on the canadian constitution

05:01:56.740 foundation please commissioner minister uh my name is suji chowdhury i'm counsel for the ccf

05:02:12.980 minister i i'd like to begin by picking up on a comment you made i believe in during your

05:02:19.700 examination in chief where you said there's a dialogue between civilian leadership uh and

05:02:26.260 and law enforcement professionals and so i want to pick up on that idea in the context of your

05:02:32.660 relationship with commissioner loki and so and in the context of the convoy i'm wondering if you

05:02:39.860 could just answer you know a few questions i mean did were you getting daily briefings um were you

05:02:46.900 were you in frequent communication uh with her if you could just give us and i have limited times

05:02:52.260 if you could just give us a bit of a window into what your interactions were like with her

05:02:55.860 the short answer is yes and yes and to give you a little bit of detail we would have been meeting

05:03:01.620 daily on some days multiple times through different briefings um the purpose of those

05:03:08.180 interactions was to have a dialogue so that i could understand from her exactly what law enforcement

05:03:14.740 was doing to restore public safety and then ultimately in the lead up to the invocation to

05:03:20.740 seek some advice so that i could then impart some advice to the government around the invocation so

05:03:25.700 these were daily um and frequent um conversations that i was having with the commissioner so so when

05:03:32.260 When the February 7th letter came to you and the Prime Minister from Mayor Watson and Chair Deans

05:03:39.020 requesting a deployment of RCMP officers, I suppose you would have delivered that letter

05:03:47.480 to the Commissioner then? We certainly were in constant contact. Just to be clear, it wouldn't

05:03:52.960 have necessarily been my personal responsibility to transfer it. But there was a very clear line

05:04:00.180 of communication about the pressures that the Ottawa police service was under to muster the

05:04:06.100 resources that were necessary to restore public safety. It also would have been clear to Commissioner

05:04:11.500 Lucky some of the information and the feedback that I was getting from the city of Ottawa

05:04:16.480 around numbers and tasking and the like. And so those conversations and that dialogue would

05:04:24.200 have been occurring. Yes. And she was updating you then on her steps to respond to that request

05:04:30.080 for support she was okay so um mr registrar if you could put up on the screen um the following

05:04:36.100 document and i apologize it's pbnsc can four zeros two eight seven two underscore rel point zero zero

05:04:47.300 zero one and minister while this is coming up this is a document that's dated honor about february

05:04:52.080 10th and it's a memorandum of agreement between the rcmp um and the essentially the lps and the

05:04:59.380 OPSB about forced deployments. Have you seen this document before? I can't recall if I've

05:05:07.060 seen this document. Specifically, I am obviously generally aware of the ongoing arrangements and

05:05:13.320 agreements that were reached. So if we could go down to page three, please, Mr. Registrar.

05:05:20.620 If you could go to Clause 2.1. There you go. So as you'll see here that Article 2.1, Minister,

05:05:29.240 if you could just have a quick look at this. It says that the RCMP agreed to deploy to Ottawa

05:05:34.540 up to 250 members of the RCMP in a number of different capacities. And then it suggests later

05:05:41.520 down in that article that provision for over 250 members can be made for with subject to mutual

05:05:50.300 agreement. Yes. And does this seem familiar to you? Yes. Okay. And so I just wanted to

05:05:58.380 get a bit of clarification from you if you're able to. So when the RCMP was providing support

05:06:03.920 here to the OPS, to the best of your knowledge, would that be not include RCMP deployments

05:06:10.840 already, for example, in the parliamentary precinct or out at Rideau Cottage to protect

05:06:16.300 the prime minister? Well, I think that was certainly one of the issues that was raised by

05:06:22.820 Mayor Watson and his staff at the time, which was that some of the numbers that were being

05:06:29.300 reported were inclusive of pre-existing RCMP deployment, for example, in the precinct or

05:06:37.040 for protection. And so my responsibility at that point in my capacity as Minister of Public Safety

05:06:45.820 was to relay that to the commissioner to get some clarity about exactly how many we had deployed

05:06:52.500 and for what purpose and do you recall what that what information came back to you i do i have a

05:06:58.880 general recollection that one of the concerns that the commissioner had expressed at the time

05:07:02.920 was that while rcmp members were being dispatched or deployed to the city of ottawa that that it

05:07:12.140 wasn't clear to her what those taskings would be and whether or not or how exactly it would fit

05:07:18.740 into the ops's operational plan at the time and that was the feedback that i was getting but what

05:07:24.980 was clear despite that was that we were sending rcmp and that we were open to sending more rcmp

05:07:31.860 to support the city of ottawa to restore public safety so so if we could just call up another

05:07:37.220 document. It's OPB 401014. And so, Minister Mendocino, I'm not sure if you've seen this.

05:07:53.980 It's a chart of deployments by different police or law enforcement entities in Ottawa, up to

05:08:04.920 and including the 12th of February.

05:08:08.780 Have you seen this chart before or something similar to it?

05:08:12.280 I've not seen this chart.

05:08:13.740 Sorry, who is the author of this document?

05:08:15.240 So this is a production by the Ottawa Police Board.

05:08:18.600 So I'm afraid I can't give you more details

05:08:21.120 about who put this together,

05:08:22.920 but this is an evidence before the committee.

05:08:24.360 This is a City of Ottawa publication is what you're saying.

05:08:27.600 Well, it might be.

05:08:29.460 It's something that was put into evidence

05:08:31.980 by the Ottawa Police Board.

05:08:32.940 I can't speak to them, sir, about where they, how they generated it.

05:08:35.660 Okay. I don't recognize this document.

05:08:37.480 Okay. Well, then, then look, let's, let's soldier on. So if you look under regular members,

05:08:44.920 federal RCMP, yes, Mr. Registrar, thank you. It sort of says at the end of this line that 167

05:08:53.120 officers were deployed. And so that, I mean, were you aware of that figure on that day?

05:09:01.860 Well, setting aside the exact time frame, I am familiar with the initial figure of about 150

05:09:07.960 in that range. And again, you've heard previously that there was some ongoing back and forth on

05:09:15.820 exactly how many and when, but that was one figure that had came to me early on in that range.

05:09:20.900 In that range. And so, I mean, you'd agree that on his face, it does appear that these numbers

05:09:25.480 are lower than the 250 that are in the agreement I showed you.

05:09:29.180 Well, I agree that on the face of this document, that that is lower than $250,000, but again, without knowing more about the authorship or the origins of this document, it is very difficult for me to testify as to its accuracy.

05:09:42.500 And you're not able to say, and I think I know the answer, sir, but I have to do it for the record, you're not able to say of that $167,000, how many were at Rideau Cottage and on the parliamentary precinct?

05:09:51.520 I am not.

05:09:52.020 Okay.

05:09:54.440 Minister, I'd like to just turn to another theme, if I could.

05:09:57.080 And so this morning you made a number of statements.

05:09:59.700 You said it was virtually impossible to enforce the law in Wellington.

05:10:04.300 Wellington falls within the jurisdiction of the OPS.

05:10:07.740 The RCMP could not go and assert itself in Wellington to bring things under control.

05:10:12.060 Is that fair?

05:10:13.560 Yes.

05:10:14.040 Okay.

05:10:14.980 And so, Minister, were you able to, I know you're very busy,

05:10:18.440 but were you able to review or be briefed on Commissioner Lookie's cross-examination last week?

05:10:24.180 um i i don't know that i was briefed i may i may have read some some general reports about it in

05:10:30.940 the media so so my co-counsel went through some issues um in respect of those themes with

05:10:36.560 commissioner looking i just want to take you to what she said um if you wouldn't mind and so this

05:10:41.020 is transcript 23 mr registrar and we're on to page we're going to begin at page 241

05:10:47.920 and minister minister i know you're a member of the law society of ontario so this will be a bit

05:10:56.620 there'll be a bit of legal questioning here okay

05:10:59.440 great so if you can start at line five super okay so so my colleague mishan mcganathan was asking

05:11:10.760 questions of commissioner loki so i just want to take you through some of the back and forth if i

05:11:14.820 could. So my colleague says, my co-counsel, okay, so you'll agree that the RCMP officers

05:11:19.800 have the power to enforce the criminal code, for instance, and the commissioner says yes.

05:11:25.140 Then my co-counsel says, right, and they always have the power to enforce the code.

05:11:29.720 It's just part of what they're allowed to do. And the commissioner says, yes.

05:11:33.380 And then if you could scroll down, Mr. Registrar, my co-counsel says, right,

05:11:39.000 they don't need to be sort of the local police in a jurisdiction. This is a power they always

05:11:44.420 have and the commissioner says yes and then my colleague says uh right and there's nothing in

05:11:52.260 the code for example that says an rcmp officer can't enforce the criminal code in one particular

05:11:59.140 place they can enforce that anywhere in canada and then this and the commissioner looky is not sure

05:12:05.140 uh that's the and i'll let you read her response there sir and when you're done let us know and

05:12:11.220 i'll go to the next page and commissioner i know i'm a little bit over time but i think this is an

05:12:18.260 important point it goes to the jurisdiction in wellington um mr minister can we go to the next

05:12:24.500 page so if you could go to page uh 242. mr commissioner just i just do think it is important

05:12:30.900 that that the commissioner's evidence not be put that she wasn't sure but that she articulated that

05:12:36.340 that power she was describing was if you were to find committing um a criminal code offense just a

05:12:43.140 little bit witnesses not of course get past that of course it didn't mean i didn't mean to mislead

05:12:47.540 so i i take my friend's point um and so if we gave this go down to um to my colleague's next

05:12:55.220 question so okay so just to use sort of ability of a silly example if we have an rcmp officer

05:13:01.300 that's standing on wellington street in ottawa and they see someone committing an offense under

05:13:05.860 the criminal code they don't need to call up the ops to arrest the person they could go and arrest

05:13:11.940 the person themselves and uh and the commissioner answered yes and so we're sort of we're running

05:13:18.180 we're past time so i just want to ask you so that we put to the commissioner a number of questions

05:13:24.740 about the scope of rcmp officers under the rcmp act particularly section 18a and would you would

05:13:32.020 Do you have any reason to think that Commissioner Luckey is incorrect here?

05:13:37.360 I think she's right in saying that if any peace officer sees that the law is being broken under the criminal code,

05:13:46.220 that they may use their common law authority to effect an arrest.

05:13:52.060 But because of the important conventions around respecting jurisdiction and recognizing that,

05:13:59.560 and certainly in the province of Ontario, that there are municipal police services that are set

05:14:04.640 up under the Police Services Act, that they would not act unilaterally. And certainly,

05:14:12.040 and I hope I'm not going too far in trying to ascertain your line of questioning here,

05:14:18.080 but it would be somewhat chaotic for the RCMP to simply insert themselves unilaterally into

05:14:24.360 Wellington Street and start affecting arrests without coordinating very closely with the OPS

05:14:30.040 and the OPP. So that is why so much of the energy was around understanding what the operational plan

05:14:36.060 is, notwithstanding that, in theory, yes, this line of questioning is correct. You know, an RCMP

05:14:43.160 officer could affect an arrest if they saw the law being broken under the criminal code. Okay,

05:14:48.040 well, Commissioner, I'm well over time. And thank you, Minister Mendocino. Okay, thank you.

05:14:51.960 Next is the Democracy Fund, JCCF, please.

05:15:10.960 Good afternoon, Mr. Commissioner. Good afternoon, Minister Mendocino.

05:15:13.960 My name is Antoine Dailly. I'm counsel to Citizens for Freedom, representing the protesters in Windsor, Ontario.

05:15:20.960 I'd just like to take you through two aspects today.

05:15:23.640 First, some of the considerations that were made by you, Mr. Minister,

05:15:26.720 in considering some of the legal alternatives other than invoking the Emergencies Act

05:15:30.620 to deal with the protest, and also some specific questions about your communications

05:15:34.360 with the Windsor governance structure.

05:15:39.720 Just for the record, do you remember the mandate letter, jcf.0000189?

05:15:47.200 I don't think we need to pull that up, but that's the mandate letter you received on December 16th of 2021 from Prime Minister Trudeau.

05:15:55.740 Do you recall that letter?

05:15:56.940 Yes.

05:15:57.820 And I think on the fourth page, fifth bullet from the bottom, it mandates you to continue working with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Transport to protect the health and safety of Canadians through safe, responsible, and compassionate management of the border with the United States and other ports of entry into Canada.

05:16:14.800 Do you recall that portion of your mandate?

05:16:16.440 Yes.

05:16:17.200 And so I take it that the Minister of Health, the Minister of Transport, you work closely together, and that would be Minister Duclos and Minister Al-Gabrak. Is that correct?

05:16:25.860 Yes.

05:16:26.400 And is it also your understanding that Minister Duclos is an economist by formal educational training?

05:16:32.740 Yes, with an academic background, yes.

05:16:34.980 And then you're obviously a lawyer by background and former Crown prosecutor.

05:16:38.920 So with respect to the Freedom Convoy and the protest, would it be fair to say that, you know, a trucker protest, protesting about health mandates with concerns about public safety and border concerns, that this group between the three of you as part of your mandate, you were the key ministers involved in dealing with some of the concerns raised by the convoy.

05:17:05.460 Is that correct?

05:17:06.020 I would say there were a number of ministries that were engaged by the convoy and the blockade, not only my colleague Ministers Al-Gabra and Haidu, but equally, as you heard previously, Minister Blair under emergency preparedness, Minister Leblanc under intergovernmental affairs, and many others.

05:17:28.580 Minister. Sorry, just got limited time here. Yes and no answers where we can and where we need to

05:17:33.460 elaborate just as concisely as possible, please. If we could pull up a document ID, pb.can.00001868.

05:17:44.700 And this is from the emails that were received last night.

05:17:50.000 Do you recall hearing Jason Kenney's position that the trucker vax policy is obviously just

05:17:57.800 dumb political theater was that ever brought to your attention um well i'll wait to see what the

05:18:02.840 document um says to refresh my memory and sorry who who is uh this text exchange with or between

05:18:22.920 uh if we could scroll down so it should be the third attachment in the sixth email that was

05:18:30.920 received from mr brousseau last night there it is the trucker vax policy is obviously just dumb

05:18:38.320 political theater calling them nazis hasn't exactly helped do you do you recall being

05:18:43.420 informed of miss uh of premier kenny's position on this i i recall seeing that that was uh minister

05:18:49.780 LeBlanc's looks like a cut and paste of what Premier Kenney had relayed to him. Okay, and I

05:18:56.800 take it you disagree with Premier Kenney's position? Yes. But is it true, though, that the

05:19:02.600 Liberal platform in September of 2021 dealt with a mandatory vaccination policy across the entire

05:19:09.320 federal service and on federally regulated transportation? Yes, we put that to the electorate

05:19:15.820 in the 21 election and i believe you had 33 roughly of the popular vote there is that correct

05:19:22.620 well to the best of my recollection yes your your number's right on that okay and so would you say

05:19:27.100 then that that in part this this mandate or this must do activity uh is rooted at least in part in

05:19:33.340 a political or ideological purpose well it was part of i think two important things first the

05:19:40.220 best available medicine evidence and science that we got and it was our belief then and it continues

05:19:45.500 used to be now, that vaccines were the best way out of the pandemic. And secondly, in the lead up

05:19:51.260 to the 21 election, there was a very, I think, robust debate among all Canadians. I'm trying

05:19:59.380 to figure out what specific knowledge you had in dealing with the Minister of Health here. So

05:20:04.800 would it be fair to say that under the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act,

05:20:10.160 You are given the responsibility of exercising leadership at a national level relating to public safety and that the Department of Health has has a similar aspect in terms of promotion and preservation of health.

05:20:22.480 So what I'm trying to get at here is the separation of powers a little bit, because we did have an unprecedented emergency situation with the pandemic in Canada where some of these vaccines were pushed through very quickly.

05:20:32.080 And so, you know, perhaps by way of analogy, you know, if there's a new peanut that's coming on the market that may have been genetically modified, it would clearly be within the purview of the Ministry of Health to assess the safety of that.

05:20:44.840 But was there ever a consideration where, let's say, you're now implementing a mandate that results in 90% of Canadians ingesting this product?

05:20:53.440 Does that concern your mandate under public safety at all?

05:20:56.820 Well, first, there was a lot of thoughtful deliberation and research done prior to the decision of launching and implementing a national vaccine strategy.

05:21:08.840 But while there is a common objective between the public safety ministry and health in protecting the health and safety of Canadians,

05:21:20.020 public safety has a different mandate which includes um the law and there are agencies

05:21:27.520 under my portfolio that are responsible for upholding the law i understood so so minister

05:21:32.300 so so there is a little bit of overlap and and this is some of this overlap could have been

05:21:36.760 discussed through your mandate working with the minister of health and transport is that is that

05:21:40.980 fair to say well there were again very robust uh communications within uh government throughout

05:21:46.820 the pandemic and throughout the convoy and um that includes with uh minister leblanc minister

05:21:51.940 al gabra understood if we could pull up mr registrar jcf0000183

05:22:05.780 so this here is the regulatory decision summary published by health canada on september 16th of

05:22:10.420 2021 i believe this was the second uh that the purpose of this document was to transition the

05:22:15.620 approval of some of these vaccines from being authorized under an interim order to being

05:22:21.140 authorized under i believe it is schedule division eight of the foods and drugs act

05:22:25.460 so if we could go to page six at the first paragraph there

05:22:32.500 it states that an important limitation of the data is the lack of information on the

05:22:36.900 long-term safety and effectiveness of this of the vaccine were you were you made aware of this this

05:22:41.620 concern? I recall being privy to conversations where there were discussions about the efficacy

05:22:52.300 of vaccinations and also how there were other considerations around the administration of them

05:23:01.640 as part of an overarching health policy to deal with the pandemic. Right. And would you also agree

05:23:06.440 with me that because of the time constraints, because of the emergency situation that this

05:23:11.060 rollout had to occur within that that it did not go through the the regular rigorous testing that

05:23:16.120 it otherwise would have and if we could scroll to the last sentence of sorry just before you go on

05:23:21.600 i i just want to be clear i actually don't agree uh with that which part the last part that you

05:23:27.260 said in your question where you asked me if i agree that it was that it was sped up and rushed

05:23:31.440 and you linked it i think to um the events of the blockade and the convoy and i disagree with that

05:23:37.520 There was a lot of work that was done in the lead up to the rollout of the national vaccination strategy that predated the convoy.

05:23:45.040 So if we could look at page four of eight, was ever brought to your attention that in terms of the safety of evaluation for adolescents, only 660 adolescents, that's aged between 12 to 15, only 660 adolescents that have been followed for two months formed the basis of Health Canada's conclusion that this was safe or effective for this particular age group?

05:24:09.360 And were you aware that this is one of the concerns that was being brought by the convoy?

05:24:13.540 I know that in my conversations with Minister Duclos and other colleagues who participated both at the COVID committee as well as broader cabinet, that those conversations were informed by the best available science and data in the lead up to the national vaccination strategy.

05:24:29.520 okay and and if we can one more document here quickly jcf00008187

05:24:37.600 were you aware that at least our united our counterparts in the united states

05:24:43.280 that when they approved the pfizer biontech vaccine they stated that they determined that

05:24:49.040 an analysis analysis of spontaneous post-marketing adverse events reported under the fdca would not

05:24:55.600 be sufficient to assess known serious risks of myocarditis and pericarditis and identify an

05:25:01.140 unexpected serious risk of subclinical myocarditis and that in fact they ordered a battery of tests

05:25:06.260 requiring Pfizer to study adverse effects until at least May 31st of 2027. The question I'm trying

05:25:12.220 to get at, well were you aware of that first of all? I've not seen this document before. Okay and

05:25:17.660 so so my question to you is if you're exercising leadership within the realm of public safety and

05:25:23.660 and you have the statutory power to establish strategic priorities and exercise powers to

05:25:29.420 initiate recommend coordinate implement or promote policy programs or projects relating to public

05:25:34.060 safety was there ever any consideration of uh of initiating a review perhaps to of some of these

05:25:44.620 safety concerns because i understand that other countries had limited the use of some of these

05:25:49.420 vaccines for a under age 18 or under age 30 and that perhaps by exercising some of those powers

05:25:54.940 leading up to the entrenchment of the convoy or even you know as late as bring it to a question

05:26:00.700 please the 13th did you ever consider ordering or initiating additional tests to satisfy the

05:26:07.020 concerns of some of these protesters that that would not have been within my mandate my my mandate

05:26:12.780 was to make sure that we protected um public safety through the enforcement of the law and

05:26:17.900 this is a commission inquiry about the circumstances that led to it i'm not saying

05:26:22.540 your question is irrelevant i'm saying that would be a question that would be best put to the

05:26:25.660 minister of health and and was there any discussion between you and the minister of health about

05:26:29.740 perhaps engaging proactively in some of these additional studies to alleviate some concerns

05:26:34.460 of canadians well throughout the circumstances of the blockade and occupation i was in touch with

05:26:40.940 all of my colleagues in cabinet including minister duclos okay and i understand i'm running out of

05:26:45.580 time here but just quickly a couple you have run out of time so you're gonna have to focus here

05:26:50.300 understood uh can we pull up document win 0002295 i believe these are text messages between you and

05:26:57.500 mayor drew dilkins first like to take a look at page four and this question was put to uh mayor

05:27:04.860 dilkins earlier with respect to opp resources so just waiting for mr registrar here

05:27:23.340 page four so is it is it your unders it appears that it's your understanding on february 9th at

05:27:28.620 7 35 p.m that chief mizuno had not requested any additional police officers from the opp

05:27:34.860 uh was that your understanding and if so where did you attain that understanding

05:27:40.220 um this exchange is about trying to clear up what i think is um a miscommunication or

05:27:47.820 a misunderstanding between uh different levels of enforcement and um the city of windsor and so

05:27:54.220 what i'm really trying to get to the bottom of there is whether or not additional help had been

05:27:59.500 turned down by the city of windsor but it says apparently your police chief just told so i'm

05:28:05.340 the question is where did you ascertain that that belief for that understanding i am trying to

05:28:13.100 recall whether or not that was information that i got um either directly from uh commissioner

05:28:19.340 lucky or from other sources off the top of my head i can't say okay and lastly just on page

05:28:26.300 20 here last question here mr commissioner so on february 14th at 11 57 a.m says that to the extent

05:28:35.260 you so here being mr dilkins you can be supportive of any additional authorities that gets windsor

05:28:40.940 the resources you need to keep the bridge open people safe that would be great uh is it your

05:28:45.980 understanding that drew dilkins mayor drew dilkins invoked the city-wide emergency before or after

05:28:51.740 this text message um off again off the top of my head can't recall um but i i know first that the

05:28:58.860 ontario government had declared a state of emergency on the friday uh before which would have been um

05:29:06.780 i'm just doing so i think on the 14th the city of windsor declared an emergency by

05:29:10.780 by word yeah that sounds that sounds about right but recall but yeah the ontario the ontario

05:29:16.620 government had declared the friday before okay and last one here where you reference resources

05:29:22.540 do these resources include money um he he and i and other uh representatives of of the government

05:29:29.420 have had a conversation around uh potential compensation for losses suffered to businesses

05:29:34.540 and residents arising out of the blockade yes understood okay and i'm out of time so thank

05:29:38.780 you for the indulgence uh those are my questions thank you next uh the uh ccla please

05:29:46.620 Good afternoon, Mr. Mendicino, Minister Mendicino, my name is Kara Zwiebel, I am counsel for

05:30:15.480 the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Good afternoon. I want to ask you about an area that

05:30:22.340 we haven't really talked about, and I'm going to ask for a document to be pulled up, and I have to

05:30:26.200 apologize. I didn't ask for this document in advance, but I don't think it'll be controversial.

05:30:30.360 it's just the emergency measures regulation it's com 50s 854

05:30:41.560 um and i just i think um you've probably given um some of the clearest testimony we've heard about

05:30:49.160 um this issue of the the separation of church and state the relationship between law enforcement

05:30:55.720 and government um and i think what you've said is that um you know there needs to be good lines of

05:31:02.520 communication open uh but that uh it's not government's role to direct the police and what

05:31:08.120 to do in an operational sense is that accurate yes okay um now in in the case of the um of the

05:31:16.040 emergencies act and the the enactment of these emergency measures regulations um would you agree

05:31:21.640 with me that ultimately um what these regulations do is empower law enforcement give law enforcement

05:31:31.480 more tools in which to exercise their authorities and discretion i would agree and just add tools

05:31:37.720 that otherwise don't exist in any other law right and um in the case of we won't pull them up but

05:31:44.760 But the other, the economic, the other side of this, the economic measures that were enacted,

05:31:51.880 in that case, it empowered both law enforcement and financial institutions with new powers.

05:31:59.160 Yes.

05:31:59.420 Okay.

05:32:02.400 And would you agree that although this is a formal way of doing this, by using the extraordinary

05:32:09.300 step of invoking the act this is a very clear message being sent by government to law enforcement

05:32:15.640 about what the law that needs to be enforced is right now in this moment these are the laws that

05:32:22.980 we need to be enforced and we need you to enforce them i think that's fair yes okay thank you um

05:32:29.120 now if we can scroll down a little bit mr clerk thank you um i think it's the second uh sorry

05:32:36.360 third page sorry next page a little bit further

05:32:46.280 okay so there's a definition of critical infrastructure and then keep scrolling please

05:32:52.440 just stop right here thank you so this is the prohibition on public assembly and i know you

05:32:57.880 said in examination by commission council you talked about your concerns about some of the

05:33:04.920 the protesters and their links to extremist groups, but you also said a few times that there

05:33:10.880 were a large number of people there who were there to exercise their lawful rights to protest.

05:33:16.800 Is that fair?

05:33:17.640 Yes, it is.

05:33:19.080 And that, in fact, I think you said there were thousands who were there for legitimate

05:33:22.920 and lawful purposes.

05:33:24.060 I mean, that was my lay estimation, but I believe that there were many Canadians who

05:33:30.380 were co-mingled with other elements of the occupation and the blockade, who were there

05:33:36.500 to express legitimate differences of opinions and views as it related to federal government policy.

05:33:45.300 Okay, thank you. Now, I know when the government made the announcement about the use of the Act

05:33:50.280 and what orders would be enacted, it talked about the measures being time limited because there

05:33:56.560 is an expiration date, so to speak, on the use. It also talked about the measures being

05:34:01.780 proportional. Would you agree with me that the definition of a public assembly, which is

05:34:08.560 prohibited, and if we can scroll down so you can see the whole thing, maybe we can just make it a

05:34:14.500 bit smaller so that it'll all fit. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. So a person can't participate in a public

05:34:22.920 assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace by the serious disruption

05:34:28.600 of the movement of persons or goods or the serious interference with trade let's just stop at that

05:34:34.360 one um you you might be aware uh as an mp coming from uh the province of ontario that um we've had

05:34:41.800 some labor strikes uh and threats of labor strikes in the last couple weeks um would you agree with

05:34:48.360 me that during the um existence of these orders uh a strike would likely be contrary to these orders

05:34:59.160 well i i do think that um we need to be very careful and circumscribed in defining what the

05:35:08.680 powers are so the prohibition of public assembly as it is itemized under the regs

05:35:15.400 does direct that people can't be part of a public assembly that may be reasonably expected to lead

05:35:22.420 to a breach of the peace by the serious disruption of the movement to persons or goods

05:35:26.540 or the serious interference with trade. Let me pause there and say that that is directly

05:35:31.600 responsive in part to CBSA's concerns around the lack of authority to clear roads adjacent

05:35:39.600 to critical infrastructure in the form of the border. And you can draw a straight line to the

05:35:45.040 rationale for that power. That having been said, in addition to that, the regs still have to comply

05:35:50.600 with the Emergencies Act, which is the parenting statute. And what that says is that, yes,

05:35:58.560 all of the individual rights that are there around freedom of assembly, including the right to

05:36:05.980 protest are preserved so long as you do not then cross the boundary into activity which could pose

05:36:15.780 a threat of serious violence. And that is the delineating limitation to how it is that we both

05:36:25.220 protect charter rights while at the same time giving circumscribed targeted powers to restore

05:36:31.600 public safety so you have to read this provision in in in my opinion in conjunction with the

05:36:37.420 parenting statute. Okay but but I mean the this definition is what law enforcement is going to

05:36:43.420 use when they go out and and decide whether someone is in violation of the order and this

05:36:48.660 is the document that perhaps a very diligent citizen would look to to find out what is permitted

05:36:55.280 Is that fair?

05:36:56.740 It is, but, you know, we count on law enforcement to interpret the law correctly.

05:37:01.960 And as part of the rolling out of these regulations and these circumscribed powers, it would have been part of the plan to implement that there is a respect for the right to lawful assembly.

05:37:16.340 In any event, by the time these regs had come into force, certainly it was clear to those who were still there that law enforcement had directed,

05:37:28.560 government officials had directed that this was no longer lawful because it was no longer safe.

05:37:33.640 Understood. So I'm not so concerned about whether there was a question that this applied to, for example, Wellington Street.

05:37:42.000 I'm concerned about whether there was a question about where else this might have applied

05:37:45.920 and the potential that it might have applied to a range of other places.

05:37:50.780 Would you agree with me that there's nothing in these orders that geographically restricts their scope?

05:37:55.400 There's nothing that says they're confined to Ontario or they're confined to border crossings?

05:38:01.620 I think by inference, you could say that certainly under sub 2.1 and the subparagraph A,

05:38:10.440 that there is some geographic circumscription there

05:38:16.900 and that there are a limited number of places

05:38:18.940 where you can seriously disrupt the movement of persons or goods

05:38:23.460 or the serious interference with trade.

05:38:25.740 And I think the border would be one.

05:38:28.160 Okay.

05:38:28.720 I want to just move to one other area.

05:38:31.580 You mentioned in your testimony

05:38:33.020 when you were being questioned by commission counsel,

05:38:35.220 and I think this is the first that we've heard about this,

05:38:37.880 that um and i think you said it was on the 13th this was when commission council took you to

05:38:43.160 um the email from commissioner lucky uh that uh you know that laid out sort of the current status

05:38:49.560 of things um and uh you talked about a a private conversation that you had with commissioner lucky

05:38:56.520 where she told you about the situation in coots and shared her concerns um and i think you said

05:39:01.000 that was a um a threshold moment for you um so and i appreciate that um that that would be a

05:39:08.360 frightening set of circumstances to to hear about um the the timeline of events is that we have the

05:39:15.960 the irg on the 13th in the afternoon um and then the cabinet meeting uh the evening of the 13th

05:39:23.480 um and then on the morning of the 14th the first minister's meeting and then the the acts and vote

05:39:28.040 First of all, there's no cabinet meeting between the First Minister's meeting and the invocation of the act.

05:39:33.640 Is that correct?

05:39:34.380 That's right.

05:39:34.960 Okay.

05:39:36.820 The morning of the 14th, I think you would have learned that the Ambassador Bridge blockade had been cleared

05:39:44.760 and that arrests had been made and that the police had executed a safe operation in Coutts leading to arrests.

05:39:52.160 That was true, but I would add that there were reports of flare-ups.

05:39:55.920 There was an exchange between the mayor and I. There were also public reports following that and some information that we had received in subsequent briefings about the threat of the blockade coming back to the Ambassador Bridge.

05:40:10.420 I would point out that it was a recurring theme over those two weeks that progress was not linear, that it was very much a whack-a-mole kind of dynamic.

05:40:18.800 And the idea was not only to restore public safety, but to maintain it.

05:40:24.080 And the objective of invoking the Emergencies Act was to maintain law and order to stop the whack-a-mole. 1.00

05:40:31.680 Understood. I know you said in your testimony to Commission Council that one of the concerns about Coutts was that it could lead to a chain reaction.

05:40:40.680 But would you agree with me that that didn't happen?

05:40:43.680 that when the arrests were made in coots, actually many of the other protesters decided to leave

05:40:49.380 because they actually weren't comfortable being associated with that level of violence.

05:40:54.040 They had different goals.

05:40:55.940 And once they learned that that's what was going on, they decided to voluntarily leave.

05:41:00.300 I agree, and I was relieved.

05:41:01.980 But I was also dealing with the best information available to me at the time

05:41:06.720 and surveying the landscape and being mindful that there were reports of guns and firearms

05:41:12.340 that were present at other locations

05:41:17.020 and not knowing exactly how it was

05:41:20.060 that the operation in Coutts was going to play out at that time

05:41:23.340 and bearing in mind the sensitivities,

05:41:26.320 the fact that the situation was combustible,

05:41:29.480 that the individuals that were involved in Coutts

05:41:33.320 were prepared to go down with a fight

05:41:35.920 that could lead to the loss of life,

05:41:38.120 that if that had happened and that occurred,

05:41:40.420 it still remains an open question in my mind as to whether or not it would have triggered

05:41:44.580 other events across the country. And so that's why I, in my mind, it was very much,

05:41:51.340 it was a threshold moment. Okay. I understand. I think I understand what you're saying. And I

05:41:55.960 just, I know I'm out of time. I just want to just clarify. I understand you're saying if that had

05:42:01.480 happened, but would you agree with me that the arrests happened in Coots and that didn't happen?

05:42:07.000 What happened was that we leave Cootes and that situation, at least that particular location, was resolved for the time being.

05:42:17.820 I think you may be putting it a little optimistically.

05:42:20.700 I know that after the Cootes takedown, that there were still engagements there.

05:42:28.200 I do agree that things did start to dissipate and disengage in Cootes.

05:42:34.080 But I also recall that people were still very much dug in in other parts of the country, including here in the nation's capital.

05:42:41.880 Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Commissioner.

05:42:46.920 Next call on the City of Windsor, please.

05:42:49.640 Mr. Commissioner, if I could just ask if I don't know if people still use the expression the division bells are ringing.

05:42:59.120 Oh, so we need a short break.

05:43:00.860 yes unfortunately the timing won't be precise uh but it would be timely now to break if we

05:43:07.020 want to do it in between examiners because it appears that otherwise it would be right in the

05:43:10.620 middle of the next examination okay so we'll take uh 10 minutes is that all that's needed or is it

05:43:16.700 longer we would hope that 10 minutes is all that's needed we're just at the end of question period

05:43:22.140 and so it will alert if it'll be any longer than that okay well i'll uh we'll take a 10 minute

05:43:27.500 break if it needs to be more uh please uh thanks your honor otherwise you'd have to watch me vote

05:43:34.220 digitally and i'm not sure i'd be allowed to do that

05:43:41.020 the commission is in recess for 10 minutes

05:43:57.500 Thank you.

05:44:27.500 Thank you.

05:44:57.500 Thank you.

05:45:27.500 Thank you.

05:45:57.500 Thank you.

05:46:27.500 Thank you.

05:46:57.500 Thank you.

05:47:27.500 Thank you.

05:47:57.500 Thank you.

05:48:27.500 Thank you.

05:48:57.500 Thank you.

05:49:27.500 You

Juno News - November 22, 2022

Marco Mendicino Testifies - Emergencies Act Inquiry

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