Juno News - October 19, 2022


WATCH： Explosive cross examination of OPP intelligence officer during Emergencies Act hearings

Mentioned
Michael Zafbibu
FUREY： Why I'm joining True North We need to talk about assisted suicide in Canada

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

144.59

Word count

1,475

Sentence count

115


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Brennan Miller interviews a member of the Freedom Corp, a group that represents the protesters that were in Ottawa in January and February of 2022. They discuss the events that took place that day, as well as what happened that day.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello, sir. My name is Brennan Miller. I'm counsel for the Convoy or Freedom Corp, which is an entity that represents the protesters that were in Ottawa on January and February of 2022.
00:00:17.860 I just have a few questions for you. First, again, thank you for your service and thank you very much for your forthright testimony earlier.
00:00:25.540 Sure. Just on something you spoke about in your evidence in chief, you spoke about the demand of protesters and those demands would simply not be met.
00:00:35.580 I take it that by that you mean the demand for the removal of vaccine or COVID mandates. Is that correct?
00:00:42.900 In the main, yes, there were a multitude of demands, but those were some significant ones.
00:00:47.500 And for the federal government to drop some of their regulations and mandates, and we didn't feel that would be met. Yes.
00:00:53.620 Yes. Right. And these questions are going to be, you're going to be able to know exactly where I'm going, so I'm just going to be blunt.
00:01:03.840 You didn't see any evidence in the intelligence of espionage or in support of espionage. Is that correct?
00:01:10.580 That's correct.
00:01:11.940 You didn't see any evidence in the intelligence of sabotage or anything in support of sabotage?
00:01:17.500 That's correct.
00:01:18.300 You didn't see anything in the evidence, any evidence in the intelligence of any form of foreign-influenced activities within or relating to Canada that involved the threat to any person?
00:01:30.220 I saw media accounts. Yes.
00:01:32.780 I saw no information collected or intelligence produced in that regard. No. To support that. No.
00:01:38.820 Now, for my following question, when I say serious violence against a person, you'll understand I mean violence that would result in serious personal injury.
00:01:49.600 Okay?
00:01:49.860 You didn't see any evidence in the intelligence of activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat of a use of acts of serious violence against persons for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state.
00:02:10.140 So, yes, I know where you're going, and I want it to be fair to my colleagues in planning.
00:02:16.280 I saw online rhetoric. I saw information on social media. I saw assertions of that type of activity. Information.
00:02:27.480 Information. I'm aware of no intelligence that was produced that would support concern in that regard.
00:02:35.820 Thank you.
00:02:37.080 And now, for my next question, when I say serious violence against property, you'll understand I mean violence against property of the nature such as arson or destruction, a bomb, that sort of thing.
00:02:49.760 Okay?
00:02:51.220 You didn't see any evidence in the intelligence of activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat of use of acts of serious violence against property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state.
00:03:07.440 So, again, not to be contradictory because I'm just trying to be fulsome.
00:03:11.720 Our role is crime prevention, law enforcement, assistance to victims, public order, and emergency management.
00:03:19.900 Therefore, in relation to the things you're discussing, we collected all the information, which some information asserted attempts at that.
00:03:28.880 So, we did see that and had to consider that.
00:03:32.460 Did we have any credible intelligence that that would occur? No.
00:03:37.880 Thank you.
00:03:38.300 And you touched on in your oral evidence about the labeling of someone as being an extremist.
00:03:44.520 You said that that term you have a lot of problems with.
00:03:47.820 And I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that for me.
00:03:51.900 I can.
00:03:52.860 Sorry.
00:03:53.380 Where did I say I have problems with that?
00:03:55.040 You said just in your evidence in chief.
00:03:56.540 Okay.
00:04:01.560 So, the word extremism does not have a description in law.
00:04:05.840 Section 83 of the Criminal Code speaks to terrorist offenses, which possibly could be synonymous with extremism.
00:04:14.220 Sections 318, 319, and 320 of the Criminal Code speak to hate-motivated crimes, advocation of genocide, etc.
00:04:21.740 Other sections of the Criminal Code, it's a section 430, speak to acts against religious property that could be deemed to be extremist.
00:04:31.040 I have problems with the term because everyone has a subjective belief as to what extremism means.
00:04:41.920 At the low end and banal end, it means someone I disagree with, and I find that problematic.
00:04:48.560 As a working definition for myself, I utilize extremism, and I try to premise it in law by somebody who would advocate and utilize violence to achieve their goals.
00:05:06.040 And they could be motivated politically, ideologically, religiously, etc.
00:05:09.700 Right.
00:05:10.740 And I take it that, in practice, if the federal government's intelligence apparatus or law enforcement sees a legitimate, credible threat, as we just discussed, they would let you know about it, correct?
00:05:25.560 I work, we work with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service on a daily basis.
00:05:33.500 We have a provincial anti-terrorism section that is integrated with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
00:05:38.600 We are integrated with the integrated national security enforcement team and have members on that.
00:05:43.600 That is their threshold, and as you've cited, section part two of the CSIS Act in terms of the threats to Canada.
00:05:49.220 I communicated with my colleagues in INSET in Ottawa, INSET in Toronto, CSIS in Toronto, CSIS in Ottawa.
00:05:58.740 They participated in the hand-in calls.
00:06:02.600 I believe that I would have been informed, and in terms of those delineations, I guess I'll know more at the end of these hearings,
00:06:08.580 but I received no information in relation to the probability of that activity.
00:06:14.360 Right, and of course, the intelligence apparatus in Canada, they're not technically law enforcement.
00:06:20.100 They provide information, and it is the OPP and the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service who would carry out any law enforcement aspects with respect to any threat domestically, correct?
00:06:33.380 Yeah, the O'Connor Commission spoke to that in the URAR inquiry.
00:06:36.300 Yes.
00:06:36.680 CSIS collects, advises, retains for government security intelligence.
00:06:40.280 We act on criminal intelligence and translate that into evidence for law enforcement action.
00:06:45.180 Right, and the federal government would always tell you about these things because they don't want to have any Canadians and individuals harmed, right?
00:06:53.020 They want you to protect them.
00:06:56.180 We have a great relationship.
00:06:57.940 I'm not trying to skirt your question.
00:06:59.340 We have a great relationship with intelligence entities.
00:07:01.860 I know that CSIS will present, as will the RCMP.
00:07:05.480 We have a good relationship, and I believe that I would be informed.
00:07:08.320 But I also believe that there would be instances where activity is occurring within that sphere that I may not be advised of because it may not be within my purview of the Police Services Act and criminal intelligence, international in scope, perhaps.
00:07:23.340 To your knowledge, have you been advised by any of those actors that you have not been informed of everything?
00:07:32.320 Have I been advised by those actors that I have not been informed of something?
00:07:36.300 Yes.
00:07:37.240 No.
00:07:37.540 Thank you.
00:07:39.040 Now, dealing with the issue of lone wolf attackers, can you agree that the last lone wolf attack in the Capitol was on October 22, 2014, when Michael Zafbibu attacked Parliament with a firearm?
00:07:55.320 Is that correct?
00:07:55.920 I remember the events, and I would attribute that to what I refer to as an independent asymmetric threat.
00:08:04.780 I don't want to say that that's the last event just because I don't want to misspeak.
00:08:08.680 I am aware of other events, but they weren't that I'm aware of in the National Capital Region.
00:08:13.380 Now, can you agree that following that attack, lessons were learned on how law enforcement intelligence agencies would gather intelligence with respect to lone wolf attackers?
00:08:23.460 Yes, I believe that I believe that I believe that I believe that cooperation and collaboration was enhanced.
00:08:34.180 And I will say this as a caveat, an independent asymmetric threat, a lone wolf, is the largest concern for somebody in a position such as mine or other people who appear before you,
00:08:49.020 because we rely upon the collection of information to produce intelligence, and in the instance of an independent asymmetric threat, the circle of trust may be won.
00:09:01.020 And that is a very difficult environment in which to succeed.
00:09:05.580 Right. And those lessons that were learned from that attack, they were incorporated within the intelligence-gathering apparatus, both at the OPP and federally, correct?
00:09:15.080 Yes, certainly. I mean, I can. That's an area where the age of social media can assist us, because in many examples of lone wolves, as you refer to, those are preceded by indicators of activity.
00:09:29.900 So that is of assistance, and that is something that the Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau engages in.
00:09:37.280 Right. And a lone wolf attack does not need a protest in order to be carried out, does it?
00:09:45.560 It does not require one. No.
00:09:48.040 Thank you. Those are my questions.
00:09:51.280 Thank you. Next is...
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