Juno News - November 25, 2022


WATCH： Justin Trudeau cross-examined by Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

144.55853

Word Count

1,497

Sentence Count

89


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I'm Rob Kittredge for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, and we share standing at these hearings with the Democracy Fund and Citizens for Freedom.
00:00:09.880 I'd like to circle back to a bit of a constitutional conversation I had the other day.
00:00:18.520 Cabinet confidentiality, the principle that members of Cabinet are free to express their opinions on issues before Cabinet,
00:00:25.000 fully in private meetings and discussions with you and their Cabinet colleagues,
00:00:28.720 are you familiar with that principle?
00:00:31.960 Yes, I am.
00:00:32.500 And the principle of Cabinet solidarity, where once decisions are presented to the public or to Parliament,
00:00:40.080 they are collective decisions of Cabinet and can't be repudiated or criticised by your ministers.
00:00:46.580 And if they were to do that, they would have to resign their post.
00:00:50.700 That is the principle, yes.
00:00:52.420 All right.
00:00:52.940 Toe trucks have come up a lot at this Commission, and my friends and the Commissioner know me by now as a bit of a towing aficionado.
00:01:04.360 It's been a while since I've brought up the subject, but I thought maybe you and I could have a little talk about it.
00:01:09.460 As you know, in order to legitimately and legally declare a public order emergency pursuant to the Emergencies Act,
00:01:15.680 the purported emergency cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
00:01:21.380 You're taking the position that the emergency declaration was justified in part because towing services were required and could not be procured.
00:01:28.980 Is that accurate?
00:01:29.560 That's a bit of a leap.
00:01:35.700 We say that the Emergencies Act was required because the situation as a whole could not be resolved under existing authorities
00:01:46.560 and was not being resolved under existing authorities.
00:01:49.660 Right.
00:01:50.100 But towing service procurement was part of that total picture that you're talking about, wasn't it?
00:01:55.660 One of the barriers that we heard regularly from police of jurisdiction to removing the trucks occupying various locations
00:02:06.960 was the difficulty in securing towing services.
00:02:11.180 Yes, that was one of the barriers they were facing in being able to restore public order.
00:02:16.000 Right.
00:02:16.420 So one of the measures that you put in place through the Emergency Measures Regulations
00:02:21.500 was an ability to compel tow truck drivers to provide towing services, wasn't it?
00:02:26.480 Yes, it was.
00:02:27.100 So I'd say that would be a fairly significant part of the reason why you would have had to invoke the Emergencies Act.
00:02:32.880 Wouldn't you agree with that?
00:02:33.800 It was an element of the solutions to the situation that we were dealing with.
00:02:40.180 It was one of a handful of powers that you created using the Emergency Measures Regulations.
00:02:47.200 Is that right?
00:02:47.780 Yes.
00:02:48.020 So I would say it's relatively important.
00:02:51.040 Would you agree with that?
00:02:52.420 It was important in, yes, solving the emergency situation.
00:02:57.980 Yes.
00:02:58.260 Certainly relevant to the invocation of the Emergencies Act?
00:03:04.940 The invocation of the Emergencies Act wasn't because people couldn't find tow trucks.
00:03:12.400 The invocation was because there was a public order emergency that posed serious threats to Canadians.
00:03:19.420 And the inability to solve this public order emergency that posed a serious threat to the safety of Canadians
00:03:28.460 was compounded by the inability to actually move those trucks, for example.
00:03:35.980 And that would be one of the ways that the emergency couldn't have been effectively dealt with
00:03:42.440 under any other law of Canada, wouldn't you say?
00:03:50.080 Municipalities and provinces have contracts with tow truck companies to keep the highways clear,
00:03:58.980 to keep the roads clear, and tow parked cars that are illegally parked all the time.
00:04:02.840 So they had, theoretically, the authority to compel people under breach of contract to actually tow vehicles
00:04:12.700 that were illegally parked.
00:04:16.020 For various reasons, they were unable or unwilling to use the civil powers they have under contract,
00:04:25.660 or perhaps it would just take too long for them to be able to do it.
00:04:29.000 But in feedback with everyone from Alberta to Ontario to elsewhere,
00:04:33.380 was that they needed to be able to compel those tow trucks to actually do the job of clearing those streets.
00:04:41.200 And you, in fact, put that power into the emergency measures, right?
00:04:44.120 Yes, we did.
00:04:44.620 And so a discussion of that, of tow trucks, is relevant to this discussion we're having right now.
00:04:49.520 Yes.
00:04:51.960 And we talked about cabinet solidarity earlier.
00:04:55.440 There's been a waiver of cabinet confidence, the related, partial waiver, I should say,
00:04:59.780 of cabinet confidence, the related principle that would have allowed you to withhold documents from this commission.
00:05:06.200 You've disclosed quite a few, and would you say you've been pretty transparent with the commission?
00:05:09.840 There have been hundreds of public inquiries over the course of our country's history,
00:05:18.740 and only four times were there waivers of cabinet confidence.
00:05:22.620 For this situation, it was extremely important to me that all the inputs, or as many inputs as possible,
00:05:31.620 that cabinet received in making the determinations that we did are visible to Canadians.
00:05:39.920 So, yes, we've waived cabinet confidence in terms of the inputs that cabinet heard to make the decision.
00:05:46.500 But the actual deliberations, as you point out, remain secret.
00:05:50.200 Great.
00:05:50.420 So, you wanted to make sure that the relevant matters were visible to Canadians.
00:05:56.260 Can I pull up POE JCF 2, please?
00:06:00.640 So, this is a document as it's coming up.
00:06:03.280 We've been having a bit of an argument over the last little while about some redactions that were made
00:06:07.620 in the documents disclosed by my friends for Canada.
00:06:11.440 And there were some disputes about parliamentary privilege and irrelevance.
00:06:18.120 But in this particular document, I'd like you to take a look at it.
00:06:21.440 This first document was what was originally disclosed.
00:06:24.520 And this document, the second one, had some redactions removed.
00:06:29.280 And those documents were ordered, disclosed last night.
00:06:35.700 And Canada took the position last night that there was reason to insist on this,
00:06:45.040 that this redaction or that this document be produced, not be produced, unredacted.
00:06:51.160 But I wonder if maybe you could, and at the end of the day, this was produced at 10.26 a.m. this morning.
00:06:56.640 So, I'm a little more unprepared for this cross than I normally am.
00:07:01.460 But I wonder if you could look at that first redaction on the original disclosure
00:07:06.680 and see if you can see the reason for the redaction that's highlighted in the black box there.
00:07:14.340 It appears to say irrelevant and parliamentary privilege.
00:07:19.420 Right. So, I'm looking at the irrelevant one.
00:07:21.480 Could you identify on the other side what information was blacked out as irrelevant by your government?
00:07:29.520 Americans offering tow trucks?
00:07:33.840 Yeah. And wouldn't you say that discussion of tow trucks was relevant to the discussion we're having here today?
00:07:39.660 I'm not the one who made these redactions.
00:07:44.320 It's the professional public service that made those redactions.
00:07:47.040 So, you'd have to ask them.
00:07:48.360 Right. Well, I think we will be.
00:07:49.860 But in any event, I would put it to you that tow trucks weren't, in fact, required.
00:07:56.360 That the power to compel tow trucks was not used for anything other than convenience.
00:08:00.620 And that tow trucks had been secured at all important locations prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
00:08:08.100 And I've got to say, it's interesting to close on this tow truck point.
00:08:12.800 I hadn't expected that to happen.
00:08:14.520 But would you agree with me that tow trucks weren't, in fact, needed at the time of the invocation of the Act?
00:08:19.860 No, I do not.
00:08:20.820 I'm Brian Gover for the Government of Canada.
00:08:23.480 And if my friend is going to put that to the witness, he ought to put the proposition correctly.
00:08:28.520 I remind my friend that the evidence of Commissioner Karik of the Ontario Provincial Police was that the powers under the Emergency Measures Regulation in relation to tow trucks were used.
00:08:42.620 I refer specifically to his February 22, 2022 report to Deputy Solicitor General Di Tommaso, which shows that clearly those powers were used.
00:08:55.860 Thank you.
00:08:56.880 Right. Well, I would respond by saying that the evidence so far has shown that while, strictly speaking, there was an indication or there was a use of that power under the Act by the OPP.
00:09:10.820 It was basically used as a method to ensure that the payment was made.
00:09:14.220 It's supposed to come to me.
00:09:16.400 And I think those happen to be areas that I'm going to have to deal with what is, in fact, the case.
00:09:22.920 But you can pose your question in a different way if you wish.
00:09:26.240 But I think whether or not they were used, whether or not it was required, is something I will.
00:09:32.600 I think we're bearing the lead a little bit here.
00:09:35.160 And I'll ask you again, you would agree that a discussion of tow trucks and information about tow trucks is relevant to the work of the Commission and the discussion that we're having here today, wouldn't you?
00:09:46.660 I know there was a lot of time spent on tow trucks during the past six weeks.
00:09:50.260 Right. Well, thank you very much.
00:09:51.360 Thank you very much.