00:21:53.560They may not know one 10th of the stuff that we know.
00:21:57.620They will over time, but they don't yet.
00:22:02.000so there's all kinds of moving parts to this whole thing and all i ask from you guys like i was
00:22:09.860talking about at the beginning of this diatribe is that we keep cooler heads cooler heads will
00:22:16.740prevail through all this try and stay away from division and finger pointing just try and stay
00:22:21.940away from it we don't need that that's what the government is hoping for for us to ruin ourselves
00:22:29.600from the inside we don't need that we need to stand together until we win this thing when
00:22:37.200we convincingly win this thing when everybody knows that we have won this thing then we can
00:22:42.180celebrate for a day or two and then go back to hating each other if that's the case
00:22:46.060and i will tell you some positives that have come out of all of this
00:22:52.860I have met some of the most caring, open-hearted, lovely people in the world in the past couple of years.
00:23:09.840Some of them I haven't met physically, only through this show and through video calling.
00:23:17.520others i have had the chance to meet and shake hands with and hug and have a cry with
00:23:24.640so um yeah there was um heavy equipment so now we're back so tom marazzo is being
00:23:36.800questioned by the commission lawyer and let me just bring him up here
00:23:40.160okay i hope the stream is better this afternoon tom arazzo first then pat king
00:23:53.540here we go owned by the city concrete barriers and five ottawa police officers standing in the
00:23:59.240intersection it wasn't being blocked by any of our people at all so i i you know there was a
00:24:06.680There was a give and take where we were sent or I was sent or other people that I was with were sent to go look at an intersection only to find out it wasn't even us.
00:24:16.900And I had two members that I was working with that routinely when we were asked by OPS to go and check on a safety lane or an intersection or something that was blocking safety,
00:24:28.800our two people would go down and physically speak to the drivers and get them to open up those lanes.
00:24:34.860And so it's my understanding that those efforts were generally successful except on Kent Street, is that correct?
00:24:49.240Sorry, I'm fuzzy on some of the streets.
00:24:52.660So the evidence has been there's been two locations.
00:24:54.880One's Rideau-Sussex, which we'll talk about in a moment.
00:24:57.560To your knowledge, was there another location where the emergency lanes were not open?
00:25:01.960No, the only the only sticking point was Rideau. And even on Rideau, I spoke to one of the drivers personally. And I said, you need to make sure you keep a safety lane. And he said, they have twice moved out of the way they sit in their trucks and they listen for ambulances or they listen for sirens.
00:25:23.400And if they hear it, they move the truck out of the way because three times they had listened to the Ottawa police who said, you know, can you please move the vehicle?
00:25:33.700And they would move the vehicle and the Ottawa police would move their cars in that spot and they would trick the drivers.
00:25:40.260So the drivers at Rideau said, we're not falling for it again.
00:31:41.340And why did you think you needed to send someone to keep Pat King well behaved?
00:31:45.860Because I only knew Pat through reputation in one or two interactions with him
00:31:50.700And I didn't want there to be any any confusion as to what they were there to do.
00:31:57.420It was to really just do a slow roll and to guarantee that in no way did we we stop at the airport because we were well aware that there was an orange helicopter route for the hospital.
00:32:09.960And we wanted to make sure that we had no impact on any air ambulance ability to get in and out of that airport.
00:32:16.160We had no intention of slowing down or disrupting the airport.
00:32:20.700And I wanted to make sure that we had somebody that was going to guarantee that we weren't there to close down or lock down the airport or disrupt the air ambulance.
00:32:31.460We just wanted to basically send a message that, you know, we can still move around the city.
00:32:40.120So I take it. So one of your concerns was potentially that Mr. King might try to shut down the airport or blockade the airport.
00:32:46.160it was it was just on my part to be honest and and some of the others that we discussed it uh
00:32:52.880it was just a precaution just to make sure we we we also believe that if we told him not to
00:32:59.360do something like that he would listen i don't i don't so you take a precaution when you're
00:33:05.440concerned that something might happen so is that yes is that what you were concerned would happen
00:33:09.280yes okay and was your concern based on mr king's reputation as you as you indicated yes just as just
00:33:16.080solely on his reputation. That was it. And what was Mr. King's reputation? Um, a little bit of a,
00:33:21.840um, a little bit of a wild card. I remember in a meeting once that I had, uh, jokingly referred
00:33:34.560to him as a hand grenade going off in a room and scaring everybody else that he was, it was going
00:33:39.020to explode. And, and it was a bit of a joke. Um, he laughed. Everybody else seemed to think it was
00:33:45.000funny but it was kind of like funny because yeah that's true um but just reputation wise he was a
00:33:51.320little bit of a wild card and i just wanted to make sure that we were able to to contain anything
00:33:55.940like that were you concerned it was possible that mr king may not engage in peaceful protest
00:34:00.400that was never a concern that i shared or had and you mentioned that you had dealt with mr
00:34:08.120bowder sporadically yes um after the initial phone conversation and the introduction at any point did
00:34:13.800you become aware of the memorandum of understanding which I'm sure you've heard
00:34:17.340about over the last few weeks or the last few days at least yes sir I I did
00:34:22.200hear of the the memorandum of understanding I learned about it once it
00:34:28.620was submitted already to I believe the governor general I think the media had a
00:34:32.280copy and I had read it again I'm no lawyer but I know it wasn't written by a
00:34:38.360lawyer it wasn't very well written and I remember having a conversation once I
00:34:44.540learned about the MOU with somebody that I believed to be involved in drafting
00:34:51.020the MOU and it was a private one-on-one meeting and I said you you must retract
00:34:57.240that you you if you do not retract that or pull it back or put the the genie
00:35:03.320back in the bottle, we are going to denounce it. It made us look like we were here for a completely
00:35:12.280different purpose than what we were there for. It really muddied the waters. And I don't know
00:35:20.180if as a result of that conversation, they pulled it back. I just know that the next day it was
00:35:24.460sort of retracted. When you say it made it look like you were there for a completely different
00:35:29.220purpose. What was that purpose? Well, I had read it, and as far as I was concerned, it was,
00:35:35.060we were there for the mandates. That MOU was there for a different purpose, and I don't remember the
00:35:40.240details of it, to be honest. I skimmed through it. It was not very well written, and so I didn't
00:35:47.380think it was credible. I didn't think it was appropriate, and I certainly didn't think that
00:35:51.300the government was ever going to suddenly resign because somebody sent them a memo.
00:36:01.300You may not remember the details, but was your concern that what the MOU appeared to
00:36:06.320call for was something that was undemocratic?
00:36:10.580What I believed when I read it was that they thought that it was a legal process, that
00:36:17.340they believed it was a mechanism of government that they were trying to initiate, even though
00:36:26.340I'm no constitutional scholar by any means, but I could tell that it was not going to
00:37:37.540Did you see yourself as a spokesperson?
00:37:39.180The last two days on the 18th and 19th of February was the one or the two times only during the convoy that I had chosen to speak without being or without discussion with other members of the convoy.
00:37:58.180And that was because I felt that given the previous media stuff that I had done, alternative media or live streams, that I would be recognized by the public as somebody associated with maybe some of the other people like Tamara and Chris and Bridget, because everybody else was either out of the city or were already incarcerated.
00:38:23.320So there was nobody left that I believed the public would recognize as a credible person to deliver those two final days' worth on the 18th and 19th.
00:42:05.800I literally meant to comment on the man's intelligence.
00:42:10.180was a joke. Sorry. Understood. Sorry. You can take the video down. Thank you. Then you said,
00:42:17.960I'm willing to sit at a table with the Conservatives and the NDP and the Bloc as a coalition. I'll sit
00:42:23.180with the Governor General, put us at the table with somebody that actually cares about Canada.
00:42:27.860Yes. What did you mean when you said that?
00:42:32.640In no way did I ever mean or intend for us to be part of the government. I wanted them to come
00:42:39.180and sit literally at a table and start figuring out a way to be in effective opposition to the Liberal Party of Canada
00:42:50.880because we weren't seeing any opposition at all with the official opposition of Canada.
00:42:57.380You know, if the Conservative Party had been effective as being in opposition, we may not be in this room today.
00:43:04.900But instead, they just didn't oppose anything that was happening to Canadians as to why we were there.
00:43:11.080And when we got there, there was no attempt at any level of government, municipal, provincial, federal government to even talk to us, to get in a room with us.
00:43:41.880And in that particular moment of that video, I did misspeak.
00:43:45.120It wasn't very clear what I was getting at.
00:43:47.880Two days later, I tried to clarify that, or three days later.
00:43:51.180But what we wanted was for the government, anybody, we were desperate.
00:43:55.140It was basically a cry for help to come in and sit down and do this democratically.
00:44:02.000And that is a mechanism of government, because as we've seen since then, or even during the convoy, the NDP and the Liberals were forming a coalition that the public had not yet known about.
00:44:14.160And so, you know, forming a coalition seemed to be something like we were trying to nudge them, motivate them in any way we could just to talk to us.
00:44:22.920And to this day, they've never spoken to us, ever.
00:44:31.080Some media outlets reported on those comments to suggest that you were saying that the protesters wanted to form governments,
00:44:38.920which they would be in a coalition with the opposition parties, but the protesters themselves would form part of the government.
00:44:46.420That is, and that is my fault, that the way I phrased that in the video, that is not what my intention was, but the way I phrased it, I can understand that being confusing, but it's not what I intended.
00:44:58.340We wanted no part of being the government.
00:45:01.820We wanted the government to do the governing, but to listen to us.
00:45:05.920I understand that you spoke again on February 10th and attempted to clarify your statements.
00:45:10.720I understand that, but did you take any steps to clarify what you meant with the media outlets who were reporting that the protesters wanted to form a coalition government?
00:45:22.580No, I was not in charge of direct contact.
00:45:29.580I had no direct contact with the media, and as far as I was concerned, my belief was if they actually started to do their job and report fairly,
00:45:37.780We would reward them with contact, or I would, or whatever, not necessarily me.
00:45:43.260But if they continued down the path of constantly vilifying and lying about us, I didn't see the point really of talking to them at all.
00:45:52.140We were effective, highly effective at getting out everything we wanted to get out to the public through alternative and social media.
00:46:00.300So you didn't make any efforts to go to the reporters who had reported a different interpretation and say,
00:46:07.260that's wrong can you please fix it no and so you don't know whether or not they would have issued
00:46:11.260a correction or uh issued as maybe not a correction a follow-up story you just don't know i don't know
00:46:16.180and they never reached out to talk to me from my knowledge either um after the february 7th press
00:46:27.720conference um benjamin dichter who's a witness we'll hear from later uh sent out a press release
00:46:33.520saying that only himself, Mr. Barber, Ms. Leach, and a woman named Dagny
00:46:38.600were authorized to speak on behalf of the protesters.
00:53:44.460I watched his reaction and I and I knew right there and then that the situation had fundamentally changed for all of us, them as well as us.
00:53:53.680And I realized that if we didn't do something to take the pressure off of the chief, things were going to dramatically change for the worst.
00:54:02.960And so that's when we started to completely reshift our focus to taking the pressure off the chief, thereby taking the pressure off of the individual police officers and hopefully ourselves.
00:54:17.540And again, we heard Mr. Wilson this morning.
00:54:19.920He described that after the meeting with Mr. Kanellakis, there was an initial effort to move the trucks from Rideau Sussex to Wellington.
00:54:28.700And as I understand it, that effort was unsuccessful because the police ultimately didn't move the barricades that would be necessary to do that.
00:54:39.220He did, but I think I heard we actually had, we were, you know, to use a football analogy, we were on the one yard line with all the trucks on that corner.
00:54:52.520And Eva and I had spent hours on that corner.
00:54:58.700Um, Eva was talking with the Polish truckers.
00:55:01.280I was talking with the, uh, the English speaking French, uh, truckers.
00:55:06.040We spent hours there and we finally got, uh, cause Sergeant Lee was there and, um, despite
00:55:13.720his best efforts, sometimes he can be a little bit hostile.
00:55:17.840And we, I, I had asked the truckers to basically as a group come to an agreement themselves
00:55:24.220and then also elect two people to go and deal directly with Sergeant Lee
00:55:29.860because I was actually concerned that if he went into the centre of those 80 truckers,
00:55:35.320he would do something that would put his own safety at risk.
00:55:38.960So instead of him going to them, I said, you elect two people, come out, and then we'll talk.
00:55:43.960And then Sergeant Lee got that phone call.
00:55:46.540He walked away, and he came back, and the look on his face said everything.
00:55:51.800I knew that he had just had the carpet pulled out from under his legs and he said, there's no deal.
00:56:01.680I knew I couldn't go back to the truckers and say, hey, we spent all day convincing you to do this.
00:56:07.240And now the police have reneged on it.
00:56:10.740I knew that there would be no further chance of ever getting them to even be open to the idea of moving had I gone back and delivered that message to them.
00:56:19.480so um it was we were there we were there that night to move them and i just basically went
00:56:29.120back and i said listen guys it's a safety issue we're not going to move at night because it's
00:56:33.080too dangerous for the safety of people with with uh decreased visibility it's all i could come up
00:56:39.120with at the time to satisfy everybody and then mr wilson talked about uh another attempt that
00:56:45.660was made on february the 10th and then there there was uh that which was was uh did not proceed
00:56:50.900and i take you agree with with mr uh wilson absolutely yes so then we come to the agreement
00:56:57.060with the mayor and there was a meeting on uh february 13th at city hall were you at that meeting
00:57:02.340um the one with uh inspector drummond uh kim ayotte and steve kay that's our understanding
00:57:10.960of who yes i was at that meeting okay and i appreciate at that point in time is it's the
00:57:17.700case that you had indicated that uh you wouldn't be able to move trucks off rito sussex is that
00:57:22.460correct no i i believe at that meeting we were just there to go over more of the details on how
00:57:29.640we could properly do that and then reposition uh or redistribute the trucks in different locations
00:57:35.540that's what my recollection of that the intent of that meeting was in the discussion and I believe
00:57:42.440Kim Mayotte or Inspector Drummond were the ones that brought the map
00:57:46.420and we were looking at the map from sort of trying to work out how to redistribute that
00:57:53.940based on the map that they had marked themselves. So Superintendent Drummond testified that at that
00:57:59.860meeting it was represented that there was two locations where the organizers did not believe
00:58:05.200they'd get buy-in one was rito sussex and one was with the coventry group um do you recall anyone
00:58:13.300at the meeting from the protester side indicating that i believe that it was uh indicated that it
00:58:19.540would be more difficult given the events the previous two days uh or prior two days that it
00:58:25.700would be more work more challenging but i also believe that uh there was a will on on you know
00:58:32.420our part to to go up and we thought we could actually get it done um i want to talk briefly
00:58:42.960now about the the final days uh that you were in ottawa um after february 17 17th and after the
00:58:55.880emergencies act was invoked was it your understanding that protesters were allowed
00:58:59.820to enter into what's called the red zone if they were on foot and what was the basis of your
00:59:05.800understanding that they could enter if they were on foot just based on some of the briefings from
00:59:10.140keith wilson and discussions with eva and um but not with vehicles uh clearly and i don't believe
00:59:19.000they would have been successful trying to get in with a vehicle anyway um and up until at least
00:59:24.900the 14th you've been in daily contact with police liaisons is that correct yes sir did you have any
00:59:30.720contact with them after the invocation of the emergencies act and did they give you any
00:59:35.140indication whether or not you were allowed whether or not protesters on foot were allowed in the red
00:59:39.520zone no i i don't think that my conversations with my regular police liaisons were like that
00:59:47.660I did receive one phone call from an unknown OPP officer who said that he was the guy that they call for really difficult negotiations.
01:00:41.440I can't be certain of that detail, and I have no idea who that officer was.
01:00:45.800Were you aware of the TikTok video that's been discussed a couple of times in which Mr. Wilson explains that protesters are allowed to continue to protest peacefully?
01:00:57.100I hadn't seen that until I was here in the audience, seeing that.
01:01:02.100What was your reaction to seeing it now?
01:06:11.280And then, you know, you're seeing an email from a lawyer
01:06:14.340who was saying that it is, you know, my understanding.
01:06:18.120So if it is not completely set in concrete for a lawyer, what chance do we have for having a definitive bit of legal advice that we can make a 100 percent absolute decision on what is going to happen to us if we remain?
01:06:33.740So you had an interpretation of Justice McLean's order, right?
01:06:37.500I had just from what I was briefed on the result and that that I do remember reading the decision and I'm not again, I'm not a lawyer.
01:06:47.580So when I'm reading it, it's from a very unsophisticated perspective.
01:06:51.540But I do remember reading the part where it said to the effect that we had a legal right to be there.
01:06:58.600All right. Well, you're not a lawyer, but Ms. Chippy is a lawyer and Saya Hassan, you understand, is a lawyer as well?
01:07:08.700I see there on the email that they are. This person is a lawyer.
01:07:12.560a lawyer okay did you take any steps to relate the risks that people are facing so that they
01:07:19.600could make their own decision with respect to the possibility that they would be arrested if they
01:07:23.920did not comply i believe we handed out a french english double-sided piece of paper that we
01:07:34.960printed to everybody i think we printed out hundreds of copies and it was from the pro bono
01:07:41.920legal team that we had that if people were arrested that was a description of what their
01:07:48.000rights would be and also the phone number to call if that should happen to them okay
01:07:53.360now sir you're you're publishing i i understand you're publishing a book which you intend to
01:07:57.680release on february the 14th of next year is that yes and you've selected that date because it's
01:08:03.200the same data once the report of this commission must be tabled no it's the one year anniversary
01:08:09.440of the emergency act being invoked oh i see you've been attempting to raise money for the publication
01:08:15.360of this book through a fundraiser on the website give send go correct yes because i have a team
01:08:20.260that is helping me and they also need to well they need support sure could we go to com 50415
01:08:29.940this is where they try to make tom look like a grifter so this is an affidavit that you
01:08:43.580swore in support of an application by canadian frontline nurses right yes yes and if we just go
01:08:51.060down to the very bottom of the affidavit to find the jurat date there we go you swore this it
01:08:57.800appears on March the 4th of this year? Yes. If we could go back up to paragraph four.
01:09:09.840Now, here you say that you arrived in Ottawa on January the 30th with the intention of peacefully
01:09:15.220participating in the protest, correct? Yes. And you told us shortly ago that your arrival was due
01:09:23.400to the invitation extended to you to come to Ottawa by James Bowder.
01:09:55.740And you became familiar, you told us, with the memorandum of understanding that he was circulating and intended to deliver to the Governor General and the Speaker of the Senate, right?
01:13:37.760And you understood that any legislative action would require the participation of the elected representatives at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, right?
01:17:11.820I'm concerned about traveling with my children,
01:17:13.800as I'm concerned they'll be taken away from me by Children's Aid
01:17:16.500in the event the police decide to charge and arrest me.
01:17:19.320Yes, because I was informed after leaving Ottawa that there was a task force of RCMP, OPP, Ottawa Police, as well as the statements publicly made by Acting Chief Bell that said that you would be identified, investigated, and there would be criminal charges and other punishments coming your way.
01:17:39.040So that statement is true because from my perspective, I was one of the ones that was not charged during the time in Ottawa, but I was led to believe that I was under investigation and I have since learned different versions of that.
01:17:56.020But it was my understanding that I was being investigated as the 42 of us on one of the lists were identified to me.
01:18:07.120you've obviously overcome this fear to be able to be with us today
01:18:11.840well i asked keith wilson a few months ago when would i find out that i'm no longer
01:18:20.900being investigated and when will i find out that i'm not going to be charged
01:18:26.060you would overcome this fear by may the 4th of 2022 when the election period began in the
01:18:34.000Ontario provincial election fair yes sir and that election was held on June the 2nd of 2022
01:18:41.580yes and you ran in the writing I understand of Peterborough Kawartha for the Ontario party yes
01:18:47.100and you there received 1,973 votes amounting to approximately 3.8 percent of the vote in the
01:18:55.300writing right yes could we go to pb dot can dot four zeros one seven seven four
01:19:02.080guys biting his nails he's wiping his nose with the sleeve of his thousand dollar suit just want
01:19:13.660to put up a brief excerpt of the video it'll be just at the very beginning
01:19:16.960council one one seven four were the last four numbers that you just one seven seven four yeah
01:19:26.220i've done it again excuse me disorganized
01:19:30.060terrible usually with a guy like this you think he's going to be sharp because that's the only
01:19:38.500way that the you know they're going to be able to keep him around because he's gentlemen please
01:19:42.520welcome Ontario party candidate for Peterborough and Kawartha, a member of
01:19:47.560the Veterans for Freedom Steering Committee, Captain retired Tom Morazzo.
01:20:28.720he does um uh he has a podcast and uh he does a lot of political satire and comedy um
01:20:41.760he does some serious uh videos sometimes um he is the uh the creator of a fictitious meme on
01:20:52.560the internet known as diagonaline which i assume what you're going to ask me about and uh the
01:20:57.940vice president of dialogue being a time traveling cocaine addicted goat.
01:21:05.360That is just a internet meme that has no meaning at all.
01:21:09.560And I had spoken to Jeremy the first time when I was in Ottawa on the phone.
01:21:15.860And the second time I spoke to Jeremy was when the liberal government
01:21:20.760was debating whether or not they should use the emergency act.
01:21:26.320And they were citing this fictitious goat that time travels as a domestic terrorist group and justification for invoking the Emergency Act.
01:21:36.920And I saw a video that Jeremy and his friends were doing, and they were laughing hysterically, showing clips of the government actually talking about Diagalon as being a real thing.
01:24:31.720So you stayed in a hotel room for about three weeks and you don't know who paid for it?
01:24:35.260I do not know for a fact who paid for it.
01:24:37.660I spoke to Joseph's stepson, Ryan, but I don't know if he was paying for the rooms or just had control of a block on behalf of somebody else.
01:24:50.740I don't really know because they belong to some sort of an organization.
01:24:56.380And I don't know if it's the organization or Joe or somebody specifically who did it.
01:25:00.560I just know that I went to Ryan when I needed a room.
01:25:02.800okay and uh we know through a variety of means a significant amount of money was raised
01:25:09.600with respect to the convoy demonstration did you have some of your expenses covered
01:25:14.060aside from that um there was occasions where i was buying my own food and um
01:25:22.080whatever food was donated in the um in in the conference room that we had like i said i was
01:25:30.760sick. So I ended up losing 14 pounds and I've gained more than that back. And I wasn't eating
01:25:37.920very much. The few times I ate, I actually just bought myself if I wanted more of a meal.
01:25:44.480So you didn't get any cash to cover any travel expenses or anything like that?
01:25:58.360uh anything else well when i initially got there i was focused in on the logistics
01:26:04.880and then after the raid at coventry i had notified a former military officer that i personally knew
01:26:12.600and i and i asked him if he would come to ottawa and help me and he did and so i was able to
01:26:18.200actually hand off some of those day-to-day things that i was working on and then move towards so my
01:26:26.780my role actually did transition less day-to-day logistics more strategically working with Keith
01:26:34.380and Eva to to get this get something going here right I heard you talking about the transition
01:26:40.140but it was unclear to me what you transitioned from what logistics were you doing well I really
01:26:46.160was directing the people on the ground you know figuring like basically steering people in the
01:26:52.500direction of things that they needed to focus on uh truck locations there was occasions where we
01:26:57.080wanted to people wanted to move trucks around right uh but that became a little bit difficult
01:27:01.880as well and then you know oftentimes i would deal directly with the police so that became something
01:27:09.220that was uh impacting my day greatly um i would have conversations with the the liaison sergeants
01:27:17.300and then go back and talk to the trucker so i mean physically was i out there filling trucks
01:27:22.480up? No, I wasn't, but I was trying to facilitate, you know, organizing that better, developing
01:27:30.040trucker captain organizations and stuff like that, only to find that really the truckers
01:27:35.920were organically doing that themselves.
01:27:38.320And you told us that you were trying to manage where the trucks were, figure out where they
01:27:43.020all were, map them out, how many trucks, try to get an accurate count, so forth. But it
01:27:49.080was put to you by commission council about kent street uh now we've heard police evidence evidence
01:27:55.000from a resident and actually chris barber himself testifying that uh kent street was uh almost
01:28:01.400completely blocked uh throughout the entire combo every once in a while the emergency thing would
01:28:06.200get open but it would almost instantly be closed up again and that predominantly there was no
01:28:10.040emergency lane on that street uh so i'm surprised mr marazzo you don't remember that one street
01:28:15.880Well, at some point, I had the two people that I were working with that actually started to monitor that.
01:28:25.480My friend that I just mentioned that was a retired military as well as one other individual.
01:28:31.700And every time that the other issue was this that we recognized was that the police liaison teams were going and talking to everybody.
01:28:41.560So they would talk to me, leave, and go have the same exact conversation with somebody else.
01:28:46.820And there was multiple teams, and the information was getting very confusing.
01:28:51.800So, for example, they would talk to me, and if you were there, they would go over and talk to you, say the same thing, and then everybody's chasing their tail, going in circles.
01:30:26.140I don't think that that's entirely accurate.
01:30:29.400I think, again, I would say that for that type of transportation, as you got a little closer to Wellington, it would probably be more of a challenge, but it would be up to the individual bus driver himself or herself to see if they could negotiate through those intersections.
01:30:48.600And just moving to a different topic, police leaks, you were getting information about what the police were planning ahead of time through sympathetic police officers, is that right?
01:31:00.180That's my understanding, but they weren't coming to me directly, they were coming from other sources, and then I would have conversations with people that that information was passed to them.
01:31:10.380So you were kind of like the clearinghouse for the intelligence, I guess, for the convoy?
01:31:13.900uh no we i tried to decentralize that as well um in the sense that you could you know i'm i wasn't
01:31:22.060a police officer i had worked a lot with police officers in my in my military career but i wasn't
01:31:27.480a police officer so um we had police officers that were retired that you know everybody knows
01:31:33.720danny bulford was one um if i had questions you know maybe him or vince gerseys maybe um but at
01:31:42.080that point, at some point, I stopped actually caring about certain things, and I just left
01:31:49.300it into other people's more expertise or more capable hands.
01:31:54.000Moving on to another topic, you testified about the slow roll, Pat King's slow roll
01:31:59.100around the airport, and that you cooperated to some extent assisting with that, correct?
01:32:05.560Just so much as I wanted to make sure that there would never be a complete blockage or a stoppage of operations for the airport.
01:32:18.420But you also told us there was some value to it as well, that it was sending a message to the city that the vehicles could move around and could move to other areas of the city if necessary.
01:32:26.840Yes. And that discussion centered around what happened at Coventry.
01:32:34.620When the police went in on a Sunday night and raided and stole the fuel and stole the food.
01:32:40.320And my conversations with the Ottawa police the next day was, you know, if you if you want to provoke a reaction from this organic movement from individual truckers, that's the best way to go about it.
01:32:54.880And if you want to keep it as civil as it has been, don't get it.
01:33:00.500Don't put us in a situation where there has to be a tit for tat kind of a situation.
01:33:04.060And I said, by the way, we will never exceed the level of stupidity that you guys are doing to us.
01:33:16.780And by the way, your Coventry was your freebie.
01:33:20.060We're not going to do anything because of what you did at Coventry because we don't see the value in it.
01:33:25.740We don't want to escalate this into something terrible.
01:33:28.540And so we just tried to always keep the temperature down, keep the tone down with them.
01:33:35.260But, you know, they were incredibly provoking constantly.
01:33:39.520So the slow roll was a warning to the city that if the police did some kind of enforcement action, the truckers might retaliate in some way.
01:33:47.360I don't, you know, I'm not comfortable with the word retaliate, but, you know, you could split hairs on that word.
01:33:56.320It was meant really to send the signal that, you know, we've got the ability to move around and do we want to do we want to escalate to that level?
01:34:06.720No, we're trying to say to you is that if if we really, really want to escalate to the level you guys are ramping up, then then we can play that game with you.
01:34:16.760But we don't want to play that game. So they'll do the slow roll just to let you know that it is possible.
01:34:21.580And just to be clear what we're talking about here, the game meaning the police enforcing the law, if the police attempt to enforce the law, the truckers, given their size and their numbers, will escalate towards the city of Ottawa and their residents, correct? That's what you mean?
01:34:34.000I don't really, I didn't see it lawful to go in and steal people's fuel or their food. I didn't actually see it as a lawful act on behalf of the police.
01:39:21.560If you read through it, and obviously we can give you a minute, it's a document that we've heard was circulated to the protesters, and it's dated February 17th.
01:39:33.280It was circulated by the Ottawa Police Service.
01:39:49.140I know there was something that was posted places, and I know there was two different colored ones, but that's the extent of my knowledge of the documents.
01:39:59.600So you testified earlier that perhaps there was a lack of clarity around whether you could be in the red zone on foot at this point, but it was your understanding that you could not be there with a vehicle.
01:40:12.820Is that correct? Do I have that correct?
01:40:14.280Well, I meant as in you weren't going to be able to bring in a large truck.
01:40:21.000I wasn't really thinking about it in terms of individual vehicles.
01:40:25.140I know my vehicle was there and I got five parking tickets in 24 hours and my car hadn't
01:40:31.760So I knew there was an issue with vehicles, but my mind at the time was focused on people
01:40:39.360that wanted to come to the city, came in on foot.
01:40:42.620Okay, well, let's take a look at this document then, if we could scroll to the top a little bit.
01:40:49.320It says, we want to inform you that you will face severe penalties under provincial and federal legislation if you do not cease further unlawful activity and remove your vehicle and your property immediately from all unlawful protest sites.
01:41:03.120And then if we scroll down a little, it says you may be arrested, your vehicle could be seized, a few other issues.
01:41:12.620Those delivering, you can see at the bottom, those delivering fuel and other supplies can be charged.
01:41:19.880Persons traveling to the unlawful protest sites to participate or support the unlawful demonstration can be charged.
01:41:27.600So does that perhaps clarify the question of whether you could be there at this point in time on February 17th?
01:41:33.760Well, that's based on a document that was posted around the city that was not actually served to me personally, so I didn't look at it.
01:41:44.880I can't really explain why I didn't look at it, but you're posting that, but I was getting different interpretation from the lawyers that were accompanying us.
01:41:58.680Right, so you're getting an interpretation from your lawyer, but the Ottawa police are...
01:42:03.760circulating information that you're choosing not to read that is telling you that if you continue
01:42:09.480to stay here you may get arrested is that fair but I vaguely even recall ever seeing it like I
01:42:16.820I might have seen something posted in an elevator once that's all I even remember noticing that
01:42:22.160there was something there and I but honestly until the violence came to the protesters from
01:42:33.560the police um i didn't see this as something that uh we i didn't see it as something that
01:42:42.800needed to be abided by because it was a peaceful protest and i knew that justice mclean had already
01:42:47.660ruled that we had a right to be there whether or not the emergency act was invoked you know we're
01:42:55.000getting conflicting information from the police we're getting it we have information that i trust
01:43:00.000a lot more from our legal team, because we were dealing with pro bono lawyers. There was five of
01:43:05.980them that did criminal law, and we had the two lawyers that were on the ground with us the entire
01:43:10.220time. So we were there to do a protest, and we took the judges. I personally took the judge's
01:43:16.400word, as well as Keith and Eva's word, that what we were doing was lawful. And so that's how I
01:43:22.000conducted myself, according to that. So I respect the fact that you may have been operating on
01:43:27.300legal advice. But I guess my question to you is, it wasn't a question of there being a lack of
01:43:32.880clarity from the Ottawa Police Service. And in fact, it was just that you disagreed with the
01:43:37.980direction of the Ottawa Police Service. At the time, I wasn't really considering that as direction
01:43:43.040because at no time did the police actually come up to me and say that in no uncertain term. It
01:43:48.720was something that was stuck to the wall on a piece of paper. So when it stuck to the wall and
01:43:52.720handed to me, it didn't really seem overly credible. And I don't want to say credible,
01:43:57.660but if it was so important to them, I would have thought that any one of those police
01:44:01.240liaison officers would have walked up and handed it to me and explained it to me with either a
01:44:06.260puppet show or a box of crayons so that I could understand it. But that was never the case. It
01:44:11.860was just posted on a wall. Were you aware that there was also social media posts in relation
01:44:16.480to these warnings? No. Were you monitoring the Ottawa Police Service social media? I was not.
01:44:33.920I was only 15 feet away from the horses when they trampled the two people.
01:44:38.120So then you would have heard prior to the arrest taking place, multiple verbal warnings from police officers indicating that if people didn't depart, they risked being arrested.
01:46:00.560Mr. Morazzo, Tom Curry for former chief, slowly.
01:46:05.460Just on the point that my friend Ms. Barrow was asking you about, can you just help us?
01:46:10.100I thought I saw in the statement, we don't have to go back to it, just tell me if I've got this right,
01:46:13.960That you encouraged the protesters towards the end as this enforcement action rolled out, you encouraged protesters to leave the protest site rather than be arrested?
01:46:42.840So beginning on the 19th, did you then change your approach and encourage protesters to leave rather than be arrested?
01:46:52.980After what I saw personally in the city, the level of violence that the police had brought to the protesters, what I saw, I was so disgusted.
01:47:04.440That day, Danny Bulford had also been arrested later in the afternoon.
01:47:11.260And the following morning on the 19th, I had a meeting with the remaining people that I knew to be leaders or truck captains in my hotel room with other people.
01:47:23.900And my advice to everybody was to depart the city of Ottawa and to peacefully withdraw.
01:47:30.280but that it would be it would have to be up to the individual owner operators of their own vehicles
01:47:36.000they have to decide for themselves but our recommendation was that they left the city of
01:47:41.840ottawa as peacefully as they could and i at 10 03 in the morning i remember the phone call with the
01:47:48.820opp i notified them and i said we will peacefully withdraw you need to move your concrete barriers
01:47:54.160and allow us to get fuel into the trucks and we will start making arrangements to leave as soon
01:47:59.820as possible but that each truck driver had to make their own individual decision and you know
01:48:06.480there is a video of it I'm sure somebody may bring it up and you know it was a very frustrating
01:48:15.260phone call that I had with the OPP but I said we are recommended it's not my proudest moment if you
01:48:21.940do show the video I my language is terrible but I was angry and I was frustrated but I advised him
01:48:28.900to allow the truckers to leave move the concrete barriers because we couldn't get out and allow us
01:48:34.700to get fuel because you know fuel was a bit of an issue trying to get out right and for the
01:48:40.880commissioner's purposes then did did do you know how many of the protesters took the advice that
01:48:48.700you gave and and left voluntarily there was a group of protesters that were set up with tents
01:48:56.140there was a uh it was an outdoor kitchen basically with a big pig roast and and stuff and in that
01:49:01.800that individual peter slowly resigned as ottawa police chief on february 15th he's asking about
01:49:08.240things that happened after that it's outside of this guy to leave um relevant i just know that
01:49:13.580various groups took the advice and some didn't um but by the the morning of the 19th
01:49:18.980um from from our perspective the violence just actually got worse and when they moved down to
01:49:26.540the war memorial that's when things got really quite disturbing uh about you know and and even
01:49:32.720on the the 18th things were incredibly disturbing you know you'll hear testimony here I'm sure from
01:49:39.520Chris Deering the horrific things that he had and he's a combat veteran of Afghanistan so after
01:49:44.880hearing that um and in seeing the footage of all of that stuff after that there was no way
01:49:53.600there was any point in staying any longer i mean i i understand violence um there was no way those
01:50:01.880truckers were were ever going to be able to repel the police in any way the the truckers who the
01:50:09.520those who remained and those who remained and those who didn't were not allowed to get out
01:50:14.700Because I think at that point on the 18th and 19th, the police decided they're going in and, you know, we had seen the text messages of RCMP officers laughing and joking about bringing like, don't don't do it all in one day.
01:50:43.440So just a couple of things, and you told the commissioner that you were watching the interaction between the Police Services Board Chair and Chief Slowly.
01:50:55.780And did you form the conclusion that Chief Slowly's support from the Police Services Board had been badly affected, diminished?
01:51:08.380I, you know, it was my understanding that it is against the law for Police Services Board to direct police operations. And from my perspective, what I was watching was her covert or very, I don't know what the word is, but Diane Dean's deep desire to start directing police operations to chief slowly.
01:51:33.820And when I listened to his response, I had to listen to it twice to understand what really was going on in that meeting.
01:51:44.420It was it was very clear to me that he was getting pressure from every different direction.
01:51:50.980And especially because Diane Dean effectively was his boss and she was putting an enormous amount of pressure on him.
01:51:59.500And combining that with all the other rhetoric from the mayor and the other politicians locally,
01:52:06.340it was my opinion that if we didn't do something to help him, to take the pressure off of him specifically,
01:52:14.140there would be a very negative reaction from the entire police service of Ottawa.
01:52:20.780And you were attempting also, as I understand it, to take pressure off from the residents.
01:52:25.260Yeah, and that was the strategy, was to take the pressure off the residents.
01:52:28.760and thereby get less complaints to the police.
01:52:32.300And then if the politicians were getting less pressure,
01:52:36.440they would put less pressure on the chief.
01:53:23.980And I knew there was probably RCMP in the area.
01:53:28.180But it was our or my belief, because I knew that the liaison teams were interacting with us at least, that we had an exceptionally good chance to work with the police.
01:53:43.140This is why we made a concerted effort to constantly work with the police, because we knew that, you know, we had a measure of power in terms of the convoy itself.
01:53:53.160But they actually have the force, the physical force, to change the situation.
01:53:58.840And so we thought if we could just keep the temperature down constantly and effectively with the police,
01:54:03.760there wouldn't be a need to bring in other police departments.
01:55:00.000During the meeting, Morazo and Wilson said they would try to move trucks from residential areas downtown
01:55:05.040and clear the Rideau and Sussex intersection.
01:55:08.200Police agreed to move their concrete barriers temporarily so that trucks could get onto Wellington Street.
01:55:13.240The caveat, however, which Wilson and Mirazzo knew all too well, was that no one could force the truckers to do anything they didn't want to do.
01:55:43.540yes uh thank you commissioner uh mr morazzo my name is eva krajevska and i'm counsel for the
01:55:53.560canadian civil liberties association um i want to ask you a few questions with respect to the
01:55:59.900emergencies orders um after the emergencies the federal emergencies act was invoked uh were any
01:56:07.200of your personal or corporate bank accounts frozen? Yes, all of my bank accounts, my joint
01:56:15.080bank accounts with my former spouse were all affected. My credit card that was on file with
01:56:22.680my son's pharmacy were suspended. My former spouse, her credit rating was dropped 109 points.
01:56:31.560um yes so everything was frozen i had access to no money other than cash
01:56:38.380and so these were all uh your personal uh accounts and not just ones that you hold
01:56:46.760individually but also ones that you hold jointly with your child and your former spouse yes they
01:56:53.420They were joint accounts were frozen, as well as my ex-wife's, my first wife's financial institution reached out and cautioned her that potentially her accounts were going to also be frozen.
01:57:12.360And I haven't been with her in over a decade.
01:57:17.160And Mr. Moritzer, for how long were your bank accounts frozen?
01:57:20.800During the entire time of the Emergency Act.
01:57:24.160So until the Emergencies Act was revoked.
01:57:39.320And if we didn't have cash, he wouldn't have been able to get his heart medication.
01:57:44.180He had a month and a half previous had myocarditis and was on some pretty intense heart medication.
01:57:55.720And were you given any information either from the bank or from the police as to how your bank accounts could be reopened?
01:58:05.260I was never notified that my bank accounts had been frozen, and I was never notified that they would be, and I was never notified that they were reinstated at no time.
01:58:18.220So did you just find out that they were frozen because you could no longer use your cards?
01:58:24.940Could no longer access any of our financial assets at all.
01:58:30.660and were you and how did you find out that your bank accounts and assets were unfrozen was it
01:58:38.260just because you were able to use them again we just continued it once we discovered it we would
01:58:43.120check every couple hours to see if we had access to our our own money were you able to access your
01:58:49.940online banking just to get in you could log in but there was a message on it that said
01:58:55.360um access to your financial whatever was denied okay thank you very much mr morazzo thank you
01:59:02.400thank you thank you commissioner thank you next is uh democracy fund jccf
01:59:10.080Mr. Commissioner, Mr. Morazzo, I'll be very brief today.
01:59:26.460You indicated at the beginning of your testimony, sorry, my name is Antoine Dye,
01:59:44.200Is that a reference to abuses of power?
01:59:46.400And what are some of those things that you saw that you never thought you would see?
01:59:51.260Well, the biggest thing for me, which was incredible, was that informed consent was being absolutely ignored.
02:00:00.980This is like, are you talking about prior to the convoy or during?
02:00:05.660The things you saw that you never thought you would see, which motivated you to participate?
02:00:10.480You know, if you were to look at what the city of Toronto was doing, because I was living at the time close, I was just in the Barrie area.
02:00:18.280So I was looking at what the Toronto police were doing, what the premier was doing with all the lockdowns.
02:00:26.420The lockdowns made absolutely no sense.
02:00:30.400um the vilification of canadians by the prime minister of canada was
02:00:36.960shocking um so deeply disturbing to to hear him talk about canadians the way he did
02:00:46.120um that's just one of the examples premier doug ford in in the rhetoric that he had and and the
02:00:53.280other big thing for me, which was really, really shocking to me, was that they did not exercise
02:01:00.480or use Emergency Management Ontario to manage this entire pandemic for this province. It was
02:01:09.620mind-boggling to me, and I knew about them because I actually worked with the EMO representative who
02:01:15.280was a retired Brigadier General when I was posted to the headquarters in Toronto. And so my
02:01:20.380expectation was to handle this pandemic, you would have used the very institution within each
02:01:25.900province that is meant to handle a pandemic. So I knew things were fundamentally upside down with
02:01:31.940the approach that the government was using. And you would see subsequent effects of those decisions,
02:01:40.220which were, you know, shut down a department store, stop selling kids clothing and stuff like
02:01:48.420that but you can go and get a case of beer that's no problem right so there was there was a lot of
02:01:53.140stuff that were just so absurd and cumulatively uh after a while that starts to build up this
02:02:00.600amount of anxiety and in fear and I know a lot of people that I was talking to especially when
02:02:06.000I was campaigning were uh recounting their time during all the lockdowns and they they felt the
02:02:11.520same fear that I did of the police which was really unusual I didn't want to go in public
02:02:17.000Because honestly, I thought that I was going to be, it would take nothing for the police to come for any infraction and start arresting people for the most bizarre things.
02:02:29.600I mean, we saw a year and a half ago, two Calgary police officers pointed a taser and threatened to arrest a young kid who was playing hockey out in Calgary.
02:02:40.600You know, in the next day, police on guard went public because there were law enforcement in this country that were just appalled by what was going on in this country.
02:02:51.780And they decided to, you know, start becoming public and defending what they thought was massive breaches of the charter, which they spend their whole careers defending the charter.
02:03:03.600And so when the police started to push back through organizations like Police on Guard or later on Mounties for Freedom, when the police started to push back, that was a sign that things had really, really gone off the rails for me.
02:03:18.420So accumulatively, there were just too many things to ignore in this society right now.
02:03:23.160But I think the worst thing for me was when the convoy was rolling through and I wasn't part of it, the statements coming from the prime minister of this country were terrifying, disgusting, just unbecoming of a prime minister of a country.
02:03:44.280you know of people that actually voted him in to represent and he was acting like he was a king
02:03:49.720and it was appalling and it's certainly not what i joined the canadian military to uh to defend
02:03:56.760uh nothing of the sort so i i just didn't know how we could possibly call ourselves a free country
02:04:03.140anymore if our prime minister was allowed to get away with the rhetoric he was getting away with
02:04:07.500and nobody stood up until the truckers all right well thank you and thank you for your service
02:07:34.140And my only reaction was, whatever you do, make sure you keep at least one lane open across that bridge so that there can be traffic going back and forth.
02:07:43.780Do you still have a copy of that message?
02:07:53.200And to be honest, I really did not want to have contact with any other protest around the country.
02:08:00.360I had my hands full with what I was doing.
02:08:02.920And all of these convoys and protests were all organic.
02:08:06.460They started all naturally on their own from citizens that were absolutely fed up with what was happening to this society and this country.
02:08:14.020So I was perfectly happy to have no contact with any other protest other than the one I was involved in.
02:08:20.400During your two conversations with Mr. McKenzie, did he ever indicate to you that he was in contact with anyone in any of the other protest locations in Canada?
02:08:54.640I didn't start to learn about the protest until I was already in Ottawa.
02:08:58.380The only one that I knew about was in, I was in Ottawa, and then people would just say, hey, there's another protest in Windsor, or like people in the room, they would just be discussing where they had heard about another protest somewhere else.
02:09:15.420I had just assumed that it was very much like this protest in Ottawa, where citizens just said, we're seeing Ottawa as an example that you can actually do something.
02:09:27.080And I think the Ottawa protest was an inspiration for a lot of people.
02:09:30.660And what I later learned was that there was 20 convoys around the world, and they were all saying that they were inspired by the convoy in Ottawa.
02:09:39.640So it seemed to be a logical conclusion to me that there was further convoys being inspired by Ottawa around Canada as well.
02:10:04.300It wasn't clear to me what those 322 trucks were, and by that I mean were those part of the convoy group you were involved with, or is that total trucks?
02:10:23.300And I was asking for a headcount of all of the trucks in the downtown.
02:10:29.760So Wellington being the sort of center of gravity and all of the perpendicular and parallel streets based off of Wellington.
02:10:37.180And I had asked for people that I was working with daily if you could go out and get and find out how many vehicles we have on every street.
02:10:48.040Yeah, it's the we. I'm trying to figure out.
02:10:51.020Yeah, these were convoys, from my understanding, what happened.
02:10:55.900So, for example, a convoy came in from New Brunswick.
02:10:58.860And as they got into the city, they had a plan to stick together.
02:11:04.620And as soon as they got here and they interacted with the Ottawa police,
02:11:07.920the Ottawa police started directing that particular convoy, as an example, in New Brunswick.
02:11:12.060And that entire convoy got spread out all over the place.
02:11:20.180So when they came in here, they expected they drove in together, they'd stay together, but they were spread out like buckshot all over all of the streets.
02:11:29.440So you couldn't say that, hey, the convoy from New Brunswick that started with 50 trucks, as an example, were still confined to 50 trucks over on a certain area.
02:11:39.340They just literally got spread out all over the place and nobody can control that.
02:11:43.180So we were trying to organize ourselves in a way that we could get effective communication going between the ARC and every single individual truck driver.
02:11:53.720We just wanted to reduce our span of control to the convoy leader from New Brunswick.
02:11:59.220Just to talk to that person, you go share it.
02:12:01.520We couldn't do that because we were spread out everywhere.
02:12:04.460And so communications were near impossible for us.
02:40:41.200and i understand on facebook you would host live events is that correct i would do podcasts and i
02:40:55.240would do media um and i'd catch interactions in real time um for basically just to show it
02:41:09.000in real in reality and not some distorted mainstream media view i'd show you what it
02:41:17.080was like in the real time and i understand in 2019 you were involved in a convoy called united
02:41:27.600we roll yes sir correct yes sir and uh that was a protest over some oil and gas issues
02:41:35.480There was a protest over Bill C-69 and C-48, which is the anti-pipeline and the anti-harbour moratorium, of which, when we came to Ottawa, we were successful.
02:41:47.380They reopened all the contracts after, and actually, since I've been incarcerated, as of June 2022, both those bills have been scrapped because they've been deemed unconstitutional.
03:05:06.280Now, I want to move forward to February 12th, and on that date, did you learn that an agreement had been reached with the mayor of Ottawa to move trucks out of residential areas and on to Wellington Street?
03:05:45.080Just from other road captains and people that were, I don't know, people who thought they had a role in this and were a voice and could make calls, I guess, if you say, like, make calls.
03:06:05.280like they were told something and passed it on to the block captains
03:06:10.740and then the block captains would pass it on to their drivers.
03:15:10.600Never saw it, but I heard about it. I knew about it.
03:15:15.040And do you know what they're referring to when they say...
03:15:20.680Well, the reason is, and I'm going to say it straight up,
03:15:23.440and I'm going to have to give a little bit of a brief background to this.
03:15:27.320I've been chasing the government and exposing a lot of stuff.
03:15:31.660of the overreach, the financial and economic hardships that have been happening.
03:15:38.740I have in my possession the document of the non-disclosure agreement between a young juvenile and a certain specific member of parliament.
03:15:51.740And when doing so, exposing also the $42 billion infrastructure project that was stolen out of Alberta's hands and handed over to the Chinese government and the implementation of Chinese soldiers on Canadian soil, I've been absolutely harassed and degraded and defamed and discredited and character assassinated.
03:16:18.980and these guys were getting attacked because of my because of me so when they put this out
03:16:28.580i get it they had to push me to out and look at everybody and you know we don't want anything to
03:16:35.900do with packing i actually absolutely encouraged it 100 put it out there that i don't have anything
03:16:43.060to do with this put it out there go fund me wouldn't release their funds because go fund me
03:16:49.600directly contacted them and said we're not going to release your funds if patrick king's involved
03:16:55.260so do you know this is how much target like how much they're out to to make sure that i everything
03:17:04.380that i touch is ruined so do you know what they're referring to when they say uh uh talk of violence