00:16:31.800The electoral campaign was a time when Canadians could be consulted directly on the measures that we wanted to implement to protect public health.
00:16:47.160You can also bet he'll try to speak in French when Brendan Miller gets up there.
00:16:50.780vaccine mandate for people who wanted to use public transit or people who wanted to work for
00:16:59.000the federal service federal public service that was a major decision to limit access to public
00:17:07.140transportation and so it was very important that Canadians could speak their minds with regard to
00:17:20.320this. We want to keep people healthy and safe. And I thought it was totally appropriate
00:17:26.760to have healthy and strong debates on those issues. And that's exactly what happened during
00:17:34.880the elections. Several parties were for what we were saying, others were strongly against.
00:17:42.960And Canadians during this campaign could speak their minds.
00:17:50.320What we also saw, my team and myself, we saw a certain level of frustration, of demonstration, and of a certain level of aggressiveness.
00:18:11.660Let's say a certain intensity of emotions with regard to that campaign, with regard to what we were proposing.
00:18:20.320And that exceeded what we had seen in prior political events or such campaigns.
00:18:28.040So there, we could see that there was potentially a strong intensity.
00:18:36.600We saw that in the few months prior, and we were suspecting this could reach up to Ottawa with that convoy.
00:18:44.380Just to sum that up, we'll switch back things.
00:18:46.420I think we'll probably be switching back and forth a few times.
00:18:50.320you saw the protest coming and you've been briefed on it. And as you said, Ottawa is used to dealing
00:18:57.820with big protests, but there was maybe a hint that something could be a little bit different
00:19:01.580here. So there was a hint of worry there. And then of course, we know that the convoy arrived
00:19:05.960on, started arriving on the 28th and then went into full swing on the 29th. What was that first
00:19:14.460weekend like when the convoy arrived from your point of view well first of all one of the things
00:19:20.920that we noted in the run-up to the arrival was a bit of a um a bit of a disconnect between what
00:19:30.040the sort of political arms of my office were seeing and expecting from what we'd seen on
00:19:39.980social media colored by our experiences from the campaign that was only a few months before
00:19:46.460contrasted with the assurances by whether it was ottawa police services or even the public service
00:19:56.060that this was just a normal quote-unquote style of protest that we see on the hill fairly
00:20:06.520regularly. And there was already a little bit of worry that this might be a different brand of
00:20:13.720event than Canadians were used to seeing. And we certainly saw during the first weekend
00:20:23.000that the expectations that the police had said that they would simply go home,
00:20:28.660the ability to keep it under control was not exactly there.
00:20:37.300Okay, and I think starting on that Sunday,
00:20:40.480you made a few calls to various MPs in your Ottawa caucus,
00:20:44.380sort of checking in and seeing how people were doing
00:20:47.280because there was a level of concern there.
00:20:49.780So on that note, I'll ask Mr. Clerk to please pull up
00:20:53.360ssm.can.nsc402813 while that's being pulled up it's a it's a readout of a call that you had on
00:21:04.560sunday january 30th with yasser nakfi just for the benefit of everyone in the room can you tell us
00:21:11.840yes sir is the uh member of parliament for uh ontario uh for uh ottawa center okay perfect
00:21:17.680so if we can just scroll down to the text here mr there we go um so hey esther how are you pm
00:21:25.740how are you doing and how are folks in the community and mr nakfi says very dire community
00:21:33.060feels under siege you can imagine number of trucks rigs honking for them it's a party but
00:21:39.120they forget it's also a neighborhood especially low-income families i've been getting a lot of
00:21:44.240feedback. Also been in touch with Marco, that's Minister Manichino, Bill, I assume Minister Blair
00:21:49.940and local officials, finding ways to make sure these folks are not part of residential streets
00:21:54.920tonight will be challenging. And you say, I feel so gutted for so many people who are just in such
00:22:00.520a difficult situation. It's not just disruption, but there's a lot of hateful rhetoric going on.
00:22:05.440Are you seeing some of that? And Mr. Natvi says, it's unbelievable. The images that we see are hard
00:22:11.560to believe. Saw a life-size poster on a truck of Hitler and your name underneath. This is the kind
00:22:17.620of grossness our country is subject to. I have constituents being yelled at for wearing masks
00:22:22.960while out doing normal chores. There are all kinds of issues people are facing in the neighborhood.
00:22:28.360I don't know if they can sleep at night. And you then reply, there doesn't seem like much clarity
00:22:34.000on how long this will last. And then you refer to an incident at the Shepherd of Good Hope.
00:22:40.160And then finally, your last comment here is, I'm so sorry, my friend, this is just horrible. The RCMP is concerned. Everyone's on eggshells. Having this going on in our nation's capital is just totally irresponsible. So to some extent, that's self-explanatory. But I'm wondering if you can help us a little bit in explaining the context of that call and what Mr. Nockfi was referring to and what you'd observed yourself.
00:23:05.560Well, I dare say that citizens of Ottawa are used to political activity and protests on the Hill, on a range of things.
00:23:15.840But this was present and in their daily lives and disrupting their weekend in a way that wasn't a usual political protest.
00:23:28.800from the intimidation and harassment of people for wearing masks
00:23:34.140to a very concerning story about folks disrupting the nearby homeless shelter
00:41:20.840OK. But I mean, it also meant she was getting bombarded.
00:41:27.080The Rideau Hall, which is filled with good people giving out medals to worthy Canadians, were bombarded constantly by demands that she fire the prime minister and in a very, very aggressive way.
00:41:43.360And that's that's what I was referring to as tough for her and tough for her team.
00:41:47.900Understood. And is that what prompted this call?
00:41:50.840um could have been part of it but I also speak regularly with the with the governor general just
00:41:56.720to check in and obviously this was something that was worthwhile checking in on but yes that was
00:42:01.600probably the reason fair enough um okay so then she asked if there's any sense on how it will be
00:42:07.600resolved and you say something and then uh now they're starting to do that bill blair has handled
00:42:13.420a lot in the past we know uh we've heard a lot from bill blair at the commission as well um this
00:42:19.280is not a protest, more an occupation, hard to defuse. It will take time. Be very careful to
00:42:25.360not try to fix something we don't have the tools for. And then there's some discussion of the
00:42:29.520funding. Can you scroll down a bit, Mr. Clerk? On to the next page, please. And then the Governor
00:42:39.660General says, yeah, there's some of the senior staff getting a lot of hateful emails asking for
00:42:46.240the Governor General to fire the Prime Minister and to create these crazy things. It's difficult
00:42:51.080to receive these things. They made a website in my name saying stuff. I have to let it slide off
00:42:56.420our backs, and then you discuss the security situation. So is that where you were just
00:43:00.380referring to, Prime Minister? Yes. Sort of bombardment? Okay. So just generally speaking,
00:43:08.240before we move on, what was your sense of where things were at on that second weekend?
00:43:16.240The first weekend caught everyone by surprise.
00:43:21.740Through the second weekend, I think I mentioned it in referring to Bill Blair,
00:43:25.760talking with the local police with his own expertise and background,
00:43:32.180talking about things that can be done to try to de-escalate,
00:43:36.540to start putting an end to this, understanding that it can't happen overnight,
00:43:40.920but that there are things that should be done.
00:43:42.900There was an expectation or a hope that on that second weekend, we would see a decrease in activity and a dwindling.
00:43:53.840Instead, we saw a surge on that second weekend and things that we had heard that the police were going to start doing this or doing that and we're going to be able to respond didn't seem to be materializing.
00:44:11.900There was a sense that the occupation was just continuing full swing without any real control or even plan to end it.
00:44:29.900And I know from conversations with MPs and others that the citizens of Ottawa were quite frantic about having to go through a second weekend of horns and disruptions and being yelled at for wearing masks and not being able to go to their neighbourhood stores and seeing the Rideau Centre shut down and all these different things that were really problematic.
00:44:54.600and people were starting to get pretty upset that this was you know two full weekends uh that uh
00:45:01.100that they were being massively disrupted by okay thank you mr clerk take that one down um
00:45:07.480so speaking of getting a little upset the next topic i want to address with you is
00:45:12.340uh ontario's initial response to the protest in those early weeks so one theme that's emerged
00:45:19.760from the evidence we've heard and we've seen this several references to it in the documents
00:45:23.640is your government's frustration and your own frustration with what might be characterized
00:45:29.900as a certain reluctance on the part of Ontario to to engage especially in the tripartite tables that
00:45:36.000Minister Blair I think had put together so Mr. Clerk can you pull up ssm.can.nsc402837
00:45:45.600this is uh the readout from a call that you had prime minister with
00:45:55.820okay so just keep scrolling a bit mr clerk uh pass the key takeaways on to page two
00:46:06.340um so just to stop there give a bit of situation so mr mayor watson here brings up the expression
00:46:15.580whack-a-mole which we've heard several times in the commission um fighting a losing battle
00:46:20.720we don't have enough police um and and you reply that well that's entirely right i don't i know
00:46:28.300we're looking carefully at that we're looking at the resource thing and then you say on the
00:46:32.540the ottawa policing side you've seen as i have some concerns on how things were handled from
00:46:38.360the beginning and then you ask about uh mayor watson's relationship with the police chief and
00:46:43.080and how they're working together and you observe that there are moments where Mayor Watson is saying
00:46:48.200one thing and the Chief is saying another and ask if there's anything you can do about that so
00:46:53.640just briefly before we go on can you comment on that a little bit and the Ottawa policing
00:46:57.960situation to the extent that you were briefed on and aware of it? One of the things we'd said
00:47:04.440from the very beginning to the RCMP and to government in general, that if there was anything
00:47:16.160we could do to support the Ottawa Police Services in what they were doing, if we had resources
00:47:22.360or abilities because there is a federal presence in this capital city, we should do it. That
00:47:29.420were there to be helpful i instructed brenda to try and do whatever whatever she could to send
00:47:35.660support to uh to uh to the city of ottawa what we got back or what we had heard as i recall were
00:47:44.460different numbers from what the mayor said uh ottawa needed to what the police chief was saying
00:47:52.300they needed. And the one thing that the commissioner made clear to me was they needed to know that
00:48:00.100if they were deploying resources that they were going to be appropriately used, that
00:48:06.080there was a plan for that. And we see it sometimes in requests for assistance across the country
00:48:12.800where someone will say, we need 20,000 police officers or we need the military to come in
00:48:19.640with a thousand troops or we need this or that in in rfas and part of our due diligence is okay
00:48:26.960what do you need them for what are you going to be using doing for because for example if you're
00:48:31.440sending in military as we did in in hurricane fiona to help clear power lines as was necessary
00:48:39.760in atlantic canada in no situation do military members engage in policing activity
00:48:49.380and there was a sense that maybe they could be directing traffic and we have to make sure no
00:48:53.800they're not police military isn't there to play police roles and that that's why we always have
00:48:59.200questions that okay we're going to send resources but we need to know how how they're going to be
00:49:04.360deployed and there wasn't always that clarity around what the plan was how many they actually
00:49:09.560needed uh how they were being used and how they were uh you know how where they were going to
00:49:16.100be best deployed okay um just keep scrolling down please mr clerk i'll tell you when to stop
00:49:22.760uh keep going please oh no i'm sorry i missed it there we go uh so mayor watson says i'm gonna ask
00:49:30.920after this phone call whether the federal government will live up to its commitment
00:49:34.440we need boots on the ground very shortly it's not dying down toke over metcalf street blocked all of
00:49:40.720it and you reply listen yes yes you can say the federal government will be here there with more
00:49:46.080resources. But again, the thing that frustrates me, and everyone is conflated, but Doug Ford has
00:49:52.180been hiding from his responsibility on it for political reasons, as you highlighted. And
00:49:57.200important, I suppose it's important that we don't let them get away from that. We intend to support
00:50:02.540you on that. And Mayor Watson replies, if they keep dragging their feet, I'm happy to call them
00:50:07.780out on it. It would be nice if we got something firmed up with the federal government to shame
00:50:11.760them. Ford didn't even make an effort to come and see what's going on. So can I just ask you,
00:50:16.680Prime Minister, to comment a bit on the politics that are going on there?
00:50:20.940Well, first of all, when I say everyone is, I believe, is conflating, it was conflating,
00:50:26.220you know, a federal, a protest of federal issues with a federal responsibility to do the policing
00:50:31.560that would dissipate that protest. So that was, sorry, a little bit of an interplay that
00:50:38.800But there was a sense that in the initial phases of the protest, the Ontario government was happy for the perception to be out there that this was a city of Ottawa issue and a federal government issue, and that as a province, they really didn't have a responsibility or a jurisdiction to play in there.
00:51:06.200It was an unpleasant situation. There were bad headlines. I was getting grumbled at by citizens of Ottawa every day because the federal government wasn't dealing with it.
00:51:18.400I can understand that provincial politicians who were being overlooked in the complaints everyone had about why this wasn't getting resolved would say, you know what, let's not poke our noses into this and people will continue criticizing those people that help.
00:51:34.780I'm fairly certain that behind the scenes, the OPP was engaged with Ottawa Police Services
00:51:41.420and was providing supports as we were in front of government.
00:51:43.480So that's why you call it a national emergency, because people are grumbling at you?
00:51:47.840There was probably a decision to continue to stay back a little bit and let us wear it a little bit.
00:51:55.700What we had seen during the pandemic and during other crises
00:52:00.520is when the three orders of government are able to work seamlessly together.
00:52:06.600Not only does it deliver better results and better coordination,
00:52:11.980but it actually reassures citizens to see that people who are not always politically aligned at the highest levels
00:52:22.420can roll up their sleeves and work for the benefit of citizens.
00:52:26.360And that's certainly something that I've always tried to do,
00:52:29.180and I've been able to do with Premier Ford on many, many issues.
00:52:31.920But at this point in the evolution of the occupation,
00:52:36.240that wasn't something that we were able to do.
00:52:39.320And so, yes, there was a bit of frustration.
00:52:41.880Well, and we'll see that the very next day you had a call with Premier Ford.
00:52:46.480And just in the narrative, what was going on at this point,
00:52:49.740in addition to Ottawa, and there were a few things,
00:52:51.960as we know, going on across the country,
00:52:54.520But by this time, the 7th, 8th, 9th, the Ambassador Bridge blockade had really heated up and was in full swing.
00:53:01.380And that seemed to be a turning point in several ways, but certainly for Ontario's participation in all of this.
00:53:09.340So, Mr. Clerk, if you can take that document down, please, and bring up SSM.CAN.NSC402845.
00:53:18.440so point for advocacy to to make a long story short this is a call where it seems that you
00:53:34.720and premier ford are engaging and deciding to work together to solve this problem at this point
00:53:39.480um you can skip over the first oh here we go the the last part of that first paragraph so
00:53:45.620pdf premier doug ford uh he says what we can recommend and what we can work together on is
00:53:52.440i've asked our ag our attorney general to look at legal ways to give police more tools and exhaust
00:53:58.940legal remedies because the police are a little shy and i can't direct them so that's one area
00:54:04.300we can focus on we can't take their polar licenses um we check that we we can shut down
00:54:10.300their fuel consumption and cordon off highways that's where we're at and the operator license
00:54:15.600Yeah, probably not polar, but operator licenses. Let's go with that. So then you reply, first of all, they're not a legal protest. They're occupying a municipal street and are not legally parked. You shouldn't need more tools, legal tools. They're barricading the Ontario economy and doing millions of dollars of damage a day and harming people's lives.
00:54:38.560at a time we're trying to draw in investments a whole bunch of people are looking at this and
00:54:43.920saying we can't even clear up a protest on a bridge so just stopping there prime minister
00:54:48.480do you remember what you were referring to when you start talking about you shouldn't need more
00:54:52.960tools um i mean that whole question around legality or illegality of the protest um they
00:55:05.720didn't have a permit to protest they not not certainly as long as they had they were illegally
00:55:13.040parked they were engaged in disruptive activities there are any number of municipal and provincial
00:55:23.740bylaw infractions and legal infractions that they were engaged in by just being there
00:55:28.700And there is a sense that, you know, and this was based on an earlier conversation I had with Bill Blair about how one proceeds in this, is, you know, you can enforce small things as a way of keeping the situation under control and creating boundaries and balances and moving towards it.
01:00:01.480I was talking about the fact that this simply can't continue to be stretched out this way.
01:00:08.700But when I say they need to act immediately, obviously, I'm not directing the Premier to direct police.
01:00:15.240We know all the limitations that we have, but there was an expectation that this was a situation that was going on for too long.
01:00:22.380As Doug pointed out a couple paragraphs later, there is a sense that the police jurisdiction had lost control and wasn't able to control the situation.
01:00:34.260Okay, that's fair. I took the document down before we got to Ottawa, but that's right.
01:00:37.980Thank you, Mr. Cook. That won't come down now.
01:00:41.340So shifting gears away from Ontario, we understand that there's a lot of concern coming at the federal government from the United States as well.
01:00:53.200And again, the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday spoke about the many conversations she was having with stakeholders in the U.S., U.S. officials, Brian Deese in particular.
01:01:03.620And we understand that on, I believe, February 11th, you ended up having a phone call with President Biden.
01:01:11.340Mr. Clerk, we'll just pull up the readout of that call.
01:06:33.460whether it's deputy ministers or heads of agencies,
01:06:37.960the commissioner of the RCMP, the director of the RCMP,
01:06:40.460or whatever you are giving direct reports.
01:06:44.940Ministers are usually, if not always, there as well.
01:06:48.820But if they speak at all, it's at the very end
01:06:51.620to add a little bit of color or further further input irgs are all about making sure that the
01:06:59.540government as a whole is hearing directly that i am hearing directly from all these different
01:07:06.020agencies and all these different um inputs into whatever incident uh and and then we um and then
01:07:16.820we establish a plan or we move forward uh on that it's actually a decision-making body we can
01:07:22.660make determinations about what we do next but that frame is uh fairly unique amongst those
01:07:29.780amongst our committee structure so what kind of lapses that layer between the officials and the
01:07:35.540ministers of it so gives yeah directly from from the ministers which is sometimes something that
01:07:42.340that uh cabinet ministers who are used to getting briefed by their officials and then briefing their
01:07:47.940colleagues uh takes a little bit of getting used to uh when we have a different irg on a different
01:07:52.740subject with new ministers who aren't usually at irgs it always is a little adjustment for them
01:07:57.300that no no we're hearing from their deputy minister not from them um it's about informing
01:08:03.460us but it's also about making sure that everyone is on the same page one of the challenges in any
01:08:09.860government uh is the siloing that happens something that happens in in public safety
01:08:16.560doesn't necessarily get connected to transport doesn't necessarily get connected as organically
01:08:22.440as we'd like to immigration and you know various things like that so making sure that everyone's
01:08:28.800around the table getting on the same page in terms of what's happening with this incident that we're
01:08:34.720looking at and what we're going to do about it and there's usually okay let's here are the taskings
01:08:40.640we're going to do uh and uh let's check back in in a few days and see see how see how we've done
01:08:47.500see where we are again uh irgs rarely happen on a sort of a one-off there's usually a series of
01:08:53.560them until the incident is is over or has been moved to a different body to uh to weigh in on
01:09:00.740Okay, thank you. That's helpful in understanding. So we know that the IRG that you convened to deal with this particular problem met, first of all, three times before invocation, and then I think it met daily after that, but we're going to focus on that first part on the 10th, the 12th, and the 13th.
01:09:20.020And we'll just fill in a little bit of the narrative so you don't have to here.
01:09:24.380But we understand that on the 10th, what was discussed was two tracks for a potential federal response.
01:09:29.920So at this point, I won't say it had been decided, but it was certainly under serious consideration that the federal government might have to act in some way, shape or form here.
01:09:39.780And track one was what can the federal government do under its existing authorities?
01:09:45.740Track two was what could we potentially do under any new authorities, including the Emergencies Act.
01:09:53.440And I just want to pause here and ask you one thing, which is in the documents, that's sort of maybe not the first, but it's certainly the first sort of confirmation, official confirmation that the Emergencies Act was under discussion.
01:10:08.460But we have seen references to the Emergencies Act here and there in various phone calls or emails or discussions, et cetera.
01:10:16.100And I'm wondering if you can describe, if someone asked you, when did the Emergencies Act come into play as a possibility?
01:10:26.580As an idea, it would have been from the very beginning, in the back of our minds.
01:10:33.060you see a situation that is an emergency, is out of control, has a potential for real impact on
01:10:43.220citizens, potential for violence, real concerns about what's going on, not just in Ottawa, but
01:10:49.220right across the country. The Coots blockade that started up on the same first weekend that the
01:10:56.440Ottawa occupation did, these are the things that you say, okay, as we look at a whole
01:11:06.600range of potential outcomes in this, there might be a moment where we have to invoke
01:11:11.660the Emergencies Act. It wasn't seriously thought of because I will say certainly in my thinking
01:11:19.720right now, it was a fairly binary reflection. It was, oh, we might have to invoke the Emergencies
01:11:25.180act there was no reflection of what we would have to invoke the emergencies act to do it was just
01:11:31.040understanding that if this situation continues and is unable to get under control by anything else
01:11:37.200the federal government might have to give the provinces more powers give police more powers
01:11:42.520do something to put an end to this so whenever we said yeah we're looking at all options it would
01:11:49.360have been in the back of our minds, particularly because I think we're probably the first government
01:11:56.500that had ever actually leaned in carefully to maybe using the Emergencies Act as we did in
01:12:03.240the beginning of the pandemic. We dusted it off and, you know, had presentations at Cabinet around
01:12:09.560what the Emergencies Act was and how it was an update from the previous legislation that
01:12:16.220existed before and how it was charter compliant and yeah because post 1982 a lot of things needed
01:12:21.860to change for the better in our in our country with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms so
01:12:27.300we got a crash course in the Emergencies Act and the consultations were hired and
01:12:35.260and all the various steps two years before around a pandemic as I said to consultations at that time
01:12:43.800with the premiers. I didn't think we needed to use it. I didn't think it was appropriate for us
01:12:49.440to declare a public welfare emergency. I believe the section is within the Emergencies Act that
01:12:54.460we would have invoked around the pandemic. But there were a lot of people calling for us to do
01:12:59.700it because it was obviously a national emergency, this pandemic, particularly in the early days of
01:13:04.700spring 2020. So we were somewhat versed in this legislation that had never been used.
01:13:11.740Seeing this particular public order situation, it was a reflection in the back of our minds,
01:13:22.520or my mind anyway, I can't speak for everyone, that maybe it would end up at this. But for the
01:13:28.780same reason we were loathe to call an IRG too soon in the process, we knew that it wasn't
01:13:38.760ours to solve at this point, that there were still lots of things that the police of jurisdiction
01:13:44.400and various orders could and should be doing to put an end to this.
01:13:50.080So it wasn't until, as you say, the IRG of February 10th, Thursday, that we said, okay, track one, you know, what more can we do to empower police and public safety officials to put an end to these illegal occupations?
01:14:10.500what more resources can we spend with existing authorities and track two was what could we do
01:14:18.320that we would have to create new authorities for whether it was through regulation whether it was
01:14:23.680through passing emergency measures through the house or whether it was using something like the
01:14:28.760emergency measures act and the key for me in that conversation was it was a shift from that sort of
01:14:40.500no Emergencies Act or Emergencies Act. Because if you think about it, the Emergencies Act
01:14:47.980itself doesn't do anything except declare an emergency. It's that it enables government to
01:14:56.180bring in special temporary measures to deal with the situation. So the useful conversations around
01:15:04.080the Emergencies Act started on February 10th when I asked the question, okay, what are the extra
01:15:14.500tools that we would need to bring in either through legislation or through regulation or
01:15:21.060in various ways or through the Emergencies Act that we don't actually have now? Or what would
01:15:27.180we do with the emergencies act if we brought it in that we can't otherwise do and that reflection
01:15:34.060on well what would be the tools actually clarified and and and got the work going perfect example was
01:15:42.080we had heard consistently throughout that commercial tow truck drivers were not willing
01:15:47.260to come in and remove trucks well the emergencies act perhaps could compel truck drivers tow truck
01:15:55.600drivers to come and actually fulfill their contracts that are signed with cities to keep
01:16:02.360the streets clear of of illegally parked cars. So that reflection was really the one that started
01:16:09.600then and the tasking that I gave on that Thursday that we would check in again on the Saturday at
01:16:16.160the next IRG was okay come up with those tools that we could get at that would solve this and
01:16:24.240then we'll look at well do we need the emergencies act to bring in these tools or can we do it
01:16:28.760through another way or can we convince a province to do it are there other ways of doing it but
01:16:33.040let's figure out what are the things that would allow us to get this situation which was out of
01:16:40.520control back under control does he not understand that every province was under a state of emergency
01:16:45.520at this time on the 12th i believe and then the 13th was uh power is already existed was the big
01:16:52.320day in terms of deciding as a government whether you were going to take that first step and
01:16:57.160seriously consider invoking the Emergencies Act. Can you take us through, from your point
01:17:02.720of view, the chronology essentially of the 13th? We know there was an IRG meeting in
01:17:07.720the afternoon, I think it was 4.30, and the decision coming out of the IRG was to have
01:17:13.400a cabinet meeting in the evening to discuss the potential invocation of the Act. So how
01:17:18.940did those meetings play out? During the IRG on that Sunday, we took
01:17:32.420a very close look at the measures that were proposed, the list of tools that we could
01:17:40.180give ourselves to help the police, the provinces, and not only just to get a hold of the situation
01:17:51.620and control it, but also to prevent them coming back, because you called this the whack-a-mole.
01:18:00.220We saw that the protesters were very clever when it came to moving around and to have a presence here and then move to another place to turn this into a big challenge for the police and the police response.
01:18:27.400So the concern, if we put all our resources in one place, we could maybe control that situation, but by doing that, another location would become vulnerable, or once we'd settled one situation, two days later, they'd come back.
01:18:46.020So it was more of a question of, yes, to end the illegal occupations, but also to understand that they had to be maintained and they had to remain clear until the situation calmed down across the country.
01:19:02.580So during the Sunday meeting, we took a look at the various proposals, whether they be for the tow truck drivers or provisions for certain areas that were prohibited.
01:19:21.120you couldn't go there to protest there you weren't allowed to bring children there you weren't allowed
01:19:26.480to cross the border if your objective was to join a group and there were measures that the banks
01:19:35.600could take that they would be able to freeze the assets of the protesters while they were
01:19:42.720on the sites while they were barricading
01:19:47.260and to sort of persuade them to go home.
01:19:50.240So we talked about all these measures.
01:20:55.680Because, as you all know, you can't just invoke the Emergencies Act. You have to meet a threshold in order to invoke the Emergencies Act. And that brings us to one of the key questions. And I'll ask you about this several times.
01:21:08.340But what I'm asking you right now is essentially what you can tell us about how that discussion played out in the IRG and the cabinet meeting.
01:21:17.140And I'll give you a little framing of it, which is, of course, we know that the declaration of a public order emergency is premised on the existence of a threat to the security of Canada, as defined in the CSIS Act.
01:21:33.140And we know that CSIS, in the process of assessing the protests, assessed that there was no, the protests did not meet that threshold.
01:21:44.080They did not constitute a threat to the security of Canada as defined in the CSIS Act.
01:21:57.060The legislation in the 80s that was built brought in a definition of a national, sorry, a threat to national security, imported the words of the CSIS definition.
01:22:16.240That was a handy definition that was already existing, and that's how we can define what a national threat to the security of Canadians would be.
01:22:27.920Those words in the CSIS Act are used for the purpose of CSIS determining that they have authority to act against an individual, a group, or a specific plot with, for example, a wiretap.
01:22:49.580That in order for them to take action in a particular situation, that threshold needs to be met of threats to national security.
01:23:00.580And actually be useful if we could pull up part C of...
01:23:05.580Sure, sure. You know what, we have that. One second, I will get you the document number.
01:28:44.260There was the militarization of vehicles, for example. We'd seen, sorry, weaponization of vehicles. We'd seen, you know, cars ramming into police officers or other cars at coots.
01:28:59.680We saw an incident like that in Surrey, I believe.
01:29:06.200We saw trucks used as potential weapons, certainly in Ottawa with their presence and unknown interiors.
01:29:18.240There was the use of children as human shields deliberately, which was a real concern both at the Ambassador Bridge.
01:29:27.160The fact that there were kids on Wellington Street, that people didn't know what was in the trucks, whether it was kids, whether it was weapons, whether it was both.
01:29:40.360There was presence of weapons at Coutts, as we saw.
01:29:44.900There was a concern around weapons being stolen in Peterborough that we didn't know, but 2,000 guns that we didn't know where they had gone at that point.
01:29:53.380We later found out that they didn't go there, but that was a real concern that we had about what was happening to them.
01:30:00.740There were a number of others as well.
01:30:02.520There was the fact that police trying to enforce laws were met with active resistance.
01:30:13.500And a group of 30 police officers trying to interdict someone or arrest someone who was carrying a jerrycan into the site in Ottawa got swarmed by 100 people and they had to leave because there were threats to their safety and they weren't able to arrest that individual.
01:30:30.620There were layers of danger that CSIS kept bringing up to us that the presence of people promoting ideologically motivated violence, violent extremism in the convoys had a danger of triggering, not necessarily them to act, but lone wolf actors or people who could be radicalized to take actions that were violent.
01:31:00.620We saw increasingly counter-protests of people who were trying to take back their city, who were, for example, we all saw images of grandmothers standing in residential streets against massive trucks heading their ways to try and prevent them from coming to join the convoy.
01:31:21.000There were all these things that presented real threats of serious violence, and every input we were getting on that weekend at the IRG was that things were not getting better, things were getting worse.
01:31:41.680Even as it looked like there was a plan for the Ambassador Bridge to move forward, it looked like there was going to be a plan for Coutts moving forward, there wasn't a sense that things were dissipating.
01:31:56.680On the contrary, we were hearing about Fort Erie, we were hearing about the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, we were hearing about potential blockades in New Brunswick, we were hearing about potentials at Blacol.
01:32:07.440We were hearing more convoys and more supporters heading to different places to take action.
01:32:13.760There were things going on in BC and Surrey.
01:32:16.920Like there was a sense that this was a broadly spread thing.
01:32:21.200And the fact that there was not yet any serious violence that had been noted was obviously a good thing.
01:32:32.640but we could not say that there was no potential for threats of serious violence, for serious
01:32:38.780violence to happen over the coming days. We were seeing things escalate, not things get under
01:32:44.940control. Okay. You mentioned there that the Ambassador Bridge was on its way to resolution
01:32:53.240in a sense, and Coots was on its way to resolution. One of the things that's come up in the evidence
01:32:58.600is that at this juncture, Ottawa could also perhaps have been said
01:33:04.220to be on its way perhaps at an earlier stage to resolution
01:33:07.820in the sense that a plan, an integrated plan for policing
01:33:14.720And that may not have been something that was clearly expressed
01:33:19.920on the 13th to the IRG and or cabinet.
01:33:23.840So first I wanted to ask you what your understanding
01:33:26.680of that situation was at the time first of all from the beginning from the approach of the very
01:33:33.240first weekend um we heard from various authorities and police of jurisdiction don't worry we got this
01:33:41.720there's a plan there's a plan and for the second weekend there was a plan we have a plan for this
01:33:46.760and it's not going to happen and we've got this we're getting we're getting more resources nope
01:33:50.280there's a plan we kept hearing there was a plan um and even i mean we heard in in testimony here
01:33:57.240that there was a plan on the 13th that the ottawa police services pulled together
01:34:03.240i would recommend people take a look at that actual plan which wasn't a plan at all it was a
01:34:12.120talk about using liaison officers to try and shrink the perimeter a little bit but as you
01:34:18.440you look at the annex for you know how the troops are deployed how the police officers are deployed
01:34:22.900what resources are going to be need every annex is to be determined later to be determined later
01:34:28.340it was not even in the most generous of characterizations a plan for how they were
01:34:34.720going to end the occupation in Ottawa when the plan did come together and if someone wants to
01:34:40.460compare the supposed plan on the 13th with the actual plan on the 17th that Ottawa Police
01:34:46.920services pulled together, you see the crisp difference between these are the types of units
01:34:51.960we need, these are the resources we need, this is how we're going to do it, this is all the
01:34:55.300stagings of it on the 17th. It was not there on the 13th. But even beyond that, because I'm not
01:35:01.000fully aware how much of this is hindsight and how much of this was that general sense we got,
01:35:07.680that people continue to say, oh no, we're going to be able to get this under control. I think
01:35:12.340and we're jumping ahead, but Jason Kenney was saying on the Monday morning in our first
01:35:18.660minister's meeting, yeah, Coutts is well on its way to being under control. We had heard that
01:35:23.940before, and there were fluctuations going on in the various sites across the country.
01:35:30.320it was not enough just to have a plan to clear a couple of lanes it was getting the situation
01:35:43.580under control so as to prevent a recurrence or a restaging of a protest elsewhere and that was
01:35:52.640what was very clear from all the all the perspectives around the table that there was
01:35:58.960not confidence that we were on a track to getting the national emergency under control
01:36:06.920in the coming days, that it was continuing to be a situation that was not being controlled by police,
01:36:19.360by officials. Okay, so we will get to the First Minister's meeting, but let's just finish off on
01:36:25.320this point with the 13th. In a lot of the evidence that has come out before the Commission, we see
01:36:32.880hesitancy and reluctance to invoke the Emergencies Act, so officials advising that this may make
01:36:39.320things worse, this may inflame tension, this may embolden protesters, etc. And we also obviously
01:36:46.080heard from Mr. Vigneault saying in the CSIS assessment that there was no threat to the
01:36:50.880Security of Canada under the CESIS Act. And then we heard Mr. Vigneault say, but I still thought
01:36:57.160that the act was necessary and I conveyed that to the Prime Minister. So can you tell us,
01:37:04.280was there consensus on the use of the act? What did you hear about whether or not
01:37:10.960people agreed with this interpretation, whether you should vote the act?
01:37:14.620Yes, there was consensus around the IRG table on Sunday, 13. There was a question about it. And Director Vigneault's answer on that is absolutely consistent. CSIS, for example, wouldn't feel that they had the capacity to bring in a wiretap against one of the convoy organizers under the CSIS Act,
01:37:40.920because the tools that they have and the threshold they have to meet
01:37:45.860for what is a threat to the security of Canada,
01:37:49.260according to CSIS's evaluation, was not met.
01:37:55.420And that was something we heard from the very beginning.
01:37:57.680CSIS continued to say from the beginning of the protest,
01:38:00.880we haven't yet, under the CSIS Act, reached a level of threats to Canada.
01:38:06.120but the director of CSIS is also one of the national security advisors to me and in looking
01:38:14.700at the frame and scope of the situation we were in was very comfortable in saying yeah for the
01:38:22.760purposes of the CSIS Act this is not met but for the purposes of the Public Order Emergencies Act
01:38:30.160that the governor and council has to make a reasonable decision about we feel that it is met
01:38:35.360and that was the consensus from officials around the table and again it
01:38:42.560was about not even just sort of that binary okay do we declare the emergency
01:38:49.100or not it's do we declare a public order emergency so that we can bring in these
01:38:54.380specific measures and as we went around the table on that and my expectation is
01:38:59.480and that was a virtual table I believe but my expectation is always if you
01:39:05.340you have significant disagreements this is the time to speak up there was no voice saying hold
01:39:12.680it we don't think you should do this or I don't think you should do this which does happen from
01:39:19.340time to time in cabinet meetings and in IRGs and if someone had come up and said okay we don't
01:39:28.440think us at Transport Canada we don't think that we should invoke a public order emergency
01:39:33.580I would have said thank you, I would have taken that into account, but I didn't need unanimity or full consensus in order to make the determination in Governor of Council according to that that we were moving forward.
01:39:50.680Obviously, it helped, and in this case, there was consensus around that table that invoking the Emergencies Act was what we needed to do.
01:40:01.020And when you say that, are you speaking of the IRG in the afternoon
01:40:04.180or the eventual cabinet meeting in the evening?
01:40:07.260I'm speaking of the IRG right now with where we went around the table with officials,
01:40:11.260but we did a similar thing that afternoon, sorry, that evening with the cabinet meeting.
01:42:20.180Yes, you made the same consensus then.
01:42:26.060So that brings us to what we can loosely call decision day, February 14th.
01:42:31.040And I'm just going to try and lay out the chronology of that day and then ask you, first of all, whether that is the correct chronology of the day and then ask you to speak to various parts of it.
01:42:42.840So the first minister's, the decision coming out of cabinet the evening before was to convene a first minister's meeting to have the obligatory consultation under Section 25 of the Emergencies Act before it could be invoked.
01:42:57.200And we know that late that night, an invitation was sent out to the premiers to that meeting.
01:43:02.600That invitation did not include the subject of the meeting.
01:43:06.580And we've heard some of your ministers and officials speak to why.
01:43:12.260But in any event, so the first minister's meeting was held, I believe, at 10.15 the following morning on the 14th.
01:43:20.460Following that meeting, you had a call with opposition leaders, I believe, and a call with your own caucus.
01:43:32.600I wanted to make sure that we shared with our members of caucus who were going to be involved in very much part of a government that would invoke the Emergency Measures Act.
01:43:48.880I wanted to let them know before premiers were consulted, I wanted to let them know that I was about to consult the premiers, but the sense was that caucus should hear it before the premiers heard about that.
01:44:04.640That makes sense. Okay, so caucus call first, then first ministers meeting, then I think you spoke to opposition leaders. Then around 3.41pm, I said around, but we actually know the minute, 3.41pm, you receive advice from the clerk. And that advice, as we know, is that the clerk recommends that you invoke the Emergencies Act. And shortly thereafter, there's a public announcement of it.
01:44:28.580So just unpacking that, starting with the caucus call briefly, but the focus of this will obviously be the first minister's meeting. Take us through that day.
01:44:36.760The caucus call was informing them that I was about to go into a First Minister's meeting in which I was going to present them with the fact that we were thinking about invoking the Emergencies Act.
01:44:52.660And I shared with them that these were the kinds of things we would be giving police and various officials and authorities, which tools would be able to move forward with that.
01:45:12.480So I presented it. It wasn't a big discussion. I wasn't looking for consensus. There wasn't a lot of feedback.
01:45:19.360It was just informing them that we were taking this seriously and moving forward.
01:45:25.440And I dare say the response was very positive from our caucus.
02:09:04.440well ilia you know brendan did seem to to be very emotional
02:09:21.420during his cross especially yesterday yesterday afternoon when he was trying to question Katie
02:09:27.760Telford and he was using heavily redacted documents documents that should have been
02:09:33.160unredacted based upon irrelevance these were arbitrarily redacted these these documents so
02:09:39.000his point yesterday was trying to prove the commission basically is nothing but a scam
02:09:46.340I mean, if these are the documents that opposition lawyers are supposed to use in a cross, they can't, they can't use them because they've seen all of the documents that are unredacted, right? They know what's in there, but they can't use them because for official purposes, they have not yet been unredacted.
02:10:07.760and the judge said well i haven't made that ruling yet i haven't had time to do that
02:10:12.040and i say well look man it doesn't matter whether you rule on that next week we need it now this is
02:10:17.900a limited time offer you know that ship has sailed next week and he doesn't seem to be
02:10:24.840feeling any urgency to do so maybe he's got too much on his plate i don't know maybe he's
02:10:31.220over his head i don't know maybe he's just a liberal huckster i don't know i don't know any
02:10:37.360of these things. My impression of Justice Rouleau, Commissioner Rouleau, in the beginning was he
02:10:44.740seemed to be fair in everything he did. But this past week, I don't know. I don't know.
02:10:58.980Allowing into testimony, David Vigneault's testimony, allowing him to say that he recommended
02:11:04.540to trudeau and the cabinet that they invoke the emergencies act when it was on the record through
02:11:10.760other commissions through other house of commons committees that he did not recommend that they
02:11:18.160invoke the emergency act because they had never met the threshold to do so so allowing him to
02:11:23.780change his story like that to me is like why are you allowing this in now when you won't unredact
02:11:32.120some of these documents it seems like it's unfair an unfair playing field and yesterday
02:11:38.680and i guess this was maybe brendan miller's point yesterday when he showed all of these
02:11:44.120ridiculously redacted documents and asked katie telford what what is this and she said well i
02:11:50.120don't know what it is well neither do i but how do i know it's not important well i don't know
02:11:54.800and that's all she had to do for 15 minutes when brendan was up there just go i don't know i don't
02:11:59.780know so he made his point in that regard showing us that the playing field is is sloped so badly
02:12:08.760in their favor that we haven't got a chance but on the other hand that's what he showed us
02:12:14.780so it's just another reason for us to go man the institutions in this country are
02:12:21.700are screwed let me ask you a question in the comments here maybe you guys you guys can help
02:12:30.640me out have you lost faith in this country's basic institutions never mind which government
02:12:40.760is in power which party is in power never mind that have you lost faith
02:12:47.520in the integrity of the justice system,
02:14:10.200for me when i first started doing this show just over two years ago
02:14:19.320the reason that i chose facebook to do it was because at that time and it still is today my
02:14:27.200largest platform i i wasn't on rumble i was barely on twitter i hadn't heard of odyssey yet
02:14:35.600i don't think it was a thing yet uh or liberty or any of the other live streaming social media
02:14:42.720and so i thought yeah yeah yeah i'll just put it up here on facebook and see what happens and then
02:14:49.020this censorship started and i went what are they doing here i mean i i was absolutely
02:14:58.160gobsmacked a few times when things got taken down i went what what is this why are they doing this
02:15:04.220this is ridiculous this is absolutely valid information people need to hear this stuff
02:15:08.420and that's what i started losing faith in in everything pretty much except for people who
02:15:20.180remained aware of what was going on around them while everybody else was panicking and
02:15:27.220running around like chicken little or chickens little plural those are the people that i i
02:15:35.780held on to and then we started building excuse me we started building a community that's been
02:15:43.620growing ever since then even with all of the censorship and then you start looking around
02:15:51.340at the lies being told and the liberties being taken with our institutions and our laws and our
02:15:57.060constitution and our charter and you go wow man like they are really pushing the envelope here
02:16:02.240They are stretching their authority, and at the same time, they are intentionally, it seems like, making Canadians feel helpless and lost within their home country.
02:16:53.040There's no integrity in our legal system.
02:16:54.780That's the other thing I was asking Eva about the other night when she was on the show.
02:16:58.920I said, what is with all this side smiles and smirks between Marco Mendicino and Bill Blair and some of the lawyers who were questioning him?
02:17:08.120And then they'd even come out boldly and say, I have to say, I'm a fan.
02:22:03.100Do you think the accountability mechanisms work?
02:22:06.460Is this a proper check on that power, in your view, sitting in your chair right now?
02:22:12.440I'm sitting in this chair and having watched the questions posed of officials and ministers
02:22:21.480and now me, I can say that it's not something that any government would undertake likely.
02:22:29.480This is a serious process where there is a serious challenge function being exercised
02:22:34.880as it should be um as to whether it's the best way of doing things um this law was brought in
02:22:45.280almost 30 years ago there's always ways of reflecting on doing it differently or better
02:22:52.180but that'll be the will of the house and that'll be based on perhaps recommendations by the
02:22:56.820commission, but I think this process works. Okay. The second, or another criticism that's
02:23:06.580been leveled or challenged that's been made is that it wasn't really necessary. The situation
02:23:12.200would have resolved itself. And in the end, the way things played out, the declaration was made
02:23:17.920the 14th, the orders came in the 15th, and then by the 23rd, it was revoked and everything was
02:23:24.320solved, and many of the measures put in were never even used. So how do you respond to that? You
02:23:29.780didn't actually have to do it. It wasn't a necessary measure at the time. It's hard to
02:23:36.080prove a hypothetical that if we hadn't done it, things could have been resolved, perhaps.
02:23:44.920perhaps they would have gotten much worse um my role was to make
02:23:54.680what was the responsible call in keeping canadians safe um the act was used in many different ways
02:24:05.440and far from being as you perhaps suggest a proof point that it wasn't needed that it was
02:24:12.020only in place for such a short period of time, I think that goes to the fact that it was
02:24:20.340needed and it was effective in actually doing with as light a touch as we thought we could
02:24:29.000have um a resolution to this uh to this ongoing situation and emergency okay um there's also uh
02:24:41.080an argument made that this invocation you were dealing with an act that has never been invoked
02:24:46.700before and now it has been and there's a possibility that this invocation of the act
02:24:53.400will then open the floodgates in a sense to the act being used again and again and again in
02:24:58.420particular because, and we have your point on this, but you invoked it in a circumstance where
02:25:04.840the threat to the security of Canada had not been found by CSIS. So does this, in effect,
02:25:11.140open the floodgates to the Emergencies Act being used by a decision by the executive
02:25:17.260in all kinds of circumstances? But CSIS isn't the decision maker in a matter of public order
02:25:25.840emergencies. The use of the definition in the CSIS Act, as I said before, has two very different
02:25:39.140contexts from the use of it by CSIS and the use of it in invocation of a public order emergency.
02:25:45.100The context is different. The purpose is different. The decision maker is different.
02:25:50.400um the the the requirements around it the inputs are different um and the fact that the director
02:26:00.260of CSIS while consistently saying it doesn't yet meet the CSIS threshold for CSIS to act
02:26:07.040in wiretapping people or whatever it is it is still something that is necessary
02:26:13.460for a public order emergency but do you worry about the floodgates aspect of this that having
02:26:19.200done this you've now maybe unleashed the kraken um i think first of all the excellent work
02:26:32.960this commission and all the across the mat examiners have been doing over the past number of
02:26:38.560weeks uh highlights that it's not something to be undertaken lightly um and i didn't need to
02:26:45.120have seen this commission to consider this very much to be a a measure of last resort this wasn't
02:26:52.320something we were eager to do um and i dare say that future governments um are likely to look at
02:27:04.400this experience and say yeah no it's not really not something we want to go through uh lightly
02:27:08.800But the law is on the books to assist in dealing with national emergencies, and the determination was made by the governor and council, by the professional public service, that the thresholds were met and that this was necessary.
02:27:34.500And regardless of any setting of precedence, I think it would be the worst thing for me to say, even though the thresholds have been met, even though it is needed and necessary, we're not going to do it because someone might abuse it or overuse it in the years to come.
02:27:57.180When there's a national emergency and serious threats of violence to Canadians and you have a tool that you should use, how would I explain it to the family of a police officer who was killed or a grandmother who got run over trying to stop a truck or a protester who was killed if I hadn't used the tools?
02:28:19.740If one of the protesters, one of the occupiers had been killed in a violent clash with someone else, getting this situation under control and protecting the safety of all Canadians is a priority.
02:28:35.780on the same theme but slightly different um the act was invoked here in response to to a protest
02:28:45.760and protest is a very important part of of uh functioning democracy and you touched on this on
02:28:52.520and one of your answers before the break but does this open the door then to to the emergencies act
02:28:58.380being regularly used as as a tool to quell protest because protest is not necessarily
02:29:03.600clean. Protests can be messy and it can be problematic and it can interfere at times with
02:29:09.640critical infrastructure. We think of indigenous protests, environmental protests. So what stops
02:29:16.220this from being used against that? Again, the checks and balances we have and the need to
02:29:25.100demonstrate and meet a high threshold, but also from experience over the past seven years,
02:29:34.380we've seen many protests and disruptions across this country, including protests of,
02:29:41.600as you say, critical infrastructure and economic importance. And it never occurred
02:29:49.160to me or to the government to invoke the Emergencies Act around any of those.
02:29:54.320Now, your point around maybe future governments will run to it as a tool now that the seal has been broken.
02:30:02.480But I have greater faith in Canadians and in our institutions than the fact that we might sort of shrug as our fundamental rights are casually brushed aside in the name of political expediency or a national emergency that actually wouldn't be one.
02:30:30.460another criticism that is leveled is that while the protests may have gotten can we say out of
02:30:40.620hand or snowballed and been extremely disruptive they weren't the the actions of the small minority
02:30:46.500but a real expression of frustration of legitimate frustration on behalf of a significant number of
02:30:53.720Canadians who had been through either suffered from or felt aggrieved by years of public health
02:31:01.780measures and in response to that they wanted to engage and they wanted you to speak to them and
02:31:12.080they wanted to hear directly from their federal government and that did not happen so do you have
02:31:16.180an answer to that? I think, first of all, we heard them. We knew exactly what they were asking for.
02:31:28.400They were very, very clear that they wanted an end to mandates. The convoy protesters were
02:31:37.220expressing their disagreement with very specific public policies, that they were very vocal, both
02:31:45.740in mainstream communications and through social media
02:31:51.560on what they wanted, and they were very much heard.
02:31:55.880They had political parties in the previous election
02:32:56.960did during the course of these convoy occupations
02:33:04.380remove a number of mandates, uh, instead of decreasing the amount of concern, the
02:33:12.920convoy at Coutts, uh, the occupation at Coutts, uh, seemed to be emboldened and say, look,
02:33:19.180it's starting to work. Let's keep going, uh, instead of actually deescalating. So I, I was,
02:33:25.260I am very aware that expressing, uh, concern and disagreement around, uh, positions of public
02:33:32.480policy is the right and is to be encouraged by any Canadian who wants to.
02:33:41.680But the occupation and destabilization of and disruption of the lives of so many Canadians
02:33:52.880And refusal to maintain a lawful protest is not all right.
02:34:05.540One thing we haven't talked about yet is, I assume you're familiar with the Section 58 report to Parliament explaining the reasons for invoking the Emergencies Act.
02:34:17.500And if we look at that report, much of it focuses on the economic consequences of the protests and the economic disruptions and the threats to economic security.
02:34:28.600And you've spoken this morning about how the threshold for invoking the emergencies was met because there were threats of serious violence.
02:34:36.440But we haven't really addressed where economic security fits into this picture.
02:34:42.980I think it's a piece of it, obviously.
02:34:45.340If people are facing losses of income, if we're seeing massive disruption in a country's economy, that will have and that could have real impacts on the stability and security of individuals within that country.
02:35:02.360But it was an additional concern on the situation.
02:35:08.560It wasn't the primary or the foundational one.
02:35:11.940Our job in here was to make sure we were keeping Canadians safe.
02:35:15.340and countering the threats of serious violence that the occupations represented.
02:39:51.800And those, if I can put them as two buckets, the two buckets of measures that are invoked on the 15th, the first are there is now a prohibition on public assembly that may lead to a breach of the peace, correct?
02:40:06.520And the second are various economic measures that include the freezing of accounts of anyone who is involved in that public assembly that may lead to a breach of the peace, correct?
02:40:19.520And now going back a little bit, you spoke briefly about Windsor.
02:40:25.220The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge, that was a significant event that was one of the events that led to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, correct?
02:41:18.880And you were informed by Premier Kenney on February 14th in the morning that the RCMP had started to make arrests the night before, correct?
02:41:29.200And that, in his words, the situation has been secured and they will now proceed with broader arrests and secure the border. You remember that?
02:41:37.960And in Alberta, Alberta is one of the provinces that had in place or has in place a critical infrastructure legislation that protects critical infrastructure from blockades, including highways, correct?
02:42:13.400And, Prime Minister, you agree that the Emergencies Act and the orders enacted under the Emergencies Act, there was nothing in those orders that created the joint command.
02:42:27.240Yes, I agree that the Emergencies Act did not address creation of joint commands, although it did allow for the easy deputization of RCMP officers to enforce municipal bylaws and municipal rules without having to go through the usual processes that are required if they want to do that.
02:42:54.820which allowed for a greater integration.
02:42:58.660Correct. It did away with the administrative process
02:43:02.960that was taking some time of having the RCMP enforce local bylaws.
02:43:08.100So it did facilitate the coming together of those three forces.
02:43:11.440But the joint command in and of itself,
02:43:13.800that was something that the police could have created
02:43:16.660and could have done without the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
02:43:19.880Right. And we heard evidence from Commissioner Lucky of the RCMP that she had signed off on a plan to enforce and remove the protesters in Ottawa on February 13th that she had confidence in, that she, the OPP and the OPS had confidence in. Did you hear that testimony?
02:43:47.240Yes, I do not believe that the plan that was either signed off on supposedly by the RCMP or presented by the Ottawa Police Services on the 13th was, in any real regards, an actual plan for clearing the protests.
02:44:05.740And is this a plan that you saw or that you were just spoken to about?
02:44:10.080I was spoken to about. I did not see it myself.
02:44:11.840Okay, and were you spoken to about it by Commissioner Luckey or by Minister Mendicino?
02:45:11.200But at the time, you did not hear from OPS or Superintendent Bernie that the OPS required additional legal tools or legal resources.
02:45:20.740What we saw consistently was the occupation was continuing and the ability of the police to resolve it was not there.
02:45:41.940Right. And you spoke about that earlier with Ms. Chowdhury, that both you, the government, and I think both Clerk Charette and Deputy Clerk Dwayne all expressed the view or even frustration that the police had not been using the legal tools available to them to remove the demonstrators.
02:46:05.100Or had not been able to use those tools.
02:46:06.860Okay. And Prime Minister Brenda Luckey, the commissioner of the RCMP, also on the 13th, she was of the view that existing legal tools had not been exhausted, and she communicated this to the chief of staff to Minister Mendocino. Were you aware of that?
02:46:26.200I was not aware of that at the time. As we went around the virtual table at the IRG that day, the consensus from everyone, including the Commissioner of the RCMP, was clear that we were advancing on these extra tools.
02:46:46.620and I as I said I don't disagree with that assessment that not all tools had been used
02:46:56.020that was part of the problem that not all tools were being used to end this occupation right and
02:47:04.420Prime Minister we talked about the threshold for invoking a national emergency you spoke about that
02:47:09.660briefly in your examination in chief. And you understand that other than the threshold in the
02:47:18.420CESIS Act, part of the test is whether the matter exceeds both the capacity and the authority of a
02:47:26.420province to deal with the matter. You understand that? Yes. And Deputy Clerk Drain said that
02:47:32.920authority refers to legal authority and capacity refers to operational capacity. And you would
02:47:39.060agree with that. Okay, yes. And when you, I'm taking you back now to your press conference
02:47:46.320at 4.30 on the 14th. At that press conference, you specifically referred to the fact that
02:47:56.000there were serious challenges to law enforcement's ability to effectively enforce the law. You
02:48:01.700remember that? Yes. And that the Emergencies Act will be used to strengthen and support
02:48:06.880law enforcement agencies at all levels of the country you remember saying that yes and that
02:48:11.980the police will be given more tools to restore order in places where public assemblies can
02:48:16.840constitute illegal and dangerous activities yes and so at that time that was one or one of the
02:48:24.480main justifications that you stated publicly for the invocation of the emergencies act yes
02:48:29.960And that was, again, because many of your ministers and many of the people in the public service had expressed frustration with the police inability to exercise those legal tools.
02:48:45.860No, it wasn't just because people had expressed frustration. It was real concern. As you mentioned, that a number of places were moving in the right direction in terms of resolving the situation at Coutts, resolving the situation at the Ambassador Bridge.
02:49:04.920there was a very real and present concern that it is one thing to clear a lane or two it is another
02:49:13.000thing to keep a border location or otherwise open and what we had seen was intentions for the convoy
02:49:22.960to pop up again at the blue water bridge in sarnia at fort erie there was discussion of the call
02:49:28.460There were more activities starting in Surrey and B.C. at other border crossings.
02:49:33.240There was an ongoing concern that it wasn't just about ending the places that were there.
02:49:39.960It was ensuring that they simply didn't shift to another locale because many of these convoy participants had come a long way across the country and were mobile enough to go to another nearby location.
02:49:55.600And so you were, in a sense, making sure it was almost preventative,
02:50:00.420preventative in terms of we remove them and we want to prevent them
02:50:03.860from relocating and restaging in another location.
02:50:49.620But you'd agree that when you invoke the Emergencies Act
02:50:52.600And you very publicly say to the police, these are tools that you now have, that you are publicly signaling, this is the road we want you to walk down now and use these tools in order to deal with these demonstrators.
02:51:07.180We were very clearly saying that we need to restore enforcement of the law and we need to restore public order.
02:51:16.580But as I said clearly a little earlier, in the situation of a theoretical blockade at Lacalle, I was very clear with the Premier of Quebec and indeed in communications that if the public order emergency tools weren't necessary, they didn't need to use them.
02:51:35.420And Quebec did not invoke their own emergencies act, correct? They did not.
02:51:39.640I'm not sure, but I'll take your word for it.
02:51:41.600But I don't think Quebec invoked their Emergencies Act for the purpose of the thing, for the convoy.
02:51:46.980Now, my last area of question, Prime Minister, is with respect to the CSIS Act and its integration into the Emergencies Act.
02:51:57.240So you've stated under the CSIS Act, when CSIS determines that they are going to use surveillance on a person, they need to meet the threshold at Section 2, correct?
02:52:10.320And that's because the surveillance of one person without other legal authority is something that is very serious and that requires a high legal threshold, correct?
02:52:20.520Now, I understand your evidence that for the purpose of the Emergencies Act, we are dealing with a different context, yes?
02:52:31.260And we're dealing with a different decision maker, correct?
02:52:33.400But I would put to you that when invoking the Emergencies Act, that threshold, the level of threshold of the security threat that must be met, cannot be any lower than it is when CSIS is proposing to surveil one person, that the threshold is no different.
02:59:56.440So this is a document as it's coming up.
02:59:58.960We've been having a bit of an argument over the last little while about some redactions that were made in the documents disclosed by my friends for Canada.
03:00:08.460And there were some disputes about parliamentary privilege and irrelevance.
03:00:13.380But in this particular document, I'd like you to take a look at this.
03:00:17.620This first document was what was originally disclosed.
03:00:20.420And this document, the second one, had some redactions removed.
03:00:25.520And those documents were ordered, disclosed last night.
03:00:31.580And Canada took the position last night that there was reason to insist on this,
03:00:40.440that this redaction or that this document be produced, not be produced unredacted.
03:00:46.960But I wonder if maybe you could, and at the end of the day, this was produced at 10.26
03:00:51.580a.m. this morning, so I'm a little more unprepared for this cross than I normally am.
03:00:57.180But I wonder if you could look at that first redaction on the original disclosure and see
03:01:03.080if you can see the reason for the redaction that's highlighted in the black box there.
03:02:10.420But would you agree with me that tow trucks weren't, in fact, needed at the time of the invocation of the Act?
03:02:15.480Mr. Commissioner, I am Gober for the Government of Canada, and if my friend is going to put that to the witness, he ought to put the proposition correctly.
03:02:25.160I 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.
03:02:38.560I refer specifically to his February 22, 2022 report to Deputy Solicitor General Di Tommaso, which shows that clearly those powers were used. Thank you.
03:02:52.160Right. Well, I would respond by saying that the evidence so far has shown that while, strictly speaking, there was an invocation or there was a use of that power under the Act by the OPP, it was basically used as a method to ensure that the payment was made.
03:03:10.000It's supposed to come to me, and I think those happen to be areas that I'm going to have to deal with what is in fact the case.
03:03:18.600But you can pose your question in a different way if you wish, but I think whether or not they were used, whether or not it was required is something I will move on.
03:03:28.500I think we're burying the lead a little bit here, and I'll ask you again.
03:03:32.260you would agree that a discussion of tow trucks
03:03:35.220and information about tow trucks is relevant
03:05:14.000The reality is the authority rests with me.
03:05:17.240If I, in seeing what the public service has prepared for me as a list of subjects at Cabinet or attendees at Cabinet or documents to be provided at Cabinet, if I have significant issue with any one of them, I can say, no, we're not going to present that to Cabinet and it won't go to Cabinet.
03:05:39.160But as par for the course, I do not spend time going over in advance every possible document going to cabinet to say, yes, this can go, this can go, this shouldn't go, this can't go.
03:05:55.540So there's advice provided to you by the Privy Council Office.
03:05:59.440Is that what you're saying on what documentation and information goes to cabinet?
03:06:03.720It's presented to you for review and then you sign off on it, yes or no?
03:06:09.160No. For example, if we're dealing in cabinet with a particular MC from, or a particular proposal from a given department, they will put forward that document, that proposal.
03:06:27.500I will, as par for the course, as all cabinet members do, read through that documentation as part of our deliberations that we're about to have.
03:06:36.920but for me I have the power to say no you know what we're not going to discuss this today or
03:06:44.700this document's not going to go in uh which I do from time to time if we decide no it's not ready
03:06:50.620to go forward we're not going to do that uh but I guess I'm not entirely sure what what power you're
03:06:56.220trying to get get me to admit to having or not sure so well why don't we talk about the February
03:07:00.72013th cabinet meeting uh the questions are about that and so you'd agree sir that that was
03:07:05.960an extraordinarily important cabinet meeting? Yes. A historic meeting even? Yes. And though
03:07:13.860even though it was happening at a time of great pressure, of great urgency, you would have taken
03:07:22.580care to determine in your capacity as chair of cabinet that cabinet had all the relevant
03:07:29.620information documentation before it um the way cabinet works is we do an awful lot of work in
03:07:39.380cabinet committees we do not uh as a par for a course dig into every item that comes forward
03:07:46.300in a fulsome way because we have subgroups of cabinet that dig into that so there will have
03:07:52.640been before any cabinet meeting, including that one, subgroupings, meeting to debate, to discuss
03:07:59.860things that then get reported back to cabinet. So, but you would agree that under the Emergencies
03:08:05.940Act, as you, as you, as you stated this morning in testimony, the power to declare a public order
03:08:10.980emergency rests with what you called the cabinet and prime minister, which is the governor,
03:08:15.940governor, right, which is the full cabinet, not a cabinet subcommittee.
03:08:18.960No, that's right. Cabinet subcommittees deliberate, but as a matter of generality, they don't make final determinations.
03:08:26.660And you agree, there's no way you could have declared a public order emergency without having a full cabinet meeting.
03:08:38.280In this case, it was something very important to me.
03:08:41.880I could imagine catastrophic scenarios in which a government might have to declare a public order emergency without a meeting of full cabinet, either because of urgency or because of circumstance that prevents a cabinet from gathering.
03:09:00.160But in this case, there was such a meeting.
03:09:02.700Yes, in this case, I chose to have a meeting.
03:09:04.300So I'd like to ask you some questions of what you've termed as the inputs to that meeting.
03:09:08.840And just to be abundantly clear to my friends from the Attorney General of Canada, I'm not going to ask you about the content of any of those inputs that might be protected by confidence.
03:09:18.280I just simply want to ask you of certain documents where inputs are not to the cabinet meeting, if I may.
03:09:23.780So the first is that we've heard in testimony that there was a legal opinion that explained the difference in the definition of threats to the security of Canada in the CESIS Act and the Emergencies Act.
03:09:35.880And you've testified to that this morning.
03:09:37.360Do you know, sir, if that illegal opinion was provided to the full cabinet at its meeting of February 13th?
03:09:44.040In matters of legal opinion, in many situations, most situations, we hear from the Attorney General and Justice Minister who reports to cabinet on this or that legal opinion.
03:10:02.320So was that written opinion provided to the cabinet, sir?
03:10:05.100I believe it was a report from, a verbal report from the Minister of Justice.
03:10:10.640I'd like to ask you about another document, which is that we've heard about a threat assessment prepared by CSIS, and you're familiar with that as well.
03:10:19.100And Director Vigneault testified that he'd concluded, or CSIS had concluded, that there wasn't a threat to national security under 2C of the CSIS Act.
03:10:28.880He also testified that that threat assessment was provided to the IRG on February 13th.
03:10:34.100So my question is, was this threat assessment provided
03:10:37.560to the full cabinet on the evening of February 13th?
03:11:01.360We were not at cabinet dealing with whether or not CSIS had the authority to move forward with a wiretap on one person or another.
03:11:09.400It was a discussion on the invocation of a public order emergency, which requires reasonable grounds for the governor and council to make a determination.
03:11:19.480So, sir, you'd agree that that document was not provided to the full cabinet on February 13th?
03:11:29.360And if I could rephrase what you said, you just said the IRG considered that report, it discussed it.
03:11:36.360No, no. Throughout the IRGs, CSIS, as a par for a course, would mention that the threshold had not been met for CSIS operations within this of a particular type, according to their context and their mandate.
03:11:57.220But we were not looking as an IRG or a cabinet as to whether or not CSIS would be allowed to do this or that thing.
03:12:06.600We were looking at, certainly by this end, whether or not we had a threshold met for the invocation of a public order emergency.
03:12:17.100So, Prime Minister, Director Vigneault testified that a written threat assessment was prepared by CSIS, and he testified that he provided that to the IRG.
03:12:27.980Are you saying that that document was not provided to the IRG?
03:12:32.200No, that would have been provided to the IRG.
03:12:33.900But would you agree that it wasn't provided to the full cabinet?
03:12:37.080Yes, I agree that the report was given that the narrow CSIS threshold was not met for a CSIS operation, but because that was not the issue at play in this cabinet discussion.
03:12:58.820The issue was, was the threat of serious violence threshold met in the context of a public order emergency, was the discussion at play.
03:13:10.040And Prime Minister, this morning in your testimony, you addressed the policing plan that was prepared by the OPS.
03:13:17.420And I believe you stated, we should read it, we should look at it, because it wasn't much of a plan. Is that fair?
03:14:13.260And so I'd like to just, Mr. Registrar, I'd just like to walk the Prime Minister through the pages, not so he could read it because we don't have time, but just to point out that this is a heavily redacted document.
03:15:30.700Sorry, sir. This was in our document list that we circulated within time to counsel for the attorney general. They had noticed that we would be putting this document. And the question is a fair one in response to the prime minister's testimony this morning that he said you should read it.
03:15:47.120I think it is fair in a sense, but I think what's being raised is it's a little more complicated than the federal government or the prime minister releasing.
03:15:58.960This is a police operational plan of the OPS involving officers from the OPS and from OPP involving strategy, etc.
03:16:10.160And I would be very surprised if the federal government would order its release without consulting with the various police services.
03:16:19.260And I think that's the unfairness that's being referred to.
03:17:12.000Prime Minister, and again, I think I would like to raise this again.
03:17:16.000I'm looking to Mr. Gover in anticipation of his reaction.
03:17:20.080As you know, there's a legal opinion that over which solicitor client privilege has been asserted.
03:17:25.500We asked Minister Lamedi to release that opinion, and in a public statement this week, he said he couldn't because he lacked the authority to.
03:17:33.820That would be up to his client, and he then clarified that his client is Governor and Council.
03:17:38.620So, again, for the record, sir, and this has been an issue for all week, not just this morning,
03:17:44.460would you advise that that opinion be released in the interest of transparency?
03:17:51.020Mr. Commissioner, it's Brian Gover once again for the Government of Canada.
03:17:56.300Solicitor-client privilege, of course, is a very substantial right in our legal system.
03:18:02.040It's one that the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized as a constitutional dimension.
03:18:07.240I remind my friends that in this case, as the Prime Minister has said,
03:18:12.960Cabinet confidence has been waived for the fourth time in 155 years to provide evidence of inputs.
03:18:19.480We know that the decision note that was referred to in testimony by the Clerk of the Privy Council referred to the advice of the public service that it was appropriate to invoke the Emergencies Act.
03:18:35.600In my submission, we need not go further with the inquiry and pierce the veil of solicitor-client privilege, setting what in my submission could be a dangerous precedent going forward.
03:18:48.700and this is certainly an issue that requires careful consideration
03:18:52.640and not one to require a Prime Minister to respond to in the spur of the moment.
03:19:11.060And so I have one final question, sir.
03:19:14.540So there has been a lot of discussion this week about legal thresholds and how they differ under the Emergencies Act on your government submission than they do under the CSIS Act.
03:19:26.800And you testified about this this morning.
03:19:40.140And prior to that revocation, there was a great deal of public debate and public discussion about the case for the emergency made by the government. Is that right?
03:19:54.620And, sir, I'd put it to you that not until this commission has the government of Canada ever publicly communicated that the threshold for declaring a determining a threat to national security is different under the Emergencies Act than under the CESA Act.
03:23:21.320And we also heard that Superintendent Bernier from Ottawa Police Service took over as event commander on February 10th
03:23:27.560and established what he referred to as an integrated command structure,
03:23:31.600which we heard described from him as including experts from subject matter areas such as
03:23:37.040negotiations, public order, intelligence, etc. Were you aware of that? That sounds reasonable,
03:23:44.680yes. Okay. And the experts involved in both the integrated planning cell and the ultimate
03:23:50.820integrated command structure included senior and specially trained officers from OPS, RCMP,
03:23:57.180OPP, and other municipal police services. Would you agree with that? Yes, I was aware of that.
03:24:01.600and as you indicated you would have of course leave it up to those experts to draft review and
03:24:08.380approve operational plans is that fair yes okay and you certainly wouldn't have had the capacity
03:24:14.360in your role to engage in any kind of line-by-line review or assessment of the viability of those
03:24:20.560operational plans no okay and so I want to focus because we've heard a fair bit of evidence about
03:24:26.460this this morning uh in relation to the time frame of february 12th onwards and the operational
03:24:32.300plans that existed at that time you participated in an irg meeting on february 12th is that correct
03:24:38.780yes uh yes and so i'd like to pull up the minutes from that meeting if we can it's s s m n s c c a n
03:24:48.580And in particular, I'm looking for page six, Mr. Clerk.
03:25:18.560from the Minister of Public Safety and we see the last sentence of that. During the discussion
03:25:25.500confirmation was obtained that the OPS Chief of Police accepted the plan and the Commissioner
03:25:30.860of the RCMP agreed to be able to provide additional details of that plan at the next call. Do you
03:25:37.180recall that? I'm looking at the sentence before where it says there appears to be a lack of a plan
03:25:43.280in Ottawa with the Chief of Ottawa Police Services having yet to approve the plan
03:25:47.020developed with the RCMP and OPP. Right and then subsequent to that we see that in the middle of
03:25:52.440the meeting there's confirmation that the OPS chief has agreed to the plan and that Commissioner
03:25:58.600Luckey agrees to provide additional details to this group subsequently in relation to the details
03:26:04.560is that fair? Fair. Okay and so this was put to Commissioner Luckey in her testimony
03:26:09.440and my understanding of her evidence is that she never did subsequently provide the details of that
03:26:16.400plan to this group on the 13th or otherwise would you disagree with that evidence um no i agree
03:26:23.220because what we heard was the plans were not adequate they were not operational plans at that
03:26:32.280point okay but you didn't ever hear the details of the plan and she certainly doesn't say in this
03:26:37.460meeting that from her perspective it was not an adequate plan she's just saying i'll provide you
03:26:41.740an update later. I can't speak to what she was knowing or not, but I can say that when we were
03:26:49.460briefed on the 13th as to the operational plan or readiness of enforcement in Ottawa,
03:27:02.360we were understanding that there was not a full operational plan at that point.
03:27:08.600Okay, so your understanding of what occurred on the 13th was that you were provided some level of information that led you to believe that there was no complete operational plan. Is that fair?
03:27:18.040That was consistent with everything we heard throughout the course of the three weeks, that there were not yet concrete plans to be able to actually do the work that Canadians were hoping to see.
03:27:35.080Right. So I understand that there are various planning timeframes, but I'm specifically talking about the 13th and whether you were provided details of a complete operational plan to end the protests in Ottawa.
03:27:49.620My understanding was there was not a complete operational plan to end protests in Ottawa as of the 13th.
03:27:56.680Okay. I'd like to bring up OPP 1851, please.
03:31:34.140And we see the objectives listed, if you could scroll down.
03:31:37.520And it says to facilitate a resolution through de-escalation, graduated, measurable, and multi-phased response while ensuring the safety of participants, citizens, and members of participating agencies and return the city of Ottawa to a state of normality.
03:31:52.960And so you referenced earlier in relation to the plan that from your understanding all it was was to continue the negotiations essentially that were already taking place.
03:33:37.100Okay. And we've heard evidence that the Ottawa police were required to acquire approximately 2,200 additional police officers from across the country to support this plan and to successfully complete the POU operation that occurred on the weekend of February 18th.
03:33:53.700Would you have any reason to disagree with that?
03:33:56.540I wasn't aware of, I wasn't following that presentation of evidence so I can't comment on that.
03:34:01.980Fair enough and you may have heard or not that this was the largest POU operation in Canadian
03:34:07.740history. That I was aware of. Okay thank you very much for your time those are my questions.
03:34:14.300Okay well thank you. This is a little early, two minutes early. We don't normally give an hour and
03:34:19.820two minutes for lunch but i think uh today we will uh as a special occasion thank you for your
03:34:26.320generosity so we'll come back at two o'clock the commission is in recess until two o'clock
03:34:31.740so when people laugh at his jokes rulo thinks it's okay for people to laugh but when people
03:34:39.360laugh at the ridiculous evidence and testimony that trudeau gives oh it's unacceptable let's
03:34:44.360keep these proceedings serious guys he just said trudeau just said that he would rather have had
03:34:52.520the protesters removed in 24 to 48 hours like they were as opposed to the graduated plan
03:34:59.700that the combined police force task force had suggested which would have saved a lot of
03:35:09.700canadians from being injured which by the way has not been acknowledged since the protesters were on
03:35:16.160the stand three or four weeks ago which is mind-boggling to me and i'm certainly hoping
03:35:21.840that one of the lawyers in cross brings it up this afternoon if you wanted to keep canadians
03:35:28.180safe mr prime minister then why did you not consider all police options in place instead
03:35:35.000of immediately bringing in the Emergencies Act and allowing these police officers to pretty much
03:35:40.780trample over law-abiding, protesting Canadian citizens in the streets of the capital city.
03:35:51.960Wow. He wanted that to happen quick, and he didn't care how it went down as long as it
03:35:58.520happen quick and yet he continues to say that he wants to keep canadians safe this guy is a
03:36:06.360i'm going to uh i am going to stop myself from name calling at this point but