Why is Trudeau getting Emergencies Act Inquiry report before you do？
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Summary
The Public Order Emergency Commission has concluded its investigation of the use of the Emergency Order Decade Act, which was passed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government in response to a protest by a Freedom Convoy on the streets of Canada on February 19th, 2019.
Transcript
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Minister Blair, Public Safety Minister, Minister Mendicino, National Security Intelligence
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Advisor Jody Thomas and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey and today you testified that
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the federal government was committed to exhausting all alternatives to a resolution prior to making
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a decision to invoke the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act. Do you agree that that
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accurately describes your government's position? That the invocation of the Emergencies Act was a
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measure of last resort, was not something to be taken lightly and something to do when other options
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were not effective. And you are aware that the OPP along with others developed an engagement proposal
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and you were advised of that proposal at the IRG meeting on February 12th, correct? It was a proposal
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but we had, and it was presented to us, we had more questions about how it would actually work.
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There, it was not a complete proposal. My last question, Mr. Prime Minister,
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when did you and your government start to become so afraid of your own citizens?
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That's a very unfair… I am not, and we are not. Those are my questions.
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I thought, by the way, that was a tour de force of questioning. And I think the country,
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at least those who were watching that day, recognized that Justin Trudeau lied
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when you asked him why he called Canadians names.
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Yeah, well, it's so interesting because the question was, in fact, do you as a leader think that
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your job is to unite Canadians or divide them with name-calling? And I guess, you know,
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he couldn't really answer that question apart from saying, I didn't call anyone names, but it was
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what the role of a leader is. And it was interesting to see how he scrambled with that one.
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Yes, he certainly did scramble and denied it all, even though he had said, of course,
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in two separate occasions that people opposed to the vaccine were misogynistic and racist, which was,
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I personally believe, and I think everybody associated with the Freedom Convoy believed
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was just unacceptable. You also asked him, and you repeated that in a tweet the other day,
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when did you start to become afraid of Canadians? Do you really think, do you think Justin Trudeau is
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afraid of Canadians? Well, so I was in Ottawa for the convoy protest, and I was in the middle of so
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many negotiations with the city police. So all we had to do, the only people we had to deal with at
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first was Ottawa city police, and then the city of Ottawa came to the table because they were desperate.
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And then I sat through six weeks of hearings with all these representatives of Ottawa. Beside me,
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most of the time Tamara Leach was sitting and like, you know, protesters were in and out. Then the last
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week we had ministers and Brenda Luckey. And all I thought the whole time was, what were you afraid of?
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You know, we're sitting here in the same room, we're all Canadians, we're all adults, I think. And all you
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had to do was talk to us, talk to the protesters, they came to your doorstep. What on earth are you so
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afraid of? Like, I do think so, because there was absolutely no reason for there not to be any
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dialogue. All right. And certainly his reaction, the authoritarian reaction did seem to indicate
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fear. And certainly his ministers, I think of the justice minister, I call him the injustice minister,
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when he actually asked for tanks to go out and confront these peaceful protesters. You wonder
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what they were thinking. But it was just a joke, David. Yeah, it was just, yes, that's right. Afterwards,
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it was just a joke. But of course, this cabinet often looks like a joke. And that's, that's part of the
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problem. I want to turn, of course, to the issue of the hour, which is,
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why is Justin Trudeau getting a copy of the Public Order Emergency Commission report, or as people
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generally know it, the Emergencies Act inquiry report, two weeks ahead of everybody else,
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including you or the opposition? Great question. And we don't have an answer to it. So I tried to
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explain it as best I could on social media. And in our, it's in our final submission as well.
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So this is a statutory requirement to do this into for the inquiry to happen and for a report to be
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tabled in the House of Commons. That's a statutory legal requirement. No other commission or inquiry in
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Canadian history has been conducted because of a lawful act like an act. And usually they're by order and
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counsel, something like there's a, you know, a plane goes down, let's investigate it, let's figure it
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out. So they come to the table, they make up an order in council, and they move forward. So in this
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case, they also issued an order in council that has a different deadline. So the cabinet,
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including Trudeau, wrote the mandate for the commission in addition to what's in the act.
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And it has a different deadline. And that deadline is only for Trudeau and his cabinet to get an
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advanced copy basically of the commission's report.
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That does certainly sound mysterious. Do you think the public, you and the opposition,
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the official opposition could be seeing a different version of this report after two weeks?
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You know, that would be the more sinister result after having some time with the report so they
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could, you know, ask for an amendment. I don't know. At a less sinister view of it,
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they just have an opportunity before everyone else to start their messaging campaign,
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their spin campaign before anybody else. And, you know, one thing that we really have to
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think about and talk about is when the Emergencies Act was debated after the War Measures Act,
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there was strong opposition to it. And it was the NDP that was demanding transparency and accountability.
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And they're the ones that heavily pushed for this inquiry to happen because this is such a strong tool.
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So we shouldn't be willy-nilly about any of this. This is so important, this inquiry. It's in statute.
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It was debated. It's in law. And none of these mysterious questions about what's going to happen
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and early reports should ever be touching the tongues of any Canadians. Like, this should not be a discussion.
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Hmm. Yes. And certainly, it can only raise more questions and concerns. And so many Canadians
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already have questions and concerns about the invocation of the Emergencies Act. So...
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Now, you also mentioned the fact in your Twitter feed that there's been no comment from the federal
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government on the legal opinion that was offered the cabinet. Now, can we think anything else,
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then, that the cabinet didn't like this legal opinion?
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So that, to me, is incredibly shocking. And I'm surprised more Canadians aren't outraged about that.
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But... So when Minister Lamedi came to this stand, he came saying he was a fact witness.
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So why do we need somebody providing facts? We already have the facts from tons of police officers.
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That's... That was their job. They were the ones informing the minister. It's not like I wanted
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Alamedi's first-hand experience during the three weeks there. That's not what he was there for.
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And so he made that qualification at the beginning, which was very troubling for our group.
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And one thing I want to mention before I go on is that on the first day, the commissioner said that
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this isn't meant to be an adversarial process. This is an inquisitorial process. So our group wasn't there
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to be at odds and demanding and fighting with. It's for the commission to do that. So we saw that
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play out with the redactions and the late documents. It shouldn't have been on our group
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to be the ones asking for that. That should have been the responsibility. And that is the role of the
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commission. They had a huge team there to support that. So again, nobody's speaking up that this
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doesn't make sense. That Alamedi is up there talking about being a fact witness. And
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there's only so many challenges one can make. And so he goes up there and I'm sure it was shown during
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his evidence or maybe somebody else. It said Department of Justice. And then the rest of the page was
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blanked out. And he would not agree to waive or even ask his clients to waive privilege because
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a lawyer has to abide by solicitor-client privilege. And clients are allowed to have discussions with
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their lawyers in a protected environment. But we're not talking about those discussions anymore.
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We're talking about the legal opinion, which they then said informed the cabinet of making the
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decision of invoking the Emergencies Act. So in my view, this is a legal opinion that all Canadians
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deserve to see. It's not about what was said, what the advice was, that was their opinion. And based on
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that piece of paper, it was made, evidence was given that that's the reason they invoked the
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Emergencies Act. So Canadians, for transparency, in my opinion, deserve to see that legal opinion as
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well. And of course, if they're not releasing it, there must be something there that they don't
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want to release. That is contrary to their opinion. Yeah. There was, after November 25th and Trudeau
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stepped down, of course, there were, the Commission continued its hearings very quietly because they
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certainly didn't promote them. They brought in a series of experts, so-called experts, to discuss
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whether the invocation of the Emergencies Act was the appropriate thing to do. Most of these experts,
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I attended a few of these meetings. There was no media present except myself, no public. Most of these
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experts, as far as I can see, were pro-emergencies act. Were you invited, or was anybody from the
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Freedom Convoy legal staff invited to attend these sessions? Interesting question. So I didn't stay on
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in Ottawa any longer, but we had one of our legal team members still there. And so she informed,
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first, we didn't really know about the process. We knew it existed, but we didn't know how involved we
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could be. We thought we would be part of the panel discussion. After six weeks of evidence,
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you know, we're there, let's have an informed conversation about what was discovered in the
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last six weeks. No, that's not how it was. So what we were told to do is email a question to the lead
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lawyer for the council, and they will determine whether or not that question will be put to the panel.
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In addition, many people don't know this. They actually took away the microphones from all of the
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parties, apart from the government of Canada. They still had a microphone in front of them.
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All other parties, microphones were gone. So even if you wanted to raise a question, it was not possible
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for you to do so. That's exactly what I suspected. Because as I said, it was most of these people,
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they were there to reinforce the government. And I was quite surprised. Well, maybe I shouldn't have
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been. But I was almost shocked that there was very little mention to the media that the process was
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continuing, because they obviously didn't want a lot of coverage. So yeah, what was troubling to me,
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as I mentioned, is after six weeks of so much evidence, and we weren't invited to be part of the
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panel, you could really see that many of the panel members, they were still talking on MSM talking points.
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It's like they hadn't heard anything from the six weeks, and they're just providing their academic
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opinion. So you see how siloed it was. And it's like, how is this furthering any of the benefits
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that we were looking to do it? Maybe that's the case. Maybe they didn't want that. Again,
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you noted that the media wasn't really alerted to it. So working in silos and, you know, it's
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incredibly unfortunate to me that that's how things were conducted in Canada. Dialogue is missing.
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Yeah, I wanted to ask you as well, you probably haven't seen this, but I'll read a couple of
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paragraphs from it. The Ottawa People's Commission, which sounds to me like a bunch of
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neo-communists hiding out someplace in the gutters of Ottawa. But they've released a report today,
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and the only media agency I think that's covered it has been the CBC, of course. And the allegations
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in this report are so over the top, are so outrageous, that it's almost like a parody.
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And I'll read you their key line. And apparently, they claim they spoke to 200 people, which of
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course, it's nothing. But I doubt they even spoke to that many. And the commentary runs like this.
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People who live and work in Ottawa endured several weeks of widespread human rights abuse amidst the
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climate of threats, fear, sexual harassment, and intimidation marked by racism, misogyny,
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anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other expressions of hate and intolerance.
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I just, I just, I wonder if this was for real or not. But here's really where I want your comment.
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This is, well, yes, people told this commission they were driven into by truck
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drivers, beaten, pushed, chased, and threatened. Now, obviously, if any of this had been anything
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but fiction, I think people would have been running to the police, and people would have been charged
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for driving over residents or beating them up. So, do you have any comment on that?
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Yeah, well, and I actually just tweeted about it today is, unfortunately, and I've said this many times
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since, especially the Public Order Emergencies Inquiry, it really exposed the incompetence of our
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government agencies and police authorities. And I don't say that with pride or that I'm happy about
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that. I don't say that at all. What I think it did is definitely shone a light on the issues. But to some
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extent, I have to feel for police authorities who are getting this kind of just silly. So, basically,
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what they're saying is everyone failed them. It was so bad that the police, like, it sounds like the
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police just abandoned these people and the city. And so, how can, how do you reconcile that? And I do blame
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our Prime Minister Trudeau from the top starting this rhetoric of hate and division. And who's the
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one that has to deal with it on a day-to-day basis? It's the police authorities on the ground with
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protests and anti-protests, with city council that was on the ground, because of the hate divisive
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rhetoric that came straight from our Prime Minister. And it's just sad, honestly.
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Yeah. People have asked me why I spent so much time at the Freedom Convoy a year ago and why I've
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spent so much time writing about it ever since and why I'm going to keep writing about it. Because I think
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we're living in a historically very fragile time because of the preponderance of social media,
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the distrust of the mainstream media, and the fact that we hear words like misinformation,
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disinformation constantly spewned by this government. And I think it's important that
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that people like me, and I think what you're doing and what you have done is so important
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to define actually, historically, what happened during that time of the Freedom Convoy. Because otherwise,
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the official history being written by the Trudeau government, and people like this,
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is going to paint this peaceful protest like it was a Nazi Nuremberg rally. And I spent the time I
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spent, I saw nothing but love and compassion and people who are hurting because of excessive mandates
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and authoritarian laws from this government. So I want to thank you for keeping up the fight
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in this. Because I think it's not just a matter of politics and it's not a matter of whether or not
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you agree with the mandates or you're vaccinated or not. It's a matter of historical record. And I
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think what you're doing and you continue to do with on social media and in interviews like this and the
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other work you do is so important because you have credibility and people listen and we need more
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people to define actually what happened last February. Well, thanks so much, David. And like,
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I appreciate all the work that everyone else is doing. And speaking to what you mentioned,
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making sure history is pretty accurate. That was a big reason that, too, I had read those statements to
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Prime Minister Trudeau. Many people didn't realize that, too, because that became an exhibit that forms
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part of the public order emergencies inquiry. I read three short paragraphs from three different
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people of I think it was 500 or 300. We had so many, we couldn't even put it together. But getting
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those stories of people that were there, and more so my heart goes out to the people that are Indigenous
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and Black and LGBTQ that were there to support and they're doubly getting it. So they're being told that
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like myself being a female, a misogynist or a Black person or an Indigenous person,
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they're racist for supporting it. Those are the stories that are still out there. And they brought
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tears to my eyes when I was reading them all the time. And yes, let's keep sharing those important
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stories from the people that were actually there and not those that made it up in their heads.
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Well, thank you so much, Eva. I hope we can talk again, certainly when the actual report comes out,
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and perhaps next week when Justin Trudeau gets his secret copy. Thank you so much again, Eva.
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