News Analysis
In his opening statement at the public inquiry into the feds’ use of the Emergencies Act last week, the lawyer representing the Ontario Provincial Police said the OPP didn’t need an emergency declaration to clear the convoy protests.
Two of the highest-profile convoy protest sites were in the OPP’s province of operation: Ottawa, ground zero of the protests, and the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, arguably the costliest of all blockades due to the high volume of goods traded between Canada and the United States over the bridge each day.
While the Ottawa Police Service is the police force of jurisdiction is the nation’s capital, OPP counsel Christopher Diana noted on the opening day of the inquiry on Oct. 13 that the provincial police force played a “leadership role” coordinating resources from different police forces to respond to convoy protest in the city. He also credited the OPP with taking on a “leadership role” in working with the Windsor Police Service and other police forces to clear the Ambassador Bridge blockade, saying it was a “success story.”
The third high-profile blockade during the convoy protests in February was that in Coutts, Alberta, where protesters set up barriers with heavy vehicles for over two weeks. The site was voluntarily cleared in mid-February by organizers who wanted to distance themselves from individuals arrested at the site on charges of gun possession and having a willingness to use force against police.
A lawyer representing the Alberta government told the inquiry on its opening day that the province was able to clear protests without using any of the powers made available under the Emergencies Act.
Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, which all have standing at the inquiry, are among the majority of provinces that were opposed to Ottawa’s invocation of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 that lasted until Feb. 23. They took that stance despite the fact that they, along with several of the other provinces that deemed the emergency measure unnecessary—including Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island—were experiencing or were at potential risk of having convoy blockades within their jurisdictions.
While Ontario wasn’t opposed to the emergency declaration, the OPP’s position that it didn’t need the invocation of Emergencies Act to deal with the protests casts a further challenge to Ottawa’s use of the act, particularly since Ontario had the highest-profile protests.
But besides the OPP’s position on the declaration of the act, there are other reasons why the force’s testimony this coming week at the inquiry could be particularly noteworthy.
OPP Lead Negotiator
After the Emergencies Act was invoked, police escalated their operation against protesters in Ottawa, with riot police wielding batons and pepper spray confronting and arresting demonstrators. Law enforcement conscripted towing companies to remove trucks parked in the downtown core, and financial institutions froze the bank accounts of protesters and their supporters.When challenged as to why the act was necessary given that major protest sites were able to be cleared without the measure, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on different occasions that it was needed to avoid new blockades.
Further questioning of the reason for invoking the act came from MPs when, during parliamentary committee meetings, chiefs of different police forces—including the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service—said they never asked for the act. This seemed to contradict earlier statements by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. An official with Mendicino’s department later told MPs that the minister had been “misunderstood,” and his intention was to say that law enforcement had asked for the tools “contained in the Emergencies Act,” rather than the act itself.
Still, while Ottawa police and the RCMP leadership said they didn’t ask for the act, they welcomed the powers it brought forth to clear protests.
But there was another recent revelation involving the OPP which could show from its vantage point how the Ottawa protest could have potentially been cleared without the use of the act.
Recently released internal government documents show that days before the feds invoked the act, the OPP’s lead negotiator had said that the protesters could be persuaded to leave if the government heard their grievances.
“The [OPP] negotiator suggested that the leaders of the protest could potentially be encouraged to leave and denounce the blockade in exchange for a commitment to register their message with the Government,” reads a document capturing the minutes of a Feb. 10 meeting where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his cabinet, and high-level public servants were present. The account was relayed by Public Safety Canada at the meeting.
The documents were released in August as part of a court challenge by civil liberties groups against the government’s use of the act.
Besides the OPP, there are other witnesses scheduled to take the stance at the inquiry this week whose testimony is particularly noteworthy, among them Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.
Agreement With Ottawa Mayor
In August, the man the City of Ottawa had designated to negotiate with the protesters, Dean French, said an agreement with the truckers to leave the residential streets wasn’t given enough time to materialize before the federal government invoked the act, according to the CBC.
French, who was former chief of staff to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, said negotiations for a peaceful resolution were carried out under a “very tight timeline,” with French having spoken to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson on Feb. 10, and the convoy leaders and their lawyer Keith Wilson on Feb. 11.
Reacting to French’s comments, Wilson said the truckers and the city had signed an agreement on the evening of Feb. 13, and trucks started moving on the morning of Feb. 14.
“Despite this Trudeau invoked Emergencies Act,” Wilson said on Twitter.
The Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa is scheduled to hear daily testimonies until Nov. 25, after which it will enter a second phase with a focus on policy, before Commissioner Paul Rouleau submits his report to Parliament by Feb. 20, 2023.
The commission was formed by the federal government as required by the Emergencies Act to examine the justification of its use against convoy protesters, who demonstrated against vaccination mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions.
Noé Chartier and Andrew Chen contributed to this report.
