During the Freedom Convoy protest that took place in downtown Ottawa in early 2022, Public Safety Canada issued a false bulletin claiming that protesters were ransacking federal office buildings, according to records obtained through an access to information request.
On June 5, Alexander Cohen, spokesman for Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, said the department had no involvement in the bulletin sent out by the Government Operations Centre, which is a division of Public Safety Canada.
“The minister’s office does not direct the Government Operations Centre,” said Cohen.
According to a Blacklock’s Reporter article on June 6, the centre issued the “faked security bulletin” at 3:54 p.m. Ottawa local time on Jan. 28, 2022, the first day of the protest outside Parliament Hill.
“We have received confirmation that protesters have started to enter office buildings in the Ottawa downtown core and are allegedly causing damage,” the bulletin said. “As a result, Minto Place is going into weekend lockdown mode (all entrance doors will be locked) effective immediately.”
There were no incidents that involved protesters in office buildings. However, Public Safety would not explain the source of the disinformation when it said on June 5 that it had nothing to do with the disinformation.
Seeking to Discredit the Protesters
Meanwhile, departmental records released through the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) showed that government staff sought to discredit the protesters as being violent even if the allegations were false.
“Some of their more extreme comments, i.e. calling for a January 6 style insurrection, are getting more coverage in the media,” government staff wrote in a Jan. 24, 2022, text. “There could be an opportunity to get in on this growing narrative of the truckers.”
One aide wrote, “There’s a danger that if we come down too hard they might push out the crazies.” Another aide replied, “That’s fair.”
Mendicino had also earlier testified at the Commons public safety committee, on Feb. 25, 2022, that he had personally contacted certain unnamed news reporters and warned them to use caution when dealing with the Freedom Convoy.
“As for journalists, trust me, I reached out to some of them and urged them to be very careful,” Mendicino told the committee.
