House Committee Will Question OPP Over ‘Conflicting’ Freedom Convoy Testimonies

Incoming Ontario Provincial Police commissioner Thomas Carrique leaves a press conference at the York Region Police Headquarters in Aurora, Ont., on March 11, 2019. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)

A House of Commons committee voted Oct. 24 to question Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officials on “conflicting” testimonies concerning whether or not the Freedom Convoy protest constituted a national emergency.

NDP MP Alistair MacGregor presented a motion during a public safety committee meeting on Oct. 24 demanding that OPP officials explain why they told the committee in March that the protest was a national emergency, but said last week that their intelligence concluded otherwise.

“This committee has to ... seek clarification on why those two wildly different testimonies were given,” said MacGregor.

“I’m quite troubled that the very same police force is giving one answer to the public order commission but a completely different answer earlier [in] the year to a committee of the House of Commons.”

MacGregor’s motion passed with unanimous consent.

In March, OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique told the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security that provincial police identified the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa as “a threat to national security.”

However, on Oct. 19, OPP Intelligence Chief Supt. Pat Morris said that, at the time the Ottawa protest was unfolding, neither the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) nor the RCMP deemed it to be a national emergency, and the OPP saw it only as “potentially a national security threat.”

“[CSIS and the RCMP] did not see things that reached their threshold in terms of what would be deemed a threat to the security of Canada,” Morris told the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC).

Morris also said there was an “absolute lack of criminal activity” surrounding the protest.

“In terms of producing intelligence, we found no credible intelligence of threats,” he said.

‘National Security Threat’

On March 24, MacGregor and the public safety committee questioned both Carrique and Ottawa Police Service (OPS) interim chief Steve Bell about their assessments of the Freedom Convoy protest.

“Did your police officers feel that [the protest] was a viable national security threat?” MacGregor asked Bell, who turned the question over to Carrique.

“We did identify it as a threat to national security, through the provincial operations intelligence bureau, on or about February 7,” Carrique answered.

Carrique added that intelligence reports from “right across this country” collectively identified the convoy as a national threat.

“The Emergencies Act was an extremely valuable tool,” he said.

During Morris’s POEC testimony on Oct. 19, he addressed a Feb. 7 situation report from the OPP’s Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau (POIB), which was introduced to the commission as evidence.

The report called the convoy protest “potentially” a national emergency and added it was a “volatile” situation, “a public safety threat,” and “an officer safety threat.”

A day after the POIB published its report, Morris said in an email that he was “concerned” about the report’s characterization of the Ottawa protest.

“I agree with the potential for officer safety and public safety but INSET and CSIS concur that there are no national security concerns. Confirmed today,” he wrote.

“If we have access to something they don’t, we can meet them to discuss, but I am not aware of it.”

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.