“Criminalizing Dissent”

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation provided support to the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) as it struggled to deal with the truck convoy protest that paralyzed the nation’s capital last winter, according to a document tabled before the public inquiry investigating the federal government’s response to the protest.

Confidential minutes of the Ottawa Police Services Board presented to the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry show that, during an in-camera discussion on Feb. 11, members of the Ottawa Police Service, including Chief of Police Peter Sloly and Deputy Chief of Police Steve Bell, briefed members of the board on the demonstrations.

As far as we know, King Charles III is not planning to imprison Premier Doug Ford for something he said in the Ontario legislature.

Given that, it’s absurd for Ford to invoke parliamentary privilege to avoid testifying before the public inquiry examining whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the Freedom Convoy protest was justified.

Premier Doug Ford has finally broken his silence about why he is refusing to testify at the public inquiry into the invoking of the Emergencies Act during the Ottawa “Freedom Convoy” protest.

Ford — who has ducked reporters and opposition MPPs since it emerged the commission of inquiry has summoned him and former solicitor general Sylvia Jones to appear — faced the music Wednesday.

“This is the federal inquiry into the federal government’s use of the federal Emergencies Act,” the premier said during the morning question period in the legislature.

Leaders from the Freedom Convoy would not have been able to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nor Governor General Mary Simon, but might have been able to secure a meeting with high-ranking officials in the federal government in exchange for an end to the occupation.

The proposal for a meeting was the subject of many discussions and emails between Feb. 10 to 13 between the Deputy Minister of Public Safety Canada, Rob Stewart, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officials, according to evidence presented to the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) on Tuesday.

The incident commander in charge of policing the protests in Ottawa last winter allowed protesters to park in front of Parliament Hill because he thought that would protect the rest of the city from disruptions, documents tabled with the Emergencies Act inquiry this morning say.

While Ottawa Police Insp. Russell Lucas told the Public Order Emergency Commission he was concerned about a January 6-type insurrectionist attack happening in Ottawa, he told the commission he did not believe allowing vehicles to park in front of Parliament Hill posed a risk because the House of Commons was not sitting that week and he felt he had enough officers to respond if protesters attempted to storm the Hill.

OTTAWA — MPs unanimously voted to demand answers from the Ontario Provincial Police on its “wildly different” testimony about the security threat posed by the Freedom Convoy protests.

In a rare show of parliamentary unity, members of all parties on the Commons public safety and national security committee approved a motion requiring an “immediate response” from the OPP regarding an apparent “contradiction” between what its commissioner told the committee in March about the protests and what its head of intelligence said to the Emergencies Act inquiry last week.

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) said on Jan. 26 that it was being targeted by a “disinformation campaign” by detractors of the Freedom Convoy and also threatened with violence, an internal email reveals.

Then-OPS chief Peter Sloly wrote to his team that there was information from his organization’s corporate communications and the Ottawa Police Association (OPA) that “there is a disinformation campaign from the counter demonstration element targeting OPS and OPA as being complicit in support of the trucker demonstration.”

… “It was our hope that Premier Ford and Minister Jones would agree to appear before the Commission voluntarily,” the letter reads.

“However, given that the repeated invitations were all declined, the Commission has issued summons this day to Premier Ford and Minister Jones.”

The commission has the legal authority to call witnesses to testify before the inquiry. A spokesperson for the Ontario attorney general’s office said the government will be challenging the summons, arguing that Jones and the premier are covered by parliamentary privilege.