OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Ontario Premier Doug Ford of hiding from his responsibilities during the Freedom Convoy protests, according to a readout of a private call with Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson.
The readout of the February 8 call between Watson and Trudeau is not an exact transcript, but was presented at the ongoing Emergencies Act Inquiry as Watson testified on the protests that overwhelmed Ottawa in February.
There’s such a din in Ottawa you’d think the truckers were back. And in a sense they are, because hearings are finally under way into the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, and the ratio of noise to sense threatens to be worse than in the original go-round. Which is a pity because what is really called for, here and in public discussion generally, is truth and clarity, not screeching.
Nothing to see here… Just Ottawa Mayor @JimWatsonOttawa admitting he met with @gofundme and pressured them to freeze the convoy fundraiser, which they did. And for which he “lauded” them. The criminals are running the prison… #DictatorWatson pic.twitter.com/If0V8BEqWZ
— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) October 18, 2022
The behaviour from the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters in February was “despicable” and “abhorrent,” Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told the Emergencies Act inquiry on Tuesday.
Watson is spending the day providing his long-awaited testimony on municipal efforts to handle the three-week demonstration, after his chief of staff and Ottawa’s city manager appeared Monday.
“We had some people dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We had other people urinating at Cenotaph. We had a group that went and stole meals from the (homeless shelter) Shepherds of Good Hope,” Watson said.
Anyone wondering why public trust in government has tanked should review the testimony of Ottawa’s city manager at the inquiry into the federal government’s use of emergency legislation last winter. Residents and businesses were casualties of almost encyclopedic misjudgments by police, the city, the province and the federal government.
Trust in government tanked long before the Convoy arrived on the scene. It was the symptom.
Ottawa city manager Steve Kanellakos revealed new details Monday about a last-ditch agreement between police, protesters and politicians to move trucks out of residential areas and onto Wellington Street during last winter’s convoy protest in the capital — a deal that would ultimately fall apart just days before the federal government gave police special powers to end the occupation.
Kanellakos was testifying on the third day of the Public Order Emergency Commission, which was triggered when the Emergencies Act was invoked on Feb. 14.
Ottawa City Manager Steve Kanellakos told the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) on Monday that Freedom Convoy protesters never fulfilled their end of the deal to move trucks out of residential neighbourhoods, which was a condition to meet with Mayor Jim Watson, but protesters’ representatives counter that police never allowed the move.
“They never fulfilled their end of the bargain, so he never met with them,” said Kanellakos, the most senior public servant at the city.
Two protesters’ representatives involved in negotiations told The Epoch Times they were always ready to carry forward the agreement but police action made it impossible.
… The Liberals don’t want the public looking too closely at their flimsy case for invoking the Emergencies Act to oust the Freedom Convoy last February. In the spring, they refused to allow the Conservatives, the official Opposition, to chair or vice-chair the parliamentary committee studying the use of the act, as is common practice for committees. The government has also used cabinet confidentiality to deny requests in court to outline the specific information supposedly used to back up claims that there was a genuine national security threat.
OTTAWA – The City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency during the trucker convoy to spur the provincial and federal governments into action, according to evidence presented at the Emergencies Act commission.
The commission’s mandate is to consider why the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, which gave it sweeping powers to freeze financial assets, block protests and led to a massive police operation in downtown Ottawa.
OTTAWA – The City of Ottawa received clear warnings several days before the event that Freedom Convoy protesters were planning to stay for weeks, and in much bigger numbers than the city planned for, according to emails and testimony at the Public Order Emergency Commission.
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 jurisdiction: 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.
OTTAWA – Internal documents show the RCMP refused to release the badge numbers of officers who cleared “Freedom Convoy” protesters from the Ambassador Bridge last winter, citing a risk of violence from their supporters.
The situation was detailed in a briefing note and threat assessment prepared for RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who was asked to approve the decision because the force recognized it raised questions around transparency.
RCMP sent Freedom Convoy blacklist to lobbyists
Records show an RCMP blacklist of bank account holders identified as part of the Freedom Convoy movement was sent by email to lobbyists, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
… The records show the RCMP distributed names, birth dates, phone numbers and more by unencrypted email and neither police nor Cabinet ensured the blacklist was accurate or confidential.
Whatever else the public inquiry into the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the chaos in downtown Ottawa earlier this year may or may not determine, it has already triumphantly vindicated one thing: the Emergencies Act itself.
The inquiry, formally known as the Public Order Emergency Commission, was not struck at the government’s discretion, but was explicitly mandated by the act, as was the joint parliamentary committee that is already holding hearings. The government will not be able to avail itself of the “if you knew what we knew” defence, beloved of tyrants everywhere: After the commission has finished its work, we will know what they knew.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland grossly inflated estimates of the Freedom Convoy impact on the Canadian economy, internal documents show. Freeland cited figures described in one Department of Transport memo as an “extreme case” that did not reflect actual data.
“The blockade of the Ambassador Bridge has affected about $390 million in trade each day,” Freeland told reporters last February 14. “This bridge supports 30% of all trade by road between Canada and the United States.”
Windsor? $3 billion?
The economic nightmare that wasn’t? Border blockades had little effect on trade, data reveals: https://t.co/oPlIljx3k1 https://t.co/6lIn4zTFjk— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) October 15, 2022
“Everyone,” says the Charter of Rights, has the fundamental freedom “of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” Everyone, that is, except Tamara Lich, one of the organizers of the truckers’ Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa in January and February.
Most egregiously, under her bail conditions Lich must remain publicly silent pending the result of her court hearing in September 2023—including no social media use whatsoever—all for exercising her right to protest in a free country.
The long anticipated public inquiry into the federal government’s first ever invocation of the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protests are finally underway in Ottawa. The Public Order Emergency Commission, also known as the Rouleau Commission, commenced hearings Thursday in Ottawa with opening statements from parties and the introduction of overview reports from commission counsel.
