Beginning late in the day on October 19 and continuing through October 20 and 21, the national inquiry into the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act heard from the first police witnesses from the OPP Ontario (OPP) and the Ottawa Police Service ( OPS).
In this testimony, the Emergency Public Order Commission heard about some of the political and personal dynamics at play behind the scenes, and documents provided new insight into the kind of intelligence police forces had about of the “freedom convoy” as it crossed Canada and landed. in the nation’s capital.
With more police testimony expected in the coming days, here are some key findings so far.
‘BOILERPLATE’ PLANNING, ‘GAP’ INTELLIGENCE
According to Acting Ottawa Police Deputy Chief Patricia Ferguson, who testified Oct. 20, initial planning for the ‘freedom convoy’ was based on what a commission lawyer described as a standard template. “boilerplate” used for the protests, and on the assumption the protests would be over by Monday.
“I think what they’ve done is they’ve come up with a plan commensurate with the experience we’ve had over two and a half decades in the city, as far as I know, on what protests usually look like, how long they last, and the type of behavior we see,” Ferguson said. “Protesting, you know, is usually a limited window in our experience.”
In retrospect, she testified that the OPS should have “gave more credence to news and intelligence telling us there was a faction we plan to stay on for a much longer period of time.”
Speaking of that intelligence, according to documents presented to the commission by the OPP, the OPP had made their own assessments under Project “Hendon” and gathered information about the convoy as it moved to and through Ontario. A “gap” in their information was why the convoy participants were carrying “pieces of heavy equipment”.
In a “situation report” from January 28, the first day of the protest, other things the OPP were unsure about at that time were: the extent of extremist participation , the possibility that some participants were armed and whether they came with enough provisions for an extended stay.
Asked relatedly why after seeing the convoy heading for Ottawa with various pieces of equipment and plans to park until “they regain their legal freedom”, the city did not imposed more road closures and barriers, Ferguson suggested this might not have been helpful because “if people wanted to leave, the barriers would have prevented them from being able to do so”.
After painting a picture of the need for assistance from the Ottawa Police Service after their initial assessment that the convoy was a weekend event, Ferguson was questioned by a lawyer representing the federal government about the role played by the Emergencies Act once invoked. . She said it was “useful”.
OPS STAFF WERE “ACHILLES HEEL”
Ferguson told the commission that he believed the OPS staffing was their “Achilles’ heel” throughout the occupation. She said the pandemic and the current wave of COVID-19 infections are having significant impacts on staffing levels.
“I would describe us as being on our knees and having run a marathon for the last two and a half years, and I felt like they moved the finish line 100 meters or another mile and gave us 200 pounds to carry to get to the end. So the staff was, I would say, our number one Achilles heel in all of this. And so all of these people who had worked the week leading up to the convoy over the weekend… When the convoy arrived, we were trying to manage the staff and eliminate shifts. Some of them were working until 3 p.m. They were exhausted, so we had to make sure our employees had time off,” said said Ferguson.
Shortage of staff became a big risk for the service, she said, because there was no contingency planning to maintain staffing levels beyond the first weekend. To compound this, Ferguson testified that there was a great deal of confusion within the force and inconsistent direction given by leaders.
“Our planners were also site commanders on the ground, trying to manage things on a very tactical level. And so I think to say we were struggling is fair and accurate.”
This continued into the second weekend of protests, she said, telling the commission that as of Feb. 4, the department had no new plan for handling protesters.
“Our planners, I think, were working on developing it. But they were also dealing with a number of real issues, putting out fires, so to speak,” she said.
Exploiting this “malfunction”, the OPP sometimes refused to deploy officers to help remove trucks from the intersection of Rideau and Sussex because, in the opinion of then-director of operations Craig Abrams of the Ontario Provincial Police, the safety of its officers was a concern because the OPS had not put in place sufficient planning.
OTTAWA POLICE HAD ‘UNCLEAR’ ORDER
In one of the most telling parts of her testimony, Ferguson was asked if she agreed with the wording included in a draft “demobilization plan” from February 10– four days before the Emergencies Act was invoked – who made a series of candid statements about the state of Ottawa police at the time of the protests.
Under a section titled ‘Deployment Plan’ it stated that the current situation was: ‘Not Intelligence Led’.
He also noted that if officers had “low morale” and there were poor communications, protesters had the initiative.
The document says there was “unclear and vague command and control” and that there was “unqualified trained leadership.”
After going through this section, Ferguson said at one point that even though they had a system in place, “we had players who, you know, were jumping or jumping through our incident command structure.”
Speaking on the issue of unskilled leadership, Fergusons said the OPS has lost a lot of subject matter experts over the past four or five years.
“And, because we hadn’t had any big events, you know, with COVID, no presidential visits, any of those things, we hadn’t flexed those muscles. And so that was obviously unprecedented in terms of size, and the kinds of things we were dealing with,” she said.
The document also noted that the Ottawa police had “no national perspective” and that their focus was “maintenance only, not resolution.”
Fergson testified that she remembered then-Ottawa Police Chief Sloly saying, “‘I don’t care what happens anywhere else. Ottawa is where I have to, you know, focus. “And, you know, from his point of view, I can understand that, but we knew that when we took action here, it had ripple effects across the country. They were very connected people and reagents,” Ferguson said.
OPP WARNS POLITICIANS ENCOURAGING EACH OTHER
In a Feb. 6 status report on “Project Hendon,” the OPP paid considerable attention to some of the controversies surrounding the “de-platforming” of the GoFundMe crowdfunding page. The OPP warned that with the protest attracting the attention of American Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr. and Marjorie Taylor-Greene as well as other “controversial, but highly influential and ultra-conservative public figures”, it could increase “anti-government sentiment” in Canada and hardening protesters’ resolve.
In that report, the OPP also assessed that protesters in Ottawa appeared “to have the financial and logistical support to stay in place for the long term.”
They also noted that “the apparent support from Canadian politicians is certain to further embolden those who organize and participate in the blockade, giving them credibility and validating their tactics… As long as the blockade remains in place, it will continue to attract individuals and groups with a range of different ideologies, agendas and projects. intentions in hopes of capitalizing on the protest for their own ends.”
The Ontario Provincial Police warned that the support of officials would be likely to “nurture and encourage ideologically motivated extremists in Canada”.
Asked about this during his October 19 testimony, Supt. Patrick Morris appeared to contradict what his colleagues had noted, saying that although he had seen rhetoric online and reports on social media regarding the protesters’ extremist views, he was “not aware of any information produced that would substantiate concerns in this regard”.
Asked about this by a federal government attorney who pointed to other documents that referenced intelligence gathered about the involvement of Diagolon and Quebec-based Farfaada in the protests, Morris said that while “everyone world was asking about extremism, we weren’t seeing a lot of evidence of that.”
A TOTAL OF 533 CHARGES LAID IN OTTAWA
During his testimony on October 20, a document was filed in evidence this showed that 533 charges had been laid in relation to the convoy, including weapons charges, assault on a peace officer or public official, hundreds of mischief charges and obstruction of ‘arrest.
After the convoy organizers’ attorney tried to convince Ferguson that there hadn’t been an increase in violent crime in the city during the protests, she said she disagreed. He then suggested that there weren’t many charges being laid during the time of the protests, to which Ferguson noted that while charges may not have been laid yet, it may be attributed to the investigative time required before charges are laid.
Picking up on this during her cross-examination, a lawyer for the OPS asked Ferguson about the list of charges, and she noted that during the period from February 17 to February 21, when the streets were cleared after the invocation of the Act on emergencies, peace or public 11 officers were assaulted.
With files from CTV News’ Annie Bergeron-Oliver and Mackenzie Gray