Evidence of meeting #10 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was police.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
I know it's inappropriate for me to advise, or direct, that police chief in any way. I relied on briefings I was receiving from our federal [Inaudible—Editor ] RCMP about a plan—
Claude Carignan
I wasn't asking whether direction had to be given to the Ottawa Police Service, but rather whether they had a plan to clear downtown Ottawa.
If you had asked, you would have been told by the Ottawa Police Service that they indeed had a plan to clear the downtown area and that you had nothing to worry about. Then you would have been able to wait and wouldn't have had to declare a state of emergency.
On February 10, 2022…
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Senator, if I may, I will respond very quickly. I based my judgment on the facts, and the facts were whether or not they had a plan. It had proven to be singularly ineffective in resolving the situation.
Claude Carignan
I suppose you too were monitoring the situation on television.
Is that right?
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Senator Carignan, your time is up.
On behalf of all members of the committee, let me take the opportunity, Minister Blair, to thank you for being here.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Madam Chair, just as a point of order, I want to put on the record a comment with regard to a word I misspoke. I believe the record will show that I insinuated that the Deputy Prime Minister was contemptible. That was not the intended word I wanted to say. I want to apologize for that. It should have been “contemptuous”, for the record, “almost...contemptuous”.
Rather than have to stand up in the House, and do that apology, I thought I would do that now, and allow the record to be corrected. I did not suggest she was contemptible.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Duly noted.
Thank you.
I'll go back to thanking Minister Blair for joining us, on behalf of all committee members.
The meeting is adjourned.