Evidence of meeting #14 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 officers.
A video is available from Parliament.
7:45 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Senator Harder, your time is up. Thank you very much.
We will go back to round one, but I'd like to suspend until eight o'clock, so we will take a break for 13 minutes.
7:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
We will resume.
This round will be five minutes, and we will begin with Mr. Motz.
7:55 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you again for being with us.
Chair, were you going to stop my time for a second and ask about the time for the—
7:55 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you very much.
Mr. Sloly, you indicated to some of my colleagues' questions, and I want to clarify, that you had tow trucks available to you, and that it wasn't safe to deploy them without the Emergencies Act.
7:55 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
It wasn't safe to deploy them in certain areas of the theatre, particularly the red zone. We deployed them in other areas.
7:55 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Right, but the thing is that you had them; they were available to you. You didn't need the Emergencies Act to get them. That's number one.
Number two—
7:55 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
No. I'm sorry. Just to be clear, we did not have sufficient tow trucks or predictable resources. We had a small number.
7:55 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Fair enough, but you had them. You didn't need the Emergencies Act to access resources either. I know they—
7:55 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
I'm sorry, sir, we did. We did not have resources on scale for the plans we had in place.
7:55 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Right, but you had resources because you started clearing the streets on.... You stated that your planning was in a better place on February 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13, so you started executing the plan before the Emergencies Act came in. You had hundreds of additional.... In fact, you probably had around 1,500, from what I was told, before the Emergencies Act was invoked.
8 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
No. That's not—
8 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
It was all cleared up before the Emergencies Act came in, was it not?
8 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
Those numbers are not correct, the resources you're describing. Part of the disinformation, unfortunately, that was flowing around this city was about large numbers of resources that we simply did not have, and we didn't even get to those numbers while I was still in office.
8 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
The swearing in of individuals can happen. You can put a couple of hundred people in a room, and you can swear them in all at once. You don't need the Emergencies Act to swear people in. Is that correct?
8 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
There are different techniques for swearing people in, yes, sir.
8 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
You don't need the Emergencies Act. That is my point.
I want to go back to Mr. Brock's comment. Because his time ran out, you didn't answer specifically about the incendiary rhetoric and divisive language used by our Prime Minister.
You have been in law enforcement for 30 years. You have dealt with the odd protest or two, as you have indicated, of course, and we thank you for that.
Has it not been your experience that, when you have a dedicated and committed protest base, if the person or organization they are protesting against and want to be listened to by taunts them or insults them, it's more than likely to escalate the agitation and double-down of the commitment, rather than convincing a protester to walk away?
8 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
Again, I can't put myself into the mindset of any group of demonstrators or protesters I have dealt with over 30 years. There are different things that trigger people and groups for different reasons.
8 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Human nature being human nature, honey is usually more attractive than other things.
I want to take you to some political discourse that may have gone on. Your previous Ottawa police services board chair, Diane Deans, suggested that emergency preparedness Minister Bill Blair might have had an axe to grind with you, leading to the weeks-long federal foot dragging when it came to accessing or answering your requests for additional resources.
Do you share that perspective at all, yes or no?
8 p.m.
Conservative
8 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
I can't engage in conjecture, sir. I'm sorry.
8 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Okay, but the day before the Emergencies Act was invoked, Mr. Blair did a television interview, and he said, “[W]e all need the police to do their job.”
Do you believe that you were doing your job? How do you react to his slamming you like he did?
8 p.m.
Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service, As an Individual
I know I was doing my job. I can't state what the intent was of the minister's comments, sir.
8 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
What's your take? You obviously didn't feel good. If I was in your shoes when the minister said that, I would become unglued on him because he didn't provide me what I needed, but I appreciate your political correctness.
Is there any truth to the suggestion that, when he was the Toronto police chief and you were the deputy chief for most of the time he was there.... Was there anything going on between the two of you that would prevent him from treating you the way you needed to be treated here, that would cause him to act in a prejudicial way as far as your not getting the resources you wanted?