Mr. Chair, the answer is that the decision was made, based on the information Ottawa police had, to allow the trucks into downtown as a strategy. It was to basically allow them in for the weekend with the belief that they would leave after the weekend. That was the information we had going into the weekend. Once that happened, the trucks got entrenched downtown.
With the number of people we had, it was impossible to put tow trucks in that crowd and safely remove a tow truck without securing the area, as we did on the final weekend. Police, if you noticed, pushed them back and tow trucks came in behind police and took out the trucks.
There is no way you can safely—and there are a number of police officers on this committee—bring a tow truck into a crowd of tens of thousands of people and move those heavy trucks without police being able to secure those trucks and get them out.
Once we lost downtown and those were parked, it was impossible for us to get them out without having an incredible police operational plan with public order units to secure that area. They were backed up, front to back, very tightly. They had to pull them out. There was no way they were going to come out.