Evidence of meeting #16 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.
9:05 p.m.
Mayor, City of Ottawa
That's to the credit of police officers, who did remarkable work in—
9:05 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
Could you answer my question? What was the plan?
9:10 p.m.
Mayor, City of Ottawa
The plan, as we saw unfold, was that we got tow trucks. We had the officers move in strategically—
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
So it was the same plan. Police Chief Sloly's plan is the one that was acted upon.
9:10 p.m.
Mayor, City of Ottawa
Basically, there was only a three- or four-day difference between the time Chief Sloly resigned and the police action began. I wasn't involved in the details of the plan, but I have to assume that a good portion of the plan had already been assembled by Chief Sloly, under his command. When he resigned, Chief Bell took over. My understanding was that there was greater co-operation at the provincial and RCMP level, at that time.
The plan was to move and systematically clear out Wellington Street, Lowertown, Rideau and Sussex—
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
You said that your job was to ask for help from other cities. You said that you called other mayors to get help from their police services. Did that work? Did some of your counterparts refuse to send reinforcements?
9:10 p.m.
Mayor, City of Ottawa
No one said no. We didn't get as many, from certain forces, as we wanted to. When you went downtown, during that lead-up to the clean-out of the street, you saw police cars from York Region and Belleville. The mounted unit came up from Toronto.
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
When you were making these requests, the Emergencies Act had not yet been invoked. Were you told about any jurisdictional problems owing to the fact that police officers were leaving from places like Windsor and York to go to Ottawa?
9:10 p.m.
Mayor, City of Ottawa
There were no jurisdictional issues.
In fairness, though, it was the chief and his deputy who made the bulk of the calls to their counterparts. I spoke to a number of mayors, in most instances to thank them, because they had already pre-committed to the chief. From that perspective, we were grateful those municipal police forces came about.
There was no need for any swearing-in of Ontario municipal police services, but there was a requirement for us to swear in RCMP officers, because they did not have the jurisdiction on municipal matters in Ottawa. Of course, the OPP did not have to swear in, as they are the provincial service.
9:10 p.m.
Bloc
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In the post-event period.... Can you tell us a bit about the condition of your staff, in terms of post-traumatic events? We talked earlier with former Chief Sloly, who spoke of the concern he had for frontline police and some of the health issues they experienced as a result of the trauma.
Mr. Kanellakos, was there an issue with city personnel who had been on the front lines—with exhaustion or other health issues they might have felt afterwards?
9:10 p.m.
City Manager, City of Ottawa
Mr. Chair, we had all of our emergency personnel, obviously, working. We had firefighters, paramedics and our bylaw officers who still had to get in there. We had our traffic people, public works people.... We still had snowplow operators.... All of our services were still trying to function in and around that area.
I can tell you that even back into our emergency operations centre, the people that were embedded with the National Capital region command centre, everybody felt exhausted after that event was over. I don't know if it's PTSD or what's happened to them psychologically, but there was a collective exhaustion. We really felt—and people have used this expression—that we were “on our knees” after that. The emotional trauma from that event was significant for everybody.
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
I think that's an important observation, in that it corroborates the exceptional nature of this event. This just wasn't a visit to Ottawa of a few people who wanted the opportunity to see the Prime Minister or, as they had in their manifesto, to meet with the Senate and then instruct us to go to the Governor General to overthrow the government. This is a serious and unprecedented occupation of Ottawa itself with lasting results.
9:15 p.m.
Mayor, City of Ottawa
Certainly, from our perspective, our staff were exhausted. This was three weeks in cold weather, whether it was the police, bylaw or snowplow operators. They were exhausted.
It crippled our tourism industry, which is our third-largest industry in Ottawa after government and high-tech. They've been rebuilding because of people's fear of coming to Ottawa. We've started to see an uptick, obviously, in that. That's helped our local economy.
You have to remember that this is also under the guise of COVID-19, which we were still dealing with. We were just getting out of a lockdown. I think as Mr. Naqvi mentioned, another lockdown began, which was imposed as a result of these people claiming they wanted freedom. They weren't offering any degree of freedom to the 18,000 people who live in Centretown and the thousands who live in the ByWard Market. We have story after story of individuals who have said that they hear a horn honk, and they get uptight about that because it was a traumatic experience.
I know some people scoff at that, but can you imagine sleeping in downtown Ottawa with these horns honking literally 24 hours a day? It was unbearable, and it had to stop.
9:15 p.m.
Senator, Ontario, PSG
I know people who have moved out as a result of this.
Perhaps I'll give the last word to Councillor Fleury.
Could you tell us a little bit of the post-trauma felt in your ward?
9:15 p.m.
City Councillor, City of Ottawa
There are a number of areas I could obviously go towards. I think there are a number of elements, including every element that the mayor described in terms of noise, fumes and the risk. Residents were really asking us, “How do we prevent this risk, as a city, in the future? How can we live downtown?”
As you know, in Ottawa, we're having an issue with our downtown. The federal workforce has not come back to the downtown. There's a confidence issue with Ottawa's downtown. There's a business.... As the mayor was highlighting, our tourism partners are saying, “We see the reviews. People are asking questions: 'Is Ottawa safe? Do I book? Is this risk going to continue?'” There are areas where our business operators are saying, “We're getting these bizarre questions that we never thought....” Usually, Ottawa's a safe city. Usually, we welcome protests. Protests are part of the local economy, but they're not impacting the livability for locals.
9:15 p.m.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Thank you, Senator Harder.
We'll now go to Senator Patterson for five minutes.
9:15 p.m.
Senator, Nunavut, CSG
Mr. Chair, I wonder if you would allow me to cede my time to Senator Boniface.
9:15 p.m.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
As no one has objected, Senator Boniface, you have the floor for five minutes.