Senator, I had almost daily—if not every couple of hours—discussions with either the chief or deputy chief, in my office, through Zoom calls or on conference calls. Again, the theme of almost every call was, “We can't move until we have more officers, because our police force still has to police the rest of the city. We can't put all of our resources downtown. We also have suburban and rural communities.”
Most of my time, during that lead-up to getting the okay for the 1,800 officers, was spent lobbying the provincial and federal governments. Ultimately, we were successful, and they moved in. As Senator Boniface mentioned, we often forget there were no deaths during this protest or occupation, and no serious injuries.