Good evening, Chair and committee.
Thank you for inviting me here today. I look forward to answering your questions and assisting the committee in whatever way I can.
I'm the general manager of emergency and protective services for the City of Ottawa. As such, I oversee approximately 2,500 staff. I'm supported by the city's director of public safety services, the director of by-law and regulatory services, the fire chief and the fire and the paramedic services, all of whom report directly to me. Previously, I was the chief of the Ottawa Fire Services before being promoted to my current position. As the general manager of emergency and protective services, I report to the city manager, Steve Kanellakos.
Before I answer your questions, I thought I could best assist the committee by providing it with an overview of the city's emergency operations centre, the EOC. The EOC was central to the city's efforts during the “freedom convoy”. The EOC receives information from all city departments and convenes and monitors emergency situations once the situation is brought to our attention. During an emergency situation, the EOC status may escalate from “monitoring” to “enhanced”, from “enhanced” to “activated”, and then from “activated” to “a state of emergency”. This exact progression took place during the “freedom convoy”.
The EOC is staffed by duty officers from each of the city's departments. The EOC operates under the oversight of the emergency operations centre control group, which is chaired by the city manager, Mr. Kanellakos. The city is also a member of the national capital regional command centre, the NCRCC. The NCRCC includes representatives from the RCMP, OPP, Ottawa Police Service and Parliamentary Protective Service.
The NCRCC acts as an area command during an active multi-agency police operation in the region. The NCRCC was mobilized on January 28, 2022, to respond to the “freedom convoy”. The Ottawa Police Service led the NCRCC incident command and was thus the lead agency during the protest in Ottawa.
With that structure in mind, I want to now turn to the city's role during the “freedom convoy”. The handling of the “freedom convoy” fell within the incident management of the Ottawa Police Service. The city's role—and mine—was to support the OPS to mitigate the impact of the protest on residents and businesses. The goal of the city was to get the convoy in and out of the city as soon as possible. To this end, we responded to the operational decisions made by the Ottawa police.
For example, on January 29, 2022, the Ottawa police instructed bylaw officers to not ticket or tow vehicles in the red zone without police approval. Later, bylaw officers and other city personnel and services were directed not to enter the hot zone—or the red zone—without police escort, due to safety concerns.
Despite our efforts and those of the Ottawa police, the protests had a grave impact on our city's communities and social services. Thus, routes had to be rerouted, and some individuals receiving care at home had to be relocated. The city also had to work with convoy organizers to maintain an emergency lane throughout the downtown for emergency service vehicles throughout the relevant period. The city experienced both setbacks and successes throughout this period.
From my perspective, the city learned some valuable lessons from the convoy demonstration. The city's response to “Rolling Thunder” is a prime example. Before the “freedom convoy” occurred, the city did not install traffic barriers after it was advised not to by Ottawa police. However, when we became aware of the “Rolling Thunder” protest, we worked with Ottawa police to block roads to the downtown core based on knowledge gained from the “freedom convoy”. I suspect that in the future these types of efforts will be invaluable in preventing an event like the “freedom convoy” from occurring again.
I am pleased to be here today to share lessons learned with you. I look forward to answering your questions.
Thank you very much.