Declaration of Emergency Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2022

[Chief Steve Bell]

That's correct.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Thank you, Mr. Virani.

We'll now move to Madame Normandin.

Go ahead, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chief Bell, I'd like to go back to your comments about tow trucks. You said that the Emergencies Act was helpful because it allowed for the requisition of enough tow trucks. One of the alternative plans that was considered was to use the tow trucks that the City of Ottawa had in its possession, but there were not enough.

Did I understand that correctly?

[Chief Steve Bell]

No, it was more around options. I was asked what some of the options we considered were. Trying to amass local assets through our municipal government was one of them, but that just didn't meet the number we needed in order to move the occupation out.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Can you tell me how many tow trucks you were able to requisition?

[Chief Steve Bell]

I don't actually have that number for you.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Can you tell me how many tow trucks were needed once the operation was launched?

[Chief Steve Bell]

I'm going to turn that over to Deputy Chief Ferguson.

[D/Chief Patricia Ferguson]

It would be strictly from memory here, but I think we were looking at somewhere in the range of half a dozen to 15 or so tow trucks. It was the heavy tows we were lacking in numbers for the city.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Let's go back to what you said.

You mentioned that it had been impossible to get enough tow trucks with the city's resources and that you could use subcontractors. You are not able to give me the number of tow trucks, but you can tell me that it was insufficient.

[Chief Steve Bell]

I don't know if it was one, two or three trucks that we had accessed. I believe there was discussion around the exact number with city manager Steve Kanellakos last week, but it fell far short of the number we were going to need to access in order to mobilize the plan that had been put together to remove all of the protesters.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Did you look for resources outside the City of Ottawa or did you limit yourself to the City of Ottawa?

[Chief Steve Bell]

No. I can tell you that, as part of the planning right from the early days, we worked very hard to try to access the resources we needed, tow trucks or alternatives. Ultimately, we weren't able to find the numbers or alternative means to move them. What it came down to was that in order for us to execute the plan, we were going to need to have the number of tow trucks that Deputy Chief Ferguson mentioned.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

So you searched for them as best you could, but you were unable to find 12 tow trucks.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I'm sorry, but your time is up.

Mr. Green, you have three minutes.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bell, can you briefly state who was actively involved in Project Hendon?

[Chief Steve Bell]

Project Hendon is run primarily by the Ontario Provincial Police—

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

I'm sorry. I mean from the OPS. Of those who reported to you, who would have had access to the Hendon reports?

[Chief Steve Bell]

The Hendon reports were shared widely within our organization. They were actually put into our intelligence unit, into our planning team, and information was reported up through our chain of command.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

There are reports that have been disseminated through the Public Order Emergency Commission that Deputy Ferguson had not been given access to these reports until a week after the convoy had started.

Is it correct, Deputy Ferguson, that you didn't have, at the outset, any access to these reports? If so, why do you think that is?

[D/Chief Patricia Ferguson]

That is correct. Traditionally, intelligence has been tightly held in organizations to go to people who are...that's their designated job.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

The interview with Superintendent Pat Morris for the provincial operations intelligence bureau talks about “a failure to utilize intelligence in operational preparation, decision-making, and proactive planning.”

In fact, it goes on to state that it appeared that people didn't understand the “gravity”, that it wasn't apparent that “the OPS members participating in the Hendon calls understood the gravity of the situation by January 21.” However, “as time progressed...their grasp [and] impactful questions...became more evident.”

Up until then, is it fair to say that your intelligence analysts who were participating with the Hendon calls perhaps underestimated what was coming their way?

[Chief Steve Bell]

I think we all continued to grow in our knowledge and understanding of what was going—

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

That wasn't the question, sir. Would you agree with the assessment that there was a failure in intelligence analysis and a significant gap between that analysis and the operational planning leading up to the convoy?