Evidence of meeting #17 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 emergencies.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:05 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
I don't believe that this could have been completely prevented. It could have been displaced and dispersed. Very likely, there still would have been unlawful assembly. It just would not have been in the area it was contained to. It would have been in other areas of the city.
9:05 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Thank you.
I'm going to follow up on Mr. Green's line, because this is now a question for those of us who come to Ottawa every week: Why three weeks? I'm sure both of you get this regularly on this issue itself. I think this gives you an opportunity to help people understand the operations and the scale of the operations that is required.
I'm going back to the Windsor situation. There is certainly a perception that it got some priority over the citizens of Ottawa from the provincial support, whatever that was, from your agency and from the province as well. Can you help us understand it from the perspective of why Windsor would be the priority? I think you alluded to it in what I would say was a surgical move to be able to clear that.
Obviously there were some economic reasons that were particular, but for those residents of Ottawa who were without work for three weeks because they couldn't get to work—the Rideau Centre was shut down—it's a matter of scope, as you would appreciate, depending on what you're losing out on from an income perspective. I know that with the auto workers that would have been a big issue at Windsor.
Can you help us understand it just so people have a better understanding of how you tried to figure out how to balance all of that? I appreciate that it's not simple.
9:05 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
Thank you for that question, Senator.
We are not in command and control of all these events simultaneously as the Ontario Provincial Police. Each police service of jurisdiction is responsible for the development and execution of a plan within their respective jurisdiction. We were playing an informal leadership role because we were best positioned to coordinate the access to the necessary resources.
We established, in co-operation with other police chiefs, what we referred to as a “public order hub”. There are only 10 public order teams in the province, of approximately a thousand members, and they are part-time members, so they're not ever all available at one time. Every member on a public order line in a public order uniform is a frontline police officer out of the front seat of a police car and out of a community.
It was a matter of trying to coordinate where everybody needed to be to mitigate what posed the greatest risk at the time and how we were prepared to move forward. We anticipated that Ottawa would be five to 10 days once a plan was developed and before we could have exhausted all opportunities and avenues of de-escalation: trying to reduce the footprint so when you do move to the application of force it is absolutely the minimal amount of force required to resolve the incident.
We're bound by the Ontario use of force model, as you know, and de-escalation always has to be the top priority. Our integrated planning team—which was hand-picked from around the province—of subject matter experts arrived in Ottawa on the 9th. By the 11th, they had proposed a plan of action; by the 13th that plan was accepted; by the 15th it was confirmed that it was ready to be operationalized, and then it was still three days before all the assets were available and ready to go.
It's not a direct answer, but I'm hoping it sheds some light into how we were attempting to manage these.
9:05 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
It's helpful, but in a shorter version, can you compare that to Windsor? Again, it was at least reported that 400 OPP officers were taken from Ottawa to Windsor. I think this gives you an opportunity to explain that.
9:05 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
There were no OPP officers moved from Ottawa to Windsor. On February 11, we had approximately 150 OPP officers in Ottawa, give or take. By the 12th, there were well over 200. We maintained a presence of 200, building up to almost 1,000 over the course of the days. We did send OPP officers to Windsor to assist, but they were not taken from Ottawa; they were taken from other areas around the province.
On February 10, I initiated a provincial deployment, which meant that we cleared out all administrative areas, many of our specialty areas. Anything that was not critical to immediate officer or public safety was redeployed to the “freedom convoy” activities around the province, whether they were quick response teams at different border crossings, directly to Windsor or directly to Ottawa—
9:10 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
I'm going to cut you off because I have four seconds, but the point is that it was the “freedom convoy” from one end of the province to the other that was causing that.
9:10 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
That's correct.
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Nova Scotia, PSG
Thank you very much, Chair.
I'm just wondering if there were lessons learned from various police departments or agencies that were in Ottawa about how they should respond to similar events.
Going back to Senator Boniface's comment, I think a lot of people are asking why three weeks. We all watched the convoy coming to Ottawa from all parts of Canada. Three weeks is a long time when you're watching this day after day. Then we have police saying, “We had everything ready to go, but the Emergencies Act came out, so we didn't really get to implement it. If the Emergencies Act hadn't come out, then we would have done it in the next day or two.” But it had already been ongoing for three weeks, three weeks of torture for downtown Ottawa residents.
It's hard to explain to people. You were ready to go in three weeks plus two days without the Emergencies Act, so how do you rationalize that to Canadians who are watching when you say you didn't need it and you did need it? We've heard the Ottawa police chief say that the Emergencies Act certainly made it easier, and you also implied that in your comments.
9:10 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
I think I try to be very clear in terms of my opinion on the Emergencies Act.
Was it theoretically needed in law? No. Was it helpful? Were they tools that assisted the police? Yes. I think that's the best way I can summarize my opinion on the Emergencies Act. Whether it met the legal test or threshold, which I know is something that this committee is going to examine, that is something that extends beyond the police, but I think that's how I can summarize it best.
In terms of the time, in terms of what's being perceived as a delay, I can very much imagine how frustrating it must have been for the residents of Ottawa, but I do ask Canadians to look closely at civil disruption that has taken place around the globe and how police services have responded. There has been serious injury; there has been death; there has been riot. We just need to look south of the border to see how a police response can turn on a dime.
The timing is not ideal. The timing will never be ideal. If Ottawa police moved sooner and somebody was seriously injured or killed, we would be at a different type of inquest or inquiry. This was a no-win situation, I think, for the police and for the residents of Ottawa.
It is such a shame that there's so much attention on the action or perceived inaction of the police, as opposed to the demonstrators and protesters, who are the ones responsible for what victimized the city of Ottawa and this entire country.
9:10 p.m.
Senator, Nova Scotia, PSG
That would definitely be a frustration, yes.
Another question that I have is, were the police concerned, and was there concern about the children—Mr. Naqvi brought this up—who were there in unsafe situations, young children being put between the police and the protesters, and at least one young child with frostbite? Was there concern about Ottawa temperatures in February, children sleeping in vehicles, diesel fumes 24 hours a day and horns honking 24 hours a day?
I thought you said earlier that the Emergencies Act at least restricted children within the zone. Was that correct?
9:10 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
The Emergencies Act did restrict the presence of children within the zone. Again, not to over-complicate it, but there is provincial legislation and federal legislation about the endangering of children. I know that Ottawa police did have the assistance of child and family services and were attending to those issues, but that level of detail is not something that I would have as an assisting provincial police agency. That level of detail really needs to come from Ottawa police.
Thank you.
9:15 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, we have a few minutes left. I think we all agreed that we're going to go to a three-minute round.
We'll begin with Mr. Brock.
9:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Commissioner, it's been said that there was a lot of misinformation, disinformation and false information surrounding the group, prior to arrival and while here. Do you agree with that statement?
9:15 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
Yes, I would agree with that statement.
9:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
One of your employees, Superintendent Pat Morris, also agreed with that sentiment. In fact, he described political and media depictions of the convoy as “hyperbole” and “sensationalized”. An example of that is the Prime Minister, who slurred convoy participants as a “fringe minority” that should not be tolerated. You're familiar with that language.
9:15 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
I have heard that language, yes.
9:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
He later called them “misogynists”, “racists” who should not be tolerated.
Morris testified at the commission to the contrary: His unit determined that participants had “a multitude of grievances” and appeared to be mostly ordinary citizens with “a large degree of support” across the country. Do you support that?
9:15 p.m.
Commr Thomas Carrique
I certainly would defer to Superintendent Morris for his more in-depth analysis of who comprised the demonstrators.
9:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay.
That whole sentiment, I'm going to put to you, Commissioner, was echoed by Mr. Barry MacKillop, deputy head of FINTRAC. Are you familiar with that individual?
