Evidence of meeting #7 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 rcmp.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
So, the protesters look like the police? They're from the same communities?
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Would you acknowledge, given those two scenarios, a very different state of policing for indigenous land defenders and for people who may be more familiar to police, being from the same communities? Can we acknowledge at least a double standard there?
Commr Brenda Lucki
No, not at all. There were many people on the forestry road in Wet'suwet'en. There was only one resident in the entire—
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Sure, because they weren't a threat to Wet'suwet'en, were they? Not to anybody else, but to the project.
I want you to comment quickly. Would you not at least admit that there were kid gloves for the protesters in Coutts directly after the discovery of the weapons cache?
Commr Brenda Lucki
No. There were protesters who approached our officers after those people were removed because they weren't part of the protest that the people who were involved in the convoy protest—
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Okay, Mr. Green, I'm sorry. I've given you a little bit of latitude. Thanks.
Mr. Green, can you take the chair?
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Thank you very much.
The question I have I think would best be answered by Deputy Commissioner Duheme.
I want to frame up from my former questions what the joint command would look like. You would be in a joint command with three agencies. Can you tell me what the individual responsibilities would be of those in those command positions?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
In the integrated command centre that we had, there were multiple law enforcement agencies there. At gold level, as it were, there was me, Deputy Commissioner Harkins from the OPP, as well as the interim chief of police, Mr. Bell.
Discussions were ongoing on the way forward. For every plan that was set forward, we were in agreement with the plan. It wasn't necessarily a consensus, but everybody was in agreement as to how we were going to tackle this and the sequence of events as we moved forward.
The OPS is the one thing I want to make clear. OPS maintained the lead throughout this. Both the RCMP and the OPP were supportive throughout, but the joint command.... There were conversations as to the best way to proceed forward to address the situation.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Can you tell me, then, when that part of the joint command started, as opposed to intelligence collecting and all of those other things, what would be the time frame of that in relation to the declaration of the emergency?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
I believe the ICC was stood up on February 12, so this was before...
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
As a joint command, would you be in a position then to determine what your limitations were and what you were able to address through the declaration of emergency?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
We weren't even counting on that. We were planning accordingly with the existing authorities that we had.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Okay. Can you tell me, then, what you were faced with at that time on February 12 and how long the protests had been going on at that point?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
They arrived in Ottawa, I believe, around January 28 or 29. As Commissioner Lucki alluded to earlier, every weekend.... The first weekend, there were in excess of 6,000 to 7,000 people on the Hill on the weekend in the downtown core. That weekend, when the ICC was struck up, we were working with.... Well, we always plan for the worst-case scenario as we move forward, but we're mindful that we want to resolve this at the lowest level.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
I fully appreciate that you would have people working on the ground trying to convince people to move away and to ease up the streets so that the rest of the citizens could use them as well, but what I'm trying to really zero in on is the type of challenges that you had. For instance, would I be correct in assuming that, at least from what I've read in the papers, there was also a group there forming a counter-protest leading up to the days that followed?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
You are correct, Madam Chair, there were counter-protests planned. I think the biggest challenge, as the commissioner alluded to earlier, was the size and funding and several people using this platform to manifest their dissatisfaction with COVID, the government, or any other element they could.
It drew a lot of people. What's interesting is that when the Emergencies Act was invoked, that weekend we no longer saw 5,000 people converge downtown. There were fewer, so it did act as a deterrent. The challenge was the size, the number of people. One of the concerns was the safety of the police officers who were out there.