Declaration of Emergency Committee on May 10th, 2022

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

This was a very, very unique and fluid situation in Ottawa. It was a lot different from what we had seen across the country and it increased exponentially every weekend. Sometimes the numbers would go down, but there were core groups that refused to leave—

[Peter Harder]

If it's not a failure of policing, why would you urge the invocation of the Emergencies Act? It's an extraordinary act to be declared.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We were not.... It wasn't really the police that were.... We're not in the position to provide influence on the government as to when and where they invoke a certain act. For us, it was about keeping Canadians safe in Ottawa, and when they did bring in the act, it definitely provided us some authorities that helped reduce the footprint so that we could do a safer enforcement.

[Peter Harder]

Did you or your ICC, the integrated command centre, see the need for invocation of the act before the act was invoked?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Well, I can tell you from an RCMP perspective, for example, we were in the midst of trying to enforce at Coutts, for example, and we could not enforce because we couldn't access any tow trucks. We weren't able to do the enforcement that we needed on the days that we wanted to enforce because we had no authorities to force the tow truck drivers to assist, and all of them refused to provide the service.

[Peter Harder]

Would that not be a failure of policing?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Sorry?

[Peter Harder]

Would that not be a failure of policing?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

We don't own tow trucks. If in fact we wanted to move the trucks from the area, we needed tow trucks to do part of our.... Tow trucks are a part of our equipment, but it's contracted out, so—

[Peter Harder]

But, Commissioner, you used tow trucks in other protests without the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Well, in Coutts, we couldn't use tow trucks. They wouldn't come to our.... We asked them to come to assist us, but they would not. We looked to the military as well and, in the end, what ended up happening was that the Government of Alberta purchased some tow trucks, which was just at the onset of the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

We were trying to enforce far before then, but in order to enforce we had to remove both the people and the equipment, but we didn't have tow trucks to move the equipment.

[Peter Harder]

My next question is for the director of CSIS.

I do respect the nature of the act and what you can and cannot tell us, but I'd like you to comment a little more fully on the IMVE presence that you and your agency saw within the convoy and the “freedom convoy” in particular.

[David Vigneault]

Thank you, Senator Harder.

Essentially, I would characterize it as the fact that we saw a number of individuals who were of concern to CSIS prior to the convoy being engaged both online and also in person in the context of the convoy. We saw activities taking place of people trying to recruit other individuals. We saw activities that were characterized by an element of rhetoric.

We have been able to assess this information and share intelligence and information with our law enforcement partners as part of a joint intelligence group and also to advise the government about the threats we saw to the security of Canada. That's how we would characterize it.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Senator Harder, you're finished. We'll catch you in the next round.

Ahead is Senator White.

[Vernon White, Senator, Ontario, C]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for making themselves available.

Commissioner Lucki, we've heard multiple times from ministers and others that the Emergencies Act and the tools provided were specifically requested by police leadership. As a law enforcement agency with primacy in national security, did you ask the government or representatives for the invocation of the Emergencies Act?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

No, there was never a question of requesting the Emergencies Act.

There was a question of—

[Vernon White]

I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt. So you never asked for it. Do you know of any other police leadership who asked specifically the government for its invocation?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

No. We actually reached out to various police agencies when there was talk about some of the authorities that they were proposing, and of course we were consulted. We were the ones who would be using those authorities, so we were consulted to see if these would be of any use to police in the context of the “freedom convoy”.

[Vernon White]

Thank you, Commissioner.

You mentioned earlier—and we've heard it repeated by others—tow trucks as an example of one of the reasons or rationales for the act's invocation. Was consideration given to use aid to the civil power so that you could actually use military tow trucks and military vehicles to remove the vehicles from either Coutts or Ottawa?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Absolutely. We did many inquiries in regard to the use of the Canadian Armed Forces—

[Vernon White]

Did you apply for aid to the civil power?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

No, because when we did the inquiries directly with them, they told us they didn't have the equipment necessary to remove such equipment and—

[Vernon White]

Do you have that in writing from them, Commissioner, if you don't mind, saying that they did not have vehicles to tow trucks?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I'm not sure, but I know there were two vehicles in the Edmonton area that could possibly do what we were looking for, but we couldn't get access to them for several days, and that was the only place in Canada, they told us, that they had such equipment.

[Vernon White]

Thank you very much.

Was the event that was occurring in downtown Ottawa and continuing considered a national security threat by you?