Finance Committee on March 7th, 2022

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Right, and those applications would have been brought perhaps by the RCMP, but also perhaps by the Ottawa Police Service or perhaps even the OPP. Is that correct?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

You are right.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Absent the Emergencies Act you didn't have the ability to coordinate your efforts in that respect. Is that fair?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

For the portion involving the banks account, yes, you are right.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

All right. Thanks.

Am I right that you said ultimately 257 bank accounts or thereabouts were frozen?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

It was thereabouts. It was 227 or 257—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

There were significantly more than 257 trucks in Ottawa. There were certainly significantly more than 257 different groups of people in Ottawa, so this wasn't a blanket, shotgun approach to freezing bank accounts, was it, sir? You were doing this strategically in a way you thought would be fair and would help resolve the situation quickly. Is that a fair way of characterizing it?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

Yes, you are right.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Were the accounts that were frozen, by the way, entities from across the country or were they all Ontario based?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

There was a mixture of people from Ontario and other places.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay, and those other places, I assume, were overseas as well?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

I don't know about overseas. It was mainly in Canada.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay. This is my last question, sir. I believe you or your colleague said that the information was gathered several ways, one of which was by walking the streets of Ottawa and looking at truck identification. We know that the Province of Ontario introduced the emergency measures act that they have at their disposal, which allowed them to suspend commercial licensing for certain vehicles. Were you part of the information gathering that was used by the province in that process? When I say you, I mean the RCMP. No?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

No.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay. Those are all my questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Maloney.

We are moving to the Bloc.

We have MP Ste-Marie for two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to talk about vehicle insurance. Under the order, companies could, or were supposed to, suspend vehicle insurance policies.

Is it possible that a trucker whose insurance policy was suspended left the convoy and drove home uninsured?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

Driving without insurance is prohibited. That's why we didn't use that part of the order.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

You're telling me that the measure providing for the suspension of vehicle insurance wasn't used and that no one's vehicle insurance policy was suspended.

Is that correct?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

We didn't suspend any insurance policies under the order. The Ontario Provincial Police and the Ottawa Police Service used certain provisions to suspend commercial licences and probably insurance policies, but we didn't use that provision of the order.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

I see.

Did the government consult you on the matter? Did you provide any advice on the suspension of vehicle insurance policies when the order was being developed or drafted?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

No, not to my knowledge.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Very well. Thank you.

Obviously, when we read that, we were stunned. We were told that an instruction was given to wait a bit before suspending the policy so that truckers could leave. Apparently, insurance companies were told to reactivate the policy once the individual had left the convoy or blockade. It seemed like the measure was difficult to enforce, to say nothing of the risk of truckers causing an accident and the victim not having access to compensation.

I'm reassured to hear you say that the provision wasn't applied. It doesn't appear to have been useful, something that can happen when a document is drafted quickly.

I'm almost out of time, so I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.

We're moving to the NDP.

MP Blaikie, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I understand that these were temporary and limited powers, as you said, really focused on clearing downtown Ottawa of the illegal occupation, but there were other concerns around financing that were raised in the course of this, including the provenance of some of the donations being outside of the country and supporting some people who had very clearly insurrectionist goals and behaviour.

I'm wondering what the follow-up looks like. We are trying to understand how that happened, how that worked, and what Canada needs to do going forward in order to be able to protect itself from foreign interference helping to generate this kind of illegal activity again.