Finance Committee on March 7th, 2022

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

Yes, at this point, it is limited, what we can share. There's an ongoing investigation and we wouldn't want to compromise it.

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

Okay, but it's understood that the authorities of the Emergencies Act are not part of that effort. That's a separate effort and investigation. Those powers were really used in a time-limited and temporary way to clear downtown Ottawa of the illegal occupation.

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

That's correct, yes.

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

Thank you very much.

I don't have a lot of time remaining, but I'll offer you the remaining time if you have any recommendations for the committee to consider. Of course, part of our role is to look at what happened and at the use of the Emergencies Act and recommend any different ways of going about it in the future, in addition to highlighting any potential abuse of those authorities. I'm just wondering if you have any recommendations for the committee to consider.

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

Yes, maybe clarity. In this case, the measures were not implemented for a long period of time, but in a case where they would have been, once something is seized or frozen by the financial institution, what exactly is supposed to be happening? Like I said, we maintained communication with the banks on a daily basis, and a lot of questions we didn't have...because we were not in [Inaudible--Editor] law, we would refer the banks back to their general counsel. For example, on seizing the shares of a company, which fluctuate, or things like that, what exactly are the banks supposed to do with that? The clarity is more on the bank, and maybe the previous speaker pointed to that at times.

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

Are there any assets that were frozen that have not been returned to their owners?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Answer very quickly, please.

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

Not to our knowledge. Again, it's up to the banks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

We're moving to the Conservatives.

MP Chambers, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the candour and comments so far.

Is it the testimony here today that outside the use of the Emergencies Act the RCMP is unable to work with other levels of jurisdiction?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

Well, each province has their own police act and they could request assistance, but they need to follow the process.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Did they not ask for the RCMP's assistance prior to the Emergencies Act?

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

We did provide some assistance.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay. I'm just trying to understand how the Emergencies Act was necessary.

I appreciate that you mention it acted as a deterrent, but would it also not be true to suggest that a deterrent would have also been to enforce the law on the individuals who were breaking the law prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act? That would have acted as a deterrent as well had we been arresting some of the heads of this movement.

[A/Commr Michel Arcand]

It's hard for me to comment on the process of how it was applied and how the Ottawa Police Service applied the request and all this, but to come back to the economic measures act, it had a deterrent....

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Beaudoin, you mentioned earlier that the reason why a court order wasn't sought was that sometimes those last for a lot longer than the Emergencies Act, so were we saying that the reason we had to use the Emergencies Act was that the regular process would have been too harsh a penalty?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

No. I was just trying to differentiate between the two processes. As I also said earlier, the only thing that was gained for law enforcement was the ability to share. The process you're referring to is on application and law enforcement. In this case, law enforcement didn't apply to have something seized. We only shared information with banks, which would apply the seizure.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Some of my colleagues have mentioned how long it would have taken to go through the courts, but I hope what we're not hearing today is that we used the Emergencies Act because it would have been inconvenient to follow regular procedural fairness.

I think we have to see some evidence that the Emergencies Act was absolutely necessary to be used in this case, or that there were no other avenues available through which we could have achieved the same outcome.

I believe this has been very helpful in showing us some of the evidence before us.

I would yield the rest of my time to MP Lawrence, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

That's perfect.

Thank you for your testimony as we wrap up here.

I want to get into some of the specifics on the information that was shared. When you identified someone who was directly or indirectly supporting these illegal activities, was a briefing document provided to the financial institutions? What did that document look like?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

We did provide a document. Investigators would conduct a series of checks on public and police databases, and then they would provide the information that was gathered to the financial institutions for them to make a determination at that point.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Was there personal information in there? Were there other things that were not public? Specifically, was their location, their wealth, their gender and their race included?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

There was some information available in the police database.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I don't mean to be a stickler, but I asked some specific questions and I'd like an answer. Were any of the four or five characteristics that I identified included, and could you tell me which ones?

[Supt Denis Beaudoin]

Yes. It would have depended on what was available in the police database. For some of them, it could have been the sex, the height, previous police dealings, or whether they were suspected in other crimes or were witnesses in other crimes or different types of dealings, so a lot of different information. It's hard to enumerate every single category of information that was provided.