Public Safety Committee on Feb. 25th, 2022

[Talal Dakalbab]

The responsibility for parliamentarians lies with the Sergeant-at-Arms. There is work done, obviously, in collaboration with PPS and the RCMP, depending on the level of threat, but the Sergeant-at-Arms is the first person who is responsible.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

That's who I was receiving information from throughout the occupation.

My next question is probably for the RCMP. How important was removing the ability to access funds to being able to end what was happening in Ottawa?

[A/Commr Dennis Daley]

When I look at the national landscape and the protests across the country and the different situations.... As I understand it, one of the reasons for the proclamation of the Emergencies Act was the potential for further unrest and violence. That was the unknown for law enforcement as the weeks went by, recognizing that since the pandemic started, we have facilitated protests all across the country. From January on, we saw a significantly different flavour in the protests.

The enactment of the Emergencies Act was an effective tool, not only to deal directly with the leaders of the blockade here in Ottawa, but also to provide a deterrent effect as our officers across the country dealt with other blockades and were able to explain what the Emergences Act really was, especially the financial economic measures.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

The first folks arrived in Ottawa on January 28, but on February 2 GoFundMe froze the fundraiser that was taking place on their platform, which at the time was about $10 million. Then on February 4 they took it down.

Do you have any insight into how important it was to proactively remove access to those funds by occupants of the convoy?

I know that at the same time the Province of Ontario also froze the assets of a similar platform that sprang up, GiveSendGo.

Would the police operations have been more difficult had the folks involved in the protest had access to those millions of dollars?

[A/Commr Dennis Daley]

The unlawful protests and blockades that we saw across the country were something different from anything police have ever dealt with. With my 33 years of law enforcement, I'm very used to dealing with protests. I've been involved in similar types of protests; however, when we look at the ability to communicate on many different platforms, the ability to draw resources quickly, and the different funding sources that are available through crowdfunding, for instance, there certainly is a concern for law enforcement.

I don't have specific details on the impacts of GoFundMe or the others, but certainly the ability to freeze accounts was not only effective but also a deterrent for like-minded others.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

My next question, staying on the same theme, is for FINTRAC.

We know that these crowdfunding platforms are not actually handling the payments—I understand that in Canada it's PayPal or Stripe—but do you think it would be beneficial to work with platforms like GoFundMe to develop guidelines to bring them under FINTRAC's reporting requirements?

[Barry MacKillop, Deputy Director, Intelligence, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada]

I think that is something that the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance are now looking at bringing in. They certainly were in during the period in which the regulations were enacted.

I think it's early days right now to know what in fact they could report with respect to our mandate linked to money laundering and terrorist financing, and how much, if at all, those platforms are used for money laundering and terrorist financing. It is early days to know what in fact they could report. As an intelligence agency, we're always looking to work with our partners across the regime to see if there are ways we can improve the regime and improve the intelligence so that we can then provide through law enforcement—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'm going to cut you off because I have only 10 seconds.

Do you think cryptocurrency should be something you look at as well?

[Barry MacKillop]

We already do cryptocurrency. In fact, it is regulated and reported to FINTRAC.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Ms. Michaud.

Ms. Michaud, you have six minutes in this slot.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for joining us.

Let me first turn to you, Assistant Deputy Minister. There is a lot of discussion about the usefulness, the effectiveness, of the Emergencies Act. The legal scholar Patrick Taillon recently explained that, in 1988, when the War Measures Act was rewritten and became the Emergencies Act, there was such a desire to circumscribe the situations under which the act would be invoked that now there must be very grave reasons for doing so. He said: “To meet the high standard required by the act, demonstrators must almost be considered terrorists. This seems to me to be a little exaggerated.”

So it is not enough to tell ourselves that the act was useful, we have to say that it was necessary or essential. I do not want to downplay the troubling abuse or language we witnessed. But some men in a hot tub in the middle of Wellington Street hardly seems a threat to the country's territorial integrity.

Did the Department of Public Safety obtain information from Canadian security organizations that led you to believe that our democratic institutions were really in danger and that this act of last resort needed to be invoked?

[Talal Dakalbab]

Thank you very much for your question.

I will give you an answer but I may turn to my colleague from the Department of Justice to provide you with more details.

I have no knowledge of the advice you mentioned, but I can tell you that the act absolutely contains measures to make sure that the Charter is upheld. That is certainly the case and it is important.

With that said, it is certain that, when we looked at the situation, in Ottawa or elsewhere in the country, we saw threats.

There was disrupting the peace.

There were economic impacts of the blockades at border crossings. Many threats of a political nature were also observed and reported.

I want to ensure that those factors are acknowledged. They were very important as the need to invoke the Emergencies Act was evaluated.

At this point, I can turn to my colleague Ms. Maislin Dickson to see if she wishes to add anything.

[Samantha Maislin Dickson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dakalbab.

My thanks to the hon. member for her question.

Clearly, section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act contains definitions in this regard. But those criteria must be interpreted in the context of the Emergencies Act. In declaring a state of emergency, the Governor in Council must believe, on reasonable grounds, that such an emergency exists. Furthermore, the criteria that must be met deal with the rule of law, with security, with the social cohesion of Canadians, with the preservation of essential infrastructure, with territorial integrity, with Canada's economic prosperity, and so on. So there are a number of criteria.

Of course, the bar for these criteria is very high, but the Governor in Council decided that the criteria had been met when the declaration was issued.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

Assistant Deputy Minister, I heard the minister justify the use of the act by saying that there was no way to find tow trucks to remove the trucks on Wellington Street. However, to my knowledge, the Canadian Armed Forces have plenty of tow trucks. I am sure that they would have been ready to make them available to the government to help tow away the trucks.

Were steps taken to find tow trucks?

Why were the Armed Forces' tow trucks not an option?

Why did the Emergencies Act have to be invoked to find tow trucks?

[Talal Dakalbab]

Thank you for your question.

Yes, I can confirm that towing was a problem and that it was not limited to Ottawa. In our discussions with our colleagues across the country, that was regularly brought to our attention during the blockades. Not only were tow trucks unavailable, but operators also refused to come to tow away the trucks. I can't speak for the Ottawa police in terms of the exact nature of its requests, but we at the Department of Public Safety examine any request that we receive from police forces.

I can tell you that subsection 7(1) of the Emergency Measures Regulations completely changed people's attitudes and made it easier to tow away the trucks, at least in Ottawa.

However, I cannot tell you exactly why there was no request to the Canadian Armed Forces. I myself deal only with the requests we receive from police forces.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would like to ask a question of the RCMP officials, whether it be the assistant commissioner or the deputy commissioner.

On February 7, the City of Ottawa requested reinforcements, an additional 1,800 police officers, to deal with the crisis. A few days later, the minister made an additional 275 officers available to the City of Ottawa. Yet the media reported that the majority of these officers were for the protection of Parliament or directly for the Prime Minister. We wondered if it was because there were not enough officers available.

Mr. Duheme or Mr. Daley, can you confirm that it would have been possible to provide additional RCMP officers to grant the City of Ottawa's request for 1,800 officers?

[Deputy Commissioner Michael Duheme, Federal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I can confirm, Mr. Chair, that the 280‑plus people sworn in included law enforcement troops, who should not have been sworn in. However, we did bring in other reinforcements, subsequently, who were sworn in to meet the demand.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to turn the floor over to Mr. MacGregor. Sir, you have six minutes. Whenever you're ready, please proceed.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start with the RCMP, maybe with Assistant Commissioner Daley.

My Conservative colleagues have rightly pointed out that we have many of the offences that were committed listed on our books, either under the Criminal Code or under civil codes of the province, like traffic violations and such. There obviously was a difference between the law being on the books and it being enforced.

We're trying to find out as a committee.... I know you're with the RCMP, and initial law enforcement responsibilities were with the Ottawa Police Service, but the RCMP was in contact with the OPS and the OPP as the situation evolved. What did Ottawa's declaration of a state of emergency allow the OPS to do?

Further to that, when the Province of Ontario rounded up with its own declaration of a state of emergency, what did that then allow it to do? Why were those measures still ineffective, so that we got to the point of February 14, when the federal government had to bring in its own measure?

[A/Commr Dennis Daley]

It's difficult for me to respond within the City of Ottawa because, as I've stated before, I wasn't involved in the original operational planning. I'm not overly familiar with what the state of emergency declared by the City of Ottawa allowed the Ottawa police to do.

What I can tell you is that law enforcement uses whatever tool is available and whatever legislation is available. For the RCMP, the enactment of the Emergencies Act then allowed us to, primarily outside of Ottawa, use the Emergencies Act, primarily as a deterrent in ensuring that like-minded people were fully aware of such things as the economic measures and—as long as we linked the travel if a convoy was heading to Ottawa that was able to be communicated with—fully understood that we could prevent travel to Ottawa if required.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

Specifically referencing now the actions of the Province of Ontario, at this point the situation had evolved considerably, so I think all levels of government were really starting to pay attention. Conservative Premier Doug Ford, who did come out publicly to support the federal government's declaration under the Emergencies Act, when the Province of Ontario made its own state of emergency, referenced this as no longer being a peaceful protest. He said it was a “siege”. With his emergency declaration, he brought in considerable fines, a threat of the removal of commercial vehicle operators' licences and even the threat of time in jail.

To your understanding, were any of those measures specifically applied to the trucks in Ottawa? Do you have knowledge of that? Were those starting to act as a deterrent before we got to the federal declaration?

[A/Commr Dennis Daley]

Unfortunately, I don't have any information surrounding those particulars like the enactment of the Ontario emergencies act.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

After the federal declaration under the Emergencies Act, between February 14 and February 18, when they started to clear the city of Ottawa, do you have knowledge as to whether the declaration on February 14 caused a number of people in Ottawa who had been occupying to leave? Did police services, through intelligence sharing, note that there had been a considerable withdrawal of people because of the threat of the Emergencies Act?