Declaration of Emergency committee  Mr. Chair, it's hard to speculate on whether it would have or not. That certainly was their objective. I mean, the objective when they met with me, when Ottawa police brought them over, was—and they were quite clear about this—was that they felt that meeting with Mayor Watson ultimately, if they could fulfill their end of the bargain, would demonstrate and put pressure on other levels of government to be able to meet them.

Declaration of Emergency committee  No, I was asked by Ottawa police to meet with the protesters.

Declaration of Emergency committee  No.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Good evening. I thank the committee and its members for inviting me to assist in this important review of the use of the Emergencies Act. Tonight, I plan to cover a little bit about my background and a few areas that have been the subject of interest, certainly from the public inquiry that I testified at on Monday.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  On the first question, as I said in my remarks, city council does prefer the tunnel option under Sparks Street, but it is a very expensive option, so it did direct that we pursue the second choice, which is a tramway on the surface. However, those studies have yet to be done. On the second question, the closure of Wellington Street certainly has brought some complaints.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Security has always been an issue for Wellington Street, but right now it's an exponential concern after what happened last February, and in my view, it will be considered as part of that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, that's a very relevant question. Unfortunately, though, those technical difficulties the member presented have not yet been analyzed. That's part of the work that's going to be happening in the future with the studies we'll be undertaking.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry, Madam Chair. The audio broke up at the very end. My apologies.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I was just going to ask if it's directed to the city first. Active transportation is something that the city is very supportive of. Our council is pushing very much for this, and it's in our strategic plans, but we need a balanced network. The way the city operates, in our view, it just can't be pushed to one versus the other.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, we'd be happy to provide that to the committee. We have that data. Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The City of Ottawa is very concerned about not having people coming back to downtown to what it was prepandemic because it has an impact on, as you say, a number of things like businesses, etc.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I believe we have. Our mayor has written to the Prime Minister and to Treasury Board asking for a quicker return and a larger return of employees back to the public service.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We were seeking resources, and we did use the act to put an end to the occupation.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You are correct. At that point of the occupation, those powers were very beneficial.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, the last conversation was about two months ago. Right now, I believe the PSPC and the NCC are discussing who is going to be the lead on it. I'll defer to Mr. Nussbaum on that one. The discussion is capturing and starting to frame many of the things I outlined in my opening comments.