Justin Trudeau gives Emergencies Act inquiry scathing assessment of police during ‘Freedom Convoy’ occupation

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he did not have confidence in the Ottawa police response to the self-styled “Freedom Convoy” protests even in the early days, and the RCMP did not inform him of any joint operational plan capable of ending the Ottawa blockades as he was on the verge of invoking the Emergencies Act.

The prime minister gave a scathing description of what he saw as police mishandling of the crisis in the nation’s capital, particularly by a beleaguered Ottawa police force, and highlighted challenges faced by police everywhere as copycat protests blocked border points across the country, which he said helped justify resorting to the emergency powers.

Trudeau testified Friday at a public inquiry to defend his government’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act to resolve what he said was a national public order emergency. He was the last witness after six weeks, and his testimony raised questions about the advice he was getting from Canada’s top Mountie.

Trudeau did not name RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, but he said everyone at critical cabinet meetings on Feb. 13 where the Emergencies Act was being deliberated had a responsibility to speak up, yet no one voiced the reservations to invoking the Emergencies Act that Lucki claims she communicated.

Instead, Trudeau said there was a “clear consensus” the crisis warranted Canada’s first-ever use of the federal emergencies law, and that — based on briefings he received at the time — police still had no “real plan” to end the protest occupation in Ottawa that had already lasted more than two weeks.

Lucki told the inquiry she was not called upon to speak up at cabinet that day. She did, however, engage in chatter with senior Mounties on Microsoft Teams while attending virtually. In her own testimony, Lucki said she sent an email about half an hour before the evening meeting to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s top staffer – which Mendicino testified he did not see prior to the meeting.

Lucki also listed many possible emergency powers that could be useful to police to end the convoy blockades, and added that “I am of the view that we have not yet exhausted all available tools.” And she told the inquiry she wrote to officials that RCMP and Ontario Provincial Police had supported a new plan to address the occupation with existing legal authorities — a plan Trudeau said Friday was not designed to actually end the protest.

Trudeau’s national security adviser Jody Thomas was critical at the inquiry of Lucki, but the public safety minister continued to express confidence in her Friday, after Trudeau’s testimony.

“We continue to work with her to keep our communities safe and make significant progress on an array of important issues — including reforming the RCMP, advancing Indigenous policing, protecting Canadians from gun violence and more,” said Mendicino’s spokesperson, Alexander Cohen, in a statement to the Star.

According to a summary of his interview on Sept. 9 now in evidence at the inquiry, Trudeau and his political team viewed the intimidation and harassment of Ottawa residents like the intense opposition and anger shown to him and his team during the federal election months earlier, and were “skeptical” of repeated assurances from officials that the Ottawa blockade would be addressed.

After the first weekend caught everyone by surprise, Trudeau said he believed the Ottawa police couldn’t manage the situation after it let trucks park “in a way that made it difficult to remove them.”

He said the hope and expectation was by the second weekend, the protests would decrease. Instead, there was a “surge,” and police statements they could respond “didn’t seem to be materializing,” he said.

“There was a sense that the occupation was just continuing, full swing without any real control or even plan to end it,” Trudeau said.

When the Ottawa police chief asked for 1,800 extra police personnel on Feb. 7, Trudeau said the RCMP commissioner told him there was no plan that could support a decision to deploy hundreds more officers to Ottawa. Meanwhile, across the country, border blockades were causing huge headaches for police who struggled to open lanes of traffic, creating chaos and causing a threat to the country’s economic security, according to several cabinet ministers.

Trudeau said it was clear to him and cabinet that emergency powers were needed.

“What was very clear from all the perspectives around the table, (was) that there was not confidence that we were on a track to getting the national emergency under control,” Trudeau said.

Peter Sloly’s lawyer, Tom Curry, argued in response on Friday that the former Ottawa chief is being wrongly saddled with blame for the Ottawa occupation. Curry said his client “exercised his authority under extremely difficult circumstances,” without a full slate of commanders, during the pandemic, with a relatively new chief in Sloly.

In a statement Friday evening to the Star, Lucki said “I can’t speak for the Prime Minister but what I can say is that I have no intentions of stepping down as Commissioner. I am committed to fulfilling my obligations and leading the RCMP into 2023.”

Her term is slated to end in March.

Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc

Alex Ballingall is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @aballinga