Trucker Commission Day 10 features Tom Marazzo and Keith Wilson dissecting police violence during Ottawa protests—rifle muzzles, horse trampling—despite peaceful de-escalation efforts like moving trucks to Wellington Street on February 8th, which OPS blocked. Internal notes confirm ignored proposals, while Doug Ford dodges testimony via legal challenges. Next week’s witnesses (Barber, Wells) and Trudeau’s final appearance may reveal government lies, with potential political fallout if the Emergencies Act is deemed unnecessary. Meanwhile, Rebel News promotes events and merchandise to fund civil liberties activism independently. [Automatically generated summary]
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Hey everyone, welcome back to our evening live stream here in Ottawa.
I am joined by Alexa Lavois, who is joining us online.
I am joined with right-wing extremist Tomorazo wearing the worst outfit I've ever seen him wear during a live stream.
Tom, first of all, how are you doing?
But also, why are you wearing such an outfit?
I'm actually doing pretty good.
No, the tie is a joke because I wore a tie on Julie Panessi's podcast recently.
And so William was always asking me, well, why aren't you dressing up for me?
So in honor of you, in your fashion sense, I had to wear a tie.
Exactly.
You know, when you're doing news, you've got to dress well, got to dress appropriately.
And that's the way this right-wing extremist is dressing today.
Alexa, how are you doing?
I'm pretty good.
That was a pretty interesting day.
And we heard a lot, a lot about Tom Marazzo today.
It was just all about you.
Yeah, it was Tom Razzo.
They've definitely got a bigger head now.
Just before we begin analyzing everything, once again, if you want to make sure to stay tuned with everything that's happening during the commission, you can always go to trickercommission.com during the day.
And also, if you want to chat with us during the live stream, you can go on to Rumble and you can send paid chats that we will be able to read on air.
So, Tom, we've got a lot of things to go through.
Same thing, Alexa.
What were your general thoughts from today?
Really interesting, a little bit surreal, to be perfectly honest, listening to some of the testimony, especially later in the afternoon.
And one thing we learned is the order that myself and some of the others will be testifying next week.
I believe Chris Barber and I are next Tuesday.
Keith Wilson's going to be testifying, Tamara and some of the others.
But watching was pretty interesting today, I have to admit.
No, 100%.
There are definitely shocking things that we saw take place.
One of the first things I want to talk about was one of the clips that Bath showed during her cross-examination of, I believe, the first witness.
Once again, that's what happens when you last live tweet all day.
You forget the name of the witnesses.
I believe it was Bernie.
So when cross-examining Bernie, Bath, one of the lawyers for Freedom Convoy, and I apologize for not using her last name, I just can't seem to remember Vandenberg.
So Bath Vanderberg, one of the great lawyers for the Freedom Convoy, showed one shocking clip to the crowd, to Bernie during his testimony.
Are we able to show it on the screen?
All right, so I guess we'll show it later.
But just before we, just before we watch a clip, we'll be able to see it in a second.
But how are you feeling in the crowd?
I know I saw some people in the crowd shed tears while this video was shown.
How are you feeling sitting there and seeing what's happening?
Well, it's truthfully, it's really hard.
I know myself and many of the others, we do struggle watching a lot of the footage at times.
It's really hard to be there and actually see that.
I know, you know, even as an example, your documentary that Rembel put out about Coots and I know the other guys that did trucking for freedom, like watching the documentaries are really difficult to.
Well, we can actually see the clip right here.
Let's take a look at the full clip, including Vandenberg's words.
All right, so do you agree that the OPS officer in this video in the back behind the ranks, the line, is using what is actually the muzzle and not the butt of what looks like a 40-millimeter chemical munition launched to beat a protester with?
Not enough for me to see what exactly is going on.
But you can see that there is a police officer in the back beating a protester with a rifle.
There is not enough for me to see what is actually happening behind the video, please.
And the second part of the video is even worse because you can even see further what was happening.
And for me, the reaction of Superintendent Bernie to this clip was absolutely shameful.
The guy wasn't shoveling snow.
The police officer was not shoveling snow.
He wasn't dancing.
He was beating up the protester.
So do you want to continue your thoughts on?
Well, I had recently seen that.
I've seen that video several times.
And what was interesting to me is until recently, somebody slowed it down and you realized it wasn't the butt of the rifle.
Yeah, it was actually turned down.
It was the barrel.
It's super dangerous.
You know, it's incredibly an aggressive move.
I mean, I'd hate to be on the receiving end of either end, but definitely I don't wouldn't want to be hit with the barrel of a rifle for peacefully protesting.
I just, I don't know how you can justify that level of violence against a protester.
I just don't understand how you can get to that point.
Or shooting reporters in the thigh with a ballistic projectile when they're clearly indicated that they're media.
Yeah, well, that brings me on to my next point, Alexa.
You know, you also had an experience similar to that.
Do you want to touch on that?
Nobody's, it was as well like what I think it's Bernie saying that after that day, they rise their protection because of their aggressiveness of the protester.
On that video, I don't see any protester that is violent at all.
I saw like the opposite way.
And I remember something that the first day they were pretty aggressive, I would say, on the side of the police.
But the second day, I noticed something else.
It was like more and more aggressivity that was rising up on the side of the police.
I don't know what they say to each other that night, but it was not the same kind of police that I noticed like in these two days.
No, 100%.
But just to go back to the question, you know, you were shot by a police officer in the leg during the convoy.
That clip was not shown, but seeing that clip, you know, we saw people in the crowd to Miralesh, notably crying, and some people having to leave the room at the commission because it was too emotional for them.
How does it make you feel to see that?
Well, at least I'm actually happy that the show video of evidence of what is happening.
I think it should have more, like to really put them to the confrontation of, look at what happened.
Do you notice the same thing that you are testimony?
Because what you are seeing is not accurate of what we saw on the film.
And especially like, I just don't really understand why they don't actually ask me to go and testimonize something.
But anyway, I just find that it's the time that we talk about what happened during these two days because it's all about these two last day that we should like make the government accountable of these actions because a lot of people have been injured.
A lot of people have been injured these two days.
Well, we saw the RCMP horses trampling a woman as well.
But one of the things related to this clip that I also want to touch on, I'm going to quote Bernie, Superintendent Bernie.
He said earlier that we adopted a philosophy of slow, methodical approach.
We didn't want to rush through this.
We didn't want to force a confrontation yet.
I think the video show otherwise.
Yeah.
And, you know, there's shortly after the convoy ended, there was screenshots of phone or text messaging going back and forth between the RCMP members.
And they were using language basically saying, you know, don't do it all yet.
Like save some for us.
We want to bring the jack boots.
Right.
Yeah.
We saw the text message.
The text messaging of the RCMP that were there from out of town wanted to get in on the action.
So I think what happened maybe on the first day, there was this sense of, you know, look at the free-for-all that we had.
I mean, these people had an opportunity to go out there and attack protesters.
And so it's kind of logical that the next group up wanted to get in on it.
And we saw text of that.
But what's also interesting is one of the RCMP officers, I believe, are the ones that leaked that text messaging.
So you're seeing inside, and I don't know if you remember, Alexa, but there was a lot of reports where when we were standing on the line there, you know, with the protesters against the police, there was a lot of reports.
I didn't see it, but I had heard it, that if a police officer actually engaged whatsoever with one of the protesters, their supervisor would pull them right off the line and plug the hole with somebody who was more disciplined or more sympathetic to what they were doing.
Right.
And so I can certainly understand the difference in the mentality going into the second day.
The message was clear.
I think a lot of those teams went back and they were told by their supervisors, you communicate with these people, there'll be consequences.
That's my read on that situation.
Yeah.
And I think that philosophy that they did have, that mentality, that fearmongering the police cause on the police officers was one of the reasons why they were so aggressive and so unwilling to actually speak in a nice way to the protesters.
We saw the protesters trying to engage with the police.
We saw them coming up to them and being nice and giving them the charters of rights and freedoms, being peaceful with them.
Yet the reaction from the police wasn't the same thing.
At all.
I had seen a video of one of the young protesters.
It was a young lady.
She was handing them a flower and the police officer batted her right across her forearm with the baton, smashed her across the arm while she was extending a flower.
So, you know, let's zoom out and look at the big picture here.
Do we need the Emergency Act to go after?
I mean, did any of that on that video or any of the even the testimony?
I mean, it always comes back to relevance.
We've never seen any testimony yet to date that met the four conditions of the CSS Act, Section 2, therefore nullifying the justification of the use of the Emergency Act.
And again, you know, I think we're on day nine of the testimony, and yet you're only seeing the four groups of the lawyers out of the total of 14 actually talking about the Emergency Act.
All the rest are just, it's cover your ass.
It's still unfair.
Cover that.
Plus, also, you see Paul Champ only touching about the impact on communities.
But the impact on residential neighborhoods is not a reason to invoke the emergencies.
That's not a valid reason.
That's not what the emergencies act is there for.
It's not a valid reason at all.
That's the role of it.
It's just not.
And what surprises me, I just want to add that what surprises me is how much time.
Uh, the lawyers for Peter Slowly seem to get, which is a little bit bizarre to me.
They seem to get an enormous amount of time uh, and it's about he gets the time.
His lawyers are there basically to protect Peter Slowly.
That's why they're there.
They're not there to talk about the justification of the emergency act.
They're there to protect him from culpability later.
And he gets an enormous amount of time where other groups are getting like very like five minutes uh, 10 minute slivers.
Uh, it's very bizarre.
To me, quality it's always better than quantity because at the end of the day, the quality will win.
But I I just want to remember that everybody that we're been used has still like a lawsuit against the RCMP.
If you want, you can do so and go and stand with Alexa.com.
But Tom, since I have you because we they talk about you so much and I want to clarify just a point with you.
They were talking about you, about the fact that you agree with them to talk with the trucker to move them to Wellington.
When the trucker did agree to it seems that you have some miscommunication between the police to agree to move them to Wellington and afterwards they say that the truckers didn't want it to follow you anymore.
Because of that.
Can you clarify a little bit of what they say about you?
Absolutely so.
What's interesting is what we learned today was that before I had the meeting with uh Steve Kay uh, and you know, there were police officers that did join in.
After so did Keith and Eva uh, despite uh inspector Drummond's confusion on the issue, they actually did attend the meeting afterwards and we we did talk about these details.
And what's really interesting to me is that we found out today that the Ottawa police services had already decided that we weren't going to be able to move those trucks up onto Wellington.
So the question had to be asked, why did you send anybody and myself?
Why did you?
Why did you try to get me to go to uh Redeau and try to convince the truckers to move up onto Wellington if you knew the day before that you were not going to honor the deer, the deal?
And what's really troubling this is what's really troubling is that then they're spinning this narrative that because the police are the ones who reneged on the deal.
That's what happened.
That that night I basically had them on the one yard line.
Planning and Authority00:10:11
Uh, I had the truckers ready to go.
They were, they were going to actually do this, and then the police reneged on the deal and then they they're reframing this narrative that well, they're not going to follow, Tom.
It's like actually they were.
Yeah, and I want to A really important distinction here.
I went up there not to negotiate with the truckers on there because we had different groups of people there, but to lay out what the upside for us was and then to get them to decide themselves.
I wasn't in a position to directly.
I was just talking, I was laying out the argument and my recommendation to do this.
I thought that it was, and others agreed, that it was the best strategic move.
So you move, and then we'll reevaluate what's going on.
And we were there.
We were there.
And then the police last minute pulled the carpet out from underneath the police liaison team.
And now they're reframing the narrative to say, well, the truckers didn't have control of the truckers.
So they're blaming us for a deal that they knew was a setup from the day before.
I think it was the most intelligent thing to do, the most intelligent move.
And I think we're seeing that in the Commission.
And now we've been talking for a little while.
I want viewers to be able to see parts of the testimony given by the first witness of the Superintendent Bernie.
So let's take a look at some of what she had to say.
Police have common law powers to exclude the public from an area in which a police operation is underway.
Is that correct?
Yes.
And those powers could have been used in the clearing of the protests in Ottawa, couldn't they?
Yes.
In fact, you planned on using those powers to clear the protests, and the federal emergency declaration did not significantly impact your planning.
Is that right?
I wouldn't exactly say that.
Very hard to know what it would have been like without it.
Right.
Your interview summary does say that, but I'll leave that answer as is.
You would have carried out the planned police operation, whether the government declared a public order emergency or not, though, isn't that right?
Correct.
The planning and the concept of operation was already in place, and I didn't have any knowledge that an emergency act was going to be put in place.
Counsel for Canada earlier on today put it to you that, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, you never know whether your use of a common law exclusion zone will hold up in court if it's challenged after the fact.
Do you remember that question?
Yes.
If police proceeded as planned and relied on common law exclusion zone powers to clear the protest, the fact that those powers might have been challenged after the fact wouldn't change the fact that the protests had already been cleared, would it?
That is correct.
All right.
So would you agree that the federal emergency power to create exclusion zones may have been helpful to police, but it was not necessary.
Once again, I think it was beneficial.
Beneficial, but not necessary.
Correct.
Thank you.
Counsel for Canada showed you a letter dated February 17th, 2022, earlier on today, which appeared to be a letter from OPP Commissioner Karik towtuck tow truck drivers.
You had never seen that letter before it was shown to you today.
Is that right?
Correct.
Helpful, but not necessary.
I feel like we're just repeating ourselves at this point, but that's what we're feeling every day.
And I have to admit, there are times in there where I do want to do cartwheels down the aisle in there.
And that was one of the moments.
But Need, about the suffering, like the suffering face of the witness, like to try to say it.
But you see that he's suffering because he's like, ah, I should not say it.
But yeah.
Yeah, no, exactly.
That's what they keep repeating all the time.
Helpful, but not necessary.
What's one of the conditions?
I mean, we're going to have a lawyer later on, Keith Wilson.
But one of the conditions for the invocation of the Emergencies Act is that it has to be necessary.
It doesn't matter if you're too incompetent to do your job and that's helpful for you.
It doesn't matter.
It's not about convenience, about necessity.
Yeah.
And let's just look at the timeline.
Okay.
So it, it, you know, I wasn't a police officer.
I was a soldier.
So I understand planning.
It made perfect sense to me that the Ottawa police, their entire infrastructure, would be planning, doing a big contingency plan to at some point get the order to start clearing the protest.
That makes perfect sense to me.
And what's interesting, though, is that the mayor under oath, honest Dan, said he had no knowledge that the Emergency Act was going to be invoked.
But their plan was still being put into motion.
They were actively for days building a plan.
This we knew it made sense.
It's logical that they would do it.
But under what authority were they making the plan?
The plan was the authority that they always had from day one to execute that plan.
So then he just confirmed it right there.
We didn't actually need the emergency act.
We already had the authority to do the plan and we were going to execute the plan.
And the only thing that was helpful, tow trucks.
Yeah, that's something they've been saying all along.
Yeah.
Tow trucks.
I don't know if you did you follow like the emergency like today.
Yeah, the plan on the nine and the plan on the 13, the plan on the 17th.
And I was like lost in all the plan that they had.
I was like, how many plans did you have?
Like, I think they had three at the end.
They had an original one, the ninth, and they had a second one, the 13th.
At the end, they only had three.
I think that was a total.
Yeah, they would have, it makes sense to me that they would go through, because I listened to the testimony, a lot of the planning that they go through that cycle is very similar to the way the military would do that type of planning.
It's modified.
It's not exactly the same.
But a lot of the vocabulary, the expressions are very same to military planning.
And so I just thought it was very interesting to me that when I was listening to it, I thought, okay, you're doing your operational plan or your tactical plan, and you're doing it under your own authority.
You don't need the emergency act.
And let's back up a little bit too.
By, I believe, before the invocation of the emergency act, Ontario had already declared a state of emergency.
So that even further enhanced their plan.
So they already had an enhanced level of authority under Ontario, but it doesn't appear to have an enormous amount of teeth.
But it still was the city declared a state of emergency, which strangely enough was toothless because it actually had to, you have to invoke the riot act, which is a bizarre thing.
And then the province went to an emergency under all of that authority that they already had.
They were doing planning to do what they did.
It's just now they got the emergency act.
And the only benefit that it gave them was the fact that they could literally almost federalize some tow trucks.
Yeah.
And I mean, yeah, everyone declared the situation an emergency situation.
But I just want to touch on two last things because I see a Keith Wilson entered a little building right here.
And we only have you for seven more minutes.
But one of the things that I want to touch on is one of the things that Paul Champ said as a question, this great lawyer.
He said that doing this with the Jerry Can't Jerry Cannes and Propane, you guys using this, he said, quote unquote, would mean that the protesters could have been hurt or injured due to their own freedom.
I couldn't stop laughing when I heard that.
What a bizarre thing to say.
Yeah, I Exactly, uh, due to their own freedom.
I listen, I don't really, I was listening and I was really struggling to understand where he was going.
Uh, and you're gonna hear, I hope we're gonna hear testimony about the steps that we took, uh, both involving two inspections from the fire marshal and from the electrical safety authority with uh generators and electrical panels we set up in places, as well as all the steps we took to safely store the fuel.
There were inspections, and I'm hoping it comes out on yesterday's live stream.
You touched on the fact that the police department came to you guys and made an expansion, yeah.
I mean, my recollection of that is that uh, the day before, on the on the Saturday, the day before the police raided Coventry, the uh, the fire department came and inspected, made recommendations.
We we did the modifications, they still came in and did the raid anyway.
Which, by the way, we also heard testimony by several people.
Yeah, there was a there was a lot of divide about doing that raid.
And in fact, I there's a phone call that we received where a police officer was making an apology about doing the raid at Coventry.
Uh, and I'll leave that alone because I think I'll be testifying on these facts.
But the day after Coventry, again, the uh fire department came out and did an inspection on the fuel and they said, Okay, it's it's safe.
So, for Paul Champ to grasp at uh ambulances while he's chasing it, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know, I don't know.
I think that's so surprising from Paul Champ, though, but seriously, I think Paul Champ like is a waste of time for other like great lawyers or other people to ask questions, especially on what one of his questions was like, Are we been lucky in Ottawa to have nobody been hurt or killed?
Are You Kiddin'?00:02:12
I was like, Are you kidding?
Are you kidding?
Unless, like, I've been feed in the street, and like some people like have been donated like most of their time to others.
Like, you think that someone would be hurt or killed?
Yeah, no, well, I'd love to know what this tax-the rich incompetent lawyer guy, Paul Champ, would have to say about the BLM protest that took place in the United States.
If he thinks those were just unlucky protests where it cost billions of dollars in reparation to the city, uh, one last thing that I want to touch on before you you leave us at Tom, right-wing extremists, you know, at the beginning of the show today, I made that joke that you're a right-wing extremist, and I see that as soon as Keith Wilson entered, you took your tie off.
Yeah, but uh, right-wing extremists, we heard them discussing the fact that there was right-wing extremism in the protest.
What do you have to say to that report that was presented?
Yeah, so what's interesting is this report that they were referencing in the commission today.
Uh, I found it really interesting because even Inspector Drummond said, Hey, that's not something that we would have factored into our intelligence.
Where did that come from?
And I suspect I know, but I don't want to say because I'm not 100% sure where That report came from.
But it is, from my perspective, it was just dropped in to further a narrative.
I don't think it had any, it doesn't have a lot of practical use in the commission other than to drop in this phrases, right?
These phrases, you know how it is.
It's just wash, rinse, repeat, just say the same thing over and over and over.
And it'll, it'll, it's meant to manipulate people that are susceptible to that kind of a language.
And the reality is that, you know, my joke is I played right wing in hockey, a little bit of soccer, but in terms of extremist, yeah, I'm just going to leave it at that because we'll see how that fares.
You're probably a little bit too far away in the opposition because I tend to consider myself a moderate right down the middle, to be perfectly honest.
So to say right wing, that's just using words against people.
Seizing Civil Liberties00:02:17
It's all a psychopath.
I'm sure the Antifa groups wouldn't agree with you that they would think that you're an extreme.
Tom, thanks for coming on today.
We'll definitely see you.
See you soon.
Thanks for that.
Of course.
We're going to go to a quick ad, and then when we come back, we're going to have Freedom Convoy lawyer Keith Wilson coming on as well.
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Hey folks, from October 13th to November 25th, we are here in Ottawa for the Emergencies Act Inquiry organized by the Public Order Emergency Commission.
But why?
Why the Emergencies Act Inquiry?
Well, because during the Freedom Convoy back in February, Justin Trudeau used a never-invoked before emergencies act to basically seize protesters' bank accounts, seize protesters' money, seize their assets, trample their civil liberties.
So we're here this month for the next month and a half to figure out if the way the government acted was lawful and was appropriate.
So we are here to hold the government accountable, but we need your help.
We are here to cover it for you because everyone else here is mainstream media.
So if you want to help us cover it, if you want to help us bring you the other side of the story, factual, actual news, go to truckercommission.com and consider making a donation.
Why the Emergencies Act Inquiry?00:03:11
All right, so we're back.
We have someone that actually is able to wear a tie properly with a proper dress.
Before we start again, I just want to say a quick thing.
I have my phone on because I don't have my computer here, but all my notes are on my phone.
So that's why I look at my phone sometime.
Keith, how are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Great.
So just to begin, I just want to get your thoughts on Bath Van de.
How did you say her last name?
Van de Berger.
Bath Shiva Vandenberg.
Vannenberg.
On her cross-examination of Mr. Bernier.
Well, I mean, she's trying to expose certain themes of contradiction in their testimony.
You know, one of the things that's troubling is how each of the senior police officials are dodging the question about who made the decision to send hundreds of Canadians after they'd been detained for several hours out into rural locations and drop them off with dead batteries in their phones without shelter or other means of communication or transportation.
And my colleague pursued that line of questioning.
And the police official did the same thing that the previous one did, which is to start talking about processing centers.
And of course, we knew they had two processing centers, but the issue is after people had been processed, they then took them to these rural locations, minus 25, snow wind, and kicked them out.
A lot of them had been beaten.
A lot of them had already some frostbite on their hands because they were zip-tied behind their backs and they didn't have gloves on.
They didn't have access to a bathroom for several hours.
So it's outrageous.
This is Canada.
Yeah, no, for sure.
Well, I think a lot of people have some hard time believing what our country is like right now.
Is what you're talking about, the snatch and grab method?
Because we did hear Bath talk about that, but is that what you're talking about?
Can you explain more?
Snatch and grab is where they have the line come forward.
And then when someone's close, they open the line, pull them through, and then close the line.
So that's how they would start arresting people as they do this snatch and grab.
And I think you guys witnessed that firsthand.
Yeah.
Yeah, did you see some of that?
A lot.
It was actually what I saw during the two-day just grabbing the one that was closer from the police that was more vulnerable.
And they were grabbing and bringing it like really far away.
And sometimes they wear a beat or the face down to the snow.
I saw as well, like, I don't know for any legal like side, but all most of the vehicle were injured too.
Like they broke the window, they actually broke most of the window of the car.
I was there at the touring place, and most of the car that was like going out of there was really destroyed.
And I was just like, do they have any help, like legal help for doing something against that?
Trouble on TikTok00:15:08
It seems like in the commission, nobody's talking about like the injury of the car.
Do they have like the power to do that?
Yeah, well, I mean, you're a lawyer, so you can talk to you.
Yeah, and I should explain something because I get a lot of emails in the day.
It's a disadvantage of people being able to find your email address and maybe an advantage too.
And here's what everybody needs to understand: why is it that today, for example, our team had 25 minutes to cross-examine this witness who was up for a day?
And what happens is each day, so today we had to file by five o'clock all of the documents that we plan to cross-examine the witness who will appear three days from now and indicate the subject matter of our questioning and how much time we want.
So we'll say like an hour and a half.
And then two days later, we'll get an email saying, you're allowed to cross-examine, but you get five minutes.
Or you're allowed to cross-examine, but you get 15 minutes.
It depends every day.
And we even get a seating order as to who can sit at council table and the sequence of when the questioning will occur.
So then we triage and we go, all right, we had an hour and a half worth of questions.
So we have to focus in on certain areas.
And we've been incrementally bringing things in, as you'll notice.
Like today was the first time you saw the videos of the violence because we had other things we had to deal with earlier.
And we had to say, okay, yeah, we wanted to ask Bell about that, but we knew we had too many more important things we had to get out from him.
So it's a big complex chessboard we're dealing with, and we're always have way less time and way more questions.
So we have to triage.
So for those out there wondering why we're not asking certain questions, that's part of the answer.
One of the things that we wanted to get out today was the violence of the police.
And that's why we put that video in where you can clearly see that police officer just ramming his rifle, muzzle end, not even butt end into someone's back or head or something.
And, you know, the room went really quiet when that video played.
I think it had the desired effect.
And that's, and that's another thing.
We're wanting to play a lot more videos.
But if you think about how long it takes to play the video, and they always have a trouble queuing it up and then it buffers or it stops.
Well, that's our time.
Tick, tick, tick, tick.
You're playing the video now.
So you're going to see more videos.
But those are some of the tactical procedural challenges we have in the room, given how much evidence they're trying to get in over such a short period of time.
Of course, it's strategy that you lawyers have to decide which evidence we put first, which evidence do we put to which person.
Definitely some interesting stuff.
And, you know, as you often come on our live stream, you're becoming sort of a star.
But I think you were also a star on TikTok as we saw today.
What's my question, actually?
Yeah.
Well, my question is, did you expect that they were using that video?
Probably, I don't know if it was kind of against you, but it was like a kind of a narrative that was going in the other way that the police was telling the protester to do.
So did you expect that they were playing it today?
I actually saw the commission.
I thought they would actually use that against me in cross-examination.
So I was glad to see it come out today because they used it in cross-examination on the police.
One of the lawyers.
Well, I mean, honestly, it doesn't make you look bad because you are saying to the protesters that are coming here to Ottawa to cause trouble not to come.
So you are telling them that if you come here to, you know, disrupt international trade or to cause trouble, do not come to Ottawa.
Those are your exact words from TikTok videos.
I was very surprised to see that lawyer who is leaning against the Freedom Convoy to try to put that video out and show it.
So I don't think it makes you look bad, to be honest.
Well, thank you for that.
I mean, it's always weird to watch yourself, as we all know, and what we're the three of us do.
But the background on that video was we had Tamara had called emergency board meeting.
We were in the seventh floor boardroom in the Sheridan Hotel.
It was the, that would have been probably the 16th, the Wednesday.
Yeah, that was the last time we were all together before we had to disperse because the arrests were starting.
And what had happened was I just briefed the board.
I had several lawyers, some on my team and some on a new team we brought in review the legislation in addition to my own review.
Wanted to make sure I was absolutely solid in my understanding of the law because I knew I was going to make a definitive statement about it.
And I briefed the board.
Chris Barber said, that's great.
You just told the board, come over here, let's do a TikTok and tell the world.
And he's like, hey, I'm joined by lawyer Keith Wells.
It's like, oh, okay.
I guess I got to say it.
And I stand by what I said.
It's 100% legally accurate.
That was what was amazing to us: what the actual emergency act order said.
It clearly said that Canadians continued to have their charter right for peaceful assembly.
It clearly said that Canadians continued to have the right for political advocacy, protest, and dissent.
And then it went on to say, however, if you're going to block international trade or if you're going to interfere with critical infrastructure like a ferry terminal or a bridge, or if you're going to engage in serious acts of violence against persons or property, then you weren't allowed to go to downtown Ottawa.
Well, I didn't know anybody wanted to do any of those things.
So that meant everybody was allowed to go to downtown Ottawa.
And you've heard repeatedly them use the expression that this became an illegal protest, right?
There is no point in time, none, at which it became a legal protest.
And you'll notice they're always vague about what was the moment in time that it became illegal.
What was the criteria?
The bottom line is at no point in time was it illegal.
I think we both know the exact thing that had to be done by the mayor.
If we will.
We'll show it at some point.
We don't want to spoil it already, but let me assure you, it's very funny.
But you mentioned earlier that you were scared in a certain way that they would use it against you in cross-examination.
So it means you're going to be testifying.
And I think I learned earlier that you're going to be testifying next week.
Yeah, we received the tentative schedule for the protest witnesses.
The tentative schedule is on Tuesday will be Chris Barber and Tom Morazzo.
On the Wednesday, it'll be myself.
On Thursday, it will be Tamara Leach.
And then on the Friday, it'll be Danny Wolfer.
And you know, you're going to be testifying for full day, but I have a couple of questions on that.
So I know in the preliminary witnesses, get me warmed up here.
You're going to do a little practice.
Yeah, your name wasn't on the preliminary witness list.
So why were you added?
Was it something that you guys requested?
What worked is, and let me help clarify this too, because so the witnesses is always a living document in an inquiry of this nature.
They released a preliminary witness list because we were still in discussions with them about the range of witnesses that we wanted to put forward and the rationale for putting them forward.
They only put very few of our witnesses on that list.
And people looked at the list and they went, wow, how come there's so few from the convoy?
So that's the reason.
We submitted a list of 25.
In fact, we're expanding it by a few more.
So the commission is currently reviewing that list of 25 witnesses that we're requesting.
And only three on the current list are on the official list that you've seen.
I mean, I'm not on that list and I'm testifying.
Danny Wolfer's not on that list, but he's testifying.
So there'll be a further list that will come out in probably the coming days.
You know, we're shifting.
The resources of the commission have been really focused on the municipal officials and the municipal and provincial police.
Now they're shifting their energies into the protesters.
That'll be the next phase.
And then the federal police.
And then the great case endo at the end will be in the last two weeks, the one-fifth of the federal cabinet is expected to testify, including Prime Minister Trudeau himself.
But I mean, why Keith Wilson?
I mean, you're just a TikTok star.
Why are you?
Well, I take your sarcasm.
Gotten to know this guy, seeing him every day in the hearing room.
You know, I was asked to lead the legal team and I flew in with my team on February 2nd.
And I was on the ground for 19 days.
And I was just talking to Tamara because I was reviewing my telephone logs from my cell phone bill to show all the phone calls I had with Premier Peckford and the mayor's chief of staff and the police and all these things to confirm dates and times.
And I said to Tamara, I said, your phone number's not on there once.
And she said, yeah, she said, we always talked face to face because we were always together.
So Tom and Tamara and Eva.
and I and others were always together from early morning to late at night dealing with the issues.
Eva and I were involved in all the negotiations with the police.
We dealt with GoFundMe.
We dealt with Give Sengo.
We've dealt with the class action lawsuit.
We dealt with the Horn injunction.
We've dealt with the Mariva injunction.
We dealt with the Bitcoin.
So I think that's why they've asked me to testify.
Oh, it'll be interesting to see you testifying.
Yeah.
And you were there when the meeting with the mayor was there.
And they actually say today that you fell at the, I don't know, maybe you need to refresh me, but they say that Kate William did fell for the to seal the deal, I think, with the protester, with the mayor.
I don't know if you recall that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Their narrative is, well, the police have a narrative and the federal government have a narrative.
The police narrative is it's not their fault that they blocked the trucks from moving because we had trucks ready to go every day.
We had a huge number.
We were really surprised at the buy-in.
On the Saturday night and the Saturday, the leaders and the block captains went around to all the different blocks, Coventry.
Tamara herself went out to the farm locations to make sure that the owners of those lands were satisfied with hundreds of vehicles showing up in the coming days.
And they were, and they had room for them because the most of the vehicles were 75% of the vehicles were going to leave the downtown core, 25 were going to go up to Wellington.
And then the idea is that we would expand the shuttle bus service from the farms, the camps, so the protesters could keep coming during the day.
And there was also a lot of people that needed to get home.
You know, they wanted to stay and they wanted to stay as long as they could, but we have to be realistic.
And so making this move provided an opportunity for them to move with dignity.
So the police narrative is, well, the trucks were never going to leave.
So it didn't matter that we blocked them.
It's still the trucker's fault, right?
It's like, no, it's your fault.
So that's what the commission's lawyers are really pursuing today.
The federal government narrative is the federal government was right to ignore this breakthrough deal between the mayor and the truckers because the truckers weren't going to honor it.
And the truckers never completed the deal.
Well, when they keep concrete barriers in front of your truck, it's pretty hard to move.
So I think the commission is seeing through that.
You can see that in the questioning that they're having.
And I'm hoping that by the time the rest of us testify and tell the other side of the story, that it'll become clear what really happened here is that we had a plan to de-escalate, to reduce the pressures on the downtown, to concentrate the pressure on the federal government where it needed to be, and to allow the protests to carry on in a way that was more sustainable.
Yeah.
No, we keep hearing a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
And they talk a lot today about the miscommunication.
And I have the impression that all the group of different unite of bodies, like the PLT or the OPP or the OPS, and I have the impression that they were not communicating to each other.
It was just like we are communicating with the OPS, but I have the impression that the information was not going through to others.
Probably I have the impression that if everything went not well, it's a lack of communication.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things we realized is that, and we knew this at the time, is that we had better communications than the police.
So, the number of times I would get a phone call from the police level that we were dealing with constantly, and they'd go, Keith, Keith, what's going on?
We'd say, well, your superintendent is meeting with your chief and they're deciding this, this, and this.
They're like, okay, thanks.
We'll tell the other guys here.
Like, no problem.
Why don't you guys just get me a radio?
You know, so we had that.
But the other thing that we learned that we didn't know at the time, we thought it was all communication was the problem.
We now know from all of the notes of the superintendents and the interim chief that they made conscious decisions not to let the deal go through.
They made conscious decisions, like the first attempt for us to clear Sussex and Rodeau, which occurred after the meeting we had with Steve Kay, the city manager on the 8th, Eva, Chipiak, myself, and Tom, is we now found out today from the police notes that the senior command had in the morning said there's no way we're going to let any trucks move from that intersection.
So Tom Marazzo is like, well, why did you send me in to negotiate with Sussex and Rodeau?
I don't know what's going to happen.
When you already knew you weren't going to let any trucks move.
And Tom had them ready to move.
He walked forward in a parlay because all the police were gathered, had a conversation with Sergeant Fong.
And Fong said, Oh, I got to take a call because Tom said, We're ready to go, pull the barriers.
We're going to move up to Wellington.
You're going to get your intersection cleared.
And Fong said, Oh, deal's off.
And we now have the notes from the senior command officials that made that decision and noting that they phoned Fong and said the deal's off, or there was never going to be a deal.
So it's remarkable.
Miller's Mic Drop Moment00:07:58
This could have been handled in a way that would have, this could have been handled in a Canadian way, you know, by respect and dialogue and recognizing that there was a fundamental difference of view and by de-escalating.
As the commissioners asked many of the witnesses, was there ever a plan or an offer to allow a way for the protest to continue in a way that was peaceful and lawful?
And we were actually on a track for that.
And the other bombshell that came out yesterday, and you guys probably covered it, but I just got to highlight it: you know, the mic drop moment with Miller.
Oh, yeah.
And just to simplify that for everyone, because it's unless you're, it was hard to pick up on exactly what happened there.
But it was this.
The same steps that Eva and Tom and I were taking with the city and the mayor, and Dean French, former chief of staff to Premier Ford, who was acting as the emissary, the intermediary, but with the mayor.
That whole kind of framework that we had in place to de-escalate, reduce the footprint, focus the protest right on the federal government's doorstep was something that the RCMP and the federal government and the public safety deputy minister had come up with as well.
And they had laid it out in this document and this whole plan as to how it could work.
And it was basically mimicking what we had done at the municipal level.
They were going to do it implemented at the federal level.
And it would have worked.
It was presented to the cabinet and they said, no, we're invoking the Emergencies Act.
And that's when Miller said to the head OPP yesterday, sir, because he was involved in developing this plan of negotiation, sir, I'm telling you that this plan was presented to the IROC, whatever their initials are, this cabinet emergency committee, For this de-escalation, they rejected it and they invoked the emergencies.
to look at exactly what what miller said right here email from the deputy minister of public safety rob stewart to you right Yes.
Okay, and in the third sentence on the top paragraph, it says, We have a big meeting this afternoon.
Well, this will be discussed, so I really need your input, right?
Yes.
All right.
Did you know that that meeting was at 3:30 p.m. and that it was with cabinet and it was the incident response group of the political executive meeting and that your proposal was provided to them?
Uh, no, okay, it was, I can tell you that, and then they invoked the emergencies act.
Thank you.
If you look at his face, he's the first time that's the first time he discovers that this plan he had that was a really good plan, and the proof that it was really good plan was it was so similar to the plan that Tom and Eva and Steve Kay and the mayor and his chief of staff and Dean French had put together, and that was succeeding, was succeeding.
And so he's really excited about it.
This senior OPP officer, and he finds out on a live stream under oath in cross-examination that his plan was in fact presented to the cabinet and the prime minister.
They ignored it.
What you can see, he's like, wow, really?
What happened?
They rejected it.
They invoked the Emergencies Act.
And you saw his face as he stares at Miller walking off the stage.
And your friend Miller from Alberta is such a great lawyer.
And I think we have another clip from today we can show to our viewers about the cross-examination done by Brendan Miller.
Let's take a look at that.
So at any time on February 8th, 2022, there was nothing stopping OPS and the city from moving the barriers, letting the trucks leave the residential area, and letting them go on to Wellington, was there?
You're referring to Riddle and Sussex, which is correct.
That's not necessarily a residential area.
That's a commercial area there.
Right.
So you agree that there was nothing stopping you or the city or OPS from allowing that to happen on February 8th, 2022.
It could have been done, but we didn't reach an agreement and the group there didn't want to move.
I understand that may be the evidence.
Where did you, you didn't ever hear from anyone from that group?
You didn't speak to them and they didn't say to you that they didn't want to move, did they?
I had had dealings up with that street.
I'd been up to Rideau and Sussex during the course of the events.
Right.
And did they just go and tell you someone approached you, you're saying, and said, no, we're not moving?
They made it clear on a number of occasions they weren't too happy.
But you knew from your PLT work that Tom Morazzo had apparent control of 322 trucks, and that was on February 7th.
That's in your own document.
Correct.
And so if you move the barriers and the deal went through as discussed in February 8th, right, it could have been done.
I think there were some issues about whether they were leaving or moving.
And I had spoken to Inspector Superintendent Patterson earlier, and we didn't have approval to do that.
Approval to move west.
Okay, and what whose approval did you need?
The event commander, Superintendent Patterson.
Superintendent Patterson.
So you're saying that Superintendent Patterson didn't permit the February 8th, 2022 deal.
It's perfect.
Interesting.
Yeah, what do you make of that?
Well, it just, again, it illustrates that we worked really hard to earn the trust of the bulk of the protesters.
You know, there's always going to be lone wolves and guys who are going to say silly things.
I mean, you get more than 10 people together.
You're going to have that one person do that.
But if the reality is, if the police would have cooperated and they wouldn't have stopped and kept double crossing, we would have had the entirety of the downtown cleared, but for Wellington, I estimate that about, you know, so 25% of the vehicles would have gone up under Wellington.
We had lots of room under on Wellington.
About 75% would have left.
And I think about half of those would have gone to the base camps and some would have gone home.
And they maybe would have only gone home for five or six days and then they would have come back to the base camp and we would have been running our shuttle buses and we would have kept the pressure on the federal government.
But you know, you think about what would have happened if you game that out and we did.
We knew that if we did the deal with the mayor and the mayor effectively solved the problem, who looks incredibly weak?
The prime minister.
Yeah, the mayor looks strong and the prime minister looks weak, right?
So he wasn't going to have that.
The truckers had already showed him for what he is.
And that's why our plan and its success didn't dissuade them from bringing in the Emergencies Act.
And as we now know, the OPP plan and the federal government public safety plan to open up negotiations at the federal level that we were always open to was not going to be allowed.
And instead, I said to each of the police liaison and senior government officials that phoned me on the Wednesday, this would be the 16th, and told me the deal's not going ahead anymore.
Pressing Doug Ford00:13:49
The new police chief stopped it and the federal government stopped it.
And I said, it's clear to me that the prime minister wants his Tiaman Square moment.
When you think back to Beijing, when the students revolted 20-some years ago and the communist regime sent in the goons to beat up and shoot citizens that were protesting for democracy.
Well, he's got his very admiration for the basic dictatorship in China.
He's told us about his admiration.
And then we have his other ties to Cuba, which might be family.
We're not sure.
But, you know, so he's got those affinities to these kind of authoritarian regimes.
And it's his default, obviously.
Well, no, we got to make sure that we're careful about what we said, guys.
Bill Cela didn't mind being enacted in Sulaw.
Let's throw through a quick ad.
When we come back, we'll talk about Doug Ford for a quick moment, and then we'll read some of your chats.
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It's pretty cool.
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To Doc Ford, may you allow me?
I was surprised that to watch the commission so far, and none of them mentioned the number of press conferences that the leader of the convoy did to try to pass the message and to communicate and to make their voice heard by the politician.
And I was just like, really, I found that really incredible that they didn't bring that up at all.
Yeah, well, you guys were willing to engage with the politicians.
You guys were willing to talk to the politicians.
In regards to Doug Ford, now we learned recently that he was summoned to participate in the Public Order Emergency Act inquiry.
Do you have any updates on that situation?
Well, he has been summonsed.
The commission has detailed initially their efforts over the past couple of months to have him participate.
They've indicated in writing the questions they were looking to get answers to.
So there's no trial by ambush here.
And he refused all of those.
So they took steps to subpoena him, to compel him to attend by force of law.
He has responded by having his lawyers bring an emergency judicial review application seeking to strike down the summons.
And he might have some success because of some peculiarities in the law with respect to the jurisdiction of a federal inquiry to compel and subpoena a sitting provincial politician.
But aside from that, you have to say to yourself, well, what's he got to hide?
You know, what's he afraid of exactly?
I mean, none of those involved in the protests that I know who are being asked to testify, including myself, we're sleeping fine at night.
We know that we've got nothing to hide.
What is it that he knows that he doesn't want to come out?
So very, very perplexing, concerning.
And it will be even more concerning if he's successful in preventing the subpoena from being effective and able to escape being examined and cross-examined under oath in this inquiry.
Yeah, well, in terms of transparency, you know, we know Doug Ford's not the most transparent premier at all.
He blocks our Rebel News reporter David Menzies from all of his events, even though he used to come on our Rebel live events.
I don't know if you're able to touch on it, but what do you expect?
What do you expect to press Doug Ford on?
What do you want to see the lawyers press him on when he comes on the stand?
Well, I think some of the things that he would be pressed on would be questions relating to the powers that he had at his disposal under the Provincial Emergencies Act and the sufficiency of those.
Another would be why he sort of hid from this issue.
He didn't, you know, you've pointed out how many press conferences to Mary Leach and media statements she did.
And the premier was, you know, missing an action.
So I think those are a couple of things that could be pursued if he is eventually required to testify.
Yeah, no, it'll definitely be interesting.
See, I really do hope that Doug Ford actually comes on the stand and testified.
All right, we're already past our time.
Do we have any chats, Olivia, that we can read on the screen?
All right, so the first one: I like to think that Catherine McKinney's testimony had a small part to play in her election loss.
I promise I won't misgender her, William.
Be careful.
You might be banned from the internet with Bill C. 11.
Do you know who Catherine McKenney is?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's right.
Well, you were in the room.
Yeah, you've heard a little bit.
Yeah, honestly, my plans on moving to Alberta to the Great Province of Alberta have been delayed now that Mark Stutcliffe is elected.
I can assure you that if Catherine McKenney had been elected mayor of Ottawa, I would have most probably moved to Alberta in the next few months, next few years.
But yeah, no, it's great to see someone other than this woman, sorry, this individual be elected as mayor of the city.
Yeah.
Well, I wouldn't be surprised if her testimony and the publicity around it and her hot mic moment, you know, like the, you know, she was running on a campaign of transparency and she gets caught in a public inquiry that's live streamed coaching a witness.
Yeah.
I mean, wow, that's the antithesis of transparency.
That's called manipulation.
So, um, yeah, I, you know, and the internet, uh, well, she had to, she had to issue a statement about it.
She felt she did.
She did a video about it.
She tried to walk it back.
She issued some threats.
So, you know, it's, it underscores the importance of this media.
You know, we, this is the way we reach people now.
We know we can't rely on the captured legacy media that is always seeking to please its paymaster, the Trudeau government.
And we need to rely on these forms of communication to get truth and examine issues in a full way.
And you said transparency.
That's the same woman that when I asked her to state her position on the value of freedom of speech in Canada, she wouldn't give me an answer.
She wouldn't give me an answer on what her position is on freedom of speech, which is one of the basic rights that we have as Canadians.
So, no, I'm truly glad that she wasn't elected.
We went to the bar after the election night, us and everyone.
Do we have another chat that we can read?
Oh, perfect.
Well, I have really a challenging question for you, Keith.
What will be the consequences if they find out the Emergencies Act was not necessary?
What will happen?
So I get that question a lot.
And I need to say two things about it.
First of all, if anybody's been involved in a lawsuit or any kind of legal process, it's not often the decision at the end that crushes you.
It's the process.
It's the process that you go through.
So what we're witnessing right now, you know, I warned everybody, All of the clients and the leaders of the freedom movement that we're going to have a really tough two months, that we're just going to get beat up every day.
It's going to look like the world's against us.
We're going to be smeared and lied about.
I never ever thought it was going to go as well as this.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I was going to say.
It really didn't.
The number of times we've all looked at one another and said, well, I guess we're off to the airport.
Time to go home.
You know, after one of their witnesses reveals something.
And of course, we're not going anywhere.
We're going to see this through to its conclusion.
But part of what's happening right now is even some of the left-wing press is coming out against the government.
And it's a drip, drip, drip, drip of the truth.
And so, so one of the consequences is the consequence of the process.
Another is it is true that when Justice Rillot issues his report in February, that if he concludes that the invocation was not justified, it doesn't mean that Justin Trudeau pays a fine, it doesn't mean that he goes to jail.
The expectation of the legislation is there'll be a political consequence.
In any other situation, one would expect the leader of the party that invoked it and its cabinet to resign, to do the honorable thing.
Now, that requires people of integrity.
And I don't need to finish the sentence there because you can fill it out yourself.
So the best that we can hope for is that more and more Canadians, like the number of people that have tacked me on Twitter saying there was no deal, there was no deal to move the trucks.
Well, what, 102 trucks just magically moved?
All these notes in the superintendents' things about truck movements, they what are they lying?
So even the naysayers are having to admit the truth about what really happened during the protest.
And it's so counter to the legacy captured media's narrative and the propaganda that they were pushing.
You know, Solcha Nitson, who helped bring down the Soviet Union, did it by always staying honest to the truth.
You know, that expression about as time went on, I can't do the whole thing, but it's we knew they were lying, they knew they were lying, we knew that they knew that we knew they, you know, etc.
She's going through all these permutations.
And I think we're going down that road right now where more and more people are realizing the government was lying.
Yeah, no, that's that's what's great about the emergency inquiry 100%.
It'll be very great to see the outcome of that.
Well, thank you to everyone for joining us.
I know we're already 10 minutes past our time that we're supposed to end.
Thank you, Alexa, for working so hard and being on live stream tonight.
Thank you for joining us once again.
Thank you.
And being able to wear a tie properly with a proper gesture.
Thanks again to everyone for joining us and I'll see you tomorrow.
According to that first email that we saw, you were the one who was provided with this information, right?
That Mr. Morazo wanted to meet with a city official.
Yes, from John Ferguson, Staff Sergeant John Ferguson.
Okay.
And so this was a sort of, you know, if he's able to meet with a city official, then he will attempt to negotiate movement of trucks out of the Rideau and Sussex area.
Is that I don't know if it was necessarily defined at that point as Rideau and Sussex, but he, the request was to meet with a city official in exchange to try to help move some trucks out of the area.
Okay.
And in the witness summary that we just looked at, you provided a bit more background and you said that moving these trucks was being considered because there was space available on Wellington.
Is that right?
Yes.
Okay.
And why did you understand the protesters at Rideau and Sussex wanting to move to the Wellington area?
They wanted to be closer to Parliament Hill and it also, from our perspective, would have helped shrink the footprint and opened up that road.
And why was that important to open up that road?
It's a main artery in the city of Ottawa at Rideau and Sussex.
It's the main access.
It's a bus route.
It's emergency access for emergency vehicles.
It's access to the Rito Center.
It was a main area that we wanted to try to get opened up.
But equally, there were lots of other areas we wanted to get opened up as well.
Our goal was to try to help the move.
And by reducing the footprint, that would also help us.
And is it fair to say that this move would have been seen as helpful to OPS?
Yes.
I mean, ultimately, we wanted people to leave and to vacate those roads, period.