Eva Chipiuk and Tom Marazzo dissect the Emergencies Act inquiry, where OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrick testified that the Freedom Convoy was mostly peaceful—only a "small fringe" caused issues—while RCMP texts hinted at preemptive government coordination. Witnesses like Tamara Leach and Chris Barber will challenge claims of uncooperativeness, with lawyers struggling under cross-examinations clarifying legal terms like "lawful protest." The debate over police terminology ("occupation") and tow-truck indemnification demands exposes inconsistencies, while the panel urges donations to counter legacy media’s biased narratives, framing the inquiry as a test of government accountability and factual transparency. [Automatically generated summary]
So welcome back to our evening live stream, everyone, here with the Emergencies Act inquiry that is happening between October 13th to November 25th.
We will be here covering all the proceedings to figure out whether or not Justin Trudeau used the Emergencies Act justifiably and necessarily.
I must say, currently it's not going well in his favor.
Dread, first day you're watching the proceedings.
I'm here with Tom Morazzo, one of the Freedom Convoy organizers that will be testifying next week in front of the committee.
Drea, first time coming on the show, first time live tweeting everything that's going on.
What was your general impression of the day?
Yeah, a lot of first for me.
You know, I'm just going to throw back to the fact that aside from covering the truckers that left British Columbia and, you know, waving off and not really grasping how big it was going to be at the time, you know, I haven't done a whole lot of these reports.
So I'm really excited to be jumping in.
And boy, did I get a crash course with the commission coming back from Germany and trying to catch up on everything you guys have been covering and everything that's been happening in the hearing.
So it was fun and I'm glad to be a part of it.
Yeah, no, so Drea, you were kind of the specialist today.
You were the lead journalist live tweeting everything that was going on.
So can you give us your professional analysis of what you saw today during the inquiry?
Well, today in the hot seat was OPP Commissioner.
How do you pronounce his name?
Kurt.
Kurulo.
Oh, gosh.
No, no, no.
Yeah, Tom.
The commissioner of the inquiry is Rulo, but the OPP commissioner that testified today is Thomas Carrick.
Karif.
Karif, yeah, something like that.
So he was questioned, I think, by five lawyers and counting.
And he was very quick with his answers.
I found I think there was only one sigh that he gave the whole time.
But some interesting things came up out of there.
I'm not sure where to start.
What do we have on that?
We're looking at some tweets there.
He did admit that in large, the convoy was all the intel that they received was that it was in fact a peaceful convoy.
And when I started off my tweets in the beginning of the day, that's exactly what I said.
You know, this is an inquiry looking into how the emergency act was used on the peaceful convoy.
And you always have people saying, well, peaceful, peaceful, peaceful.
And it's like, no, that's what it was.
And considering its size, I think he used the term that there was just sort of a fringe, small fringe made it in there, but that they had a plan for the fringe.
And that certainly wasn't the bulk of who was coming to Ottawa.
Yeah, you know, and I think the protest being peaceful is what's going to come out of the inquiry because we keep seeing that every single day.
The more left-leaning lawyers, the lawyers that are leaning more against the Freedom Convoy, the protest took place in February, are trying to push answers onto the people that are testifying to make them say it wasn't peaceful.
And yet, at the end of the day, when we have the cross-examinations by Miller, by everyone, we end up seeing that they saw the protest as peaceful.
The evidence says that it was peaceful.
The evidence says that the protesters were peaceful.
And I think the phrase that once again keeps coming up every single day is helpful, but not necessary.
And that's the whole reason why we're here.
Tom, what were your general impressions from today?
Well, I have to say, I was, You know, again, I noticed the difference, the strong difference between the testimony of the OPP officers versus the Ottawa police officers.
Both groups of police try to per se portray themselves as being professional, but I don't think that the Ottawa police ever came off as being even remotely as professional as the Ottawa or the OPP Provincial Police.
And the commissioner today, you know, again, demonstrated that.
And just an extremely different perspective that the two of them had in their approach to this entire protest.
And, you know, again, we had another acknowledgement, especially with Brendan Miller's cross-examination of the commissioner at the end.
Like he did a great job of his cross-examination of the commissioner because, again, he got the commissioner to confirm what Inspector Bowdoin had already said previously in the week, that the Emergency Act wasn't required.
It didn't meet the threshold for the CESIS Act under Section 2.
Therefore, there was no requirement for the Emergency Act.
And he actually started to walk him down the path of peaceful assembly versus unlawful assembly.
And he played it brilliantly.
I have to say again, another day.
We actually just refer to it as Miller time when Brendan gets up there.
It's just Miller time, right?
And it's really fun to watch Brendan when he gets up there.
And again, the important thing is, the testimony really solidified for me today that the only thing, the only thing that anybody got out of the Emergency Act was that they were literally able to compel, legally compel the tow truck companies.
That's it.
They had every power that they needed available to them.
They invoked the Emergency Act for tow trucks.
And I'm not going to say too much unless Eva decides to do it when she comes on.
Yes, that's coming on later, right?
But there's going to be some testimony from some of the participants of the legal protest that happened in February.
You know, that is really going to contrast what, you know, the need to go and get commandeer tow trucks versus the, I would say, disproportionate amount of violence that was brought upon the protesters there.
And I think people are going to be quite disturbed when they hear that testimony.
I think tow trucks are, it's something that we hear a lot talked about in the inquiry.
They often talk about the tow trucks as they talk about compelling tow trucks to actually throw, to actually tow the trucks that were there during the Freedom Convoy.
Drew, what was the most remarkable thing today, if you could pinpoint to one exact thing that you saw happen, the most revealing thing during the inquiry?
The most revealing thing, I think, was the discussions around the Intel.
So, you know, we've seen this many times, you know, not even just specific to the convoy, but the freedom movement in general.
There's all this hysteria that goes on about what the pro-freedom people might do.
And you saw a lot of that through the Intel, you know, despite them knowing that at large this is a peaceful protest.
They're looking into these different movements and doing all these things.
One of the movements that they apparently looked into was the White Lives Matter movement.
I don't know how I missed that movement.
Have you guys heard of that or what?
First time I've ever heard of it.
Exactly.
First time I ever heard it as well.
And so I'm thinking, what kind of movement is this?
At this point, are they just calling normal, regular people who do believe White Lives Matter some sort of movement?
But that was used as reasoning to sort of defend the action.
And then also another thing that I've seen just from stories I've covered is that there was concerns and extra police deployed.
I believe this was actually in Ontario, maybe for the convoy that was happening there, but they deployed extra police to surround vaccine clinics.
And I don't know about you, but I haven't heard of any pro-freedom protesters like doing anything at vaccine clinics.
In fact, I covered a protest that was outside of Douglas College in New Westminster because a student wouldn't wear a mask and ended up getting arrested.
And so that protest was right outside of the college and just so happened to be that the college was next door to a vaccine clinic.
So what happened was everybody in there was having a heart attack thinking the protest was about them.
And the news ran with that story saying that protesters targeted vaccine clinics.
There were people coming from their apartment building huffing and puffing about how they're there.
And people were like, we're here for Douglas College.
And of course, my story was accurate.
But my point is, you could see that the police, I mean, granted, they have to have some things in place, especially with a large protest of any nature to keep the peace.
But they were going off of these things.
They even mentioned that they looked into, you know, some of the eco protests that happened.
But I don't recall any eco protests getting their bank account seized or the emergency Zach being used.
Reflections On Confidence And Responsibility00:15:03
So yeah, that still quite a bit.
Yeah, Drea, earlier you mentioned a White Lives Matter comment that was mentioned in the Commission.
Let's throw that clue.
Let's watch what actually happened.
Yeah.
And he says here that there has also understandably been a significant appetite for this information from government and the public, right?
Yes.
And that suggests, does it not, that that's an appropriate appetite to, you know, in consequence of the significant spike in these types of crime occurrences?
Sorry, did you say inappropriate?
Appropriate.
Appropriate.
Yeah, I don't see anything inappropriate about it.
Yes, he says, Hendon has these matters in our intelligence collection plan and has been capturing much of this information from all of our services.
And he references the White Lives Matter movement, Patriots movement, anti-government activity, and extremist entities engaged in anarchism, environmental issues, et cetera, right?
Yes, he does.
And the appetite for that information is therefore understandable in the view of Superintendent Morris of 2021.
That's what he's communicating, yes.
And he says here that there has also been you know, sorry about laughing, but we have Eva Chipik, one of the lawyers for the Freedom Convoy, that just entered our RBND.
So we're going to be able to have her on in about 15 minutes.
But, you know, you were one of the organizers of the convoy.
So were any of these organizations directly associated with you guys when you were planning to do this peaceful protest?
Well, we often use the phrase moths to a flame.
Okay.
And the convoy was the flame.
And so, you know, we knew from day one that there would be groups, even the OPP and all the police.
I mean, I think everybody accepts the fact that you have something that big and exciting, that it is going to attract all sorts of all walks of life, right?
So it wasn't a surprise to us.
I mean, as much as we were anticipating that there would be people, you know, the Queen of Canada showed up or whatever, what's her name?
I don't even want to Ramana, the queen, she showed up, right?
And burned the Canadian flag, right?
So we attracted, I think there was a witch's covenant that showed up as well.
But equally, you know, for people that we were looking at that we wanted to be distanced from, we were also constantly looking for people that would maybe be there as deliberate provocateurs.
And I'm happy to hear that so far in the testimony, I haven't heard any discussion about the police trying to do anything like that, but we were kind of on the lookout thinking that there might be deliberately people out there trying to incite a reaction from the convoy.
So we were diligent for both groups.
But White Lives Matter, I certainly never heard of until just a few moments ago.
You know, I was shocked when I heard that because I mean, I've spoken with you a little bit since this inquiry started.
Never once have I heard that group mentioned.
But you talked about Asian provocatures that came in the crowd.
And honestly, I think we've heard that once so far in the inquiry.
But talking about the swastika flag that was there during the convoy, I know someone, I believe it was Jim Watson, one of the first witnesses, stated that there was an enormous amount of swastika flags that flew in the crowd during the Colony, which we all know is not the case.
But can you touch on that incident?
Yeah, you know, this was one-time events, right?
One-time occurrences, and especially the person who showed up with the Confederate flag.
This person had a hoodie on and a mask and was walking around the flag around the crowd.
And I remember the truckers calling this person out.
And, you know, Danny Bulford identified the photographer that was taking Trudeau's one of Trudeau's official photographers, because that particular photographer went on a trip to Africa that Danny had participated in when he was an RCMP sniper.
And so, you know, we knew that there was going to be this attempt to discredit the entire organization.
I mean, this is a clear case of, you know, painting everybody with the same brush.
And unfortunately, because the mainstream media is so effective that it actually convinced a lot of Canadians to turn their back on the reality.
And a lot of Canadians that are against the convoy never looked at the fact that why is it?
And we heard a lot of testimony.
We heard about protests across Ontario that I had never even heard or knew existed.
And I'll come back to that point later.
But I thought it was really interesting that you have all these protests happening all over Ontario, all across the country.
And yet the people that are against the convoy don't think, well, why is it if there's so many protests all across this country?
Why don't I start to think about what is their grievance?
Maybe I should consider what it is that that many Canadians, and I mean, we raised $20 million.
You know, we didn't do that amongst the people that arrived.
It was donations across the country.
You didn't force them to pay you on like the CBC.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, these were donations.
These were donations from people that had already been taxed on their income.
Yeah.
Right.
And they were giving at every turn possible to support this convoy.
So if millions of Canadians were supporting the convoy across this country, what is it that they know?
What is their point of view?
And I find I'm frustrated because a lot of Canadians that are against the convoy never seem to ask those questions.
And they're really elementary questions.
But, you know, it's alarming to me to hear some of the narratives that I heard also today from the commissioner, but we'll come back to that one in a minute there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course.
Yeah, I just want to trickle back.
Yeah, because I'm actually, William and I were talking yesterday.
I'm actually old enough to be his grandfather.
And so I forget things sometimes.
And I'll have to come back once I remember what it is.
I won't tell you his real age, but I could be his grandfather.
Andrea, I was just going to add to the provocateur thing.
You know, that sitting at home crying myself to sleep that I wasn't in Ottawa with everything that was happening, I was just praying that there wouldn't be provocateurs.
That's what I was so worried about.
And when I saw that, you know, the swastika go by with Trudeau's cameraman, you know, Trudeau was missing in action and he loves costumes.
My thought was, how do we know what's the height of that person?
Like, seriously, it ran across my mind.
But, you know, again, it's you're right to say, William, that what's coming out of this is the proof that it was peaceful.
It was a really great movement that, you know, really spread across the world.
Another thing that came out today is the conversations that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucky had.
I found the text interaction that she had with the OPP commissioner to be very sneaky.
It was planting the seed of the Emergencies Act before, you know, it was even on his radar.
And also, it just kind of she basically, I don't know if we have a shot of it, but basically, you know, I quoted her.
She said something along the lines in her tweet that, you know, if this doesn't get handled quickly, then you or I to the OPP commissioner might have to take the lead.
And, you know, I don't really want to do that.
And so when he was cross-examined and asked, you know, were you reluctant to take on that responsibility if it got there?
He's like, no, that's my job.
Here you have the head of the RCMP basically encouraging, you know, not to do your service.
I'm not saying that they should have done it, but I'm just saying there is a point if you're supposed to do it, you do it.
And the head of RCMP is like, I don't want to do this between you and I.
But I don't know.
I don't trust that that was even the point of the message.
I think it was to start planting seeds that, hey, an Emergencies Act is on the radar.
Yeah.
And you know, Joya, you mentioned the text messages between, well, the text messages involving Brenda Lucky.
Let's throw that clip.
Let's see what was said during the commission.
She replies, thanks, Tom.
Very helpful.
Between you and I only, GOC losing/slash lost confidence in OPS.
We got to get to safe action/slash enforcement.
Because if they go to the Emergency Measures Act, you or supposed to be I, I assume, you or I may be brought in to lead, not something I want.
Is this the first time?
So, first of all, GOC, I assume that's, I take it, that's Government of Canada.
That's the way I would have interpreted that, yes.
And so, Commissioner Lucky is relaying to you that the government has lost confidence in OPS.
Did you still have confidence in the OPS at this time?
That's a difficult question to answer as to whether I had confidence in the OPS at the time.
I was certainly aware of the challenges that they were experiencing.
And I did feel with the support that we were providing that there was an opportunity to develop and execute a plan that would bring upon a resolution to this.
And ultimately, that's what happened.
And I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that this whole situation was resolved while preserving life without any serious injury and with preventing any serious damage to critical infrastructure.
Yeah, and I think this segues into a great, a great another discussion.
The OPP, you know, that this commissioner didn't want to say that he didn't have confidence in the OPP, but the way he was speaking, you could see in which direction he was leaning.
And I think this goes to show that everything we're saying about the OPP, the OPS was true.
It was chaos.
They weren't organized.
They were less organized than you guys during the convoy, right?
Well, it was funny because, you know, he did give an earlier statement where he said that Ottawa has an exceptional reputation across Canada, amongst other police forces for having so much experience with protests because it happens so much, which again, you know, I come back to the idea of all the residents of Ottawa that hated the convoy.
It's like, this is protest central.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're living here.
You should expect something.
You don't buy a house beside Pearson International Airport and then complain about airplane noise.
This happens in this city all the time in the downtown core.
And he was trying to say that they're extremely have a great reputation for handling protests professionally.
But wow, were they ever completely overwhelmed?
And I want to sort of reflect on a different point of view as well.
It's kind of easy for the OPP to step back and say, hey, we're very objective about this because we don't live here.
We don't physically patrol these streets and live here.
So they have a different perspective on how they're approaching the policing versus the Ottawa police that are in this area every day.
This is the streets, right?
They're embedded in it.
They're embedded here.
This is their turf.
And the comments, I'm not at all surprised by the commissioner's comments about the confidence.
He's a police chief.
He doesn't have a more hierarchy role in Ontario above the chief of police for Ottawa.
So he's trying to be as professional horizontally as he can, right?
And so I think he was uncomfortable trying to criticize somebody who's in an equal position that he's in.
That's kind of protecting the brotherhood amongst the police, I think, is what he was trying to avoid.
Yeah, which I mean, pretty understandable, you know, and he was able to keep his professionalism throughout the day, which I found very impressive.
And he didn't pander to political points, to political talking points, like we see elected officials do all the time during those here, though, well, the inquiry, we see them do that all the time.
There's truly a difference between the unelected people that go on the stand and talk about their experience with the convoy and the elected representative, like Jim Watson, like this individual, Catherine McKinney.
Yes.
No gender.
I've got a question for you guys.
I have a quick question for you guys since you guys have been following it more and I just kind of crashed into it.
But when I covered the mass casualty commission into our largest mass shooting in Nova Scotia that happened, there was a lot of finger pointing.
It seemed like everybody that testified was just using it as an opportunity to pass the blame on somebody else.
Is that happening in this hearing or in these hearings?
Yeah.
It's happening at a very grotesque pace and level.
Yes, absolutely.
And, you know, this is an issue that I take exception with Brenda Lucky.
I mean, I've never met the woman, obviously.
Like she has served as a police officer for her entire career.
I don't have an issue.
I don't, you know, I commend her for that.
But where I really find fault is in her leadership, in the fact that, you know, the culture I grew up in with the military was, you know, seek and accept responsibility.
And that's, that is not just a catchphrase.
That is not something that you say, oh, I'm responsible.
I see, you know, I take responsibility for it, but there's no consequence.
And I'm finding with her that she is just far too involved with too many national issues.
And she claims to be responsible, but she doesn't accept any consequence to that responsibility.
So for her, it's really just become a slogan.
And of course, this is the type of systemic leadership we're seeing that all three or throughout every government in this country, all levels of government, they're not actually taking responsibility in a meaningful way.
They're not stepping down.
They're not resigning.
They're not, I mean, they're not even so much as falling on their sword for each other.
They're just using it as a catchphrase and they're moving on and keeping their jobs and their pay.
And at the federal level, they give themselves a 20% raise in April.
Yeah, you know, Joy, I think there's one person at least that is extremely obvious that he's only there to make sure his client, the blame doesn't fall on him.
And that person is the counselor Chief Slowly.
Here's there to make sure that people don't put all the blame on Chief Slowly.
Blame Game Continues00:04:26
But apart from that, we can see the lines of questioning adopted by the Ottawa police, by the government of Canada, by the city of Ottawa.
And they don't even focus.
I don't feel they're focusing on the reasons behind the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
And I don't feel they're focusing on whether or not it was necessary and justified.
They are focusing on making sure that their clients look good.
The city of Ottawa is making sure that the city of Ottawa looks good.
Same thing for government of Canada.
None of them ask the real question that your lawyers ask about whether or not the Emergencies Act was justified.
And at the end of the day, that's the reason why we're having this inquiry.
But we're actually seeing, like, I, you know, I'm not sophisticated in terms of how I look at the law or in a room like we have.
That's coming up shortly.
Eva is better to answer to this.
But from my perspective, somebody that is, I went to Osmosis University Law School through all the lawyers that I'm surrounded by.
What's interesting is I've noticed, and the lawyers have seen this throughout, but I've noticed a big sort of shift in the way the commission lawyers are asking their questions.
It's perceptible to me now in the audience watching and listening to the questions they're asking.
So I would include those.
So I would say now there's about five groups of lawyers out of the 14 in the room that are all starting to really zero in on specifically why we're there, which is the Emergency Act.
And I would say the another nine, it's all about CYA.
That's really what they're to do for their clients is just to cover up.
And then of course, Paul Champ, who is in a different category.
Paul Champ is in a category of this.
It's in a different category.
Thank you for joining us.
Some, I have a bunch of other questions, but we have to get going with our next guest.
Can I just make one correction?
I'm not technically old enough to be his grandfather.
He's not old enough to be my grandson.
Okay.
And if you want to know how to remember, if you want to know how to remember Eva's name, not Eva, Eva, just thank you.
Best lawyer ever.
That's great.
All right.
Thank you so much for joining us, Tom.
Let's throw it on the half Eva.
We must redouble our effort.
Mayor Khan, I was hoping that you would answer my question.
What consequences are there going to be for people that don't abide by the climate green transition?
What are the consequences going to be?
Mr. Adler, you flew over 5,000 miles to be here to attend a summit that is promoting the elimination of fossil fuels.
Isn't that hypocritical?
And the decision I made was that it was better for me to physically be here than to not be here.
They are doing like in here to make a statement that they care about the south governments, the thou countries of the global thou, but I don't think that that's not happening.
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Keith's Testimony Confirmed00:15:35
Welcome back.
We are here with Tamara Lisha's lawyer, Eva Eva.
Eva Chipier.
How are you doing, Eva?
Very well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So are you going to go at the Rebel Live event in Toronto?
We're going to try to get there.
Yeah.
I watched the ad and I was hooked.
Well, Tamara's going to be there, right?
Yeah.
I guess.
I guess I should be there.
Oh, yeah, that would be great.
So, no, we just got the perspective from one of the Freedom Convoy organizers who's not a lawyer.
And he's not an organizer.
Oh, that's right.
He was a volunteer.
He was going to protest.
Well, he did go to Osmosis Law School.
That's right.
But now we have an actual lawyer here.
So, Eva, what were your general thoughts from the proceedings today?
Yeah, well, today, one thing I just caught while you guys were already on air was the OPP's own lawyer started asking some questions and redirect or his cross-examination, I guess.
It's a bit of a strange process we have here, not like you see in court.
But their lawyer goes last before the commissioner lawyer goes again.
And he actually asked him and confirmed on the record whether he knew anything about the Emergencies Act before it was invoked.
And this is the OPP superintendent.
So the top basically police officer in all of Ontario.
And he confirmed that he found out that the Emergencies Act was invoked publicly.
So he found out when you found out, when I found out.
And this is the enforcement agency.
So that was very interesting to hear.
You would think that if there's a national security threat, which is the reason that you need the Emergencies Act, that the police officers that are going to be enforcing the law would know about what was going on.
And then the follow-up question to that was, would it have been helpful for you to know that the Emergencies Act was going to be invoked?
And of course, he said yes.
That would have been good information to have.
So very interesting information came out right at the end as well.
We were alluded to that, but then it was very, very firmly confirmed at the end.
Yeah, well, I think that Brendan Miller touched a little bit on the terrorism side of things with Thomas Curry because we know that he has a background, I believe, in counterterrorism.
I don't know if you can tell us a little bit more about Thomas' background from the OPP.
Morris's background?
No, Thomas Carrick.
Oh, today.
Oh, so I think it was public order administration or something like that.
So, how to deal with large crowds.
And what I really enjoyed about Brendan Miller's cross-examination today, and I encourage everyone to review it, is he kind of went a little bit of a protest law 101.
So, he started with what is, yeah, really good.
What is a lawful protest?
And we talked about that.
Then, he asked what's an unlawful assembly.
And then the third one was a riot.
So, what was very interesting in his cross-examination is he clarified all of it, basically set the stage for it, and then talked about what actually happened in Ottawa.
Number one is that the truckers came in at the direction of police officers into Ottawa, and then they were assembled there at the direction of Ottawa police and OPP.
And then that the barricades were put in by the police.
And he couldn't confirm that at the time.
He said, Maybe it'll be the truckers themselves and blocking, but we'll get that evidence out next week when the protesters have an opportunity to finally give evidence.
And the last thing he had confirmed on the record was that not one individual in Ottawa was charged with unlawful assembly.
That's right.
So, very, very interesting.
Yeah.
So, here we are talking about this large protest in, and we're hearing illegal occupation over and over.
And if that really was the case, wouldn't at least, I don't know, one, ten, a hundred people be charged with the crime of unlawful assembly.
And today, we found out nobody was.
Well, while we're here, let's take a look at some of Brendan's cross-examination with Thomas.
Right.
Well, he testified that essentially, in summary, that there was no intelligence of a credible threat under Section 2 of the CESIS Act.
Would you agree with that?
There was no intelligence of credible intelligence of a threat.
Yes.
That I would agree with that.
Right.
Yes.
And so it's fair to say that, based on all OPP intelligence and the intelligence provided by the RCMP and federal intelligence agencies to the OPP, to your knowledge, there was no credible threat to the security of Canada as defined in Section 2 of the CSIS Act.
That would be my understanding, yes, as determined by Superintendent Pat Morris in consultation with CSIS and the RCMP.
Thank you.
So there we have it.
I mean, every day is just more damning for the federal government, I feel.
Yeah, well, if you could see the federal government lawyers after that cross or during that cross-examination, they looked very uncomfortable.
I could tell you that.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you were in the room.
Andrea, what did you make of the clear that we just saw?
Yeah, it's so nice to have Eva really point out the stuff that, you know, really drives it all home.
But Miller time was great today, and I think you hit it all on the nail.
The other thing that he said there when he brought up the barriers, which, like you said, we'll know more about soon next week.
He said, you know, if the police in fact brought the barriers and that's part of the reason they were stuck there or other vehicles, is it really even their fault at all that they can't move at that point?
Is that an unlawful assembly or is that just being stuck, right?
So yeah, I'm just in Miller time.
I'll jump a little bit into the evidence next week because you got like, you know, when you I kept hearing them saying, well, it was truckers that were blocking other truckers.
And like to think about that just for a moment is these are truckers that came from across the country in an effort to protest lawfully.
And some of them went back to work or had to go back.
And there was coordination among them from what I saw, helping each other out.
There was absolutely no reason for any one trucker to be blocking another trucker.
It just doesn't even make logical sense.
So, again, that's going to come out next week a bit more, but I thought I'd just throw that out there.
Yeah.
And next week, today was the first day that we saw Chris Barber in the building.
Is there a reason why Chris Barber is coming?
Chris, who?
Chris Barber.
I'm just kidding.
Yes.
Yeah.
Chris Barber came because, yeah, he's going to be giving evidence next week.
So he came out already, get acclimatized, check out the room.
And here he is.
Well, yeah, had an opportunity to observe the proceedings today.
So, who's going to speak?
Well, we see it right here, you guys, when you were entering.
You had Tamara, Chris, and both counsel on each side.
Make sure that you hear that correctly, Karim G. Both counsel.
The lawyers were there.
So, you know, next week we have, I believe, Tom testifying.
Keith is going to be testifying.
Tamara is going to be testifying.
Chris, Danny, as well.
What'd you expect to see come out of all that?
The truth.
We have absolutely nothing to hide.
Our clients were coordinating and communicating with the police at nauseum.
We all took calls from the police at all hours of the day.
And that was one other thing that I'll just refer to yesterday: there was a question that was posed to the OPS officers, so the Ottawa Police Services: Do you know who Tamara Leach, Chris Barber, Tom Marazzo, and Nanny Bulford are?
And he said yes.
It said, Do you have you?
Do you know whether or not they were uncooperative with the Ottawa police services at any time?
And the response was, not that I'm aware of.
So, all of these, you know, suggestions and media reports about, you know, I can't even name all of the terrible things that have been said.
And here we have clients that we came to Ottawa to represent in order to peacefully protest.
We didn't even have any concerns about what activities they were doing because we were just managing and mitigating, but not concerned about whether it was lawful or unlawful their activities.
Yeah, not only that.
It's almost as if there's two.
Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead, Adria.
I was just saying, it's almost as if there's two parallel universes with this.
I mean, you have the legacy media throwing out reports there that cast doubt on whether or not truckers actually came to the convoy.
Oh, it couldn't have been truckers because they would have all been working.
I'm sorry, some of them are not able to work.
That's why they're there.
But I mean, I'm interested, Eva, in your opinion on how it's possible for so two very different narratives to come out of the same event.
Well, it's really concerning.
That's one thing I want to put out there.
And you said two different universes or realities, and it's like two different movies completely, is how I've put it before.
And going back to what OPP intelligence officer Morris spoke about, he said the disinformation that the media was putting out really affected their ability to conduct their policing activities and caused a lot of problems for them internally, sifting through what was real and not real.
And that is something that this commission is interested in learning more about and is one of the mandates.
So I look forward to what the commission will find there and maybe what policy recommendations.
And maybe we'll even the commission will talk about journalistic standards because it is really something that we need to be talking about.
Well, I think that's one of the reasons why people are pushing now for CBC to come testify in front of the committee as well.
Yeah, I 100% support that.
I think it's important.
On the page of the commission, if you guys agree, there is a little invitation for you to add any comment or suggestions.
You can go right on the page and scroll down and do that.
I think that's a great idea.
Let's get some rebel reporters up there and some CBC reporters up there on the stand.
That would be awesome.
Yeah, we'll see the difference between the journalists six standards.
All right, I have another question.
I will actually just ending on that topic.
Maybe is: I wonder how many of those legacy media journalists were actually on the ground versus some of the alternative media.
Because then, what is it you're reporting?
Somebody said something, said something, or the actual fact again, reality versus fiction.
No, he's absolutely right on that point.
100%.
Another question that I have for you: I saw yesterday the judge, well, the commissioner issued a ruling and a request for an in-camera ex parte happening for the hearing.
Can you tell us more about that?
Yeah, so I only learned about that on Twitter myself and I read the decision very quickly.
What it is, is that the government of Canada has said that there's some very sensitive information that it needs to have in camera.
So, in camera means, although it is a bit of a funny name because there are no cameras.
That's right.
You only have the commission cameras there.
So, it's going to be outside of the public purview, and only certain representatives with security thresholds can attend.
So, some of the council only.
And from my reading of it, it's actually only going to be commission council and government of Canada Council.
But they've really limited it.
So, what they said, and if you scroll to the end of it, is where you really get the just of the decision: is that they're making a preliminary assessment.
So, I think it's just above this input from the parties.
If you go up a little bit, so the second, third last paragraph, maybe.
And it says that we're going to review the information that comes forward, and then we're going to make a determination about whether or not this has to remain confidential or whether we're going to summarize this information or whether we're going to make it public.
So, it's a very preliminary decision that the Commission has made.
I don't think we need to hold our breath on it or worry about it too much, at least, not my take on it at this time.
So, if I just read from the decision of Judge Rullo, when I have heard the evidence, I will decide whether the evidence must remain confidential.
I may decide that some or all of the evidence can be made public, for example, in a summary that describes the evidence without disclosing information that must remain confidential.
Is there any resemblance between this and a publication ban during an actual court proceeding?
Yeah, I don't know if I totally understood your question, but definitely this one.
Could we say that it is a publication ban, or are there any differences between this and a publication ban?
Probably, yes.
Um, I think you could get publication bans for certain uh specified reasons, but this one is 100% simply because of national security threat.
That's the claim that the government of Canada is making.
I suspect in a court case, you could ask for a publication ban on national security things, but I'm not certain.
It's usually because of a say this, a safety issue for a person, something like that.
And how much do you think is going to impact the hearing?
Do you think it won't impact it at all, or do you think it's going to impact it enormously?
I definitely think it's too early to make that assessment.
I think let's see what happens.
Parties have an opportunity to give input, but again, like I said, this is a preliminary beating.
And I think right now the commission wants to itself assess what this information is.
And so far, what I've seen Commissioner Rullo do with procedural things, I find very fair and not biased at all.
So, there was one time the OPS office, OPS lawyer, got a bit excited when document or no, it was the recording between Diane Deans and Watson.
So, that came up.
So, this is a very similar way of handling a procedural issue.
So, I really enjoyed how Commissioner Rulo handled that matter.
He said, Let's first get on the record the reason why this recording wasn't disclosed earlier to the parties, because that was the claim the Ottawa Police Services lawyer was saying.
He said, We didn't get this early enough.
Why wasn't this closed earlier?
And Commissioner Rolo didn't jump to conclusions.
He said, Why don't we hear the reason that this wasn't provided earlier?
We heard the reasons, and it was simply a technology issue.
Um, Diane Deans thought she had she actually handed over her phone to her assistant and said, Take everything off of it, and that just didn't happen.
So, on that evidence, it's very hard to say, okay, she purposely didn't give the commission the recording.
And the commissioner said, Based on that evidence, I think it's fair and there's nothing that controversial in it anyway, and allowed it in.
I anticipate we're going to see something similar with this.
Trudeau Appointed Judge Shows Impartiality00:06:54
He's going to review it, he'll come back to the parties, and then we can have another discussion as well.
You know, I agree that so far, Commissioner Rulo has been fair in his proceeding, and I think that's the reason why Canadians have hope in this inquiry is because we see him.
You know, even though a lot of people are saying that he's a Trudeau appointed judge, we see him being impartial, we see him letting both sides of the aisle speak, we see the proceedings being cordial as well.
And I have to correct you, he's not a Trudeau appointed judge.
He was appointed well before Trudeau because he's been in court for quite a while.
Trudeau's been around for five years, I think.
So, it was before there are he has donated to the Liberal Party in the past, and I've talked about that on my TikTok.
You could look at it there, but um, lawyers do that all the time, and he did that well as a judge, you know.
And that that is part of being able what we're looking for, what protesters were fighting for, the right to um free speech and donate to where you want.
So, we can't, you know, critique that too, too much.
You have to give 100%.
So, just a little correction there, not a trudo appointment.
I had read a report saying that it was a true trudo appointee, but I never read it full on it.
Could be that um, Trudeau appointed him for this commission, interesting, okay.
You know, it was uh, an executive decision, so that could be maybe where the um miscommunication is very possible, yeah.
Andrea, oh, I was just saying, um, you know, what you said about that's what we were fighting for: the right to choose, the right to donate.
It's so true, it's also what the sort of pro-freedom fight gets in so much trouble with because we want to be fair, that's the whole point.
But the left, um, I don't know if you can call the left, but whatever, they're the opposite.
You know, it's my body, my choice until it has something to do with big pharma.
You know, they switch the narratives up as they please.
Yeah, no, 100%.
Right, let's throw to a quick ad when we come back.
We'll continue discussing the commission, and we'll read some of your chats as well.
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 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.
All right, we're back here.
Yeah, so I saw bits of the clip that I wanted us to analyze afterwards.
So, let's throw this clip where the commissioner discussed the word occupation when it comes to describing the convoy.
Safely remove them unless we have hundreds of officers to maintain.
I think that says risk, it's not clear.
The bottom, they're now transitioned into an occupation.
So, first of all, did you agree with Chief Slowly's assessment that it was an occupation at that point?
I had no reason not to agree with Chief Slowly.
It certainly had turned into a situation that I felt Ottawa police had not anticipated.
And I do not think describing it as an occupation would be inaccurate at all.
Can't safely remove them unless we have hundreds.
Drew, I saw you making some facial expressions.
What do you have to say to that?
Oh man, I was actually yawning because I've been live tweeting since six in the morning or whatever.
No, um, yeah, you busted me yawning.
That's embarrassing.
That's why we have a lawyer here.
So, Eva, occupation.
Yeah, well, I've had a hard time with that word, and that's why I really enjoyed Brendan Miller's cross-examination today.
And those were Slowly's words, so I think we're going to hear more about that tomorrow.
It's definitely a word that's been thrown around a lot, and I don't know what the legal definition is that they're relying on here.
And like we talked about earlier, if it was an unlawful assembly, then why weren't people charged with that?
Right.
Yeah, it's that's yeah.
And before he was asked about that, he himself was referring it to it as the Freedom Convoy.
He wasn't saying the occupation, the occupation.
So that's true.
Yeah, well, I think somebody should review the transcript to see how many different words have been used to describe it.
Today was the event, it's the protest.
It's there's so many different words.
So, you know, that's very interesting.
I'll take a look at that afterwards because I'm actually curious.
Yeah, might have an article coming soon.
The different terms that were used to describe the Freedom Convoy by people that testified today.
All right, do we have any chats from our viewers?
You can read it, Joea, if you wish.
You know what?
My screen, I don't know how to make it go wide.
Sorry.
All right, let's go.
Look, I'm just dropping the ball towards the end here.
Atom, yes, I guess that's Adam Ottawa, but I'm not entirely sure.
Paul Cham sure looked like a Trump today.
I think he's in over his head.
I'll refrain myself from commenting.
I won't comment on that.
Paul Cham, yeah.
Sorry.
No worries.
All right.
Is that the only chat that we have for tonight?
Thanks, Adam Ottawa.
He's a regular, regular supporter in live chats.
Yeah, thank you.
Well, if you want to see one of the interactions that I had with Paul Chemp, you can always look at one of my first scrum that I did here with Xeg Zili.
And I believe the first day I work here in Ottawa, Paul Champ and I interacted for a brief moment.
So I'll let you take a look at that if you want to know more about my thoughts on Paul Champ.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for joining us here, Eva, today.
Refusing Assist: Identified Cases00:01:04
I know it was a little bit later than expected, but we had some technical issues from the beginning.
Thank you for your work at the Commission.
Thank you for joining us as well, Drea, and thank you for live tweeting today.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you next time.
Yeah, have a great evening, everyone.
Bye.
And sorry, even prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, there were tow trucks and towing companies looking to be compelled?
Not looking to, well, I shouldn't say not looking to be compelled.
My understanding was that there were some of them that were reluctant.
There may have been some that were refusing to assist, but there had been some identified that were willing to assist.
There were concerns that they may back out at the last minute, which could present to prevent or presented a risk to moving forward with the plan.
The biggest concern was around indemnification.
So one tow company in particular was seeking indemnification, which is not something that we would normally provide.