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Oct. 28, 2022 - Viva & Barnes

06:42:43

Emergencies Act Inquiry LIVE WITH CHAT! Friday, Oct. 28, 2022

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	So just looking at the top, it says Public Order Truck Convoy De-escalation Planning Meeting, February 1st, 2022.
	Do you have, perhaps we can scroll down a little so you can familiarize yourself.
	It says there's a meeting with the chief.
	Can we go down further?
	There are a number of discussion points.
	So, for example, the third bullet.
	There's a notation that every single option to be explored and is open to discussion.
	He is happy to come back and further discuss anything if we need him to.
	He, I take it, refers to you.
	Yes, sir.
	So if we go down further, PLT would like one more attempt to speak with every convoy to get them on the same page.
	We scroll down further.
	Every POU we asked for will not be released to come to Ottawa as protests happening now everywhere.
	We might not get the starving numbers we asked for.
	So there are a couple of things I wanted to ask you to comment on.
	First of all, there's a reference to things happening elsewhere.
	What can you tell us about that?
	I believe by the 31st, I'm certain, unless I'm really off base, but Coots, Alberta was already in play at that point.
	On the Monday, I don't recall any other Ontario sites.
	I don't even think the announcement of the...
	No, on the Monday...
	Oh, sorry.
	On the Tuesday by then, there might have been some sort of indication that there would be an event in Toronto around Queen's Park.
	But I don't think there was any other active sites in Ontario.
	There were, I believe, some demonstrations at other provincial capitals across the country.
	But for sure, Cootes was...
	So by this time, which I believe was February the 2nd or the 1st, February the 1st, I believe, things are happening elsewhere.
	And if we go back to the top, one of the discussion points, do you see the third bullet from the bottom?
	It says POU units across the province needed.
	What does that refer to?
	So maybe I could just give some context to the meeting.
	Please.
	So this is a Tuesday.
	We are significantly into the pivot at this point.
	I had received varying levels of input, some of them just random emails, some of them very specific conversations with people with a lot of experience.
	Unprecedented, unusual public safety events.
	And the validation that I was getting from small I information to large I information based on expertise was this was unprecedented.
	This was larger than your police service is going to be able to handle.
	It was national and in some cases international in scope.
	It was fueled by significant funding, significant deep...
	Misinformation, disinformation, and polarization, just to name a few.
	This meeting was my first attempt to sit down with Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson as a Major Incident Commander.
	I had invited, I had asked for Inspector Lucas to be at the meeting.
	He could not attend, and I respect his reason, although I don't know it specifically.
	I think Inspector Morin.
	Was sent as his designate, I think, but he was a senior officer from the ICS team that was there.
	Staff Sergeant Mike Stoll, who was the ESU commander, our POU commander.
	What does ESU stand for?
	Emergency Safety Unit, I think, or Emergency Services Unit.
	Sorry, it's been a little bit of time.
	It's synonymous with POU, Public Order Unit?
	Essentially, but broader, I think actually a broader use of trained officers.
	That are actually more effectively deployed.
	A really good practice here that Ottawa should be recognized for.
	Ottawa Police Service should be recognized for.
	And I had brought with me the two PLT supervisors because I had information, feedback internally, that our PLT members weren't being optimally used and were feeling out of the loop of substantive discussions like this.
	And I had...
	Requested that the two supervisors be there, and they were there, and you see their contributions later on in the notes.
	But this is the substantive first time that I'm sitting down with the incident command thread, strategic, operational, and tactical, asking, what are you folks seeing?
	How are you assessing this?
	No decisions being made here.
	I need situational awareness.
	I need your assessment.
	We had been...
	Blessed with commanders of some expertise and experience from other jurisdictions that were in that room.
	I think London was there.
	I can't remember if Durham.
	I believe there was an OPP commander.
	I can't recall, but there were at least three other agencies in the room.
	So it wasn't just us talking to us.
	There was a healthy amount of external expertise.
	And we went through what I would call, I won't say it's a whiteboarding session, but a consultation discussion session that I wanted to get to at some point to, okay, well, this is good now.
	What's the move forward coming up from this?
	So that's the context of this meeting.
	I'll pause there if you want to come back to the question that you wanted me to ask.
	Yes, because I'm interested in this notation that POU units across the province needed.
	So, I'd say around the midpoint of that meeting...
	I would have almost turned to Michelle Morin and Mike Stoll, who were sitting to my right, and said, what's the level of POU that you would think we would need to start to dismantle the red zone and end the occupation?
	And then there was like a real-time discussion between my folks and the other POU commanders in the room.
	There were others that were chiming in.
	It was mainly a POU discussion, and I've been in them many other times before, so I know how this feels.
	I just sort of sat back and watched this new generation of experts do their thing, and it was kind of cool to watch.
	And within a really short period of time, it was almost unanimous.
	This may not be the exact language, but it's close to it.
	We're going to need everything in Ontario and a bunch more from across Canada.
	That was one of the moments where I truly understood the scale of what we were facing.
	Everything in Ontario and a bunch more from across Canada for me was state visits, an Olympic event, G8, G20.
	Nothing else requires that.
	That's when I truly understand from people with amazing expertise from different jurisdictions.
	Add on to that whatever other resources we're going to request, that's somewhere already in the range of six, seven, eight hundred officers, plus investigators, plus boots on the ground officers, plus dispatchers, analysts, special constables to handle mass arrests.
	The number is going to be well north of a thousand, and it's way more than we will ever be able to supply within the Ottawa Police Service, within the eastern region of Ontario, within the province.
	So that recognition came as early as February 1st.
	Yes, sir.
	Now, if we go down a little, in the first box under discussion point, I read a bit from it earlier, PLT would like one more attempt to speak with every convoy to get them on the same page.
	Truckers need to clear all the roads and stop honking in exchange for fuel in a place to park.
	Have zero room to negotiate.
	If they don't deal with it in this way, they will be removed.
	Why is it that there was zero room to negotiate?
	I don't know.
	I'm assuming this is the PLT contribution to the discussion.
	These aren't my notes, and it doesn't seem to be attributed to one or both of the supervisors.
	I don't know if this is...
	Their briefing contribution in totality.
	So I'm not sure what that means.
	I was just curious because it appears that the PLT would like more time, more opportunity to speak to the convoy.
	And then perhaps there was another view expressed, no room to negotiate.
	I was just wondering if you could enlighten us on what this discussion was about.
	Again, there were some 20 people in the room and it was really an open forum discussion with people just contributing ideas in a very fluid way.
	If I could take you now to the next document, the next day, OPS 3014484.
	So if we go to page 22. Now, Chief Slowly, do you have a practice of...
	Making notes to yourself, sending yourself emails as reminders or things like that?
	Yes, I do, sir.
	And would this be one of those examples?
	Yes, sir.
	So here we read, advise that all options on the table needs to consider...
	Sorry, can you...
	I'm just not sure the context or date or time of this.
	Sorry.
	Yes.
	Call with mayor.
	And it's the timestamp, at least on the entry, is 1.30.
	Okay, thank you.
	And we see a name on the top left.
	Maria Fortunato, who's that?
	That's my executive assistant, or was my executive assistant.
	So, the content of the email, which is, I guess, note to yourself, says, "Advise that all options on the table needs to consider the political option.
	What roles can Premier and PM play in defusing the demonstration?" It is not my legal responsibility to end a demonstration.
	It is my legal responsibility to provide adequate and effective policing to serve and protect the city slash citizens.
	What was the purpose of this note to yourself?
	At this point, I actually didn't have an assigned scribe, so I was trying in real time to capture information around...
	Conversations that I thought were important or a point that I was trying to remember.
	So it's not a consistent practice with every single meeting that I would go back and do this.
	That's the context of the note.
	I don't know if that answers your question, sir.
	And since the subject at the top says call with mayor, read demonstration, does that capture some of the contents of the call?
	Some of it, yes, sir.
	On the 2nd of February?
	Yes.
	Now, on that same day, you made a public announcement that turned out to be somewhat controversial.
	Do you know what I'm talking about?
	I think I can guess what's coming, sir.
	Okay, give me your guess.
	There may not be a policing solution to this.
	Why did you say that?
	For all the reasons that we've talked about.
	The size and scale of the events were not going to be able to be handled by any one police jurisdiction, certainly not mine.
	That this was a national scope event.
	It started from corners of all parts of Canada and arrived in our city.
	It was already by the 2nd in several other locations, Coutts specifically.
	I think by the 2nd there would have been some indication that Queen's Park in Toronto would have been a location.
	This was borne out by a wide variety of Polarizing issues, not the least of which was the vaccine mandates, but there were many other anti-government sentiment expressed at all three levels of government.
	And some of this was just people looking to come into our city and participate in an event to have an unruly and in many cases unlawful party.
	This was the underpinnings that...
	Created this event and brought it substantially into our city.
	We're well beyond the Police Services Act mandate of me as a police chief and the Ottawa Police Service in the police jurisdiction.
	And we're going to have to engage other elements of civil society and likely all three levels of government to make in some way a meaningful contribution to a sustainable solution to the end of it.
	What was the context in which you made this statement?
	I believe there was a, I can't remember if it was a board meeting or if it was a council meeting that the board was in attendance at.
	There was a range of questions for hours and at some point one of the questions elicited that response.
	And how was your comment received?
	If there are 35 million people in Canada, probably 35 million different ways.
	Do you feel that you were understood?
	No.
	Largely misunderstood, but by a lot of people, very understood.
	And have you had a chance to reflect on the statement you made since the time you made it?
	A lot.
	And what conclusions have you come to?
	It needed to be more clear.
	Okay.
	What did you need to be more clear on?
	That the Ottawa Police Service is doing and will continue to do everything we possibly can do, just to be clearer.
	That was literally the substantive answer I was giving during that meeting.
	All options are on the table.
	We're doing everything we can.
	We're calling all the staffing we can.
	We are rearranging our plan.
	We're calling out to our partners.
	So before that statement was made, it wasn't made in a vacuum.
	We were hours into a long meeting with multiple questions from multiple stakeholders.
	I believe my board were present.
	I stand to be corrected.
	City councillors, the mayor.
	What are you doing?
	How are you going to end this?
	When is it going to end?
	Please understand, we're doing everything we can and we'll continue to do everything we can on a repeat loop.
	But at some point, this isn't going to end just by the Ottawa Police Service.
	Even if we could find a way to get all the resources we need, it's going to come back again next week, the month after, Canada Day.
	This is a larger movement or series of movements.
	This is a trend that's happening across the country and around the world.
	And so there needs to be more than just a policing solution to it.
	That's the context.
	Now, I did reflect on it.
	And in the days and weeks and now months after that, I've, in opportunities like this, expanded on that short phrase.
	I think there's ample documentation in my...
	Scribe notes to talk about me explaining this further to the chair at board meetings and other conversations and meetings.
	So I didn't just leave it till now to provide a more fulsome explanation.
	Within hours and days of it, I was trying to provide that more fulsome explanation to my board oversight and to other public bodies and civil actors.
	Now, there are those who may say that your statement fostered a perception among the public and the protesters that the OPS was vulnerable.
	And unable to police the convoy.
	What do you say to that?
	Again, like my earlier comment, sir, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and they're certainly entitled to their feelings.
	And I can understand that if that was the only thing they heard from me, and they were not available to hear all the other efforts I made to clarify that, that that could leave them with a sense that we'd just given up.
	So I'm not challenging that.
	But let me be clear.
	I don't know if that is different from any other statement I've made around the role of policing in society.
	If you recall my earlier comments when I introduced my approach to policing and how I did it, the police are not going to solve guns and gangs and drugs on their own without education, health care, social services, the volunteer sector, communities themselves.
	The police are not going to be able to solve sexual assaults on their own.
	Without advocacy groups and legislative change.
	So there isn't any major aspect of policing, crime management, order management, traffic management, even traffic management.
	We can't patrol the amount of highways unless we have bylaw changes, signage changes, engineering changes that are well beyond the remit of the police service to demand and deliver.
	So for me, this is a consistent theme that I have spoken on and acted in accordance throughout my entire policing career.
	It wasn't for me an unusual statement, but it was heard in unusual and unprecedented circumstances and misinterpreted broadly, badly.
	Do you think that the lack of clarity of the statement might have risk contributing to a loss of public trust in the ability of the police to respond?
	I can't rule that out, sir.
	But I think I made enough efforts after that to clarify that, and demonstrably, the Ottawa Police Service, with its partners, kept putting out everything we possibly could for as long as we could, I would very strongly suggest, well past where we should have been.
	Our actions should have spoken louder than words, but unfortunately, by Saturday afternoon, there had been a cemented narrative, and I don't think it ever changed.
	My statement probably didn't help it, but I don't think it was really changeable from that first weekend.
	Now, we've also heard from other police leaders who disagreed with the statement from their perspective in the way that they interpreted the statement.
	And they felt that there was, in fact, a policing solution.
	And the way that the occupation was ultimately dismantled proved that there was a policing solution.
	What do you say to that?
	Again, if their comment was based on what was said without the benefit of hearing all the other explanations, I certainly attempted through the larger calls to establish the things I just talked about.
	We are still looking.
	We're still doing everything we can.
	We're seeking all the help we can.
	And if we can get 1,800 resources or whatever number the final amount was to come in, then we could take care of the unlawful aspects.
	But there are broader implications and underpinnings that could bring it back to my city or any other city or jurisdiction.
	And so, sustainably, to resolve the situation, we were still going to need larger civil society, all three levels of government.
	I don't know if this is the time to interject around any of the levels of declarations of emergency, municipal, provincial, or federal.
	But clearly, we have indications.
	And I believe that there were assistances.
	From those various levels, the injunction, the private injunction.
	And so there are clearly examples where some additional efforts were needed beyond the efforts of the police to resolve it.
	Local community mobilized themselves in mostly constructive ways, in some ways less constructive.
	But there were efforts across the board from private citizens to public institutions that contributed ultimately to that success.
	While I respect the comments of my peers, I want to be careful with my language here.
	I don't know any major operation, including that one, that did not benefit material from the supports outside of police organizations themselves.
	And I think that's unfair to the contributions made by broader civil society, including all three levels of government.
	I don't know if that's what they intended in their comments, so I want to be clear about that.
	But no police organization of any size, operation of any size, that I've ever been involved with, that had the clear level of success, No deaths, no serious injuries, no significant damage to infrastructure, no rioting, no burning police cars.
	I don't know of any size operation that didn't materially benefit from the consent and cooperation of citizenry, the injections of material resources or advice expertise from other experts outside of policing, legislative change, etc., etc.
	Okay, so this was on the second, right, that you made the statement.
	Let's move forward by a few days.
	I did recall it was the first, but I'm not going to quibble.
	Right.
	So let's move forward by a few days.
	And we've heard from other witnesses that the weekends are always the worst.
	Is that right?
	In terms of the surge of numbers?
	Yes, in terms of the surge of numbers and then the extra dynamics of convoys coming in or not coming in.
	Definitely larger in scale and more complex.
	Right.
	So I want to show you an email dated February the 5th at 6.33 a.m.
	The document number is OPS 307355.
	I expect it will show an email from you to Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson.
	And by this point, on around the 5th, What was the state of any evolving plan that the OPS had?
	I think on that date, I received a briefing on the three options I'd asked for from the meeting on February 1st, the POU options.
	So that's a substantive sub-plan development.
	By then, we'd had major changes around our internal staffing capabilities, decisions around how to redeploy resources around both the events.
	For the convoy, as well as policing the rest of the city, which still had to happen on a 24-hour basis, obviously.
	We had made announcements around our efforts to try to address the disorderly, unlawful and assaultive behavior, the hate-type behavior that was happening directly in the communities most affected around the red zone, variously described as surge and enforce and contain.
	So those are some of the examples of...
	Overarching, we were now planning for a week's cycle as opposed to a weekend cycle.
	Requests had gone out to partner agencies, not just for police officers, but for planners, people with expertise in PLT, POU, recognizing we didn't have the expertise or the number of people necessary to do the type of planning and sub-planning that we needed to do.
	And I know I'm going fast, Commissioner.
	If you need me to slow down, I will.
	So there's a range of activities that are engaged in evolving the pre-arrival plan into an in-event plan.
	Well, that context is helpful as we take a look at this document.
	Can we scroll down a bit?
	So in this email, you said you have directed...
	Inspector Dayu to convene a full incident command briefing at 8 a.m.
	If we go down further, there's a recap situational awareness.
	And then below that, we see two sets of priorities.
	First of all, the general priorities has a couple of points.
	Search, contain, and enforce.
	That's the first point.
	Second, demonstration, fully implement plan.
	Close everything, in brackets, roads, bridges, highway, off-ramps, etc., as early and as long as possible.
	Third, shut down secure enablers for unlawful and unsafe protests.
	Funds, fuel, fun.
	I won't read the contents in brackets.
	Is there a fourth point?
	Can we go down?
	Okay, so that's it.
	The first priority, general priorities.
	Explain to us what this is all about.
	So this is the second Saturday.
	You'll recall what happened on the first Saturday.
	Point number two around close everything.
	At the meeting that was held, that was qualified.
	I want to be clear about that.
	Clearly access and egress, access into the city.
	And access into the downtown core was one of the major reasons why that situation on the first Saturday so quickly escalated and metastasized into the events that we're feeling right now.
	It was reasonably predictable at this point that we were going to have another large influx of convoys, ones and twos vehicles, and walk-across bridges demonstrators that would, again, likely overwhelm the amount of resources even at that time that we had in the city.
	And so that was a major public safety risk that on the second Saturday was now even more likely to happen.
	And so that's the point there.
	The surge contained in force was announced on the Friday morning at a media conference.
	And this was specifically to address the level of ongoing disorderly, assaultive, hate-related behavior that our downtown communities and businesses were experiencing, particularly in Councillor Fleury's ward.
	Councillor McKinney, although I'm not sure she's in office now, but former Councillor McKinney, her ward.
	And the overwhelming amount of community complaints, business complaints were coming from the unlawful...
	Assaultive type behavior in that area and we needed to, that surge containing forces is not for the red zone, that is for the areas outside of the red zone.
	And the reference around stacking the day shift and the night shift is to hold back the night shift officers and then deploy the day shift officers.
	We have a larger amount at that time to be visibly present in the mid-morning to mid-afternoon when the bulk of those arriving.
	Demonstrators and activities, unlawful, assaultive type of activities would be taking place.
	The third point is around probably less of a public safety piece, but still unlawful, unsafe funds that were enabling to some significant degree the ongoing activities here and other locations, but certainly here in Ottawa.
	Fuel, the trucks needed fuel, and we were already trying to deal with the jerry cans and that, the open flames, propane in residential areas that I think has already been spoken about.
	And the fun, probably not the best word to use, but these were, I think, significant emotional and psychological impacts on those that felt captured, abandoned.
	That elements of the demonstration and the convoy events were fun where they were suffering.
	And I think there was a reasonable need for us to take whatever lawful and ethical actions we could to stop it or discourage it and negotiate it in some way.
	And those were largely the actions that PLT, I believe, were involved with.
	Now, let me focus for the moment on the second and third point.
	The directive to close roads and so on, as well as shutting things down like fuel seizure and so on.
	In earlier testimony from Deputy Chief Ferguson and I believe Deputy Bell as well, they expressed the view that this is an example of a strategic level executive going down, crossing the boundary into the operational Or even possibly tactical level of command.
	And there was some question about the propriety of a strategic level commander doing that.
	What's your view on this?
	This is me crossing that boundary.
	And for a very specific reason.
	It's the first full week.
	The entire service is fully deployed and fully exhausted.
	We are getting massive complaints from our community, and they are suffering.
	By this time, they're suffering.
	The resilience I talked about is still there in a lot of people, but it's waning.
	We are now reasonably able to predict the cycles of increases on Friday, Saturday, into Sunday and down.
	We know what's coming, and we knew what hit us the week before.
	And this is the chief of police calling a special incident command meeting to say, are we ready?
	Do we have the capacity?
	Are we able to significantly alter what took place last Saturday to what is going to take place this Saturday?
	And I need to look around the room and eyeball everybody and get a nod or a head shake and then figure out what we need, you need for resources.
	So I framed out something that people become prepared to discuss and invited them to that meeting.
	So just so I understand, you're acknowledging that You were, in fact, stepping into the operational tactical levels, but you're saying this is justified under the circumstances.
	I was stepping into the operational levels to make sure that strategic intent was really clear to the operational commanders.
	Now, at this time, on the 5th, who was the event commander in charge?
	Well, I thought it was Superintendent Chris Rione.
	I found out at the meeting that...
	Transpired later that, in fact, it was Superintendent Jamie Dunlop.
	So when you made these directives, you weren't aware yet that it was Dunlop, Superintendent Dunlop.
	That's correct.
	Now, some may say that the proper way to do this is not for the strategic commander to step into the operational level, but to have a discussion with the operational commander.
	And provide strategic direction.
	Or if the strategic commander did not have enough confidence in the operational commander to replace that person, rather than to start directing operations, him or herself.
	What do you say to that?
	If you scroll up to the top of this, please.
	So this is...
	What's the time stamp on this email?
	Sorry, I just can't see it.
	I believe it's 1133 on Saturday, February the 5th.
	That doesn't make sense.
	Oh, I'm told that this may be Greenwich meantime.
	And so is it six hours difference?
	So I think this is around five hours.
	It's around five or six o 'clock in the morning.
	So to give you context.
	Confederation Park had become a significant site that we were conducting PLT negotiations.
	The issue of fuel coming into the downtown from Coventry Road was escalating.
	The level of complaints, legitimate, desperate complaints coming in from businesses and residents are escalating.
	We had spent most of the Thursday and Friday trying to build towards the announcement on the Friday of the surge in force contained.
	The statements, all options are on the table.
	We are putting all of our resources on the ground.
	You will see a visible, different amount, greater visibility of police officers engaged in a wider array of activities, including enforcement, to address the substantive complaints and concerns affecting our community.
	And I know I went way too fast there, so I'm going to take a breath and let people catch up.
	Coming into the Saturday night, I woke up because I wasn't getting a whole lot of sleep those days.
	I woke up somewhere around three o 'clock in the morning, could not get back to sleep.
	I checked the situation report that came in from duty inspector Frank Daou, and he laid out information that is contained in this email.
	The Confederation Park I'm not reading exactly, but the Confederation Park negotiations ended badly.
	The Indigenous elders that had come in were treated badly.
	There was an attack on one of our sergeants at one of the sites.
	Other city workers were being attacked.
	This, for me, was an alarming situational report in the middle of the night that no one else was likely reading.
	And I wouldn't have been reading until I'd woken up with my alarm at 5 o 'clock in the morning.
	But I read it.
	So I got in the shower, and I got into my car, and I got down to the station, and I changed into my gear, and I looked around.
	We were thinly staffed.
	I understand why.
	There was not much to staff with, but we were thinly staffed.
	And when I went down onto what we call the zero level of our headquarters and asked the watch commanders there and the sergeants, What's our staffing levels look like for 9 o 'clock, 10 o 'clock, 11 o 'clock?
	When the bulk of the resource, when the bulk of the convoys are coming in, the numbers I got were really concerning.
	The level of threat from the situational report from Inspector Dawu at 3 o 'clock in the morning was alarming.
	So overnight, we had an escalated level of threat at multiple different sites.
	And in the morning, I wasn't getting a sense that we had the staffing commensurate to what we had announced and what we actually needed.
	And so I needed to make sure that I could pull together an incident command team and ask these operational level questions to be assured that we were in a better state of affairs than what I was getting at the time.
	Oh, it's been interesting.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	Yeah, so I am the queen of Diagilon, Jeremy's common-law partner.
	I'm trying to advocate for him at the moment.
	He was arrested in Nova Scotia on our property.
	That was September the 28th.
	He was isolated for five days in the central Nova Scotia facility, and then he was transported to Saskatoon, where he isolated for another five days at the Saskatoon Correctional Facility.
	Recently, he has been thrown back into, they call it a COVID assessment unit, which is somehow different than an SIU.
	Let me stop you actually there, if I may.
	Arrested in Nova Scotia.
	Mm-hmm.
	It's public.
	On what charges?
	Yeah, so I'll just read off the charges.
	And this is to clarify that he has not been arrested or charged that you know of for the Pierre Poilievre wife comments.
	No, and I'm not sure that that had any influence on his arrest, to be honest.
	I believe, from what it sounds like, the warrant was extended Canada-wide a couple weeks prior to those comments being made.
	So he was charged with one count of assault, pointing a firearm, using a restricted weapon in a careless manner, and mischief.
	Do you know when those charges were...
	The warrant was extended to Canada-wide.
	Do you know when those charges were issued and what they related to?
	Or what they relate to?
	Yeah, I'm just reading.
	I believe that the report started in March.
	Of this year, shortly after we were, Jeremy and I were both arrested for protesting near the chief medical health officer's home.
	Yeah, I think Jeremy talked about that on the stream, about a number of people protesting across the street, nobody, according to Jeremy, doing anything violent, whatever, and you guys were picked up and arrested.
	Right, yeah, it was a peaceful protest.
	Okay, so he's arrested in Nova Scotia, and what happens, to the best of your knowledge, after he's arrested in Nova Scotia?
	Yeah, so on Canada-wide warrants, the other provinces, from what I understand, they have six days to collect the inmates and transport them.
	So on day five, he was transported to Saskatoon, where he was kept in remand and remains in remand.
	And he had a bail hearing on October 7th.
	All I can say is that he was denied bail.
	Okay.
	When he was detained in Nova Scotia, do you know under what terms, what was it like?
	I don't want to put words in your mouth.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So because he is refusing the COVID-19 PCR or rapid testing, the genetic testing, he was in solitary confinement, not permitted showers or trips outside of his cell.
	I'm not even sure if that's legal according to Bill.
	The C83 that was assented in 2019, it looks like they were supposed to get four hours out of their cell per day and two hours of meaningful human contact.
	Five days of that in Nova Scotia.
	And let me all play devil's advocate for a bit.
	The PCR test is the one that goes up your nose and touches your brain.
	Not medically speaking.
	The other one, did he have an option for an antigen test or a saliva test that you know of?
	No.
	And my understanding is that they are supposed to offer a non-invasive test.
	So in my opinion, this breaches the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act.
	And his concern is that the swabs are coated with the ethylene oxide, which is a known carcinogen.
	And he's not opposed to testing.
	He would do a saliva test.
	Well, I don't know about the other act, but under the Quarantine Act itself.
	The test cannot be one that enters the person.
	Which is why, you know, Skye, Chris Skye, back in the day, says when you get to the airport, according to him, I give no legal advice.
	Nor would I even give the advice he gave.
	But he said, you can refuse it because they're not allowed sticking something in your body.
	The spit test becomes a little bit, you know, I say harder to refuse.
	But I'm wondering now, they're using COVID from what you're saying.
	And this drives me nuts because this is another...
	Weaponization of COVID as an excuse to act inhumanely to even detained individuals.
	They say, do the PCR test or for safety, we're going to have to keep you in isolation because you may be infected or you may have become infected.
	Correct.
	And the problem is that anytime new inmates are coming into the facility, he will have to go back and do another five days in the COVID assessment unit.
	And it's a dry cell, so there is no toilet.
	No sink.
	He gets two 15-minute breaks per day out of his cell.
	And during that time, that's when he's supposed to use the washroom, shower, and make phone calls.
	One is during business hours.
	One of those breaks is outside of business hours.
	So it's making it difficult for him to advocate for himself.
	So he had five days of solitary in Nova Scotia.
	Let me just ask the question.
	How do you know?
	What does solitary mean and what's he telling you when you get to speak with him?
	Yeah, so I have been able to speak with him, I believe, every day since he has been incarcerated.
	And what he's telling me is that when he's in solitary, I think he has, you know, it's a dry cell.
	Like I said, no shower, no sink.
	He doesn't have access to a Bible.
	He has a TV with one station.
	I believe it's CTV, which is essentially torture for him.
	I don't want to make light of anything, but yeah, that's the joke that needs to be made at that point.
	And yeah, he's having a difficult time getting request forms, medical request forms, envelopes, things that he needs in order to file complaints.
	But in all honesty...
	He is supposed to advocate for himself, and he is having a difficult time due to the distress that he's under, given the conditions of...
	My belief is that they're trying to have him use the washroom in his cell so that they can charge him.
	I've heard that this is something that they do from other inmates.
	They're trying to get him to misbehave.
	And I know very little, and I know only...
	From recent discussions, but a dry cell, is that where they put people who they suspect have drugs hidden in them so that when they have to go dump or something that they'll find the drugs in their stool because they have no other place to go?
	Correct.
	I'm not sure.
	I think they can throw them in there if they're under suicide watch as well.
	I'm sure throwing someone in there who's not under suicide watch would not put them under suicide watch.
	Can I ask a question?
	When you say he's suffering mentally, and we're going to get into it because...
	That's the first five days.
	How does that materialize?
	Yeah, so I do hear him.
	When he calls me, when he's able to call me, he's under quite a bit of distress.
	I don't believe, you know, I don't think that he is suicidal.
	I just want to say that right now.
	If he dies in jail, he did not kill himself.
	Needs to be said.
	He is so dehydrated, and he's not sleeping, and his anxiety attacks are so bad that he's getting sick.
	The nurse is not able to help him with that situation.
	Actually, they've written, I made this public yesterday, they wrote on his chart that he is coming off of opioids, but they have done no drug tests, no blood tests, and so I'm not sure.
	He actually asked them, are you sure you have the right chart?
	And they read off his name.
	And said, yes, you're coming off of opioids.
	So I don't know what kind of narrative they're trying to set up in there, but it does seem like they're trying to break him.
	And Voluntarist Girl said he's abducted, but look, he's arrested, he has charges.
	The only issue is typically you get released on bail when you're not a flight risk, which Jeremy is clearly not for a number of reasons, one of which I would assume is vaccination status.
	To leave the country, you need to show something.
	Well, yeah, and I think he paid for two days to get his passport.
	Back in May, we paid the extra to have a two-day expedited passport.
	He's not denied a passport, but they haven't gotten back to him yet.
	Okay, so five days solitary, and then how do you find out that he's whisked off to Saskatchewan?
	I figured that it was coming, and so when I didn't hear from him...
	I assumed that's what had happened.
	And then the next time I spoke to him, he was in Saskatoon.
	And now he's on his third...
	I believe this is day five of his third COVID confinement.
	So...
	The problem is he can keep them in there.
	They can keep him in there indefinitely because as new inmates come in, this will happen each time.
	I'm going to Google something while you answer this question.
	But so then what happens?
	And what do you find out about his conditions in Saskatchewan once you find out he's been flown over there?
	Yeah, the conditions are worse in Saskatoon than they were in Burnside.
	I will say one thing about the central Nova Scotia facility is the food is excellent.
	They're good to work around.
	Diet issues, food sensitivities, and you get lots of fruits, vegetables.
	Now in Saskatoon, I believe it's a different company that they use, and so he's not getting fruit.
	The food is a gray paste that he's not sure what's in it.
	It's slop, essentially, and bread, peanut butter, crackers.
	Anything else, he can purchase food from the canteen, but it's mostly junk food, Mr. Noodles, chocolate bars, chips.
	I'm going to bring this up because at least it's been reported, so I'm not reporting it.
	I don't know the extent of the publication ban.
	I suspect it's details related to the trial, which we're not going to get into.
	The trial, sorry, the charges and the evidence.
	Diagon leader Jamie McKenzie, so he's denied bail in Saskatoon on October 7. Judge Bruce Bauer made the decision after a bail hearing was held Friday in a provincial court.
	Now, hold on.
	A Nova Scotian man who identifies himself as the leader.
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah.
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah.
	Mm-hmm.
	Judge Bruce Bauer made the decision after a bail hearing on Friday for McKenzie.
	I just want to hear the reason.
	A standard publication ban was ordered preventing the report of any details presented and arguments made during the hearing in order to protect McKenzie's right to a fair trial.
	He was arrested on September 28 in Coal Harbor, transported to Saskatoon to appear on charges.
	They got a report of an assault, yada, yada.
	Okay, so...
	This is public, harassing, intimidation.
	This stuff we've all covered.
	So, conditions in Saskatchewan.
	Solitary?
	Correct, yeah.
	Is he crying on the phone?
	Not crying as in pitiful.
	Is he a broken man on the phone?
	Yeah, it sounds more like panic attacks.
	Previously, during his first...
	Solitary.
	I guess it wasn't so solitary.
	But he was in the dry cell with one other person.
	So it wasn't as bad.
	Now that he's...
	Yeah, so that guy must have also refused testing.
	Now he...
	Yeah, he's just...
	He has no form of entertainment.
	And I was able to communicate with him via...
	They have tablets at that facility.
	It's quite expensive.
	Essentially, they extort you to speak to your loved ones.
	But it was a way that I could communicate with him and keep him distracted.
	And for some reason, that tablet, the signal is not working in his dry cell anymore.
	What are you doing to raise...
	I mean, there's going to be people out there who are going to say, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
	As if he's been convicted.
	And by the way, I'll say this for anybody out there.
	He could very well have already been convicted.
	Of the charges.
	This should still shock the conscience of anybody who considers themselves to be Canadian.
	But he's not even convicted yet.
	Yeah.
	The problem that this could happen to literally any Canadian, that's what I want to reiterate, and that he's not the only political prisoner at the moment.
	And you can be charged or accused of...
	Whatever.
	And thrown in jail, denied bail.
	This literally could happen to you or your loved ones, and it should terrify all Canadians.
	Dry cell, from what you understand, solitary because he refuses to take the PCR test because, from what you understand, they're not offering the saliva option.
	Or the nasal swab, which is the rapid test that everybody does to cross the border.
	Who does he get to speak with?
	Visits?
	Stupid question to ask?
	He won't be permitted visits anymore because he could give someone the Rona.
	As if being vaccinated even has an effect now that we know that you can carry, transmit, and contract it anyhow.
	COVID has become the excuse.
	Absolutely.
	I'm shocked they didn't do this sooner because of the correctional officers coming in and out every day.
	Technically, he could get it from them.
	What are you doing?
	Let me ask another equally stupid question because I know the answer.
	I suspect CBC, Global News, legacy Canadian media has zero interest in what's being done to Jeremy behind bars.
	I think you'll be surprised.
	I have quite a few leftist reporters and some who flew to the bail hearing and they expected one thing.
	And I think they came out feeling a very different way.
	And they have gained quite a bit of interest in this story.
	They know that he is not being treated fairly.
	And so even though they don't agree with his politics, we have been receiving quite a bit of help, including help from, I want to say, Jeff Leo from CBC and Tammy Robert.
	I want to give her a special shout out.
	She was terrified of Jeremy in the beginning.
	And now I think she's...
	Really starting to understand what he's fighting for, why he's in there, the fact that he's a decorated veteran who fought in Afghanistan for our rights, and that's why he's so passionate.
	And she does feel that he's being treated unfairly, and she's busting her ass to help him.
	And we do appreciate it.
	Morgan, do me a favor, after we're done here, flip me some of the links or tweets, although I'll go try to find them, but it'll facilitate it.
	We can amplify those.
	People don't understand.
	It's not to analogize this to anything, but just because they're not coming for you now, when they start doing this and getting away with it under the silence of a polite, uninterested, or malevolent society that thinks that this is justified, there is no limit to it.
	That's surprising.
	A little encouraging.
	Unfortunately, CBC had...
	They were given permission to go into the jail to execute a...
	They were going to do an interview.
	I assume now that will be revoked because he will be indefinitely kept in solitary.
	For science.
	What are you doing?
	I mean, look, so he's facing charges in Saskatchewan.
	Other legal issues are going to ask the...
	Indiscreet but obvious question, what are you doing for lawyers and how are you raising funds for this?
	Yeah, so Veterans for Freedom has been excellent and they set up a give-send-go for Jeremy.
	Unfortunately, we are going to have to increase the goal amount as the lawyer has taken on his charges in Quebec and Nova Scotia as well.
	They need to get moving as soon as possible.
	And there are a lot of moving parts.
	It's a lot to get new lawyers caught up to speed.
	And for this Saskatoon charges alone, we're on lawyer number three.
	And I see you just sent me the Give, Send, Go campaign.
	So I'll link that for anybody who wants to...
	Thank you.
	At the risk of the government freezing bank accounts for people who donate because that's Canada now.
	You just said something about the lawyers.
	Oh, sorry.
	Have you noticed politics coming into play in terms of who is willing to take on this file?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And Jeremy's lawyer in Nova Scotia actually let us both go because of the comments that were made.
	It's amazing.
	O.J. Simpson had a lawyer.
	I want to say that because of this, I do feel, at least for my case, the judge seems to be sympathetic and not understanding.
	I fight for freedom, so I want the lawyer to have a choice.
	If he doesn't feel that he will properly represent us because he doesn't believe in our politics, then if they need to move on, I would like for them to let us know that sooner rather than later.
	And I do hope that he's properly represented and that the politics don't come into effect.
	I mean, they'll represent Merck.
	And just to clarify in the chat, he's in Saskatchewan because the charges allegedly result from an alleged assault incident in Saskatchewan.
	It has nothing to do with the Pierre Poilier comments, and that's why he was taken from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan.
	Correct.
	I do feel this is uncommon.
	It's not common for...
	He actually spoke to another inmate who had a warrant from Quebec extended Canada-wide because he shot a man and they didn't bother to come pick him up.
	So I think it's very uncommon for someone with these types of charges to be escorted to another province.
	And I think that...
	Likely political pressure came into play there.
	They did it with Tamara Lich for breach of bail conditions.
	Of course they're going to do it for Jeremy.
	It's an easier argument to make if you want to make it.
	I don't know.
	What are you doing?
	What's Jeremy doing?
	And what can people who are now watching this and maybe hearing it for the first time, what can they do to increase the spotlight, increase political pressure to maybe just treat Jeremy like a standard inmate or a human being?
	I think it's really key right now to reach out to the MLAs, the MPs, especially in Saskatoon, the Premier of Saskatoon.
	I'm not understanding.
	In Nova Scotia, he was granted bail.
	In Quebec, they have not extended his warrant.
	So why Saskatchewan?
	Why are they, you know...
	Why are they pushing for this?
	That's what I want to know.
	So if people can reach out, I am working on a letter to send that people can copy-paste and send out if they wish.
	I'm just not sure when that will be wrapped up.
	But I think just sharing his story and his treatment is key right now.
	I have started a complaint process with the ombudsman.
	He is supposed to...
	Advocate for himself with them as well.
	And he's supposed to have access to call them anytime he pleases.
	But because of the way he only gets out the two times a day, it's very difficult for him to make those phone calls.
	And it's a lot to wrap up in 10, 15 minutes.
	Okay.
	And Morgan, let me ask this question.
	How are you doing in all of this?
	Yeah, I'm...
	I'm supposed to be decorating for a Freedom Barn party.
	I'm very distracted.
	I'm not getting much sleep, but I will say I have a huge support system.
	I'm doing very well.
	I'm just trying to make sure that the proper people are contacted as soon as possible.
	My goal is just to get him better treatment ASAP.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	So, thanks for coming on.
	Like someone says in the chat here, let me just pull it up.
	And this is, you know, from my perspective, it's not that Morgan might be, you know, not that you might be lying.
	There might be intricacies, nuances that you might not understand in law, but if what you're saying is true, it needs to stop.
	It's not, Jeremy could be the worst person on earth.
	This is not what a justice system is about.
	And just bear in mind that these accusations relate to alleged assault, alleged unlawful pointing of a firearm, mischief, from an incident that was a long time ago.
	If it ever occurred, there's a reason why people have trials, so that evidence allegations can be tested.
	And pre-trial detention on this, when someone is clearly not a flight risk, well, that's one issue.
	And then this type of detention, because I've heard this solitary for PCR refusal, it's inhumane.
	And so if it's true, it's inhumane.
	If it's true, it needs to stop.
	And maybe some actual journalists, I put that in quotes, we'll get on this.
	But Morgan, keep in touch.
	Let me know what's going on.
	Pop back on whenever you want.
	And thank you.
	And I say stay strong, but I don't know how people deal with this, but you don't.
	I appreciate it.
	He's at least been given an opportunity, I'll say, to testify in the public inquiry on next Friday, I believe.
	That was one concern we had.
	We felt that he was being detained so that he would not be able to testify, but that has since changed.
	Is he going to be doing that virtually, I presume?
	Yes.
	They'll make sure he's got it.
	We'll see if he's got a connection for that.
	Okay.
	And I'll be watching that at the same time.
	So, Morgan, thank you.
	The world, you know.
	Fact check, verify, and it's...
	You watched Chief Slowly cry.
	We were watching the inquiry, and former Chief Slowly is crying about the Ottawa protests.
	Meanwhile, your significant other is in solitary, apparently, indefinitely for an extended period of time in pretrial detention.
	This is the new Canada, and it's not acceptable.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And if anyone, I know that this is very controversial.
	I've been pretty, I'm an open book.
	If anyone ever has any questions, I'm pretty backed up on my messages, but I do eventually get back to you.
	And if there's any issues, I have no problem answering questions.
	All right.
	Excellent.
	Thank you.
	We'll keep in touch.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Have a good day.
	All right.
	You too.
	Cheers.
	Bye-bye.
	It's outrageous.
	Managing to find a way to continue to justify.
	Jeremy's a bad man.
	Shut your mouth and don't make stupid jokes and then this doesn't happen to you.
	Don't make bad tweets.
	I'm going to bring up the inquiry.
	Bring it back in the second chat so people can go back and watch it or people who are still there can watch it.
	Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson and D.C. Bell.
	It's still there.
	I advise that I had only just officially heard that Superintendent Dunlop had replaced Inspector Lucas as the incident commander at the previous briefing.
	So you just learned on the 5th that Dunlop is now the commander.
	I don't want to mischaracterize.
	Either in that meeting or before.
	It's the Democracy Fund which I interviewed during the protest.
	And they want to talk about what's going on in the inquiry.
	So that's why I'm referring to Lucas, not Reom here.
	In my mind, my notes, contemporaneous notes are Lucas got replaced.
	I had no idea about the Reom case.
	I had no idea about why he was removed.
	I had no idea he was removed.
	Justin Trudeau has set the standards for the new Canada.
	And that was surprising for me.
	Yes, I'm not challenging your version.
	I'm just trying to understand from your perspective just what happened because it was pretty confusing when we're trying to go through the record.
	Even if it's a federally incorporated not-for-profit, DC Bell advised that he was the new incident commander installed this week.
	The people who want to kill freedom, who want to kill civil society, they want to scare people out of talking about certain people just so they can be memory-holded.
	And actually, literally put in a hole.
	I see a challenge I'm not going to bring up, but you are 100% correct, whoever wrote it.
	Go fund Darryl.
	Who's Darryl?
	Hold on, let me get the link.
	Oh, Darryl.
	Sorry.
	And for not advising me of the change, I counseled that D.C. Bell, that he's to stop interfering in acting deputy chiefs Ferguson's role as major incident commander.
	I counseled both that such major changes in the leadership of the incident commander was to come to me for final approval outside of operational exigencies.
	But Daryl should be able to raise legal fees if anybody is twisted enough to actually donate.
	They should be free to donate.
	And so on.
	I'm going to say that certain people get to raise funds for their own criminal defense and others don't, because I don't like the accusations or the conviction.
	That's not how it works.
	That's not how it can work, because it doesn't work like that forever.
	It, in fact, will only work like that for a finite period of time.
	This appears to be the link for Jeremy's Give, Send, Go, and I'll put it in the chat in the rumble as well.
	Even on the 5th, I don't think I realize what had happened to him.
	Right.
	Well, that was interesting.
	Understand that the event commander is now Dunlop.
	You did not know that until the 5th.
	And that was concerning for you.
	Corn Pop, is this live?
	Yes, Corn Pop.
	It's live.
	Welcome back.
	Good to see you again.
	Pop your finest bottle of booze, folks.
	Cheeto Jesus is coming back to Twitter.
	I'm ready for all the co-fed.
	My God.
	This is going to be entertaining.
	One of the few times where you can actually write the word God out, capital G, not in pencil.
	It was a massive trust.
	It may be one of the times where it might be.
	We're using the Lord's name in vain if you believe in that.
	This might be one of those times.
	I haven't seen this.
	What is now I consider a national security crisis.
	Chris Weiner says, come on folks, donate to the JCCF and probably fight for your rights as Canadians.
	Viva, you're the best, but Keith Wilson is a badass mofo, I know what that stands for.
	The major incident commander, event commander, incident commander, that is my entire understanding of leadership capability and capacity to orchestrate all of what needs to be done across the incident command system.
	Just so that we can continue to provide adequate support.
	Supersticker, Karls Gaspard.
	And then we got Cornpuff.
	I'm being annoyed.
	Cornpuff, you are always welcome in the chat.
	So that's that.
	Now, has it been confirmed that Trump is coming back?
	I don't even know if to this day that I didn't call that briefing meeting, that I would have known about it until the Sunday, the Monday, or the Tuesday.
	If he comes back to Twitter, he's going to kill truth.
	Right there?
	Okay, so I don't see anything that confirms that Trump is coming back.
	Is Donald Trump coming back to Twitter?
	We'll take a gander through my Twitter feed.
	It is a straight-up juvenile meltdown of epic proportions.
	Is Donald Trump coming back to Twitter now that Elon Musk bought the company?
	He was not a part of the discussion of the public order unit commanders who were expert in that area.
	How could he have been replaced to lead this if he wasn't part of that essential meeting?
	At a conference, I do not think it was correct to ban Trump.
	Fine.
	That's not the issue.
	The issue is not whether or not Musk is going to let Trump back.
	He will undoubtedly.
	This is clearly one of the most important things that I've asked Trish Ferguson and her incident command team who were there represented as fully as they could be.
	Lucas couldn't attend, you recall.
	What did he say that was hilarious?
	This is critical.
	I need a set of options in three days before the weekend events come.
	And somehow in that time frame, without me understanding or even knowing, will Trump remain exclusively on Truth Social?
	Trump has said he would not return even if invited.
	Musk also said he believes Trump will remain exclusively on Truth Social.
	But Trump has not gotten the same resonance from his Truth Social Act.
	I finally got a briefing later in the afternoon on the 5th of those three options.
	On Truth Social, Trump has 4.36 million followers, just 5% of those he had on Twitter.
	It's funny.
	Truth is fine.
	To actualize that scale of operations, including making the request for the public order commanders on scale that I was told on the February 1st meeting.
	We lost time, and clearly there was a lot of confusion.
	And people like the fight!
	I'll be honest.
	I'm always honest.
	I'll be blunt.
	I like the fight on Twitter.
	I don't want to sit around with people who don't agree with me.
	I also want to know what my ideological opponents' adversaries are saying.
	At best, I can call this a significant lack of judgment.
	Just look at this.
	First of all, people, I made a meme, and it's epic.
	Probably this would have been a review that I would have done after the events had concluded and looked at it even more closely.
	But it is...
	The fun is in the pursuit.
	The fun is in the attempt.
	What could I add of values to Twitter that would actually garner a retweet from Elon Musk?
	I think this would be it.
	This should be it, people.
	So we all know this triggered face, and I don't know who she is.
	I remember she was a teacher telling someone to get off campus or something.
	I don't know what the context was.
	I don't know if the face on the left was angry in any event, but I didn't know that there was this still of this raging, triggered individual.
	Where there was a picture that preceded it, which looked all nice and loving and tolerant.
	Don't look at the picture on the right.
	You look like you have a very nice, soft-spoken, caring individual.
	Based on that picture alone.
	But my goodness, what a difference a nanosecond makes.
	I believe my friend is correct.
	If you don't like censorship, you should build your own platform.
	Got a nice photo.
	Okay.
	I said...
	Okay, I'll do it.
	And now he owns it.
	I said build it, not buy it.
	I thought that was funny.
	I was LOLing myself as that would happen.
	But let's just go through the Twitter feed.
	Because what we are having right now is a certified bona fide...
	Gosh, that fish was the most beautiful fish ever.
	Okay.
	What we're having is a bona fide certified meltdown.
	The chief began by saying...
	I'll get to that one afterwards.
	Let's just take one here.
	Andy Siskin, I'm here through midterms to help mobilize the vote.
	After, if the man-child allows neo-Nazi and hate leaders back, I will keep an account here, but stop providing content.
	This drives him really crazy.
	Perhaps you're better at reading this.
	I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
	By the way, I'm not going to delete my account.
	Because that would be commitment.
	I've got 560,000 followers on Twitter.
	You think I believe in anything enough to actually delete my account?
	Oh, no.
	I'll stay here for now.
	Indicating the switch between Reom to Dunlop to Patterson.
	Who's the man shot?
	Twitter?
	Musk?
	If he allows neo-Nazis, who's anybody I disagree with, and hate back, hate leaders back, I will keep an account.
	I'm not going to...
	Piss away my 560,000 followers.
	That has value.
	To delete my account would actually be to vote with my feet.
	But I'll stop providing content.
	This drives some ridiculous...
	I don't know what the hell she's talking about.
	But apart from that phrase on the last line...
	Oh, by the way, that was it.
	They literally, literally need a safe spot.
	I mean, I know she's saying, I've already lost thousands of followers who have fled the platform and hundreds have migrated to Facebook.
	Safe spot for now until a better option.
	Have you seen what's on Facebook?
	Do you know what's on Facebook?
	So of that nature, we will not be changing out any of the major incident command positions.
	Do you know what's on Twitter?
	There's some of those vile offensive crap that has been on Twitter running ads under it.
	And you've got to switch.
	Switch.
	Tell me in the morning at the first early opportunity.
	Or call me.
	Because I had a standing position that any major issue, I could be working about a bit for a phone call.
	Operational officer safety issue or a major issue like this, you can call me.
	But other than that, the team we have, the plan we have, implement that.
	You express the view that.
	Does Amy Siskind not know what's on Facebook?
	Does she not know that some of the most violent organizations have groups on Facebook?
	On Twitter.
	That there's some of the most obscene sexual content on Twitter.
	Some of the most violent video content imaginable, conceivable on Twitter.
	Yes, some of that might have resulted in delays.
	I can't tell you specifically.
	It felt to me that the P.O.E.
	plan was delayed because of Dunlop's insertion and his need to get up to speed and his then reinterpretation of things.
	That's about the only thing I can point to that was materially delayed.
	I don't know if there's any other material delays, but the confusion was clear.
	Robert Reich, right.
	That we're starting to get some concerns that are articulated from the OPP that there's confusion with the incident command team.
	I recall a phone call from Commissioner Creek in this period where he was saying, my folks are saying there seems to be confusion with your incident command team.
	I took that to mean what was happening in this circumstance.
	And that's why on February 9th, when the integrated planning team was coming in for their briefing, that we weren't going to do this to ourselves.
	This guy does complain about how much Jeff Bezos makes.
	He complained about that a lot.
	Did he complain about it when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post?
	No!
	He didn't complain about that.
	He complained about other stuff.
	I might have used a term like that.
	This is from April 26th.
	That's helpful.
	The first time that I can tell in this timeline that he ever complained about individuals owning social media.
	Until then, his biggest problem with Jeff Bezos was how much he made, not the fact that he controlled a national newspaper.
	And you mentioned POT was discussed around this time, too.
	Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and I've never complained about them before.
	About the ownership.
	The monopoly.
	Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
	Elon Musk owns Twitter.
	When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platforms for communication, it's not a win for free speech.
	In fact, I think we may be going back in time.
	April 26th.
	These notes were made on the 8th or 9th.
	55,000 retweets.
	4,000 quote tweets.
	This is a discussion about the week before.
	Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
	Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
	Elon Musk owns Twitter.
	When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platform for communication, it's not win for Facebook.
	I believe I do, but I'll let you carry on.
	October 15, 2020.
	The bots might be the blue checkmark.
	The POT was involved with some successes and challenges during that first week.
	Got to do it a second time.
	But try to find in Robert Reich's timeline, if he ever complained before Musk got involved in taking over Twitter, if he ever complained about Facebook being under the control of one person, about Washington Post being under the control of one person, he's complained about Big Corp not paying their fair share within the operational...
	He's complained about other issues, but never about the oligarchy ownership of social media.
	Maybe I'm wrong.
	Emphasis being put on enforcement as opposed to engagement, so to speak.
	Then, let's just see who else is having a meltdown.
	Eric Fagelding!
	I'm not making fun of a name.
	Don't anyone accuse me of making fun of a name.
	In high school, my last name was Friday.
	That the two of you were favoring more enforcement.
	You could be a child in Ferguson and Bell who were more in favor of...
	Fagelding, for anybody who doesn't know it?
	It's not just...
	I mean, the most outrageous misinformation you can imagine.
	From my earliest days in training as a public quarter unit commander, epidemiologist, health economist, health policy, cancer prevention, co-founder of the WHN, former 16 years Harvard.
	COVID-19 dates from January 20th.
	Elon Musk is now in charge of Twitter.
	CEO and CFO have left and will not return.
	They didn't leave.
	They were fired.
	From what we understand.
	Terminated.
	While the PLT program expanded from an RCMP open key kind of technique.
	Twitter will be delisted from New York Stock Exchange tomorrow.
	It's now a private domain of one.
	God saved Twitter and humanity.
	This would be an example where you do not use the Lord's name in vain, Eric Fagelding, although I doubt you believe in God.
	God saved Twitter and humanity.
	You pathetic loser to think that God cares about a social media app.
	You pathetic loser to bless the survival of humanity on the fact that a social media app that you have been using is something that I have been championing for and had done at multiple levels for multiple decades.
	There isn't anyone on God's green earth that would have to convince me of the necessity and the value of Oh my goodness, but don't take my word for it, people.
	I do not make bold accusations without having part of it.
	This is political disinformation that Figgled Dingles was talking about in Rittenhouse.
	This was just one of many.
	This is after he called the judge a racist, by the way, because the judge made me ordering Asian food for lunch, joke, or comment.
	The same judge blocks the prosecution from calling Rittenhouse as a murdered...
	By the way, they weren't murdered.
	Because murdered under the law means the unlawful killing of another human.
	Self-defense, but bygones.
	Can't call the people that were assaulting Rittenhouse and from whom he had to use lethal force to defend his own life.
	Can't call them victims because they weren't.
	But they were victims of their own excuse.
	But calling them arsonist, leaders, and rioters is okay.
	It's a narrative that someone has constructed to attack my character, but bears no resemblance once or ever to my actual record in policing, including my time as chief of police.
	Yeah!
	Is it fair to say then that the view attributed to you as less inclined to allow the POT team to do its work?
	I am sick and tired of idiots saying we don't need to protect kids.
	We need to protect kids.
	From certain people and from government abuse.
	I did talk about quick wins.
	He's doing math.
	Listen to this.
	If a classroom of 30 kids get COVID without masks, then statistically, give or take four, we'll suffer long COVID.
	That is not okay.
	I am so damn mad.
	Join me and Peter Holtes to talk about blah, blah, blah.
	If 30 kids get COVID without masks, what unfortunately has happened is that has been tied by someone or some people for some reason, unknown to...
	To me, PLT could not or should not be used or could not and should not be used properly.
	Worse, that somehow I had to approve every single PLT action.
	Set that aside.
	The kids will pull down their masks to pick their nose.
	They're going to pull down their masks to chew off the erasers on the end of their pencils.
	Whatever.
	If 30 kids get COVID, then statistically four will suffer long COVID.
	So let's go to the next document.
	Let's do some quick math.
	That's about 12% of COVID infections, according to Fagel Ding, that result in long COVID.
	OPS 304568.
	That's misinformation fear porn.
	When was it?
	When was this tweet from?
	This is a recent tweet.
	Now, just to give you the context, I believe these are the notes of Staff Sergeant Ferguson.
	Won't someone think of the children?
	That's one misinformation.
	Here's another one.
	I had to listen to the clip.
	He said, we know that with Omicron, it's actually more severe in children than in adults.
	Also February.
	This is Dr. Fagelding.
	Melting down now because Twitter's in the hands of one man.
	You know who Musk should be protecting us from?
	You, Fagelding.
	God.
	Help us all, and God save humanity.
	Abuse of God's name.
	And if we can go to page 15, please.
	See what's going on here?
	Can we enlarge?
	Check out my YouTube live chat, someone says.
	Let's see what's going on in the YouTube live chat.
	I get nervous immediately.
	What's going on in the YouTube live chat?
	But we can confirm if...
	Is there a problem in the live chat?
	Well, while I'm here, hard tackle.
	Need more of them.
	Thanks for all you do.
	I am melting.
	LOL, thanks for all you do.
	Hard tackle?
	Thank you very much.
	Let me go back and see what the deal was.
	What was the problem in the chat on YouTube?
	I got nervous.
	Like, have to...
	February 5th.
	Understand the way I react when I think there's something immediately devastatingly wrong.
	Take a deep breath.
	Know that it's probably not the case.
	So it's a conference call.
	And it looks okay.
	Okay.
	Let's bring out that.
	Bring this out.
	What is this?
	Go further down.
	Okay.
	Go down.
	Oh, my good God.
	Now I understand what's happening.
	I've been live on this one.
	I'm sorry, people.
	Reference to what?
	It was the chief who was...
	Well, it's further up.
	There's a reference.
	Oh, okay.
	I just missed it.
	So, Chief Slowly, do you remember congratulating or encouraging the team because they were doing a good job?
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I don't have a specific recollection, but on literally a daily basis, that would have been a comment that came from me.
	I'm glad it was captured by John Ferguson.
	I'm glad I said that because they probably deserved it based on the success of Confederation Park.
	I don't have an explicit recollection.
	But there are other occasions when we see notations in other people's notes, not with regard to this incident, but PLT or negotiation more generally when the comments are a little more ambiguous.
	So I want to get your help in illuminating that.
	I want to take you to another document.
	OPS 3014454.
	If we go to Page 55. So we're now on February 5th.
	If we go down.
	Can we go back up, please?
	It appears I may have the wrong reference in a moment.
	Okay.
	I don't want to waste anyone's time.
	Let's move on to another document.
	Can we go to page 32?
	Same document.
	So here, there's a notation.
	What is our trajectory?
	And then there are two branches.
	Enforced.
	Enforced end.
	Or a negotiated occupation end.
	Need to take a decision today.
	February the 3rd.
	Sorry, whose notes would these be?
	I believe these are notes taken by the legal services.
	Okay.
	February the 3rd.
	And sorry, what time?
	I'm not sure we have the time.
	We just have the date, which is February 3rd.
	If you want to scroll up, we can see if we can find out more.
	But that's redacted, so that's not helpful.
	So we're left with these notes.
	It may be that you cannot help us with more information, but I thought I'd try.
	Do you recall anything discussed along these lines on the 3rd?
	Again, I don't know how many meetings I would have had on the 3rd.
	Do you have a sense of what, is this a morning meeting?
	Is this an afternoon meeting?
	Unfortunately, the contacts, we don't have much to guide us on these pages.
	So I'll just leave this and move on to the Coventry incident.
	Okay, so I have a new note.
	Let's try page 59. Same document, page 59. Can we go to the bottom, please?
	Right, here.
	So here, there's a notation.
	This is again on February the 5th.
	The notation that says, negotiation gives us legitimacy to use force if negotiation fails.
	I take NEG to refer to negotiation.
	It's not my handwriting.
	No, these are the notes from the legal services.
	But PS, I take it refers to your initials?
	Yes, sir.
	Do you recall any discussions around the use of negotiation as a way to give the police legitimacy to use force, should it fail?
	Well, somebody's interpretation.
	In every aspect of policing, a measured approach is the preferred approach.
	From our use of force continuum through to incident command, communication, negotiation, de-escalation.
	Risk mitigation is the preferred route.
	And if you can't demonstrate you did it even for a second, even if you had a second of opportunity, if you can't demonstrate that you attempted to do that, then you have less legitimacy around your decision to use force.
	That would be the context in which I'm talking about it.
	What I am not saying here, to be clear, is let's just pretend to negotiate while we put on the armor and go in there and hurt people.
	I would never say that.
	And if anyone suggests otherwise, they would have misunderstood your view on the matter.
	It would be really hard to understand how they could misunderstand that, but that would be the most charitable thing I could say.
	Right.
	Now, we spoke earlier about the success at the Confederation Park, the involvement of the PLT.
	Now, I want to take you to the event involving Coventry.
	That didn't go so well, did it, for the PLT?
	Well, thank you for that clarification.
	From my limited understanding of it, there was a lot of moving parts there.
	In the net, I'm still not sure whether as a whole it advanced our operations.
	It certainly caused, again, confusion and contention among key elements of it and demonstrated that we were not at the level of maturity and optimal alignment around these things.
	But some good things did occur as well.
	What good thing occurred in your view?
	This was part of the change to the transition from the...
	We had just, I think, that week had the success of at least temporarily ending the GoFundMe piece.
	We were starting to see some effect from the efforts of addressing unlawful and unruly behavior in our neighborhoods.
	We were starting to get a sense of what the priorities are.
	We had the Confederation Park win.
	I would call that a full win, largely through PLT, which I've talked about.
	So we were starting to Show that we could aim at a priority at a problem and an objective and get a material result out of it, not just be paralyzed into complete, reactive, immobilized periods of time, which we had suffered in the first 72 hours.
	So for me, this was a sign that we were starting to get somewhere towards the front foot rather than being completely on the back foot.
	So while I would completely agree, it was a challenge for the PLT and a substantive one.
	And I won't in any way change the commentary that others have brought to it.
	But to suggest that it was a complete failure, I can't agree to that.
	As I understand it, the issue was not so much whether it was legitimate to seize fuel or to prevent people from taking fuel downtown.
	As Superintendent Bowden explained, that wasn't the issue.
	The issue was for the PLT team to tell.
	The protesters that something is okay, but then to turn around and arrest people when they take the fuel away.
	That's the problem.
	That's leading to mistrust between the PLT and the protesters.
	Do you agree?
	I don't want to be obtuse on this.
	That level of detail, I was never aware of.
	After the fact, why didn't that happen?
	The morning I'm briefed on it didn't happen.
	I have no idea if it happened or didn't happen.
	I think one of my complaints is I actually didn't get a call the night before to say it wasn't going to happen.
	So I don't know what was said by what PLT member to who, what promise was made.
	I have no level of understanding, even to this day.
	What the PLT log notes say that they told them versus what happened.
	I've heard repeated descriptions of what took place, and even to this day, I'm still not quite sure what the sequence of events was.
	Clearly, though, I am aware that there was a significant departure from the optimal way that PLT should be utilized, and it had a major impact on the PLT's abilities to move forward.
	That I am aware of, and I'm confident enough in that evaluation, and that's why you will see Even more after this point, I'm requesting additional PLT expertise from Commissioner Creek.
	I'm reinforcing PLT and the need for it to be properly utilized literally at every meeting that happens after this.
	Just so we're on the same page, it may be helpful if I take you to the interview summary of Staff Sergeant Ferguson.
	If we can go to WTS 6027.
	Please, at page 8. So he provided a description of what happened that day.
	I'd like to read that to you and then get your thoughts on it.
	So at 4.40 p.m. on February the 6th, Superintendent Patterson advised Staff Sergeant Ferguson that POU was going to Coventry Road and would be seizing fuel.
	For evidentiary purposes.
	At that time, PLT had been at Coventry Road for at least two hours engaging with protesters.
	Staff Sergeant Ferguson informed Superintendent Patterson that PLT was negotiating with the protesters and that they were compliant.
	But Superintendent Patterson indicated that he intended to proceed with the public order operation.
	Staff Sergeant Ferguson attempted unsuccessfully to convince others in OPS not to proceed.
	With a public order operation at Coventry Road.
	At 5 p.m., Inspector Marin reiterated Superintendent Patterson's direction to Staff Sergeant Ferguson that they did not want the fuel from Coventry Road to be displaced and that they were proceeding without warrant.
	At 5.10 p.m., Staff Sergeant Ferguson contacted Deputy Chief Bell and advised him that the enforcement operation would undermine PLT's negotiations, which had been proceeding for at least two hours.
	Staff Sergeant Ferguson informed Deputy Chief Bell that protesters were compliant.
	Shortly after the call ended at 5.18 p.m., Deputy Chief Bell contacted Staff Sergeant Ferguson and informed him that he agreed with Superintendent Patterson's decision.
	Later that evening, Staff Sergeant Ferguson learned that Deputy Chief Bell supported Superintendent Patterson's decision because three convoy vehicles had left the Coventry Road site and were transporting fuel.
	To supply protesters downtown.
	In a nutshell, that's what happened.
	Do you have any view on what transpired there and any thoughts on how these kind of problems or troubles could have been avoided?
	Well, if that is accurate, again, it's one person's account, but for the purpose of there's so many problems in this paragraph beyond the PLT.
	Staff Sergeant Ferguson contacting Deputy Chief Bell.
	Sorry?
	Staff Sergeant Ferguson contacting Deputy Chief Bell makes no sense to me.
	Staff Sergeant Ferguson contacting Deputy Chief Bell makes no sense to me.
	Everybody who's watching on the stream, I'm going to pause it, remove it.
	Share the screen for our guest.
	Give me one second.
	I'm going to go back to the stream yard here.
	Yeah, we got Viva Inception.
	Okay.
	This might not work.
	Stop screen.
	Give me one second and let's figure out how this works.
	Chrome tab.
	Oh, now I see the problem.
	The first one?
	No, I did it again.
	It's going to be the second one.
	Thank you.
	Okay, this looks good.
	And now in this stream, Mark, get ready.
	I'm going to bring in, we're going to have our second guest of the day, Democracy Fund, to explain what they're doing, what's going on in the world.
	I actually know very little.
	Hopefully I can conduct something reasonably...
	Coherent of an interview.
	Mark, you might have to help me out.
	Coming in, in three, two, one.
	Mark, sir, how goes the battle?
	Good.
	Thanks for having me, David.
	Well, my pleasure.
	Now, I don't know that we met during the protest.
	If we did, I don't remember.
	But I remember meeting with the Democracy Fund, Jessica, and a couple of others.
	And was it with them where we were walking around, and I thought they were somebody else, and then we were walking around to do an interview.
	But I totally forgot who they were.
	That might be the same experience.
	But Mark, sorry.
	I'm rambling.
	Who are you?
	What are you doing?
	And what's going on?
	So, well, yeah.
	Thanks again for having me, David.
	So, I'm with the Democracy Fund.
	So, we're a civil society organization.
	And we were granted joint status to attend the commission.
	And I think you've met some of my fellow lawyers, Adam Blake-Gallupo.
	I think you met at the protest itself.
	And then Alan Hauner, who's our litigation director, is actually at the commission right now.
	But we're subbing in and out.
	So we get a chance to cross-examine the witness.
	Witnesses come up and we're putting forth our position, which was that the emergency declaration was improperly made.
	Excellent.
	And so which party to the inquiry do you represent specifically?
	So we don't represent a party.
	We represent just the Democracy Fund together with the JCCF and the other freedom organizations.
	There's three of us.
	And that means we get a chance to cross-examine witnesses, but we don't actually represent one of the parties giving testimony.
	So this is like an anarchy in the context of the inquiry.
	That's right.
	Okay, very cool.
	So how does it work in terms of timing for cross-examination?
	You're working with JCCF.
	Are you allotted a very minimal time for cross-examination of the parties, of the actual witnesses or parties?
	You've been watching, so you see how it goes along.
	There's not a lot of time.
	They have to do it, I think, in six weeks.
	So we have, you know, standing with three of us, and that means we each get to go sort of in one slot.
	We don't get to go one after another.
	We've been up a few times, and then our partners get to go up, and it has to move quickly.
	We only give it five minutes, so we have to be very pointed in our questions.
	All right, now people in the chat on the other side are asking, what does TDF stand for?
	It stands for the Democracy Fund.
	Explain what the fund is, what it does when it's not involved in these inquiries.
	So we help people who have had their civil liberties infringed in Canada.
	We educate people on their civil rights and we try to alleviate poverty where we can.
	So obviously we're more busy now because, you know...
	I think probably your audience would agree that Canada is moving in the wrong direction on civil liberties.
	So we're involved in our ICANN tickets, gathering tickets, masking tickets.
	We're helping the students at Western University appeal the booster mandate that just came down.
	And so anyone who's experienced those sort of pandemic-related civil liberties violations, we're trying to get out there and help.
	Okay, that's fantastic.
	So you're actively involved in litigation, just not in the inquiry as far as parties are concerned.
	For those who don't know, Western, Western Ontario, a university in Ontario, one of the best or most reputable universities in Canada mandated the booster for returning students.
	Mandated the booster for returning students of that demographic that are most likely to suffer very serious potential adverse effects.
	Who's suing?
	Who's taking that to court and what's the status of that now?
	Okay, so this just doesn't involve just students who are unvaccinated, obviously.
	These are now the students who are vaccinated have been told that to attend campus, they have to be boosted.
	And so that obviously implicated a lot more people who might have been on the sidelines.
	And we took the position that the booster mandate falls afoul of the Privacy Act legislation in Ontario.
	And so we took that to trial.
	Unfortunately, we lost, but we're appealing that to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
	So we'll hopefully get heard shortly.
	Western has put off the enforcement of that booster mandate, I think, until January 1st.
	So there's a little bit of time before, ostensibly, they're going to get into enforcement with that.
	But we'll see what happens.
	That's outrageous.
	That's outrageous.
	It's so shocking.
	Are parents...
	Who supports this?
	How was the decision made, and who supports it?
	You know what?
	It's speculation at this point.
	I know there was a lot of pushback from parents and students, like I said, who were vaccinated, but I think I've had enough.
	That's what we're hearing.
	We've put out the call, put out the bat signal that if we can assist anyone, we can.
	We got a lot of response.
	As to who supports it, some of the faculty, I'm told, do.
	Obviously, the administration does.
	Other than that, I'm...
	Your guess is as good as mine, David.
	Okay, interesting.
	And some of the other tickets and stuff, anything interesting that you'd want to mention once you have a bullhorn?
	Well, I mean, we represent clients charged criminally for conduct arising out of the protest, I think 2023 or so.
	And I just note that all of those have been charged with mischief and or breach of court order.
	So there's been a lot of talk in the commission about violence.
	None of our clients were charged with any violent conduct.
	And I think that's noteworthy because, as you probably understand, on the test, the Emergencies Act, there has to be...
	An emergency?
	The Emergencies Act, the use of serious violence or the threats of use of serious violence.
	So that evidence has been thin on the ground, and I can just tell you, for the clients we represent, they're charged with mischief, which is not a violent charge.
	Charged with mischief resulting from the protest.
	Arising out of events.
	We've seen who was charged with mischief.
	You had Tamara Lich who did diddly squat of violence except, say, hold the line while she was getting arrested.
	Who else mischief?
	Pat King.
	Even Pat King, the most notorious name there, committed no act of violence that we know of during the protest?
	Look, I don't know exactly what the...
	Organizers were charged with, but I don't believe it was violent conduct.
	Someone have to check me out.
	I'm fairly certain it was mischief.
	It was perjury that they got him on from his bail hearing.
	Incitements to...
	There was no act of violence that even Pat King was charged with.
	So you're sitting at this hearing now, this inquiry.
	You're going to be there day in and day out for the two months of the inquiry.
	Yeah, one of us will be, yeah.
	May I ask a stupid question?
	Do you live in Ottawa?
	I don't.
	Our litigation director, Alan, is traveling up there to and fro.
	And I think I'm going up shortly.
	So yeah, and then Adam Blake-Galipo will also join.
	And the overall impression of how this is going?
	Does Judge Rouleau, do you get the impression?
	I mean, I asked this to Keith Wilson.
	It was yesterday or the day before.
	But do you get the impression that the judge knows where things are at?
	Well, he's a court of appeal judge.
	A smart, articulate gentleman who has been very fair, I think, with the participants.
	He lets them go on a little bit longer if they're over time.
	He hasn't really dropped the hammer on anyone, I don't think.
	I have no idea, you know, what his findings will be.
	Obviously, we're only, you know, a little ways into it.
	We've only heard the government and the, you know, police mostly, as well as some community members.
	But he's been very fair, and I anticipate, you know, he'll be fair going forward.
	People were asking, and I don't think I've misunderstood this, but I'll just check myself.
	The ultimate result of this hearing, it's going to be a report, recommendations, findings.
	There's no power of the judge or the commission to issue any monetary sanctions, certainly no other types of sanctions.
	So it's strictly going to be an assessment, findings, and recommendations, and maybe some, not verbal reprimands, but no other form of sanction.
	That's correct.
	I mean, it's a typically Canadian exercise.
	We go into this fact-finding mode and we turn over every rock and stone.
	At the end of it, you know, nothing can happen.
	I mean, he'll make recommendations, I assume, and then the government can take it or leave it, I think.
	There's no power to compel the government to do anything, I believe.
	And because my understanding is it's sort of like the...
	Conflict of Interest Act where it comes to it that even that has some monetary sanctions, but by and large, it's recommendations, maybe a reprimand, and then it's supposed to be a political solution above all else.
	That's right.
	Yeah, I understand that Mr. Singh came out and said, well, even if the findings are adverse to the government, he'll still support it, I believe.
	I would expect nothing less from turncoat Jagmeet.
	All right.
	And so, by the way, is the Democracy Fund not-for-profit or what type of organization?
	That's right.
	So we're a non-profit civil society organization.
	If you want to support us, you can.
	We issue charitable receipts.
	You can find us at thedemocracyfund.ca slash commission or on Twitter at tdf underscore can.
	And now, what are the names of your lawyers who are conducting examinations across so we know to identify them?
	So Alan Haunter, he'll be there doing most of the cross.
	He's our litigation director.
	And then Adam Blake-Gallupo as well.
	He's another lawyer.
	And then myself, I'm senior litigation counsel.
	So we'll rotate, but it mostly will be Alan.
	All right.
	Very cool.
	Anything else while you're here that you want to mention to the world?
	You know what?
	I probably had a lot of statements lined up, but it all disappeared in the lives.
	Well, let me ask you this, and we'll go over some of the testimony.
	Are you watching Slowly today?
	I am, yes.
	So, as a matter of fact, or just as it happened, why did Slowly get booted?
	How did he get booted?
	Whose decision was it?
	And what were the reasons given at the time?
	You know, I wish I knew.
	So far, we've just heard about some of the conflict.
	He was asking for resources, I believe.
	And I think the OPS may have been caught off guard with respect to the size of the protest.
	And then the OPP had to be brought in, obviously.
	And then they had to coordinate between themselves and put in requests for further resources.
	And I think somewhere in there, the communication lines got crossed.
	Maybe there was jurisdictional disputes.
	I'm not sure.
	And slowly, I think, you know, bore the brunt of that.
	Obviously, he was the guy in charge, and then they brought in, I think, Chief Bell.
	But it's very confused.
	I'm not an expert on why he was on the go.
	Now, I'll ask this at the risk of you not knowing.
	What is the basis for any of the alleged racial components to any of this?
	I never knew slowly until I saw him or heard these accusations.
	I never knew, never thought to even ask.
	Never thought about, It being an issue.
	Never knew that he was black or mixed race.
	Never knew it.
	What facts are there on the ground?
	What story is there that lent any credence to the suggestion that occurred early on in this inquiry that race or racial identity had anything to do with his treatment?
	You know what?
	I don't know, and I would hesitate to speculate.
	We were there on the ground.
	We were in the crowd.
	And I know the crowd was certainly multiracial.
	People from all sorts of backgrounds and working class, middle class families.
	And then I didn't even realize Chief Slully was racialized.
	And now we're hearing about accusations.
	So I don't know how to fit those in to my worldview.
	It's not that I don't see these things, but I didn't even know because you hear names and you...
	By and large, don't even see photographs.
	I was just shocked when that came up.
	I was like, Chief Slowly is black.
	I didn't even know it for that to be a thought from anybody, but it came from the government side.
	What was another question I had?
	Highlight of your time thus far at the inquiry.
	The most damning, if you have one, two, or three moments thus far.
	I think the crosses by Alan Haunter of TDF and Brendan Miller for The Convoy.
	Organizers have been excellent in pulling out pertinent dispositive information with respect to the national security threats.
	And I think the misinformation, disinformation that Superintendent Morris referred to, he was careful in his words, but he seemed to intimate that some of that misinformation and disinformation was coming from Politicians and the mainstream media.
	Now, you want to be careful and you want to go back and double-check that testimony.
	That, for me, was pretty shocking because we're always being told that, you know, these people are authoritative sources.
	And it turns out that even in some of the testimony from government officials, they were misinformed.
	And that became evident.
	I'm sorry.
	I mean, I got it.
	No shit.
	I mean, if they're listening to the CBC...
	They think this is a massive Ku Klux Klan meeting in downtown Ottawa.
	Yeah, look, I don't know where they got their information, but you were there, I was there.
	It just wasn't as portrayed by the mainstream media.
	Superintendent Morris, I think, brought that up.
	He's the, I think, ranking provincial intelligence officer for the police forces.
	So that was interesting to hear.
	All right, excellent.
	Okay, now I'll really give it to you.
	Last one, if there's anything you want to mention before you leave, and everyone's going to continue watching, but what do you want to say?
	Should people be discouraged or should they be optimistic that there's going to be a proper resolution to this absolute government overreach?
	Well, look, I like to remain hopeful.
	The lawyers so far have been excellent.
	The testimony has been revealing.
	Like I said, we only heard one side.
	We haven't heard the convoy organizers.
	Remember, they're going to be cross-examined too.
	So they're going to be put on blast as well.
	And I'm sure the government's going to pull back some points.
	But the evidence for serious violence supporting the declaration of a national emergency, I think, has been thin on the ground.
	And I think Commissioner Rouleau, Mentioned that the, I think, during one testimony, the end of the testimony subject to Morris was, well, the government's under pressure now.
	So I probably agree.
	Sorry, if I just made a face because I accidentally just kicked my dog under the table.
	Stupid dog just sits on my, like, near my feet.
	Okay, good.
	Well, we're going to continue watching.
	So we might see you, or we will see you again, cross-examining live.
	Great.
	All right, we'll get ready for the scrutinizing eyes of the interwebs.
	Mark, thank you very much for coming on.
	Thanks for having me.
	All right, have a good day.
	Bye-bye.
	Okay, that's cool.
	The Democracy Fund.
	Oh, yeah.
	The cross-examinations of the convoy, they will score some points because they're going to pull up some emails where people from the convoy were talking about blocking traffic, creating havoc.
	Okay, and we're going to go back to here.
	I think we're probably...
	Why is that?
	Oh, I didn't have to do that.
	I could have just left it play.
	I'm such an idiot.
	Okay.
	We are back to having the screen up on the second stream.
	I'm going to go take my screen out and remember to do it this time and mute myself.
	Thank you.
	Order alert.
	The Commission is reconvened.
	La Commission reprend.
	Good afternoon, Commissioner.
	For the record, Eric Brousseau, Commission Council.
	Very, very briefly, I just rise to give notice formally of the documents that the police team is bulk entering this week.
	My colleague, Mr. Mather, sort of explained the process on the record, I believe, last week.
	We circulated a list.
	Last week, we received objections.
	Those documents have been removed from the list, and Commission Council will deal with those objections with the parties.
	The final list was circulated to the parties this morning, and those documents will be marked as exhibits.
	There are a number of emails and other documents from the OPS, the OPP.
	The WPS, Windsor Police Service, as well as a few RCMP documents and City of Ottawa documents, and including witness summaries for witnesses who, importantly, are not going to be called to testify, but whose evidence we wish to put in by way of summary.
	Okay, thank you.
	So, with that parenthesis...
	Thank you.
	Commissioner, before I continue with the examination, just to clarify for the record, when I put the notes of Superintendent Reum to the former chief slowly, Mr. Champs correctly pointed out that those notes were not put to Deputy Chief Ferguson in our examination.
	But she did, in fairness to her, say both in her interview summary as well as in her evidence that Superintendent Reum was removed for personal reasons.
	He needed a rest for some rest days.
	So she did not say anything about his removal being connected to the former chief.
	I just want that to be clarified on the record.
	Now, Chief Slowly, just before the lunch break, we spoke about a number of issues that I also wanted to clarify so that there's no misunderstanding.
	First of all, I asked you about the date when you found out that Superintendent Reum was replaced by Superintendent Dunlop, and I believe you said that was on the 5th of February.
	Now, if I could take you to a document, I want to see if that would refresh your memory.
	OPS 3014484.
	So if we go to page two.
	So it appears that on the 3rd of February, these are again notes to yourself, on the 3rd of February at around, well, in the morning, you attended a meeting with both deputies on teams with Superintendent Dunlop.
	What was your understanding as of the 3rd about Superintendent Dunlop's role if he was not the event commander?
	Thank you.
	On the whole, sir, I wasn't sure what his role was.
	I had understood that Staff Sergeant Mike Stoll would be the primary presenter of the analysis that came out of that meeting on the first.
	A range of three options.
	I've described them, but not necessarily Accurately as to what they would come back with and a preferred option, including the implications of resources, et cetera, et cetera.
	On the third, if that's a Thursday, that would be the Thursday, there were two, yes, there were two meetings, one at 1030, and then another one, I think, maybe around 12 o 'clock, where I was waiting for Mike Stoll to give that presentation.
	I think the notes indicate that he wasn't available, the presentation wasn't on what I had asked for, and I was saying, "Look, I just want that presentation that I'd asked for." So there are two, I would call, aborted attempts to provide that on the Thursday morning, the first one around 10:30, the next one around 12 o 'clock or so, if my mind is accurate.
	Finally, the third attempt, which occurs on the afternoon, I think, of the 5th, the Saturday.
	I get the three options.
	I get their preferred option at that point.
	So, I'm still not sure, even at this time, why Dunlop is, Jamie Dunlop, sorry, Superintendent Dunlop is involved in the presentation and what his role in it is.
	My recollection, I stand to be corrected, is he wasn't introduced as the interim event commander, the event commander.
	That's my recollection, and my confusion is based on that.
	Okay.
	The other thing that we spoke about was with respect to the Coventry incident, and we were attempting to draw some lessons from that event.
	One of the issues you identified was the fact that Staff Sergeant John Ferguson went outside the incident command system when he sought guidance from Deputy Chief Bell.
	Now, if Staff Sergeant Ferguson were, if he had concerns about the direction that he was getting from the event commander, Mark Pedersen, Superintendent Pedersen at that time, who should he have gone to?
	So, while it was confusing, again, I don't want to...
	Characterize it as he did the wrong thing.
	I just want to be clear about that, John Ferguson.
	There would have been options.
	John could have gone to the incident commander, which at this time should have been Russ Lucas.
	He could have gone to the event commander and explained, attempted to further explain.
	And if that wasn't happening, he could have gone to the major event commander in that case, major incident commander in that case, would have been Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson.
	So there were options for him to engage.
	I understand it seems that he was doing his best to get people engaged around something he thought was important.
	Just so we understand, Superintendent Patterson was Inspector Lucas's superior.
	If he was challenging a decision by Superintendent Patterson, wouldn't it be problematic for him to go to somebody who reported to Superintendent Patterson?
	Challenging?
	But still appropriate.
	There is an incident command, chain of command, and then there's an organizational chain of command.
	So at any point when there's a disagreement in the chain of command, if done professionally, if done timely, and if done seeking a constructive outcome, not for rumor mongering, not for undermining, not for any other personal agenda, you can engage that chain of command in trying to reach some sort of a better outcome.
	I think that would be appropriate.
	Now, I understand from Inspector Lucas's interview summary that he thought by that time, around 5th or 6th of February, his role had diminished to more akin to an operations chief at a tactical level.
	So if Staff Sergeant John Ferguson had issues about the operations, Is it not arguable that he shouldn't have gone to Inspector Lucas?
	And again, I want to be careful.
	I perceive that through information that's been presented at the testimony myself.
	I wasn't aware of that.
	So it's new information for me that Inspector Lucas's perspective on his changed role is new information for me.
	If that was materially the case, if that was known to everybody, and if it was known to John Ferguson, yes, he would then have another challenge of who could he turn to.
	I would accept that.
	But this is all new information to me, too.
	So it's just conjecture at this point to try to answer your question, sir.
	And I appreciate that you're doing the best you can.
	We're also trying to understand what lessons to draw from it.
	We just don't want to draw the long lessons.
	So the other option that you identified was for Staff Sergeant John Ferguson to perhaps approach Deputy Chief Ferguson, because she was by then the major incident commander.
	But wasn't that also problematic because they're married?
	At some risk to go into the realm of conflict of interest and relationships and organization.
	I mean, there is that challenge.
	But in the frame of the Ottawa Police Service at that time, there wasn't any breach of policy.
	And so it would have been appropriate if he felt it had, again, constructive, objective, not unprofessional, not undermining, not self-seeking, to have sought the intervention of or at least to provide it.
	His information to the major incident commander.
	I do also recognize, if I understand the context as to what happened, this is sort of a real-time unfolding event.
	It seems to me, again, I may be wrong, it seems to me that there wasn't an opportunity for Staff Sergeant Ferguson to wait for a briefing cycle to raise the concern when all the people would have been around the table, and then that would have allowed Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, or even...
	Superintendent Patterson to reconsider.
	It seemed like he was trying to get a real-time decision in the midst of an operation.
	So the third option would have been to wait for a briefing cycle, raise it as part of the briefing cycle to try to de-conflict it and make it better going forward.
	I don't think it was appropriate in that circumstance.
	So because there are some uncertainties about the circumstances, we shouldn't be too quick perhaps to...
	I certainly can't be quick to judge or to in any way attribute blame.
	But I think, Commissioner, it goes back again.
	These still need to be developed areas of consistent across-the-board understanding of incident command systems within the operation of a policing service that clearly here in the Ottawa Police Service and other jurisdictions, we need to get to a higher level.
	There are examples of excellence across the ORT.
	I think we need to try to raise all boats in the harbour as high as we can.
	Thank you.
	So let's move to a new topic.
	You've told us earlier that the Ottawa Police Service was badly in need of external help.
	It needed more resources to resolve the situation on the ground.
	I want to take you to a document.
	This is OPS 3014454.
	So you see that the document is dated January 31st.
	So this is the first Monday after the arrival of the convoy.
	Meeting with the RCMP and the OPP.
	You were there.
	If we go down the pages, you see the notation.
	Can't safely remove them unless we have hundreds of officers to maintain risk.
	And then if we go down further, no way we can come by.
	Not sure.
	What's that word?
	Four more days without something help, lots of help.
	Was that the, and then the next line says, now transitioned into an occupation.
	Does this reflect the thinking at the time on or about the 31st that the OPS will need hundreds of officers?
	In order to safely remove the protesters.
	Yes, sir.
	And then we go to the next page.
	We need, sorry, go down a bit.
	Oh, sorry, go down.
	Oh, go up.
	Sorry.
	We need resources.
	And what is that next word?
	It looks like communications.
	Saying together, joined together at 3 p.m., question mark.
	Do you recall these discussions at that meeting?
	Yes.
	I mean, specific lines, not as clear, but I recall the meeting with Commissioner Luckey and I believe Commissioner Karik.
	I don't know who else would have been on the call.
	And if we go down the page a little, there's a comment from Trish.
	Thank you.
	Maybe go to the next page.
	Here.
	Looking for boots on the ground.
	What did you understand her to mean?
	Those would be your sort of general duty officers, traffic direction, taking a traffic point along the red zone, patrol, just general duty officers that could be utilized in a variety of different ways.
	So do you understand the request at that time was for general duty officers from...
	From the RCMP and the OPP?
	Well, she outlines...
	And then the other...
	Yeah, that's the running list that she was asked to sort of, you know, come up with on the spot.
	I think it's actually a pretty reasonable list based on what we knew at that time and where we were.
	And how did the commissioners, Kirik and Lucky, answer?
	Well...
	I can't...
	Yeah.
	Let's go down.
	From Commissioner Kirik, we'll facilitate all of your requests.
	And get embedded in the command structure.
	Yes.
	So you had a commitment from Commissioner Karik as of the 31st that they would do all they could to assist, and they were willing to embed in the OPS command structure.
	And then Commissioner Lucky from the RCMP, why did negotiations fall through last night at 8pm?
	What was that about?
	What negotiations?
	I'm not sure.
	I'm not sure what she's referencing.
	And then if we go further down, there's a comment attributed to you.
	Reach out to UC...
	Gatineau and Certe de Quebec.
	Right.
	So you extended the ask to Gatineau and Certe as well.
	Yep.
	Do you know what kind of help...
	At this time, the OPP and the RCMP were offering.
	We know what you asked for, but do you remember what they were committed to providing?
	If I understand the question, they had already had resources in the theatre.
	Again, I stand to be corrected by other information that might come up.
	RCMP, I believe, had three what they call troops, public order units.
	In the National Capital Region, they were not under our incident command system control, but they were available in an emergency, and they had certainly a range of important duties to manage.
	I believe at that point, we still had OPP public order units.
	Again, not, if I understand correctly, not under our incident command, supporting parliamentary protection services, but again, in the theater, general area of the theater.
	Within what I would say within the incident command system deployment.
	There were general duty officers from the OPP, somewhere in the range of 30, 40, 50, again, stand to be corrected on numbers, as well as a range of other municipal police service agencies, contributions, London Police, Durham Region Police.
	I think Toronto might have been up at that point.
	Most of those were public order unit officers as opposed to general duty officers.
	That's my recollection around the January 31st.
	Okay.
	If I could take you to the next document, which is an email that you sent to Commissioner Kirik, dated February the 2nd.
	The document number is OPP401576.
	So this was sent February the 2nd.
	On the first line, you see that you wrote, I'm seeking your assistance in providing resources to assist the Ottawa Police with our operational plan.
	The subsequent bullets mentioned 50 to 60 uniformed officers, PLT and POU supports, as well as incident command supports.
	And then the next line talks about a tactical dispatcher.
	Were these the nature of the request?
	Yes.
	I'm assuming that that would have been a refined list of requests that I'd received from Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, who she would have received it through her incident command, chain of command.
	Now, in testimony yesterday from Commissioner Kirik, he was asked about a formal request.
	And the implications of the formal request under the Police Services Act, Section 9, Subsection 6. Just to be clear, your request here, was that the kind of formal request under the Police Services Act?
	I may not be understanding the question, sir.
	Sorry.
	So it may help if we take you to the Act, COM 50819.
	You're familiar with the provision I'm referring to, right?
	I'm not that familiar with it.
	Okay, so let's go to the Act and look at it together.
	So this is the Police Services Act.
	If we could go to page 12. So under request of Chief of Police in Emergency.
	This is Section 9, Subsection 6. A municipal chief of police who is...
	Sorry, I'm just not seeing it on my screen.
	Am I missing it?
	Oh, at the top.
	Oh, okay.
	Sorry.
	Thank you.
	Sorry, I missed it.
	Do you see the heading?
	Request of chief of police in emergency.
	Involved.
	So I...
	Thank you.
	I'm aware of the language in the act, but I wasn't in my mind referencing this.
	If it happens to fit it, that's fine.
	That's my question.
	When you wrote the letter, you were not having in mind this section?
	No, I was simply sending a communication to another chief or commissioner asking for resources.
	What do you understand to be the difference of requests made formally under subsection 9.6 or the kind of informal request that you appear to have sent?
	I will say I've never in my policing career relied on this section, so I don't have a, other than what's written on the page, this would seem to be, if we needed more officers, we could ask the, or resources, we could ask the OPP.
	But I mean, if this is intended to, and again, I'm not aware of what's underneath it, this means we can't manage, we can't adequately, effectively continue to be the police of jurisdiction.
	Can you come and do this for us?
	I wouldn't interpret that that way, and that was certainly not the intent of me sending that letter to OPP Commissioner Karik to ask for those resources.
	Well, that is where I'm going because perhaps it is open to interpretation, but certainly one interpretation is that the OPP had the ability to step in and take the lead.
	I believe there's certain conditions that would have to be met.
	They couldn't just arbitrarily make that decision.
	And that's why I'm asking you, if a request is made under this section, would you have been comfortable to let the OPP take more of a lead role under this section?
	If I felt the conditions in Ottawa required that level of intervention from the OPP or any other police service?
	I would obviously be making that request and therefore be very comfortable with it, subject to all the usual discussions as to how that would transpire.
	But I was not making that request.
	You were not making that request.
	And I guess my question is, given the situation that you found the OPS to be in, shortly after what you call the paradigm shift, after the first weekend.
	Isn't that something that should have been done logically?
	Not at all, sir.
	Why not?
	We were three days, 72 hours into a situation.
	I don't think anybody in Canada at that time really understood what was going on.
	And I think it would have been irresponsible and unnecessary to burden another police service with that level of request without having any real understanding.
	So I just don't think there's...
	Listen, you could talk to other police chiefs and they may have their opinions, but as of the 31st or the second when I sent that letter, that was not a situation that I was considering at all.
	That's not a situation that anybody had raised to me, either within the Ottawa Police Service or from the Police Services Board.
	Just not in the realm of considerations.
	Did the situation in Ottawa escalate at some point?
	To a stage where you would have considered that appropriate?
	Not during my tenure, sir, no.
	So in your view, up until mid-February, February the 15th was your last day as the chief, the situation was not desperate enough in Ottawa for the chief to be requesting that kind of assistance from the OPP?
	That's correct, sir.
	What would be the downside to the OPP stepping in when they had the resources and if they were willing to help?
	The OPP never had the resources necessary, sir.
	They could coordinate the resources and they did a good job of that, but the OPP on its own could not have come in and with its totality of its complement, provided the full level of some 2,200 officers that were required.
	Well, they alone...
	Might not have been enough.
	As we know, during the final days, both the OPP and the RCMP stepped in, but certainly the OPP had more resources than the OPS had at the time.
	The quantity of resources, while being a factor, would not be, even in my humble opinion, a significantly weighted factor for such a decision as for a chief of police in any jurisdiction to request through Section 9 of the Act for another police service to come in and run its police service.
	But in addition to quantity, they also seem to have the right expertise, such as the, as we'll come to talk about it, the group led by Chief Party, the Integrated Planning Group.
	They had the expertise, they had the capacity, they were willing to help, they were offering help.
	Why not?
	There's a lot of things they had, and they offered those things, and we utilized them as quickly and as effectively as we could.
	And ultimately, through the end of my tenure and beyond that, there was a very successful outcome.
	But you've asked me before, did the circumstances in Ottawa rise to the occasion of what I now understand to be the function of Section 9?
	No, they didn't, sir.
	Right.
	So this is the letter.
	Sorry, if we can take this off, the Police Services Act.
	You remember we looked at an email, this one.
	That was your request.
	I want to take you to...
	Another email that you sent on the 4th.
	So this request was sent on the 2nd.
	On the 4th of February, we have another email, OPP401582.
	OPP401582.
	That's right.
	This is the part I want to take you to.
	You addressed this email to Commissioner Karik.
	Sorry, what's the date of this, please?
	The 4th of February?
	Thank you.
	So you addressed this email to Commissioner Karik.
	You said, once again, let me express my appreciation for the significant and ongoing support that you and your OPP team have provided to the OPS over the course of the demonstrations.
	It would appear from this reply that you received the...
	Additional resources that you requested?
	The short answer is yes.
	I don't know if we got everything that we asked for and when we got it, but again, at this point, I have no concerns whatsoever.
	I think this is more just, I'm actually seeing some of the most well-turned-out OPP officers and vehicles operating in and around my fare, and they really just look good.
	They were like the cavalry coming over the hill.
	And they were just really well turned out, really professional group of officers.
	So I'm just complimenting Chief to Commissioner, the quality of his people.
	On the 2nd of February, when you sent the request to the OPP, I believe you also sent the request to the RCMP.
	Let's take a look at pb.nsc.can.401743.
	three.
	So this is a...
	Actually, this is your reply.
	February 2nd.
	Thank you, Commissioner Lucky.
	If we go further down...
	That's right, we see an email from her to you.
	And at the bottom paragraph...
	Sorry, let's go up a bit.
	The paragraph that starts with at present.
	At present, all of our public order units are actively deployed, and I'm not in a position to be able to redirect any teams to Ottawa.
	Do you have a memory of what you were asking for and what this response was meant to address?
	Sorry, just again, the date is February.
	The second.
	So this, again, must be around the time that we are pivoting the plan.
	We know we're going to need, this is the day after the February 1st Kanata meeting.
	We know we're going to need a substantive amount of POU, short-term and long-term.
	And so this was a request that I sent out to the RCMP for POU, at least.
	I don't know if there are other things that we asked.
	And it seems that the substantive response here is...
	You know, our POU units are deployed.
	You can't get them.
	I'm not challenging that.
	They're having their own resource challenges, and they're exploring the possibility of the other 50 resources.
	I'm assuming they're police officers, but there might have been a variety of different knowledge, skills, and abilities that we were asking for.
	So these are examples of the kind of early request.
	Following the paradigm shift and the kind of responses you got.
	On the 6th of February, I understand that you told the mayor and chair deans that you needed 1,800 additional resources.
	Am I correct?
	1,790 odd, but yes, I think the number 1,800 has become the most functionally used number.
	Let's go to an OPS document, 3014454.
	Page 98. So there's a reference here, 1800 additional members that came from other services.
	Sorry, the date of this again, sir.
	Sorry.
	Can we scroll up?
	Okay.
	February 6th.
	Thank you.
	5:10 p.m.
	So, am I correct that the number 1800 was communicated as early as the 6th of February?
	Yes.
	So, again, just context-wise, there was an emergency board meeting held on February 5th.
	During that meeting, the public session, I received a direction from the chair of the board to produce a list of all the resources that we thought we would need to...
	My words, safely, successfully, lawfully, and the events in Ottawa.
	I needed explicit understanding from the chair.
	Did she need that on the spot?
	Or could I and my team take that away and then provide a more thoughtful and full response?
	And she said, yes.
	The team had asked for me to try to turn that around in 24 hours.
	And I think by this time, Which is almost 24 hours later, we had a substantive list that was drawn up.
	And it wasn't just police resources.
	This also included discussions around what other things could the city help us with, increased bylaw fines, other potential supports from the city and civil society.
	I think we were looking at the insurance industry, whether they could help us to address some of the issues around the trucks and vehicles.
	So that's the background to, I think, this meeting.
	How did you derive the 1800 number?
	Again, without the benefit of notes, but at some point after the board meeting, there would have been a request at two levels within the incident command system for their planners to identify the number types of resources and associate that to the overall operational plan and the relative sections, sorry, sub-plan sections.
	Then across the organization.
	I asked each of the functional command areas, so that would again include Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson in her functional role, Deputy Chief Bell in his functional role, and Chief Administration Officer Dunker in her functional role to identify supports.
	The reason for the two sort of coordinated requests, we needed a certain level of capability, resource capability, predictability.
	Within the incident command structure to work under that structure to achieve the goals of ending the events in Ottawa.
	But we were still struggling with staffing for our police of jurisdiction responsibilities.
	And I don't know if at this time we'd finished the negotiation with the Ottawa Police Association for the shift schedule change, but we were struggling on both ends.
	Staffing to a level beyond just...
	Maintaining the red zone through the incident command piece and staffing to maintain our contractual obligations and member health and wellness requirements in the general police services to the rest of the million residents in the city.
	The sum total of those 1,790 odd resources reflects all of the different aspects that we were looking for.
	And they were broken down short term, midterm, longer term.
	The bulk of the resources, I would suggest, were more short-term.
	A significant amount was mid-term, and then another amount would have been long-term.
	That would have been assisting in prosecutions after the fact, case management, crime analysts to pull up all that together.
	But the bulk of that request really was in the days and weeks as opposed to the months and years portions of some of it.
	Now, I understand that later that day, on the 6th of February, There was a command team meeting where you asked your team about the resource needs.
	Later on the 6th?
	On the 6th.
	Okay.
	Does that accord with your recollection?
	Again, just so many different meetings.
	If you could show it to me, I might have a recollection.
	And the commission has heard evidence from Superintendent Abrams that he was present and overheard some of the things that you said to your team.
	But not overheard.
	He was there.
	He was invited to attend.
	And the next day, he wrote to his superiors, including Chris Harkins, among others, about what he observed on the 6th.
	So can we go to that email?
	Thank you.
	If only I have the document number.
	OPP 4015.
	OPP401546.
	Just for clarity, sir, just while the document's being searched, my understanding, I'm going to stand to be corrected, I had a meeting with my command team on the afternoon of the 5th after the board meeting was over where I was interrupted for part of the meeting.
	I had to leave to go out for a phone call and come back.
	And it was in that meeting I said, "Look, we've just gotten direction from the chair.
	We need to produce this over the next day.
	Start thinking about what you need.
	This is a big lift that we're going to have to do." Then on the 6th, after my team had worked through the night, through the day, the number of 1,790-odd was broken out into various functions.
	Recollection of that comment, it should have been in my memory on the 5th, not on the 6th.
	But I stand to be corrected.
	I could be off on the date.
	But the date of the email is not in correction.
	The date of the email is the 7th, as you can see on the screen.
	And it was on the 7th that Superintendent Abrams wrote to his superiors, including Deputy Commissioner Harkins.
	And this is what he wrote.
	Deputy, I did not want to mention this on the call with the group, but I feel it important for you to have this information.
	On my call with OPS Command last night, Chief Slowly asked his people to send him their resource needs.
	They told him that they need 250 members a day to run things.
	Chief Slowly told him that if they need 100, he will ask for 200.
	If they need 200, he will ask for 400.
	He seemed very comfortable.
	Asking for twice what he really needed.
	He looks at it that if the other partner police agencies can't meet the ask, can meet the ask number, then Ottawa may still get more than they really need.
	It was a very strange call to be a part of.
	Hearing the commissioner say that he may ask for a thousand members, I felt you should be aware of the above.
	So that's what he wrote about his observation the night before when he attended the meeting with the OPS command.
	What do you have to say to this?
	It's a very strange interpretation by Superintendent Abrams.
	What I can tell you was that at one of the meetings that I recall on the 5th, maybe it was the 6th, but what I recall on the 5th, I said to my folks, up until now, I've been getting requests that I would call incremental.
	What we need to get through this day or this weekend.
	What we need to do and what the board chair has asked us to do is what do we need to get to a safe, complete, successful, sustainable end to the events happening here in Ottawa.
	This could take weeks.
	So I need you not to think incremental.
	I don't want you just to think in a short-term cycle of planning.
	I need you to think exponential.
	Short, medium, and long term.
	It's in that context.
	I don't know if I gave the exact, if they say 100, 200, but don't let your thinking be incremental.
	You have to be able to consider the full range of resources.
	We're not going to get to be able to make this request again.
	So think about everything you might need.
	A special constable, a crime analyst, a computer dispatcher, someone who can do open source social media, whatever you don't have right now.
	To meaningfully contribute to the end of this set of events, or to not be able to continue delivering our basic police services, this is the time to put that resource request into this.
	So I was not in any way trying to put any other police service in a situation where they would need to give us things that we did not need.
	If it was interpreted that way by Superintendent Abrams as a guest on that meeting...
	That's unfortunate.
	If it was reported that way to the commissioner, that's very unfortunate.
	Now, we've heard from other witnesses.
	We've asked other witnesses the question, what should go first, the plan or the request?
	Is it the number that drives the resources or, sorry, the plan or the other way around?
	What's your view on that?
	You'll very rarely hear me agree to an or.
	I'm always an and person.
	So it isn't one or the other.
	Particularly in fluid events that literally up until the day of the 29th, no one really knew what was coming.
	The plan will always need to make adjustments.
	In real time sometimes.
	But at any point where you have to make a commitment to some portion of the plan, you need to have some relative assurance of the predictability of the resources available.
	So these are not consecutive exercises.
	They are almost inevitably concurrent exercises.
	A lot of my concern about how this whole issue has been portrayed is it's been portrayed as one or the other.
	And the preferred one seems to be planned before resources consecutive.
	In this instance, in real-time events, whether they be natural disasters or unplanned protests or protests that are so fluid in the making that you don't have the benefit of months or even weeks of advanced planning, you're literally making resource requests in real-time as the threat assessment or the context of the circumstances change.
	We saw that play out in the pre-arrival plan.
	You asked the question earlier on.
	As the warnings increased, did your resource requests increase?
	Yes, they did.
	Not because we stopped everything and wrote a perfect plan for the next resource request.
	We continued with the planning process while we continued with the intelligence process while we continued with the resource request process.
	And quite frankly, that has been the way that I have seen.
	The Toronto Police Service work in all my time there.
	That has been the way that the Toronto Police Service supported many other jurisdictions.
	That is the way that my experience with the Ottawa Police Service was during my time as Chief.
	I had never, never once before in my entire career been asked to provide a fully detailed plan with subplans laid out, timing and exact details and logistics as to where people were going to sleep, what uniforms they should bring before we sent out a request in good faith to good police partners and said, we got something big.
	It's happening right now or it's happening two days from now.
	This is our best guess of what we need.
	They might need to fine tune that.
	Can you help us?
	Yes or no?
	Thank you.
	Now, a moment earlier, I think you clarify.
	That it was on the evening of the 5th that your team started working on the numbers?
	It's my recollection, but again, if my dates are off, I stand to be corrected.
	I don't know which dates may or may not be off.
	I just wanted to bring to your attention what is in your summary and give you a chance to correct anything if necessary.
	Can we go to the former chief's summary at page 31?
	Please.
	So.
	So...
	Can we just...
	I'm seeing...
	Sorry, I'll let you finish.
	Sorry.
	No, go ahead.
	It looks like it was my mistake, but just to refresh my memory, can we go to the 5th?
	Is there any reference of the board meeting on the 5th of February?
	Well, here's the thing.
	The reference is in the previous page on this page to the 6th and the 7th.
	I don't think there's a reference to the 5th, but you saw an earlier email dated the 6th where you had the 1800 number, right?
	Yeah.
	So I'm just trying to get some clarification in terms of when your team worked on the number in order for it to be available.
	Again, my recollection, sorry to interrupt you, sir.
	I shouldn't talk over you, sorry.
	My recollection was that we started those discussions immediately after the conclusion of the board meeting on the 5th.
	Now, that might have been the command team and I, my immediate chief staff might have started that discussion.
	And then on the 6th, the incident command team and other command areas were briefed and then involved.
	So there might be a bit of a bleed over from my recollection, me actioning these things on the 5th to whatever the meeting was on the 6th that Superintendent Abrams was participating in.
	So depending on your best recollection, it could be that the date in the summary is in error, in which case I wanted to give you an opportunity.
	To correct it if necessary.
	I'm not suggesting it's an error.
	I just recall having discussions with people in my organization about the staffing numbers immediately after the board meeting where I've been given that instruction from the board chair.
	I wouldn't have waited until the next day to start having people engage in the exercise of the planning exercise around getting that number.
	moments.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Now, this number, the 1800 number, was publicly announced at some point, was it not?
	I believe, yes, it was, sir.
	Do you remember the date?
	Or should we go by the summary?
	Well, it looks like it was announced at an emergency council meeting, I believe.
	Right, so if we go to page 32 of the summary.
	Chief slowly publicly announced the request for 1800 police resources during a special city council meeting on February the 7th.
	Is that what you remember?
	Yes, sir.
	This was not his normal course of action.
	But the Freedom Convoy was unprecedented.
	Specifically, Ms. Deans asked Chiefs Lowley in a public OPSB, that's Ottawa Police Services Board, meeting to provide a detailed report on the level of resources required.
	Could you explain the circumstances in which you made the public announcement?
	Yes, so it definitely was not the normal process.
	There were a series of communications.
	From the end of the board meeting on the 5th through the 6th into the 7th as to what role the board and the city could play in supporting the police service to get the needed resources.
	The substantive outflow of all of that was a desire by the chair and the mayor.
	They arrived at that through some level of discourse to have a joint letter to the other two levels of government to seek their direct support.
	Now, in the ordinary course, would it be the practice for the request to go from chief to chief, from one police service to another, and not through these political channels?
	In the ordinary course, yes.
	And was that not sufficient in these circumstances?
	These were extraordinary circumstances.
	And so...
	And there was an increasing and significant desire would be, I think, not quite the right word for the board to be seen as actively supporting the service in one of its few ways that they can, which is securing resources for adequate and effective policing.
	Again, for context, the start of the February 5th board meeting, the chief, sorry, the chair in her opening comments Talked extensively about whether or not circumstances in Ottawa would allow the Ottawa Police Service to be able to provide adequate and effective policing.
	The transition from her opening statements to me was a question directly to me.
	Chief, I'm not quoting exactly, but as close as I can.
	Chief, do you have the resources necessary, the ability to provide adequate and effective policing in the city?
	And then there was a substantive period of that.
	Board meeting spent on that topic.
	The sum total of that was the direct request from the chair for the list of resources that we would need.
	This is not ordinary, but I do believe it falls somewhere within the realm of the Police Service Act for the board to make sure that we had the resources necessary to provide adequate and effective policing.
	And I believe this is one of the ways in which, again, former chair deans may choose to...
	Frame it differently, but I interpreted it as a genuine effort to exercise some level of their mandate to support getting those resources.
	There was then the additional layer of whether the chair would sign this alone or the mayor would join in signing.
	I wasn't very much involved in that, so I can't really speak to it.
	Now, there are those who are concerned about the public announcement of I presume someone could come to that conclusion on their own.
	I'm not sure why that would be so enlightening because I think almost every public statement that I made after January 29th, I talked about how desperately we needed resources and how we were seeking resources and asking for resources.
	I think in the middle of the February 5th board meeting, the topic of resources came up.
	And in fact, in the middle of that board meeting, I received a communication from the RCMP saying that 250 officers were arriving, and I literally made that announcement on the board meeting.
	So nobody should have been surprised, I think reasonably surprised, on the 7th.
	That we were significantly in need of resources and that we were going to be asking for a lot of resources.
	And to those who hold the view that this announcement was made outside the proper channels and invited inappropriate political influence into the intra-police resourcing discussions, what do you have to say in addition to what you've already said about the context of these?
	Thank you.
	Again, listen, I think There would be as many opinions in this room or all the rooms across Canada on any one of the aspects that took place here.
	So I'm not in any way going to try to suggest that no one should ever hold that opinion, including another police leader.
	But I suspect they would have the same problem about previous political announcements around staffing numbers that took place the week before.
	Now, another criticism that could be leveled against this public announcement is, especially in light of what we've heard from other police witnesses, about the lack of an adequate plan at the time this announcement was made.
	Was it really appropriate to make this kind of public announcement when OPS didn't seem to have the kind of plan sufficient to deploy this large number of resources, even if it were given then?
	Again, I can appreciate concerns raised certainly throughout this process and in discourses well beyond these walls.
	This, again, is not a practice that I've experienced in my policing career where there would be a requirement for detailed, completed plans submitted and then analyzed prior to any substantive release of resources.
	In my experience around planned events like the G8, G20, and it certainly wasn't my experience in unplanned or highly fluid and contentious events like the one that we experienced here.
	If this had become a new standard and a new expectation in policing, I was not aware of it.
	And I had at that point been a chief of police for over two years.
	Secondly, we did have a plan.
	It was an ongoing evolving plan.
	I would by no stretch of imagination suggest to anyone, the commissioner or anyone else, that it was an excellent plan.
	It was a robust plan, given that we were still pivoting from what we had experienced just a week before.
	Canada was still trying to figure out what was going on across the country, just as we were trying to figure out exactly what was going on in the city.
	And we had been literally using every resource possible.
	Just to get through hour-by-hour, day-by-day operations and the planning for those operations.
	There was no additional capacity to be able to produce such a level of standard plan while we so desperately needed those resources.
	I think, unfortunately, it became a misinformed issue around an unrealistic expectation, and unfortunately, that caused a lot of concern across the board inside our organization.
	Now, this commission has heard evidence from both Superintendent Bernier of the OPS and Superintendent Abrams from the OPP that officers from the OPP already in Ottawa were not receiving adequate instructions for them to be properly integrated or deployed in Ottawa.
	If there were officers in Ottawa who were not being effectively used, then one may ask, what's the point of sending more?
	From what I've heard and what I've seen and what I knew at the time, yes, there were occasions where officers were not optimally deployed.
	Can I tell you, I have never been involved in any police operation where we have brought in resources from across our own city.
	We're brought in resources from outside of our city in two police services, including my time in Kosovo, where there was suboptimal deployment and utilization of resources.
	What tends to happen is the incident commander almost exclusively will be from the police jurisdiction, will utilize the resources that they know best and use the most frequently, and then go and tap into the other resources.
	Inevitably, that means that the external resources will be underutilized.
	It is in no way surprising for me to have heard that at points during the entire three weeks that I was involved in this, that there might have been officers from some police department that didn't get their briefing at the right time and may have even spent the better part of the day not doing the things that they thought they were going to be doing.
	I'd experienced that many, many times myself.
	Now, the last criticism that could have been made that I can think of and that we've heard from some...
	Witnesses, is that between the 3rd and the 10th of February, the OPS was using RCMP and OPP officers simply to relieve OPS officers who were exhausted and not as part of a plan to end the occupation.
	What do you have to say to that?
	That's probably very true, sir.
	Our officers were exhausted, frozen right through.
	They needed relief, and there was no other place to get relief from.
	And that's part of the reason why the very first request on the 31st of January that Trish Ferguson announces to the RCMP commissioner and the OPP commissioner is to send us some general duty officers.
	Our people are asleep on their feet or they're frozen to their post.
	I'm not surprised.
	That is not an optimal situation, but that's the reality of what was going on.
	Okay.
	Now, I'd like to take you to a new topic.
	We've been talking about your request for resources.
	But before we leave that topic, actually, now that it's clear to you, as of the 6th or the 7th, that Ottawa would need at least 1,800 officers in order to effectively resolve the convoy events, why is it still not a good time?
	to resort to sections 9.6 of the Police Services Act.
	Thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to have a second go around on this.
	The concept of a measured approach, I think it's been talked about usually in terms of PLT and secondarily in terms of use of force.
	A measured approach is we need more resources.
	Let's ask for it.
	We need help with the planning for those resources.
	Let's get that.
	We might need to integrate our operations to a greater degree than we have ever considered before.
	Let's work on that.
	Okay, so we're getting more resources.
	We are stepping up integration.
	Our planning now is getting to a much greater level of efficacy.
	Now we're going to consider a unified command.
	That is a measured approach of stepping up.
	I think it would be irresponsible, as I said before, and I'm sticking to that.
	I think it would be unprofessional and unwarranted to go from, wow, we just had a really bad weekend.
	Let's get the OPP to come and police our jurisdiction, to we just had a really bad weekend.
	Let's figure out how we need to get better.
	Let's start to use everything we possibly can.
	And let's be as clear as we can, but as quick as we can in requesting the things that we can reasonably anticipate we'll need in the short, medium, and long term.
	Let's be very open to, as we have always been in Ottawa, even during my time, to integration.
	Nothing was off the table.
	I think I probably said that statement 453 times.
	Everything's on the table, including greater integration and including unification.
	And ultimately, through greater integration, ultimately unification, Perhaps this raises a more general question of how should we deal with multi-jurisdictional event that requires external support?
	You've mentioned That Ottawa is the police of jurisdiction, but the reality is that you're asking these external agencies, the OPP or RCMP, to supply tremendous resources that, at the time, Ottawa did not seem capable of effectively deploying.
	You've acknowledged that there were issues with officers already present, but for...
	Different reasons.
	Just on that point, I just want to be clear, and I think it was, I understand somebody clarified this before.
	There were instances where clearly that was happening.
	I believe Superintendent Abrams was a direct conduit to Deputy Chief Bell, organization to organization.
	He raised it.
	I believe it was received well and it was actioned.
	I don't recall that being a continuous problem or a problem on scale.
	I will not deny that it happened sporadically and particularly in the early parts, but it's my understanding it wasn't a daily occurrence on scale where hundreds of officers were sitting around being unutilized or underutilized.
	I just want to make that clear for the public record.
	And again, that level of underutilization is something that I've experienced in my entire three decades in policing.
	That was not a unique situation to the events here in Ottawa.
	I do not wish to exaggerate the problem in Ottawa.
	But surely you won't deny that OPS was struggling.
	That's what we've heard from all of the other women.
	I think I've said that repeatedly myself, sir.
	And OPS was struggling on many different levels.
	It needed to develop a plan, but it was struggling to the point where it was finding it difficult to have the expert planners to make that plan.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yes.
	And the OPS officers were tired, exhausted.
	They needed external agencies' help just to maintain a regular level of policing.
	That's the reality at the time.
	We needed external police agencies' help primarily for the incident command system to address the crisis happening in the downtown core.
	We needed less help for policing of the rest of the city.
	We still needed help there, but we were nowhere near by comparison.
	So, again, I think my question is, wouldn't it be very simple?
	To let a bigger organization like the OPP or RCMP to have a greater capacity to help.
	They wanted to help.
	I'm not sure they wanted what you're suggesting, Section 9. I never received any suggestion from Commissioners Karik.
	We're lucky that they wanted to come in here and bring the necessary lift of 2000 plus officers and have them on the ground here for days, if not weeks on end.
	I stand to be corrected if there's information out there that's different from that.
	Here's the challenge.
	Then you're going to have to get three levels of government to invest differently in three levels of policing.
	I don't know how the formula would work, but if we're to go down the what if scenario that you're asking me to.
	And please, if the commissioner doesn't have time for this or you want to move on, just let me know.
	But here's scenario number one.
	Take a percentage of every municipal police service, just say 10%.
	Fold that up into the OPP because every single year, some event is going to come to some municipal police service where they don't have enough resources.
	So automatically, the OPP will get 10% cut of every police service.
	Because when, not if, they will be required under the new components of Section 9 to come and take over policing for a day, a week, a month, they have the lift to be able to do that.
	I don't think any mayor or any regional authority is going to go for that, and I don't even think the province would want that responsibility.
	Now, just layer in that on top of the RCMP.
	How stretched they are with contract policing, national policing, indigenous policing, force protection internationally.
	There's probably eight functions that not one of them are staffed adequately.
	Now are you going to take a 10% cut from the provincial police services to allow the RCMP to do that?
	And now you come to the national capital region where there are six police services operating in here at any given day.
	How do you divide the pie there?
	I understand the intellectual desire to explore that, the practical and financial side, I'm not sure merits the effort.
	I think what we need to do is get standards across the board, really clarify how and when we work together in integrated and /or unified, clarify the gaps between strategic, operational, and tactical, and how that fits into police jurisdiction adequate and effective.
	That's going to be a lot cheaper and probably a lot faster.
	And it can be iterated over the course of time from lessons learned from experience to experience.
	You're talking about a major structural change, legislative change, that would take years to hammer out and then years to get to a point of efficacy.
	Well, let's go back to what happened on around the time that Chief Party led his group, the Integrated Planning Group, to Ottawa.
	He arrived on the 8th and he had a meeting with...
	Your command team on both the 8th and the 9th.
	I want to get your best recollection of the meeting you had with them in the afternoon on the 9th.
	Okay.
	Well, I think it was around 12 o 'clock.
	Again, for context, if I get the dates wrong, I believe somewhere around the 6th or the 7th, there was a communication between myself and Commissioner Kreek where we had talked about a significant increase in integration.
	I forget who raised it, whether he did or I did, but we were very quickly in agreement that that would be very helpful and that we would need then to bring in senior folks that had experience and expertise and that type of thing.
	He referenced Carson Party almost immediately.
	That name, I believe, came up in our first conversation, and I welcomed him and anybody else that he could send to support that.
	And to his word, I think within 24 hours, we were contacted.
	24 hours after that, there was an initial meeting.
	Out at the RCMP headquarters.
	That was a meeting, unfortunately, and I realize I'm going really fast, so I'm slowing myself down now.
	That was a meeting, unfortunately, that because of the distance to travel to and the team's meetings problems that we had, Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson was only able to get a portion of her incident command staff on there.
	While there was somewhat of a productive discussion, it didn't get to the level where there was any substantive move forward.
	There was an agreement to have another meeting on the 9th of February, right?
	The 9th of February.
	And there was additional efforts during that period to continue to improve and evolve that plan, a substantive lift that day.
	I referenced earlier on that I got involved in that lift to try to elevate the plan to as great a degree as we possibly could for these partner agencies coming in.
	I believe around 12 o 'clock, 12.30, Chief Superintendent Party, Superintendent Abrams, RCMP Superintendent Lou, and I forget there were other members, but those were the three primary members of the team arrived at our headquarters.
	We'll take a pause there.
	But that was the context to the start of that meeting.
	I had my command team and my incident command team there as well.
	So I'm glad you paused there because before we get to the...
	The actual meeting with the integrated planning group, do I understand correctly that that morning, the morning of the 9th, you had another meeting with the OPS command team.
	Can you tell us more about that meeting first?
	And we debriefed from what happened the previous night, looked to see where we could, again, continue to evolve the plan in advance of this next meeting and put every effort into that so that, again, we could have the best product available.
	It was clear to me that this...
	The arrival of this team was not only to support the ongoing efforts here, but they needed to assess where we were with our ongoing efforts here, specifically assess the plan.
	Now, let me take you to some notes.
	These are notes written by Deputy Chief Ferguson, I believe.
	OPS 3014479.
	And I want to take you to page 66. So you see from the top there that this is Wednesday, February the 9th.
	If we go to, what time did you say the meeting was?
	I see a note here, 7.10.
	I don't know if that's accurate, but that would seem about right.
	It was relatively early in the morning.
	So this is the day after the group arrived.
	And your attendance was delayed the day before.
	And then the next morning, we have this meeting.
	Do you remember Mission Hydra?
	Yes, sir.
	Tell us about the name.
	Ancient Greek civilization, an old myth about a multi-headed monster.
	When you cut off one head, it would grow back.
	And was there a reason why this is called Mission Hydra?
	A bit of creative license on my part.
	But the idea was we were struggling to take a section of the red zone or a confederation park and then hold it while we continued on.
	And so that was a constant challenge as our officers made efforts to secure portions of the theater, particularly in and around the red zone, that the challenge was as much to take the portion and then to hold the portions.
	The concept of the Hydra, if you can cut off the head and cauterize it, it can't grow back.
	If you can take a piece of ground and hold it, people can't come back.
	We can then focus on a smaller theater with more resources.
	Smaller theater, more resources.
	Smaller theater, more resources.
	That's the concept behind it.
	Right.
	Now, I understand from the testimony of Deputy Chief Ferguson that the day before, on the 8th, when your command team met with the Integrated Planning Group, She presented a strategic concept of operations plan with eight points with a mission statement that included elements of engagement by the PLT and so on.
	And part of this discussion at this morning meeting on the 9th is a new version with a different mission statement.
	And there's a reference here that this was a very aggressive Posture language throughout the whole briefing and mission statement.
	I'm not sure the next word has asked if anyone needed clarification.
	Chief laid out his plan, omitted negotiation.
	And when I brought it up, he reacted angrily, saying, we're not negotiating.
	Then said it's implicit.
	I advise, is it all CIC mission statements?
	Our CIC mission statements always has explicitly stated in the mission statement.
	And then the next comment, I believe, is attributed to you.
	If it doesn't reduce the size of the footprint, that is not a good negotiation.
	Do you remember this exchange?
	These are Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson's recollection of that.
	I would not in any way characterize what took place in that meeting to reflect what I'm interpreting in language here.
	So again, without the chance to hear these concerns and understand, we had a very healthy discussion, yes, around whether the term negotiation should be explicit in, I believe, the mission statement.
	But other than that, I'm not really sure as to why she has interpreted things the way that she's chosen to do so.
	So let's hear it from your perspective.
	You've told us about this as well, I believe, during our interviews.
	If I could take you to your interview summary at page 36. So we go to the section under Discussions.
	That's right.
	Chief Slowly recalled that on February the 9th, he held a special meeting with Deputy Chief Bell, Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, OPS General Counsel Christian Honnold, CAO Dunker, and Inspector Kevin Maloney.
	This meeting took place after an internal OPS planning meeting, but before the February 9th, 12, 10 p.m. meeting with Chief Superintendent Party and Superintendent Liu.
	His intent was to emphasize that the entire command team was signed off on the February 9th plan.
	At the meeting, he stated that he would crush anyone who undermined the plan.
	Chief slowly recognizes that it was an unfortunate choice of words, but public safety, member health, wellness, and safety, and the successful conclusion of the local convoy events were all at a critical juncture, and this required absolute command commitment.
	to supporting the implementation of the updated plan.
	He restated the need for unity within the command to support the updated plan, including the level of integration and the acquisition of the needed resources to safely and successfully end the event in Ottawa.
	There were to be no major changes to the plan, the concept of operations, the elevated integration and the senior ICS assignments without discussion.
	About the need for such a change.
	Does this reflect your recollection of what happened?
	Yes, sir.
	It's my statement.
	So there appears to be an emphasis of committing to this plan unless there were significant changes that would have justified a different course.
	Why this emphasis?
	We had had the challenge of the previous week where senior people were swapped out without any communication, where we had delays around the development of a significant portion of the plan, that being the public order plan.
	This was a reminder to folks about the problems that we encountered last week.
	We are now bringing in a significant amount of resources, a significant level of integration, and we simply cannot have a We needed to have, on the positive side, we needed to have a full commitment across the command team that we had reached a position now that we could move forward with.
	There were still going to be evolutions of the plan and sub-plans and as resources became available, but that the base of the week and change of pivoting from where we were, Into this new position, particularly with the request of resources and integration, this required a very firm and full commitment from the command team going forward.
	Now, you acknowledge that the word choice crush was unfortunate.
	Absolutely, sir.
	But you meant to convey an emphasis that no one should deviate from the plan lightly.
	At the strategic level, no major changes in the plan, no major changes in the concept of operations.
	The elevated integration with RCMP and OPP and the senior ICS assignments, major incident commander, event commander, incident commander, without discussion first, probably the only thing I forgot to add in there, unless there were exigent circumstances.
	And again, obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, exigent circumstances is always implicit in any one of these circumstances.
	Is this consistent with the incident command system where the operational level commander required a certain degree to adapt and to respond to quickly changing circumstances?
	That's the concept of exigent circumstances, sir.
	That would not fit within what I was relaying to these folks here.
	So would your colleagues have come away from this meeting understanding That if there were to be changes, that it would require some kind of an approval from the chief?
	Not at all, sir.
	At the operational level, no.
	Again, I'm very clear.
	No major changes to the plan.
	No major changes to the concept of operations.
	Not objectives.
	Not sub-plans.
	Not operational decisions made during the course of the day.
	The elevated integration, I wasn't going to have a superintendent, an inspector, a staff sergeant, or a deputy chief tell the OPP and the RCMP, you know what, we don't need that integration, never mind what slowly says.
	So this was me being very clear at the strategic level of where we were.
	No major changes outside of exigent circumstances for these areas.
	So we'll come back to this very shortly, but just to clarify this point, I may take you to...
	The notes taken at this meeting by the legal services by Ms. Honnold.
	We go to OPS 3014454, please.
	page 130.
	So this appears to be the same meeting?
	Do you want to scroll up and look at the date?
	Thank you.
	February 9th.
	Okay, so we go back to page 130.
	The point I want to draw your attention to is the second arrows from the top.
	No changes to plan unless chief approves.
	Yes.
	So that was the question I put to you.
	Would someone walk away from this meeting thinking that there were to be no changes to the plan unless the chief approves?
	Again, to be explicit, no changes to the architecture of the plan.
	But that is not me saying you can't have a tactical change, you can't have an operational change unless I approve it.
	Even if I wanted that, it would be impossible for me to validate, approve or not approve every single aspect of any potential change to plan.
	It would just be impossible.
	I would never have said that.
	And I can't see any experienced person in that room taking such a literate interpretation and walking out, particularly after being in this theater for almost a week and a half.
	And if they had that interpretation, with the maturity and the rank in that room, I would have expected them to raise clarification.
	Now, it was at this meeting as well that we've heard from other witnesses that you discussed politics.
	If I could take you to page, maybe later on in this page, actually, or maybe the next page, I'm not sure.
	Go down a little more.
	Do you see the comment from Trish?
	I want us to limit politics.
	Yes, sir.
	And the comment just before that, I suppose, was attributed to you, Tom C., Tom Karik probably, is assessing if we are worthy of getting the additional ask resources.
	Yes, sir.
	What is your recollection of the discussion?
	Just that.
	It was made it clear to them that...
	The folks that have arrived here have come with clear instructions from their command to assess the level of our planning, the adequacy of the resource requests that we made, and then assuming that we could come to that arrangement of integration to then move forward on building that out.
	But they were coming to assess where we were.
	Now, so there was a reference to...
	The Deputy Chief Ferguson asking to limit the discussion of politics.
	Her own notes, these are notes taken by the legal services.
	Her own notes are more explicit.
	If we could go to OPS 3014479 at page 67. We go down.
	Okay.
	Talked about the plan.
	So keep going.
	See the dash?
	talked about the plan.
	Not sure that...
	Talked about the plan for...
	Briefing.
	Briefing the embedded cell of planners and commanders.
	And he spoke of a type of conspiracy that is happening at provincial and federal levels.
	And this team is being handled by their political masters and promoted the idea that they are not really here to help.
	Can you help us understand who are these political masters?
	What was the conspiracy theory?
	First of all, these are Tricia's Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson's words.
	I won't challenge her emotions or interpretation around it, but they're not the conversation that I was leading at this point.
	I had a very clear discussion about two elements.
	We are going to be assessed on the quality of our planning and the relevance to the resource requests.
	And if we cannot provide enough Substantive justification for what we're looking for, we're likely not going to get the level of help that we need.
	Secondarily, I did talk about the politics that are happening in and around this entire event.
	By this time, it is a national event with global coverage.
	By this time, I had had several interactions with all three levels of government.
	And the board that was clear to me that there was increasing intense and in some cases I believe undeserved and unhelpful political pressures happening to the Ottawa Police Service.
	Pressures that could affect our ability to secure the resources.
	So I was letting them be aware, giving them situational awareness and allowing a conversation to happen in a very tight room with my command team so they could have as much understanding before they went in front of The group of external agencies to have that conversation.
	I didn't want there to be any surprises, and I wanted them to be as fully informed as possible.
	An example would be the day before this, there was a public motion put forward by a significant number of city councillors asking for the Ottawa Police Service to remove the police's jurisdiction for the purposes of the incident command.
	So these were very live, real-time issues.
	There were others that they were less aware of.
	So I tried to give them indications as to what was going on without delving down into the unfortunate details of it.
	It's in that context that I think Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson may have thought it was a conspiracy theory.
	These were very real experiences that I was aware of, and I was trying to bring my command team to a level of awareness so they could appreciate.
	The challenges that we would have to show a unified approach around this going forward.
	And if we didn't have a unified approach, these type of politics could very quickly divide and conquer us.
	Were you concerned that these officers coming from the OPP or RCMP may not come with a pure motive to help, but rather were acting on behalf of whoever was sending them for other politically related reasons?
	If you're asking whether Chief Superintendent Party and Superintendent Liu were there for political reasons, no.
	I think they were genuinely assigned and they came with genuine hearts to offer the help that they could to understand what was going on and offer the help they could.
	But I'm very much aware of the politics that comes to play on the heads of Chiefs of Police and Commissioners.
	And I'm very much aware of a number of issues that my colleagues at that rank were facing.
	Now, you were the one who was asking for help, and when they came, was there any reluctance on your part to share the information within the OPS in order to help them help you?
	Not whatsoever, sir.
	Did you have any issues of trust in relation to working with them cooperatively to resolve the situation in Ottawa?
	Trust, no, but I was very explicit on two points.
	Integration means that the Ottawa Police Service remains police of jurisdiction, and the Ottawa Police Service remains in control of the incident command system, and that the resources I'm asking for are to be under the control of the incident command system.
	Those are the only three caveats.
	If they couldn't agree to those three caveats, we'd probably have to go back to the drawing board in some other way to get the resources and achieve another type of integration.
	Those were the three caveats.
	It's not a matter of trust.
	It's simply a matter of The baseline aspects, the redline aspects of our ability to move forward under an integrated model.
	Your command team has told us that they perceive an issue on your part of not willing to let go of control, to a concern, to hold on to, by way of this police of jurisdiction concept.
	To hold on to some kind of control.
	Do you agree with that?
	Not at all.
	Do you know what they're talking about?
	No, I don't, sir.
	What was it that was so important?
	Why is it so important to you that Ottawa remain the police of jurisdiction?
	What's the significance of that?
	What does that mean?
	It's in the Police Services Act, sir.
	We are the police of jurisdiction.
	Don't different police services often work cooperatively to figure out how to solve a problem?
	Isn't that what's ultimately...
	And we did that every single day of my time in office.
	Joint forces operations.
	I invited in the RCMP to do internal criminal conduct investigations.
	We did that every single day.
	That is a very, very different thing from we are no longer the police of jurisdiction in the nation's capital for a million people.
	The Ottawa Police Service will no longer be the police service here, even though we've been so for a century and change.
	That is a very different concept of operations.
	But if it makes sense for a major case investigation for, let's say, a crime is committed in Toronto, but the expertise required to successfully solve the case necessitates a combination of Expertise from Toronto Police, Peel Police, and York Regional Police.
	Isn't there some protocol that the lead would not necessarily be the police of jurisdiction?
	It depends on the circumstances.
	What makes the most sense?
	I can think of examples where, yes, a lead investigator would come out.
	The lead investigator in the criminal conduct investigation was from the RCMP.
	But professional standards were still under my control as a police chief in the police jurisdiction.
	The decision to lay charges or not lay charges from a police act were still under Part 5 for me as a chief of police.
	But if I'd abdicated that role and responsibility, then it would have to be the RCMP lead investigator to decide on the totality of the circumstances around that case.
	So yes, hundreds of times, probably thousands of times, I've integrated police services for a wide variety of things.
	Administrative, HR, human rights, operations, guns and gangs.
	I have no trouble whatsoever with that concept.
	In my time in policing, I'd be careful here, I can't think of a single time in my 30 years in policing where a police service said, "We're done.
	Somebody else come do this for us." I stand to be corrected, but I can't recall a single occasion of that happening.
	But why would it be a matter of someone ELL's doing it for us.
	Wouldn't it be a true matter of collaboration?
	It would still count on the local expertise, but maybe this is a question for the policy round discussions.
	I don't know.
	Potentially, sir.
	But in any event, at this meeting on February the 9th, if I take you to the notes, OPS 3014454.
	So we're returning to the legal services notes.
	If we go to page 136.
	If we go down, so this is still the 9th, I believe.
	Yesterday provided them the org chart of command.
	What more do you need to implement our plan?
	To implement or build into our plan.
	Need to know what resources we will get here in Ottawa.
	That was attributed to you and the OPP responded strategic decision because of rest of provinces.
	Do remember What this was about?
	Yes, sir.
	Explain to us, please.
	I think a very healthy discussion.
	Look, we have a local need here, but we now have a national set of events.
	By the 9th, Windsor might have been starting to kick it up around that time.
	Toronto had just got through their Queen's Park piece.
	I think much of the Prairie Provinces had one or more things going on.
	Cootes was still very alive.
	Yeah, this is a healthy discussion around, look, we know we need a lot of resources, but we also know you've got a lot of other resource demands happening.
	Around this time, I believe, there was a steady, almost daily call of all chiefs that were facilitated by the OPP, and they had already, I think, established two levels of resource integration, one on public order units explicitly and another one on general resource requests.
	So we were already in a...
	Provincial National Theater where we are trading off resource requests against risks on a scale that I'd never experienced and I'm not aware of any police chief of my generation that says they experienced something similar.
	So that's the context of the discussion taking place here.
	If we go, scroll further down.
	OPP said we stated 1200 OPP staff over.
	Sorry, it's actually the below quote that I'm interested in.
	Can build a plan without a plan?
	And the chief said, fine, build a plan and get us the people.
	I know what was taking place here.
	I don't think these notes are particularly accurate at this point.
	I suspect there's a lot of back and forth and people are talking fast as I am now.
	And there's a little bit of catch-up time here.
	So I will build off these notes.
	Yes, tell us what you remember.
	They're not accurate.
	So first, there was a discussion.
	I forget who raised it.
	It might have been Superintendent Abrams, but I'm not 100% sure around how many staff had been sent over.
	And again, I said, well, there was that miscommunication from the Solicitor General.
	That left the impression that 1,500 officers from the OPP or from across the province were here in Ottawa on a daily basis.
	And I, again, explained the challenges that public trust and confidence challenges that that caused us.
	That then pivoted out of that discussion into, again, I don't know who from the OPP would have led this, but I don't think this is an accurate statement, but it probably captures the theme, can't build a plan without a plan.
	This is the chicken and egg discussion.
	Should you have a plan for us before you get the resources?
	And I'm saying we are planning and we know we need a level of resources.
	We can fine-tue the plan.
	I need a commitment of resources.
	So that's the gist of the discussions that are taking place, probably in rapid fire.
	And the scribe is, in this case, Christiane Hino, is doing her best to keep up.
	Now, you do recognize these notes are from the OPS Council, Ms. Hunter?
	Yes, I just referenced Christiane Hino.
	Because didn't you ask her, if we go to page 43?
	So I'm going back in time.
	Page 43 is her notes on February the 3rd.
	As you can see here, do you see the bullet where she notated that he asked?
	He asked if I've been taking notes.
	I told him.
	I'm acting like a scribe and capturing everything.
	So it appears that you've asked her to take notes, and she's been doing her best to take notes, almost like a scribe, and trying to capture everything.
	But you don't believe that these notes are, or at least the part that we...
	No, sorry, if I've left that impression, Christiane, you know, is many things wonderful and an excellent general counsel.
	She, for a period of days, offered to and took on this role of being a scribe.
	We were just so thin on resources, she offered to do that until she could free up Vicki Nelson, I believe is her name.
	I'm not suggesting that the effort on the 9th was an insufficient effort.
	That was a very dynamic meeting, and there was a lot of points being made, and she was doing her best to capture them.
	I'm only saying they're not...
	Actual quotes that I can attribute, and she hasn't attributed the people.
	So she's done her best, just not able to say who said what exactly when.
	The notes that she provided were incredibly helpful for me.
	Now, in the interest of time, I think I'm going to skip ahead, but the last point I do want to put to you, because in fairness to you, Chief Party in his will say has said that the tone, the overall tone of this meeting was somewhat unprofessional and disrespectful.
	Chief Slowly was very clearly under tremendous pressure to act and was very suspicious of levels of commitments from police agencies.
	He went as far as to advise us that he had sources in the ministry office that his requests were not being supported and essentially they wanted him to fail.
	There was disagreement on this point from our team.
	I just want to give you the opportunity to respond to those comments.
	All of them, sir?
	Would it help if I put the...
	If you could put it up.
	I just can't.
	There was a lot of things you just said there.
	Of course.
	Thank you.
	Let's go to OPP50792.
	And if we can go to page four, please.
	So do you see the bullet that starts with the overall tone?
	Yeah, it was a tense meeting at times.
	We certainly got into very contentious discussions like the discussion...
	Sorry, I'm going to slow myself down.
	We got into contentious discussions like the discussion around the Solicitor General release of the 1700 number.
	I could see if during those points, Chief Superintendent Party, who I believe was selected appropriately and sent quickly and came with...
	The view of supporting, I suspect that would be the same for Superintendent Liu representing the RCMP.
	They were not aware of and had not been involved in these events.
	I suspect they weren't even following all the events and certainly not the political aspects of it.
	They were operational people coming in to provide an operational support.
	In that context, I could understand why Chief Superintendent Barty might describe some aspects of it as disrespectful.
	Let me get the right words here.
	Oh, do we...
	Somewhat unprofessional and disrespectful.
	I needed to be very clear on behalf of my service and my city and the state of public safety that we're in, that we needed the resources, that we needed them as quickly as possible.
	They needed to be predictable, sustainable resources, and not as we had experienced so far through nobody's fault.
	But we can send you this, but if...
	If an event comes to us, we've got to pull them back.
	Without any predictability of resources, I don't want to get back into the plan first versus the resource request, but absent the predictability of resources, planning for something that you can't resource becomes a waste of time.
	And we had no time to waste.
	And we had no resources to waste.
	So, again, I come back, it's an and, not an or.
	The rest of this, I don't know if you want me to go through bullet point by bullet point and comment.
	Yes.
	There are so many things I would like to get your thoughts on, but we do not have all the time that we want.
	Suffice it to say, we discussed the political pressure aspects, and that is always an uncomfortable conversation to have between police services.
	Right.
	Now, if I could take you to a different topic, and this relates to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
	I want to ask you, before the 14th of February, did you ever form the view that additional powers that could be granted under the Emergencies Act could help OPS resolve the convoy events?
	Thank you.
	I'm not sure I understand the question.
	Sorry, I may have just missed it.
	I apologize.
	The Emergencies Act was invoked on the 14th of February.
	Before that date, did you ever think about whether the powers under the Emergencies Act might be helpful for the OPS to resolve the convoy events?
	Before that date, I never thought about the Emergencies Act.
	I think I might have been made aware of it over that weekend.
	My challenge literally up until my last day in office wasn't additional legislation or injunctions.
	It was resources.
	In fact, there was a period of time where we were hoping there wouldn't be any injunctions or emergency declarations because it would give us more powers and we didn't have any resources to implement those powers.
	And then we would be accused again of not doing our jobs or not using powers available to us.
	For a significant portion of my time in office, discussions around injunctions, discussions around emergency declarations were...
	maybe that's something that we actually don't want at this point.
	I was never consulted explicitly on the Emergency Measures Act that was put into place on February 14th.
	If I could take you to the OPS document 3014566.
	It appears that these are notes of a meeting that occurred on February the 14th at around 10 a.m.
	So if we go to page 2. If we go to the section...
	Under the redaction, do you see a note that Lucky did not get Prime Minister briefed on the plan.
	Prime Minister will be enacting the Emergency Measures Act.
	And then we go to the very bottom of the page.
	There's a notation that Chief, grateful for every tool we get in the tool belt, but need the resources.
	Do you remember this discussion?
	I remember the discussion.
	I can't remember word for word.
	And certainly that last line would be basically summarizing what I just tried to tell you.
	Tools are great.
	If we don't have the resources to use them, there could be problems with that.
	So was Commissioner Lucky the first to inform you that the federal government would be declaring an emergency?
	I don't have an independent recollection.
	This appears to be the first time I'm hearing about it.
	Okay.
	And it certainly wouldn't have been anything more than a day before if there was any other discussion on it.
	Now, later that day, I understand that you spoke with Chair Deans about the Emergencies Act.
	Do you remember that?
	I don't have an independent recollection.
	If you could take me to a meeting note or something.
	Yeah, I'll take you to OPS 3014566.
	at page 6. Sorry, if we go back up a little.
	I'm trying to see.
	Okay, so the last bullet.
	You have a municipal state of emergency, then a provincial, and now a federal.
	I have already said that we need more than just the OPS.
	Was that something you said during that meeting?
	That would be in line with the sort of type of discussions.
	I can go back to that.
	There may not be a policing solution to this.
	This would be in line with that line of discussion.
	We have three levels of states of emergency.
	This is obviously more than just the OPS.
	Now, you said also in your interview summary that you participated in several phone calls with Federal Deputy Minister of Public Safety Rob Stewart and Commissioner Lucky before the federal government declared an emergency and that you made it clear on these calls that the number one thing that the OPS needed were more police officers.
	Yes, sir.
	That's what I know I need to answer.
	Did the Federal Declaration of Emergency help OPS obtain more resources?
	I can't tell you that because I resigned office within 24 hours.
	I'd like to show you an email exchange between Commissioner Lucky and Mr. Mike Jones, who was Chief of Staff to Minister Mendocino.
	The document number is pb.nsc.can.403256.
	So the context in this email, Commissioner Luckey enumerates a few emergency measures that she believes would be useful, but then added that she's of the view that Well, I'll let you read it.
	We go down.
	She gave a few examples of additional tools, but then if we go further down.
	She said, "That said, I'm of the view that we have not yet exhausted all available tools that are already available through the existing legislation." Do you agree with that assessment?
	I don't know what she's referring to, sir.
	The available tools, if you want to, well, she explains in this paragraph, there are instances where charges could be laid under existing authorities for various criminal code offenses occurring right now in the context of the protests.
	The Ontario Provincial Emergencies Act just enacted will also help in providing additional deterrent tools to our existing toolbox.
	Again, Again, she may be relating to elements of Coots, Alberta or other parts that they're involved in.
	I don't know if she's explicitly talking about the theatre that I was involved in.
	It's hard to tell what she thinks could be done.
	These are certain elements that we were doing in Ottawa where we couldn't arrest.
	We were getting information to lay charges after the fact.
	The Ontario Provincial Emergencies Act had just been announced on the Friday.
	We were still looking.
	I don't know if by this time on the Monday that we'd even had a substantial briefing from our legal team as to what those powers were and whether or not our incident command team had considered how to roll them into the ongoing evolution of the plans.
	I can't disagree with the position of the commissioner, but I can't say that it applies entirely to the circumstances that I was dealing with.
	At that time, did you have a view on whether we have...
	Exhausted all available tools that are already available through the existing legislation?
	We meaning the Ottawa Police Service?
	That's right.
	Again, I come back to it, sir.
	We didn't have the resources to fully, effectively utilize the private injunction and the elements of the Provincial Emergencies Act at this point.
	So I can't tell you that I would even have an opinion on that other than we were just trying to get resources.
	Okay, now let's go back and talk a bit about, we began today's discussion.
	Sorry, I do recall, just as an example, I forget which day it was.
	It could have been the Saturday or the Sunday.
	It feels like it was the Sunday.
	One of those tri-level calls that you referenced with Rob Stewart and Commissioner Lucky.
	It was the only time that Ministers Mendicino and Blair...
	We're on the call and I joined it late for some reason in multiple competing demands.
	And there was a question asked, maybe it goes to what Commissioner Lucky was talking about existing legislation, but a question was asked to me by Minister Blair.
	Have you considered doing bylaw enforcement, which I thought was a strange question.
	And I said, yes, we've been doing bylaw enforcement from the very beginning.
	And then he asked the second question, well, have you considered towing trucks?
	And I said, yes, we've been towing trucks from the very beginning.
	But we don't have sufficient officers to do full enforcement, and we don't have sufficient trucks to do extensive towing.
	Maybe that has something to do with this, we haven't exhausted all the tools comment, but that's the only context that I can think of.
	Okay.
	Now, we began our discussions today with questions about the Ottawa Police Service at the time the convoy arrived.
	And now we're well into February.
	I want to come back to the question of your confidence in the OPS team.
	On the day before your resignation, on the 14th of February, we have this communication, your communication with Chair Deans.
	If I could find the reference.
	Can we go to OPS 3014566?
	Okay.
	Page six.
	So this is a call on February the 14th.
	So if we scroll down a little.
	When asked by chair if any of my orders were disobeyed during the demonstration, chief advise there have been major issues with senior leadership team members, but he has not had time to do an investigation on what has been going on here.
	The best and the worst of us have been strained.
	That is why there has been tense meetings and why some have not demonstrated their best efforts.
	Like everyone, I have been at my best and I have not been at my best.
	Can you explain what you meant?
	There was a discussion in there with the chair around the quality of support that I was receiving inside the organization.
	My own sense of where we were at at the leadership level.
	A reasonable question from the Chair of the Police Services Board at the direct employee level that the board has with myself, and in this case only Deputy Chief Bell because Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson was not an employee of the board.
	And I gave my best answer to her.
	There were some challenges.
	I mean, I actually think...
	These notes capture it well.
	There would be elements of some of those leadership challenges that would need to be reviewed in an after-action report.
	Again, I didn't have a chance to ever conduct that.
	And I had made decisions on the fly in the midst of this very fluid situation to address conduct issues and park them or address them and move on from them completely.
	But I also gave the caveat that there had been incredible levels of stress and fatigue And that clearly no one, including myself, could claim that they were always operating at their best.
	How did that lack of trust affect the leadership of the OPS during the convoy events?
	In a sense, did it make you more likely to step in and provide directions because you could not trust others to lead at the strategic or operational levels?
	No.
	It's an important question you're asking, and it's not an easy question to answer, so please, if you can give me some leeway here.
	There was a significant trust issue.
	The only significant trust issue that I was aware of and I thought had a material impact on the events that transpired over those weeks was the switching out of Superintendent Rehome for Superintendent Dunlop, and we've been through that, so I won't go back to it.
	When I realized what had happened, as close as I can, good discipline should be in the smallest, small D discipline, should be applied as quickly to the event.
	I immediately called a meeting with the two command officers.
	I asked them a straight question, and to their credit, they gave me straight answers.
	I wasn't happy with the answers, meaning I was disappointed that they had chosen to go that route, and I expressed that immediately and clearly.
	And then I counseled them immediately, and I told them what good behavior would look like going forward.
	And then I moved on from it.
	And as I said earlier on, they both in their own ways worked back towards demonstrating trust and capability.
	What I was asked here was, overall, what's happening?
	And I related that circumstance, but there were other elements of a lack of cohesion within the team.
	People making assumptions.
	We've heard already elements of People taking a rumor and assuming its truth and how that impacted a range of issues from PLT to whether or not there was a plan to whether or not the plan had been approved.
	So those were issues that I was dealing with on an ongoing basis.
	They were difficult issues to deal with.
	They took time and energy away from everybody involved, including me.
	And in some cases, they caused confusion.
	So those are the types of things I was trying to relate to the chair, but I was also trying to relate the context in which we had found ourselves.
	Unprecedented, uncharted, unrelenting pressures inside the organization and outside the organization to not leave her with the impression that we were having some sort of a mass internal revolt.
	That was my understanding at that time, and that's what I tried to relay as honestly and as fully to the chair at that time.
	I want to cover.
	So you had this conversation with Chair Deans on the 14th.
	I want to ask you about the 13th as well as on the 15th.
	So let's start with the 13th.
	I'm skipping ahead.
	I jumped a few things because in the interest of time, we've heard from the other witnesses, including Chief Party and Superintendent Bernier, that Superintendent Bernier was working Closely with the integrated planning group as of the 12th and by the 13th, they have signed off on a plan and we've seen the plan.
	There is an email that was exchanged on around the 13th that I'd like to take you to so as to clarify what your understanding was.
	As to the evolving plan that you described, can I take you to OPP 401547?
	So if we go to the very bottom of the chain, this email chain originated from you to Deputy Chief Ferguson.
	You ask her to please send you the latest version of the operations plan that you approved on Wednesday, February 9th.
	That was the day when you met with the integrated planning group that we talked about.
	And then you also ask to please advise if the plan has...
	Received official approvals, signatures, et cetera, as there seems to be some concerns about this from the RCMP.
	If we go up one level.
	So Deputy Chief Ferguson replied to you saying, in checking with Rob Bernier, he finally had a chance to review the plan from the integrated planning team and has sent it back with his comments.
	He would prefer that it be completed and signed off and will then share the plan as he is the final approval of it.
	As for version 3.0, Ottawa Truck Demo 22, 9th of February, I think she attached that as per your request.
	So we've heard from both Deputy Ferguson and from Superintendent Bernier.
	Superintendent Bernier was very clear that to him, the 3.0 and the February 13th plan were very different plans.
	So I just want to get your comment on that.
	They were very different plans in that they were significantly more evolved.
	The 13th was significantly more evolved than the 9th plan, but they were the same continuity of iterations from the pre-plan that we had on February.
	January 28th.
	So if we go one level up the email chain, you'll reply to Deputy Ferguson.
	Thank you for the clarification.
	I was not aware of this delay as I had approved the plan last Wednesday.
	By last Wednesday, that would have been the 9th.
	And I put this question to both Chief Party and Superintendent Bernier, I believe, and they disagree that you had approved any plan.
	The previous Wednesday, in part because there was no plan to approve the previous Wednesday.
	And again, I understand the perspective of Chief Superintendent Party that he did not consider what we had presented to him as a plan.
	I disagree with that assessment.
	It may not have been to his standard or the OPP's standard, but it was the plan evolved since January 28th through several iterations, some of which we've seen here today.
	That was signed off by Inspector Lucas and Superintendent Reom and continued through until the next signature blocks appeared on the February 13th version of the same plan.
	I can appreciate Chief Superintendent Party might not have known of the iterations that preceded it.
	He might not have understood our business processes and policies, and he might have assumed that this was a brand new plan.
	I'm also aware of an email from Superintendent Liu of the RCMP.
	That shares my impression that the February 9th plan was being used by the integrated planning team to build on.
	And that is entirely my understanding.
	That is why when I sent the email to Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, send me the latest version.
	I wasn't talking about the February 9th plan.
	What was the latest iteration that had developed since then?
	I just need to see.
	Is there a new org chart?
	Have you got an updated mission statement?
	Have you got a better sense of objectives you want to?
	Are there sub-plans that I should be looking at?
	I just needed an update.
	And I was having phone calls on a daily basis with Commissioners Karik and Lucky, in which there was these constant questions of, have you signed off on it?
	And I would respond, I don't sign off on the plans.
	Well, we heard it's with you.
	It's not with me.
	I haven't even been briefed on it yet.
	Well, we've heard it's you that have to approve it.
	I don't approve the plans.
	And I have to tell you, we went around and around on that.
	And this is me trying to finally just say, Trish.
	Whatever is the latest version, send it to me.
	If it's been signed off, please send it to me quickly so I can forward it to Karik and to Lucky, Commissioners Karik and Lucky.
	And that's exactly what I did at the end, I think somewhere around 9 o 'clock that night.
	I said, here it is.
	You can see the signatures on it.
	It's Bernier, it's Lou.
	Sorry, I should use your rank.
	Superintendent Lou, Chief Superintendent Party, and Acting Superintendent Bernier.
	It's signed off.
	It's done.
	I never had to approve it.
	There's no signature line.
	It's being implemented.
	I think there were still questions after that.
	I cannot to this day understand why there are still questions about whether or not the plan was approved and signed off.
	It had been approved.
	It had been signed off.
	Finally, I'd like to take you to the events of the 15th of February.
	That was the day you resigned.
	At the time of your resignation, did you think that the OPS was well-positioned to end the occupation?
	I think we were well-positioned.
	I wouldn't say that we had reached a position of certainty, but we were well-positioned.
	We had, at that point, a significant level of integration.
	We had received significant levels of resources, including expertise, including experienced leaders of the quality of Chief Superintendent Party, Superintendent Liu and others.
	I think at that time, we actually had the strongest of the different iterations of incident command teams, with Acting Superintendent Bernier as the event commander.
	I think at that point, he had a deputy commander in OPP Inspector Springer.
	Both of them seemed to have a very good rapport, and Inspector Springer, I believe, was one of the most experienced and trained incident commanders, if not in the...
	We had a strong and increasingly stronger plan, a strong and increasingly stronger level of integration, and Finally, demonstrably, a greater level of resources coming in.
	But it was that last year that I still felt that there were challenges in getting those resources.
	And it's in that particular aspect that played probably the biggest role in my decision to resign my office.
	We've heard from other witnesses that after your resignation, things appear to move quicker.
	Do you have any idea why that might be the case?
	We had a very strong integrated team.
	We had very strong leaders in that team.
	There was clarity around the plan.
	I suspect, yes, when there's a leadership change, there's always a sense of there's a change.
	And that change alone, as you've seen in decisions to replace a hockey coach midseason or whatever, the team plays well for three or four games and the old challenges that hadn't been addressed yet come back pretty quickly after.
	So I don't in any way challenge the notion that A change created a change.
	But I do note that the level of resources flowing in was incredible at that point, and that within three or four days, there was sufficient resources on the ground to execute success through the operations that have already been described in this court.
	When you attended your interview with us, you told us that the primary reason for your resignation was consideration of public safety.
	Yes, sir.
	Tell us what you meant.
	Well, I think I started off my testimony here today, Commissioner, with my thoughts on public safety being one of, if not the number one reason, public trust being if not one of the number one reason for public safety.
	I gave lengthy descriptions throughout the course of the day here around the impact of public trust in the first day, that Saturday.
	The public's opinion, opinion of three levels of government.
	Opinions of civil society leaders that I think unfairly and unnecessarily laid the blame of this thing on the Ottawa Police Service.
	We did our very best for as long as we could.
	We sought the resources and the help that we could, and we integrated and implemented those resources ultimately successfully.
	But on the morning of February 15th, it was clear to me that the trust factor in Ottawa Police Service was still headed in the wrong direction.
	And the only person that could take that pressure off the Ottawa Police Service was me, and I made that decision to resign from office, to get the resources on the ground, to support the safety of our communities, and quite frankly, to support the safety, the health and wellness of our own members and our partner agencies that were at that point in the theatre.
	Now, when we began our examination this morning, I took you to your CV.
	Can we bring up the CV again?
	is document number COM50759.
	Thank you.
	So, at the top of your CV, there's a motto: "Others before self, compassion for all." Why is that on your CV?
	It's just how I was raised.
	It's who I am.
	Everything else after that is just what I did.
	Thank you.
	Commissioner, those are my questions.
	My colleague, Ms. Rodriguez, will have more after the break if you see this as an appropriate time.
	Okay, so we'll take a 15-minute break and then come back to complete the examination by Commission Council.
	The Commission is in recess for 15 minutes.
	The Commission is in recess.
	The Commission is in recess.
	The Commission is in recess.
	The Commission is in recess.
	The Commission is reconvened.
	Okay, well maybe I'll take another couple of minutes in the circumstances.
	like a messi the Commission raises for a few minutes.
	Thank you.
	Or a lot.
	The Commission is reconvened.
	Okay.
	You okay to continue?
	Okay.
	Go ahead.
	Thank you.
	Good afternoon, Mr. Sully.
	Nice to see you again.
	Good to see you too.
	For the record, it's Natalia Rodriguez for the Commission.
	Thank you, ma 'am.
	I'm going to pick up where my colleague, Mr. Au.
	Left off with your resignation.
	Can I ask, was it your decision to resign?
	It was ultimately my decision.
	There was a lot of factors that went into it, yes.
	Did the board ask you to resign?
	There were significant pressures.
	It was clear to me that...
	The board, specifically Chair Deans, had lost confidence in my position, and that was a factor in my decision.
	Now, I believe Chair Deans told us when she was here last week that she did not lose confidence in you, but you're saying you felt that she had lost confidence in you?
	From statements made and yes, the totality of the circumstances, yes.
	Okay and did the board anyone at the board or the chair express that they had lost confidence in you?
	On the evening of February 14th I received a phone call from the board chair essentially asking would I consider resignation.
	Okay so I assume you're familiar and maybe I shouldn't assume are you familiar with the evidence that she gave on on that exchange last week?
	I'm aware of some of it but I'd be happy to receive more context or information around it.
	Well, maybe you can tell us how it transpired from your perspective.
	21 days into an event of the size and nature that we were dealing with, and 9.30 at night at the end of I don't know how many hours of days in that day I worked to get a phone call from your chair discussing...
	Rumors and then pivoting into have you thought about resigning conversation for me is a pretty clear indication that I no longer had the confidence of the Chair and by the Chair, the Board of the Audible Police Services.
	And as she tells it, at that time you told her that you would not resign, but then the next morning you called her to say that you had reconsidered.
	Is that accurate from your perspective?
	I told her that I put my heart and soul into this organization, the mandate that she had given me, and that I'd be seeing this thing through.
	And that at 9.30 at night, it was a very inappropriate conversation to be having with me.
	I wasn't going to be giving it any more consideration.
	And so what made you change your mind?
	The almost 11 hours worth of continuing to manage the situation in this city on behalf of the Audible Police Services.
	And did anyone within the City of Ottawa or the Government of Ontario or the Government of Canada express to you that you should resign?
	I'm a little bit...
	I realize I'm not supposed to be referencing other people's testimony or evidence presented already, but I am aware of a very alarming text.
	Apparently from Brenda Luckey, Commissioner Luckey, to Commissioner Karik.
	I wasn't aware of it before, my decision, but I am now aware of it now.
	So I don't know how to relate that into this situation.
	Well, it's more about did anybody tell you, did anybody put pressure on you or suggest to you that you should resign?
	At the time, obviously, you would have been aware of that if somebody had said that to you.
	Thank you.
	That's more helpful for me.
	I had direct experiences with...
	Officials at three levels of government.
	I had direct experiences with three levels of government over the course of the time of these events that left me with a clear sense that I had little to no support from elements at those three levels.
	In all three levels?
	Yes.
	Are you aware of any political pressure on the board to seek your resignation?
	Thank you.
	Municipal?
	Yes, definitely.
	There was a motion passed.
	Motion presented.
	I don't think it was passed.
	So, clearly, yes.
	I don't remember if any of the board members, three councillors that were on the board, voted in support of that motion to remove the Ottawa Police's jurisdiction.
	But there was certainly, I'm aware at the municipal level, significant pressure on the board for that to take place.
	My understanding is that motion didn't make it to the floor.
	There was not a vote on that motion.
	Still a clear indication.
	Okay, thank you.
	Now I want to go back to the beginning, if I may, and just go through some of the events with you, kind of from the municipal slash board lens, if you will.
	So I want to talk a little bit about pre-arrival intelligence, and you talked about that with my colleague, Mr. Au.
	And I want to just talk about what information was relayed to the board with respect to what could be expected before the convoy arrived.
	Mr. Superintendent Abrams of the OPP confirmed in his evidence that on the 27th, there was an intersect call.
	And on that call, OPS confirmed that their planning was on the basis of assuming 3,000 trucks coming into the downtown.
	You're aware of that, right?
	Yes, ma 'am.
	And I believe Interim Chief Bell indicated in his witness summary that as the convoy drew closer, they were expecting 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles to arrive in Ottawa.
	I don't remember the 3,000 to 4,000 number.
	My memory is around 3,000, but I don't think at this point it matters.
	Sure.
	And then I believe Inspector Lucas, in his evidence, confirmed that by January 26th, the OPS was expecting about 10,000 people on the 29th, on that side.
	I did hear that from Inspector Lucas.
	Yes.
	Now I want to just, having that context, turn to what the board understood would be the situation on the 26th when there was that board meeting.
	And my understanding is that the January 26th board meeting was the only pre-arrival, pre-convoy meeting that dealt with the convoy.
	Is that your understanding?
	Sorry for interrupting.
	It was a specifically called meeting for the purpose of the convoy.
	I have a recollection.
	I stand to be corrected.
	Our regular January meeting was, I think, the week before, and there was some discussion at that level, but by no means was it a briefing, and I wouldn't expect the board to have sufficient information to even form substantive questions.
	But I just recall there might have been some mention of it at that previous regularly scheduled meeting.
	Okay, my understanding is it wasn't discussed in any level of detail, but you can agree with me then that this would have been the briefing meeting in which substantively the details would have been discussed.
	Yes.
	Okay, so if we can turn to the minutes of that meeting, OPB 401257, and these are the minutes of that meeting.
	And I want to take you to page five.
	So now this is the portion where, and we can scroll up actually, because just to note that there are no kind of numbers that we can see there being given, if we can keep going up.
	So these are, yeah.
	In any event, there's no actual numbers that are provided, but there's a question from one of the councillors at page 5 regarding the numbers.
	So I'll just take you to page 5 there.
	Councillor Brockington.
	And then the question was raised regarding whether the service had an idea of how many people and vehicles were expected.
	The service noted that although the information is in flux, the truck movement began on the West Coast and had swelled and shrunk as it has traveled.
	The service was also monitoring other groups expected to participate in demonstrations over the weekend.
	The service was anticipating in the 1,000 to 2,000 person range.
	However, they indicated that it could change even with an hour.
	So, by this time...
	There was a plan in place assuming 3,000 trucks entering the downtown core.
	Why wasn't that information given to the Board?
	These minutes are not verbatim minutes.
	I would prefer to look at a more detailed record.
	These are all taped.
	They're available on YouTube channels.
	These minutes of meetings were never intended to be verbatim minutes, so I'm not suggesting...
	The number wasn't given, but I can't tell you whether or not it was.
	So that's my challenge with trying to refer to these as scribe notes or detailed minutes of what was discussed in the meeting.
	They're substantive summary points as opposed to what we've been using as scribe notes.
	Right.
	But I mean, the question is kind of very directly put.
	How many people in vehicles are expected?
	And the answer appears to be 1,000 to 2,000 people.
	I don't know who gave that answer, ma 'am.
	I don't know whether it was in relation to a direct question here.
	There was some context missing.
	I just don't know.
	Okay, but you were present at this meeting.
	I was, yes.
	Okay.
	And so by this time, you would have known that that was the expectation or that was what the plan was based on, 3,000 vehicles, right?
	Again, just to be clear, I don't think anybody had a fixed number.
	That 3,000 vehicles was, I believe, and again, I stand to be corrected, an estimate that Inspector Lucas, through his traffic team and his planners, felt it could be accommodated.
	But that doesn't mean we were going to get exactly 3,000 vehicles.
	We could have got five.
	We could have got one.
	He was looking at an upper range that he could accommodate, but that wasn't a prediction of the number of vehicles that were expected to arrive 72 hours later.
	Okay.
	But in terms of numbers, this was the only...
	Pre-arrival briefing, so there were no other updates that were provided to the board about the number of people or vehicles expected?
	No, this was a formal board meeting, but I had been in regular daily contact with the board.
	There were calls that took place this week where the board chair was on with the mayor and team.
	So there was a number of other discussions, communications, formal meetings that took place in this time frame where questions around what we had.
	What was coming?
	Were we ready?
	What messaging should we be providing?
	Are you getting enough support from the city?
	There's a range of other meetings and communications.
	This was just the only formal board meeting where there was specifically for these events.
	Okay.
	And if we can go to page two.
	If we look at the first paragraph.
	They indicated, I'm just looking in the second line there, they indicated that there was a coordination of intelligence between agencies and the service noted expecting that the Freedom Convoy would arrive in Ottawa as early as Thursday and likely remain through Sunday.
	Their destination remained Parliament Hill.
	Questions regarding counter-protests and other protest groups was expressed.
	So this was the information that was provided in terms of the expected stay of the convoy, right?
	Yes.
	But at this point, there was at least some indication from intelligence that there was the possibility that they could stay longer, right?
	Through the Hendon reports and other...
	There was a possibility that some smaller group could stay longer, as opposed to everybody arriving was going to be staying longer.
	Okay.
	And my understanding was that there was no in-camera portion to this meeting.
	I honestly, at this point, can't remember.
	Take your word for it.
	So I guess my question is that the OPS had much more detailed information about what was expected by this point in time.
	So my question is, why not share that with the board as, you know, they are tasked with oversight and assisting in helping to prepare for these types of events?
	We answer the questions given to us.
	By the board in the public meeting and the board has the opportunity to move the meeting into in-camera if they choose.
	I can't control their decision on an in-camera meeting nor do I control the questions they ask in the public session.
	Right.
	So we did ask Councillor Deans about this and she testified that she didn't know to ask for an in-camera portion because she wasn't aware that there was additional information that could have been provided in camera.
	I will accept that that was her explanation, but as the board chair and a very experienced board chair on multiple boards, she would have known that that was an option.
	Okay.
	And so I understand you're saying there were other updates with the chair, but in terms of the board as a body, this was the one briefing that they received and there were no updated briefings before the arrival of the convoy as more information became available, right?
	Nor would there have been time, quite frankly.
	I would have gone to a board meeting if directed to do so, but that would have...
	Probably not been the most optimal use of our time, given the circumstances that were unfolding.
	Okay.
	Now, I want to speak about the injunction that you suggested to the City, or you had a call with the Solicitor David White on January 30th about the possibility of seeking an injunction.
	Ultimately, we know that the City did seek an injunction and was successful, but by that time, it was quite...
	Further along in the events and the injunction was not actually ever used as an enforcement tool.
	And we're trying to understand why that's the case.
	So you recall you had a call with Mr. White on January 30th about the possibility of the city seeking an injunction, right?
	And again, just by way of context, my recollection, again, stand to be corrected, was that within the Ottawa Police Service, we had discussed a range of options as mitigating factors.
	Risk-reducing factors.
	An injunction was one of them.
	This was before the arrival of the trucks in the pre-planning phase.
	Once the events unfolded, as I've described earlier on the Saturday, there was an attempt to step that up.
	And I believe that is the call that you're referencing.
	Yes.
	And so what exactly were you seeking from him?
	We were seeking to now...
	Asked the city to get involved.
	It would be a city injunction, not an audible police service injunction.
	We had now just seen what had landed in our city.
	And so we had a much better understanding of what we were facing, different from the sort of blue skying of, well, let's consider an injunction before.
	And so now we're having a real discussion about the real problem that is unfolding in our city and asking the city to start to put their minds clearly, too.
	The possibility of an injunction.
	But we were not at this point strongly recommending or anything.
	We were just keeping all of our options on the table and trying to engage the fullest range of city supports that we could.
	Okay, and what was your understanding of what the injunction would be for?
	An injunction for what?
	Could be a range of different things.
	And again, it would be the city's injunction.
	It would be their decision to decide what to put into its injunction.
	We were giving them some base-level ideas from a policing perspective, but we would not be the only perspective necessary for them to make a decision and to include clauses within that injunction.
	Okay.
	And you felt that that would fit within OPS's overall plan to have an injunction from the city?
	At that point, we were doing the pivot on the plan and we were just looking at all the options that we could.
	Okay.
	Now, my understanding is that at that time, there were enforcement opportunities that were not being taken because of lack of resources and potentially the concern that it might incite the crowd, if I will.
	Maybe just rephrase.
	Officers always have the discretion as to whether or how to use enforcement actions, and certainly the crowd dynamics made it very difficult for them to do that.
	I know you phrased it.
	There were enforcement actions not being taken.
	Officers were applying their discretion around enforcement inciting other public safety issues, and officer safety issues have been part of that discretion.
	Right, but I think we can agree that...
	Enforcement was not being consistently done on every occasion for various reasons, including lack of resources, potential safety concerns, etc.
	Thank you.
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	So at that time, there were multiple bylaw Highway Traffic Act violations.
	So I'm trying to understand what more, you know, considering that there were violations happening that were not being enforced, what would the injunction then add to that?
	Well, it could have added a range of different things.
	Again, it's not an area of expertise that I have.
	There could have been heightened fines.
	There could have been new bylaws passed.
	There could have been through an injunction.
	Maybe there would be some way to engage other elements like insurance bureaus, hotels.
	Again, it's not an area of expertise.
	I'm not a lawyer.
	I don't believe I've actually been involved in the drafting and carrying through of an injunction all the way.
	I would have relied almost entirely on my legal services team to have those conversations, and they would have been entirely informed by the needs of the incident command group.
	Fair enough.
	So I'll take you to OTT 3029695.
	And this is an email from David White, city solicitor, to Steve Kanellakis, who's the city manager, and this was after his discussion with you, Mr. White's call with you.
	He emailed the city manager copying others at the city about the discussion that he had just had with you.
	So that's the context for this email, in case you haven't had the chance to see it before.
	So he says, I just got off the call with Chief Slowly and his team that is coordinating the OPS response to the protest on the issue of an injunction.
	So then he says this is what they're looking for.
	And then if we go to the second paragraph.
	Okay, yeah, thank you.
	Oh, third paragraph, excuse me.
	I also took the opportunity to explain to the Chief that any request for an injunction would need to be founded in public safety concerns.
	While the OPS's main concern seems to be around noise, traffic impacts, public frustration, based on the idea that the police should be doing something about the protest, mounting costs, air pollution, etc., there does not yet seem to be significant violence associated with the event, nor much in the way of public safety concern.
	So I just want to pause there for a second.
	Is that what you told the city solicitor on January 30th, that there was not much of a public safety concern at that point?
	Well, thank you.
	I can't imagine why I would ever say that.
	I think this is the 30th.
	This would be the Sunday.
	I mean, we had seen massive public safety concerns across the downtown core in the red zone.
	We're well publicized on mainstream media and social media events of assaults, threatening behavior, hate incidents.
	I don't know how he would have taken the impression from us that these were just minor bylaw issues, public frustration, and who's going to pay the bill.
	I suspect all those areas were part of our discussions.
	But he would only have to look out of his window at City Hall to understand what was happening in our city at this time, a significant public safety event happening in our city.
	Okay, so you did not express to him that there were no significant public safety concerns at that time?
	I have no recollection of that, and I couldn't...
	Okay.
	And he says, according to the police.
	So do you have any sense where he would have gotten that information from?
	Perhaps he talked to other people before or after.
	Okay.
	So there seems to be a bit of a theme of conflicting narratives here about the degree of public safety, especially in the first week, in the first weekend.
	So on the one hand, we have the city being told that, you know, enforcing bylaws and...
	Any laws, really, was too dangerous for public safety issues, that there was the risk of violence, there was the risk of injury and death, and I can take you to some notes where that's indicated.
	But on the other hand, the city was also told, at least in this email, seems to have been told that there wasn't much in terms of a public safety risk.
	And we've seen, actually, from some EOCCG, which is the group that manages the emergency response on a municipal level, that group was putting out updates every day, and they use language such as party-like atmosphere, it's festive.
	So there seems to be these two competing narratives.
	Was this...
	A tinderbox waiting to explode, or was this a family-friendly carnival with bouncy castles?
	And so I wanted to get your perspective on those two narratives.
	It was a tinderbox waiting to explode.
	It was not a family festival.
	Okay, thank you.
	Now, my understanding is that in terms of the discussions of the injunction, The city got to the point where they were looking at potentially seeking an injunction for various things, but they required OPS to provide them information that they can then use to support an application for an injunction, and that was never provided according to the city witnesses that we heard from.
	Do you have any sense of why that is?
	None whatsoever.
	This had been assigned, I think.
	Again, I may be corrected by documentation, but my recollection is that Christiane Hinoa's general counsel would have been lead for this.
	She would have relied on the supports of the incident command team, as well as other planning capabilities outside of the incident command team within our general organization to be able to address any questions or information requests.
	I will say...
	On the spectrum of a million things we needed to get done in real time, this would probably be in the middle to bottom half of it.
	So it is possible that the city was waiting for updates, but everyone in the organization, my organization, was busy on higher priority items at that point.
	So that's the best example.
	That's an explanation I could give you, but there was certainly no indication that I had that we were disinterested in supporting it.
	We'd simply pass it over them and washed our hands of it.
	Okay, thank you.
	Now, I understand that you were looking to have the city exercise this kind of political influence at different levels of government in order to assist in getting resources, and there were various things you had asked them to look into and to do on that February 6th email where you told them, you know, we need 1,800 officers.
	I believe in one of the, and actually maybe we should go to it, OTT.
	3018172.
	Just while that's coming up, Commissioner, I have your indulgence for a second, sir.
	I don't know what the procedure around this is.
	I was asked a question earlier on, and I was giving an answer, and I changed midway through my answer, and it may have sounded like a complete phrase.
	It was a change of phrase.
	Can I just correct the record with your indulgence?
	Absolutely.
	We're just trying to get to the bottom of things.
	So, no, there's no problem.
	By the later in the day, there's something comes to you.
	Please interrupt and put it forward.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	If I get the question wrong or the context, please correct me.
	I believe you asked me a question.
	To what extent did I believe that the three levels of government had lost confidence or trust in me?
	And I believe part of my response was I felt that all three levels had expressed very low.
	What I was about to say was very, and then I changed to low.
	It came across, I believe, as very low.
	I just want that corrected for the record.
	So the answer was very?
	No, it was low.
	But I had experienced incidents where there was clearly some low level of lack of confidence in the organization from all three levels of government.
	So this is the email of February 6th.
	If we go to the first email of the thread.
	Right.
	Okay, go up a little bit so we can see who it's from.
	Keep going.
	Yeah, right there.
	So it's John Steinbach from the OPS, and it's to Chair Deans and the Mayor and others in Ottawa, and you as well.
	And if we go down...
	Chair Deans and Mayor Watson, please find below the list of Ottawa Police Service asks to the federal, provincial and municipal levels of government that was requested yesterday by the Board.
	So, as my colleague pointed out, on the 5th of February, you were asked to provide a number of resources that you required as well as other requirements that you needed in order to bring this to an end.
	And if we go down...
	We see that you have some asks there from the city, and I wanted to just briefly ask you about a few of these if we go down.
	Okay, so here, and actually this is an interesting question because I think we touched on it earlier, but maybe didn't get a clear answer.
	So it says there, the service requires 1,800 additional staffing and enforcement resources.
	So this is, I think, the first reference that we see to the 1,800 ask.
	And this is on February 6th, I believe it's at 4.07 p.m.
	There's later a meeting that you have with Chair Deans and the Mayor in which you provide them that number as well.
	And then the following day, you send them an email with a chart.
	You might recall that chart, and that was on February 7th.
	So the question was, you had been asked by the Board to come up with the number of resources that you required to end.
	And the protest on February 5th and on February 6th at 4.30, you send this email.
	So at what point did you determine the number of additional resources you needed and how?
	Because my understanding is the meeting that happened later with your command team was after this email was sent in the evening at 7.45.
	Yeah, and again, my recollection is that as soon as that board meeting ended on the 5th, we turned our attention to start getting...
	The information we need.
	So, I'm not aware of notes and scribe notes that say my executive officer and my EA started to assign things to CAO Dunker, but there is no way that I would have left that board meeting with that request in front of us and the extremely short timelines and simply waited 24 hours later to start to have people thinking about it.
	So that's just my recollection and I stand to be corrected if that proves to be wrong.
	Okay, so your understanding is that February 5th in the evening you would have had a meeting.
	As soon as that board meeting was over we would debrief right away as we would with any board meeting at the end of it.
	What are the substantive issues that came out?
	What do we need to do?
	What are the timelines?
	And certainly in this meeting, that was the direction that needed our full focus, and it would not have simply waited till the end of the next day to get to.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I just don't think we have in our documents a meeting on February 5th in the evening where resource numbers were discussed.
	So I think that's the question that we're kind of left wondering with.
	And so if we look at the third bullet point, professional mediation and negotiation capacity, what were you asking for there?
	Again, we were trying to think of anything that could assist us.
	The concept of mediation and negotiation was clearly a live discussion at many levels in the organization and many levels of government.
	And so any particular advice, supports, expertise that we or the city could bring in could be helpful.
	Okay.
	And so...
	With that in mind, you're asking the city to exercise its political influence and to look into professional mediation even.
	You're aware on February 6th, it's also the day that the city of Ottawa declared a state of emergency.
	Do you recall that?
	I don't recall it, but I'm not challenging the date of it.
	And so, according to some of the documents that we've seen and the evidence, the expressed intent of that declaration, or at least one of the reasons for that declaration, was to put pressure on the Premier to exercise powers to resolve the situation in Ottawa.
	Did you ask the Mayor to declare a state of emergency?
	I was involved in discussions around it.
	I've been involved in those discussions in my time in Toronto for a variety of reasons.
	Literally every time it ever came up in Toronto, it may get you some money transfer payments.
	It might get you access to certain resources, but it's not going to give you...
	The declaration of state of emergency in our context here in the province isn't the same as it is in other jurisdictions in other countries.
	So it has put my police officer hat on, limited efficacy to support policing operations, and I have...
	Limited understanding of how it supports other city functions, but even there, my understanding is it is by no means even close to being a silver bullet.
	Sure, but it can exercise some political leverage, can it not?
	I can't speak to political leverage.
	I can only tell you what practically it would provide for a jurisdiction, and in my case, a police of jurisdiction.
	Okay, fair enough.
	So...
	I wanted to just ask about the legal opinion that you had received in which you said you believe, based on that opinion, that you were not able to block access to trucks entering downtown.
	Did I get that right?
	I wouldn't put it that way.
	Okay, how would you put it?
	We had a legal opinion.
	Sorry, can you just frame your question again, please?
	Sure.
	My understanding is that pre-convoy or when the convoy arrived...
	We saw an opinion in any event that was dated January 28, and I assume you saw it sometime after that.
	No.
	We requested on the 27th.
	It arrived on the 28th.
	I don't know the date that I saw it, but it was still in and around that time.
	And again, the event started on the 27th, went through the 28th, heightened on the 29th, and continued to the 30th.
	So it arrived in the middle of the event, not prior to the event.
	Okay.
	And that goes to the heart of my question.
	Councillor Fleury was here some time ago, a few weeks ago now, and he testified that at the pre-convoy briefing with you and the city manager, the mayor, councillors, this was on January 26th, he had specifically asked about maintaining truck routes in the city.
	And you said to him, in answer to that question on the 26th, that you had a legal opinion that said that the charter prevented you from doing that.
	That's what he told us.
	So I want to understand what would have been the basis for your understanding that the Charter prevented that on the 26th of January when you didn't receive the legal opinion until the 28th.
	Was there another legal opinion?
	Probably my general counsel.
	I don't have an independent recollection, but before we go outside for a legal opinion, I would usually run it by my own general counsel.
	Okay.
	And you testified that by the 29th on the Saturday, I thought I heard you say this morning, that the demonstration was an unlawful demonstration.
	Is that right?
	By virtue of the first law broken in and around it.
	Okay, and so what did you mean by that?
	What were the laws broken?
	Too many to list.
	Can you give me a sense?
	Like, are we talking criminal code violations?
	By law, Provincial Offenses Act, criminal code, federal statutes, too many to list.
	Okay.
	So bylaw, Highway Traffic Act offenses.
	Okay.
	So my question is, with respect to the first weekend, I think it could be assumed that 3,000 vehicles in the downtown core would lead necessarily to Highway Traffic Act and bylaw violations, right?
	I'm sorry, I may have missed your question.
	That just having 3,000 vehicles would mean that there would be offenses?
	Within a limited space.
	Would necessarily mean some violations such as blocking traffic, parking illegally.
	In the context of a protest, yes.
	We probably have more than 3,000 vehicles in the downtown core here in Ottawa on any given day.
	Right, but I'm talking about, you know, 3,000 tractor trailers and big heavy vehicles coming into the downtown in a space that had been designated for them to be there, right?
	But they weren't designated to be there.
	I think I understand your question, and so I'm trying to be deliberate in my answer.
	I can't imagine that the PLT would have negotiated, hey, when you come in, you can break our laws.
	I suspect, and I haven't seen PLT log notes, but...
	When you come in, in order to not break our laws, in order to maintain the free flow of emergency vehicles, in order to not create as many problems as could happen, we're going to try to get you to do these several things: park your vehicles here, carpool ride share downtown.
	We will designate areas where you can park your trucks.
	And in designating those areas, it would be the police facilitating that, as opposed to an independent decision by a truck driver or pickup truck driver to violate the law.
	on their own, through their own decision-making.
	That's different from us trying to facilitate a peaceful life.
	Okay, so then I'm just trying to understand what changed from the moment they arrived to the 29th.
	What additional violations would have occurred?
	It seems to me that by the time they arrived, those violations would have already been crystallized.
	I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'll try to answer it.
	If I get it wrong, please redirect me.
	And we've heard some, I think, very helpful...
	I want to be careful.
	I'm aware that Inspector Lucas describes a situation where there's sort of a race to Wellington Street.
	And it seems that that is one of, not the only, but one of the main factors that seems to kind of end the agreed...
	Levels of cooperation that had been achieved through a lot of hard work by these PLTs, it then becomes a series of snake-like efforts to move heavy vehicles and lots of vehicles through the downtown core, and the traffic plan that had been set up had to be in real time rearranged.
	All of that chaos, yes, in all of that, we started to see significant levels of bylaw, Provincial Offenses Act violations.
	Not to mention those who are either walking, riding, or in any other conveyance, starting to do a wide array of social disorder, threatening and intimidating behavior, physically and psychologically assaultive behavior, and yes, hate-related behavior and ultimately criminal code violations, all of which happened in near real time over the morning and early afternoon and throughout the remainder of the time of the events in the city.
	So if by the 29th it had become an unlawful demonstration, why was access not prevented into the downtown core by the second weekend, the 5th of February, when additional convoys came and joined?
	By then, surely, you would have the authority...
	You've touched on one of my frustrations.
	Was not my intention.
	That is why there's clear documentation of me saying, are we ready to go?
	Have we thought about all the things we need to do?
	Have we considered whether we're going to be closing more roads, more highway off-ramps, more bridges, based on what we learned from last weekend and what we've seen in other jurisdictions?
	And I was really kicking the tires hard on that.
	And that is why on the third weekend, I issued my only direct order at the operational level.
	Close the interprovincial bridges and close the highways that give direct access to the downtown core.
	I rescinded that only when the then incident commander, sorry, event commander, Rob Bernier, articulated a substantially robust traffic management plan to address the circumstances that were happening at that time.
	And it turned out to be a very successful plan.
	But that remained a significant concern for me.
	And for the organization, there were more roads closed on the second weekend.
	There were more effective coordination around the interprovincial bridges.
	There was more assistance for the OPP on monitoring traffic along the King's highways.
	But I really still had a lot of concerns about that.
	Right.
	The downtown core was never hardened, so to speak.
	In the fullest sense, meaning that we blocked off all of the access off-ramps, which I saw as a private citizen.
	No.
	To that level.
	That level of hardening did not exist in the three weekends that I was the Chief of Police for.
	Okay.
	I want to turn to OPS 40-5665.
	And these are notes from a command briefing on February 1st.
	And I'll take you to page three.
	And I think you testified today that by the 30th, you had recognized some elements of an occupation as opposed to a demonstration.
	Is that right?
	Yes, ma 'am.
	And so it says that first point, if more demonstrators are expected back this weekend, early request for resources is required.
	Decision on whether this is an occupation needs to be made by tomorrow.
	Use experienced resources, i.e.
	Rob Bernier and others pull from sections.
	Why did there need to be a decision about how to kind of classify this kind of a demonstration, whether it was an occupation or not?
	What turned on that?
	This is the first time I'm seeing the email.
	I don't know the context of the meeting.
	Seems to be Kenny Bryden, sorry, Inspector Bryden would be within the Intelligence Directorate, so I don't know the nature of this.
	Okay, fair enough.
	And if we can go to the bottom of page two.
	And trying to find my reference.
	Yeah, just at the bottom.
	The third line from the bottom.
	PLTs have done an excellent job in preventing rioting and de-escalation, but overall position and change needs to happen.
	Looking more like an occupation than a negotiated end.
	If we can just keep going.
	Too many photos of police with protesters' trucks.
	Chief would like this addressed.
	Now, you also conveyed the sentiment to the mayor and to the councillors on the 31st, explaining that you didn't think that this was okay, photos being taken between police officers and protesters.
	So I just wanted to ask, Inspector Lucas testified this week that this was part of de-escalation, that this was trust-building.
	It seems like you might have had a different view, so I just wanted to ask about that.
	Yeah, no, I'm not sure where you got the information that I said it was not a good thing, the council.
	okay so i'll take you to ops four zeros five one eight seven And this is notes of a meeting that you had with the mayor.
	So, update from chief.
	And if we go to the bottom...
	Whose notes are these?
	Michael Anderson sent these to John Steinbach's.
	It's points of the meeting that happened on the 31st.
	Update from mayor to chief.
	And then there's you give an update first, and then it looks like the mayor has some things to say after.
	So if we go to 7, if we go to the page 7. Okay, and I believe there were counselors here at this meeting as well.
	So at 7F...
	Councillor Minard says, curious on why certain behaviors are being allowed to continue, not peaceful, need to move on from that language, want services to be maintained and acts of hatred to be addressed.
	Residents should not feel intimidated.
	Bylaw services should continue.
	And so, F seems to be your answer.
	I had asked one of the witnesses who was answering these questions, and I believe it was Mr. Kanellakis said that for the most part, you would answer these questions.
	And so...
	The last line there, officers posing in images is unacceptable and are following up.
	I can give you more context if you like.
	There's another notation, your last full day in office of February 14, when you also kind of address the same issue.
	And if it's helpful, I can take you to that.
	OPS 3014566.
	And these are, I believe, your notes.
	And if we go to 1932, or sorry, 932.
	Okay, so Chief's Morning Brief.
	If you look at...
	The first point, media report two times JTF2.
	Do you know what that reference is, what that is?
	Joint task force officers.
	Okay.
	We're supporting the demo here in Ottawa, supporting the command and control of it, now being investigated internally.
	Pat Morris, last night, I assume this means indicated that he was not indicted, correct?
	Not that I'm aware of.
	Okay.
	Pat Morris last night indicated we might have a significant issue with police members being involved in demos.
	So I just wanted to ask about that concept in general.
	How did the public was seeing this?
	The public was pushing back a little bit.
	And so what is your view on that?
	Thank you.
	The language used around the officers posing in photos are problematic to me.
	If I was...
	Not clear in my language.
	I'll accept that.
	I accept and adopt the view as relayed by Inspector Lucas.
	Officers will often have to do a fist bump or lean in for a selfie just to try to keep the temperature down and the circumstances they're in.
	That is just the reality of almost any circumstance, any date, not even requiring something of this level, just in order to try to build rapport in a minute, to keep things at the right level or de-escalate things that could be escalating.
	And I'll always defer to an officer on that.
	In the broader sense, I could understand, and maybe that's where my comments were attributed, in the broader sense, these photos that are going viral on social media without proper context.
	Could be extremely problematic and were extremely problematic.
	They were used extensively in the social media disinformation and misinformation campaigns and unfortunately cracked into some of the mainstream media reporting as well.
	I think it's more in that context that I would be talking about it as opposed to every single officer I saw in a photograph doing a fist bump or a thumbs up was unacceptable.
	That's never been my experience.
	And I would have done the same things and had done the same things throughout my policing career.
	I wouldn't expect to be sanctioned by a superior officer if they took the time to find out as to why I was doing it.
	And do you think this might have contributed to the erosion of the residents' trust in the OPS?
	There's no doubt that the photographs of officers, sometimes there weren't even officers in the Ottawa Theatre that were being passed around on social media saying...
	Look what's happening in Ottawa.
	So there was just a lot of that going on.
	And I can understand why the public, without the context that we're sharing here now, would just look at that and say, oh, that's sympathy from the officers to the movement or various movements represented there.
	I want to talk now about the role of the board.
	How would you describe the board's oversight function?
	What is the scope of their oversight?
	Primarily to set the strategic direction of the police of jurisdiction, ensure that the police of jurisdiction has adequate resources to develop, to deliver adequate and effective services, and to hire and manage the chief of police and the two deputy chief positions.
	In our case, two deputy chiefs.
	And what's your understanding of the board's role in a major event?
	In the same respect, do they have an oversight body or does it align to strategic purposes?
	Are there any policies that come into play?
	Are there adequate resources?
	What is the performance of chief in command and through them the performance of the organization?
	And do they have a role ongoing throughout the duration of a major event?
	They have the same role ongoing every single day, regardless of whether there's a major event or not.
	Okay.
	Can I take you to OPS 3014484?
	And I'll take you to page 36. And I believe these are some of your notes.
	We've seen these before, notes about meetings that you often make to yourself, and this one's dated February 5th.
	Subject line is call from Chair Deans.
	I understand here she's called you for a board meeting, and you say, I advise that I was fully focused on the major demonstration and all other operational priorities.
	I can refuse a board direction.
	I assume that means can't?
	Yes, very much so.
	Okay.
	I can't refuse a board direction for a meeting, but I stated that I would put my ability to lead the service in this critical operation in jeopardy and should be delayed until Monday.
	So, was it fair to say that these meetings were distracting you from your operational responsibilities?
	Not distracting.
	I understand the need that the board was trying to fulfill.
	But every minute, every hour, where one or all of the command and supporting personnel were not focused on managing the events, was less resources that we could put.
	Less leadership that we could provide to support those who were leading those events.
	So there's only a finite amount of time in any day.
	And on some days, I spent three, four hours on board meetings and had my two deputy chiefs there as well.
	I think in every occasion, we had the full command team there.
	So I understand.
	It's not a distraction, but it is a demand on time.
	And it's in that context of demand on time.
	And from her testimony last week, we understand that the board started asking for more information and more details of an operational plan to bring an end to the demonstration.
	As of about February 5th, there was some more pressure to provide that information.
	Is that a fair assessment?
	Yes.
	And I can take you to the meeting minutes of that board meeting on February 5th, OPB 401264.
	And at page 5, paragraph 2, Although the board expressed frustration at the lack of clearly outlined plan that would result in the end of the demonstration, the service noted having articulated a framework aimed at their surge and contain strategy.
	So what did you understand the board to be requesting in terms of information at this time?
	Just what they're asking for.
	A clearly outlined plan that would result in the end of the demonstration.
	Okay, and you were not able to provide that to the board?
	Not on February 5th, ma 'am, no.
	Okay, and why was that?
	Because there was no way to end the demonstration with the resources we had at that time, and we were in the process of pivoting the plan to put that in place.
	So there wasn't a fully formed plan that you could take?
	We're still evolving that plan from the pre-planning piece.
	We're still trying to gather the resources necessary to move from simply at this point in February 5th, still just holding on to the red zone and not allowing anything else in there, but not really able to do much more than that.
	Right.
	So this meeting did go in-camera, and I'm going to take you to the in-camera meeting minutes.
	OPB.
	Four zeros, one six four seven.
	And so at page two of the fourth paragraph.
	Sorry, if we can.
	Oh, sorry.
	Yeah, at the bottom, the paragraph at the bottom.
	The chief reassured the board that there was a comprehensive plan.
	However, he could not provide all the details of what the service was doing operationally.
	So I just want to marry that with the concept that by February 5th, there was not actually a well-conceived, fully-formed plan, but the board is being told there is a comprehensive plan.
	So I just want to give you a chance to reconcile that.
	It's not much reconciliation.
	I mean, there's a comprehensive plan.
	We've looked at the full range of issues from PLT to POU, enforcement, intelligence gathering, traffic.
	We are engaging in all sorts of efforts to get resources into the organization.
	It's comprehensive.
	It's just not into the detail levels of sub-plans and dates and times when operations will take place, assuming that there are resources available.
	So comprehensive, it covers the full range of what we need to have in a plan.
	Lacking the details in order to be able to say...
	A week from now, with these 1,800 resources, we should have the ability to execute a POU plan in the morning of, and by the end of the evening, we should have cleared 75% of the red zone.
	I couldn't give them that.
	Right, but they're asking for a plan that would result in the end of the demonstration.
	And you're saying, well, there's a comprehensive plan, don't worry.
	There's a comprehensive framework.
	I don't know if plan is the sense that, but that's the reconciliation I can give you.
	Okay.
	Now, Councillor Deans testified that she understood there was an evolving plan, but she was asking for details about a plan to end the demonstration, which was not provided to her.
	Because there was no, at that point, there was no plan that we could say, this will end the demonstration.
	Right.
	So had there been that plan, or once that plan was developed, my understanding is the board never, never...
	Well, I can't speak to the final plan that was used in the week of after the 15th of February, so I don't know what was provided or not provided by then Interim Chief Bell.
	Well, I'm asking about your time, not about Interim Chief Bell.
	We never provided the operational plan in its totality.
	In a bound document to the board.
	Let me be clear about one thing.
	The Auto Police Services Board provided a lot of support to the service and to myself, our executive team, on a range of issues.
	But there was a challenge around confidentiality on that board.
	There were clearly documented events where service information, board information.
	Including in-camera discussions had been leaked by board members to the public.
	And so there was a concern prior to the arrival and the events of the convoy around the confidential...
	the ability of the board to keep confidential information confidential.
	And was...
	how was that being addressed?
	I had formal documentation and correspondence with...
	Right, but your obligation to provide the board the information they need in terms of to be able to exercise their oversight function, that's irrespective of whatever internal issues the board may be dealing with on its own, right?
	It is a factor that came into my consideration as to the level of detail that I could provide on intelligence threat risk assessments, operational plan, or other operational details.
	So is your evidence that the reason that more information on the operational plan was not provided to the board because you had confidentiality concerns about that board specifically?
	My evidence is that is one of the factors I had to consider, yes.
	Okay, and so what were the other factors?
	That I was not going to be handing over an entire detailed operational plan to the board.
	It's not a practice I'd ever seen done before.
	It's not one that I'd be comfortable with.
	And from my knowledge of the Morton Report, not one that's required.
	Okay.
	But a summary wasn't provided either, right?
	No, we did provide summaries on a regular basis.
	In terms of like a document which provides a high-level summary?
	A document?
	No.
	In hours-long board meetings, we...
	All dedicated to this.
	We were asked repeatedly questions and provided as much information as we possibly could.
	I can't recall whether or not somebody provided a summary document.
	That I can't recall.
	Okay.
	Well, Chair Deans testified that at times she did not have the information she needed in order to exercise her oversight function.
	Does that concern you?
	Not at all.
	Well, it concerns me that she would characterize it that way.
	I had daily calls, sometimes twice and three times daily calls with chair deans.
	We offered the board and they accepted to do ride-alongs.
	I think four of the seven board members actually participated in ride-alongs that were by my service sergeant major, who actually put them in a police vehicle and drove them throughout the theater in safe ways.
	I had hours with the service sergeant major to ask any questions that they wanted.
	I had given explicit instructions to the service sergeant major to answer those questions as fully and honestly as possible.
	So we went through a variety of means beyond public meetings to ensure that the board could literally see and be in the theater, talk to frontline officers, have direct access to the chief of police on a regular basis, on a daily basis, including The formal board meetings.
	I can't understand why Chair Deans would say that she did not have the ability to ask questions and receive information in a very timely manner.
	Okay, I'll take you to OPS 3011037.
	And these are, again, your notes.
	these are from february 11. and i'll take you to page six of your notes And if we go to 1301, there, where it says call back from Diane Deans 1301.
	And then it says expectations for board meeting.
	Going to do like we did on Monday, minimum level.
	Cannot and won't be drawn into what I cannot lawfully provide, i.e.
	staffing numbers, what the plans are.
	Need you to be clear and understanding about that.
	And if we keep going.
	The response will be as much as we gave you on Monday.
	Cannot go into the confidential.
	Accusatory language and requests for information that is unlawful for me to provide you will not be provided.
	She is accusing us of not responding to crimes.
	We don't respond to Twitter.
	She needs to report any threats.
	Was reported to Stephanie Lemieux.
	Encourage the board to not ask questions which cannot be answered operationally.
	So I want to ask you a few questions about that.
	It sounds like that was part of your exchange with Chair Deans on February 11. What did you mean by going to do like we did on Monday, minimum level?
	Are you referring to the amount of information that you're going to give her?
	We're going to be consistent with what we've been doing all along.
	We're not going to be changing and deviating from that.
	So minimum level?
	Well, I don't know what that means.
	I know these are my scribe notes.
	We're going to be consistent with what we did on Monday is a substantive theme that I'm trying to relay there.
	And when you, just to go up a little bit to the first part of that exchange.
	So when you say cannot and won't be drawn into what I cannot lawfully provide, i.e.
	staffing numbers, what the plans are, you're indicating there that the board is not entitled to those, right?
	Staffing numbers and what the plans are?
	Detailed plans, detailed staffing numbers, how many we're going to have on this shift, that shift, in public meetings, in documents.
	Those are problematic questions.
	Why is that?
	For all the reasons that have been explained before, this was a unique event, that's for sure.
	But the types of questions we were getting repeatedly over and over and over again.
	What is the plan to end this?
	I'm looking out my window now.
	I can't see a police officer out there.
	Unfortunately, these were the types of questions that just couldn't be answered.
	And we're taking up hours of our time, literally, at these meetings.
	And then you say, cannot go into the confidential.
	In-camera would have allowed you to go into the confidential.
	I don't think I'm referring to in-camera there.
	I cannot go into the confidential elements of what we're doing, I think is what I was trying to say.
	I would have said in-camera.
	Right.
	But my question is, can't you get into confidential matters in-camera?
	Yes, and I think at the previous meeting, what's the date of this?
	February 11th.
	At the previous meeting, I think I'd urge them at least three or four separate times in the February 5th meeting, let's go in camera.
	Okay, so you are saying you can give confidential information as long as it's in camera.
	I can give more information in camera.
	I wasn't at that point committing to give everything that I was being asked, but I certainly could give more information in camera.
	Okay.
	And what did you mean, what did you understand to be unlawful for you to provide in terms of information, and what made it unlawful?
	That's probably more loose language.
	I don't know if it would have meant unlawful, but I certainly wouldn't be giving, there are unlawful information around human resources, things, conduct information that wouldn't necessarily be lawful for me to provide, but I'm not sure what the actual reference there is.
	In your view?
	As you sit here today, is there any information that you lawfully cannot provide an oversight board?
	I'm sure that there would be something that would allow for that to happen.
	I'm not sure I could give a member's blood type or something like that, but there might be some limits on that.
	But I think in general, we can share the information of the organization.
	Generally, the board is entitled to any information they need in order to exercise.
	There may be some restrictions that I'm not an expert on privacy or human rights to be able to say that there's health information that we would have in the records of the Ottawa Police Service that relates to a member's psychological assessment that I could hand over in complete free form to the board.
	Right, but I mean, the board, as you know, takes an oath of confidentiality, right?
	I know that, and they had broken that at least on one occasion during my tenure.
	So that oath of confidentiality doesn't mean that there aren't problems with the board's ability to maintain its oath of confidentiality.
	Right.
	And I guess what I'm saying is that whatever issues the board may have does not alleviate your responsibility to provide information that the board needs, right?
	No, you're right.
	But it does cause me to have to be very careful under the conditions that I do it.
	And this was a national security event.
	So you would agree with me then that...
	Under the Police Services Act, there's no restriction on the information that can be provided.
	Subject to other acts and legislation, I would agree with you.
	Sure.
	And so right now there's nothing specifically that you can point me to to say it would be it's unlawful for me to provide this type of information, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Now, my understanding is that during these events, the board did not issue any formal directions to you, as it can sometimes do under the Police Services Act.
	It did issue a direction to me to provide the staffing numbers on the February 5th meeting.
	Okay, and that was a formal direction from the board?
	Okay.
	So aside from that, did the board ever specifically direct you to provide more information as a direction?
	I don't recall now.
	Okay.
	Now, had they specifically directed you to provide them with a copy of the plan once it was then formulated, the 3.0 that we hear about, would that have been provided to the board?
	If it was a formal direction, I probably would have had to get consultation with my general counsel.
	And then, assuming that there was no prohibition, we probably would have provided what we could, and that would largely be a heavily redacted document.
	Okay.
	Now, we've heard from some councillors that...
	They were concerned that the ability of OPS to police other areas of the city was compromised during the convoy because all of the resources were concentrated in the downtown area.
	You're aware of those concerns?
	Yes.
	So I want to take you to the Morden Report, COM50616.
	And we've talked before about the Morden Report, and I know you're very familiar with it.
	So we'll go to page 37. Just for clarity, I read it probably 12 years ago, but I am familiar with it.
	Okay.
	And it's the independent review into the events of the G20, for those who may not be familiar, and it's often referred to as the Morton Report.
	It was authored in 2012.
	And if we go to Recommendation 22, the Board should review the Toronto Police Service's Continuity of Service Plan for major policing events.
	Where there is a large event that may impact upon the service's ability to deliver regular policing officers, in this case Toronto, the Board should consult with the Chief of Police concerning how continuity of service can be achieved.
	The Board should be provided with any plans developed by the Toronto Police Service to aid in the consultation.
	So I wanted to ask whether the board was ever, our board, the Ottawa Police Services Board, was ever provided with plans with respect to the continuity of service in areas outside of the downtown core.
	They didn't request any continuity plans, but we briefed them on our ability to maintain business across the rest of the, police services across the rest of the municipality while we were dealing with the incident command as well.
	Okay, so they didn't...
	They didn't receive any plans, but informal briefing, explaining what the plan was, essentially.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I want to turn now to negotiations with the city.
	And I think you're aware, maybe you can explain whether you were aware, that on February 7th, some protesters asked to meet with the city manager in exchange for facilitating a move from the Rideau and Sussex intersection to Wellington.
	Were you aware of that at that time?
	I was not aware of it.
	I became aware of some level of PLT-related negotiations happening around that location.
	That came up through Superintendent Patterson and Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson at a briefing.
	My understanding is that meeting between the city manager and the protester in question, Mr. Mirazzo, took place on February 8th.
	But then the move from Rideau and Sussex to Wellington never happened.
	And according to Superintendent Drummond, who was here on Wednesday, he said that the move had not been approved.
	And I said, by whom?
	And he indicated that it had not been approved by Superintendent Patterson or by yourself as well.
	I just want to understand why that move would not have been approved.
	That was Superintendent Patterson's decision.
	I gave no decision on that.
	Okay.
	And earlier than the 8th, my understanding is there was also a potential move from the Rideau and Sussex again to Wellington that had been negotiated by PLT.
	After the January, the first weekend, so it would have been around the Monday after that first weekend, the 31st, there was a PLT negotiated potential move from Rideau and Sussex to Wellington at that earlier time.
	And according to Inspector Lucas, he said that that had been negotiated, but that the direction came from you.
	I gave no directions in regards to PLT actions.
	Okay.
	And were you generally aware that the Parliamentary Protective Service had concerns about moving more trucks onto Wellington after that first weekend?
	My recollection of the first time hearing that directly was when I don't want to get his rank wrong, but Larry Brookson, who is the head of the Parliamentary Protection Services, raised that, I think, on the weekend of the 13th, 14th with me directly.
	Okay.
	And when you first learned of negotiations between the City of Ottawa and protesters, I believe it was around the 12th of February.
	And is it fair to say that you were generally receptive?
	To the mayor's office negotiating with protesters to come up with some sort of negotiated solution.
	On one, well, one, maybe two singular, two caveats.
	It cannot direct policing operations, and it cannot run counter to the operational plan that was under the control of the incident command team.
	Okay.
	So on February 12th, my understanding is you received a call from Steve Kanellakis advising you that over the last 24 hours there had been some discussions.
	And then you had a meeting after that with Deputy Chief Bell and Ms. Hano to inform them of that call.
	And my understanding is that Mr. Kanellakis had indicated to you that these discussions were confidential.
	Because they were ongoing.
	They hadn't been finalized yet.
	And my understanding is that in that subsequent meeting with Deputy Chief Bell and Ms. Hano, you asked Deputy Chief Bell to also keep that information confidential, right?
	Did you see any...
	Did you have any concerns about having to tell him to keep it confidential?
	Do you see any issues with that, the fact that you asked him to not share that with anybody else?
	In hindsight, yes.
	At the time, I thought it was reasonable.
	Okay.
	And you thought it was reasonable.
	Why?
	There were just negotiations that were ongoing.
	There hadn't been a final outcome.
	At this point, it didn't have any major impact on our operations, any impact on our operations.
	And since then, your view, you're saying, has changed.
	So what's your view of that now?
	Probably one of those areas I would have wanted to share down one more level into the, at least to the event commander.
	Who would have been Superintendent Bernie at the time, right?
	The date, sorry again, February?
	12th.
	Yes.
	And so with that caveat that you gave us before about wanting to make sure that these negotiations fit within the overall plan.
	Informing Superintendent Bernier on the 12th, or the earliest that you learned about it, would have facilitated ensuring that those negotiations meshed or fit into the overall plan, right?
	No.
	Would have given him situational awareness, but I would have told him, you keep working on your plan because this thing may fall apart.
	We didn't have the time or the effort to be putting a lot of resources into planning for something that hadn't been negotiated and might never happen anyway.
	So I would have given him for situational awareness, but not to give him more work to be done around it.
	Right, but for example, he could have contacted the mayor's office and put some parameters around the negotiations.
	No, because, sorry, I shouldn't interrupt you, I apologize.
	No, no, go ahead.
	Please finish your question, because I want to make sure I answer properly.
	That was the question.
	I would not have wanted anybody in my organization to then get involved directly in the negotiation.
	With, between the city, and I believe it's Mr. French, and the convoy organizers.
	I didn't want the Ottawa Police Service to be directly involved in that negotiation.
	Why is that?
	It was a political negotiation.
	But again, if it's being done separately from the OPS's plans, there is the potential of conflict, isn't there?
	And if there was, I would have defaulted to the OPS plans.
	Right, but if something is negotiated without OPS input, can OPS then prevent it from moving forward?
	That was the condition I gave to Steve Candelakis when he had called me.
	Okay.
	So you wanted to ensure then that the city's negotiations was completely independent from the OPS's plan?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Despite the fact that this was a A police-led operation, and the police was the lead agency in the response.
	Yes.
	And then the February 13th in that morning, you got a call from Steve Kanellakis confirming that there had been an agreement reached, letters would be exchanged, etc., right?
	Okay.
	I believe then at noon, there was a meeting with city officials called by Steve Kanellakis.
	And the people who were on that call were Steve Kanellakis, yourself, Deputy Chief Bell, and Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson.
	And a subsequent meeting then took place to inform a broader group of your team, right?
	Now, I understand that day...
	Shortly after 1pm, you called OPP Commissioner Karik to update him on the negotiations with the city, right?
	Yes.
	So he knew as of February 13 at around 1pm?
	I believe that's the timing, yes.
	On that call, did he express any concerns to you?
	I actually don't have an independent recollection.
	Okay.
	But I don't recall anything being substantively discussed.
	Okay.
	And Drummond testified, Superintendent Drummond, rather, testified that at that subsequent meeting with the broader team was the first time that he learned about those negotiations.
	And he said everybody on the call was cautiously optimistic.
	Was that accord with your...
	With my general recollection, yes.
	And then after that meeting, you called RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey, and she said she was aware of the negotiations.
	Did she express any concerns to you at that time?
	I don't recall any.
	Again, sorry, I don't have my notes and I don't have a clear independent recollection.
	Okay.
	And my understanding is significant resources were required to carry out OPS's assistance to implementing that deal.
	I don't know.
	I just wouldn't know the level of lift, but I suspect it would be we didn't have a lot of resources to spare, so any amount of resources could be.
	Considered significant.
	Okay.
	And so if I take you now to just the next day, which is February 14, I want to take you to OPS 3014566.
	And these are your notes.
	Again, and I'll take you to page 8. And at 1631.
	So just to give you some context, the truck started moving at 1 p.m. on this day.
	It was decided that that evening on the 13th, the night before, Superintendent Drummond went and coordinated kind of the details.
	And the following morning, it was to start.
	It didn't start until 1 p.m.
	And this is now at 4.30 p.m. that same day.
	So trucks have been moving for the last three hours, give or take.
	So you have a team's call with Brookson, so maybe you can explain who Brookson is.
	It's Larry Brookson, who is leading the Parliamentary Protection Services, and I apologize, I don't know his, can't remember his rank or his title.
	Yes, and I'm not sure either, so we can go with Mr. Brookson.
	He said, trying to get, understand the meeting to completely fill up Wellington Street.
	And then you say Chief briefed his team, understood that the Intersect team would then brief everyone, including PPS.
	So is it fair to say that you had reached out to the OPP Commissioner and to the RCMP Commissioner, but you didn't reach out to PPS, and he's essentially calling you out on it and saying, why don't you let me know?
	Is that essentially what's happening here?
	No, that's not how I took it.
	Okay, so maybe just explain that discussion.
	He's concerned about not being aware of it, which I can appreciate fully.
	But I'm explaining that the major incident command, event commander and incident commander would be able to brief all of our partners in the NCR and everybody who was contributing to, at that point, an integrated operation about what was taking place that day.
	And that my understanding was PPS was part of that intersect team and would have received that briefing.
	I didn't get the impression that...
	Larry Brookson was calling me out or the Audible Police Service out.
	Okay.
	And if we just go down, there's more to the discussion.
	So, again, these are point form notes.
	It's hard to really get a good sense for what's being kind of conveyed here.
	but maybe you can review those point form notes and and give us a better sense of what transpired in that discussion
	And specifically, I want to understand the references to, does city usually direct police on how this goes?
	I don't know what that reference is.
	I looked at that myself.
	I don't know.
	It obviously would be from Brookson.
	Sorry, Larry Brookson.
	Mr. Brookson.
	But again, it's hard to, like you said, it's a back and forth, sort of almost real-time attempt to get the full conversation.
	And then the note for an administrator to reach out on their own and then permit the vehicles to sardine in on Wellington Street.
	This was purely political.
	What was the discussion around that point?
	I mean, I remember Mr. Brooks expressing his concern around the politics.
	And as I've said, there was a lot of politics going on all around this at so many levels.
	But I don't know who he's referring to as an administrator.
	So I just want to confirm that by this time, certainly he's telling you that trucks have moved on to Wellington.
	So you knew by this time, correct?
	I understood by this time.
	I still to this day have some confusion as to that portion of things, but clearly by this time I would have known that trucks are on Wellington Street.
	Okay.
	And your witness statement says you didn't know, but I think we can agree that you did know.
	This is probably...
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And then my understanding is that 1701, so you have this discussion with him.
	You're not able to give me too much more than what's there, it sounds like, based on your recollection.
	If we can go to page, is this still page 9 yet?
	1701.
	So it looks like there's a demo briefing call at 501.
	And the second bullet, we see Trish, that's Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson.
	Lots of convo with Carson at NOK.
	PPS, not happy with trucks on Wellington.
	And at the bottom it says, had to pivot due to new.
	Do you have any sense?
	There seems to be some words missing at the end of that.
	Do you have any sense for what that's referring to?
	No, I don't.
	Sorry.
	Okay.
	And if we go to page 10, the bullet before the redaction, We need, or right, the first redacted portion, the bullet before, we need some significant legal advice regarding the mayor's position that they can be on Wellington.
	Can you just explain what that refers to?
	I don't know.
	I apologize.
	Okay.
	Are you able to give us any insight into what was the issue that was concerning?
	It seems to be all a discussion around the sequence of events that took place throughout the day, the relative efficacy of it, challenges, experience, logistical staffing.
	There's PLTs referenced there.
	So it's a general discussion that seems to be going on.
	I'm not sure who's leading and who's making what points.
	So this is the day before you resigned at 5 p.m.
	So I don't know if that helps to situate you in the timeline of events and if you have a recollection of this meeting.
	It would have been one of your final meetings.
	No, it was just another busy briefing on a very difficult period of time.
	And we know that after this meeting, certainly by nightfall on that day, no more trucks were relocated onto Wellington, and that kind of ended the facilitation of trucks onto Wellington.
	Do you have any sense for why, what was the reason behind OPS no longer supporting the movement of trucks onto Wellington?
	I don't.
	I mean, subsequent through disclosure, I've seen things, so I don't know if that makes my opinion valid at this point, but I understand.
	My understanding is, without getting into any more detail than that, is that the event commander made a decision to discontinue the operations.
	And the only thing I can say to that is that would be entirely within his purview.
	That was the caveat I gave to City Manager Candelac, I said, if at any point the operations around the negotiation...
	Cross-purposes with the operational plan that we would default to our operational plan.
	Okay.
	So you can't tell us why?
	I don't know.
	Okay.
	So just quickly, last time we spoke in our interview, I asked you about kind of lessons learned.
	We talked a little bit about that today.
	You spoke with Mr. Au about that.
	And I asked you if in your kind of reflection since these events, you had thought about...
	Anything you could have done differently as chief of police.
	And at that time, you mentioned, you know, clarifying your comment about there may not be a policing solution, which I understand you've done that now.
	But nothing really else came to mind.
	And so I wanted to ask now, having had the benefit of hearing your former colleagues, going through documents in preparation for your evidence today, whether there is anything else that you would add to that.
	Around recommendations going forward or lessons learned?
	Reflections on what you may have done differently or what you would do differently next time if you were in the same position.
	What could you have done differently as Chief of Police?
	I think I did provide some list of recommendations for the Commission to consider in my statement.
	I'll trust that that will be followed up as the Commissioner determines.
	I was about to say we have a board liaison person because we talked about the board quite a bit, but John Steinbach was the designated board liaison person and had that position before I even arise as chief.
	I'm just thinking through sort of top-down from board relationship.
	Intersect was there.
	There's a recommendation around funding and investing in Intersect to create more, deconflict some of the problems we've learned.
	Honestly, the list of recommendations that I've provided are the substantive.
	Reviews of what needed to be in a better level to address the structural deficits that I've talked about.
	And I've tried to provide both national, well, national, provincial in terms of Police Act legislation and local in terms of the unique aspects of the NCR region within my recommendations.
	I can't think of anything else at this point.
	So I understand kind of at a systemic level, but I'm asking more on a personal level, something you could have done differently as Chief of Police.
	And if nothing comes to mind, that's fine.
	That's the answer.
	But I wanted to give you that opportunity.
	I think the broadest statement around understanding how to be able to be even more resilient during that level of time.
	I think there's a whole new level of science around sleep and wellness that probably executive leaders who face these types of sustained levels of crisis and pressure just need to understand how to...
	Develop a level of physical and emotional and psychological resilience to get through these things.
	I mean, we talk about wellness for frontline officers and building resilience there.
	I think that would be probably just a personal lesson learned.
	There just never is enough sleep.
	I suspect people on this commission are sleep deprived as well and not optimal in terms of what they're doing.
	So, I mean, it's just a human condition.
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	I know from my legal team and I'm looking at sleepy eyes all around me.
	So, I mean, I said it, I think it came up in a comment earlier on when I was talking to Chair Deans.
	Like, we're just human beings.
	None of us are supermen or superwomen.
	And this was a super difficult situation.
	And mistakes were made.
	Moments were lost.
	Relationships were strained.
	Meetings didn't go the way that they were intended to.
	Language was not precise enough.
	Assumptions were made.
	Rumors were passed around.
	It's just a human condition.
	Systems are built by human beings.
	Policies are designed by human beings.
	Institutions are just human institutions.
	And I said it before in Standing Committee, someone asked that the Ottawa Police Service failed.
	Canada was exposed in these events.
	Our institutions were exposed.
	Our systems were exposed.
	And our leaders were exposed.
	And our frontline members were exposed.
	Probably worst overall, our communities were exposed.
	We just got to get it better the next time.
	I'm fully committed to doing that.
	That's why I'm here.
	Thank you.
	And you mentioned your recommendations to the Commission.
	I understand you have spoken to some of those, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to highlight some of the other ones that perhaps we haven't had a chance to get to, if that's something you would like to do.
	I think I'll leave it with the Commission to see those areas, and I'll make myself available, Commissioner, to you and your team at any point to expand on that.
	I think each one of my recommendations could probably...
	Fill another 20 pages or so.
	But I just think for the time here, I'll leave it there and make myself available to you.
	Thank you very much.
	Those are my questions for you.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	Well, we're finishing a little early.
	I'm not sure if we want to start cross-examination, but I promised we wouldn't.
	So I'm going to adjourn.
	I just want to raise if there are any concerns, of course.
	As was mentioned, this has been a very tight schedule, a lot of documents, a lot of movement.
	Everybody, in my view, has cooperated very well, but if there's anything that is of concern to the Commission, please don't hesitate to raise it, either with Commission Council or directly with me, because ultimately I think we know it's been stressful, but I think we're doing a not bad job.
	Certainly the...
	I'm very impressed with everyone's work so far.

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