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Nov. 2, 2022 - Viva & Barnes

08:43:01

Emergencies Act Inquiry - Convoy Organizers / Lawyer Testify - Viva Frei LIVE!

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	One minute and 46 seconds early, just so I can say what's going to happen today, because it's going to be a big, long day.
	Sorry for going live early, people.
	I realize the commission tends to start at 9.30 on the nose, and I have the window in the back.
	This is going to be...
	I don't know if it's going to be the biggest day.
	It's going to be the biggest day to date, without a doubt, of the Emergencies Act.
	The Public Order Emergency Commission Inquiry Hearings.
	Yesterday was a pretty interesting day.
	I didn't catch all of it, but I caught some of it.
	I interviewed Dr. Malone and we had that on Rumble Exclusive.
	We have a sidebar tonight, so it's going to be a big, long day of me sitting on my butt, although I will pop in and out of the stream to get things done.
	Oh yeah, the wife is back, eh?
	She's back.
	So we have to do some tag team parenting today.
	But the bottom line, today's going to be a huge day.
	On the witness list, on the witness list, Peter Slowly.
	Oh, that's for the week.
	No, so today for the witness list.
	So Bridget Belton was yesterday.
	We have Keith Wilson, the lawyer for the convoy, who I've had on the channel a couple of times, a few times now.
	Tom Maratzo.
	I thought Tom Maratzo had already testified.
	Pat King.
	Benjamin Dichter.
	James Botter, I'm less familiar with.
	Tamara Litch.
	Chris Deering and Maggie Hope Braun.
	Jeremy McKenzie.
	Jeremy, who, since the stream from last week, has gotten out of solitary.
	He'll be testifying virtually.
	It's going to be a massive day.
	It's going to be tight for time.
	They have an hour in chief, and then cross parties have five minutes or whatever.
	I don't exactly know what the schedule is, but it's going to be a massive, important day for the hearing.
	So, all day.
	All day.
	On both Rumble and YouTube, but I'll be focusing a lot on Rumble.
	Tonight we've got a sidebar, which is going to be standard rules, start on YouTube, move over to Rumble.
	And that's it.
	I might turn off my camera from time to time to go take care of house chores and other family obligations, but I'll be listening and I'm going to be commentating because it's going to be...
	Yesterday there was a moment which I put on Viva Clips, which if you haven't seen...
	Great moment.
	I'll pull it up here.
	Make sure that I'm not missing it.
	Oh, the hearings!
	Man, they start pumping.
	The judge is good.
	And yesterday, during the moment, you know, afterwards, the judge called a recess and suggested that he might ask the room to clear.
	That's me.
	I hear myself live now.
	He said he might ask the room to clear and then they came back from break and he didn't do it.
	So I think the judge is sympathetic to the convoi.
	So let's get this pate start.
	I might have to pause to eat or break to eat food or turn my camera off because I don't like people watching me eat.
	Emergencies act, public hearing.
	Et voilà.
	Nous sommes en direct.
	We are live.
	Okay, so there's no audio yet.
	That is not...
	Me, that is the hearing.
	The audio is full on the bottom.
	So that's it.
	DHS Leaks is old news.
	Thank you for streaming.
	It's not just my pleasure.
	It's actually my obligation.
	On days of lesser interest, I'm going to continue to stream it on the second channel, Viva Clips, on YouTube.
	I love the trolls.
	This might just be a joke.
	It might be irony, parody.
	But either way, thank you for at least being a subscriber for five minutes.
	I do have subscriber mode and slow mode on, right?
	Slowly mode on?
	Let me see here.
	Monetization is good.
	One of the earlier inquiry streams was demonetized.
	I didn't ask for manual review because it doesn't make much of a difference.
	Yeah, we're on subscriber mode and slow mode.
	Trolls in the house.
	Thanks for the subscription.
	Go check out the Viva Clips channel.
	I wouldn't mind getting to 100,000 subs on the Viva Clips channel just because.
	All right.
	So watch that clip that I put out yesterday.
	You know what?
	I'll actually pin it.
	Oh, and then I got to go follow up on some news.
	Apparently, the Pelosi attacker has pleaded not guilty.
	And I have a feeling, sooner than later, that individual...
	It's going to make allegations about a coerced or manipulated police statement.
	Okay, good.
	Everything is live on the Rumbles as well.
	Yeah, here we go.
	Link to highlights.
	Wait, that's the YouTube highlight.
	I want to share the Rumble highlight because I posted it there as well.
	Yeah, so that's it.
	This is going to be a huge day.
	People watching this and reveling in what they think is infighting and politicking, which is high school.
	High school never ends.
	It just gets bigger.
	But people need to bear in mind the purpose of invoking the Emergencies Act.
	You don't invoke the Emergencies Act to compel an audit.
	Of the convoy funds that they raised, okay?
	They raised $10 million if there's allegations of misspending or whatever.
	The Emergencies Act is not an audit tool for the government.
	There might be infighting, name-calling.
	There might be politicking in the OPP, in the OPS.
	They might have their squabbles as well.
	The Emergencies Act is not a remedy to infighting, politics, name-calling, auditing, financial accounting.
	It's none of those things.
	It's the nuclear weapon of legislation to quell, to respond to a national emergency for which existing legislation is inadequate to resolve.
	For which?
	YouTube sucks.
	YouTube changes.
	Sucks.
	Well, I like that waterfall.
	I don't know what you're talking about, but YouTube does suck.
	But that's only for...
	Mark, Mark, let's hope Viva doesn't...
	Well, here's the thing.
	At some point, I'm neurotic.
	Dr. Malone did not instill confidence with me yesterday in the question I asked.
	Do you know that you're definitively out of the woods for any adverse effects?
	We don't know, because that's why, typically, it takes a decade.
	Order à l 'ordre.
	Order à l 'ordre.
	Nous sommes prêts à commencer la...
	The public quarter emergency commission is now in session.
	What day are we on?
	Good morning.
	Bonjour.
	Apologize for the slight delay.
	Dude, you go to court, you never start any earlier than 10 minutes late.
	Morning.
	Leon, co-lead commission council.
	The next witness will be Keith Wilson.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, this is going to be good.
	You know, some witnesses, you could prepare forever and they'll still screw up.
	Other witnesses, you don't need to prepare for one minute and they're going to be masterful.
	It just requires honesty.
	It doesn't even require a memory.
	Will you swear on a religious document or do you wish to attend?
	Religious documents.
	I'll swear on the Bible.
	I'm going to try not to talk too much over Keith.
	It's wearing a poppy.
	It's funny how...
	Humans are relatively superstitious.
	People think no one would lie if they swore on a Bible.
	But I like the fact that people take the Bible over a solemn oath.
	For the record, please state your full name and spell it out.
	Ian Keith Wilson, W-I-L-S-O-N.
	Do you swear that the evidence to be given by you to this commission shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to help you God?
	I do.
	Let the testimony begin.
	And you know all of the haters out there trying to find Keith Wilson lying about something so they can go try to file another ethics complaint.
	Good morning, Mr. Wilson.
	Good morning.
	Poppy on the lawyer.
	I'd like to begin by getting some information on your background.
	I understand you're from Edmonton, Alberta?
	That's right.
	I'm originally from Burlington, Ontario.
	I spent the first part of my life here in Ontario and the balance of my life out west.
	You and I did it the opposite ways.
	And you practice law in Edmonton?
	That's correct.
	For how long?
	I think I'm 27, 28 years at the bar now.
	And you're a King's Counsel?
	That's correct.
	And can you describe for the commission the nature of your practice?
	I've typically, throughout the course of my career, dealt with People who are up against bigger forces than them.
	I have represented many landowners and farmers and ranchers in Alberta in disputes with oil companies.
	But I've also, much of my practice has been focused on helping people when governments in their mind has gone too far, affecting their life or their business or their livelihood.
	And so I've done a lot of judicial review and administrative law and tribunal work.
	Thank you.
	And I take it you've appeared before all levels of Alberta courts and many regulatory tribunals?
	That's right.
	And can I ask the clerk to bring up WTS 6058?
	You attended an interview with me and my colleagues on October 2022?
	That's correct.
	And you were provided with a draft summary that was prepared by Commission Council.
	That's right.
	And you had an opportunity to review that summary, comment on it, and then you were provided with an amended version, which you also reviewed.
	That's right.
	And I'm showing you on the screen an interview summary You recognize this as your interview summary?
	I do.
	And do you have any changes or corrections you want to make this morning?
	Not that I know.
	No, other than, as we've heard from so many witnesses, there were so many events occurring, and it was some time ago, but to the best of my recollection, this is accurate.
	Thank you.
	If I can just interrupt, you have a tendency to speak rapidly, so if you could try and moderate it.
	Dude, Keith does not talk fast.
	For the interpreters, obviously.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	I'll be referring to your interview summary from time to time, but if at any time you need to refer to it, you just let me know and we can bring it up.
	Thank you.
	I'd like to ask you some questions about how you became involved with the Freedom Convoy.
	I understand that you were contacted by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.
	On February 1, 2022?
	Yes.
	And at that time, you were acting on another matter through the JCCF?
	That's correct.
	And what was that retainer?
	What happened was in the fall of 2021, my wife, who is a retired nurse, We've been married forever and have four kids.
	And she became very concerned about what she was seeing in terms of government policy, health policy.
	I felt that things were badly going awry and she did something she's never done before where she encouraged me to get involved and take a case.
	She's normally the gatekeeper because I tend to take too many cases.
	Ms. Chipiuk, who I'd practiced law with in the past in other cases, approached me and asked me if I'd be willing to take a case at the Justice Centre.
	They needed senior litigation counsel.
	I agreed.
	They told me I could pick.
	Whichever case I would like, and I wanted to, I'd been studying the travel mandates, and I thought they were ultra vires, the Aeronautics Act, and I wanted, and I was obviously reaching charter, and so I agreed to lead that case with former Premier Brian Peckford as our lead applicant.
	And that case is still going on?
	It's an appeal.
	We just got struck on mootness, and we're appealing that to the Federal Court of Appeal.
	When was that?
	We got struck, not last Thursday, the Thursday before, while I was here.
	The flower is the poppy for Remembrance Day in Canada.
	On the 1st of February, I had a legal team meeting set up, noticed some extra people in the Zoom room and let them in.
	I was informed by one of the lawyers who I'd met for the first time on that Zoom call that the truckers in Ottawa that morning had reached out to the Justice Centre and asked the Justice Centre if they would provide legal support.
	The lawyers on the call told me that they'd assembled a team and they'd asked me if I would come to Ottawa the next morning and lead that team.
	And I agreed.
	You were able to clear your schedule that quickly?
	Well, I got spousal consent very quickly.
	So that helped tremendously.
	And yeah, I was.
	You say there was a team of four lawyers, I believe, in your statement?
	That's right.
	And who was on that team?
	Eva Chipiak.
	Yes.
	Andre Mirmer.
	Tim Turpel and Alison Pechevik.
	And had you been following the news about what was happening in Ottawa?
	Yeah, I was very fascinated with how the convoy started to form.
	I was amazed at the rate at which the donations were coming in, just from following social media and the legacy media as well.
	And I thought, this is prior to February 1st, of course.
	And I thought, well, I really want to keep an eye on this.
	And I realized probably the easiest way to do that would be to make a nominal donation and then I would get the email updates.
	So I donated $15.
	A little embarrassed about that, but just for the purpose of tracking and getting the regular email updates, I had no idea that a few days after I made that donation that I would be in downtown Ottawa.
	And on a personal level, did you have a view of what was happening in Ottawa?
	Well, I had a view.
	I think there's two questions there.
	Obviously, I had grave concerns about the government's policies and the harm that I'd witnessed in my own family with our children, with my neighbours, with my friends, with my colleagues.
	In that context, I have a very strong view that I think tremendous mistakes were made at a policy level.
	But with respect to the convoy, I felt that it was providing an opportunity for people who were also concerned to symbolize that concern and demonstrate it.
	And at that point in time...
	What did you understand your retainer to be?
	My instructions were to work with the leadership group to provide on-the-ground legal support.
	One of the things that we thought we would likely be doing, which we didn't end up having to do, was to obtain an injunction.
	We anticipated that we would have to defend injunctions, provide legal advice as to the types of activities that they're allowed to do and the things they're not allowed to do.
	Also, it was clear at that time, if you recall, I apologize if I'm talking too fast again, sir.
	If you recall that around that time, GoFundMe...
	Had publicly announced the suspension of the fundraising campaign.
	There were two.
	That's the first suspension.
	I was also told at the time of being engaged that work was underway to set up a not-for-profit corporation, Canada Corp, to ensure a proper organizational structure for the administration of the donations.
	Something else that I've done in my background that proved to be extremely useful, not only in Ottawa, but in the events since, is I've represented not-for-profit groups, and I've represented various industry organizations, so I've dealt with conflicts and strong personalities on boards of directors and seen the interpersonal quarrels that can arise.
	And some of the groups that I've represented have been comprised of independent ranchers.
	And upon arriving in Ottawa, I immediately realized this personality similarities between independent Alberta ranchers and independent truckers.
	So that's some context.
	Okay, so the next day, February 2nd, you went to Ottawa.
	And I understand that you went on a private aircraft?
	Yes, it was a small, bumpy...
	We've heard this story already.
	I forget the name of it, but it's a twin prop.
	And we left at 8 a.m. on that February 2nd.
	And we landed in Ottawa at about 10.30.
	It was not a luxury experience.
	We went up and down many times.
	We stopped in Medicine Hat.
	Collie Beans, if you think he sounds like a pushover, you don't know Keith Wilson.
	Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and then Thunder Bay.
	All the stops were to pick up additional lawyers and the accountant or the last one to get fuel.
	Now, at the time, did you consider or did you wonder?
	Given the nature of your retainer, why you were being flown on a private aircraft?
	Because at that time, the understanding of the interim orders under the Aeronautics Act is that it did not extend to private charter aircraft.
	Unvaccinated couldn't fly.
	Some of the passengers on that aircraft were unvaccinated.
	So that was a way for us to get to Ottawa.
	Quickly under the interim order.
	And did you know at the time who was paying for the aircraft?
	There was confusion about that.
	In the same way that there was confusion about...
	There was two other groups that had allegedly made arrangements for us to have hotel rooms when we arrived.
	And so...
	The Justice Centre made a backup plan to have a third hotel ready, and that's the one we ended up using.
	As we were boarding the plane, whoever was supposedly going to be paying for this charter turned out they weren't going to pay for the charter, and the Justice Centre made the decision to send us anyway, and if necessary, they would pay for the charter if whoever had originally said they were going to pay for it didn't.
	And do you know who ultimately paid for the charter?
	I believe it was, and I'm not certain about this, but I believe it was paid from funds donated through Chris Guerra's Adopt-a-Trucker.
	Thank you.
	Now, you heard yesterday Ms. Belton's evidence about a conversation she had with you regarding disclosure of this flight.
	Disclosure of, sorry?
	Information about this flight?
	Okay.
	I believe she said she was told not to say anything about it?
	No, that's not correct.
	What do you have to say about that?
	I had no discussion with Ms. Belton about this flight.
	I had no concerns about the flight.
	I'm double vaccinated.
	It wouldn't have mattered what aircraft I was on.
	Okay.
	Now, I'd like to just pause here for a moment.
	I know that...
	At this point, you're acting as a lawyer, and to the extent that any of my questions would require you to disclose privilege information where privilege has not been waived, would you tell me and not answer?
	I will, and just so everyone's clear, I do.
	In July, my clients instructed me to consider making myself available as a witness.
	And granted a waiver with respect to these matters, this proceeding.
	And we've subsequently confirmed it in writing to avoid any confusion that I am here today with a waiver from my clients with respect to solicitor client privilege.
	And when you say your clients, who did you include in that?
	The clients include Freedom Corp.
	So that's their short name for the full legal name of the not-for-profit.
	It includes Tamara Leach, Chris Barber, Danny Bulford, Tom Marazzo.
	Nothing to do with the charter challenges.
	Sean Thiessen.
	Just to do with the convoy.
	Miranda Gracer, Joe Jantz, Dale Enns, and Ryan Mahillofsky.
	I forget why they were trying to make hay.
	They were trying to make hay of that chartered flight as if anybody wants to fly on a twin-engine prop.
	Chad Eros?
	That's correct.
	Was he part of your client group?
	He was offered an opportunity to become a client and did not sign a retainer agreement.
	My understanding is his position is he was a client and that he has not waived privilege.
	That's fine.
	And out of an abundance of caution, we can respect that.
	Know that the absence of a retainer was confirmed by him in writing.
	There was probably a consultation where he said some things about...
	If at any time you're in doubt about privilege and you need time to consult with Mr. Miller, you'll just let me know.
	I absolutely will.
	Thank you.
	Now, you arrived in Ottawa then with the group in the evening of February 2nd?
	That's correct.
	And I understand you rented a car and went to the Ark Hotel.
	Yeah, I was in a taxi with Dwayne, and I can't recall specifically who else was with me.
	And then the others rented a car.
	So we had two modes of getting there, and the decision was to get me and Dwayne downtown as quick as possible because we had so little time to.
	Deal with whatever we anticipated coming.
	While we were on the plane, we received a briefing on and reviewed the emails from GoFundMe, which are in the record here, setting out all of their concerns.
	And then we drafted during that flight a substantive, I think my letter is four or five pages, addressing each of the issues that GoFundMe had raised.
	Slater, downtown.
	So we were working on that flight.
	We wanted to get downtown to meet the clients.
	Sign retainer agreements and brief them and give them an opportunity to review that letter to GoFundMe so we could get it to GoFundMe as soon as possible.
	And you went to the Ark Hotel, am I right?
	That's correct.
	And that's downtown Ottawa, Slater and Metcalf?
	Yep.
	It's basically three streets down from the hotel just like it would today.
	And when you got to the Ark Hotel, I understand you met with Tamara Leach, Chris Barber, and was there anybody else there?
	Yeah, Miranda Gracer was there.
	Sean Thiessen was there.
	And I believe that's it.
	There might have been one or two other people in the room, but that's the best of my recollection.
	And had you met any of these people before?
	No.
	Never.
	Had you at any time heard about Ms. Leach?
	Yes, I heard about her, but only in the context of the Freedom Convoy.
	Anything else I learned about Ms. Leach?
	These are intro questions, but I think they need to start getting to the substance quickly, given time restrictions.
	As soon as I started to watch the convoy form, so this would be in, you know, late January.
	To try and understand who she was, but I've had no prior dealings with her or awareness of who she was or what she was engaged in until I googled her because of the convoy.
	And about what time did you arrive at the hotel?
	Are these questions designed to waste?
	No, they don't want to waste time.
	It was about 11.30 at night.
	They need to address that plane because they're going to accuse...
	I don't know, people are misusing funds or breaking the law by flying, despite not being vaccinated?
	I'm not sure.
	Well, I mean, first of all, we drove through the downtown, so that was my first chance to see where all the trucks and the protest vehicles were, and all the signage, and so on, and how you could still drive around.
	There was always one lane open.
	That's how we got right to the hotel.
	When I walked into the lobby, I could really feel the tension.
	There was truckers everywhere.
	There were supplies stacked and piled everywhere.
	And the tension was...
	I could really feel the tension.
	So can we come to the meeting that you had with your...
	The bulk of Keith Wilson's testimony is going to be the agreement they have.
	Did you finalize your retainer at that point?
	Yes.
	Andre Muirmer had the paperwork and had them sign.
	And did the nature of your retainer differ from what you told us about what your understanding was about it?
	Well, and I should clarify one thing, that the way the Justice Centre operated at that time, the retainer has their name on it, the Justice Centre.
	As the legal provider.
	Was the retainer different?
	No.
	No.
	The nature of my anticipated involvement remained constant.
	And I take it you then proceeded to get to know your clients?
	Yeah.
	How long did that evening meeting last?
	You got there at 11.30.
	When did it end?
	Not that long.
	Everybody was exhausted.
	We had just had, you know, landing and taking off several times.
	And a small aircraft is a little bit hard on the body.
	And not to mention, I'm sure all of the people on our team were the same.
	This happened so fast.
	We had very, very little sleep.
	We could tell the fatigue.
	And that was when I first was informed that Tamara was...
	Aware that some group was calling a press conference for the next day and they wanted her to speak.
	And I immediately started asking questions about, okay, who's called the press conference?
	What's its purpose?
	Who all speaking?
	Was there a media advisory?
	She didn't know, you know, this is not her.
	I've dealt with high-profile cases and communications specialists extensively, so she didn't even know what a media advisory was.
	And I understand that you wrote out her remarks for her?
	Well, what happened was I had no intention of being in the media.
	I was there to not be in the media, but to provide guidance.
	Even in that first meeting, I started hearing these different groups' names, and I was, okay, who is this group, and why are they here, and what?
	This other group, it was, the chessboard was starting to, the fog was starting to lift, and I was sort of, oh boy, this is going to get complicated.
	The major concern I had was...
	Two things.
	Tamara made it clear to me that she did not feel comfortable.
	Appreciate she's absolutely exhausted.
	They all were.
	I could see the fatigue.
	And she didn't feel comfortable being exposed to a long format press conference where every media person could come at her, basically.
	So I was already giving some thought as to how we could possibly restructure the press conference to make it more orderly and make it more effective in conveying some information that I thought the public and the world wanted to hear.
	And did you prepare her remarks for her?
	Someone's phone is going off.
	The poppies are for Remembrance Day in Canada.
	I guess other countries don't do this.
	My legal team was adamant that I should take a more active role in the press conference.
	I was initially reluctant.
	When we got from our hotel, which was out of the downtown, to the ARC and went into one of the logistics rooms on the main floor.
	It's a big boardroom.
	I got more information about the plan for the press conference, and that was it was going to include a number of medical doctors.
	My question was just whether you prepared her remarks, Tamara Litch's remarks for her.
	There was Take Back Our Freedoms had an external communication consulting firm that had prepared a speech for her.
	He reviewed it.
	A number of us, including Tamara Leach, reviewed it.
	Did not like the messaging.
	So Ms. Chipiak and another individual, a medical doctor, rewrote it.
	I'd be curious to know what they did not like in the messaging.
	It still wasn't in Ms. Leach's voice.
	So I assisted Ms. Leach in revising that statement.
	And it was finalized in very short order because we only had...
	Less than an hour.
	What did he not like about it?
	Was it too aggressive?
	And then she proceeded to the press conference to deliver it.
	And Mr. Clerk, can I ask you to bring up JCF 50155?
	In cross, they probably want to ask, what did he not like about the initial statements?
	Was it belligerent?
	Was it threatening?
	Or was it just insincere to Tamara, who Tamara is?
	Thank you for coming.
	My name is Keith Wilson.
	I'm a lawyer with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.
	Does he look younger then?
	As some of you may know, there was an announcement earlier today that the Justice Centre and a team of lawyers are here on the ground in Ottawa to assist the truckers and the Freedom Convoy 2022.
	He always speaks very calculated, very clear and concise.
	What we're going to do today in this brief press conference is you're going to hear from Tamara Leach.
	Who we all know is the spark that lit this fire and the leader of this organization.
	You're also going to hear from Joanie Peltier, who is going to summarize in French what Tamara says.
	Can I ask you to stop it there, please?
	You say that Ms. Leach was the spark that lit this fire.
	Who told you that?
	No one told me that.
	Where did it come from?
	My brain.
	Okay.
	And how did your brain figure that out?
	Well, I observed what was happening and I noticed that, this is again prior to me being engaged, that she seemed to be the organic leader.
	She was the one that was doing the Facebook lives and other videos.
	She was the one who was sending out the message.
	And she seemed to have the personality of a natural leader that inspired others to get behind her.
	Thank you.
	Now, can you bring up...
	I think most people would agree with that.
	Mr. Clerk, HRF 40139.
	I think she became the face of the convoy.
	And this is a letter to GoFundMe that I think...
	GoFundMe needs to be renamed.
	Dated February 3rd.
	That's the letter you told us was drafted on the plane, correct?
	That's correct.
	And just if you can scroll up, please, a little more.
	There's some drama with Elon Musk this morning.
	You note at the bottom there, you set out your understanding of the evolving goals of the committee's GoFundMe campaign.
	Yes.
	And if you can just scroll up, I won't read them, but that's what you understood to be the goals.
	Just one moment.
	For future generations, cost of fuel first, and hopefully food and lodging for this task.
	Helping to reshape this once beautiful country.
	Your hard-earned money is going straight to what is needed.
	Any leftover donations will be donated to a credible veterans charity.
	Thank you.
	If you can just scroll up a little more.
	Stop there.
	The paragraph beginning, everyone has been surprised.
	You say the last sentence there, the truckers have been open with the media that they are not leaving until the government vaccine mandates are lifted.
	Who on the plane provided that information?
	I think it might have been either in some of the drafts that Mr. Eros had prepared and understand that We did a draft on the plane.
	So that would have been the...
	Is that the Wednesday night?
	Anyway, the February 2nd.
	Then we had the letter reviewed by the clients.
	And then the letter the next morning was reviewed by the Finance Committee back in Alberta.
	And a number of people requested, as normally occurs if you circulate a draft, that words and sentences be added.
	So I don't know exactly whether that arose in the very first draft or whether that was something that some of the leaders in Ottawa had added or whether that was something that the Finance Committee wanted added.
	And can you just scroll up a little more, please?
	You note in the second bolded paragraphs that the intention is not to reimburse those committing unlawful acts or criminal acts, and you say the convoy has been clear it only supports peaceful assembly.
	At this point in time, I take it you were aware that...
	There were some officials that were suggesting that some of the conduct going on was unlawful.
	Suggestions?
	Yeah, and I've heard that a lot.
	Did I see any?
	What I've always struggled with is at what point in time did those officials believe it became an unlawful assembly and on what basis?
	Because it just seemed to be a terminology that started to morph and become adopted with no particular triggering event or explanation as to...
	What that individual or official thought constituted an unlawful assembly.
	And later that day, you attended a phone meeting with GoFundMe?
	That's correct.
	And among other people...
	That would have been on the Thursday afternoon.
	Yeah.
	And among other people, Mr. Aris was on that call?
	Yeah, all of the lawyers that were with me and a number of the board members from Freedom Corp were there, as well as Ms. Leach.
	And Mr. Clerk, can you bring up WTS 6 zeros 32 and go to page 8?
	This is a witness statement provided by Chad Eros.
	And he made certain statements in there, and I want to give you an opportunity to respond.
	Forgot how early it was.
	It was February 5th.
	GoFundMe says it's going to refund all the donations.
	Scumbags.
	If you can scroll up.
	February 5th was when GoFundMe said we're refunding the donations because it's going to unlawful activity and then that's when GiveSendGo came in and then they declared it an unlawful protest as of the 12th?
	What was that date?
	Unbelievable.
	Not seeing it right now, but he does say that the JCCF lawyers, and specifically you, were trying to take over the meeting and assert themselves as the spokespeople on the financial side of the convoy.
	Do you remember reading that?
	I don't remember reading that.
	Right there where it says Mr. Wilson.
	Trying to take over the meeting?
	All I want to know is whether you want to respond to that.
	Well, I mean, what does that mean?
	When I led the meeting, someone needs to lead a meeting from when you have two parties.
	Mr. Ero spoke, other lawyers spoke.
	Mr. Ero spoke extensively in explaining to the GoFundMe executives and their legal team.
	Because I would estimate by memory there was 10 to 12 people from GoFundMe on the other side of the conference call.
	This was a call, not a Zoom.
	And we relied heavily, at least our side, on Mr. Eros explaining the financial controls and who he was and his background in banking and as a CPA and his role as treasurer.
	But yes, I did lead the discussion.
	That is true.
	And I understand as well that you had some discussions with Mr. Eros about the organization Tate Back Our Freedoms.
	Yes.
	And did Ms. Leach have some concerns about that organization?
	Yes.
	And what were those concerns?
	My memory is, as I indicated in my witness statement, and it wasn't just take back our freedoms, this was happening extensively and it happened immediately, or I observed it immediately after the first day when I actually started to, you know, appreciate I'm coming in at night and go through the lobby and up to a hotel room and then back out.
	The next day I'm now starting to interact more and I'm now in a big boardroom and there's these different people coming and going and I'm trying to figure out who's who.
	You know, there was no organization chart.
	There was no introduction session.
	It's not even like a meeting where you go around the table and introduce one another.
	That didn't happen.
	It was constant chaos.
	So I learned that there was a group, and then I learned that it was this TBOF.
	I didn't even know what What TBOF meant initially.
	And then I'd heard about this Canada unity.
	What does TBOF stand for?
	And then there was Mr. Borgel's group, Something for Freedom.
	Then there was Veterans for Freedom.
	I could go on.
	There were so many different groups I was starting to learn of.
	And what I observed was that different groups were trying to take control.
	And what I observed...
	And believe to be true is that some were trying to take control because they saw the organic flat hierarchy largely of the convoy and wanted to make it more successful and felt they had the organizational capability to do that.
	Others wanted to co-op reshape the Freedom Convoy into their own event.
	Branded theirs.
	And I got the distinct impression from some others that they were trying to get their hands on what at that point was $10 million in donations.
	And my impression and my recollection from the discussions that I would have with Ms. Leach as various people would demand private meetings or...
	You know, play games and say we weren't allowed to use the boardroom because it was their boardroom, those sorts of things, that she was under pressure from a lot of these different groups for the reasons I've given.
	Okay, and coming back to take back our freedoms, am I correct that Mr. Peckford was the chairman of that organization?
	Yeah, and it's interesting because he's more of a symbolic chairman.
	In all of my discussions with the Honourable Brian Peckford, I would speak with him not every evening, but maybe every second or third evening.
	My telephone logs confirm that, that I've tendered in evidence, and I was looking for guidance from him.
	He's an elder statesman.
	He's been through a lot.
	He's one of our founding fathers of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
	Very seasoned politician.
	And so at no time did we ever have any discussion around take back our freedoms.
	Did I feel he was speaking on their behalf?
	Him and I become somewhat close through my work on his federal travel mandate charter challenge in federal court.
	And I was using him as a resource and someone to run ideas past and get guidance from.
	And am I correct that you are aware that at least Mr. Eros had some concern that if there were concerns about "take back our freedoms" and you are acting On behalf of Mr. Peckford in that other litigation that you were in a conflict of interest position?
	That was never raised at any time.
	I don't feel I was in a conflict because at no time did Mr. Peckford ever ask of anything of me.
	I was the only one who asked of things from him.
	What does this have to do with anything of substance on the Emergencies Act invocation?
	They better get to something fast.
	They don't have all the time in the world.
	The concerns that you're referring to are concerns that were never aired at any time during Ottawa by Mr. Eros and only some months later after the Ottawa protest had concluded.
	Okay, thank you.
	And just to shift a little bit here.
	Shift?
	You were staying at the Art Hotel?
	No.
	Where were you staying?
	At a Best Western, I believe it was about a 20-minute drive.
	Really?
	Towards the east.
	So you arrived there, excuse me, on February.
	20-minute drive from downtown.
	So each day it took us 20 minutes to get into the downtown core.
	And so you arrived there on, did you stay there the night of February 2nd?
	That's correct.
	And when did you leave?
	Our stay there ended, it would have been approximately around the Sunday of,
	just trying to visualize a calendar here, the second Sunday would have been Anyway, I think we stayed there for about 10 days.
	And then where did you go?
	Then we went to the Swiss Hotel.
	And how long did you stay there?
	We stayed there until the Wednesday, which would have been the 16th.
	It was on the Wednesday that it was apparent this was when we...
	I had had the phone call from Steve Kay, the city manager, advising me that the third attempt to move trucks was going to be unsuccessful, and he was very disappointed, as he himself testified here.
	Okay, and I was just asking you the date, sir.
	Yeah, I'm sorry.
	I'm trying to contextualize things, and I have to remember things by events because I wasn't calendar-focused.
	And so it was that day that it became apparent that something dramatic was about to happen by the government and the police.
	And as a result, Ms. Leach instructed Ms. Chipiak and I, because we were the only two lawyers left on the ground at that point, to relocate to a new hotel.
	And where was that?
	La Germaine.
	And how long did you stay there?
	Is that a fancier hotel?
	I stayed there until the Sunday, which would be the 20th or the 21st, I believe.
	And then did you go back to Edmonton?
	I went home, yes.
	Okay.
	Did you have interaction during the period you were there with James Bowder?
	No.
	And if I did, it might have been where I was in a room or in a hallway or on a sidewalk and he shook my hand, but I met so many people.
	The interaction would have been unremarkable.
	And you became aware of Canada Unity's Memorandum of Understanding?
	Yeah, very early on, I was approached by many people, both within the client group and others, asking me about it.
	And I believe, is it fair to say, it was, from your perception, getting a lot of attention, and you talked to a lot of people about it?
	This is the commission lawyer, Jeffrey Leon.
	I didn't make it a topic that I felt I needed to discuss with others, but I did get asked it a lot.
	And what I, you know, the first thing that's obvious about it is a memorandum of understanding and its simplest legal concept requires all parties to sign.
	And it was evident that the signature lines on the last page were not going to be signed by the Governor-General, nor someone from the Senate.
	And in any event, I would explain when I was asked by the board to brief them on it.
	I explained, and I apologize for my voice, I'm recovering from a cold.
	There's water there.
	He's got a cold!
	Mask up, people!
	That I explained that there's only two ways that governments change under our parliamentary system.
	The first is when the Prime Minister contacts the Governor General and dissolves Parliament and asks that the writ be dropped.
	The second, through parliamentary tradition, Is where a bill is identified as a confidence vote and Parliament votes to defeat the bill.
	In that second instance, the Prime Minister would similarly contact the Governor-General.
	This idea that a certain number of people could sign a document and that would somehow compel or incentivize.
	It's not how things were.
	Did you know at the time that somewhere around 300,000 people had signed on to a petition regarding that?
	I didn't know the number.
	I knew that it pre-existed.
	Canada Unity pre-existed the convoy as a group by at least a year or two, that it was not a creation of the convoy.
	It was one of these hanger-ons.
	So I take it you were surprised that so many people were taking it seriously.
	Is that fair to say?
	I am very surprised at...
	This is not the first time I've run into this.
	I've had to litigate opposite the sovereign citizen folks and quoting admiralty law and think that if they present a flag in a certain way in a court, the judge loses jurisdiction.
	I've had to encounter this many, many times in my career.
	So I was just like, here's another one.
	Okay, now, on...
	February 4th, and you were served with a statement of claim and injunction motion by Mr. Champ?
	That's correct.
	And you represented the convoy leaders in that matter?
	Yeah, not everyone who was named at that time is my memory.
	That pleading has been amended a number of times and is an evolving document is to be expected in a litigation of that nature.
	And did you oppose the injunction?
	What we did was we agreed on a negotiated...
	We received it at approximately four o 'clock.
	That was at the same time that we also received notification publicly that GoFundMe had determined that the fundraiser violated their terms of service and that they were stopping it.
	They determined after pressure from the Ottawa government.
	I think it was Watson.
	We were served with a motion record, emergency motion returnable to Saturday afternoon at 1 o 'clock.
	So my legal team and I prepared through the night.
	Through the night, Mr. Champ continued to provide supplemental materials in the magnitude of hundreds of pages.
	We had everything ready to go by noon-ish the next day, but not even enough time for me to read the factum.
	Did you oppose the motion?
	I'm answering your question, sir.
	We took the position that it was just improper for the court to hear it on the Saturday.
	We agreed to come back on the Monday.
	I had informed my clients that there is no way the court was not going to grant the injunction and that the best we could do was to ensure that the terms of the injunction order were not excessive.
	We're not prone to abuse and arbitrariness and had an acknowledgement of their right to protest.
	The injunction was not to disperse the protest.
	It was to stop the honking, among other things, among other nuisances.
	The real argument before the court was what is the terms of the order going to be and overcoming the challenge of in rem versus in personam orders.
	Thank you.
	Now, around that same time, I understand from your witness statement that you had some discussions with Mr. Marazzo about his concerns that there seemed to be a change in tone in the response of the Ontario Police Service to the protesters.
	Yeah, the Ottawa Police Service, that's correct.
	And that change in tone was related to...
	The honking was loud.
	And no judge was ever not going to grant that order.
	...a negotiation-type response to a surgeon-contained enforcement-type response.
	Is that right?
	Precise.
	Was that consistent with your view?
	Yeah, and we had, to the extent we had the opportunity, because as you can appreciate, it was a very, very fast-moving, chaotic environment with so many either interpersonal issues arising between the players or logistical issues or whatever.
	But we did have occasion when we were, Ms. Chipiak and I were leaving our hotel.
	We worked, it must have been the Monday.
	When we were in court, because we ran those from our hotel outside of downtown.
	And we heard Ms. Deans in an interview on CBC's As It Happens.
	And her language was deeply troubling.
	And that combined with Mr. Morazzo expressing concerns about the change in tone from Chiefs slowly, it heightened...
	the urgency of trying to find a way to open up dialogue.
	And if you look at my phone records, you'll see that my first attempt to bring in Mr. French occurred actually that weekend.
	Okay, and...
	What was your...
	Your strategy is a result of this.
	Well, in my past, I've been involved in two international scope crises.
	The first was the 2003 mad cow disease outbreak in Alberta, where I was representing a government agency.
	And the second was in 2009, H1N1, where I represented the...
	The people who were patient zero for the Zutonic transmutation.
	And so I've been in an emergency operation centers of government on two major incidences, and I've seen the chaos that occurs in there.
	And, you know, I know the importance of dialogue and communication, and I sense the danger of the parties not talking.
	Even if it's back channel.
	So I had a strong desire to open up back channel communications so we could bring the temperature down, start to see if there's ways to resolve this, de-escalate this, wind this thing down.
	So that was a heavy focus of mine at all times.
	Okay, and I take it that you contacted Mr. Peckford and asked him if he had any contacts that might help?
	Yes.
	And then you received a call from Dean French.
	That's correct.
	And in your statement, you indicate that Mr. French suggested that what was needed was to move trucks out of the residential areas.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, he laid down some...
	Ground rules, sort of base conditions for his willingness to get involved and try and be intermediary.
	And so we had, I still remember, and I have a chip that's reminding me of it, that we had a very, very intense phone call where he was testing me and I was testing him.
	But what he made absolutely clear was that...
	The truckers had to be willing to move out of the residential areas.
	And I had to be honest with him about whether I thought that was achievable.
	And once he learned to trust me and I learned to trust him, we both thought it was achievable.
	So then he proceeded to go to work.
	To go to work on it.
	Go behind the scenes.
	And I wasn't asking for the details.
	That's not how it works.
	If you've ever done this before, you just let them go do their thing behind the scenes and they will come back to you at the appropriate time.
	And on February 8th, I understand that Mr. Merazzo asked if you and Ms. Chipiuk would come to a meeting at City Hall.
	Yeah, what had happened was I first met Mr. Morazzo on the Thursday that we had the press conference.
	It was later in the day that I was introduced to him.
	It was the first time I had met him.
	I immediately was impressed with his calmness and his level-headedness.
	He didn't.
	There was a lot of emotion up and down with various individuals in these rooms, but Tom was always just completely calm.
	And he had been observing for longer than us.
	And he had been working with the police liaisons and felt that he was in a circle where nothing material was arising.
	And he advised...
	In the meeting room, I remember he came in, he'd left a meeting with the PLTs and had told them that he didn't want to speak with them anymore and he needed somebody that was more of an inspector level, somebody who had some actual decision-making capability and greater authority.
	Things went quiet the next morning.
	This would be now the Tuesday.
	February 8th?
	Correct.
	Tom told Ms. Chipiak and I that he wanted us to come to a meeting at City Hall at noon.
	And I said, okay, what's this all about?
	And does the city know we're coming?
	Because one thing that is a certainty a lawyer of any experience will share with you is that it's always a bad idea for your client to unexpectedly bring lawyers to meetings.
	It never goes well.
	So I've never before consented to that in my 27 years.
	But this being such an unusual circumstance, I agreed that we would go.
	And we arrived at City Hall and had quite an interesting interaction in order to get upstairs to meet with Steve K. Okay, and I take it that you met with the PLT officers and they weren't very happy about your being there, is that right?
	Animatedly angry.
	And so, as you indicate in your statement, you told them that, you know, to try and cool things down, that you would seek instructions not to impose the continuation of the injunction, which was coming up in court.
	That's correct.
	The only thing I, you know, you kind of, you go through your pockets and see, what do I have?
	And I had nothing, and Eva, Ms. Cipiuk, as astute as she is, pointed out that there was one thing that we did control, and that was what recommendation we could make to the board about what position they would take on the continuation of the injunction, because Justice McLean had issued it for a set number of days.
	I can't remember the number of days, but it was only set and we had a returnable date that was coming up.
	Later that week, I believe.
	You can figure it out from the pleadings.
	So we said that we would seek instructions from our client not to oppose it becoming a long-term injunction.
	So the quiet that had resulted from the injunction would remain.
	And that was what we offered.
	Had it been your instructions to oppose the continuation of that injunction?
	I had not yet received instructions at that point.
	And I take it that you ultimately had the meeting with Mr. Kanellakis?
	Yes.
	And were you here for his testimony?
	Yes.
	And is there anything about what he testified to regarding the meeting that you disagree with?
	There was a couple of sort of nuanced details, but...
	That I think he might have just been misremembering, at least, or alternatively I am, but nothing of substance.
	Okay, and subsequent to that meeting, sorry, let me take a step back.
	Sure.
	I understand that he had two concerns.
	One was to...
	Keep the meeting secret because he didn't want it to get out if there wasn't a successful negotiation.
	And he wanted to move trucks from the residential area and the Rideau Sussex intersection.
	Yeah, he'd given us a list of three.
	So I led by saying once Evan and I went into the room, and I know there was some conflicting testimony, there was three PLTs in that room.
	There were seven people in that room.
	I know someone testified, I think it was one of the, it might have been Drummond, that there was no police in the room.
	That is absolutely false.
	And he likely just wasn't accurately briefed, I suspect.
	And I led by saying, okay, give us your top three.
	If we can get movement at three locations in the downtown, if we can move trucks and protesters, where can we provide the most immediate and effective relief?
	And they gave us the three locations, and one of them was Kent, and I can't recall the other two.
	But what I also picked up on, as did Tom, Brazzo, and Eva Chipiak, is that they spent almost the entirety of the time talking about Rideau and Sussex.
	And so even though we had this list, it was clear to me...
	And to us as a team that Rideau and Sussex was in a category by itself.
	So we promised them at the end of the meeting that we would keep the meeting secret.
	And the reason that that was important, it's in these situations, it's always about building trust.
	And it's the littlest things you can control that build the trust.
	And so we agreed to keep the meeting secret.
	And in fact, no word got out about the meeting.
	And I said, and I'm not from Ottawa, so, you know, I was stuck in buildings, and then when I was on the move, it was often at night, so I was very spatially disoriented all the time.
	And so I said to Eva Chipiuk, who had done her, I don't think it was her Master of Laws, I think it was her undergrad, or her LLB here at...
	In Ottawa.
	So she was very familiar with the area and Tom obviously was.
	So I said, can you please take me to Rideau and Sussex?
	Okay, so take it after the meeting, the three of you went to the intersection?
	That's correct.
	And Mr. Clerk, could you bring up HRF 401550?
	Take it.
	What did I miss?
	This is a picture that you took of the intersection at that time?
	Yeah, I took several pictures, including a picture with Mr. Morazo and Ms. Chipiak in it.
	I started doing that just to help keep track of things.
	You know, you get metadata on your phone, so it shows exactly what time and place.
	So I started taking these pictures.
	You indicate in your statement that at some point you left the intersection and Ms. Chipiak and Mr. Murazo remained to talk to the protesters.
	Yeah, we decided, and this is the way things worked, particularly with the people that were there involved in the protest, is...
	If something needed to be done, you did it right there and then.
	You never waited.
	So the decision, we had a discussion and it was Eva and Tom were like, well, why don't we try and move this intersection right now?
	So I said, all right, I'll go back to the Sheridan.
	I'm sharing a link of a video from Tom Marazzo.
	We agree.
	He explained some things that will help people understand.
	So little to negotiate in terms of tools and tactics.
	The protesters, because I had been on the stage at the press conference the week previous, I was recognized as the trucker's convoy lawyer.
	So the idea was that if they made significant progress but needed just something more to get the truckers to agree to clear this intersection, that they would say, well, we're going to have to have Keith come.
	And then I would come and try and use whatever influence I may have.
	So that was the plan.
	And to be clear, because there's been conflicting evidence about this, our focus at this intersection was to clear it, which is very different from the deal with the mayor, what the objective was.
	This was to clear this intersection.
	And as soon as we got there, we could see why it was such a concern.
	I think there's six streets that come together.
	There's the very high end.
	Condo, a tower, there's the U.S. Embassy down the road, the Senate, and on and on.
	And we're like, okay, we understand why they want this cleared.
	So our goal was at least to clear up the westbound lanes.
	And if we can bring back up your witness summary, WTS 6058 at page 7. Okay, so this is the commission lawyer, in theory, neither hostile nor friendly, objective, just trying to get to the truth of the matter.
	You said out there, in the interest of time, I'm not going to take you through it all, of what happened at Rideau and Sussex that led up to...
	You're finding out that there was a willing, or at least Ms. Chipiak and Mr. Marazzo, the bottom paragraph, finding out that the truckers had agreed to move their vehicles to Wellington, but there was a problem in removing the Jersey barriers, and that fell through.
	Correct.
	Well, and it was not...
	What had happened was, my briefing is that we had an advantage because the first three big trucks that would have to move were the Polish immigrants.
	And Miss Cipiuk is Polish background and can speak Polish fluently.
	And she very quickly developed a rapport with these truckers.
	We knew if we could get the first three to go, it would incentivize the other ones to join in.
	There was a sense of each of these areas that people didn't want to be left alone.
	There was a real group thing going.
	We picked up.
	But this was an intense group.
	There's no doubt about it.
	I mean, you've heard about that.
	There was this forfata stuff that...
	The first time I heard it was in this inquiry, so it was never on our radar.
	I saw the forefather.
	I didn't notice him doing anything bad.
	So Mr. Merazzo...
	They looked burly, but I didn't see them do anything bad.
	...in the middle of the intersection...
	I say burly because of leather jackets and motorcycles.
	...and got them to pick amongst themselves two representatives.
	Then he moved forward in effectively a parlay in the old military sense with the police to the west up...
	Closer to Wellington.
	And then the particular police liaison, Sergeant Fung Lee, had a little bit of an aggressive personality.
	He could really turn aggressive very quickly.
	If you heard back, I noticed my dog was rattling his dish.
	I was concerned about him interacting directly with the trucker leaders from that intersection.
	So Tom went up, spoke to Fung and said, okay, bring in the equipment.
	We're ready to move at least half the intersection, the westbound, up into that space on Wellington.
	Fung Lee's phone rang.
	He stepped back and then turned around and said to Tom, the deal's off.
	They're not going to move the barricades.
	And we now know from the record and the testimony of others that others higher up the command vetoed that movement.
	So Tom, but this is important.
	Tom did not go back and disclose what actually happened.
	He said they just can't get the barriers moved because he didn't want to destroy what little progress we had made.
	We agreed to have a cooling off because a lot of the truckers were upset.
	They had had arrangements to make kinds of moves before our involvement and they felt that the police had double-crossed them.
	And so we decided to give everything a cooling off and a try again on the Thursday.
	And so that was on February 8th.
	And I take it that February 9th, there were some discussions with the OPS PLT officers and that led to February 10th.
	Where you returned to Rideau and Sussex to try again.
	Yeah, on the 9th, PLT's about 4.45, 4.40 p.m. contacted me through Evachipiuk.
	That was the protocol we had is that if they needed to get me urgently, they would call her because she was always at my side.
	They came over to a meeting in the main floor of the Sheridan.
	It was an intense meeting.
	But we briefed the board that evening, and Tamara Leach requested that all of the road captains, all legal, the board members, all assemble at Sussex, Arito and Sussex, the next morning prior to 10 a.m.
	In an effort, an all-out effort, to use their persuasive skills.
	We had an initial success where there was a load-safe truck that you'll see in lots of pictures.
	Load-safe is what was on the logo on the side of the cargo trailer of the semi-truck.
	And it was parked right by the area of...
	The shadow lorry was pulled up on an angle, almost jackknife blocking, almost four lanes, and the police did not like it at all.
	They'd been trying to move it, and I was standing with a large group of PLTs, Ms. Leach and others.
	Mr. Barber came up.
	We said, hey, I said, Chris, or one of us said to Chris, is there any way you could go talk to that guy?
	And as you heard, we all watched in amazement, Chris.
	Jumped up on the step and was hanging on to the mirror.
	The window came down.
	He started visiting with the guy for a few minutes and all of a sudden Chris hollered out for truckers to come and set up a perimeter to safely back him up.
	And the backup alarm went on and they repositioned him so he was right up against the curb.
	And I remember we all thought, okay, this is a good sign.
	Maybe we're going to do this.
	And then as you say in your statement, there was a crowd that Suddenly appeared who didn't understand what was going on, and they, in effect, kind of surrounded the area.
	Just a little bit more detail, because I think it's important for context.
	If I can just stop you for one second.
	I do have a video.
	Would that help?
	I'd like to contextualize it first, if I could.
	Sure.
	So what happened was...
	We had a bunch of failed attempts to get enough truckers to agree.
	We always had the Polish guys at the front that were ready to go.
	So a lot of the team, or those of us who were there to try and clear that intersection, were done.
	It was a very, very cold day.
	I was back and forth trying to keep warm in the lobby.
	Of the Shadow Lorry, that's when I got served with one of the seizure orders and was dealing with the TD Bank on Interpleader.
	There were so many things going on all the time.
	In any event, we'd largely given up.
	It was just about to get dark.
	And then one of the PLTs came out of the area and he came up and Tamara was with me and a couple of others and said, they're ready to go.
	And Tamara's like, well, then let's do it.
	So they called in the big heavy lift equipment to lift the barricade, and they end up bringing a tow truck as well, a flatbed tow truck, because you may have saw in one of those pictures, they have these orange mechanical devices that are actually bolted to the ground, and when the vehicle drives over it, it comes up behind it.
	So we were waiting, it was now getting dark, and it was typical, as you get into four or five o 'clock, six o 'clock, The number of Ottawa residents and others that would start to converge in the downtown would significantly increase each night.
	This was typical of that.
	When the trucks and the heavy equipment arrive, they've got yellow flashing lights, they have backup alarms.
	That caused even more people to come.
	Because we were anticipating moving the trucks up past the War Memorial to Wellington, we needed The police were obviously handling this part of it, more police to create a safety corridor so that no one got run over.
	And as the one vehicle backed up and its alarm was very loud, people started to rush in.
	Tamara had been removing...
	from the barricades the signs no one out the police were smart not to go and start taking signs down it was Tamara she was recognized so she would place the signs over on another railing by the senate to get the barricades ready to be removed safely without controversy hopefully just as the equipment was going people rushed behind the tow truck because they seemed to think that the police were about to do something bad to the truckers i was talking to them Tamara was individually talking to groups of people.
	It's okay.
	This is a cooperative move.
	We're trying to clear this intersection.
	The truckers want to move up to Wellington.
	And then people would sit on a barricade.
	Tamara would go talk to them.
	They'd apologize.
	Get off the barricade.
	She'd turn around and different people were on another barricade.
	And then the police were further in.
	Tamara and I were trying to talk to as many people as we could to explain that it was okay.
	This is a cooperative move.
	We're just trying to clear an intersection.
	And then the people just swarmed in.
	And that's where the video plays.
	Okay, so let's see what's going on.
	Can you pull up these HRF401587?
	It's going to bring back memories.
	High visibility coat, which they jokingly called my trucker camo.
	This is going to be near the cenotaph.
	The true go strong and free.
	The true go strong and free.
	From far and wide to Canada, we stand on God.
	Okay, I know exactly where that is now.
	Cenotaph is right there behind, to the left, I think.
	Yeah, Cenotaph is behind.
	Oh, that's the Dance Dance Revolution is down to the right, and then Wellington is up and to the left.
	This is a national emergency that you have to invoke the Emergencies Act for.
	The violence.
	I'd like to move back to your statement.
	Please.
	So it's interesting.
	You see, Leon is like no comment, no judgment.
	That's what it was.
	We only have about 15 minutes.
	Commissioner Rouleau, you make your own determination.
	I'm trying to speed it up a bit.
	Excuse me, that video was what date?
	That would have been on the Thursday, sir.
	That would have been February 10th, the evening.
	That would have been about 5 o 'clock.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Now, you said out, starting at page 9 of your statement, your dealings with Mr. French and leading up to a meeting with him on February 11th where he presented to you a draft letter from the mayor and you went and got...
	Instructions, and you discussed it with the board, and the board agreed essentially to go ahead with the proposed deal to move trucks out of the residential areas.
	That's correct, and the proposal was never...
	Just to move up to Wellington.
	It was always recognized that probably only 25% of the vehicles could go to Wellington.
	And the rest would have to leave.
	The more dominant theme of the plan was for the vehicles to move to the remote locations at Embram, Exit 88 and Armpriar and to have expanded the shuttle buses that were already running.
	And there was also, this is a very important point and I don't know that it's come out yet, is...
	A lot of people who were there, the truckers, never planned to stay that long.
	But the Canadians they met along the way and the stories and the heartache that they heard and the trust and plea that they heard from those people, many of the truckers I talked to felt this obligation to stay as long as they could.
	But they also needed a way to leave gracefully and respectfully.
	And one of the things we recognized was that if 75% of the vehicles were going to be given an opportunity to leave and go either to Embram or Armprior, that some would actually use it as an opportunity to go home and do so respectfully.
	So that was an important part of that.
	Who remembers the German trucker?
	I forget his name.
	That's what you referred to in your statement.
	Crying as he was compelled to leave.
	Correct.
	In that regard, if you can bring up, please, HRF...
	It's funny, when I went down, I was down on the Monday for the first day.
	And I said to everybody, how long are you staying here?
	As long as it takes, is what they said at that point in time.
	And then I remembered that German trucker crying because he was forced to leave because they were going to threaten to cancel his insurance.
	Effectively compel him to fire or stop paying all of his truckers, sub-truckers.
	I forget what his name was, but I remember him crying as he had to pull his truck away.
	It starts at the top February 12th from you.
	It's a reverse chronological order, so that would be the latest response.
	I had...
	Prepared following the board meeting on the Friday evening where the board decided to approve the deal.
	They were all there in person except for Mr. Dichter who was incapacitated due to his broken leg and had to stay at the Sheridan but we had him joined by conference call.
	And because of the significance of this even though on the Friday they had all agreed to proceed with the deal with the mayor.
	I wanted to get something documented.
	So I sent an email to all of the board.
	You can see where it says, right just by where the mouse is, a little bit up and to the left, a GIDG.
	That's part of Bridget Belton's email address.
	You'll also see, you can see Mr. Dichter's emails on this as well.
	It's the first one on the CC line, actually.
	And I received responses from everyone approving it.
	It makes reference to the arrangement with the mayor.
	The plan was, how are we going to get the truckers on side?
	So the decision was made to do this Freedom Manifest document where Tamara, with all the board members signing at the bottom, would say it's time.
	We've had an impact.
	It's time to do something differently.
	It's time for us to focus our presence on Wellington, where our beef is with the federal government, for them, and for them to have the other trucks move out to the other locations.
	And if you can just scroll up, please.
	There, stop right there.
	You say in that email from February 12, 347, you...
	Indicate that the drafting committee had looked into a way to draft a document that would describe the Freedom Convoy's overall demands of all governments and a way forward strategy.
	And so they were working on the broader document for review by the board tomorrow, but you're circulating a draft.
	And it was intended to be a communication for the captains and truckers regarding the deal with the mayor.
	And then you say towards the end of that line, after Wellington and Elgin, while at the same time taking away the excuse that Trudeau wants, Remember,
	we are trying to block Trudeau from having the justification to cause the police to use the new emergency powers against the truckers and allow the truckers to stay here in Ottawa for as long as it takes, etc.
	Now, this is February 12th.
	At that point in time, did you anticipate use of the Emergencies Act?
	Yes.
	I couldn't believe it.
	I couldn't foresee that.
	The draft, can we pull up HRF40E?
	You're well, Patrick.
	I apologize, Mr. Elon, Commissioner.
	I'd just like to make a note of the record, or perhaps a small objection.
	Ms. Belton testified yesterday on the mayor's deal, and it was her understanding that it was all completely fake news, I think is the terminology she used.
	And as I understand it, Mr. Wilson is now testifying that this deal was sent to Ms. Belton as one of the convoy organizers.
	So he's allowed testifying to what his experience was?
	I don't think that was put to her by the commission nor the convoy organizers.
	Objection noted.
	He's allowed testifying to his knowledge.
	We're all working very hard, Herculean, and we're missing lots of things at times just because of the pace but thank you very much very important point that it's unfortunate we didn't hear from his help um on that issue I think at this stage, let's hear the evidence, and maybe that's a point that can be made later.
	But I'm sorry, you want to also involve yourself in this?
	Yes, sir.
	I don't think the issue is whether or not Ms. Belton is being impeached.
	Frankly, I don't think it matters.
	So this commission doesn't need to make a finding of credibility of Ms. Belton.
	I understand my friend's concern.
	No, there he is.
	There he is.
	Right in the middle.
	Arms folded.
	That's Brendan Miller.
	I don't really even think it's a concern, sir.
	It's not material.
	People are allowed testifying differently.
	HRF 40 is 1285.
	Good morning, Bob.
	How goes the battle?
	Okay, so it's going to get interesting.
	It's going to get interesting when you have more partisan...
	And this is...
	Cross-examining attorneys.
	The Freedom Manifest that was, I think there were, you said there were about 800 copies made up and distributed.
	We begin our Freedom Convoy with a clear destination.
	Truckers?
	About 850 copies were printed.
	For our families and our neighbors in our country.
	We decided to go old school Gutenberg, you know, printed press.
	In fact, I took a little video and had forwarded it to Dean French so that he could see that progress was being made on...
	The efforts and the plan to get the information out to the truckers.
	Chris Barber, Tamara and others went out onto the streets and met with truckers and the road captains handed these out.
	Tamara even went out to Arnprar and Embram to inspect them to make sure that they had sufficient capacity to take all the...
	75% of the vehicles and to meet with the owners of those lands to make sure they were comfortable with that many vehicles showing up in the coming days.
	Okay, and I'm not going to ask they be pulled up now, but just for the record...
	This is not a trial.
	...we have the exchange of letters between the mayor...
	There will be no sanctions.
	...which we've seen.
	The mayor's letter is HRF 401264.
	And Ms. Leach's letter is HRF401275.
	And can I now ask to bring up HRF401323?
	Two things.
	The guy said, can they speak any faster?
	No, because the judge Rouleau, the commissioner, needs him to speak slowly.
	I suspect there could be perjury if someone lies under oath.
	But this is not a trial.
	This is a commission.
	Open letter to our premiers who are elected and appointed officials.
	February 17th.
	It's a long letter, but I take it that the idea of this was still part of the exit strategy to do something.
	To make contact with government officials so that people could be satisfied that you'd done all you could do to that point.
	Is that fair?
	Yeah, it is.
	And I think what we were hoping would happen is that the success that we felt we could achieve with the arrangement and the agreement with the mayor, and because if it was successful, we were going to have had the downtown cleared out by the Wednesday but for Wellington.
	Up to the Sir John A and, you know, a defined area, which they actually in the logistics meeting shorted up because of the issues about the hospital and so on access.
	And the truckers agreed to make it even a smaller area.
	Was that it would focus the protest now on the federal government and then the federal government would be encouraged by the fact that the truckers proved to be honest brokers.
	And that would lead to a meeting with some federal ministers.
	There was not a strong desire to have a meeting with the Prime Minister.
	It was more with the ministers.
	and that we could agree on a process of formally presenting briefs and information and scientific information to support and comparative information.
	Because Canada was an anomaly at this time in terms of our mandates.
	The other G7 countries weren't doing these things to try and persuade the government to review its policies.
	Thank you.
	Keith Wilson on the right.
	Leon, attorney for the commission on the left.
	Statement page 10 and 11, you outline Your understanding of what happened in terms of the movement of the trucks outside from the residential area, either to leave or up to Wellington, correct?
	Yeah, well, I was directly involved on the Monday, and my text messages and my phone logs confirm it.
	My text messages with Sergeant Lee, with the Mayor's Chief of Staff, and with the City Manager.
	The reports I was getting from the ground were that the police were not in a position.
	They were getting blocked at different phases by the police.
	They finally got some trucks moved.
	We were ready to move trucks again on the Tuesday.
	Chris had worked and others, Joe Jantz and Ryan and Dale and others had gone out and worked hard to get a whole bunch of trucks ready to move on the Tuesday.
	Police completely blocked it.
	We now see all the back communications and infighting that was going on.
	We didn't know that at the time, obviously.
	And then again on the Wednesday.
	And the other thing is we realized when we discussed it, and I listened to the road captains and to the Chris Barbers, is they felt that once the big trucks moved, there would be stragglers, but they wouldn't want to be alone.
	And that they would either leave or they may go and infill a little bit.
	So we recognize that.
	And there was also discussion that if, and this is controversial, but there was also discussion that if we get down to a few areas where everybody else has either gone up to Wellington or gone out to the base camps or gone home and we have a few holdouts, that...
	Freedom Corp.
	would no longer provide any supplies, fuel, or materials to those areas to incentivize them to follow the lead of everyone else who was leaving downtown.
	Thank you.
	I see I've gone up for my hour and a half, Commissioner.
	I have two more points to deal with.
	Sure.
	Thank you.
	Hurry up.
	I don't know what points he's dealt with up to now other than setting up broad facts.
	This is a letter that you sent to Chief Bell stating your view on the powers that the police were given under the Emergency Act.
	And you took issue with whether there was the power to prevent peaceful protesters from coming into Ottawa to protest.
	Correct.
	And just to clarify, the letter is signed by Ms. Chipiak, but I did review the letter.
	And we also had at least four or five other lawyers.
	from the Justice Centre reviewing the same statutory regulatory instruments and we had all reached the same conclusion that the description that the government officials and the police were using to describe the measures was not even close to what the emergency proclamation actually said and that as long as you were not seeking to interfere with international trade disrupt Or interfere with critical infrastructure or
	engage in serious acts of violence against persons.
	You continue to have the right of political advocacy, protest and dissent.
	And so the labeling by the police chief and others that any Canadian citizen was no longer allowed to walk in downtown Ottawa or hold a sign in front of their parliament.
	Was not legally accurate and was against the Charter.
	And I think we've seen the video that's, and you don't have to bring it up, HRF 50274 that you did with Mr. Barber to essentially giving that opinion and telling whoever saw the video that they could and should come to Ottawa.
	And continue lawful protest.
	We were in the seventh floor boardroom at the Sheridan.
	I just finished briefing the board on the legal review that had been completed of the proclamations.
	And Mr. Barber turned to me and said, come over here, sit on the arm of the chair, let's do a tick-tock.
	And it literally happened that quick.
	Making that TikTok video...
	They're talking about an actual TikTok video.
	Was it your understanding that there was about to be an enforcement initiative by the police to remove people from the red zone?
	I didn't know for sure.
	What I did know is that there was numerous times where...
	Information would come into the operations centre from various police sources that a raid was imminent, and it happened many times.
	And then the raids either did occur in part, such as Coventry, or other evenings where they would go and take firewood and fuel or food from one of the blocks.
	But it did appear from the build-up we were seeing on the ground.
	It was obvious, and the information we had about the number of, I don't know, there's some Lansdowne Park or someplace had been set up as a processing centre, so it seemed that there was a shift occurring.
	And did you have a concern about the fact that if that was going to happen, you were suggesting to people to come back into the red zone?
	Potentially be in danger when the enforcement actions start.
	Did he even define the red zone?
	No, because I'm a Canadian and I never imagined that our government, our federal government, would use that level of force against non-violent, peaceful Canadians.
	And just a couple of final points.
	How'd that go there?
	Leon, not the way you thought?
	I heard Ms. Belton's evidence that her hotel bill had been paid by Mr. Borgoat.
	Borgoat?
	Borgoat.
	Borgoat.
	Do you guys know how to speak French?
	Have you ever met Mr. Borgoat?
	Yes, I met Joseph a number of times.
	He's an amazing human being and very concerned Canadian.
	But I have no knowledge of any bills he was paying.
	Who paid your hotel bill?
	Who would have paid my hotel bill?
	What on earth is that relevant for?
	I'm pretty sure the first hotel bill went on my firm visa card, and then I was reimbursed by the Justice Center.
	The Jermaine was on my visa card and was reimbursed.
	Who paid for your hotel?
	Did they pay for your breakfast as well?
	I believe, I don't know this with certainty, by Chris Guerra through Adopt-A-Trucker.
	Thank you.
	And do you have any other information about Mr. Grugo, about contributions he may have made to the Freedom Convoy in terms of how much or what for?
	No, I do know that he helped pay for some meeting rooms.
	I don't think when Mr. Morazzo and Mr. Bulford were holding their press conferences at the Lord Elgin, I don't think he paid for that, but he might have.
	And it was mostly the only first-hand knowledge I have was hotel rooms.
	And then there's two other documents that I want to ask you about.
	The first one is HRF 6...
	Zeros.
	Just pull up the documents.
	I was explained that the reason why some attorneys have stopped asking to pull up documents is because it takes forever and they have such a limited time for examinations.
	HRF 6083.
	Oh, they have nothing.
	They got something.
	If they have nothing, that's something for having abusively invoked the Emergencies Act.
	I've got my rubbing stone here.
	And this was a press release February 17, 2022, from the Freedom Convoy, indicating that they did not support any of the comments being made by Mr. King.
	I may have asked you this, but had you met Mr. King?
	I knew of Mr. King.
	Prior, over a year prior to going to Ottawa, he had a court matter in Red Deer where he was all over social media saying that he found this magic recipe for defeating all government laws.
	And I researched it, read the court's decision, and it was clear he was misunderstanding how the law works.
	So I knew of him from then, and I knew that he was a very loud voice.
	When I found out that he was here, I told him I was.
	The client said I wasn't prepared to be in the same room with him.
	There was one instance where he was brought into a room, and I immediately requested that he leave.
	The reason was that I had heard of his language at times, and maybe it was unfair to him.
	Maybe I was duped by the media.
	I don't know.
	But there was innuendo of violence, and it was completely unacceptable to me, but more importantly, Ms. Leach.
	Because the legacy media was repeating it so many times and it was needing to be explained so many times, the board made the decision to issue this press release.
	This is the only press release of this nature that was issued where they identified a person and made it clear that they did not agree with, as it says, he does not speak for us.
	We expressly condemn any talk of violence from him or others.
	Thank you.
	And then the final document, HRF60513, page 3. I just wanted to ask you about this.
	I took flack for saying Pat King was mistaken in what he thought he accomplished on that television show.
	The radio, the podcast, Who Wasn't?
	Right there.
	If you can roll it up a little more.
	They're right there.
	I believe this is at least dated at the top February 9th.
	Did you appear on Fox News?
	That's correct.
	And how did that come about?
	I received on a daily basis 10, 20 or more media requests.
	Everyone from the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, France 24, Belgium, Korea, Japan, and every Canadian news outlet.
	I did agree to do one interview, and I agreed to go on Fox with Premier Peckford.
	That's Premier Peckford.
	If you're going to do one interview, you may as well do it on the biggest outlet in the States.
	Thank you, sir.
	Those are my questions, and thank you, Commissioner.
	All right, that was exquisitely boring and very neutral.
	Okay, so we're pretty close to the time for the morning break, so I'm going to take the 15-minute break, and we'll come back and start with our list of cross-examination.
	Oh, yeah, the cross-examinations are when it's going to get interesting.
	Ottawa Coalition.
	I don't know if I'm going to be able to kill 15 minutes, people.
	Am I going to be able to fill 15 minutes of pause with talky-talky?
	I think we all know the answer to that.
	Okay.
	My ears hurt because these things put pressure on the upper part of my ear and the leg behind.
	Yeah, so there's a break.
	They are meticulously punctual.
	With their breaks.
	So we are 15. That's going to be 10, 28, 33. By 11, 33 on my watch, we're going to come back.
	It's fascinating to hear all of it.
	It's a slow and boring process.
	And I do say process, not process.
	I forgot that I'm going live on Atwood this afternoon.
	And I have to...
	Okay, I'll look up to that.
	I'll look in that afterwards.
	I'm going to be live.
	Hold on.
	Let me just get the exact time.
	Sean Atwood.
	I believe I'm at 7 o 'clock UK time, which is 2 o 'clock our time.
	Oh, I'm going to have to figure things out today.
	Okay.
	What happened this morning?
	Do I want to...
	That just raised it a little too much, but let me see if I can show you what we're looking at.
	My new setup.
	I've got a whiteboard behind so that I can know which sponsors I have done videos for during the week.
	And I've now propped my camera up in the little nook, cranny, the slot on the top of this whiteboard, which used to belong to my children, which I have now misappropriated.
	Oh, I will kill the 15 minutes.
	But not just to ramble and say nothing.
	We're going to talk about an unrelated issue, which we're going to talk about on Sunday.
	Okay, so just summarize what happened this morning.
	The lawyer was the lawyer for the commission.
	The commission's role in all of this is to investigate the facts.
	Get the facts out there.
	And then the commissioner, Justice Rouleau, writes a report with his findings, recommendations, etc.
	So in a sense, the commissioner or the commission...
	Shouldn't really be overtly partisan.
	It shouldn't be defending the government overtly, nor should it be defending the convoy overtly.
	There, just get the facts out.
	Commissioner will determine whether or not the government did right or did wrong.
	So non-adversarial, as we've seen, very boring, neutral.
	I'm not even sure what was proven there other than to lay out the ground facts.
	Where it's going to get interesting is when partisan attorneys, and I mean partisan in a Non-insulting way.
	Representing a party.
	The Ottawa Coalition, the lawyers representing the people of Ottawa, they're not going to be friendly with Keith Wilson.
	Oh, Mr. Wilson, did you not think that you were causing a great amount of distress and disruption to Ottawa?
	Did you not care?
	Did you think that your rights to protest trump the rights of the citizens to freely and peaceably enjoy their property, not to have constant audible violence?
	Did you know that some of the convoy members were harassing people?
	That's where it's going to get adversarial.
	The OPP, the OPS, it's probably going to get adversarial because there's going to be an issue as to whether or not there was a deal, whether or not Keith was negotiating for people he could negotiate with, whether or not they actually had a deal as he professed to have had, whether or not there was a breakthrough, whether or not they were complying, etc., etc.
	So it will get adversarial, and it will get interesting when it gets adversarial.
	For now, what substantive changes to testimony?
	What substantive changes to testimony if a trial?
	It would only be different in style and substance.
	It would not be materially different.
	If this were a trial, we've seen trials.
	It would probably be roughly the same format.
	There might be more objections.
	There might be more back and forth among attorneys, but similar process.
	Viva, awesome interview with Dr. Malone.
	See further response.
	For you and Robert Barnes on Locals, J. Ash 62. Absolutely.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, yesterday's interview was, if I do say so myself, exclusive on Rumble.
	I'm going to try to snip and clip some good highlights, but it was fantastic.
	I sort of not took too much time.
	We had 90 minutes.
	I had some remaining questions, but it's a good excuse to get Dr. Malone to come back on.
	Okay.
	Side news.
	Side news, people.
	Let me just go.
	Cripe.
	I haven't read the details yet.
	Well, I seem to have closed down the article.
	It would appear, let's just, let's just, the big news of the day.
	David DePop, the individual who allegedly assaulted Paul Pelosi, House Speaker's husband, Nancy Pelosi, after the criminal complaint, which we went over yesterday?
	Criminal complaint which details what happened, details interviews that De Popp allegedly gave after having been mirandized, you know, testify to the effect of what he intended to do, yada, yada.
	He's pleaded not guilty.
	Let me just pull up a decent article here.
	18 hours ago, 10 hours.
	Let's take up ABC News.
	Seems to be the most recent of the bunch.
	He's pleaded not guilty.
	Which is going to start raising some serious eyebrows.
	Suspect in Paul Pelosi attack pleads not guilty to state charges.
	DePOP, 42, faces a slew of state and federal charges.
	Suspect told officers he wanted to hurt Nancy Pelosi.
	Court documents show, according to a federal affidavit, DePOP, 42, allegedly told San Francisco police the originally...
	I recommend nature-made vitamins because I trust them.
	I want to hear that.
	To break the House Speaker's kneecaps.
	Okay, this is the latest news.
	The criminal complaint yesterday contained statements from DePAP which seem incriminating.
	End the story right there.
	If DePAP goes a full Daryl Brooks and represents himself, we'll see how that goes.
	But I have a feeling we're going to start seeing some requests or allegations of compelled, coerced...
	Coerced confessions.
	We'll see.
	The man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer last week was arraigned in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon.
	DePap from Richmond, California, is facing a slew of state charges, including attempted murder, residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, as well as federal charges, etc., etc.
	He walked into the courtroom on Tuesday wearing an orange jumpsuit and a sling on his right arm, having dislocated his shoulder after the alleged attack.
	Thank you.
	It's interesting.
	They're using the word alleged.
	Through his public defender, he pleaded not guilty to state charges and denied all allegations.
	I mean, this is going to make people...
	They come up with a criminal complaint which allegedly contains an alleged purported Mirandized confession or a statement after having been Mirandized from the accused confessing to everything.
	The POP has been ordered to be held without bail and a preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Friday.
	This would be one of those cases where I could...
	Given the nature, accusations, I could wholeheartedly support pretrial detention.
	He is expected to be arraigned on federal charges against him on Wednesday.
	A protective order that states the POP can make no contact with either Nancy...
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, it was signed by a judge.
	Well done.
	That must have been a...
	A brain scratcher to issue.
	According to the federal complaint, we read this yesterday, DePop allegedly used a hammer to break it to the residence around 2 a.m.
	He went upstairs looking for, you know, where's Nancy?
	We went over all of this yesterday.
	According to the complaint, we went over also what does not necessarily, or what leaves room for questions in that complaint.
	The door was opened.
	The front door was opened and police officers saw a 42-year-old DePop and an 82-year-old Pelosi.
	Struggling over a hammer, and the cops asked them, what are you guys doing?
	Are you playing a game?
	And gave them enough time to allow DePop to allegedly snatch the hammer, strike Pelosi in the head, crack his skull, before he was subdued.
	I got questions.
	Who opened the door, and how in the hell did any police officer...
	What are you guys doing?
	It's 2.30 in the morning.
	Fighting over a hammer after we got a police call from Nancy Pelosi's husband.
	I think I'll just ask a few more questions while you guys seem to be grappling over a hammer.
	Not immediate taser.
	I will tase you, sir, and then I will ask you what you're doing afterwards.
	Yeah, here we go.
	Well, this is just describing it.
	They let him in.
	Two police officers arrived.
	Two police officers arrived and minutes later and entered the home, encountering the Pop and Pelosi struggling over hammers.
	The officers told the men to drop the hammer.
	At which point...
	This is not even what we read in the complaint, but this makes sense.
	He told the men to drop the hammer?
	They know it's Paul Pelosi!
	Oh my...
	Okay.
	The officers later secured the hammer, a roll of tape, white rope, zip ties, as well as a pair of rubber gloves, rubber and cloth gloves for the crime scene, according to the complaint.
	Struck twice with the hammer, hospitalized, surgery, full recovery.
	He was asked questions on his way to the hospital, etc.
	While being questioned by police, DePop stated that he was planning to hold...
	We read all of this yesterday.
	Hold her hostage, ask her questions.
	If she told the truth, he would let her go.
	If he didn't, he was going to kneecap her.
	Batshit crazy delusional, but now he's pleading not guilty.
	Denying everything.
	Let's see here.
	I think we can all agree with that, which is why some people might, you know, not want to necessarily jump on the bandwagon that right-wing MAGA Republican extremists linked to January 6th election deniers, blah, blah, blah.
	Weaponizing this is a form of escalation of political rhetoric.
	The House Speaker were specifically targets, Jenkins said.
	Nancy Pelosi gave an update on her husband's condition.
	He's making steady progress, what will be a long recovery process.
	She added her family is most grateful for thousands of messages conveying concerns, prayers, and warm wishes since the horrific attack.
	So he's pleading guilty.
	Not guilty.
	Not guilty.
	Which is going to ruffle feathers.
	Cause people to ask questions.
	He's got a public defender.
	I doubt they're going to try to wage any battle in the court of public opinion.
	This would not be one of those cases that will be waged successfully in the court of public opinion.
	Steve and Earline says, we were told...
	The police was called for a wellness check, but the 911 call was released.
	So they couldn't go with a wellness check.
	No, I mean, the initial reports was that there was a wellness check and then the police call came in.
	But again, the irony is that oftentimes initial reports are less accurate than when the details come out.
	The flip side is some people are going to say the initial reports are the honest ones before the cleanup crew can come in.
	So that's the back and forth in terms of...
	Some people will rely on the initial statements because that's before spin, that's before cleanup, that's before whatever.
	Others will say the initial reports are always the most inaccurate.
	As the facts come in, then you get a clearer picture.
	It'll be a little bit of A and a little bit of B in this.
	But what we're seeing now is we've read the criminal complaint.
	It leaves some questions open.
	It seems to put to rest.
	Some of the initial misreporting, and I'm not saying right-wing conspiracy theories, it puts to rest some of the initial reporting, which might have generated some people theorizing that the attacker was allegedly found in his underwear.
	Apparently, it was shorts.
	So the initial reports by mainstream media, which said that DePOP was in his underwear, led to some theorizing that this was not a political job, this was something else.
	The criminal complaint seems to have put a rest to those theories.
	Still leaves some very, very big questions on its own four corners of the drafting of the document.
	So, that's the latest.
	And it's causing some people to hypothesize as to the rumorings that Paul Pelosi's recent DUI, there was allegedly at one point discussion of a passenger in the vehicle, and that somehow...
	That somehow disappeared.
	Let me just go Google that.
	Pelosi DUI passenger vehicle.
	and see if anything comes up.
	I don't want to go to New York Times.
	Let me see.
	I'm just going to see if there's an article from The Hill.
	The initial rumorings was that there was a passenger.
	And then that story might have just been totally inaccurate.
	Who knows?
	It's funny.
	I'm looking at a Fox News article.
	There still seems to be no mention of a passenger.
	That was the initial rumor.
	Doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
	Initial rumors, misreporting gets clarified as facts come out, but then that opens the door to other people.
	Coming to other theories as well.
	Ekero says, Viva Fry, the government-approved news is pure trash.
	No, my mistake, trash has a value, even if it's barely existent.
	Okay, so that's it.
	That's the latest on DePap.
	After the Mirandai statement, apparent confession to everything, criminal complaint, pleading not guilty.
	Who knows why?
	It might be not guilty by reason of insanity.
	It might be not guilty for any other reason, but...
	Wait, hold on a second.
	Do you plead not guilty for reason of insanity?
	Let me make sure I don't make a mistake.
	My expertise was never criminal law.
	Not guilty by reason of insanity.
	Okay, I don't know if you have to specify that.
	That's not guilty by reason of insanity.
	Or if it's just not guilty and then you have to prove it.
	So I don't know.
	I don't know.
	But we'll see where it goes.
	That's the latest on the DePOP story, which we'll be following.
	All right.
	Back to StreamYard because we should be coming back any moment now.
	Who's going to be up for cross-examination of Keith Wilson?
	I don't know.
	It's going to be interesting.
	I'm going to probably put myself on pause and mute for a bit and go eat some food because I have yet to eat breakfast.
	Flipping Pudge is waking me up at like 6:30 in the morning, whining for food.
	Whining for food.
	And now it's not even the whining that wakes me up.
	It's the anticipation of her whining that wakes me up.
	And it's like, it's whining that you can hear through the floor.
	I put pillows and 15, 15, 15 minutes almost up, thick comforter over my head.
	And I still hear her.
	So, oh, there we go.
	Look at this.
	Man, man, man, that judge is punctual.
	In court, 15 minutes is always 30 minutes.
	Just knock this down a little bit.
	There we go.
	The commission has reconvened, la commission reprend.
	That woman speaking always sounds like she's got sinusitis or something.
	And thus far, by the way, Rouleau has been very good.
	I like him.
	Okay, the first...
	Up is for the Government of Canada.
	Oh, this is going to be good.
	Okay.
	I can't go eat breakfast yet.
	Government of Canada is going to be partisan to justify everything Justin Trudeau did.
	Paid for by our tax dollars, by the way.
	You know how much this commission costs a day?
	I don't know.
	I'm going to ask somebody.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	I'm Robert McKinnon for the Government of Canada Council.
	Let's see this.
	Mr. Wilson, I just want to take you to a point that you made at the end of your testimony with Commission Council.
	I don't know that we have to turn up the document, but it was in reference to an email of February 12th that you had sent.
	And the line in there that I just want to clarify is where you say, we are trying to block Trudeau from having the jurisdiction to cause the police to use...
	The new emergency powers against the truckers and to allow the truckers to stay here in Ottawa as long as it takes.
	Do you remember that line?
	I think you misspoke.
	I think you meant to say justification.
	Does it say jurisdiction?
	Oh, having the...
	Okay, sorry.
	Justification.
	Good memory.
	So, is that not a reference to the declaration of emergency that was made the day before by the Ontario Premier?
	No.
	It does not speak into the future.
	It says to use the new emergency powers, which just came into effect the day before.
	I had lawyers with me on the ground.
	I also had teams of lawyers back at their normal place of business.
	When an issue would arise, I would delegate it out.
	I would say, okay, this team in Toronto, I want you to review this.
	We even prepared a draft judicial review application for both the city's emergency proclamation and the provincial government one.
	Media assessment is, what does this change?
	What impact does it have on the rights of the people on the ground?
	And we concluded that it was largely benign.
	Okay.
	What I'm saying is that those words refer to the new emergency's power in the present tense.
	The declaration from the federal government came on the 14th.
	It was two days before.
	Well, I can help you by telling you what was in my mind.
	And our concern was...
	I believe that it was early in the previous week, by early I mean the Tuesday, and if not Tuesday, the Wednesday for certain, that we started hearing rumours that the federal government was contemplating invoking the Federal Emergencies Act.
	So all of the references in any of the communications that you have at that time would be...
	Unless there's one that's more specific about that.
	We weren't concerned about either the civic one nor the provincial one.
	Can you point me to one document which documents what you're just telling us now?
	It's in his mind!
	It's his opinion!
	Well, first of all, this was not a normal file.
	Right, but you've managed to paper this file.
	Can I finish my answer, please, sir?
	This was not a normal file.
	I did not have opportunity to document things.
	And I'm telling you under oath that at no time was either the Ottawa State of Emergency Declaration nor the Ontario State of Declaration a matter of concern for me and the other lawyers with me.
	We were very concerned about the potential.
	And the rumours we were hearing for the federal government to invoke the Federal Emergencies Act.
	Who told you the federal government was considering using the emergencies?
	Are you sure you want to ask that question?
	I can't remember the specific individual, but I do remember the source that they relayed.
	And they advised that they had heard from some MPs that there was active discussion over at the Parliament about...
	The Prime Minister considering using the Emergencies Act.
	So some MPs had shared with the people involved in the convoy and they reported that to me.
	Do you have any document you can refer this commission to today?
	I might, but I can't recall any offhand.
	And you can't recall any offhand?
	You can't recall a description of the document or anything like that?
	I'll get you on.
	Key and Betsy tweets.
	No.
	That's correct.
	All right, I'd like to continue with just confirming some statements from your witness summary.
	You'd agree that there was a broad array of groups that were part of this convoy.
	Correct.
	And you subdivided them into three groups: those who came to support the movement, those who came to take it over, And those who came to seek a piece of the $10 million?
	That was my assessment.
	Probably I reached that conclusion in my mind within, I would say, three to five days of being here.
	I had had sufficient interactions and repeated interactions with different individuals from different groups that that was the pattern that I felt was present.
	And you also have said that the convoy attracted a lot of strange people.
	Yeah.
	And in those people, you mentioned the Coven of Witches.
	That's what they called themselves, and they were doing weird seance things and burning things in the lobby.
	And conspiracy groups like Digilo?
	Yeah.
	Digilo?
	I think you mean Diagalon.
	Digilo.
	It not only consisted of a broad array of groups, but it attracted other strange groups that, at least as you've described them, correct?
	Like moths to a flame.
	So you'd agree that some of these individuals, we've heard a little bit already, may have tried to hijack the message or even try and control perhaps parts of the convoy group.
	Is that correct?
	Yes, and it was a constant effort by Ms. Leach, Mr. Barber and others.
	To fend them off, so to speak.
	And I do recall reading documents in the record where CSIS and the RCMP had also intercepted communications and reached the same conclusion that there was a concerted effort by the mainstream group to resist these hangers-ons.
	And Mr. Barber testified yesterday that he could not control...
	Truckers generally, they're very independently minded and certainly not the groups that were coming.
	Would you agree with that assessment?
	That's correct.
	Yes, I would agree.
	And there's in Mr. Aros' interview summary that you've been taken to a little bit, a reference to at least a quote that you supposedly mentioned concerning Taking back our freedoms group?
	Yes.
	Did you refer to them as bad actors?
	I don't think I would have referred to...
	No, I don't know that I would have referred to them as bad actors.
	Okay.
	He says you did.
	And bad actors and manipulators, he says.
	I would have characterized, without a doubt, some of the individuals involved with that group as being manipulative, 100%.
	So, even within your group, the convoy group and the leadership that you've mentioned, there were, would you say, sort of divisions or factions, I would say?
	Absolutely.
	It was incredibly diverse.
	Remember that if you walked into the operations centre at any given moment and said, how many people in this room knew one another before January 15th?
	And the only two people would put up their hands would be Chris Guerra and Chad Eros.
	These people all came together for the first time.
	All right.
	And you mentioned the negotiations with the City of Ottawa in the days leading up to February 14th.
	Yes.
	To move the trucks out of residential neighbourhoods to take...
	At least a bit of a valve to some of the temperature that had been raised with all the complaints and issues that arose from that.
	That's correct?
	Yeah, and the tensions with the police and the political tensions.
	It was time to de-escalate and reduce the footprint and relieve the pressure.
	But that was never intended to rid the city.
	Core of the gridlock of 30-ton trucks or resolve the grievances of all the various protesting groups.
	There was no gridlock.
	I've described how I was able to travel freely.
	Well, let's just say you're not saying that it was empty of 30-ton trucks sitting in front of Wellington.
	It went from gridlock to having trucks.
	The idea was to concentrate, and this was discussed in the negotiations with the mayor, the mayors.
	The message that I received through Mr. French was that he recognized that the grievance, I think it's even in his letter if I'm not mistaken, that was with the federal government primarily was the triggering event, the federal mandates that you've heard about.
	But your deal...
	Sorry, sir, I haven't finished and that was slowing down because commissioners reminded me that I'm speaking too fast.
	So it was recognized that...
	Trucks would remain on Wellington.
	And to be clear, there was no understanding that it would be a grant of immunity.
	It was recognized that at any time after those trucks repositioned, the police could come and move them out.
	It was recognized that there would be an interference in the flow of traffic on Wellington.
	But I note, because I was up there the other day, it's blocked today.
	I'm just getting to the point that the deal was never intended to resolve all these grievances and protests and to get rid of the trucks from the city core, correct?
	No, it was absolutely to remove the pressure on the downtown residents and businesses, focus the attention on the grievance with the federal government, build from the success of...
	de-escalation and negotiation to incentivize and encourage the federal government to come to the table, open up a dialogue, and set a pretext for the truckers to go home.
	He doesn't like that answer.
	Would you be surprised that the mayor would say that the deal was to just release some of the tension from the neighbourhoods?
	It did nothing to deal with the core issue of getting rid of the trucks in front of a Wellington.
	I don't know.
	Do you want me to repeat my answer a third time?
	No, I don't need that, but I've got your answer.
	So you don't agree that this deal was intended to resolve all these issues and gridlock on Wellington?
	Complex problems require complex solutions.
	Complex solutions require phasing.
	So you had faith.
	I had faith, I had confidence in the goodwill of...
	Do we have an agreement, a written agreement that said they would move?
	Good question.
	I have been able to resolve at least more than 90% of all the litigation files I've been involved in by opening up dialogue between the parties, and I remained optimistic.
	That through applying those skills and those tactics, that we could have had a peaceful resolution and a respectful Canadian dialogue about important policy issues.
	Who were you representing at the negotiations?
	Were you representing the leadership that you mentioned, the directors of that company, the non-profit company, the Freedom 2022?
	Get clear on the names if you're acting here.
	The Vice President, Chris Barber, and the Treasurer, Chad Eros.
	Beyond those people, who were your clients?
	You've described them.
	Beyond those people?
	So you were not acting on behalf of all of the truckers?
	That's correct.
	So you had faith.
	I had faith, and my faith...
	In the same way, I would have quit practicing losser a long time ago if I didn't have faith in the ability of people having civil and respectful discussions to resolve disputes.
	But the objective of that agreement was to move 25% more trucks into the Wellington Street area, so it doesn't do anything to relieve that congestion.
	Fair, but we've already established, sir, that the road's blocked today.
	So I'm not sure if your concern is about the presence of trucks in Canadians or whether your concern is about the road being blocked.
	It can't be the road being blocked because it's still blocked to this day by the government.
	You have heard or you're aware of the evidence given at this inquiry of the racial slurs.
	Well played.
	The intimidation.
	The threats against Ottawa residents and public officials, and the blaring high decibel horns at all times of day and night during these demonstrations in Ottawa.
	You're aware of that evidence, correct?
	I'm aware of the allegations and I'm also aware of what I experienced, which was Canadians, particularly immigrants of all ethnic backgrounds coming together in a very peaceful, respectful way with a deep concern about what the federal government and governments were doing to their rights and, I'm just talking about those particular allegations right now, okay?
	Yes.
	As a lawyer, you would agree that those are not protected as a form of free speech or action.
	Under the Charter.
	I don't know that I'd agree with that.
	You have to be very contextual specific.
	Our free speech rights are very broad.
	And just to say that someone made some vague allegation of racism is not enough for me or anyone else to make a reasoned conclusion.
	You agree.
	Hate speech has been codified in the criminal.
	Yes, and I find the Prime Minister's hate speech towards unvaccinated people and saying how do we deal with these people deeply troubling.
	So you don't agree then that threats against the life of somebody is not a protected form of speech under the Charter?
	Don't ask stupid questions, lawyer.
	I do not believe that anyone...
	Either morally or legally should be threatening anyone else's life, and I have received many death threats myself since representing the Freedom Convoy.
	Okay, so we agree that that's not protected, right?
	We agree.
	It's the law, lawyer.
	Death threats are not protected.
	It's the law.
	Nor is speech that is looking to demean, to an extent, a particular group of people in a serious way.
	Sir, I'm sorry, I don't know.
	I don't know what you mean.
	I'm going to have to object at this time.
	Argumentedly.
	My friend is entirely mischaracterizing the law of Section 2B of the Charter and the decisions in respect to that.
	In fact, the Supreme Court of Canada, of course, has held that hate speech, other than inciting violence, is actually protected by Section 2B of the Charter.
	And so I would ask that my friend...
	They just qualify the evidence.
	...essentially cease putting...
	Errors of law to the witness on public television, sir.
	I am just asking for his view as a lawyer.
	I don't have to continue.
	I have other questions.
	Good.
	Mr. Commissioner, I hate to interrupt the proceedings, but I've received an email communication from our certified transcriptionist asking if parties, when they're making objections from the Florida, please state their name first.
	I don't know why I immediately think I've done something wrong when there's an immediate suspension of interruption.
	I think this is proper cross-examination, so go ahead.
	Okay.
	So, you'd agree trucks do not have charter rights?
	Corporations.
	Yes, obviously.
	And you don't have the right to park somewhere for three weeks.
	Wherever you want, whenever you want.
	I was asked many times, every day, by truckers when they recognized me.
	And they would say, Mr. Wilson, am I allowed to have my truck here?
	And if they were parked in the parking lane, I would say it depends.
	What does the sign say about how long you can park?
	You might get a ticket.
	If they were parked in a driving lane, I have the same response.
	Bylaw offense, at most.
	Well, not at most.
	You tell me this.
	If you were to stop your truck in the number two lane on the 401 and get out and leave it, what would happen?
	And they would say the OPP would come, they would ticket it, and they would tow it away.
	I would say to them, you're in the exact same situation here.
	No, you cannot lawfully park your truck.
	There is an interesting argument because they were told to park there by the police as to whether they might have an officially induced error defense, but that was the answer that I would give them.
	You'd agree it's not a protected right under the Charter?
	Of course.
	And neither is blaring high decibel horns a protected form of speech or action under the Charter.
	Well, there was, and I'm not trying to be cute about this, but you're asking me a very nuanced question, because charter rights, especially when you get into freedom of expression, are nuanced, is there were times where these dance parties on the weekend, and I said this, and it's in the transcript, but when I was before Justice McLean, because we did have a discussion about whether there was an artistic element, and the trucks would start with the different frequency of their horns, would start doing dance beats.
	So there was that.
	But it's clear, Ms. Leach and Mr. Barber were clear that they did not want the horns.
	Before the injunction, the week before the injunction, the truckers agreed amongst themselves to have a quiet time from 8pm to 8am because they wanted to get sleep too.
	The injunction allowed that to be expanded.
	Well...
	People weren't dancing to these horns that were going all hours of the day and night.
	You've heard the evidence from the residents.
	I witnessed people dancing to the horns with the music.
	I'm sorry, sir.
	That's what I saw.
	I'm under oath.
	Yes, at one in the morning?
	Three in the morning?
	Yes.
	I wasn't on the street at three in the morning, so I can't say, but I was at least once or twice leaving.
	You just tried to pivot to show that they were honking all through the night.
	I've got your perspective.
	Yeah, you don't like his perspective.
	Do you recall a second press conference that you gave with others on February 6th?
	So this one, you were more organized.
	I could call up a document, COM, I think it's 50856.
	It's a transcript of that.
	There, you attended, Ms. Litch, Mr. Bulford, Mr. Dictor.
	I'm still trying.
	Is that how you pronounce his name?
	Yes.
	We'll see what happens.
	Do you recall that?
	I believe that was a press conference that Mr. Dichter had asked that was primarily focused on Bitcoin.
	It was in the Sheridan Hotel, and I and Ms. Litch were asked.
	To come to attend the first part of it, to provide a legal update and an operational update.
	I'll be back in a few minutes.
	I'm going to continue.
	On where things were at.
	So these were people who are all part of your group, is that right?
	So Tom Quiggan, Mr. Dichter, Mr. Bulford, Ms. Litch, that they're all part of your convoy group leadership, would you say, or part of your working group?
	They're part of the Freedom Convoy, about as far as I'd be prepared to go.
	Okay.
	And you worked together?
	I worked with lots of people every day on a variety of issues.
	And Tom Quiggan is an ex-military intelligence officer, correct?
	That's my understanding.
	And he worked in the operations center?
	He was mostly...
	I almost never saw him in the operations centre at the Swiss.
	He was almost always at the ARC, and he was doing these, on his own initiative, these daily situation briefs.
	They were not reviewed by anybody.
	In fact, I still haven't even read most of them.
	We had no time to even read them, and he was circulating them to the truckers.
	Now, so he did write daily intelligence reports and special intelligence reports on certain events, correct?
	That's my understanding, yes, and I've read some of them since preparing for this.
	And do you place credence in his assessments?
	Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't.
	Okay, well we could take you to who he is first.
	Page 12 of this document.
	Where it has his Tom McQuiggins, if you go down to line 12. Are we on the right page 12?
	Okay, I've got page 12 here.
	So, yeah, that's it, yeah.
	So, it says, he describes himself, "I'm ex-military intelligence.
	I also worked for the RCMP for six years in national security, the integrated national security enforcement team.
	I'm one of the few court experts in the country on terrorism, and I'm a declared court expert in both..." And he did put out reports every day, right?
	I don't know if it was every day.
	I was a few days in that I learned that these things were occurring.
	I think they were distributed to the block captains, if I'm not mistaken, in the morning.
	You're going to have to get to the point quite quickly.
	You're already over time.
	Okay.
	Well, I'll take you to one of the threat assessments right now.
	Okay.
	One of the daily assessments.
	It's document HRF 123456018.
	So you'll agree that there were people attracted to the convoy, not only strange, but who had violent tendencies, if you could look here.
	So this is on February 3rd.
	This is the day I think you arrive.
	Here, the assessment is Freedom Convoy 2022 assess that potentially violent protesters may arrive in Ottawa to vandalize property.
	Following that, they will then attempt to blame convoy members for the violent actions.
	The protesters are likely to arrive in Ottawa either late Wednesday or Thursday.
	The violent actions are likely intended for Thursday and Friday.
	The actions from the protesters are likely to consist of harassment of citizens and damage to vehicles and properties.
	And then they describe how they're going to be dressed.
	Do you see that?
	Yeah, I recall that.
	In fact, we were...
	I received a separate briefing, and this actually was raised by GoFundMe executives and their legal team on our call on the Thursday, and it was Antifa.
	They had previously come in on occasion and knifed trucks cut the airlines, stabbed knifed tires, and they had announced on social media, I was told, the Antifa group, that they were going to be coming in a larger numbered force and trying to do more damage to the trucks.
	Sorry, if I might ask one more question, Mr. Commissioner.
	It's on a document that the transcript, if you could pull up the transcript again, it's page 14. It has to do with tow trucks, an issue that everybody seems to have an opinion on.
	So this is Tom McWiggin again in the interview.
	That's right.
	So he says concerning tow trucks.
	The short answer is tow truck companies right across the country in Alberta, Ontario, whatever, have either politely refused requests from the government to assist or not so politely refused requests for assistance.
	And if you turn over the page, well, sorry, go down to the bottom of that page first.
	What it shows is the federal government in Ottawa is reaching all the way down to Buffalo, New York, trying to find a tow truck and they can't get one because the...
	Turn it over to the page.
	Trucking industry is somewhat of a brotherhood, much like the military, much like the police, and we do kind of all know each other.
	And no tow truck company that wants to be in business for more than a week after this is going to help out.
	And it goes down a couple more paragraphs.
	So what's actually happening now?
	We have a network of tow truck operators who are talking to each other to see who's being called and who's not.
	Short answer is they're having a hard time getting tow trucks.
	So was the convoy actively trying to prevent the use of tow trucks?
	No, there was never any of the rooms I was in, and I was usually with the leadership at all times, any effort, attempt, or even discussion about reaching out to any tow companies to discourage them.
	Antifa.
	We know from the evidence from the police in the previous days of this inquiry.
	That, in fact, the governments were able to get tow trucks.
	So that contradicts what Mr. McGuigan just said in his press conference on February 6th.
	And corroborates my evidence that sometimes I agreed with him and sometimes I didn't.
	Thank you.
	Keith Wilson is...
	A smart individual, well-prepared and sharp on his feet.
	Can you imagine that the government gets to benefit from saboteurs threatening violence and otherwise peaceful protests?
	What a convenient thing.
	What a convenient and motivating thing for those types of groups to know, oh, all they have to do is threaten an otherwise peaceful organization and the government is justified in invoking the Emergencies Act because there might be...
	Paul Champ for the Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses.
	Commissioner, I'm going to...
	I don't think I'll have any difficulty finishing within time, but just like...
	Stop wasting time, man.
	The City of Ottawa has offered their time to me in the event I get close.
	Mr. Wilson, just have a few questions for you on your testimony this morning.
	First is with respect to your flight to Ottawa, how you got here.
	There was a news report that that was on a charter flight operated by Northern Air Charter.
	Is that correct?
	I believe so.
	I think that's the name of the company.
	How much did it cost?
	And apparently that company is now under investigation by Transport Canada for carrying unvaccinated people on that flight.
	Are you aware of that?
	That was the allegation by CTV and my understanding is an investigation was commenced but no action was taken.
	Does anybody think that makes Canada look good?
	Was that Mr. Borgo?
	I'm not, as I testified earlier, entirely clear on who he was offering.
	I don't remember it to be Borgo.
	It might have been take back our freedoms.
	Disgusting, actually.
	I believe there was a couple of people.
	And as I explained, we had this pattern where people would come forward and say, oh, we'll look after this, we'll look after that.
	And it didn't happen.
	There was some uncertainty as to whether or not we were even going to be allowed to get on the plane.
	But the Justice Centre said, this is too important.
	Get on the plane.
	We'll sort this out later.
	They transported those filthy, unvaxxed comedians.
	I understand from the interview summary of Mr. Heroes that there was a virtual meeting or a Zoom meeting on or about January 31st, whether it was yourself, Andre Mamari, Brian Peckford, Tamara Leach, and himself and Joseph Bourgo.
	A chartered flight of unvaxxed comedians.
	It was on the evening of the 1st.
	The reception they had in the hotel was complete.
	Terrible, terrible.
	They've only heard probably a third of what we talked about.
	Mr. Borgo was not on that.
	There was a doctor with a British accent, a very nice man.
	I can't remember his name.
	Francis Christian.
	And Mr. Peckford was most definitely not on that call.
	Was not?
	Was not.
	Was there another virtual call with Mr. Borgo and yourself and Mr. Eros?
	I have never had a virtual call at any time in my life involving Mr. E. Ross and Mr. Bogle ever.
	Okay.
	When you arrived in Ottawa, you testified that it was apparent to you that Ms. Leach really was the leader of this movement.
	You said that it seemed that people listened to her.
	She seemed to command a lot of respect and so forth.
	That's right?
	Yeah, and even if you walked the streets when we were moving from one location to another, it was remarkable the people that would come up and stop her and politely ask if they could have a hug.
	And the tears would just start to flow.
	And often I was standing behind her and I would hear what these incredibly tragic stories that these people would share and the grown men.
	About how they'd lost children to suicide.
	They'd lost their businesses.
	They'd lost their marriage.
	And it was Tamara and seeing what Tamara was doing that had given them hope.
	Hope.
	I guess, was it also in part because people knew that she had control over the $10 million?
	Oh, what a terrible thing to even think.
	Tamara figured out something way before I did.
	And I remember we got...
	It was my fault.
	I thought someone was coming up to hug her.
	We were leaving the Westin Hotel.
	After coming out of the meeting with Dean French on the Friday night when he had presented the mayor's proposal, I thought it was someone wanting a hug.
	And it turned out it was a TV crew from Berlin TV from Germany.
	And I felt bad because we tried to protect Tamara from that.
	But when they asked her about the $10 million, she responded by saying, the money is symbolism.
	The money is symbolism.
	And if you look at how much money actually got to the truckers and how much was actually returned to the donors, the vast majority ended up back at the donors, and as you know very well.
	Otherwise, it's in the escrow fund under court supervision, partly over which you must receive notice before anything can happen.
	I got my thousand.
	So the money was symbolism in Tamara's view, and I think she's right.
	It was a way for Canadians to demonstrate and add their voice to what they thought the convoy stood for, Holding the government to account and advocating for respect for our charter, return to the rule of law.
	I wasn't going to ask a question on this, but I couldn't help when I heard your testimony about the horn injunction.
	What are you going to learn about asking a question?
	You said that you advised your clients that the horns were a problem and that you expected that the injunction would be granted.
	And you were asked a couple of times by commission council about whether your clients oppose the injunction.
	Just to be clear, your clients oppose that injunction.
	Thank you.
	I honestly can tell you, Mr. Champin, as you know, one of the things that happens to me when I come to Ottawa, I meet you.
	And I mean that in a respectful way.
	You've been very professional in your dealings and I thank you.
	I actually, as I was asked that question, couldn't remember whether I actively opposed.
	So if that's your memory, I agree that I probably did do as lawyers do oppose.
	But what I remember more clearly is advising my clients that there was no way that the court was not going to grant that injunction.
	You had argued that the horns were not irreparable harm and Ms. Lee should wear earplugs.
	Do you remember to sleep?
	Do you remember those arguments?
	I don't, but I have confidence in you.
	If that's your memory, then I'll accept that.
	I won't go further down the road of the different arguments that were made.
	But then on the continuation of the injunction a week later, as you remember, that became a bargaining point with the city.
	You were offering to the city that perhaps your clients wouldn't oppose the continuation of Ms. Lee's sworn injunction if they did certain things.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	And my memory, I'm hoping, is correct that you recall we did not oppose that.
	Yeah, that's correct.
	You did not oppose the second one.
	I want to ask you some questions about dealings with the police.
	Now, you've testified that you were hearing at times that there were police raids imminent at different times during the protest.
	And we did hear some evidence from the police that there were raids planned at times that then were aborted.
	So it sounds like you might have had some solid intelligence on that.
	Is that fair?
	Well, actually, we thought we did.
	But after having...
	Observed the proceedings since the last few weeks.
	We had no idea of the level of dysfunction of infighting that was going on.
	We assumed that when information filtered in to the operations center that a raid was going to occur at 9 o 'clock that night at this location, that it was real.
	And then when it didn't happen, the assumption was it was a test, not that there was something happening where different inspectors and forces were in conflict about a plan.
	We did not.
	That was all new revelations through this inquiry.
	Yeah, those new revelations, I think that's one issue your clients and my clients can agree on for sure.
	You were getting information from sympathetic police, is that right?
	That's correct.
	Throughout?
	Yes, there was.
	The remarkable thing was that all these different individuals who had experienced, you know, I was never prior to this a big believer, a huge, I didn't think they were a bad idea, but mission statements.
	It was remarkable how efficient everybody worked because they all had the same mission statement that they had formulated deep to the core of their being, was that they felt the country was badly off track, that their families and their communities were being harmed, and this was their opportunity to try and make a difference.
	So we had former police officers, military, Navy, CSIS, airline pilots.
	Doctors, nurses, teachers, carpenters, chiropractors.
	The whole breadth of society was there and the cream just rose.
	And they organically came together during the time in those who were getting things done.
	There was very little infighting.
	There was a lot of people coming in that we were trying to manage.
	But it was really remarkable the organic way in which the enterprise ran.
	So that if people could cook, they were cooking.
	If they were IT people, they were helping you with that.
	If they were communications people, they were helping you with that.
	If they were police and intelligence, they could share you with that.
	One really illustrative example was in the operations center mid-morning, super cold outside.
	You know, some people are big, huge square table people working.
	People standing in groups, people looking at things on the board, and then someone came in and said some situations occurring at Albert and Kent or wherever it was, and everybody stopped for a minute.
	No one said what needed to be done.
	Two people got up, threw their coats on, grabbed their toques, and they were gone, and then everybody carried on.
	It was so efficient that there was no point in even discussing what needed to be done and who was going to be doing it.
	Once the information came in, the people who knew they were best suited.
	For dealing with it, it was spectacular to watch.
	That's why I now believe mission statements are very important.
	Now, on some of the things that people were doing cooperatively with the convoy, we heard from both Ms. Belton and Mr. Barber about the distribution of cash to truckers.
	You knew that that was going on, right?
	I observed it, yes.
	You observed it and they were trying to keep track of how much cash is being put into each envelope before it was being distributed.
	Yeah, that was really Chad Eros' department and he has given interviews that are online where he describes Chris Carson's interview where he describes the processes that he put in place.
	But I did observe cash being counted.
	My understanding was it was coming from the stage and from other places and being put into envelopes.
	And then teams would go out and distribute it to the truckers.
	But Mr. Eros, he was one of the directors of Freedom Corp, correct?
	He was not only a director, he was a treasurer and he was a paid accountant.
	Right.
	So he was gathering or trying to keep track of that money on behalf of Freedom Corp, right?
	I would hope so.
	Right.
	And so, as an advisor to Freedom Corp at that time, you were aware that they were managing this distribution of funds and cash out to the truckers?
	He was, yes.
	Okay.
	And he had estimated that it seemed that around $20,000 per day was being raised through cash and transfers.
	Do you have any reason to dispute that?
	I think the first time...
	I saw Cash would have been probably around, just trying to visualize a calendar here, probably around the 11th or the 11th, maybe.
	Yeah.
	And that weekend, the 12th.
	And that was after...
	The provincial government in Ontario, the Attorney General, issued the seizure order that you're familiar with, with respect to the Give, Send, Go funds.
	And much like what you saw happen with when the police said no more fuel to, if you bring fuel to downtown, you're going to be charged with counselling mischief or something, the next day...
	Ottawa residents and everyone showed up with gas cans.
	It was an I am Spartacus moment.
	And what I observed was people were so determined to support the truckers that because the GoFundMe got shut down and now the Give, Send, Go was being frozen, they weren't going to let that discourage them.
	I heard anecdotal stories from many truckers where they would get the tap on the door and someone...
	Would be there with their family and give them $20 or $100 or $1,000 or $5,000.
	So in your statement, you say that some people were at the protest for money.
	Is getting all of this cash, you think that was an incentive for the truckers to stay?
	Not the vast majority.
	So stupid, an incentive to stay.
	They drove across the country to get there.
	They were there.
	There was always opportunistic people that...
	Are more focused on money than others of us.
	That's all I meant.
	And those trucks, the 300 to 400 semi-tractor trailers operating 24 hours, idling 24 hours a day required a lot of diesel fuel, correct?
	Not as much as if they're pulling a load.
	For sure.
	But who was paying for all of that fuel, the big trucks?
	Who was paying?
	Well, it could have been the people that were out of work for a year and a half.
	Well, in your action with the Mariva injunction.
	There's details on that in the affidavits.
	But I also know that I was told by a businessman who wanted to donate fuel that he had contacted or had his office contact three different fuel suppliers and the bulk suppliers.
	And he wanted...
	He wanted to pay for a shipment of fuel from each of them.
	They declined because they said the best they could do was put him on a waiting list.
	They had so many people phoning from across the country to pay for fuel to be delivered downtown that they actually didn't want his money and they said all they could do is put him on a waiting list.
	So just a couple last points, Mr. Wilson.
	Just about some of the people who you're involved with.
	Pat King, you testified that you knew him from about a year before the convoy protests.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, like I wasn't at his house or anything.
	What was the name of the show that Pat King was on?
	He had gone on this highly misinformed rant on social media, and he was attacking a reporter.
	And so I...
	It's always dangerous on Twitter.
	I jumped in and explained the law and showed the pleading to show where he was misunderstanding how the law worked and he hadn't set this big precedent.
	But he's a loud voice, like Chris Skye.
	So I was aware of him.
	But Mr. Skye is from Ontario, generally speaking.
	Mr. King is from Alberta, like yourself, correct?
	Yeah, Mr. Skye made his way across the country a few times.
	Yeah, more of that.
	But Mr. King, he is in Alberta, so you did have some interactions with him.
	You know there's four million people in Alberta, right?
	Yeah, but I presume you don't have interactions with all of them.
	I'm asking about Mr. King, not all four million.
	The first time I was in physical presence of Mr. King was when he showed up in a boardroom in Ottawa during the protest.
	And it was about two or three days in, and I immediately instructed him to leave the room.
	Not him.
	I told the people around, he's got to go.
	The only other...
	Direct interaction I had with him was on Twitter in the previous, about 18 months prior to that, where he was misunderstanding ruling by a court judge.
	But Mr. King, my understanding, he was a supporter of Western separatism and so forth, WEGZIT and those kinds of movements.
	Were you aware of that?
	I wasn't aware of that.
	It wouldn't surprise me, but I wasn't aware of that.
	Were you involved in those movements, Western separatism?
	I've never formally been involved in those movements.
	I have been very concerned about the merits and the fairness of our confederation.
	But seeing, as you've heard, and I saw it myself, a Quebecer with a Quebec flag running towards an Albertan with a cowboy hat and an Alberta flag and embracing seeing a Quebecer trucker who could not speak any English with a...
	A trucker from elsewhere in Canada, I don't know where he was from, who couldn't speak any French, and they were using Google Translate in a Tim Hortons to communicate, and they were laughing and getting along.
	It restored my faith in the future of our country.
	So just the last person I wanted to ask you about while you're talking about French, Mr. Dean French.
	Mr. French called you a patriot, is that right?
	I believe that's in the text message, yes.
	Yeah, he supported the movement wholeheartedly, did he not?
	What movement?
	It's clear, you have to ask him, but it was clear to me that he also had concerns about government overreach and that the truckers were protesting that.
	And I thought I understood from your text with Mr. French, he's the one that arranged that interview with you in Fox News.
	Is that right?
	He did, but I also received phone calls from Fox News.
	I received emails from Fox News.
	They were all about the same time.
	I mean, that's how these guys work.
	When they really want to get somebody, they reach out to everybody they can.
	I don't know that it was because of Dean that I got it.
	It might have been, but I had emails and phone calls from Fox News independent of those, just like I had.
	I've been contacted by the New York Times and the Washington Post and everyone else.
	But he was assisting you.
	Assisting?
	He was...
	I wouldn't say he was assisting me.
	It was something he did on his initiative.
	I think he thought I would be a good interview.
	I was surprised to see you on legacy media like Fox News.
	Well, you know, I guess we all get surprised.
	This last piece, did Mr. French ever indicate to you whether he had had any communications with Premier Ford about his views about the protest?
	He never did, but my clear sense was I'm not very familiar with the goings-on in...
	In Ontario politics, but I had a general sense.
	I think I might have Googled him, and I think I got a sense there was some estrangement or some falling out between him and the Premier, but I...
	I just wondered if he ever communicated anything like that to you.
	No, he never brought up.
	The only time he would have made a reference to the Premier was, oh, like the whole Twitter account thing.
	Because we had the problem with BJ Dichter logging into Tamera's Twitter account and sending out that one tweet.
	And he said, multiple people have access to this, right?
	And I said, yeah.
	And he explained to me that when he was chief of staff to the premier, they had a rule.
	Three people had access to the premier's Twitter account, but two of them had to agree to a tweet.
	No one person.
	And I said, yeah, it would have been nice to have known that.
	No one.
	One person access to an account.
	Leach also put out a live stream on Facebook.
	Saying she wasn't supporting the deal that night.
	That's not true.
	That's not true.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	Keith is freaking good.
	It's not just because I like him, but he's good.
	He's good because I like him.
	Next is the City of Ottawa.
	Am I to take it you have no questions?
	That is correct.
	Don't ask questions of a witness who's not going to give you what you want.
	Next is the Ottawa Police Service.
	Let's see what they ask.
	We never had a deal, did we?
	You never agreed to move.
	You never started acting on the deal.
	It was just an agreement in principle.
	We had to finalize.
	My name is Jessica Barrow and I'm counsel for the Ottawa Police Service.
	I just have a couple of points I want to walk through with you.
	So first of all, I want to make sure that the record is very clear about who you do represent and who you do not represent.
	It's pretty clear already.
	So as the representative for Freedom Corp, you represent only those organizers that I believe you listed earlier.
	In relation to Freedom Corp and not other participants in the convoy, correct?
	That's correct.
	And so specifically you do not represent Pat King or James Botter?
	That's correct.
	And you would agree with me that both Pat King and James Botter were exposing views that your clients disagreed with.
	Is that fair?
	At times, yes.
	Not universally, but some of their messages they did not agree with.
	And we saw specific evidence of them kind of rejecting the views of Pat King and James Botter.
	Is that fair?
	Yeah, James Botter.
	There was a number of times where they were preparing a press release to distance from the MOU or they were going to add it to a paragraph of a letter.
	But if you've ever drafted by committee, you know that everybody wants their piece and certain things get left out.
	But I think they made it pretty clear that...
	They did not support the MOU, and nor did they support, and they were very concerned about any innuendo of violence from Mr. King.
	Right.
	So speaking of violence, you indicated that at the time you sort of advertised on TikTok that people should come to the city, it was your view that that was because it was a lawful and peaceful protest in Ottawa, is that fair?
	Yeah, and it was more than that, because one of the things that I...
	I mean, I'm a lawyer, but I'm also a dad.
	And my wife and I have four kids.
	And it was remarkable to me meeting many of the families with younger children.
	I mean, 5, 6, up to 12, 14. And the amazement on their face.
	They're interacting with all these different truckers of every ethnic background and other Canadians.
	And the excitement and the pride.
	It was really historic, and I commended those parents for having their children learn from this and participate in it and experience it firsthand.
	It was very safe.
	I never imagined that the police would use the level of violence that they did.
	So you were aware, however, that...
	And there were multiple warnings to that effect that arrests were going to be taking place.
	Oh, there were warnings that police were going to get pilots.
	So you shouldn't be surprised.
	The warnings really accelerated on the Thursday.
	And when I did the, when Mr. Barber asked me to do his TikTok, that was on the Wednesday.
	And so when you're speaking of peacefulness and lawfulness, I take it you're not referring to those individuals that were charged with...
	Criminal offenses prior to that date in relation to violence or threats or weapons.
	I need to know who you're talking about, ma 'am.
	I'm not following your question.
	What do you mean?
	So, I believe you've seen the institutional report from the Ottawa Police Service.
	It's been made part of the evidence.
	Yeah, I've only had a chance to skim through parts of it.
	And would you disagree with me that multiple charges were laid prior to that TikTok video in relation to criminal offenses that related to violence or threatening behavior or weapons?
	I do know that the statistics were clear that the crime rate had gone down.
	I do know that because of some of the former police, paramedics, emergency services people that were...
	In the operations centre explained to me what happens in Ottawa here after, I think it's called Blues Fest, and the amount of assaults and violence that, and even on Canada days, the amount of assaults and violence.
	They said, they told me having attended and participated and been on duty on those events, they had never seen this number of people come into the downtown core with this level of safety.
	And absence of violence.
	So that's what I knew.
	Okay, but my specific question was, when you're referring to a peaceful protest, I take it you're not referring to the people who were engaged in criminal behavior that was obviously deemed not to be peaceful.
	Well, I mean, it's a peaceful protest.
	Were there some people within a large crowd of 5,000 or 8,000 or 10,000 people as there were on the weekends that engaged in criminality?
	That's called normal.
	I'm going to move on to the deal with the city officials.
	We've heard quite a bit of testimony about that.
	And I think it's clear that your understanding of the deal always was that some trucks would move on to Wellington, and I think your evidence was around 25%, and then the rest would leave the city core.
	Is that correct?
	Absolutely.
	Right.
	And so I want to bring you to HRF.
	0-0-0-0-0-5-1-3 at page 52. And just for your reference, these are the text messages between you and Mr. French.
	Do you know how many people would have otherwise been arrested in Ottawa in that same time frame on a normal non-protest?
	Actually, can we go to page 59?
	I guarantee there would have been some.
	And so we just heard very briefly from you in relation to the tweet that went out.
	I think if you scroll down a little bit.
	And that's the tweet that's being referenced, right?
	This is an article about the tweet where it comes from Tamara's account that it's a denial of the deal.
	Is that correct?
	Yes.
	And so regardless of who ultimately authored the tweet, it was coming from Ms. Leach's Twitter account, correct?
	Mr. Dichter has confirmed that he was the one who did it.
	Right.
	In terms of how the public received it.
	They're not negotiating with the public.
	They're not negotiating with the public.
	And within minutes of being informed of it, and once we found out, Ms. Chipic and I got to the bottom of it, and that Mr. Dichter acknowledged that he had done his own tweet, and then he logged out and logged back in as her, and then retweeted his tweet with a quote.
	That it was him.
	We said, you got to fix this and you got to fix it fast because I have an email from him where he agreed to, confirmed his consent.
	Good to go.
	So he was the one we were trying to think of wording that could go out to confirm the deal was still going ahead and he decided that he would.
	Play the tweet as though the reporter had made a mistake.
	And I think he says something like, nice try, so-and-so.
	We were talking about the federal mandates.
	The deal to move trucks tomorrow is going ahead.
	Can we just scroll down a little bit, please?
	Sure.
	So the public thought the deal was off, but not the parties negotiating.
	See if Keith mentioned that.
	I think if we keep going down, sorry.
	Right there, yeah.
	So this is Dean French saying, it was posted two hours ago and no correction yet.
	So it does take some time, right, for the tweet to get corrected.
	I recognize there may have been some inner workings going on, but it takes at least a few hours for that to get corrected.
	Is that fair?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	I can't dispute that.
	I can't remember.
	I know that we were able to...
	Correct it around, it was either 10.58pm or 11.02pm.
	Dean had strongly recommended that we correct it, get to the bottom of it, figure out what happened, correct it in advance of the 11 o 'clock news hour shows.
	And I moved as quickly as I could to get to the bottom of it because I was completely blindsided by it.
	And there is, I won't take you through the whole exchange just to save time, but there is an acknowledgement from Mr. French where he's saying it would have been nice had it occurred prior to the 11 o 'clock news.
	So would you agree that it didn't get corrected prior to the 11 o 'clock news?
	There was many times where Mr. French and Mr. Peckford said, oh, it would be nice if you could do this.
	And I was like, I don't think you are appreciating the dynamic.
	Would it be fair to say that through this text exchange, and I can walk you through it if need be, but to save time, that Mr. French was expressing concerns about the impact this tweet would have on the legitimacy of the deal publicly?
	As was I. Yeah, you shared those concerns?
	Yeah, I received feedback from a lot of the people I was around that they were...
	They were struck how calm I was most of the time.
	There was one notable exception where I was arms flailing, yelling, likely swearing, and a very loud voice when I was like, who did this and what just happened here?
	I was very, because I and others had worked very, very hard to get us to this point.
	We had the logistics meeting at City Hall with IOT and the City Manager and Drummond.
	Report heard back that the trucks were ready to roll.
	Some of the guys were packing up some of their gear.
	And I was like, oh my goodness, we've come this far and we're going to get sabotaged.
	And you would agree that because of that miscommunication, it would have created a lack of clarity to those following that account about whether there was or there was not a deal.
	Is that fair?
	There was that lack of clarity even prior to that because this is the Sunday night.
	So when the...
	The pamphlets were being circulated and people would get them.
	They'd go, this is fake.
	Some people thought that it was actually counterintelligence propaganda either by the government or by the police.
	That's why the plan that we developed had teams of recognized road captains and other truckers who were very much recognized from the journeys to Edmonton to go out in teams.
	To the various blocks to personally talk to as many truckers as possible so they knew it was real.
	But notwithstanding that plan that may have been engaged, we did hear from Ms. Belton yesterday that she was of the view at that time that it was fake news.
	In fact, she put a video on TikTok that said it was fake news.
	Is that correct?
	I can't recall.
	I think that was played yesterday.
	Sorry.
	Yes.
	Right.
	Correct.
	And so even at that time, there was still a lack of clarity, even amongst organizers, as to whether there was or was not a deal.
	I would say it differently.
	I would say that subsequent to leaving Ottawa, when they've reflected, they're remembering events differently because there are emails.
	Sure, there may be emails, but the TikTok video was put out to whomever Ms. Belton's following consisted of, correct?
	Fair enough.
	Right.
	And so I just want to bring up, you mentioned that the flyer that got circulated.
	Can we bring that up, please?
	That's HRF 1259.
	If we could scroll down to the bottom of the notice here.
	This is obviously the notice we saw earlier that got circulated, correct?
	Sorry, if we could go.
	Yes, right there.
	It's perfect.
	Is this the correct version?
	I believe so.
	Actually, if you scroll down a little bit, I can tell you if it is.
	Yes, this is the final version.
	And so we see here that it says, sorry, that's perfect.
	The truckers on the Freedom Convoy Board plan to start repositioning our trucks forward on Monday to consolidate our protests to the streets in front of Parliament.
	There's also room for trucks to relocate to 88. That's the site off out of the city, correct?
	Is one of the three sites that existed at the 88 is the exit 88, which I understand is near Enbrum.
	Would you agree with me that nowhere in this letter does it say that 75% of the trucks are going to have to leave the city as part of this deal?
	Obviously.
	Right.
	So there may have been a lack of clarity about that issue as well.
	There was a lack of clarity about many things.
	But most of the truckers would have, some of them wanted to go.
	Some of them wanted to go, well, just like look at Mr. Barber.
	First, he had his truck downtown on Wellington, and on his own initiative, he moved it out to Armprior or Embram, one of the two, on his own initiative.
	He didn't want his truck downtown.
	Others wanted to do the same thing.
	These trucks were covered in salt.
	It's not a good thing to do for a long time.
	They'd set up truck washes at these places.
	Mr. Barber wanted Big Red Clean.
	So this was not to be a precise document to enumerate every nuance of what we felt was going on at the time.
	Fair enough.
	But you would agree, and we saw evidence of that in the video at Rideau and Sussex, you would agree that where there was a lack of clarity about what the police were up to, it created challenges for the police in managing the situation.
	Is that a fair assessment?
	It is.
	And that's the learning from the video.
	Because you saw me walking with the PLTs.
	We kept walking and I had a meeting with them.
	And Tamara was there as well.
	If you pause the video, you'll actually see us walk past Tamara and then she comes up and we talk and we're like, okay, what are our lessons learned here?
	How do we do this differently?
	And number one was don't do it at night.
	Don't do it at night.
	That's why we shut down the moves partly on the Monday because it was getting dark.
	That was a huge error.
	And Tom Marazzo had actually said earlier on, we don't make any moves at night.
	It's just too dangerous.
	But it also changed the dynamic of the crowd.
	And that's why we needed this coordination with the police.
	We were very optimistic with the truckers, and a lot of them went out.
	It wasn't just Chris.
	There were several of them that were on their feet, moving.
	If you look at some of the videos, you'll see them running along the sidewalk.
	You'll see the police cars, and then you'll see the trucks, and you'll see Chris running.
	And we were doing it.
	And the PLT were alongside doing that as well, correct, in terms of trying to get...
	They weren't trying to get truckers moved.
	They were trying to get the other people in the police to agree that the truckers could move.
	On the Tuesday morning, a delegation of PLTs arrived unexpectedly for the first time ever at the Swiss Hotel.
	I was in a room working on the letter with Tamara for the Prime Minister and the Premiers.
	The one that's been put in evidence.
	I got a knock on the door.
	The PLTs were there.
	I went in.
	And that's on the Tuesday.
	They said...
	They sensed something was wrong.
	The trucks are all wanting to move, but they said to me it was only a 24-hour deal.
	I said, look at the letter.
	With a large logistical exercise, the mayor's letter will take 24 to 72 hours.
	He looked embarrassed.
	He went over into the corner by the bathroom.
	He got on the phone, turned around.
	His face was a little red, and he said to everybody, sorry, major miscommunication.
	We're going to go out and try and get the trucks moving.
	So it was the PLTs were not trying to convince trucks to move.
	They were dealing with the police hierarchy and trying to get them, whoever kept...
	Blocking to stop the blocking.
	But I think after that miscommunication was clarified, PLT did work with protesters, and ultimately some trucks did move.
	Not on the Tuesday.
	No, I'm talking about in general in response to the city deal.
	Some trucks moved.
	Oh, yeah.
	Over 100 vehicles, over two city blocks were cleared on Albert.
	100 vehicles left the downtown, including around 40 trucks, 23 of which I know was 23 because I reported the 23 count from Chris.
	He phoned me, and I said, how many do you have on Wellington?
	He said, we moved 23 to Wellington.
	If you look at my text message, you'll see 23 onto Wellington.
	But it was 40 semis moved in total.
	The others left, and we know for sure one of them went straight home.
	Okay, you're well over your time.
	Could I just ask one more question, Mr. Commissioner?
	Thank you.
	You were here when Superintendent Drummond testified, and he testified that there were challenges with...
	Getting some of the truckers to move in response to that deal.
	Do you have any reason to disbelieve that evidence from Superintendent Drummond?
	No, we anticipated that there would be some holdouts, but we also knew that they wanted to be part of the group, and we anticipated that once most of them moved, the holdouts didn't want to just be sitting there by themselves, and they would move.
	And you testified that you were taking that on faith.
	Is that correct?
	That was our expectation, and it bore out to be true on the Monday.
	Thank you.
	Those are my questions, and thank you for the indulgence.
	Okay.
	Counsel for former Chief Slowly.
	Oh, Christ.
	I take a call, and I miss it.
	What happened?
	What happened?
	Oh, there she is.
	Okay, changing lawyers.
	Good.
	Sorry.
	Commissioner?
	Afternoon, Mr. Lee.
	All right.
	OPP?
	Good afternoon.
	The record of Tom Curry for Chief Slowly.
	Chief Slowly, okay.
	You were present uninterrupted here in Ottawa, if I have it, February 2 to the 21st.
	19 days, yes.
	And you've described for the Commissioner your observations of the scene on the ground.
	Did you observe the enforcement action that was taken?
	Yes.
	The vantage point, we had Ms. Chipiak and I, we set up a little, you know, operation centre of our own because we also had to monitor the bail applications and coordinate with the criminal legal teams.
	And we could see, we had the view of the backside of the Westin and that tunnel.
	So we saw all the police, all the highway buses coming in with the police filing off.
	And then we also, of course, had the television on.
	So we were watching the live streams from CTV and CBC as we were looking out our window and actually watching.
	We were quite high up, like the 17th floor, and then getting various reports.
	It was a very, very active environment.
	Had you given advice about the implications of the Emergencies Act, the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and what it meant for the...
	Protesters who were in the areas that had been, who were affected by that.
	I had given advice to the board as I've testified on the Wednesday.
	I had done the tick-tock that the board and Mr. Barber requested on the Wednesday.
	I wasn't because Miss Leach.
	I instructed myself and Ms. Chipiak to go to an undisclosed location because she was concerned.
	She had no idea what was going to happen to us.
	We followed her instruction.
	And after that point, I lost any ability to do any large-scale communication that I can recall.
	Right.
	Understood.
	Did you see the flyers, the pamphlets, the information distributed by police to protesters?
	Yes.
	Through the police liaison team.
	To be precise, sir, when I say yes, there was, they had a big blue outline and some of them had a red outline.
	They were placed on the windshields.
	I saw those things.
	I couldn't believe they were real.
	And I saw that was the calm before the storm.
	So it was the Thursday.
	The Thursday, there was a ceremony at the War Memorial that I attended along with my wife.
	And I remember stopping and reading.
	The warning that if you didn't leave, I'm going by memory, that you would be ticketed, your vehicle would be impounded, and I can't recall.
	Your children would be taken away from you.
	Now, you told us you had involvement with the PLT police liaison team members.
	Were they on Ottawa Police Service and OPP?
	That's correct.
	Okay.
	Any other police?
	Officials that you dealt with face-to-face, or was it exclusively PLT?
	I had interactions with chance meetings with some OPP and other police.
	They were extremely friendly, very cordial.
	The document looked like a joke, really.
	But in terms of any official, formal interactions, it was the PLTs.
	Okay, thank you.
	Of course, your role evolved as you tried to provide the convoy organizers with a legal strategy or input into their strategy from a legal perspective and advice to achieve their objectives.
	Is that fair?
	Yes.
	Your contact with protesters, I think you told the commissioner, just to clarify, these are independent operators.
	Yes?
	It reminded me of the ranchers in Alberta, yes.
	Indeed.
	And you told us that they came here, and I'm not going to say every single one, but would it be right for the Commissioner to understand that those protesters who you encountered came here to Ottawa as part of the convoy, intending to protest for the weekend, but were inspired to stay as a consequence of their...
	Of the response that they observed from Canadians as they came here and once they arrived.
	Or the response they didn't get.
	They were inspired and they felt charged with a new responsibility to ensure the protest was successful.
	A responsibility they didn't realize they would be invested in them when they set out.
	However, I do know, having reviewed the evidence, That in every instance that I have seen, Ms. Leach was clear that at no time did she say we're leaving after the weekend.
	I believe she said we're going to stay until the mandates are lifted.
	The independent operator protesters, though, do you agree with me?
	That because they are, if they're not on the road, they're going backwards financially, right?
	Correct.
	And so...
	Would it be right?
	I understood your evidence to mean that the protesters, the independent operators, leaving aside the organizers and their message, that the protesters were invested in a shorter protest than they were inspired to commit to once they got here.
	Is that fair?
	Do you mean the opposite of what you just said?
	Independent operators who came here weren't intending when they Let me start over again.
	They were going to stay for a long time.
	The inspiration they've spoken about.
	That acted on them to stay here and protest longer than they would have originally.
	Thank you.
	And I wasn't trying to be unfair to you.
	I had a number of truckers say to me that they originally planned, as you've already heard from Mr. Barber, you know, to be in the convoy for a day.
	Join it for a certain distance and then turn around and reverse course home.
	And then they found themselves in Ottawa and found themselves in Ottawa for a long period.
	Yeah, that's part of that synergy of growth that occurred.
	And you told us that there were some challenging members, even among the top group or the leadership group.
	You've called Mr. King, I think in your statement, a rabble rouser who was at least, if not encouraging violence, tolerant of violence.
	Yeah, and I mean, I think he was very angry and frustrated and really wanted to fight hard to get the government to change course, and not all of us used the same approaches.
	Mr. Dichter was undermining the leadership.
	I wouldn't say that.
	Or at least in part.
	Yeah, I've just never been able to understand Mr. Dichter.
	And the other thing is that he wasn't there that much because, firstly, he had left early before I arrived in late...
	January, and he'd had a car accident, I believe, near Kingston.
	And then he returned on the Friday, the 4th of February, and then early that evening at approximately 6 or 7 p.m. as he was leaving the front.
	He fell and badly broke his ankle.
	So then he was away at hospital for a period of time.
	Then he was restricted to his room because he just had a wheelchair and crutches.
	Then he had to go back for some surgery.
	So he was out of the loop a lot.
	And then, Mr. Bowder, you've described the MOU was not helpful to the main strategy the organizers were pursuing.
	Fair?
	A distraction and false hope.
	Now, that meant all of it in the aggregate, in addition to the independent minds of the independent operators, that controlling this entire group was very challenging.
	It was impossible.
	And one of the things, can I show you, please, just to see if this quote is accurate, in HRF, please, to register 1379.
	Just while that's coming up.
	Mr. Wilson, I think you gave an interview to Mr. Lawton, who has published or was publishing a book about the events of the convoy.
	Do you recall that?
	That's correct.
	Can I just ask you please to look at this and just maybe to the top, just to orient the witness just a little higher.
	There's an email, I think.
	There we go.
	Do you recall seeing this?
	Yes.
	Could you please?
	Go then to, I think it's page 5. There is a quote attributed to you.
	I just want to make sure that it's right.
	There it is.
	And for context, Mr. Morazzo had also spoken about some of the events.
	And the last line of that part, you see at the top, no one could force the truckers to do anything they didn't want to do.
	You seem to have agreed in that to say, we don't control them.
	We don't even know who they are.
	No one signed up.
	It's not a curling bonds field.
	It's not a golf tournament.
	And you made the comment that you can't simply tell them what to do.
	Fair comment?
	Yeah, and that's why we had to use other approaches of moral suasion, of leadership, of recognizing their fatigue, recognizing the desire of many to find a graceful and respectful way.
	A proud way to get back home.
	And the Ottawa Police Service, in your interaction with them, expected and reasonably expected that a peaceful protest, a lawful protest, would be held in their community.
	Notice how peaceful, lawful.
	I have to assume that to be true.
	And the unlawful...
	They're going to play on lawful.
	Because it was peaceful.
	When did it become an unlawful protest?
	When Trudeau said so.
	Answered this question to others.
	I won't dwell on it.
	But certainly you would...
	Except that the blocking of municipal roads, the violation of noise bylaws, and other forms of what might loosely be described as harassment as part of that administration would be a challenge for police in confining the protest.
	How about inaccurately defined harassment?
	Well, if you and I, and I mean you and I, happen to be walking down Wellington on February 10th, and we were having a chat lawyer to lawyer, I don't think we would conclude that you and I were breaking the law by walking down in front of Parliament, you know, on the sidewalk of Wellington Street.
	So this was the challenge, is that you had individuals who I had told consistently when they asked, you know, of course you can't park your truck there.
	And I always used...
	The analogy to the 401, which they got.
	Yeah, I wouldn't be allowed to do that.
	This is no different.
	But for this potential, I really wouldn't get into it, most of them, about officially induced air because they were told to park there and then they were barricaded in place.
	So it was this weird mix where you had people lawfully, in my view, walking, mingling, shopping, interacting.
	Some showing signs, some not.
	Some just wanting to take it in with others who were breaching various parking bylaws and municipal ordinances and provincial statutes.
	And just a couple of quick things then, Mr. Commissioner.
	On top of that, you also faced the challenge of some, I think in your statement, you may describe them as strange people who had descended into the protest, often in the evening, often on the weekends.
	Some sovereign citizens.
	Oh, terrible.
	Invoke the Emergencies Act.
	Sovereign citizens.
	They don't have the right to be in Ottawa.
	That was a challenge for the convoy organizers to deal with, of course.
	Constantly.
	And challenging, obviously, for police and residents.
	Yes.
	And there was a big cooperation there.
	I didn't see any sovereign citizens causing problems.
	So everybody had a block, Captain, and Antifa was going to show up.
	The rule was...
	You phone the police.
	You call 911.
	And the frustration for us was the next day, you know, three people from Antifa came in and vandalized trucks.
	The next day, the police chief or whichever one would hold a press conference and say, last night we had three charges for property damage in the downtown core.
	And we're like...
	You closely watched the signals coming from all levels of government, including the Police Services Board here in Ottawa and the Chief Sloan, correct?
	Yeah, our most acute concern was the level of pressure we saw building on the police slowly from the Police Services Board.
	That's what motivated Mr. Morazzo to take a series of steps to cause the city meeting to facilitate some...
	Action to reduce pressure.
	Including through your efforts with Mr. French to avoid what I think in one of your text messages to him was a bloodbath.
	Yes, and the first one though, it was two distinct strategies.
	One was immediate acute, which was the pressures we saw on slowly before he was no longer chief.
	And the other one was a broader exit plan.
	Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
	Thank you.
	I mean, they're not getting much, but he's a good witness.
	Next is the Ontario Provincial Police.
	You down with OPP?
	Good afternoon, Commissioner.
	The OPP have no questions today.
	Thank you.
	Very wise.
	CCLA, please.
	CCLA.
	The Communist Coalition of...
	Good afternoon, Commissioner.
	Eva Krajewska for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
	Mr. Wilson, just briefly...
	Were you still on the ground in Ottawa when the financial institution freezing orders started to come into effect?
	Yes, just to be clear.
	There was three instances related to freezing that I was dealing with before.
	And no random order just off the top of my head.
	The earliest one was the threat of an interpleader application by TD Bank through their external counsel.
	The next one was the ex parte order obtained by the Attorney General of Ontario under the Criminal Code declaring the donations proceeds of crime.
	Then the next was a freeze order.
	Of sorts.
	And then we had the emergency measures, the financial measures, and then after that we had the Mareeva injunction.
	Okay.
	I just want to ask you about the financial measures under the Emergencies Act.
	Yes.
	Can you just...
	Did people come to you from the Freedom Convoy and ask you for...
	Advice with respect to the orders and relate to you how they were affecting them.
	And can you just provide a, if they did, could you just provide a summary of how the orders were affecting them if they came to you to speak to you about that?
	Every one of them did in real time and they were finding out at different times.
	I still remember one of them coming to me and saying, I just got a phone call from my wife.
	She's at the supermarket.
	She was with the kids.
	Grocery cart was full.
	She went to pay with the debit card.
	It didn't work.
	There's a lineup of people.
	What's going on?
	Because now the conveyor is full with the next person's groceries.
	And then she tried her Visa card and her second credit card and none of it worked.
	And she had to leave the store in great embarrassment and phoned her spouse and said, what is going on?
	We had other people that were trying to put gas in their vehicles and couldn't.
	There was more than one instance where people needed to get prescriptions filled, could not.
	And then subsequent to that, as we worked to get the freezes lifted and reached out to the bank, we developed this template email to write to the bank to ask the bank to respond to us as lawyers,
	Ms. Chipiak and I. Then we have received reports since and as to very recently that a number of these people, even though their bank accounts were unfrozen, sorry, Mr. Commissioner, I just realized how fast I was speaking, after their accounts were frozen, have been denied credit applications.
	And I have explained to my clients and others who contacted me that the Canadian Bankers Association Representative who testified before the House Committee said that each of these persons will have their accounts, their names marked, flagged for life.
	Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
	Those are all my questions.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Thank you.
	Okay, convoy organizers, any questions?
	We have no questions, sir.
	Thank you.
	Any re-examination?
	Yes, just two points.
	Don't do it.
	Mr. Wilson, in response to my friend Mr. McKinnon's questions about whether you were referring in that email to the Federal Emergencies Act, I believe you said that someone had heard from some MPs that it was under active discussion.
	Yes, we'd heard it a number of times over the course of the week prior.
	Do you recall who was telling you that?
	No, it would have been someone coming into the operations center that had heard from an MP.
	I remember hearing, because I would say, well, what's the source?
	And it was some MP, and I can't remember.
	I don't believe it was indicated as to which party, whether it was the Liberal, the Democrat or Conservative MP, but I guess there was strong rumours over in the Parliament that it was under active consideration.
	And in response to my friend Mr. Champs questioning you about the injunction, I think you acknowledged that you did oppose the initial application.
	This is such a stupid, stupid point.
	He did oppose it.
	I understood from your evidence that your clients...
	That's what litigation is.
	...had been concerned for some time about the...
	Opposed and then came to a mutually acceptable compromise that was ratified in the injunction.
	I believe you said that they took their own action even before the injunction.
	The truckers had agreed amongst themselves, and this is in the transcript and represented...
	I believe you've made an affidavit, actually.
	Before the Superior Court in the injunction application that they'd put in this informal protocol of being silent between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.
	Justice McLean on the Saturday application had suggested the parties consider agreeing to maybe allowing one hour for horns during the noon hour.
	But when we returned on the following Monday, that was something he wasn't interested in entertaining.
	And so, can you tell us, if there was this concern, why was it that you were opposing the injunction?
	Wouldn't it have been consistent with your client's views to have an injunction and stop people blowing their horns?
	The board was split.
	Members and some of the truckers felt that it was something that shouldn't be, that they shouldn't be restricted other than the agreement they had for night quiet from being able to blow their horn.
	They thought it was part of their right of protest.
	So there wasn't unanimity in the client group on that point.
	And the instructions that I and Ms. Chipiuk received were to oppose it.
	Now that Mr. Champ has refreshed my memory.
	Thank you.
	Such a silly technicality.
	You obviously oppose it so that you can negotiate compromise terms to an exemption.
	I just have one question, and it's with respect to something I believe was heard early on.
	Was there an area that was allowed for protests?
	He's asked this question every time, actually.
	By either the police or your group.
	To carry out a protest other than on Wellington Street?
	I'd heard something about near the War Museum.
	Are you aware of anything like that?
	Yeah, no, there wasn't.
	And that was one of our frustrations, Mr. Commissioner, was that we were always faced with this zero-sum choice with the police liaisons.
	We were trying to...
	I really believed that if we could have a stepped-type process, you know, a ramping down.
	And building off success and building trust.
	But no, it was always the number of calls in a day.
	And if you look at my phone logs, you'll see the number of calls in a day I was receiving from the PLTs after I became more involved in that.
	And it was always the same question.
	Keith, what's the exit strategy?
	You know, it was always when are everybody leaving sort of thing.
	Okay, so you're not aware of an area near the War Museum that was...
	Protests were allowed and were carried out?
	There was an area, I believe, along, if my geography is corrected, it may not be, along the Surgeon A, where they had set up, and you'll see this, there's photographs of it, and I don't know, but there was never any discussion or offer from the PLTs for anything other than ending the protest in its totality.
	Did you ever specifically ask the PLTs for an area or a manner to continue the protest?
	No, I did not.
	Other than taking the steps of this de-escalation and reducing the footprint to Wellington.
	So you didn't ask and they didn't offer?
	Correct.
	Okay, well thank you very much for your evidence.
	We're going to take the...
	Lunch break and come back in an hour with a new witness.
	Thank you.
	All right, Keith.
	The commission is in recess for one hour.
	Well done.
	Here's the deal, people.
	I'm going to finish this tweet because I'm going to tweet out tonight's sidebar.
	Ben, I have to leave probably at about 1.45, so I'm just going to let it run.
	Because I'm going to go on Sean Atwood's channel for a panel.
	What are we talking about today?
	Oh, son of a gun.
	Hold on.
	Sean Atwood, live.
	He's doing a live marathon all day.
	And we're going to be talking about specifically...
	My goodness, why can't I remember what we're talking about?
	Let me just get the tweets.
	I can't remember what we're talking about.
	It's going to be fun.
	It had to do with something that I know something about.
	So, but we'll cover one more story just before I duck out, leave this thing going.
	Am I still here?
	I am.
	I can take this out.
	And then we'll go like that.
	Now you can see me.
	I'm going to work on the backdrop.
	I love that.
	I love Winston and Pudge picture.
	Okay.
	So I'm going to keep it going the whole day, but I'm going to duck out at a quarter to two, maybe even earlier.
	Let it run.
	Do an interview.
	Do the one hour with Sean Atwood.
	Come back in the afternoon.
	Might have to end it a little early for the live stream because we're doing a sidebar at 7 o 'clock.
	I gotta like get some exercise at some point today as well and walk the dogs.
	Cripe.
	But first things first.
	Sidebar with Justin Hart.
	I'll have to do that afterwards.
	I'll tweet that out afterwards.
	Okay, let's talk about just another disgusting story.
	We hear these incidents.
	It's impossible not to connect the dots.
	And I DMed somebody before looking into the story.
	What is the red pin they wear?
	Thank you.
	It is the poppy...
	To commemorate Remembrance Day, which is on November 11th in Canada.
	I didn't know that this was not a thing internationally.
	They were the poppy seed.
	It's from World War I. Flanders Fields, I think, is the origin.
	And it's to commemorate Remembrance Day, which is on November 11th.
	And they got these people.
	They always give them out.
	You give them donations and you pin them to your clothes.
	Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the EA is deemed unnecessary, unlawful, folks would lose their jobs and it could likely trigger an election.
	High stakes.
	Bear in mind, they have about a year, effectively a year from the invocation to file their report if there's no extensions.
	There might be an election one way or the other beforehand or afterwards.
	If it's proved unnecessary, unlawful, I don't think anybody loses their jobs.
	It's a recommendation and the solution is supposed to be a political one.
	In theory, that would be the solution.
	Much like the ethics code or the federal ethics act, I forget what it's called, that Justin Trudeau has now been convicted of breaking twice, been found to have violated twice.
	It doesn't really have monetary sanctions and it doesn't have jail time.
	It's supposed to be a political sanction where when your leader is twice found to have violated the ethics law, You vote the unethical, corrupt, immoral, divisive, evil person out of office.
	Normally.
	Not in Canada.
	All right.
	Let's do this story before we go.
	And then we'll come back.
	There's too many of these stories coming up.
	And now, admittedly, everybody's looking to connect certain dots.
	Someone dies suddenly.
	People, you have a reflex.
	I have a reflex.
	I take a step back and I say, am I looking for the connection because I'm looking for the connection or am I looking for a connection because the connection is there?
	We've been seeing it.
	Mainstream outlets saying, young people, better go get your hearts checked.
	I've never seen that before in my life.
	One person after another, dying suddenly, heart attacks, arrhythmia, teens.
	Having sudden cardiac arrest, training for tennis.
	We're seeing more of it than we've ever seen, period.
	If I'm wrong, I'm not wrong.
	And a news story just came out.
	Julie Powell.
	I think it was Tim Pool.
	Julie Powell.
	We know her.
	My wife knows her.
	My wife likes...
	These types of things, as do the kids.
	Cardiac arrest at 49. This is Tim Pool being sarcastic of sorts.
	People need to understand this happens all the time.
	Just Google died suddenly.
	This is normal and unfortunate.
	This is Tim Pool being a little sarcastic.
	Political sarcasm for those who might think he's serious.
	Now, you read into the story.
	Let me just go back here and get my...
	I don't want to lose my spot.
	Let's just go get this story.
	You know what?
	Let's get the story.
	Because there was a little more to the story than was initially reported.
	Pull it up.
	Julie Powell death.
	It seems Julie Powell was suffering from something chronic.
	She had gotten the Rona and gotten sick and was not getting better.
	So this is it.
	NPR.
	Food writer Julia Powell, author of Julie and Julia, dies at 49. The food writer Julie Powell, who became an internet darling after blogging a year about making every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has died at 49. Powell died of cardiac arrest at her home.
	In upstate New York, the New York Times reported.
	Her death was confirmed by Judy Klain, Powell's email and editor.
	She was a brilliant writer and a daring, original person, and she will not be forgotten, Klain said in the statement.
	We are sending our deepest condolences to all who knew her, etc., etc.
	Powell's book, 2005.
	Okay, she made all the books there.
	Her sophomore and last effort, titled Cleaving, A Story of Marriage, was a bit jarring in its honesty.
	Powell revealed that she had an affair.
	The pain of loving two men at once, of her fondness for sadomasochism, and even a bout of self-punishing sex with a stranger.
	I did not know any of this.
	Okay.
	This is not the article I read yesterday.
	People coming from the movie Julie and Julia and picking up cleaning are going to be answered from emotional whiplash.
	Okay.
	Yada, yada, yada.
	Let me see here.
	Does it mention COVID here?
	It doesn't.
	It's quite shocking, actually.
	Um...
	Thank you.
	I hear a celebrity who's in an industry where it has to happen is and passes.
	Cardiac arrest.
	Not something we would see with such frequency.
	I go to her Twitter feed just to see, you know, what's going on.
	I just go surf very, very summarily.
	Find a tweet from last year.
	I know everything is getting better.
	The snow is melting and vaccines are happening.
	And we have a sane president.
	I know it's a gift.
	Why am I still so bereft?
	Okay, fine.
	So plug a little more.
	In December of 2021, someone says, get an effing booster.
	Julie Powell replies, up here, there's a two-week waiting period.
	I'm getting mine on effing New Year's.
	So now I'm just thinking...
	Okay, so we're seeing a trend.
	Then you go through her timeline, and it turns out that despite all of this, despite it now looks like at least two jabs, one booster, if not two, she also got COVID recently and had not just a rough bout with it, it led to where we're at now, which is her dying of cardiac arrest at the age of 49. And her Twitter feed is a diary of her life, but her last...
	A few months on Earth.
	And this one was from September 19th.
	October, November.
	So the other one and I, I guess that means someone in our family, just got over our COVID.
	This is after two jabs, probably two boosts at the very least one by the looks of it.
	My doctor, I asked my doctor about the timing for our next booster.
	Three months.
	I wasn't expecting that long a wait.
	And the thing is this.
	I genuinely, I messaged someone privately and I said, I feel bad.
	We hear these stories.
	We have our initial reactions and we have to put those in check because they're not necessarily always accurate.
	We have to put those in check.
	And you don't want to also feel spiritually as though there's any form of weaponizing, exploiting, schadenfreude.
	There's none of it.
	There's none of it.
	What there is at this point in time...
	In my spirit, in my soul, it's becoming immoral not to ask these questions.
	And it's costing people, potentially.
	I mean, I'm not a doctor.
	I've interviewed a bunch now.
	I've listened to a bunch.
	I've heard a bunch.
	It's becoming, arguably, something that is costing people their lives.
	And people are forced into silence to even ask the obvious questions.
	And then when you delve into it, my goodness.
	My goodness, you know, it's worse than you think.
	It's like, tonight's sidebar is with Justin Hart.
	He wrote a book, How COVID Made the World Go Crazy.
	People have gone freaking crazy.
	Well, crazy on the one hand, you know, just hook it to my veins.
	Jab, double jab, boosted, double boosted.
	Then you get Rona.
	She got COVID after all this and suffered an...
	It led to her death.
	Do you notice how the...
	I mean, I haven't seen an article referring to her having suffered from COVID in September after being double jabbed, double boosted, at least single boosted.
	Waiting on the next booster.
	I haven't seen articles referring to that.
	And maybe their defense is going to be, we don't want to politically exploit a tragic passing.
	Maybe by ignoring it...
	One is exacerbating a problem.
	Maybe by the media ignoring it and not asking the questions.
	It's not raising awareness to what might be something that people should start having their awareness raised to.
	And, you know, the diary, following her Twitter feed, it's tragic.
	It's tragic.
	And then in all of that, like, in all of that, I can't wait for my next booster.
	That, and she had a very, very unfortunate tweet from way back in the past, where at the risk of...
	At the risk of it, you know...
	Where she wrote, I'd argue that COVID does kill some of the right people.
	The anti-vaxxers, maskers are dying in legions, but yes, it's a real shame about Kavanaugh.
	This is...
	I feel sad about all this.
	Sad that humans are...
	Let me just...
	Just so that nobody...
	Someone shared it on my Twitter feed and I thought they were posting something inaccurate because I literally Googled verbatim this tweet to find it to see if it was in fact true before...
	I wasn't going to retweet it.
	I just wanted to make sure it was true.
	And then I told the guy, I think it read a little harshly, but we made up in private DMs.
	I said, don't post this information because...
	I didn't find this Googling it verbatim.
	And it's a real tweet.
	COVID, the response, and the government has made people mad.
	And not mad angry.
	Has made people go mad.
	When was this?
	November 1, 2022.
	I would argue that COVID does kill some of the right people.
	The anti-vaxxers, maskers are dying in legions.
	But yes, it's a real shame about Kavanaugh.
	That, I presume, is in reference to the attempted...
	Assassination of Kavanaugh.
	It's made people mad.
	It's driven people mad.
	It's made them irrational.
	It's made people reluctant to ask the obvious questions.
	It's turned good people into bad people.
	It's made good people have bad reflexes, reactions, thoughts, feelings, emotions vis-a-vis their fellow humans.
	You know, and it's just, everything about it is sad.
	It's sad that we have people who are seemingly literally addicted to this process, to this procedure.
	That we have a government, a media, that has taken people and driven them to this point where they, they, they, not, what's the word, the opposite of lament.
	They rejoice in what they perceive to be the demise of their ideological adversaries.
	Not enemies.
	We're not, I mean.
	Even when you execute a convicted murderer, some people are going to rejoice in the execution, but one cannot even rejoice in that.
	But rejoicing in the perceived suffering, even if it exists only in their own mind, of their fellow citizens, of their fellow community.
	I didn't even know about that second book, but there might be more to this story than that, or more to the individual in terms of mental struggles and whatnot.
	But at what point is it immoral not to connect the dots, but to not connect the dots?
	I'm just reading some of the chat.
	To be fair, she could have had a heart issue.
	My very fit friend died.
	We've had family friends die of heart attacks.
	Once upon a time, there was never anything to even correlate this to, but we're seeing it more now.
	The statistics are there.
	The cardiac incidence, from my understanding, are just objectively up.
	Myocarditis, there are certain knowns, and then there are certain unknowns, even from the certain knowns that we know now statistically.
	It is becoming immoral.
	Not to connect the dots, but to not connect the dots or to not ask the questions.
	And we're being browbeat into not asking the questions.
	Browbeat into self-censorship.
	Demonized into self-censorship.
	And then you get articles referring to this story without mentioning any of this?
	Well, you don't want to give the jab bad publicity.
	I mean, people won't get it.
	People won't get the boosters if they start reading stories.
	Even if...
	There might be no correlation.
	It might be...
	Anyhow.
	It's just sad.
	It's sad and then the ugliness that the last two years have driven people to is sad.
	And so this is...
	I'm almost reluctant to keep drawing attention to these stories because it's not a question of, oh, phew, I made the right decision.
	It's not a question of, oh, she got what she deserved or he got what he deserved.
	If you'll notice, by the way, media is not publishing very many stories of the unvaxxed...
	What's the word?
	Not recanting, but lamenting having not gotten vaccinated on their deathbeds.
	Haven't heard very many stories like that in a little while.
	But when those were happening, my goodness, the media was right up there to exploit those stories to drive their own political medical narrative.
	So it's not a question of schadenfreude.
	It's not a question of saying, you know, karma.
	It's not a question of rejoicing or taking any form of pleasure whatsoever in any of it.
	It's all sad.
	It's all sad and it's happening with a very disgusting frequency.
	Okay, so with that said...
	Yeah, I'm just reading some of the chats.
	Oh, but hold on a second.
	I had some rumble rants to read that I screenshotted.
	Okay.
	Hold on.
	There were some nice rumble rants.
	It was El Malone.
	Thanks for putting in the time, Viva.
	Thank you very much, El Malone.
	I'll tell you, my leg is hurting.
	I don't want to get stretching them out and trying to...
	But sitting for hours on end is not good.
	Although I have a nice chair now.
	A better chair.
	It's got lumbar support, as they call it.
	Matt Balfour says, I feel like laptop stickers should be treated the same as wearing a t-shirt with a slogan in court.
	Inappropriate for the form and not allowed.
	Well, first of all, a lot of judges would, in fact, agree with you.
	Oh, yeah, hold on a second.
	Check this out, yeah.
	Yeah, there we go.
	Let me see.
	Let me make sure that we can see it.
	There you go.
	That's on my computer.
	Someone gave that to me during the convoy, and I...
	Put it on my computer.
	And then we got Juan.
	Juan is back.
	Says, McLean said that their right for quiet trumped the honking trucker's right for protest.
	They had the right for protest.
	And he sends a link to Global News article.
	So...
	Ah.
	Ah.
	Thank you.
	So let's see what we got here.
	Thank you.
	I'm sorry, I'm just reading some of the chats.
	Okay, so what I'm going to do now is go get ready for my 2 o 'clock with Sean Atwood.
	I'm going to leave the stream going, so it's going to be a boring 35 minutes.
	They're very punctual, so come back.
	And then I'll pop in after my one hour with Sean Atwood.
	Do I have a link?
	Anyhow, you can go look it out.
	I'll tweet it out.
	Then tonight at 7 o 'clock, we have Justin Hart going to talk about the book that he wrote, COVID.
	What was it called?
	Gone Viral.
	How COVID made the world go insane.
	My bro was sick a year ago.
	Jabber Lou's job was in hospital with swollen heart.
	He lived.
	I think this is sarcasm.
	Let me see what we got in the rumble chat.
	I've never had a sticker on my laptop, Rob A. He says, you should see what my old laptop looked like.
	I had all of the Spartan race stickers on my old laptop.
	The judge would look at that, but not really care.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so that's it.
	I'm going to go.
	I've got to go do a bunch of things.
	I'll leave the stream running.
	Come back in for one o 'clock.
	I'll pop back in in the afternoon.
	We have a sidebar tonight.
	Simultaneously on Rumble on both.
	Kitty724 says, your Canadian trucker coverage was incredible.
	Nobody knew what it was going to become.
	It was the most optimistic I had felt in two years.
	It was the most joy I had.
	Well, I won't say most joy.
	I had some good, joyful moments with my family.
	But it was the most joy and optimism I had felt in two years.
	And when they put an end to it, it was depressing.
	But this is...
	You never know when it's the last chapter until you know it's the last chapter.
	But some might say that there never is the last chapter.
	So now we're seeing the first chapter in the next scene of this play.
	Because the last chapter did not end well.
	Sorry, the last scene did not end properly.
	Please post the link for your interview, or is it being recorded only, Robbie?
	No, I'm going to send out the link.
	It's going to be the same thing as always.
	I'm just going to go live exclusively on Rumble sooner than we did, sooner than later.
	Old Saucy says...
	Everybody should watch the Robert Malone interview from yesterday.
	Okay, so people, I'm going to tune out for a bit.
	Enjoy a blank screen.
	Of the emergencies.
	Is it this one?
	Yeah, this is it.
	Enjoy this for 30 minutes without my beautiful face.
	My face!
	Oh, hold on.
	I didn't share the screen yet.
	My face!
	My beautiful face!
	Here it is.
	Okay.
	I'm out.
	I'll see you in a bit, peeps.
	I'll see you in a bit.
	I'll see you in a bit.
	I'll see you in a bit.
	Thank you.
	Order allot.
	The Commission has reconvened.
	The Commission apprend.
	Good afternoon.
	Good afternoon, Mr. Commissioner.
	The next witness is Tom Marazzo.
	Mr. Marazzo, will you swear on a religious document or do you wish to affirm?
	I'd like to affirm, please.
	For the record, please state your full name and spell it out.
	Thomas James Marazzo, M-A-R-A-Z-Z-O.
	Do you solemnly affirm that the evidence to be given by you to this Commission shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
	I do.
	Thank you.
	Good afternoon, Mr. Marazzo.
	Good afternoon.
	My name is John Mather.
	I'm one of the Commission Council.
	Through your counsel, you have provided a statement about your involvement in the protests in Ottawa, is that correct?
	Yes, sir.
	If we could pull up HRF 1595.
	Is this the statement that you've provided?
	Yes, it is.
	Have you reviewed it before testifying?
	Yes, I did.
	Are there any changes you wish to make?
	No, sir.
	Do you adopt the contents of this statement as accurate?
	Yes.
	I'm an idiot.
	I'm going live at 3 o 'clock with Atwood.
	Can I ask you a few questions about your background?
	I understand from the statement, which we can actually take down, Mr. Clerk, is that you were born and raised in Ontario.
	Where did you grow up?
	Niagara Falls and St. Catharines, Ontario.
	And where do you live now?
	Just outside of Napanee.
	And I understand that you're a father of two children.
	Is that right?
	Yes, sir.
	And you served in the armed forces for 25 years, achieving the rank of captain.
	Is that correct?
	Yes.
	And then after leaving the Armed Forces, you earned an MBA?
	No, I had the MBA when I was currently serving.
	And then when I retired from the military in 2015, I went back to school and did a Bachelor of Technology in Software Development.
	And where did you earn that Bachelor?
	Seneca.
	And then after that, you began working at Georgian College as a partial load teacher, is that right?
	Yes.
	Sorry.
	And as I understand it, you lost that job in 2021.
	Is that correct?
	Yes.
	Can you please explain to the Commission what happened?
	I was notified that the college had adopted the province-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
	And I had some interactions with my union and realized that the union was not going to be supportive.
	And so...
	Subsequent emails came out from the president of the college herself.
	And my response to that was to send an email to the president of the college, as well as deans, the VP of HR, and as many other faculty as I could put on this email.
	I sent it internally to the college, not publicly, looking to express my concern and question.
	You know, I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but questioning the legality and sort of the morality of what they were doing.
	And a few days later, I was terminated with cause.
	And when was that approximately?
	September 13th of last year.
	So you're September.
	And what were you doing between September 2021 and your arrival in Ottawa, which we'll get to in a minute, which I understand was in January 2022?
	Yeah.
	My former spouse and I sold our house and we purchased land outside of Napanee and then we moved to that area.
	And the plan really this year was to build a house.
	I cashed an RSP to live off of while I was trying to build the house and really just focus on that, focus on my family.
	The level of tension in this country was extreme to say the least.
	And I really wanted to focus on putting my family in a better situation, which meant actually going off-grid, if that was even possible.
	Because as an unvaccinated person, there was a lot of rhetoric about actually being able to participate in society.
	And so we chose to sell the house.
	We purchased land.
	We were going to build a house.
	We ended up in an apartment together, the three of us with my daughter, just outside of Kingston.
	And we were there working on plans for the House.
	And prior to participating in the protests in Ottawa, had you been politically active?
	No, I was not.
	And I understand it, but please correct me if I'm wrong, that you've never been a trucker?
	No, sir.
	And you say in your statement that you arrived in Ottawa on January 30th, which I believe was the first Sunday.
	Does that sound right?
	And what brought you to Ottawa?
	Through a mutual friend of mine and James Botter and his wife Sandy, I was contacted on the phone that Sunday morning and I was asked if I would take a phone call with James and Sandy just to discuss.
	Some logistical, organizational ideas around the convoy.
	I had been tracking the convoy as it was coming across Canada, and I was absolutely a supporter of it.
	I really loved what this whole entire Freedom Convoy was about.
	So in that discussion, which lasted approximately 15 minutes, James had asked me if I would come to Ottawa.
	Support the convoy in any way that I could in terms of getting organized, doing logistical stuff.
	And within three hours of that phone call, I was actually at the Ark Hotel.
	Who was the mutual friend?
	Her name is Jane Moffitt, I believe.
	I had only ever met her once in person.
	And I think I've spoken to her one time since the convoy.
	When you first spoke with Mr. Bowder, what did you say?
	What did you know about him?
	Nothing.
	What did you learn about him when you spoke with him?
	I learned that there was a great need to get organized.
	And from him personally, the details, I never got any details about him personally or his wife, Sandy.
	I knew there were two people that were trying to affect the change in this country, and I wanted to...
	To help them out so there was an opportunity for me to employ the skills that I have gained over my career and so I recognized it as a great opportunity to get involved.
	Do you have any sense how James Bowder identified you as someone who might be able to assist?
	I think Jane had mentioned to him that I was retired military and I think that's pretty much it.
	After that initial phone conversation with Mr. Bouter, how often were you two in communication?
	I had seen James when I first arrived at the ARC, and then it was somewhat sporadic.
	I think he moved to a different location.
	I don't know where.
	I know he had a room in the ARC, and I would occasionally run into him.
	My contact with him was very sporadic.
	When you arrived at the Ark Hotel in Ottawa, what did you learn about the organization of the protests?
	Really, when I walked into the ARC, I was brought into a boardroom, and there were several truckers and two OPS police officers, Sergeant Fong Lee, Sergeant Lou Carvello.
	And the meeting had already begun, and I was...
	I was asked to turn my cell phone off or remove it from the room and give the police my name, which I did.
	And then I just quietly sat there.
	James actually brought me into the room and introduced me.
	And I believe he oversold my career.
	I know there was people in the room that actually thought I was a retired general, which is clearly not the case.
	And so I sat there quietly and I just listened.
	And it was a very...
	I got the feeling that after two days of the convoy being there, this was the very first collective meeting that they had actually had in a room.
	I could be wrong about that, but I didn't get the sense that this group of people had ever come together with the Ottawa Police or any representative of the government of any kind.
	And we've heard the name Fong Lee.
	Was it your understanding that him and the other officer were members of the PLT?
	They were.
	And who were the other truckers in the room?
	The details of that are a little sketchy.
	They weren't all truckers.
	Dana Metcalf was somebody I sat beside.
	Joe Borgo was in the room.
	Ryan Olson, his son-in-law.
	There was Bridget Belton, I believe, was in the room.
	Some of the other names, I didn't know who they were when I first walked into the room, so I can't really account for it.
	Who everybody was in the room.
	Return to who you were dealing with in a minute.
	Could you just perhaps provide some more context or an explanation about how it was the case that you received a phone?
	What drove you to go to Ottawa after receiving a phone call from a man that you'd never met before, who you didn't know anything about, that would have you leave your wife and your kids to go to Ottawa?
	What drove you to do that?
	To be perfectly honest, I think it was a case of fear.
	I had, over the time of COVID, noticed things that I never before believed that I would see in Canada related to the way the police and bylaw and the government were going after Canadians.
	And for the first time in my life, I was actually afraid of police.
	And I have several friends that are police officers.
	And I had a phone call with Randy Hillier.
	Randy didn't know who I was.
	I sent an email to him and Roman Babber and other people.
	Months later, his office had returned the call.
	Randy doesn't even recall the conversation.
	I spent 25 years of my life in the military.
	For the first time, I'm actually afraid in my own country.
	He said, never be afraid.
	You can't be afraid of the police or the government.
	They're here to serve us.
	And I think for me that kind of flipped a switch where I was like, I went from thinking I'm afraid to get arrested or beaten by the police or getting an $880 fine to, you know what, now I want the fine.
	I'm done.
	I'm not going to hide from these people anymore.
	And so that started to mentally transition the way I thought.
	And then we came to a point where I thought, well, at some point the lawyers are going to step in and intervene.
	And start protecting the public.
	And they didn't, except for a few.
	Then when the vaccine came out, I thought, well, the medical community is going to stand up and put a stop to this because of informed consent.
	And they didn't, except for a few.
	And it was the truckers that gave me an opportunity to actually get into fighting for my kids' rights.
	The phone call you mentioned with Mr. Hillier, was that in the context of the Ottawa protests or did that happen before?
	No, it was months before when I still was employed and still lived in...
	I don't know if I was employed.
	I think it was...
	I still lived in my old house prior to selling it and moving to the Napanee area.
	When you arrived in Ottawa, did you have a sense of how long you were planning on being there?
	No.
	I had a bag, five changes of clothes.
	I believed that at the time I would go there, get organized, start to just kind of develop a daily sustainment plan and a routine, and then I would look for somebody who was able to basically take over from me, and then I would move on if I wasn't required anymore.
	So when you arrive and...
	You know, you've spoken to Mr. Bowder on the phone.
	He brings you into this room where there's protesters and some police.
	What happens next?
	How do you integrate yourself into the organization?
	That particular meeting actually got quite animated, very loud.
	I remember Bridget being quite upset with Sergeant Lee, where she had made a comment of basically to the effect of, what, are you going to shoot us in the streets?
	Like, that's where the level had gone, and it started to calm down.
	Eventually, the two police officers departed from the meeting, and we all just kind of sat around and regrouped.
	I think people went for breaks.
	And then people left the room.
	I remember Bridget and I being in the room, and right around that time, I think somebody brought in the map.
	And so...
	I had learned there was a list of places that the OPS had requested that we not go near, like roads that we stay off of.
	And I said, okay, great.
	We've got the map.
	Let's start marking the map.
	And for me, what was really important, because I had spent, my son has a very severe heart condition.
	And I spent Christmas this year in the hospital with my son.
	You know, I'm very aware of keeping the emergency lanes open.
	It is an important issue for me.
	So the first thing we did was start identifying hospitals.
	We identified the police station, fire departments, vulnerable infrastructure, and then started to plan out the routes to those in an effort really to make sure that those lanes were always accessible.
	So that's really where we started.
	And then I needed to get a handle on where all the vehicles were located.
	And that was a monumental task because at the time, trucks were coming to the city, trucks were leaving the city.
	There was a huge just change in our overall size of the convoy overall.
	So really, that first day was about just getting a handle on where everybody was and the size.
	In scope of the convoy.
	I take it that this involved you meeting a lot of people you had never met before?
	Yes.
	Everybody.
	Did anyone ask you who you were and what you were doing there?
	James had introduced me initially into that meeting.
	So everyone just realized there was an army guy in the room.
	And so my sense was right away that nobody was...
	In charge, particularly.
	There were strong personalities, people with strong opinions, but for some reason, and I don't know why, I think it was just the fact that I was an Army guy that people assumed that I was going to be able to get organized.
	And to be perfectly honest, it was quite, it's nothing unusual for an Army officer to be able to do what I did.
	But it was just trying to get organized.
	When you say in charge and get organized, do you mean get organized?
	Are you talking about logistics?
	Logistics.
	My focus was really just on logistics and a sustainment plan.
	I wasn't thinking in a tactical sense.
	I was thinking just purely in sustainment to make sure that people could get food, fuel, money if they needed it for whatever purpose.
	That was really what my...
	My thinking was at the time.
	So emergency lanes, fuel, food, money, anything else that you would consider as part of being responsible for logistics?
	There was a big task, which was really, really difficult, was just to find the numbers and the composition of all the different types of trucks and where everybody was scattered.
	And then I learned that we had trucks out on the parkway.
	Vehicles out on 88 aren't prior.
	Locations I never actually made it to.
	But it was just trying to get a good situational awareness or essay of what was happening on the ground.
	When you arrived on the 30th and I guess probably moving into the 31st, did you come to understand that there had already been people in Ottawa who were working on food, logistics and money?
	I did not know that until I believe late that first evening.
	And that is when I met Tamara and found out that there was an alternate coordination center at the Swiss Hotel.
	Okay.
	What did you learn about the alternate coordination center at the Swiss Hotel?
	Just that it had existed and that in those conversations, it was agreed that...
	My scope of what I was interested or involved in was now going to be really cut in half and I was quite happy about that because I didn't want to get into the situation where I had to think about security, public speaking and the stage and all that stuff that I had learned about.
	I didn't have to worry about doing first aid.
	That was going to be handled by the other group.
	We were just really going to focus on the logistics in terms of...
	Feeding, fuel, and then truck movements.
	That was another piece of my responsibility would be moving vehicles in and out and around the city.
	Was it the case that it was organizing, feeding, and fuel before your arrival?
	No, and that's the surprising thing because that was happening.
	I mean, that just does happen.
	I mean, the number of supplies and fuel that was coming into the city, it actually did make what I was trying to do a lot more easy.
	Because that was just organically happening anyway.
	I mean, when people are hungry, they go searching for food.
	I'm going to do this in a bit of a two-part question, and bear with me if it presents a problem.
	But can you explain to me what was happening in terms of where food and fuel was coming from before your arrival, and then what changed after your arrival, or what you did to change anything?
	To be honest, I don't know where they were getting their supplies en route to Ottawa.
	But I had seen a lot of social media videos and seen people on the overpasses, at truck stops.
	So I know that all along the way they were collecting food and donations, everything that I had seen on social media.
	And so I believe when they arrived in Ottawa, it was the intention of the public to continue to come to the City of Ottawa and give more supplies as much as they could possibly.
	Did you learn anything about the Adopt a Trucker campaign that was being spearheaded by Chris Guerra?
	I learned about it a few days later.
	I didn't really know much about it.
	My interactions with Chris were very little.
	It wasn't something inside of my area of influence that I was concerned about.
	It was something that was kind of going on in the background, so I didn't...
	How is fuel supplied to the truckers that were in the downtown core?
	There were, I think, different sources coming in.
	Sorry, I can't remember the name of the type of vehicle.
	It's a fuel truck.
	It's probably written.
	I'm not a trucker, so some of the lingo I wasn't fully conversing on.
	I know that they were getting a lot of fuel, but it wasn't until after it was forbidden to bring in more fuel with bigger trucks and stuff to refuel them.
	People started to bring in the jerry cans by hand.
	And was that something you assisted in organizing?
	No, no.
	That was organic.
	By that point, my role had kind of been modified.
	It had sort of transitioned a little bit later on, about a week after or so.
	I just knew they were getting in fuel.
	The truckers were taking care of their own fuel, and there was no shortage of the fuel up until the Ottawa police forbid them from bringing in trucks of fuel.
	And then it was jerrycans, and that was not my idea.
	That was just people being very, very industrious.
	Did you do anything to coordinate fuel into downtown Ottawa at any point?
	I did not have to, no.
	One of the things you said you did was...
	Get a sense of the number and composition of the types of truck.
	First question, how did you go about doing that?
	I literally had to go and send people out and count trucks in the streets.
	And do you recall what was the result of that calculation?
	Well, there was different areas.
	So I remember speaking to one person who after it took four days just to get that Magic number of 322.
	That was a head count.
	That was literally somebody going out with sticky notes on streets and then actually breaking down by vehicle.
	It was incredibly difficult to get an accurate count because trucks kept coming and trucks kept going in and out of the city or out to different locations.
	So at some point, I just kind of gave up on that as a...
	Something that I really needed to focus on.
	I was just kind of more interested in, you know, general terms.
	Where do we have vehicles?
	Center of mass kind of thing.
	I didn't need the details of where they were.
	But at some point in time, it was determined there was roughly 322 trucks?
	That was our count.
	And I knew, honestly, I knew that that count, I guess I shouldn't say honestly when I've sworn an oath, but I really...
	I didn't have a lot of confidence in the number just because the influx and outflux of vehicles.
	So even when I got that number, it wasn't overly valuable to me.
	At any point, did you feel that you had a handle on the number of trucks that were in the city and then were coming and going?
	Or is that something that always changed?
	It always changed.
	And again, it just lost value in knowing that specific number.
	Point of interest for me was that we had more trucks concentrated on Wellington.
	With respect to clearing emergency lanes, the Commission has heard evidence, including from Mr. Barber and Mr. Wilson, that the emergency lanes, let me back up, the protesters weren't able to keep the lanes clear on Rideau, Sussex and at Kent.
	Does that sound correct?
	Sometimes, yes.
	That's true.
	Was there any other locations or intersections where the emergency lanes were not left open, to your knowledge?
	My understanding was when that did happen, and it happened occasionally.
	For example, Sergeant Lee had been, let's say, vigorously contacting me to clear out one of the intersections.
	Then he kept asking me if I'd gone down there and checked it.
	So I finally, I didn't send a runner.
	I went down for myself to see it for myself.
	And what I discovered was there was heavy equipment owned by the city, concrete barriers, and five Ottawa police officers standing in the intersection.
	It wasn't being blocked by any of our people at all.
	So, you know, there was a give and take where...
	We were sent, or I was sent, or other people that I was with were sent to go look at an intersection, only to find out it wasn't even us.
	And I had two members that I was working with that routinely, when we were asked by OPS to go and check on a safety lane or an intersection or something that was blocking safety, our two people would go down and physically speak to the drivers and get them to open up those lanes.
	And so it's my understanding that those efforts were generally successful except on Kent Street.
	Is that correct?
	I can't see the street.
	Is that Kent is right near the Rideau?
	Or sorry, I'm fuzzy on some of the streets.
	So the evidence has been there's been two locations.
	One's Rideau-Sussex, which we'll talk about in a moment.
	To your knowledge, was there another location where the emergency lanes were not open?
	No.
	The only sticking point was Rideau.
	And even on Rideau, I spoke to one of the drivers personally, and I said, you need to make sure you keep a safety lane.
	And he said, they have twice moved.
	Out of the way, they sit in their trucks and they listen for ambulances or they listen for sirens.
	And if they hear it, they move the truck out of the way because three times they had listened to the Ottawa police who said, you know, can you please move the vehicle?
	And they would move the vehicle and the Ottawa police would move their cars in that spot and they would trick the drivers.
	So the drivers at Rideau said, we're not falling for it again.
	We'll sit in our truck.
	We will listen for sirens.
	And when we hear it, we will move.
	And he assured me that in two occasions they did exactly that.
	Do you know who you were speaking with who gave you that information?
	I don't know his name.
	I know where he was parked.
	He was parked...
	I know where he was parked.
	I don't know his name.
	I know he had a paper bag full of letters from children.
	I understand from your statement and from some of the evidence that you had several interactions with the people who were at Rideau and Sussex.
	Is that correct?
	Yes, sir.
	What did you come to learn about who was in that intersection?
	There was a Polish contingent, Polish-Canadian contingent.
	There was French-Canadians.
	And I know there was anglophones on that corner.
	There was many different groups of people on that corner.
	Yeah.
	The commission has heard many adjectives to describe the group, but I'll put to you this addition that they've been described as difficult or standoffish.
	Would you agree with that?
	I know there was a reputation prior to me going there and speaking to some of them.
	And I didn't...
	I didn't get the sense that they were difficult.
	I got the sense that they were there for their own reasons, which were separate from the overall convoy itself, most of the people that I was interacting with.
	But I got the feeling they were there for their families, for their communities.
	I know one driver I spoke to said that he didn't have anything to go back to until these mandates were lifted.
	And they were quite determined.
	I didn't find them to be difficult.
	There was a little bit of a language barrier with one of the French-speaking men that I spoke to.
	But I didn't find it difficult.
	I just found it a different style of motivation.
	We've heard a bit again with respect to French-Canadian protesters there.
	Were you familiar with the term Farfa does at the time?
	Not until I've been sitting in the audience here.
	Would you say there was anything different in the makeup of the group at Rideau Sussex than at any other locations?
	Just that they were more independent than the rest of the convoy.
	As you...
	Began to work on clearing emergency lanes, interacting with the police, working with the protesters.
	What did you come to understand the organization of the protest movement to be?
	Very, very decentralized.
	I learned that the truckers were not from big organizations, that they were actually independent owner-operators of their vehicles, and that you really...
	You really had to be respectful of the position that they were in.
	They were individual business owners.
	They weren't going to take orders from anybody.
	They weren't going to take orders from me just because I said I had no legitimate or legal authority to tell anyone to do anything, and I wasn't signing anyone's paycheck.
	This was a case where you had to use your soft skills.
	To communicate and get people to buy in with what you're trying to do collectively.
	To your mind, were there any leader or leaders of the movement?
	I think there were people that were in leadership positions.
	For example, Chris Barber is a very charismatic person.
	He's an honest person.
	He'll just tell you the way it is.
	And he was very, very effective at...
	He was communicating with truckers, and it didn't matter what their backgrounds were.
	They were all truckers.
	And so Chris was very influential speaking with truckers.
	Tamara was very influential.
	Bridget was influential in her own way.
	And many of the other people that were there working out of the arc had developed networks, and they were always trying to broaden the network to communicate.
	The things that we were all trying to do.
	And that was a lot of stuff was like, we've got speeches on Saturday, trying to communicate that to the public and really work the social media angles because we were getting vilified badly in such a grotesque way by the legacy media that we made a conscious effort at one point to go into the trucks.
	With cameras and get truckers to tell their stories on social media.
	So the leaders were out there developing that kind of messaging to get out to all the supporters across Canada that had given us $20 million to be there.
	Did you ever interact with Pat King while you were in Ottawa?
	I did.
	And can you tell us what your interactions were and what your impression of him was?
	Thank you.
	Really, my interactions were very little with Pat King, and it wasn't overly impactful, to be honest.
	I had spent maybe two to three occasions in his presence, and it was very little.
	I know that at one point there were some slow rolls.
	And I had requested that one of the other members go with Pat because I know Pat was leading that convoy.
	And I made sure that the person I sent kept him well behaved.
	Are you talking about the slow rolls at the airport?
	Yes, sir.
	And why did you think you needed to send someone to keep Pat King well behaved?
	Because I only knew Pat through reputation in one or two interactions with him, and I didn't want there to be any confusion as to what they were there to do.
	Really just do a slow roll and to guarantee that in no way did we stop at the airport because we were well aware that there was an orange helicopter route for the hospital.
	And we wanted to make sure that we had no impact on any air ambulance ability to get in and out of that airport.
	We had no intention of slowing down or disrupting the airport.
	And I wanted to make sure that we had somebody that was going to guarantee that we weren't there to...
	Close down or lock down the airport or disrupt the air ambulance.
	We just wanted to basically send a message that, you know, we can still move around the city.
	So one of your concerns was potentially that Mr. King might try to shut down the airport or blockade the airport?
	It was just, on my part, to be honest, and some of the others that we discussed, it was just a precaution, just to make sure we...
	We also believe that if we told him not to do something like that, he would listen.
	So you take a precaution when you're concerned that something might happen.
	So is that what you were concerned would happen?
	Yes.
	And was your concern based on Mr. King's reputation as you indicated?
	Yes, just solely on his reputation.
	That was it.
	And what was Mr. King's reputation?
	A little bit of a...
	A little bit of a wild card.
	I remember in a meeting once that I had jokingly referred to him as a hand grenade going off in a room and scaring everybody else that it was going to explode.
	And it was a bit of a joke.
	He laughed.
	Everybody else seemed to think it was funny, but it was kind of like funny because, yeah, that's true.
	But just reputation-wise, he was a little bit of a wild card, and I just wanted to make sure that we were able to contain anything like that.
	Were you concerned it was possible that Mr. King may not engage in peaceful protest?
	That was never a concern that I shared or had.
	And you mentioned that you had dealt with Mr. Bowder sporadically after the initial phone conversation and the introduction.
	At any point, did you become aware of the Memorandum of Understanding, which I'm sure you've heard about over the last few weeks or the last few days, at least?
	Yes, sir.
	I did hear of the Memorandum of Understanding.
	I learned about it once it was submitted already to, I believe, the Governor-General, and I think the media had a copy, and I had read it.
	Again, I'm no lawyer, but I know it wasn't written by a lawyer.
	It wasn't very well written.
	And I remember having a conversation once I learned about the MOU with somebody that I believed to be involved in drafting the MOU.
	And it was a private one-on-one meeting, and I said, you must retract that.
	If you do not retract that or pull it back or put the genie back in the bottle, we are going to denounce it.
	The poop back in the horse, as we say.
	It made us look like we were here for a completely different purpose than what we were there for.
	It really muddied the waters.
	I don't know if as a result of that conversation they pulled it back.
	I just know that the next day it was sort of retracted.
	The MOU referred to overthrowing the government.
	What was that purpose?
	I had read it, and as far as I was concerned, we were there for the mandates.
	That MOU was there for a different purpose, and I don't remember the details of it, to be honest.
	Overthrowing the government is what it said.
	It was not very well written.
	And so I didn't think it was credible.
	I didn't think it was appropriate.
	And I certainly didn't think that the government was ever going to suddenly resign because somebody sent them a memo.
	You may not remember the details, but was your concern that what the MOU appeared to call for was something that was undemocratic?
	What I believed when I read it was that they thought...
	That it was a legal process that they believed it was a mechanism of government that they were trying to initiate.
	Even though I'm no constitutional scholar by any means, but I could tell that it was not going to go anywhere.
	You said you had a conversation with someone where you said this must be denounced.
	Who was that conversation with?
	I believe his name is Martin Martin Brodman.
	And the Commission's understanding that Mr. Brodman was someone who was associated with Mr. Bowder, is that correct?
	Yes, sir.
	And did he seem receptive to your message?
	I think he was upset.
	The meeting didn't end on a bad note.
	He was upset about it.
	He'd been working on this, I believe, since the year before the convoy had even arrived.
	This was something that they were working on.
	They thought they were doing.
	Something that was legitimately recognized by the legal system.
	And he was upset that he wasn't getting support.
	But I believe at the end of that meeting, he said, okay, we will pull it back.
	You've been referred to in media and some of the documents we've received as the spokesperson for the protesters.
	Did you identify yourself to anyone as the spokesman?
	No, sir.
	Sorry, spokesperson?
	No.
	Did you see yourself as a spokesperson?
	The last two days, on the 18th and 19th of February, was the two times only during the convoy that I had chosen to speak without being, or without discussion with other members of the convoy.
	And that was because I felt that, given the previous media stuff that I had done, alternative media or live streams, That I would be recognized by the public as somebody associated with maybe some of the other people like Tamara and Chris and Bridget, because everybody else was either out of the city or were already incarcerated.
	So there was nobody left that I believe the public would recognize as a credible person to deliver those two final...
	Days worth on the 18th and 19th and that's the only time other than that I was always asked to speak on the live streams right and you did on multiple occasions either speak in on live streams or in sort of forms of press conferences is that fair yes and it's our understanding but again correct me if I'm wrong the first one was on February 7th does that sound correct 7th or 8th yes and then on the 10th and I did clean up some of the confusion that I had Yes.
	Yes.
	there, Ms. Leach was there and some of the other organizers?
	Yes.
	Do you know what I'm referring to?
	I do.
	And how did that press conference come about?
	I do not remember the person who asked me or the group of people who asked me to speak, but I had, I believe, just previous to that, it was the night of the Coventry raid that we did a live stream as a larger group, and it seemed to go okay with, I guess, my presence on a video.
	So I was asked the next day to deliver a message on a live stream.
	And I don't remember who asked me to do it.
	I just know that I was asked to do it and that I would be accompanied by several members of, well, I think the entire board, as well as two doctors who were in attendance in that video.
	So if we could pull up COM50884.
	As it's coming up, Mr. Morazzo, you can confirm if it is the case, but we understand that this is the press conference.
	Yes, this is it.
	This is it?
	Okay.
	If you could pause it, please, and go to the 725 mark.
	Tom Morazzo is an incredible witness, an incredible person.
	And then play from 725 to about 821.
	Bring in that military training.
	Okay, I am not calling for violence.
	I'm not expecting you to get into your vehicle, drive here, and create problems, create crimes.
	That's not what we're saying.
	Strength in numbers.
	We got sent here to send a message.
	The message isn't getting through.
	He's not getting it.
	And I apologize if I'm bashing the guy, but honestly, from my assessment, he's got a.22 caliber mind in a.357 world.
	Okay?
	Let's get at a table, for God's sakes.
	Enough hiding.
	I'm willing to sit at a table with the Conservatives and the NDP and the Bloc as a coalition.
	I'll sit with the Governor General.
	You put me at somebody, put us at the table with somebody that actually cares about Canada.
	Did you use a metaphor of guns?
	One quick question, and then I'm going to ask you about the statement that caused confusion.
	When you made a reference to a.22 caliber mine in a.357 world, this has been something that's been reported on.
	Were you referencing Prime Minister Trudeau?
	I was.
	In the video, you say, I'm willing to sit at a table.
	Can I just continue to answer?
	Because I've been vilified in the media for that one.
	Yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off.
	Please go ahead.
	It's a joke.
	I literally meant to.
	Comment on the man's intelligence.
	It was a joke.
	Sorry.
	Understood.
	I think nobody who needed to hear that is going to care about that explanation.
	I'm going to sit at a table with the Conservatives and the NDP and the Bloc as a coalition.
	I'll sit with the Governor-General.
	Put us at the table with somebody that actually cares about Canada.
	Yes.
	What did you mean when you said that?
	In no way did I ever mean or intend for us to be part of the government.
	I wanted them to come and sit literally at a table and start figuring out a way to be in effective opposition to the Liberal Party of Canada because we weren't seeing any opposition at all with the official opposition of Canada.
	If the Conservative Party had been effective as being in opposition, we may not be in this room today.
	But instead, they just didn't oppose anything that was happening to Canadians as to why we were there.
	And when we got there, there was no attempt at any level of government, municipal, provincial, federal government, to even talk to us, to get in a room with us.
	And you've heard the testimony here.
	Nobody ever wanted to even have a So, I want to say that I was quite sick throughout my time during the convoy.
	And, you know, I was exhausted.
	I was dehydrated.
	I, you know, lots of stuff.
	And in that particular moment of that video, I did misspeak.
	It wasn't very clear what I was getting at.
	Two days later, I tried to clarify that, or three days later.
	But what we wanted was for the government, anybody, we were desperate.
	It was a...
	Basically a cry for help to come in and sit down and do this democratically.
	And that is a mechanism of government because as we've seen since then, or even during the convoy, the NDP and the Liberals were forming a coalition that the public had not yet known about.
	And so, you know, forming a coalition seemed to be something like we were trying to nudge them, motivate them in any way we could just to talk to us.
	And to this day...
	They've never spoken to us.
	ever.
	Some media outlets reported on those comments to suggest that you were saying that the protesters wanted to form governments, which they would be in a coalition with the opposition parties, but the protesters themselves would form part of the government.
	You know what I'm talking about?
	That is my fault, the way I phrased that in the video.
	That is not what my intention was, but the way I phrased it.
	I can understand that being confusing, but it's not what I intended.
	We wanted no part of being the government.
	We wanted the government to do the governing, but to listen to us.
	I understand that you spoke again on February 10th and attempted to clarify your statements.
	I understand that.
	But did you take any steps to clarify what you meant with the media outlets who were reporting that the protesters wanted to form a coalition government?
	I was not in charge of direct contact.
	I had no direct contact with the media and as far as I was concerned, my belief was if they actually started to do their job and report fairly, we would reward them with contact or I would or whatever, not necessarily me, but if they continued down the path of constantly vilifying and lying about us, I didn't see the point really of talking to them at all.
	We were effective, highly effective at getting out everything we wanted to get out to the public through alternative and social media.
	So you didn't make any efforts to go to the reporters who had reported a different interpretation and say, that's wrong, can you please fix it?
	No.
	And so you don't know whether or not they would have issued a correction or issued, maybe not a correction, a follow-up story.
	You just don't know.
	I don't know.
	And they never reached out to talk to me from my knowledge either.
	After the February 7th press conference, Benjamin Dichter, who's a witness we'll hear from later, sent out a press release saying that only himself, Mr. Barber, Ms. Leach, and a woman named Dagny were authorized to speak on behalf of the protesters.
	Do you know what I'm referring to?
	I do.
	Vaguely, I do, yes.
	Did you ever have an interaction with Mr. Dichter where you discussed Who was authorized to speak on behalf?
	My interactions with him were very, like, I think if I added up all the entire time I've ever spent with him, I'd be lucky if it was 15, 20 minutes that I've ever spent in a room with him.
	So I can't really say for certain when or what was ever discussed with him.
	I was just not interacting with him at all.
	I'm going to move forward a bit, well, not that much forward, a day forward to your meeting with Steve Kanellakis, which, again, the Commission has already heard a fair bit of evidence about.
	But I take it you recalled meeting with Mr. Kanellakis?
	Yes, sir.
	Why did you want to meet with Mr. Kanellakis?
	I actually didn't.
	I didn't.
	I had grown incredibly frustrated with the police liaison officers that I was dealing with, and I had requested through them.
	To talk to an inspector.
	And I had also made that same concern known to the police liaison officer from the Ontario Provincial Police.
	And I didn't want to interact with the two sergeants that I had been dealing with anymore.
	I wanted somebody who was in a better position to make decisions.
	And also, I wasn't 100% sure that our concerns were being raised up the chain of command in a way that I was comfortable with.
	And that's not to suggest that the two officers from Ottawa police were bad people or anything like that.
	It's just I didn't get the sense that they were taking us as seriously as I would have hoped.
	And so I was requesting to not talk to them anymore.
	I wanted an inspector and I was led to believe that I would be talking to an inspector one evening and I was waiting patiently in a room by myself to speak to the inspector and this mystery inspector never arrived even though I was led to believe I would get one.
	So I walked away from the meeting when I found out I wasn't going to be talking to somebody more senior.
	And the next day I believe is when the offer came to us or to me to meet with somebody at the city.
	And I had no interest in meeting anybody from the city at that point.
	I knew where my focus needed to be was with the police.
	I wasn't interested in any level of the city.
	Can I pull up OPS 8527?
	If we go to page three.
	So, Mr. Marazzo, you're not involved in this email chain.
	But this is an email chain within the Ottawa Police Service.
	And if we can scroll up just a little bit higher so we can see.
	This is an email from John Ferguson to Mark Patterson and Robert Drummond.
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	Did you ever interact with Mr. Ferguson?
	No.
	Not to my knowledge.
	Okay.
	And if we can scroll down.
	So we say here is one of our teams has already been out, Rideau Sussex, to speak with the representatives of that group.
	And it goes on and it says, in regards to the main convoy, our PLT members are currently walking red zones with one of the main organizers, Tom Morazo, who's responsible for 322 trucks.
	Do you see that there?
	Yes, sir.
	Okay.
	And then if we could scroll up a bit further.
	So this is another, this is now an email from Mr. I forget his rank, so I'm going to call him Mr. Patterson.
	And it says, PLT members continued their conversations with Mr. Morazzo this evening.
	He has requested a meeting with an elected official or city manager level member.
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	Do you recall, now that you've seen this, ever being the one who requested the meeting?
	From my recollection, I never had any interest in meeting with any of the elected officials in the city.
	I was perfectly satisfied to deal directly with the police.
	I wanted an inspector.
	I certainly had no interest in meeting with the mayor.
	When I finally met with him, I realized that maybe that was an error, that it was good to meet with Steve.
	But I certainly never requested, to my knowledge, to speak with any of the municipal-level elected officials.
	You can take that down.
	So we saw in the press conference, you were talking, and in your answer about the press conference, you were talking about the importance of engaging with government and speaking with government.
	I appreciate you changed your mind after you met with Steve K., but why wouldn't you want to meet with a city official?
	Because really, at the time, I believe that was, if I'm understanding the timeline correctly, this is the next day after the raid at Coventry.
	I believe the Coventry raid was the 6th.
	That was the seventh.
	I wanted to deal directly with the police because I felt that the police were the ones that were getting the most pressure.
	And I thought that I would be able to have a conversation with the police and try to work with them, build a rapport.
	Because I wasn't getting anywhere that I felt with the two police liaison sergeants I was dealing with.
	I felt that if we could develop a better rapport with the police, then things would change.
	Second to that is the police services board meeting that we had seen.
	The rhetoric from Diane Dean was just...
	Incredible.
	And I don't know if that meeting was before or after the 7th.
	We just knew that we needed to deal with the police.
	And Mr. Wilson mentioned in his testimony on more than one occasion that you had a sense that former Chief Slowly was, you were concerned about the pressure he was under?
	Yeah, I had seen the recording of the Police Services Board meeting.
	That Diane Dean had been the chair of the Police Services Board at the time.
	And I was extremely concerned about the things that I had witnessed her say on the video.
	And so I waited to see the reaction from Chief Slowly.
	And then I got a little bit more concerned again.
	So I rewound it and I watched it again.
	I watched her comments.
	I watched his reaction.
	And I knew.
	Right there and then that the situation had fundamentally changed for all of us, them as well as us.
	And I realized that if we didn't do something to take the pressure off of the chief, things were going to dramatically change for the worse.
	And so that's when we started to completely reshift our focus to taking the pressure off the chief, thereby taking the pressure off of the individual police officers and hopefully ourselves.
	And again, we heard Mr. Wilson this morning.
	He described that after the meeting with Mr. Kanellakis, there was an initial effort to move the trucks from Rideau Sussex to Wellington.
	And as I understand it, that effort was unsuccessful because the police ultimately didn't move the barricades that would be necessary to do that.
	Did Mr. Wilson have that correct?
	He did, but I think I heard...
	We actually had...
	To use a football analogy, we were on the one-yard line with all the trucks on that corner, and Eva and I had spent hours on that corner.
	Eva was talking with the Polish truckers.
	I was talking with the English-speaking French truckers.
	We spent hours there, and we finally got...
	Because Sergeant Lee was there, and despite his best efforts, sometimes he can be a little bit...
	And I had asked the truckers to basically, as a group, come to an agreement themselves and then also elect two people to go and deal directly with Sergeant Lee, because I was actually concerned that if he went into the center of those 80 truckers...
	He would do something that would put his own safety at risk.
	So instead of him going to them, I said, you elect two people, come out, and then we'll talk.
	And then Sergeant Lee got that phone call.
	He walked away, and he came back, and the look on his face said everything.
	I knew that he had just had the carpet pulled out from under his legs, and he said there's no deal.
	I was very concerned.
	I knew I couldn't go back to the truckers and say, hey, we spent all day convincing you to do this.
	And now the police have reneged on it.
	I knew that there would be no further chance of ever getting them to even be open to the idea of moving had I gone back and delivered that message to them.
	So it was...
	We were there.
	We were there that night to move them.
	And I just basically went back and I said, listen, guys, it's a safety issue.
	We're not going to move at night because it's too dangerous for the safety of people with decreased visibility.
	That's all I could come up with at the time to satisfy everybody.
	And then Mr. Wilson talked about another attempt that was made on February the 10th, which did not proceed, and I take you agree with Mr. Wilson.
	Absolutely, yes.
	So then we come to the agreement with the mayor, and there was a meeting on February 13th at City Hall.
	Were you at that meeting?
	The one with Inspector Drummond, Kim Ayotte, and Steve Kay.
	That's our understanding of who?
	Yes, I was at that meeting.
	Okay.
	And I appreciate at that point in time, it's the case that you had indicated that you wouldn't be able to move trucks off Rideau Sussex.
	Is that correct?
	No, I believe at that meeting, we were just there to go over more of the details on how we could properly do that and then reposition or redistribute the trucks in different locations.
	That's what my recollection of the intent of that meeting was and the discussion.
	And I believe Kim Mayotte or Inspector Drummond were the ones that brought the map.
	And we were looking at the map from sort of trying to work out.
	How to redistribute that based on the map that they had marked themselves.
	So Superintendent Drummond testified that at that meeting it was represented that there was two locations where the organizers did not believe they'd get buy-in.
	One was Rideau Sussex and one was with the Coventry Group.
	Do you recall anyone at the meeting from the protester side indicating that?
	I believe that it was...
	It indicated that it would be more difficult, given the events the previous two days, or prior two days, that it would be more work, more challenging.
	but I also believe that there was a will on our part to go up and we thought we could actually get it done.
	I want to talk briefly now about the final days that you were in Ottawa.
	After February 17th and after the Emergencies Act was invoked, was it your understanding that protesters were allowed to enter into what's called the red zone?
	If they were on foot.
	And what was the basis of your understanding that they could enter if they were on foot?
	Just based on some of the briefings from Keith Wilson and discussions with Eva, but not with vehicles, clearly.
	And I don't believe they would have been successful trying to get in.
	And up until at least the 14th, you've been in daily contact with police liaisons, is that correct?
	Yes, sir.
	Did you have any contact with them after the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and did they give you any indication whether or not protesters on foot were allowed in the red zone?
	No, I don't think that my conversations with my regular police liaisons were like that.
	I did receive one phone call.
	From an unknown OPP officer who said that he was the guy that they call for really difficult negotiations.
	I don't know who that person was.
	I just know he was OPP and he had a lot of extensive experience with negotiating.
	And I knew from that phone call that the mass arrests were imminent.
	I didn't get a date.
	I understood the vocabulary in the context of his comments.
	He didn't come out and tell me exactly when they would come in and start making mass arrests, but I knew that it was imminent.
	Do you know when that phone call was?
	I believe it was right after the Emergency Act was invoked.
	It might have been the 15th.
	I can't be certain of that detail, and I have no idea who that officer was.
	Were you aware of the TikTok video that's been...
	Discussed a couple of times in which Mr. Wilson explains that protesters are allowed to continue to protest peacefully.
	I hadn't seen that until I was here in the audience seeing that.
	What was your reaction to seeing it now?
	No real reaction.
	Was there any point when it became clear to you that the police were not going to allow protesters on foot to be in the red zone?
	Not until the first day when they started attacking people up in front of the Senate.
	And what day was that?
	The 18th.
	During that time when the police began clearing the protesters, did anyone from the police ever indicate to you that there was an area where protesters could go to protest?
	No, sir.
	Did you ask whether there's anywhere?
	I did not.
	Is it something that crossed your mind?
	No, not at that time.
	That's not really where my...
	My headspace was.
	I was quite concerned about the things that I had personally witnessed.
	That day I was there when the two people were trampled by the horse.
	I had seen some things that I never thought that I would see in this country.
	And I've run past my time, so I'll ask you one last question, which is, is there anything else that you think is important that we should ask you about?
	No, sir.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	First up is the Government of Canada, please.
	Good afternoon, Mr. Bradshaw.
	I'll just have a few questions for you, but I'll start with where my friend started you with.
	And for the record, I'm Brendan Van Nienhuis, one of the lawyers for the Government of Canada.
	You described this call with an OPP officer that you weren't sure of exactly which officer it was in which it was indicated to you that the police were going to enforce, right?
	Yes.
	And you saw earlier today the video on TikTok of Mr. Wilson advising people they could remain there on foot.
	Yes?
	Yes.
	And you yourself acknowledged that this was not, in fact, the case, right?
	I'm sorry, I'm not understanding.
	That people were not permitted to remain in the red zone on foot.
	I thought that, actually, at the time, I thought that that was somewhat questionable.
	That you would be within your right to be, from my conversations in the briefing from Keith, that you would be within your right to be in the red zone.
	I just didn't think you'd get a vehicle in there, but that you could remain there as long as you weren't bringing in a vehicle or anything like that.
	The call you described, you thought it was on the 15th, shortly after the Emergency Act was invoked on the 14th?
	It's in and around there.
	I don't know the specific date or the time that I received that phone call.
	I just know that that phone call was somewhat impactful enough for me to remember.
	And it was a short call.
	Could we go to HRF 401510?
	I'm showing you a copy of this email, which appears to be an email from Ava Chipiuk to, among others, yourself and Mr. Wilson.
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	And she is attaching a document that I don't think we have, but it's a document entitled The Right to Protest, right?
	Yes.
	And she indicates, and I guess this is relaying some advice received from Saya Hassan, barrister and solicitor.
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	And she's indicating or passing along a note to you and Mr. Wilson that says, I've drafted something on the right to protest but have taken a cautious approach because I don't know what the emergency orders are.
	But it's my understanding that they can limit the right to protest and, well, that can be challenged in court.
	At the moment, people who do not comply may be arrested, right?
	Right.
	And she goes on to say, I think that if we're advising people, it's important to let them know all of the risks that they're facing.
	And let them make their own decisions, right?
	Yes.
	And that's sound advice that you would agree with?
	I would.
	But I would also say that, you know, combine that with the fact that Justice McLean had ruled that we were legally within our right to be there in Ottawa to have this protest.
	And then, you know, you're seeing an email from a lawyer who was saying that it is...
	You know, my understanding.
	So if it is not completely set in concrete for a lawyer, what chance do we have for having a definitive bit of legal advice that we can make a 100% absolute decision on what is going to happen to us if we remain?
	So you had an interpretation of Justice McLean's order, right?
	I had...
	Just from what I was briefed on, the result, and that I do remember reading the decision, and I'm not, again, I'm not a lawyer, so when I'm reading it, it's from a very unsophisticated perspective, but I do remember reading the part where it said to the effect that we had a legal right to be there.
	All right.
	Well, you're not a lawyer, but Ms. Chipyuk is a lawyer, and Saya Hassan, you understand, is a lawyer as well?
	I see there on the email that this person is a lawyer.
	Okay.
	Did you take any steps to relate the risks that people are facing so that they could make their own decision with respect to the possibility that they would be arrested if they did not comply?
	I believe we handed out a French-English double-sided piece of paper that we printed.
	To everybody, I think we printed out hundreds of copies.
	And it was from the pro bono legal team that we had that if people were arrested, that was a description of what their rights would be and also the phone number to call if that should happen to them.
	Okay.
	Now, sir, you're publishing, I understand, you're publishing a book which you intend to release on February the 14th of next year, is that right?
	And you've selected that date because it's the same date once the report of this commission must be tabled?
	No, it's the one-year anniversary of the Emergency Act being invoked.
	Oh, I see.
	You've been attempting to raise money for the publication of this book through a fundraiser on the website Give, Send, Go, correct?
	Yes, because I have a team that is helping me and they also need to, well, they need support.
	Sure.
	um could we go to com 50415 So this is an affidavit that you swore in support of an application by Canadian frontline nurses, right?
	Yes.
	And if we could just go down to the very bottom of the affidavit to find the jurat date.
	There we go.
	You swore this, it appears on March the 4th of this year?
	Yes.
	If we could go back up to paragraph four.
	Now, here you say that you arrived in Ottawa on January the 30th with the intention of peacefully participating in the protest, correct?
	Yes.
	And you told us shortly ago that your arrival was due to the invitation extended to you to come to Ottawa by James Bowder?
	Yes.
	And you understood he was asking for your assistance in providing some form of organization to support his objectives?
	As part of the group identifying itself as the convoy?
	I wouldn't say as his because to me it was the convoy.
	He was somebody participating in the convoy, but yes.
	Okay.
	Well, so whoever the convoy is, that's who you're being asked to help?
	Yes.
	By Mr. Bowder?
	Yes.
	And you became familiar, you told us, with the memorandum of understanding that he was circulating and intended to deliver to the Governor General and the Speaker of the Senate, right?
	Yes.
	I don't know who he delivered it to.
	I just recall the Governor General was the name that was thrown out there.
	Let's go to COM 50886, which is a copy of the memorandum, just for clarity.
	Thank you.
	Council, column 50886 appears to be some sort of social media post.
	Excuse me, it's 866.
	I misspoke.
	And...
	In fairness to you, Mr. Baraccio, you were clear in saying that this was, at the very least, not a well-written document?
	From what I remember reading it, I didn't believe it was a very well-written document.
	I knew by looking at it, it wasn't written by a lawyer.
	And if you look at the second page of the document, Looking at the top here of the page, there's a list of the parties in effect to this memorandum of understanding.
	Do you see what I mean there, the bold-faced lettering there?
	At the top, yes.
	So one group is the Concerned Canadian Citizens, Indigenous Community and Permanent Residence, represented by the Bowders and Mr. Broadman.
	Okay, yes.
	And then the next party is the Senate.
	Yes.
	As represented by the Speaker.
	Yes.
	And then it's the Governor General.
	Yes.
	And if we go to page 2 in Article 3. You stop there.
	You see the notion here is that there would be a committee formed between the concerned citizens and the Senate and the Governor General.
	Right?
	Yes.
	And that that committee then would.
	Under paragraph E, subparagraph E there, instruct all levels of the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to cease and desist, etc., etc., provisions related to COVID-19, right?
	Yes.
	And if you go over to page three and look at item J there, you see that in exchange for this, The concerned citizens will immediately stop Operation Bear Hug Ottawa demonstration convoy.
	You see that?
	Yes.
	And so in effect, and that was Mr. Botter's name for the occupation or blockades or what have you in Ottawa, was Operation Bear Hug?
	I have no idea what he called it, and I don't know what Operation Bear Hug Ottawa is.
	Okay.
	At any rate, you recognize that this document presented something of a nonsensical idea?
	I would agree with that.
	And you insisted that it be withdrawn and retracted publicly, and this was then done, right?
	That's my understanding.
	And you understood that any legislative action would require the participation of the elected representatives at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, right?
	Yes.
	In fact, if you go to Article 7 of the MOU, excuse me, Article 6, You'll see that it is in fact supposed to be construed in accordance with the laws of Canada, right?
	Yes.
	Now, you can take the document.
	Can I just...
	Looking at this, this is a 15-page document.
	This is not, from my recollection, what I read.
	Okay.
	This is not what I read during my time in Ottawa.
	I believed it to be more of a two-part, two-page...
	I don't recall ever looking at this particular document broken down like this.
	Well, I'm sure maybe it was a media release of some kind they put out, but I don't remember ever reading this.
	Okay.
	Well, we'll ask Mr. Bowder about it tomorrow to see if there's a distinction.
	You indicated in your press conference on February 9th, as we just saw, that you were offering yourself as willing to sit down with the...
	Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, and the Governor General as some sort of a representative, right?
	Yeah, so from my perspective, I was thinking not even more as a mediator.
	It was really just an SOS, to be honest with you.
	It was just a literal call for help, a desperation.
	Stop ignoring us.
	Come and sit at a table.
	We've got a table.
	You guys, you know.
	We'll get you a conference room, but just do something.
	Instead of taking cheap photo ops and opportunities with people and making this into a political joke for you guys, get off your butts and come here and do something meaningful for the 6 million Canadians that are affected by this crap in this country right now.
	You had no interest in meeting with municipal elected officials, right?
	No.
	Our issues were not with the municipal government.
	Our issues were with the federal government.
	We were here to end federal mandates.
	On February the 13th, you had a meeting with Ottawa Police with respect to negotiations, right?
	In what regard?
	You had a meeting in the evening with Superintendent Drummond and others from the Ottawa Police?
	He was the only police officer in the room.
	Right.
	And you had commented that you'd wanted to have an inspector To deal with on behalf of Ottawa Police, right?
	Yes.
	You understand that a superintendent is a rank above an inspector?
	Yes.
	Can we go back to your affidavit, COM 50415?
	It'll be page four.
	We can go to paragraph.
	17, I believe it is.
	You indicate here that the freezing of bank accounts in the wake of the invocation of the Emergencies Act has left me real concern that authorities are surveilling me and may arbitrarily charge and arrest me, although I've committed no crime, right?
	Yes.
	I'm constantly looking over my shoulder.
	I am hesitant to leave my house.
	I have left my home only twice since I returned from Ottawa.
	Yes.
	I'm concerned about traveling with my children as I'm concerned they'll be taken away from me by Children's Aid in the event the police decide to charge and arrest me.
	Yes, because I was informed after leaving Ottawa that there was a task force of RCMP OPP Ottawa Police, as well as the statements publicly made by Acting Chief Bell that said that you would be identified, investigated, and there would be criminal charges and other punishments coming your way.
	So that statement is true because from my perspective, I was one of the ones that was not charged during the time in Ottawa, but I was led to believe that I was under investigation and I have since learned different versions of that.
	But it was my understanding that I was being investigated as the 42 of us on one of the lists were identified to me.
	You've obviously overcome this fear to be able to be with us today.
	Well, I asked Keith Wilson a few months ago, when would I find out that I'm no longer being investigated, and when will I find out that I'm not going to be charged?
	You would overcome this fear by May the 4th of 2022, when the election period began in the Ontario provincial election.
	Fair?
	Yes, sir.
	And that election was held on June the 2nd of 2022?
	And you ran in the riding, I understand, of Peterborough Kawartha for the Ontario Party?
	Yes.
	And you there received 1,973 votes, amounting to approximately 3.8% of the vote in the riding, right?
	Yes.
	Could we go to pb.can.401774?
	I just want to put up a brief excerpt of the video.
	It'll be just at the very beginning.
	Council, 1174 were the last four numbers that you just...
	1774.
	I've done it again.
	Excuse me.
	Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ontario Party candidate for Peterborough and Kawartha, a member of the Veterans for Freedom Steering Committee, Captain Retired Tom Morazzo.
	Thank you.
	This is a lot harder than it looks.
	Before I start, there are Some people I'd like to acknowledge in the room.
	And I'd like Jeremy McKenzie to stand up for a moment.
	Thank you.
	Sir, how do you know Mr. McKenzie?
	He does, he has a podcast and he does a lot of political satire and comedy.
	He does some serious videos sometimes.
	He is the creator of a fictitious meme on the internet known as Diagalon, which I assume what you're going to ask me about.
	And the vice president of Diagalon being a time-traveling, cocaine-addicted goat.
	That is just an internet meme that has no meaning at all.
	And I had spoken to Jeremy the first time when I was in Ottawa on the phone.
	And the second time I spoke to Jeremy was when the Liberal government was debating whether or not they should use the Emergency Act.
	And they were citing this fictitious goat that time travels as a domestic terrorist group and justification for invoking the Emergency Act.
	And I saw a video that Jeremy and his friends were doing, and they were laughing hysterically, showing clips of the government actually talking about Diaglon as being a real thing.
	Everybody knew it was a joke.
	When I saw the video, I contacted Jeremy and I said, tell me everything there is to know about Diaglon.
	He said, if you draw a diagonal line from Alaska through Alberta to Texas, it makes a diagonal line.
	And that's why it's called Diagon.
	They're the only states and provinces that don't have mask mandates.
	And he used it as a joke.
	He made the symbol for Diagon in a second on his cell phone because it's a joke.
	And it is meaningless.
	He did it to attract attention for people to come to a barbecue and to have a lot of fun.
	People wanted to have a barbecue without masks on.
	A bunch of strangers that didn't know each other.
	And yet here he was watching a...
	Members of Parliament and Liberal Party actually joking or actually seriously stating that the reason for invoking the Emergency Act was because of Diagon.
	Like, it was the most outrageous, ridiculous thing I had ever seen.
	And I think this commission should be investigating that as the biggest intelligence joke of, you know, the last decade.
	So, it's a joke.
	Diagon is a joke.
	It's not even a real thing.
	Thank you.
	Those are my questions.
	Thank you.
	Next is the Ottawa Residents Coalition.
	Good afternoon.
	My name is Paul Champ.
	I'm lawyer for the Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses.
	Just a couple of questions, Mr. Mraz, are following in your testimony.
	Yes, sir.
	I note we didn't get an interview summary for you from the Commission Council.
	Is that because you refused to sit down with Commission Council for an interview?
	No, I believe my lawyers felt that I would not have my charter rights protected if I voluntarily gave a statement.
	Okay.
	And then turning to your activities in Ottawa in February earlier this year, which hotel did you stay in again?
	The Ark.
	And who paid for your hotel, Mr. Borgo, I gather?
	It's possible that he paid for it, but I cannot confirm who paid for my hotel room.
	I just know I didn't.
	So you stayed in a hotel room for about three weeks and you don't know who paid for it?
	I do not know for a fact who paid for it.
	I spoke to Joseph's.
	I don't know if he was paying for the rooms or just had control of a block on behalf of somebody else.
	I don't really know because they belong to some sort of an organization and I don't know if it's the organization or Joe or somebody specifically who did it.
	I just know that I went to Ryan when I needed a room.
	And we know...
	Through a variety of means, a significant amount of money was raised with respect to the convoy demonstration.
	Did you have some of your expenses covered aside from them?
	There was occasions where I was buying my own food and whatever food was donated in the conference room that we had.
	Like I said, I was sick, so I ended up losing 14 pounds and I've gained more than that back.
	And I wasn't eating very much.
	The few times I ate, I actually just bought myself if I wanted more of a meal.
	So you didn't get any cash to cover any travel expenses or anything like that?
	No.
	Now, you've told us that you were doing logistics for the convoy, but it's a little bit unclear to me exactly what you're doing.
	You were managing truck locations?
	Yes.
	Anything else?
	Well, when I initially got there, I was focused in on the logistics.
	And then after the raid at Coventry, I had notified a former military officer that I personally knew.
	And I asked him if he would come to Ottawa and help me.
	And he did.
	And so I was able to actually hand off some of those day-to-day things that I was working on and then move towards...
	So my role actually did transition less.
	Day-to-day logistics, more strategically working with Keith and Eva to get something going here.
	Right.
	I heard you talking about the transition, but it was unclear to me what you transitioned from.
	What logistics were you doing?
	Well, I really was directing the people on the ground.
	Basically steering people in the direction of things that they needed to focus on, truck locations.
	There was occasions where people wanted to move trucks around, but that became a little bit difficult as well.
	Oftentimes, I would deal directly with the police, so that became something that was impacting my day greatly.
	I would have conversations with the liaison sergeants and then go back and talk to the trucker.
	So physically, was I out there filling trucks up?
	No, I wasn't.
	But I was trying to facilitate, you know, organizing that better, developing trucker captain organizations and stuff like that, only to find that.
	Really, the truckers were organically doing that themselves.
	And you told us that you were trying to manage where the trucks were, figure out where they all were, map them out, how many trucks, try to get an accurate count, so forth.
	But it was put to you by Commission Council about Kent Street.
	Now, we've heard police evidence from a resident, and actually Chris Barber himself, testifying that Kent Street was almost completely blocked.
	Throughout the entire combo, every once in a while, the emergency lane would get open, but it would almost instantly be closed up again.
	Predominantly, there was no emergency lane on that street.
	So I'm surprised, Mr. Mraz, you don't remember that one street.
	Well, at some point, I had the two people that I were working with that actually started to monitor that.
	My friend that I just mentioned, that was a retired military, as well as one other individual.
	The other issue was this that we recognized was that the police liaison teams were going and talking to everybody.
	So they would talk to me, leave, and go have the same exact conversation with somebody else.
	And there was multiple teams, and the information was getting very confusing.
	So, for example, they would talk to me, and if you were there, they would go over and talk to you, say the same thing, and then everybody's chasing their tail, going in circles.
	So, at some point, we just kind of...
	People took on responsibilities for certain functions, and they just would maintain that.
	And so, the two individuals I'm speaking out, when it came to safety, the police would go to them for safety lanes.
	They would immediately go out and do the best they could to clear it.
	But then again...
	Sometimes they got blocked.
	That's helpful.
	I must have misunderstood your evidence.
	I thought that's what you were doing.
	You'd agree with me, Mr. Morazzo.
	City buses, there's no way they could get through anywhere downtown, correct?
	I thought that's an easy one.
	I would say, because I believe I was on Metcalf is what the ARC was on.
	I believe they could have got through there.
	I don't see any reason why not.
	There was days I went out there and the street was wide open.
	A bus could have gone up and down Metcalfe all day long, back and forth, I guess.
	Yes.
	Well, I don't want to say all day long, but I mean, there were several times where, you know, it was wide open.
	I moved my vehicle on right in front of the Ark Hotel on that street.
	No problems.
	But presumably, if people wanted to go anywhere other than up and down Metcalfe, they wouldn't be able to access the city bus.
	As you got closer to Wellington, it...
	Do you mean the shorter buses that are meant for wheelchairs?
	That's correct.
	Entirely accurate.
	I think, again, I would say that for that type of transportation, as you got a little closer to Wellington, it would probably be more of a challenge, but it would be up to the individual bus driver himself or herself to see if they could negotiate through those intersections.
	You didn't observe any, though?
	No, I did not.
	And just moving to a different topic, police leaks.
	You were getting information about what the police were planning ahead of time through sympathetic police officers.
	Is that right?
	That's my understanding, but they weren't coming to me directly.
	They were coming from other sources, and then I would have conversations with people that that information was passed to them.
	So you were kind of like the clearinghouse for the intelligence, I guess, for the convoy?
	No, I tried to decentralize that as well.
	In the sense that you could, you know, I wasn't a police officer.
	I had worked a lot with police officers in my military career, but I wasn't a police officer.
	So we had police officers that were retired that, you know, everybody knows Danny Bulford was one.
	If I had questions, you know, maybe him or Vince Gurses, maybe.
	But at that point, at some point, I stopped actually caring about And I just left it into other people's more expertise or more capable hands.
	Moving on to another topic, you testified about the slow roll, Pat King's slow roll around the airport, and that you cooperated to some extent assisting with that, correct?
	Just so much as I wanted to make sure that there would never be a complete blockage or a stoppage of operations for the airport.
	But you also told us there was some value to it as well, that it was sending a message to the city that the vehicles could move around and could move to other areas of the city if necessary.
	Yes.
	And that discussion centered around what happened at Coventry when the police went in on a Sunday night and raided and stole the fuel and stole the food.
	And my conversations with the Ottawa police the next day was, If you want to provoke a reaction from this organic movement, from individual truckers, that's the best way to go about it.
	And if you want to keep it as civil as it has been, don't put us in a situation where there has to be a tit-for-tat kind of a situation.
	And I said, by the way, we will never exceed the level of stupidity that you guys are doing to us.
	We might match it.
	We'll never exceed it.
	And by the way, your Coventry was your freebie.
	We're not going to do anything because of what you did at Coventry because we don't see the value in it.
	We don't want to escalate this into something terrible.
	And so we just tried to always keep the temperature down, keep the tone down with them.
	But, you know, they were incredibly provoking constantly.
	So the slow roll was a warning to the city that if the police did some kind of enforcement action, the truckers might retaliate in some way.
	I'm not comfortable with the word retaliate, but you could split hairs on that word, but it wasn't meant as a retaliation.
	It was meant really to send the signal that...
	You know, we've got the ability to move around.
	And do we want to escalate to that level?
	No.
	What we're trying to say to you is that if we really, really want to escalate to the level you guys are ramping up, then we can play that game with you.
	But we don't want to play that game.
	So they'll do the slow roll just to let you know that it is possible.
	And just to be clear what we're talking about here, the game meaning the police enforcing the law.
	If the police attempt to enforce the law...
	The truckers, given their size and their numbers, will escalate towards the City of Ottawa and their residents, correct?
	That's what you mean?
	I don't really...
	I didn't see it lawful to go in and steal people's fuel or their food.
	I didn't actually see it as a lawful act on behalf of the police.
	I saw it as theft.
	With respect to Mr. King...
	Mr. King, you understood people didn't want to deal with him because some of his comments online about bullets and so forth were distasteful.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, that was the sense I got, but I knew somebody had also told me those comments for two years prior to the convoy, and it was just a complete hit piece by somebody who ever put that video out there, that it was just meant to discredit him and make us look bad.
	You don't think Mr. King was discrediting himself by saying the Prime Minister was going to catch a bullet?
	From the testimony I saw here in the room the other day, the context of that had something to do with something completely unrelated to this convoy.
	What about his online comments about race and the Anglo-Saxon race?
	Were those kinds of comments discrediting the movement?
	I know nothing of those comments.
	Or Mr. Barber, his online racist comments, was that discrediting the movement?
	I believe he...
	Owned up to that himself yesterday.
	Right.
	And then finally, Diagalon, you said that this was a joke and it was about creating a diagonal state of people who don't wear masks.
	Isn't it in fact the case, it was the concept or the image is a diagonal state where there would only be white people who would live in it and they could get all non-white people out, correct?
	All right.
	Please, just wait a moment, please.
	Let's try and keep it quiet, please, while we hear the evidence.
	This is the equivalent of a court in the sense that we have sworn evidence and we'd like to keep a proper atmosphere.
	Go ahead.
	I'm sorry.
	If you were to meet some of Jeremy McKenzie's friends and the ones that were on the video that I was describing earlier where they were laughing about the Liberal Party using Diagon as a justification, you'll see clearly that one of Jeremy's best friends is a black man.
	There's...
	I don't...
	I can't even comprehend how somebody...
	Does he have a Jewish accountant as well?
	I don't even know what that means.
	Have you looked at Mr. McKenzie's online rants?
	Do you think that...
	I've seen some of his rants and some of them, you know, some of the things he says I don't agree with and some of the things I think he's absolutely spot on.
	But that's up to me to make a decision on whether or not I find that the content is appropriate or not.
	And I have seen Jeremy say things I don't like and I've seen Jeremy say things that I thought were brilliant.
	Thank you.
	Okay, and next I call on the Ontario Provincial Police.
	I apologize for the delay.
	I have no questions.
	Okay.
	Next is Council for former Chief Slowly.
	I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Commissioner, but you may have missed Ottawa Police on the list.
	Yes, I did.
	Well, we'll get back to you after.
	Okay.
	Former Chief Slowly.
	I believe my friends from the Ottawa Police Service have more time than have I, and it probably makes sense for them to go ahead, if they're prepared to, if it's your pleasure.
	That's fine.
	I will concede to Council's agreement.
	Okay.
	Ottawa Police Service.
	Good afternoon.
	My name is Jessica Barrow, and as you've now heard, I am Council for the Ottawa Police Service.
	Yes.
	i just have a couple of questions and i wonder if we can start with the document ops 14504 Have you seen this document before?
	I'm not entirely sure.
	If you read through it, and obviously we can give you a minute.
	It's a document that we've heard was circulated to the protesters and it's dated February 17th.
	It was circulated by the Ottawa Police Service.
	Okay.
	My recollection, I know there was a letter that was posted all over the city.
	I honestly never bothered to read it.
	I know there was something that was posted places and I know there was...
	Two different colored ones, but that's the extent of my knowledge of the documents.
	So you testified earlier that perhaps there was a lack of clarity around whether you could be in the red zone on foot at this point, but it was your understanding that you could not be there with a vehicle.
	Is that correct?
	Do I have that correct?
	Well, what I meant is that you weren't going to be able to bring in a large truck.
	I wasn't really thinking about it in terms of individual vehicles.
	I know my vehicle was there and I got five parking tickets in 24 hours and my car hadn't even moved.
	So I knew there was an issue with vehicles, but my mind at the time was focused on people that wanted to come to the city, came in on foot.
	Okay, well let's take a look at this document then.
	If we could scroll to the top a little bit.
	It says we want to inform you that you will face severe penalties under provincial and federal legislation if you do not cease further unlawful activity and remove your vehicle and your property immediately from all unlawful protest sites.
	And then if we scroll down a little, it says you may be arrested, your vehicle could be seized, a few other issues.
	You can see at the bottom, those delivering fuel and other supplies.
	Can be charged.
	Persons traveling to the unlawful protest sites to participate or support the unlawful demonstration can be charged.
	So does that perhaps clarify the question of whether you could be there at this point in time on February 17th?
	Well, that's based on, you know, a document that was posted around the city that was not actually served to me personally.
	So I didn't look at it.
	I can't really explain why I couldn't.
	I didn't look at it, but you're posting that, but I was getting different interpretation from the lawyers that were accompanying us.
	Right, so you're getting an interpretation from your lawyer, but the Ottawa police are circulating information that you're choosing not to read that is telling you that if you continue to stay here, you may get arrested.
	Is that fair?
	But I vaguely even recall ever...
	I might have seen something posted in an elevator once.
	That's all I even remember noticing that there was something there.
	But honestly, until the violence came to the protesters from the police, I didn't see this as something that we...
	I didn't see it as something that needed to be abided by because it was a peaceful protest and I knew that Justice McLean had already ruled that we had a right to be there.
	Whether or not the Emergency Act was invoked, we're getting conflicting information from the police.
	We have information that I trust a lot more from our legal team.
	Because we were dealing with pro bono lawyers.
	There was five of them that did criminal law and we had the two lawyers that were on the ground with us the entire time.
	So we were there to do a protest and we took the judges.
	I personally took the judges' word as well as Keith and Eva's word that what we were doing was lawful.
	And so that's how I conducted myself according to that.
	So I respect the fact that you may have been operating on legal advice, but I guess my question to you is...
	It wasn't a question of there being a lack of clarity from the Ottawa Police Service.
	And in fact, it was just that you disagreed with the direction of the Ottawa Police Service.
	At the time, I wasn't really considering that as direction because at no time did the police actually come up to me and say that in no uncertain term.
	It was something that was stuck to the wall on a piece of paper.
	So when it stuck to the wall and I handed it to me, it didn't really seem overly credible.
	And I don't want to say credible.
	But if it was so important to them, I would have thought that any one of those police liaison officers would have walked up and handed it to me and explained it to me with either a puppet show or a box of crayons so that I could understand it.
	But that was never the case.
	It was just posted on a wall.
	Were you aware that there was also social media posts in relation to these warnings?
	Were you monitoring the Ottawa Police Service social media?
	I was not.
	I was not.
	Okay.
	You indicated, you referred to police violence.
	Yes.
	Starting on the, I presume, on the 18th of February.
	Yes.
	And you indicated that you were watching that from your hotel room?
	No, I was there.
	I was only 15 feet away from the horses when they trampled the two people.
	So then you would have heard prior to the arrest taking place, multiple verbal warnings from police officers indicating that if people didn't depart, they risked being arrested.
	No, I did not hear them verbally.
	The front line of police officers were extremely quiet.
	The front row of protesters were trying to engage the police in dialogue and to convince them to stop doing what they were doing.
	And there was no reaction from the police on the front line.
	There was no shouts.
	There was no...
	I didn't hear even so much as a bullhorn telling the crowd to disperse.
	During the time that I was there on the line, from what I personally observed.
	And so if there's evidence to suggest that there were sort of loudspeakers or whatever we're calling them, indicating that people needed to leave or they could be arrested, you just didn't hear that?
	I did not hear that, personally.
	If that's what was done, I did not personally hear that.
	And notwithstanding that the police were obviously present and ready to arrest those that weren't leaving, they weren't leaving, correct?
	They were not leaving.
	Okay, thank you.
	Those are my questions.
	Okay.
	Now former Chief Sloan, please.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Mr. Morazzo, Tom Curry for former Chief Slowly.
	Just on the point that my friend Ms. Barrow was asking you about, can you just help us?
	I thought I saw in the statement, we don't have to go back to it, just tell me if I've got this right, that you encouraged the protesters towards the end as this enforcement action rolled out, you encouraged protesters to leave the protest site rather than be arrested?
	Um...
	I don't believe that to be the case.
	I never encouraged anyone to leave until the 19th.
	Maybe I had that date wrong then.
	Beginning on the 19th, did you then change your approach and encourage protesters to leave rather than be arrested?
	After what I saw?
	Personally, in the city, the level of violence that the police had brought to the protesters, what I saw, I was so disgusted.
	That day, Danny Bulford had also been arrested later in the afternoon.
	And the following morning on the 19th, I had a meeting with the remaining people that I knew to be leaders or truck captains in my hotel room with other people.
	And my advice to everybody was to depart the City of Ottawa and to peacefully withdraw, but that it would have to be up to the individual owner-operators of their own vehicles.
	They have to decide for themselves.
	But our recommendation was that they left the City of Ottawa as peacefully as they could.
	And at 10.03 in the morning, I remember the phone call with the OPP.
	I notified them and I said, we will peacefully withdraw.
	You need to move your concrete barriers and allow us to get fuel into the trucks.
	And we will start making arrangements to leave as soon as possible.
	But that each truck driver had to make their own individual decision.
	You know, there is a video of it.
	I'm sure somebody may bring it up.
	And, you know, it was a very frustrating phone call that I had with the OPP.
	But I said we are recommended.
	It's not my proudest moment.
	If you do show the video, my language is terrible.
	But I was angry and I was frustrated.
	But I advised him to allow the truckers to leave.
	Move the concrete barriers because we couldn't get out and allow us to get fuel.
	Because, you know, fuel was a bit of an issue trying to get out.
	Right.
	And for the commissioner's purposes, then, do you know how many of the protesters took the advice that you gave and left voluntarily?
	There was a group of protesters that were set up with tents.
	There was an outdoor kitchen, basically, with a big pig roast and stuff, and that individual.
	Who was, I think, owned that tent or was in control of that tent, had started to pack up and recommend to his people that it was time to leave.
	And I just know that various groups took the advice and some didn't.
	But by the morning of the 19th, from our perspective, the violence just actually got worse.
	And when they moved down to the war memorial, that's when things got really quite disturbing.
	The 18th things were incredibly disturbing.
	You'll hear testimony here, I'm sure, from Chris Deering, the horrific things that he had, and he's a combat veteran of Afghanistan.
	So after hearing that and seeing the footage of all of that stuff after that, there was no way there was any point in staying any longer.
	I mean, I understand violence.
	There was no way those truckers were Ever going to be able to repel the police in any way.
	The truckers who, those who remained in?
	Those who remained, and those who didn't, were not allowed to get out.
	Because I think at that point, on the 18th and 19th, the police decided they're going in.
	And, you know, we had seen the text messages of RCMP officers laughing and joking about bringing, like, don't do it all in one day.
	Let us get our turn on the next day.
	The police were getting geared up.
	That was leaked to the alternative social media where they were joking and laughing about using jackboots on people.
	Right.
	So just a couple of things.
	You told the commissioner that you were watching the interaction between the Police Services Board Chair and Chief Slowly.
	Yes.
	And did you form the conclusion that Chief Slowly's...
	Support from the Police Services Board had been badly affected?
	Diminished?
	You know, it was my understanding that it is against the law for Police Services Board to direct police operations.
	And from my perspective, what I was watching was her covert or very...
	I don't know what the word is, but Diane Dean's...
	Deep desire to start directing police operations to Chief slowly.
	And when I listened to his response, I had to listen to it twice to understand what really was going on in that meeting.
	It was very clear to me that he was getting pressure from every different direction.
	And especially because Diane Dean effectively was his boss.
	And she was putting an enormous amount of pressure on him.
	And combining that with all the other rhetoric from the mayor and the other politicians locally, it was my opinion that if we didn't do something to help him, to take the pressure off of him specifically, there would be a very negative reaction from the entire police service of Ottawa.
	And you were attempting also, as I understand it, to take pressure off from the residents.
	Yeah, and that was the strategy, was to take the pressure off the residents and thereby get less complaints to the police.
	And then if the politicians were getting less pressure, they would put less pressure on the chief.
	You were there from the 30th on.
	Do I have it right that you understood, particularly having regard to your background in our armed forces, that...
	The Ottawa Police Service, as a police service of local jurisdiction, did not have sufficient resources to manage and disperse the protesters 30th, February 1st, whatever day you choose.
	Was that a fair conclusion that you drew?
	At that point, it was far too early to tell because I knew that there was...
	Parliamentary police were here.
	I knew that Gatineau police were close by.
	I knew OPP was in the area.
	And I knew there was probably RCMP in the area.
	But it was my belief, because I knew that the liaison teams were interacting with us at least, that we had an exceptionally good chance.
	To work with the police, this is why we made a concerted effort to constantly work with the police, because we knew that, you know, we had a measure of power in terms of the convoy itself, but they actually have the force, the physical force, to change the situation.
	And so we thought if we could just keep the temperature down constantly and effectively with the police, there wouldn't be a need to bring in other police departments.
	Right.
	One last thing then, please.
	Could I ask to show the witness, HRF 1379.
	This is a short little statement that I think you gave Mr. Lawton, who wrote a book, published a book about these events.
	Just want to make sure that I have you confirm it.
	This goes, I think, to your ability to manage some of the protesters.
	Other witnesses have told us about the nature of the independent thinking, independent operator.
	You experienced that too.
	Yes.
	Page five, please.
	Just a little higher.
	Perhaps it starts on four.
	And a little higher, please.
	And just, I'm sorry, a little lower.
	There it is.
	During the meeting.
	Do you see that?
	During the meeting, Morazo and Wilson.
	Said they would try to move trucks from residential areas downtown and clear the Rideau and Sussex intersection.
	Police agreed to move their concrete barriers temporarily so that trucks could get onto Wellington Street.
	The caveat, however, which Wilson and Merazzo knew all too well, was that no one could force the truckers to do anything they didn't want to do.
	That remained true throughout?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	I don't have any other questions for you.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	Next.
	Is the City of Ottawa?
	All of the areas upon which we had intended to question have been canvassed.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Okay.
	CCLA, please.
	Yes.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Mr. Morazzo, my name is Eva Krajewska and I'm counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
	I want to ask you a few questions with respect to the emergencies orders.
	After the Federal Emergencies Act was invoked, were any of your personal or corporate bank accounts frozen?
	Yes, all of my bank accounts.
	My joint bank accounts with my former spouse were all affected.
	My credit card that was on file with my son's pharmacy.
	We're suspended.
	My former spouse, her credit rating was dropped 109 points.
	Yes, so everything was frozen.
	I had access to no money other than cash.
	And so these were all your personal accounts, and not just ones that you hold individually, but also ones that you hold jointly with your child and your former spouse?
	Yes, they were joint accounts for Frozen, as well as my ex-wife's, my first wife's financial institution reached out.
	Cautioned her that potentially her accounts were going to also be frozen, and I haven't been with her in over a decade.
	And Mr. Moritzer, for how long were your bank accounts frozen?
	During the entire time of the Emergency Act.
	So until the Emergency Act was revoked?
	Yes.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, go ahead.
	I was just going to say that luckily we had cash in the house because my son's heart medication.
	We couldn't purchase it.
	My account had been frozen.
	And if we didn't have cash, he wouldn't have been able to get his heart medication.
	He had a month and a half previous had myocarditis and was on some pretty intense heart medication.
	And were you given any information either from the bank or from the police as to how your bank accounts could be reopened?
	I was never notified that my bank accounts had been frozen, and I was never notified that they would be, and I was never notified that they were reinstated at no time.
	So did you just find out that they were frozen because you could no longer use your cards?
	Could no longer access any of our financial assets at all.
	And how did you find out that your bank accounts and assets were unfrozen?
	Was it just because you were able to use them again?
	Once we discovered it, we would check every couple hours to see if we had access to our own money.
	Were you able to access your online banking?
	Just to get in.
	You could log in, but there was a message on it that said access to your financial whatever was denied.
	Thank you very much, Mr. Morazzo.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Thank you.
	Next is Democracy Fund, JCCF.
	Mr. Commissioner, Mr. Morazzo, I'll be very brief today.
	You indicated at the beginning of your testimony today that you saw things you never thought you would see in Canada, and that those things may have formed part of your motivation for your participation in the convoy.
	Yes.
	Is that a reference to abuses of power, and what are some of those things that you saw that you never thought you would see?
	Well, the biggest thing for me, which was incredible, was that informed consent was being absolutely ignored.
	Are you talking about prior to the convoy?
	The things you saw that you never thought you would see, which motivated you to participate.
	If you were to look at what the City of Toronto was doing, because I was living at the time close, I was just in the Barrie area, so I was looking at what the...
	The Toronto Police were doing, what the Premier was doing with all the lockdowns.
	The lockdowns made absolutely no sense.
	The vilification of Canadians by the Prime Minister of Canada was shocking.
	So deeply disturbing to hear him talk about Canadians the way he did.
	That's just one of the examples, Premier Doug Ford, in the rhetoric that he had.
	And the other big thing for me, which was really, really shocking to me, was that they did not exercise or use Emergency Management Ontario to manage this entire...
	Pandemic for this province.
	It was mind-boggling to me, and I knew about them because I actually worked with the EMO representative who was a retired Brigadier General when I was posted to the headquarters in Toronto.
	And so my expectation was to handle this pandemic, you would have used the very institution within each province that is meant to handle a pandemic.
	So I knew things were fundamentally upside down with the approach that the government was using.
	And you would see...
	Subsequent effects of those decisions, which were, you know, shut down a department store, stop selling kids' clothing and stuff like that.
	But you can go and get a case of beer.
	That's no problem.
	Right?
	So there was a lot of stuff that were just so absurd.
	And cumulatively...
	After a while, that starts to build up this amount of anxiety and fear.
	And I know a lot of people that I was talking to, especially when I was campaigning, were recounting their time during all the lockdowns.
	And they felt the same fear that I did of the police, which was really unusual.
	I didn't want to go out in public because...
	Honestly, I thought that I was going to be, it would take nothing for the police to come for any infraction and start arresting people for the most bizarre things.
	I mean, we saw a year and a half ago, two Calgary police officers pointed a taser and threatened to arrest a young kid who was playing hockey out in Calgary.
	And the next day, police on guard went public.
	Because there were law enforcement in this country that were just appalled by what was going on in this country.
	And they decided to start becoming public and defending what they thought was massive breaches of the charter, which they spend their whole careers defending the charter.
	And so when the police started to push back through organizations like Police on Guard or later on Mounties for Freedom, when the police started to push back.
	That was a sign that things had really, really gone off the rails for me.
	So, accumulatively, there were just too many things to ignore in this society right now.
	But I think the worst thing for me was when the convoy was rolling through and I wasn't part of it, the statements coming from the Prime Minister of this country were terrifying, disgusting.
	Just unbecoming of a Prime Minister of a country, you know, of people that actually voted him in to represent, and he was acting like he was a king.
	And it was appalling.
	And it's certainly not what I joined the Canadian military to defend.
	Nothing of the sort.
	So I just didn't know how we could possibly call ourselves a free country anymore if our Prime Minister was allowed to get away with the rhetoric he was getting away with.
	And nobody stood up.
	Until the truckers.
	All right.
	Well, thank you, and thank you for your service.
	Thank you.
	Okay, next is the convoy organizers.
	Good afternoon, Mr. Commissioner Bathsheba Vandenberg for Freedom Corp and the protesters.
	We have no questions for Mr. Marazzo.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Any re-examination?
	Yes, Commissioner, just one area.
	Mr. Marazzo, you were asked a few questions with respect to Mr. Jeremy McKenzie.
	Yes, sir.
	Did you know of Mr. McKenzie prior to coming to Ottawa?
	Just from what I saw on his social media short videos, that's all.
	Had you ever met him prior to coming to Ottawa?
	No.
	Were you aware that he was also a former Canadian Forces member?
	Yes, I was.
	Which was one of the reasons why I followed him.
	Did you know that Mr. McKenzie was in Ottawa at certain times during the protests?
	I did.
	Did you ever interact with Mr. McKenzie in Ottawa?
	Not physically.
	I phoned him on two occasions, and I had a couple of text messages with him back and forth.
	Do you still have those text messages?
	I don't believe I do.
	I'm on a different phone, and they were just basically as a, hi, it's Tom, I want to have a phone call with you.
	I've had two phone calls with him during the time that I was in Ottawa.
	And you described, I think, one of the phone calls.
	What was discussed on the other one?
	The first one was, I actually, now that I think about it, somebody that I knew had Jeremy's contact info and they reached out and said, I just wanted to meet him.
	Because to be honest, at the time I was just a fan of what he was doing on his podcast.
	I knew there was a veteran in town.
	And I kind of wanted to get his thoughts.
	We had a conversation, reminisced about both being posted to CFP Petawawa.
	But then later on, the next phone call was when I saw the video of him laughing about what was going on in Parliament regarding Diaglon.
	I just called him and I said, tell me everything there is to know about Diaglon because we may get asked about it.
	And I'm just curious.
	Who gave you Mr. McKenzie's phone number?
	I honestly don't know.
	That was somebody that I probably met when I first got to Ottawa, and I did not know any single person.
	I never met even James Botter until I stepped into the lobby of the ARC, and he brought me into the conference room, so I don't even know who gave me his phone number.
	How did you know the person might have Mr. McKenzie's phone number?
	It's a good question.
	The only thing I can remember, it was a female that gave me the phone number, and I can't remember how they came to have his number.
	Did you ever have any communications or contact with anyone who was protesting or was in Coots, Alberta, while you were in Ottawa?
	In Coots?
	No, I had no communication with anyone in Coots.
	Did you have any communication with anyone at any of the other protest locations in Canada?
	There was one message.
	That somehow came through either text or email from somebody that was in Windsor.
	And I don't know who this person was.
	I know they were in Windsor.
	And my only reaction was, whatever you do, make sure you keep at least one lane open across that bridge so that there can be traffic going back and forth.
	Do you still have a copy of that message?
	I don't believe I do.
	Because I don't even know who the person was.
	I don't.
	And to be honest, I really did not want to have contact with any other protest around the country.
	I had my hands full with what I was doing.
	And all of these convoys and protests were all organic.
	They started all naturally on their own from citizens that were absolutely fed up with what was happening to this society and this country.
	So I was perfectly happy to have no contact with any other protest other than the one I was involved in.
	During your two conversations with Mr. McKenzie, did he ever indicate to you that he was in contact with anyone at any of the other protest locations in Canada?
	No, sir.
	Thank you.
	Those are my questions.
	Thank you.
	I just have a few short questions.
	Just following up on one of those, the penultimate question, you answered all of the protests across the country started organically.
	Yes.
	How do you know that?
	I didn't start to learn about the protest until I was already in Ottawa.
	The only one that I knew about was in Ottawa, and then people would just say, hey, there's another protest in Windsor, or people in the room, they would just be discussing where they had heard about another protest somewhere else.
	I had just assumed that it was very much like this protest in Ottawa.
	Where citizens just said, we're seeing Ottawa as an example that you can actually do something.
	And I think the Ottawa protest was an inspiration for a lot of people.
	And what I later learned was that there was 20 convoys around the world.
	And they were all saying that they were inspired by the convoy in Ottawa.
	So it seemed to be a logical conclusion to me that there was further convoys being inspired by Ottawa around Canada as well.
	So it's an assumption.
	It's an assumption.
	Because I just wondered, since you made it as a statement, if you had some information.
	No, sir.
	Now, what I wanted to ask a bit more is the 322 trucks.
	Yes.
	It wasn't clear to me what those 322 trucks were.
	And by that, I mean, were those part of the convoy group you were involved with?
	Or is that...
	Total trucks.
	Now you understand the confusion.
	I was asking for a headcount of all of the trucks in the downtown.
	Wellington being the sort of center of gravity and all of the perpendicular and parallel streets based off of Wellington.
	And I had asked for people that I was working with daily, if you could go out and get and find out how many vehicles we have on every street.
	Yeah, it's the we.
	I'm trying to figure out.
	Yeah, these were convoys, from my understanding, what happened.
	So, for example, a convoy came in from New Brunswick.
	And as they got into the city, they had a plan to stick together.
	And as soon as they got here and they interacted with the Ottawa police, the Ottawa police started directing that particular convoy, as an example, in New Brunswick.
	And that entire convoy got spread out all over the place.
	Same thing came from the West.
	Same thing came from Quebec.
	So when they came in here, they expected they drove in together, they'd stay together.
	But they were spread out like buckshot all over all of the streets.
	So you couldn't say that, hey, the convoy from New Brunswick that started with 50 trucks, as an example, were still confined to 50 trucks over on a certain area.
	They just literally got spread out all over the place, and nobody can control that.
	So we were trying to organize ourselves in a way that we could get...
	Effective communication going between the ARC and every single individual truck driver.
	We just wanted to reduce our span of control to the convoy leader from New Brunswick.
	Just to talk to that person, you go share it.
	We couldn't do that because we were spread out everywhere.
	And so communications were near impossible for us.
	Okay, maybe I wasn't clear.
	What I'm trying to understand is 322, is that a total truck count?
	For the City of Ottawa, all the streets?
	Or is it those are the trucks that you had a relationship with, either because they were the Western convoy or one of your organizers' convoy?
	At the time, I believe that was just to the downtown.
	That did not include the parkway.
	That didn't include 88. Didn't include Armpire.
	That was just in the city.
	On that given day, it was 322 trucks.
	That was given to me on a sticky note as the total number of trucks in the downtown core on that day.
	So it wouldn't be the trucks that your group controlled.
	It would include the Rideau Street trucks, all of the trucks.
	Yes, all of the trucks.
	And second, I wanted to talk just briefly about logistics, and I understand a bit better.
	Were you told when...
	New convoys were coming in?
	We would get reports that there would be a substantial convoy coming in from a new area.
	And then only to find out that that convoy either didn't show up or was much smaller than what was reported.
	And then sometimes convoys would show up and we didn't even know they were on their way.
	So our ability to track convoys was very, very difficult.
	So there's really no clear answer as to that question, unfortunately.
	But was that your responsibility to deal with new convoys coming in?
	Leaving aside how much you knew about what was coming in?
	It would have been because then we would have been able to, as a group in the ARC, discuss and figure out what the best way to get them into a good spot would be.
	So where I was at the ARC, yes, we would have handled that movement into the city and put them somewhere appropriate.
	And that continued or how long did that continue where trucks were coming in and you would?
	Direct them to where to go?
	I would say that was probably about the first week and a half that I would be involved in that kind of those discussions.
	But my role started to evolve.
	And so after I brought in a couple of people, one individual who was another military officer, once I brought him in, I kind of handed that off.
	And then I worked more strategically with Keith and Eva.
	Do different things.
	So really about a week and a half max.
	And finally, with respect to those convoys coming in, which convoys would you end up being involved with and which would you not be involved with?
	Or was that a sort of a hazard?
	For me, only the ones that were coming directly into the city.
	I wasn't involved in the ones going to Armprior or 88 or to the Parkway.
	I was only involved in the ones in the downtown core.
	But I guess I'm trying to understand, were you somehow have an official, how would convoys know that you will direct the convoy rather than the police, for example?
	We would go through truck captains and we also had people that were in the ARC that would go out and try to meet with them and sort of direct, create that.
	That contact between them and then guide them in where we wanted them or where we could find space for them.
	So it wasn't necessarily you who would guide them?
	I would not.
	No, I basically was...
	I rarely got out of the ARC.
	Not many occasions could I detach myself from the ARC.
	And when you did or your delegates do that, would it be with the police or as opposed to...
	Despite or contrary to police instructions?
	If there was an opportunity to involve the police, we would have always sought to do that, yes.
	Okay, thank you very much.
	Thank you.
	So we're going to take the morning break, or the afternoon break, make the same mistake as yesterday.
	So we'll take the afternoon break, 15 minutes, and then we'll come back with our final witness for today.
	The commission is in recess for 15 minutes.
	La comisión de vebo que es veneno.
	You're in recess for 15 days.
	How are you doing?
	Doing fine.
	No problem.
	You're in our hotel.
	Yes, yes I am.
	Yeah, it's actually a nice place to be set up.
	I'm going to go to the house.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Order alert.
	The Commission has reconvened.
	Geoffrey Leon, co-lead Commission Council.
	The next witness is Patrick King and he is here with his Council, Natasha Calvino.
	Good afternoon.
	Good afternoon, Ms. Calvino.
	I am counsel for Mr. King on his criminal charges.
	I'm sure the Commission is aware my client is still facing a number of criminal charges that are there's a publication ban on and there's trial dates have been set and they're currently still before the courts.
	Mr. King is here today as he was compelled to by virtue of his subpoena and he has answered to that subpoena.
	He invokes his protections under the Canada Evidence Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms vis-à-vis his evidence.
	We consider his response to questions put to him to be compelled statements or compelled answers for any future proceeding.
	We are here and we understand the parameters of the commission and there are quite tight time constraints on the information needing to come out and witnesses needing to be called.
	With that having been said, late yesterday we received, less than 24 hours before the hearing, 127 individual items and 246...
	2,460 individual pages of material.
	Mr. King is anxious to respond to his subpoena and offer his evidence.
	He and I have done our level best to get through the materials.
	There may become a point in time where he may need some guidance from me, or we might need a bit of time to review something, because we've done the best that we can.
	But we weren't able to get through all of it, and I would ask for the Courts or the Commission's indulgence if we get to that point, but I hope we don't.
	Mr. King is available to testify.
	Thank you, sir.
	Okay, well, thank you.
	And yes, I understand about the subpoena and the protections.
	That's obviously provided.
	And we do appreciate that it is sometimes challenging to deal with the documentation.
	I think you would have a lot of sympathy from the parties.
	And the Commission Council.
	So I understand that and we've been very accommodating as required.
	And certainly if there's something, please provide some sort of an indication and we can sort it out.
	Thank you very much, Mr. Commissioner.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Thank you.
	Mr. King.
	Mr. King, will you swear on a religious document or do you wish to affirm?
	i'd like to swear on a bible please For the record, please state your full name and spell it out.
	Full name is Patrick James King.
	P-A-T-R-I-C-K-J-A-M-E-S-K-I-N-G.
	Do you swear that the evidence to be given by you to this commission shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to help you God?
	Absolutely.
	So help me God.
	Thank you.
	Mr. King, just to follow on what your counsel has just said, if at any time during my questioning, If you need time to review a document, don't hesitate to ask.
	Thank you.
	And I'm going to be asking you questions to give you an opportunity to explain to the Commissioner your involvement in the Freedom Convoy and also to give you a chance to respond to some of the evidence that's been led before the Commission.
	I'd like to start with your background.
	I understand you were born in Sault Ste.
	Marie?
	That's correct, yes.
	And how long did you live there?
	Until I was 18. And then where did you go?
	I moved out to Alberta where there was work.
	And I've been living in Red Deer, Alberta ever since.
	And what sort of work do you do?
	Oh boy.
	I started out 22 years, oil and gas.
	Worked my way up from a roughneck all the way up to a driller, to a frontline supervisor, to a flow completions specialist.
	And then I went back to university and I got my degree in occupational health, safety and environment.
	Three-year degree from the University of Alberta.
	From there, I took a position as a health and safety manager, or sorry, admin.
	And I would look after...
	Upstream oil and gas manufactured.
	And I was an H2S instructor.
	I drove truck, class one driver's license, oversized loads.
	I also have a course, I guess, certificate as a logistics coordinator and a dispatcher.
	Thank you.
	Now, your counsel has indicated that you have been charged with criminal offences, and I understand that a condition of your bail is that you are not allowed to use social media.
	Is that correct?
	I'm not allowed to do anything.
	I've had absolutely every right of a Canadian citizen stripped of me.
	My freedom of speech, my freedom of protest, my freedom of everything.
	Am I correct you can't use social media?
	No.
	You are absolutely correct.
	Thank you.
	So I'd like to ask you about your use of social media prior to your being charged in the latter part of February 2022.
	So if we can talk about the period, let's say 2019 to March 2022, what kinds of social media did you use?
	Facebook, Instagram.
	That's it.
	I would never go on Twitter.
	That's a troll site.
	That's a joke.
	But Facebook and Instagram.
	TikTok?
	Just to watch it.
	YouTube?
	Oh, I had YouTube, but around the time that Donald Trump was being elected.
	I actually hold a title.
	Only him and myself are the only ones who have ever been banned from using any Google product.
	So I would never promote YouTube.
	And I understand you had a large following on social media.
	Is that correct?
	Can you define large?
	How big was your following?
	It was big.
	Can you define big?
	It was international.
	It was big.
	Okay.
	100,000, 200,000, 300,000, 400,000?
	That all depends on Facebook's algorithms, what they really say.
	But on my website and on my Facebook page, about half a million people.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	And I understand on Facebook you would host live events.
	Is that correct?
	I would do podcasts and I would do media.
	And I'd catch interactions in real time for basically just to show it in real, in reality, and not some distorted.
	Mainstream media view.
	I'd show you what it was like in the real time.
	And I understand in 2019, you were involved in a convoy called United We Roll.
	Yes, sir.
	Yes, sir.
	And that was a protest over some oil and gas issues?
	That was a protest over Bill C-69 and C-48, which is the anti-pipeline and the anti-harbour moratorium.
	Of which, when we came to Ottawa, we were successful.
	They reopened all the contracts after.
	And actually, since I've been incarcerated, as of June 2022, both those bills have been scrapped because they've been deemed unconstitutional.
	and Alberta finally got our pipelines and we're finally back to work again.
	That convoy traveled from, was it Red Deer to Ottawa?
	Red Deer, Alberta, yeah.
	We left on February 14th, and we like to deem it as the love of our country.
	On Valentine's Day, we left to stand up for our rights and exercise our democratic right to a freedom of peaceful assembly, to exercise our democratic right to a freedom to protest, and to have our voices heard by the government.
	And who led that convoy?
	I was in the pilot truck myself and another person by the name of Angie Reed.
	Love you, Angie.
	Glenn Carrot was involved along with the fire truck.
	We brought a fire truck.
	He was an oil and gas fire suppression unit.
	How many vehicles were in the company?
	When it got to Wellington, we had about 170, 178, I believe.
	Was Mr. Bowder involved in that convoy?
	Involved in what way?
	Was he part of it?
	Sure.
	What was his involvement?
	Fellow Canadian exercising his democratic right to protest.
	Was he part of organizing it?
	No.
	So when you got to Ottawa, how long were you there?
	We arrived, I believe it was the 19th of February.
	We protested the 20th and 21st, and then we left that following Monday.
	And you went back to Red Deer?
	Yep.
	But I'd like to say that we left because the politicians acknowledged why we were there.
	They came out and said, we hear you.
	We're here to support you, and we will back you, and we will do everything we can to try and get your issues heard.
	Okay, now I'd like to come to your involvement in the Freedom Convoy, if I could.
	Sorry.
	Trying to keep track of the time, but it doesn't seem to be working.
	How did you first get involved in the Freedom Convoy?
	Well, I'd already been on social media.
	I'd already been doing my stuff that I always do.
	I happened to see some people that were talking about the trucking industry and how they were about to be affected.
	And I know that our truckers here in Canada are the backbone of the economy in Canada.
	They move the freight.
	Their importance is very under...
	Basically, they're forgotten.
	They're kind of...
	Yeah, they're a trucker, trucker, whatever, a trucker.
	But I knew the importance that if you stopped the trucking industry within 72 hours, you'll be brother on brother for a loaf of bread.
	And when they started to hit the truck drivers, and these guys have already been working diligently throughout this nonsense, we've seen it as a direct attack against the Canadian economy.
	And not only a direct attack against the Canadian economy, but a direct attack to truckers are the guys that want to be left alone.
	They want to work in their trucks.
	They want to go do their job independently.
	Leave us alone.
	We won't create a stir.
	We won't cause a problem.
	We'll pay our taxes.
	And I felt like they needed a voice.
	Did somebody contact you and ask you to get involved?
	Nope.
	What did you do to get involved?
	Well, I reached out to a few people and I asked if they'd like to, you know, let's talk about it.
	Who did you reach out to?
	I reached out to Chris Barber, Bridget Belton.
	I reached out to, well, basically them.
	Those two.
	And I said, I'd love to have you on my show.
	And I really think what you guys are wanting to do, I can be an asset because I've done this before, back in 2019, and I can help you out in any way possible.
	Am I correct that you then had a Facebook Live event on January, was it 13, 2022?
	If that's the date that you have, yes.
	Mr. Barber, Ms. Belton, and I understand James Bowder were all on part of that.
	That's correct, yeah.
	I've got to say there's people involved, but I've had my social media stripped.
	I've had all my videos gone.
	I can't recollect who was all there, but that sounds very close to who was there.
	I think there were some other people that were involved too.
	I think Dave Steenberg was one.
	Well, there was a couple.
	I think Joe Jensen was one.
	There's a few people yet.
	And during that event, you talked about the plan for a freedom convoy with those people who were with you?
	Well, we had thrown the idea around.
	We had said, do you guys really want to do this?
	And they're like, yeah, we should do this.
	And I said, okay.
	Well, I'll do everything I can to help you.
	I'll give you the platform.
	I'll give you the voice.
	I'll allow, not allow, but I'd like to help you because I see what you're doing is absolutely prophetic.
	Finally, the hardworking blue-collar people of Canada, we're going to stand up.
	And...
	Was this the first time you'd met Mr. Barber and Ms. Bilton?
	Yeah.
	And my information was you had about 3,000 viewers to that event.
	Does that sound right?
	If that's what you have a number, sure.
	I was never concerned about the numbers.
	I could have two people in the room and it didn't matter.
	Have you told us why you decided to get involved with the Freedom Convoy based on the statement you just made?
	The reason I did it was basically I have gone through my own issues with these mandates and I have my own stance and my own beliefs on these mandates and what they're doing.
	And now I want everybody to remember a mandate is not a law.
	And they were...
	Pushing this and I finally found people that didn't want it pushed on them anyway.
	And what did you understand was the goal of the Freedom Convoy?
	To go and protest and exercise your democratic right to a freedom of peaceful protest, to a freedom of assembly, to exercise your voice and be heard by politicians of your concerns and your...
	Basically, your agitation with the way things are being controlled.
	And later in January the 21st, did you have another video stream that involved Tamara Litch, Chris Barber, James Bowder and others?
	Do you recall that?
	You bet.
	And I understand there was a general discussion of what was going to happen with the Freedom Convoy?
	Yes, there was a discussion.
	It was basically, like, so organic, like, how are we going to do this?
	Who's going to do what?
	Who's going to be doing this?
	Who's going to be doing that?
	I basically was a platform for these people to be able to...
	Show who they are.
	And by this time, do you know if anyone in that group had contacted any members of a police force to tell them that this was going?
	Yeah.
	James Bowder bragged about how he had Ottawa around his little finger.
	That he had all the police and he had all the connections.
	And I was like, is that the same connections of when we did the United We Roll?
	And he's like, yes.
	I'm like, oh, okay.
	So I reached out because I have a rapport with PPS.
	I've traveled around Canada protesting and speaking on public platforms.
	And I've basically set a good communication between these officers.
	So I reached out to these officers and said, we're looking at bringing another convoy to Ottawa.
	Remember me?
	And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, we remember you, Pat.
	I'm like, it's good, right?
	Like, oh yeah, you're always great when you're here.
	And you had some of those, at least one of those officers, on your stream that night.
	But we had a few officers, yeah.
	Yeah, they were on our streams, yes.
	And discussing.
	Safety issues?
	Absolutely.
	Safety is number one.
	Your rules of the road and all that.
	They knew who I was.
	They knew how we had organized the 2019 convoy.
	And they knew how absolutely law-abiding and professional we were.
	And you traveled to Ottawa with the western leg of the convoy?
	Yes, sir.
	And what type of vehicle were you driving?
	I wasn't driving.
	I had somebody who was driving a motorhome, and I sat passenger in the motorhome.
	And where did you join up with the convoy?
	I joined up with the main convoy in Calgary.
	Now, Clerk, can you please bring up HRF?
	4 zeros 1 2 2 1. This is a chronology of events that was put together by the group of convoy organizers and is now an exhibit in these proceedings, and it's a timeline of events from their perspective.
	And I want to ask you about a few entries that refer to you.
	We can go to the bottom of page two, please.
	You see there, January 24, Chris Barber and Tamara Leach meet, and then concerns re-Pat King expressed.
	Tamara and Chris discussed concern about Pat King after doing a tweet with a video making reference to bullets.
	Chris agreed perhaps Pat should be sent home, but there was concern about the trucks Pat brought with him.
	Talked to Pat about the tweet, and he stated the video was an old one about an issue on a reserve and had been heavily edited to make it appear as though it was regarding the convoy.
	Following captain's meeting, everyone expressed concern about Pat King's involvement, and the decision was made to talk to Pat about in the coming days and request he not attend in Ottawa.
	Do you remember that conversation?
	No, I do not.
	Do you deny it happened?
	Yes.
	I'm not the one.
	They're discussing their concerns.
	That wasn't what I asked you.
	I'm saying, did the conversation happen, sir?
	No.
	The conversation came up of, hey, there's a tweet out there.
	I said, don't worry about it.
	Can we go to page three of this document?
	I'd like to give a little bit of an explanation there.
	The explanation is, I have been absolutely harassed.
	I've been absolutely defamed.
	Character assassination by a certain group, and they edit videos, and they cut and splice, and they take 10 seconds here, and they blow it out of proportion.
	And I've been dealing with this for years.
	I will give you an opportunity.
	I'm going to show you some of the videos, and I'll give you an opportunity to comment on them.
	Oh, absolutely.
	I can't wait.
	I've been waiting for years to tell you guys how these videos are.
	So on page 3, you'll see under January 26, concerns Pat King raised.
	Pat King was on the radio annoying others, had tried to pull in front of everyone with his motorhome, but was eventually sent back to the back of the convoy.
	Everyone was concerned about Pat's involvement, and plans were made to talk to him in the evening.
	When they arrived in Thunder Bay, unfortunately Pat did not stick around but continued to Sault Ste.
	Marie, so no one had a chance to speak to him.
	Nope.
	Were you aware that that had happened?
	I was one of the lead vehicles from Calgary all the way to Kenora.
	When we got to Kenora, I was in the front.
	And when I got to Thunder Bay, I sat for two hours directing everybody into their parking spots, and I told everybody that I was leaving for Terrace Bay, where I had a fuel stop and meals and basically a rest stop for everybody, and that's where I was going.
	And if you can bring up, Mr. Clerk, HRF.
	646.
	646.
	Again, this is a document that's been provided by the Freedom Convoy.
	And it appears to be a summary of a conversation between you and Tamara Leach.
	Do you recall having a conversation with Ms. Leach on January 28th?
	Yep.
	And did she request that you not attend in Ottawa?
	No.
	What was happening as we were at a rest stop, I said, oh my God, this has gotten big.
	I said, I'm getting death threats and I might need security when I'm in Ottawa.
	And I said, this got way bigger.
	And I may have said this part, this little part here about the organizing thing, but then I checked myself right away and I realized Tamara said, whoa, it's not all about you.
	And I'm like, you're right.
	You're absolutely right.
	But that comment at the bottom, check your fucking ego, that never happened.
	Thank you.
	Now, you proceeded on to Ottawa?
	Absolutely.
	Now, were you familiar with an organization called Adopt a Trucker Program?
	Or a program, Adopt a Trucker?
	Yep.
	And can we put up, please, COM50571?
	And you'll see at the top, can you just scroll down, it says Adopt a Trucker Campaign Created by Chris Guerra.
	Do you know Mr. Guerra?
	I do, yes.
	And if you scroll a little further up...
	No, sorry, down.
	In the first line there, you'll see it says...
	Towards the end, we are endorsed by Pat King and Canada Unity.
	Did you endorse this campaign?
	I endorsed everybody.
	Did you endorse this campaign by Adopt a Trucker?
	Endorsed by, what do you mean by endorsed?
	Can you explain?
	Did you support it and publicize?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	And...
	Who asked you to get involved in this?
	They were just a group that we had asked for people in the Ottawa area.
	That community who wanted to help adopt a trucker was you would take a trucker and basically billet, like billeting.
	So if you remember hockey.
	When you go to tournaments, you would stay with a billet.
	So people are offering up their homes for truckers to come have showers.
	There was food and whatever they needed and necessities.
	Chris and their group were going to look after the care and well-being of truckers who didn't have a place to stay, like didn't have money for hotels.
	We're trying to reduce costs for lodgings.
	And I take it, in this sense, you were in demand because of your large social media following to put your name to things, like the Freedom Convoy, like the Adopt-A-Trust.
	It happens a lot.
	A lot of people like to, you know, use my platform, and I'm okay with it, and I do it on purpose.
	I absolutely invite it.
	A lot of people use my name and my platform to gain attention for their cause.
	And I'm absolutely 100% agreeable to that.
	I think everybody has a right to have their say and get their point across.
	And I never hold a bias.
	So I make sure that everybody use it, take it, take my platform, do what you can.
	If I can ask you, did you have your own group as part of this convoy that came with you?
	I was a road captain for I believe the northern part of Alberta.
	So I took on the responsibility for those people that were part of our initial jump from Red Deer to Calgary and then onwards to Ottawa.
	And can you estimate how many trucks were in that group?
	Oh, boy.
	When we left Red Deer, there was about 50 of us.
	But once I found out further on, we tried to get people to sign the documents and everything in Calgary.
	And it turned out to be about 148, if I'm not mistaken, that I was in, I was, um, I guess responsible, but taking care of their paperwork.
	And you arrived in Ottawa on January 29?
	Yes, sir.
	No, no.
	We arrived in Armpire.
	I see.
	And from there, I'll never forget it.
	It was the most greatest, most elating moment of my life where I can pass them off to Andrew and say they're your problem now.
	Where did you go?
	When did you get to Ottawa?
	What date?
	I got to Ottawa that night once everybody got to Arm Prayer.
	I left and I said, I'm done.
	I'm going into town.
	I'm going to get my hotel room.
	And I went to my hotel.
	What hotel did you stay at?
	One of the ones downtown.
	Holiday Inn on, I believe, Albert?
	I'm not sure.
	And what did you do with your vehicle?
	I never had a vehicle.
	So how did you get to the Holiday Inn?
	We dropped the motorhome off at a secure location and we had people give us a ride into the hotel.
	At one point, were you involved with a group at Confederation Park?
	Nope.
	I want to move forward to February 12th.
	And on that date, did you learn that an agreement had been reached with the Mayor of Ottawa to move trucks out of residential areas and onto Wellington Street?
	I heard that that was the plan.
	And who did you hear that from?
	Just from other road captains and people that were, I don't know, people who thought they had a role in this and were a voice and could make calls, I guess, if you say, like, make calls.
	They were told something and passed it on to the block captains, and then the block captains would pass it on to their drivers.
	And so did you agree with that idea?
	Sure.
	Whatever you want.
	I was here to help in any way they needed me.
	Mr. Clerk, could you put up a video?
	It's COM.
	50881.
	And I understand this is a video you published on YouTube.
	I don't have YouTube.
	I wouldn't have put it on YouTube.
	I don't have YouTube.
	Let's see if it's you.
	Other people can post things on YouTube.
	We've got a quick one out here for you all right now.
	Just been informed that while the counter-protesters were involved, there were groups of them going around giving letters out saying that the convoy needs to move.
	They've made an agreement.
	It's a lie.
	It's a lie.
	Break, break, break.
	Break, break, break.
	Get this out everywhere.
	Get this to every person out there.
	Just come down from the top.
	They've gone out and spread letters to the truckers.
	Truckers, in your trucks, do not move.
	Do not leave.
	There is no letter going out.
	There is no letter going around.
	This was part of the counter-protesters shit.
	What they did, it's all a lie.
	Do not leave Ottawa.
	Do not back your trucks out.
	Do not leave the residential areas.
	You are good to go.
	Stand your ground.
	That's it.
	That's all.
	Stand your ground.
	Stand your ground.
	Hold the line, you guys.
	Counter-protesters went out.
	They passed out letters.
	They acted like they knew what was going on.
	They acted like they knew what was happening.
	And they acted like participants in this.
	They weren't.
	It was part of the counter-protest.
	Do not believe it.
	Ladies and gentlemen, the more people that I find in these chats...
	That I see these rumors that are saying that everybody was told to leave, everybody was told to walk, and that they're leaving.
	And when I catch your little chats and the conversations as I go through them, I will be blocking you.
	You will be banned from the page.
	I'm done with the rumors.
	I'm done with the bullshit.
	Everybody needs to get this message out right away.
	Do not read that letter.
	That letter is a false flag letter.
	They're trying to use the counter-protesters to push you out.
	Hold the line.
	Hold the line.
	Thank you.
	100%.
	Now, do you remember?
	I remember that there was a lot of stuff going on at that moment.
	You said this was February 12th?
	I believe so.
	I believe that this was also at the same time that the community had organized their own counter-protest.
	Catherine McKinney, the council member of Ottawa, encouraged people to come out and count to protest.
	And they were leaving leaflets and things on trucks.
	So we couldn't determine whether or not these were true documents or not.
	So I put out this post because it wasn't confirmed.
	And there was no letterhead.
	There was no signature.
	There was no notoriety of who it came from.
	So I would assume that if the City Council or Ottawa was going to make this leaflet and pass it out, somebody would have put their name on it to give it some clout, to give it some importance.
	Later on, we found out that these were asked to move, and then we said okay.
	Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
	Can you put up HRF four zeros one, two, eight, five.
	I understand this was the leaflet that was passed around.
	You'll see it's dated February 12th from Tamara Leach.
	It speaks to a Freedom Manifest and has the Freedom Convoy symbol on it.
	And can you scroll, please?
	And you'll see there...
	The last two paragraphs, it talks about repositioning the trucks and the plan to start repositioning on Monday to consolidate the protest.
	Now, is that the document you saw?
	I never saw this, no.
	Do you remember what the document looked like that you did see?
	It was a leaflet from the mayor or something like that.
	I might be confused on this.
	I've never seen this.
	Okay.
	Now, while you were in Ottawa, were you involved with a group of trucks that went out to the airport?
	Yep.
	And you did slow rolls around the airport?
	We went for a ride, yeah.
	How long were you at the airport?
	An hour, two hours.
	And were you doing slow rolls around the airport?
	We were abiding by the law, by the rules of the road.
	We did the speed limit.
	We did not impede emergency traffic.
	We just went for a cruise.
	What was the purpose in your going?
	We were bored.
	I'm sorry?
	We were bored.
	And that you found interesting?
	We went for a ride to see what Ottawa was like to see.
	Well, you spent two hours at the airport seeing what Ottawa was?
	Well, to see what the airport was and just go for a drive.
	We were bored.
	It was cold.
	Do you recall speaking to Tom Marazzo before you went?
	I've talked to Tom many a times.
	And did he have somebody accompany you to make sure what you were doing went okay?
	No.
	What did I know of?
	And did you, by doing what you were doing there, how many trucks were there?
	I don't know.
	All of them.
	All of what?
	All of the trucks that were there.
	I don't know.
	How many came with you?
	They're all passenger vehicles.
	They're all cars.
	There was never a commercial vehicle with us.
	Okay.
	And how many cars came with you?
	I don't know, 30, 40, maybe.
	And while you were doing what you were doing at the airport, would you agree with me that you slowed down other vehicles from accessing the airport?
	No, I do not.
	When you're going to the airport, there's two lanes.
	When you go into arrivals and departures, there's two lanes.
	We used one lane.
	We were in the one lane.
	And there was always a lane open.
	So anybody who wanted to go in, they could use the other lane.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Clare, can you put up HRF two six zeros, eight, three?
	And this is, Sorry, can you scroll the other way?
	You'll see it's on the Freedom Convoy letterhead, February 17th, reaffirming its commitment to peaceful demonstration.
	And if we go look at the second paragraph, we do not support any form of hateful rhetoric, divisive comments, or calls for violence.
	We explicitly condemn anything of that nature.
	So let us be clear, we are a peaceful and lawful demonstration.
	We have heard about inappropriate comments being made by Pat King.
	Pat King does not speak for us.
	We expressly condemn any talk of violence from him or others.
	Pat King has the right, like every other Canadian citizen, to protest peacefully.
	Do you remember seeing this?
	Never saw it, but I heard about it.
	I knew about it.
	Do you know what they're referring to when they say...
	Well, the reason is, and I'm going to say it straight up, and I'm going to have to give a little bit of a brief background to this.
	I've been chasing the government and exposing a lot of stuff of the overreach, the financial and economic hardships that have been happening.
	I have in my possession the document of the non-disclosure agreement between a...
	Young, juvenile, and a certain specific member of parliament.
	And when doing so, exposing also the $42 billion infrastructure project that was stolen out of Alberta's hands and handed over to the Chinese government.
	And the implementation of Chinese soldiers on Canadian soil.
	I've been absolutely harassed and degraded and defamed and discredited and character assassinated.
	And these guys were getting attacked because of me.
	So when they put this out, I get it.
	They had to push me out and look at everybody and, you know, we don't want anything to do with packing.
	I absolutely encouraged it.
	100%.
	Put it out there that I don't have anything to do with this.
	Put it out there.
	Go fund me.
	Wouldn't release their funds.
	Go fund me directly, contacted them and said, we're not going to release your funds if Patrick King's involved.
	This is how much target, like how much they're out to make sure that everything that I touch is ruined.
	Do you know what they're referring to when they say talk of violence, inappropriate comments?
	Did you talk about violence?
	Not at all.
	Did you make any inappropriate comments?
	Not at all.
	Well, maybe.
	I'm kind of a hothead.
	I kind of talk too much sometimes, and I get that honestly by my mom.
	She's got the gift of the gab.
	You recall that in Ottawa there was a lot of honking, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	And were you involved in that honking?
	How?
	I didn't have a vehicle there.
	I didn't have a truck.
	What horn can I honk?
	And what did you think about it?
	Did you agree with it, encourage it, wish it didn't happen?
	Do what you want to do.
	I'm sorry?
	People are free to do what they wanted to do.
	Could you put up, clerk, please, COM50851.
	Remember, these people haven't been able to sleep for 10 days.
	Can you try starting it again?
	It's kind of funny.
	I'm not going to laugh.
	Remember, these people haven't been able to sleep for 10 days.
	Okay?
	It's kind of funny.
	I'm not going to laugh.
	I'm not going to lie.
	It's pretty hilarious.
	Is that you?
	Of course.
	And that's what you thought?
	that it was hilarious that people couldn't sleep?
	I look at it now and I'm like, no, it wasn't funny.
	But if you know my persona and my character and the way I show myself, I laugh all the time.
	Life's a joke, laugh it off.
	It's kind of one of my biggest mottos.
	And I tend to laugh when I'm nervous.
	But at that point, it was kind of, it was funny.
	You see, we've been locked down for two years, and people are complaining that they heard horns for 10 days.
	Do you remember what we went through for the last two years?
	What's a little bit of horns for 10 days?
	And did you make any statements on social media to the effect that you wanted to form a new government and that you and the truckers would take power?
	No.
	And did you make any statements in a video that we will be the new government, we will just take power and share it together?
	Say that again?
	We will be the new government, we will just take power and share it together.
	Do you have a video that I can reference?
	I don't have a video, no.
	I'm asking you if you said that on video.
	I hate politics.
	I hate government.
	So why would I want to be the new government?
	I'd like to show you now a compilation of some of your videos.
	Oh, I'm ready for this one.
	Produced by...
	NTA Canada and edited by a $45 million contract that Trudeau and his Liberal government paid for to do this.
	It has been played over and over and over.
	Well, I don't think you've seen...
	This compilation was produced by the Ottawa Police Service.
	It's OPS 407967.
	Can you please start it and stop it after the first video?
	Trudeau, someone's going to make you catch a bullet one day to the rest of this government.
	Someone's going to fucking do you, Zinn.
	You sons of bitches.
	I know this video, like, there's no tomorrow.
	Edited and spliced and fit to make the media their narrative to show it in a negative context.
	So when you hear that, I had just got kicked out of the airport.
	I got denied my flight because I wasn't vaccinated.
	After being told that I had...
	I've been allowed to fly at a 72-hour window.
	And there's a video before this.
	Like, this is so ridiculous.
	Take 10-second clips and characterize somebody by it.
	But I'm waiting to defend myself on this one.
	And what I stated in this, and I never said, you're going to get shot.
	I never said that.
	I said, you're going to catch a bullet.
	Because as we know, mental health is a big thing in Canada.
	It's kind of limelighted.
	You have mental health issues.
	One day, somebody's going to have a breakdown.
	And if you push people too far, especially denying them their flight, you never know who you're going to get.
	And that person might have a mental breakdown.
	And what they're doing with their restrictions and their mandates, which are not laws, they're going to get that wrong person.
	And I said that because you're lucky it was me that day.
	Because I would have never acted on that, but if it had been somebody else, and there's a lot of people that are upset, lost a lot, and don't give a crap.
	They're going to have a mental breakdown.
	Now, that was only a clip from the video.
	Can you put up COM50898?
	And this is a transcript.
	That was prepared of the full video.
	I want to say, I just like to give you a little bit of brief description to this.
	You ever get in an argument with your parents and you get mad and you say things you don't wish you said, like you regret saying that?
	That's one of my moments.
	Yeah, it was inappropriate.
	Yeah, I should never have said it, but it was said.
	Okay.
	Can you put up the document, please?
	And you see there's the part that we saw.
	The only way that I'm going to say it out loud, the only way that this is going to be solved is with bullets.
	No, you're okay.
	So this one, someone's going to make you catch a bullet one day.
	That's one video.
	What you've done is you've put another video in there and said this part.
	And this part needs some major clarity.
	Because it's been edited and fit to make the narrative out like I'm some kind of loony and radical.
	But what it was is...
	Can I just stop you for a second?
	I want to just go through this whole statement and then I'll let you speak to it.
	If we go down to the next paragraph...
	You might want to change your name to Ishmael or drop a bunch of chains down the stairs and call yourself Chong Ching Ching Chang.
	Now you want to say the Indian culture and everything, the natives' culture, is a disgrace.
	It is 100%.
	Every person who was born here in Canada and North America, you are indigenous.
	People don't realize that.
	If you were born of the land, you are indigenous of the land.
	It's called depopulation of the Caucasian race or the Anglo-Saxon.
	And that's what the goal is, is to depopulate the Anglo-Saxon race because they are ones with the strongest bloodlines.
	They are ones with the strongest bloodlines.
	They are ones with one with the strongest bloodlines.
	And then going down to the bottom.
	I think I'm going to have a big gathering at my house, and I'm going to film it.
	You're right.
	Cops will get shot.
	Now, did you make a video to that effect?
	Nope.
	Can we go down so I can reference each sentence in this?
	Because I've been dying to get this out.
	Did you make any of those statements?
	Can we go down so I can defend each?
	You have four, if not five videos that you've transcribed, one from over four years ago.
	That's part of this.
	And they're taking out of context.
	I'll let you talk, but just let me answer my question.
	Are those statements that you made?
	Those are statements that were said in a long line of online podcast that go along with the evidence or go along with.
	The topic that I was discussing.
	All right.
	Can we scroll down, please?
	Thank you.
	No, sorry.
	I apologize.
	A little bit more, please.
	Right to the very beginning, number one.
	All right.
	So we say, Trudeau, someone's going to make you catch a bullet one day.
	That's the airport incident.
	That's where I was mad.
	I was denied my flight after being told I can fly.
	And I got stuck in Toronto Pearson International Airport.
	Of which I absolutely regret saying that.
	I was mad.
	The next one, the only way that I'm going to say it out loud, the only way that this is going to be solved is with bullets.
	That is taken directly out of context.
	Gone.
	Context, 100%.
	What was the context?
	The context was, if you are Canadian and you want to exercise your political right to stand up and be a freedom of protest and peaceful assembly, would you take it?
	Or are you going to allow it to become bullets?
	Because if we keep going on the way we're going to be going on, that's a possible endgame.
	It's a prediction.
	And you say at the end, a massive revolution on a huge scale.
	If not, yeah.
	Things are wrong in this country.
	Massively wrong.
	And this is me just interpreting what I'm seeing from an outside person, saying this is what's going to happen if you do not make these governments be held accountable for what they're doing.
	And the next...
	Then we go down.
	You might want to change your name to Ishmael, drop a bunch of chains down the stairs.
	It's actually change, not chains.
	And I said that because there was a CSIS document put out, I believe it was in 2019, about the foreign economy, the foreign influence in our Canadian economy of a foreign government purchasing all our resources.
	And the CSIS guys were telling you, hey, something's wrong.
	Like, you guys know that we're being bought out.
	You know, we're being infiltrated.
	Our economy is being destroyed.
	And the comment was because it was China, Chinese influence.
	And the next paragraph?
	The next paragraph was, and I had to say this in my court, they use this in my bail hearing, the Indian culture and everything, the natives' culture is a disgrace.
	Never once was said.
	It was said, what I said prior to that is what the Canadian government has done to the First Nations people is an absolute disgrace.
	And the way they're treated, and the way they're...
	Ridiculed and not given the appropriate means to even have water.
	It's a disgrace.
	And the next paragraph?
	And the next paragraph, the depopulation.
	Oh, this is a good one.
	So there was a time the president of Iran, Ahmad Moud Abdimajad was his name, walked into a meeting at the United Nations with a bunch of binders and he dropped them down on the podium.
	And he started bringing out everything who was involved in 9-11.
	And people started scattering out.
	And his words were, we're not going to kill you with bullets.
	We're not going to blow you up with bombs.
	We're going to breed you out.
	We're going to get rid of the Anglo-Saxon race because you think you're the proudest bloodline.
	And we are going to breed you out.
	We are going to flood your borders with immigrants.
	We are going to infiltrate your education, infiltrate your Your politics.
	You've got to understand, like, the things that were going on around the world, I'm seeing these, I bring them up, I show the video, and that's what it is.
	Okay, can we go back to OPS 407967?
	And can you pick it up where you left off after the first video?
	Trudeau?
	Hey, what the fuck can do?
	He's in.
	You sons of bitches.
	The only way that, and I'm going to say it out loud, the only way that this is going to be solved is with bullets.
	And yeah, I said it.
	That's the only way something's going to happen.
	A massive revolution on a huge scale.
	You might want to change your name to Ishmael or drop a bunch of chains down the stairs and call yourself Chongqing Ching Chang.
	Now, you want to say, oh, the Indians' culture and everything.
	The Natives' culture is a disgrace.
	It is, 100%.
	Every person who was born here in Canada, in North America, you are Indigenous.
	People don't realize that.
	If you were born of the land, you are Indigenous of the land.
	It's called depopulation of the Caucasian race, or the Anglo-Saxon.
	And that's what the goal is, is to depopulate the Anglo-Saxon race.
	Because they are the ones with the strongest bloodlines.
	They are the ones with the strongest bloodlines.
	They are the ones with the strongest bloodlines.
	And we'll leave it at that because then we get into a whole different topic.
	But now, this year alone, I think I'm going to have a big gathering at my house just for that.
	And I'm going to film it.
	Yeah, right.
	Cops will get shot.
	Very well edited.
	Congrats.
	Those are my questions.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	First, for cross-examination, the convoy organizers, please.
	Good evening, Mr. Commissioner.
	Bathsheba Vandenberg.
	Council for Freedom Corp and protesters, we have no questions for Mr. King.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Next, the Ottawa Residents Coalition, please.
	Mr. King, my name is Paul Champ.
	I'm a lawyer for the Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses of Ottawa.
	You guys are the guys that caught my bank account.
	That's still frozen after nine months.
	That's all.
	Just give us a call.
	You took my kids' college tuition.
	I hope you're proud.
	We're talking about the funds in your Alberta Treasury branch?
	Oh, you're very familiar with my bank account.
	There you go.
	How many e-transfers did you get into that account, Mr. King?
	All of them.
	So people across Canada are donating for your Children's Child Education Fund?
	That's what it was for?
	No.
	Okay.
	You were raising money for the Freedom Convoy trip.
	Is that right?
	For myself.
	Okay.
	If people wanted to donate, they could.
	Okay, and they donated up to $100,000 to you, is that right?
	No.
	How much?
	I have no idea.
	You don't know.
	So you don't know if it was $100,000 or not?
	I have no idea.
	You got my bank accounts frozen.
	Okay, well, you can check the court records.
	You raised $100,000 for yourself.
	Wow.
	Then give me it back so I can live.
	No.
	I will ask you to be removed.
	If this doesn't stop, you've been very good so far.
	Please.
	I'm sorry, sir.
	And I don't think you're helping.
	Just answer the questions, and we'll get through this properly.
	This isn't supposed to be a show.
	It's supposed to be questions and answers, and I realize you feel quite strongly about things.
	I apologize.
	Well, I did take that wrong.
	I apologize, Mr. Chair.
	Yeah, myself as well.
	Mr. King, I'd just like to ask you about the 2019 United Re-Rule convoy.
	You've told us that was a successful protest, is that right?
	100%, yeah.
	It was.
	You organized a number of people, you and others, Mr. Carrot and others.
	You got a number of trucks together, including semi-truck trailers.
	You came across Canada.
	You got a lot of media all the way across Canada.
	Came through Ottawa and generated a lot of attention to your issues, correct?
	Yep.
	Yeah.
	A successful protest.
	100%.
	Even with Mr. Trudeau's involvement in the freedom of information where he sent 2,000 anti-protesters to come slash our tires.
	Right.
	So for the Freedom Convoy protest in February, why did you stay for so long?
	Why?
	Yeah.
	Because I exercise my democratic right to freedom of peaceful protest and freedom of assembly.
	Because I'm Canadian and I have that democratic right.
	Now, Mr. King, where did you...
	You said you stayed at the Holiday Inn, is that right?
	Yeah, for like four or five days, yeah.
	And then where did you stay?
	In Gatineau.
	Okay, that's...
	We had heard Ms. Belton testify she thought you were staying in a hotel out of downtown.
	I guess the horns were getting to you downtown.
	Is that why you changed hotels?
	Not at all.
	Why did you change hotels?
	Because your community decided to...
	Pull the pin on lodgings and hotels for people, and we were told they were no longer going to allow us to rent a room because the community had basically told the hotels, if you support these guys and give them a room, you're going to be in a lot of trouble.
	And that's from the manager of the Holiday Inn who told me that.
	So I'm sorry, Mr. King, we can't give you another room.
	I said, that's fine, I get it, no problem.
	It sucks to be you guys because you're making a killing.
	And the money that you guys are generating from all of us being here, it's probably the best for you guys to recoup those funds after two years of being shut down.
	Why didn't you go to the Ark Hotel or the Sheraton Hotel or the Swiss Hotel?
	There was lots of rooms there.
	I didn't need a hotel.
	And who paid for your hotels while you were in Ottawa, Mr. King?
	Me.
	Me?
	Me?
	With the donations that you got to make the trip?
	Sure.
	Okay.
	Are you speculating that?
	No, I'm asking.
	You're the person I'm asking.
	It didn't sound like a question, that's all.
	It was a question.
	Are you answering yes?
	That's how you...
	Yeah, me, yeah.
	I paid for it.
	Sorry.
	I paid for it.
	Sorry, I apologize.
	You got donations to...
	Come here and with those donations that you paid for the hotel rooms.
	Is that right?
	And there's other people who were supporters of you who you also assisted in getting funds to pay for their hotel rooms.
	So in fairness, you were raising money to help others as well, correct?
	When I got money donated, I gave it away.
	Absolutely.
	And you were also working with Mr. Barber and the others about getting funds for other people that you helped bring to Ottawa.
	Is that right?
	And what do you mean, like funds?
	Like to pay for hotels, for other people who were supporters.
	Anybody who needed help or anybody who needed money, I was open.
	If you needed money, come talk to me.
	I would help you.
	And you would sometimes connect with Mr. Barber and Ms. Leach to see if they could assist funds as well.
	Is that right?
	I barely saw Tamar and Chris.
	You communicated regularly with Mr. Barber throughout?
	Maybe text messages, yeah.
	Yeah, through text messages.
	I never saw them.
	They were busy, man.
	These guys were like...
	Wow.
	What they had going on over there, you can have it.
	Did Mr. Barber or Ms. Leach ever talk to you about trying to get the truckers to lay off their horns?
	They asked me to see what I can do, and I said, yeah, I'll do what I can.
	And that's when I put the post out.
	I believe we had been threatened with some injunction or something.
	I still wasn't very familiar at the time.
	They said, do what you can to get the guys to stop, and I did.
	I put out a post.
	I said, stop honking horns.
	And actually, as part of my evidence package, that there's two videos.
	One of the videos actually has me on the street on that evening, on Wellington, stating, listen, you have no idea where I'm at.
	And it was the most quietest, most eerie place because there was no more horns anymore.
	Now, with respect to the slow roll around the airport or to the airport, I take it that was just your board, we heard that, but it was also a little bit of a message to the City of Ottawa.
	Is that right?
	That the vehicles could move and move to other areas of the city if provoked?
	No.
	Why did you choose that day?
	Was it because the police had just done the raid at Coventry?
	No.
	You made it down to Coventry a number of times, is that right?
	Every day.
	Every day?
	You were a popular figure there, I gather?
	I wouldn't say popular.
	That's where I went and ate breakfast.
	And how you were there often, do you know where the fuel was coming from into Coventry?
	From grateful patriots and Canadian citizens that were donating it.
	Sure, but can you give us any specific names of those Grateful Patriots?
	Joe Smith, number one.
	I have no idea.
	You have no idea or you don't want to answer?
	I don't remember names.
	I meet people all day long, constantly.
	I don't remember names.
	If you have a specific person...
	In particular, that you want to give me his name and I'll let you know if I know him or if I conversed with him.
	Are you talking the guys that got arrested after they were told they weren't going to be arrested?
	That were running fuel?
	You knew some of those guys?
	Yeah.
	You knew some of those guys personally?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, they were very upset.
	Well, look what you did.
	You told them we're not going to arrest.
	Not you, sorry.
	They were told they weren't going to get arrested.
	Right.
	And then they left and they got pulled over down the road and got arrested.
	Or got a fine for whatever.
	And I remember that night because the OPS came in and tried to flex or whatever.
	And these guys didn't know what was going on.
	They asked me to come down.
	And I said, I'm not coming down there.
	Not a chance.
	But I went down the next morning to make sure the calm, cool heads had prevailed.
	And on that morning, that's when the RCMP...
	Special Response Task Force.
	Well, they were staying at the Marriott.
	And they came down, one of the officers came down to me, said, "Pat, you're not hot-miked or anything." And I said, "No, I don't got nothing on.
	Why?
	Who are you?" And he introduced himself and he said, "I just want you to know about last night.
	That wasn't our call.
	And I want you to know that the RCMP, we met with legal and lawyers and that we are not..." I'm going to do this to you guys because they can't give us a justification of why we should be evicting you or arresting people.
	So I'm sorry for what happened last night.
	I said, well, what do you mean by that?
	He's like, well, we fought with lawyers to give us justification of why we should be arresting these people.
	They couldn't give us a clear answer.
	So we're leaving.
	I said, you're leaving?
	He says, yeah.
	We're going to Windsor.
	And they went to Windsor to break down whatever was happening at the border.
	So you were in communication with people who were involved at the Windsor blockade?
	No.
	So you talked to people who went to Windsor.
	The police officer was leaving.
	Oh, the police, the OPP.
	They were leaving Ottawa.
	Right.
	Because lawyers couldn't give them a justification of arresting people.
	Right.
	And they said, we're not going to break the law.
	Right.
	So whoever is in charge of them sent them to Windsor.
	So the people who got tickets that night and arrested were upset.
	You were upset by that.
	And that's one of the reasons why you organized the slow roll around the airport of Ottawa.
	Is that right?
	Not at all.
	No.
	What did you do because you were upset about that?
	I went and made sure everybody was calm and cool and everybody was understanding.
	Like, these guys got a job to do.
	Understand that, yeah, that was rude, that was ignorant, and just be more cautious when you're dealing with the police.
	Now, Mr. King, you obviously could not and did not know everyone who was in Ottawa during that protest, right?
	No, there was millions of people.
	Well, thousands anyway, for sure.
	Hundreds of thousands.
	Let's not undersell it.
	There was a lot of people here.
	We'll agree to disagree there weren't hundreds of thousands.
	It was a bit of a dangerous situation with all those people downtown.
	Would you agree?
	Dangerous in what way?
	Well, dangerous.
	You don't know what people might have in their trucks.
	You don't know what they might do.
	They're very upset.
	They're very angry.
	Was that a dangerous situation for downtown?
	Not at all.
	I met the most loving, most caring, most loving people.
	Canadian citizens.
	Everywhere you went, you were getting hugs.
	You were getting handshakes.
	Nobody was violent.
	Why did you need security then yourself?
	It was so dangerous that you yourself needed security.
	Isn't that right?
	Because the liberal left trolls were threatening my life.
	Okay, so that was dangerous, right?
	For me.
	Just for you.
	You're the only person in downtown Ottawa who's at risk.
	Is that right?
	Actually, I was the most highly protected.
	I think they had delegated eight police officers to follow me around everywhere.
	Mr. King, we've heard evidence that many federal elected officials, the mayor of Ottawa, had received death threats.
	We've heard evidence that someone was actually arrested with firearms who was coming to Ottawa, who had been making threats.
	Do you have a record of that?
	I'm asking the questions, Mr. King.
	But you would agree with me that it was probably a dangerous situation for elected officials in Ottawa?
	It was a dangerous place for us.
	People were dropping marbles from high-rises.
	They were throwing eggs.
	Citizens of Ottawa were threatening to run us over.
	You yourself said that someone who was maybe stressed out because of lockdowns and so forth might be compelled to shoot Mr. Trudeau.
	So you understood and recognized that that was a risk, right?
	That was months before the conflict.
	But everyone was all...
	They were all settled down by the time the convoy came and there was no threats to anyone.
	I've never seen anything more loving and peaceful in my life.
	It was Woodstocks.
	So the only person who's at risk in Ottawa was Pat King.
	All the other threats to anyone else in Ottawa were all fake.
	Is that right?
	I don't know.
	I can't speak on those.
	You know, my lawyer has been given death threats and bomb scares because she represents me.
	Do you know that my friends have been, their children have been threatened?
	Because of, from Ottawa, do you know that, and I hate to say this, but this town is full of a bunch of people who really don't like people who speak out.
	I disagree, Mr. King.
	Ottawa has dozens of large protests, many much larger than the one that you organized every single year.
	I've been here for you.
	I'm not sure that was a question.
	Well, Mr. Commissioner, I'll just note for the record that the people of Ottawa got one morning in this proceeding.
	We've had a week of all of these convoy organizers given a full platform to say whatever they want.
	The people in Ottawa respect the right to protest, and these folks are getting their time to say everything they want from you.
	Can I say one?
	Sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm going to stop this.
	You'll get...
	Hey, please.
	Could you ask, have him...
	I'm going to take a break while you remove...
	I'm sorry, sir.
	The commission is in recess and the commission is in a way.
	The commission is in a way to get a job.
	Order alert.
	The Commission is reconvened.
	Okay.
	It's an unfortunate event, but if we can now get back and complete today's proceedings.
	Next is the Ottawa Police Service.
	The Ottawa Police Service has no questions.
	Thanks very much, Commissioner.
	Okay.
	The Ontario Provincial Police.
	The OPP has no questions.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Council for former Chief Slowly.
	We don't have any questions.
	Thanks.
	The Government of Canada.
	Thank you, Commissioner.
	Mr. King, my name is Kathleen Tanner, and I'm counsel for the Government of Canada.
	I just have one short area of questions based on a video that had been played earlier for you, and it was a video that I believe had been recorded on February 12th after some information had come through about some pamphlets or some letters that had been passed around to the drivers, and you had made a video recording telling other drivers that it was a lie, that it was fake news to hold the ground, stand the line.
	And later on in that video, and if you'd like, we could bring it up or we could just walk through it.
	I understand that you referenced the information that's at stake.
	There is a letter which mentions Miss Leach's name.
	And later on in that video, you mentioned that Miss Leach would never do something like this.
	And you knew her well and you had good communications.
	And so this wasn't going to be something coming from her.
	So my question is, did you have any meetings with the City of Ottawa while you were in Ottawa?
	No, I did not.
	And were you aware of any meetings that Ms. Leach or other representatives of the convoy may have had with anybody from Ottawa?
	No, I tended to stay away from it.
	And prior to releasing this video, did you make any attempts to reach out to Ms. Leach to confirm whether or not this letter may or may not be accurate?
	I may or may have, and I believe that we were all kind of confused.
	We didn't know if it was legitimate.
	So there was the initial, oh, this is not a...
	True statement.
	They vetted the document and then we rechanged their statement and said okay.
	So I guess my question is, and then earlier when you were speaking to my friend from Commission Council, you had said you were uncertain about the truthfulness of that document and that's why you had released the video.
	Right, because I would assume that if these people are going to put these Letters out and that they're coming from a delegated person that has a higher position.
	There would be a name or a signature or an emblem representing who it's from.
	And from my knowledge, we didn't know where it came from.
	So I guess that's my question.
	Is it a pattern for you to release videos like this without first confirming the authenticity of the information before it?
	I would act without knowledge.
	But there is an absolute disconnect between myself and their rooms that they had, and I acted alone.
	Okay, that's all my questions.
	Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Commissioner.
	Okay, thank you.
	Next is the CCLA.
	Good evening, Commissioner and Mr. King.
	My name is Eva Krajevsk on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and I don't have any questions for Mr. King.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Now the Democracy Fund or Citizens for Freedom.
	Commissioner Antoine Dailly for Citizens for Freedom.
	No questions for this witness.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	And now, I apologize, I've forgotten your name.
	Counsel for Mr. King.
	Any questions?
	Anything that concerns you about the documentation or want to put to your client?
	Thank you.
	No, Natasha Calvino for Mr. King.
	I don't have any questions for the Commission.
	Okay.
	Sorry, I forgot your name, so I apologize for that.
	Okay, any re-examination?
	No?
	Okay, well, that completes your evidence, Mr. King, and you're free to go.
	Can I ask for one thing?
	There's some evidence that I had given to the Commission that needed to be brought out that I would have appreciated that it got to the public and they got to see it.
	I think that that should have been done when I think at the end of the examination.
	Now I'm not sure at this point if there's something in particular you want to say that of course go ahead because it's despite what some may say we're just trying to get at the bottom of all of it.
	Yeah absolutely and I want to show the Canadian citizens in the light that they need to be shown and how caring and compassionate towards the City of Ottawa we actually were and how we look.
	These videos will, like I said, what I've been shown as racist and all this stuff and taken out of context, nobody ever showed the positives.
	And that was the police officers who were right with us saying thank you.
	There was residents that were saying thank you.
	The community in a whole, the community of Ottawa that came together.
	And respected us and understood that we hear you.
	I have nothing against the city of Ottawa.
	It's not who we're here to talk to.
	I understand that people were, I guess, felt that we were here targeting them.
	That wasn't the case.
	And to Ottawaians, to people who live here, to the city council members, to the police and all that.
	We weren't bad people, sir.
	We were Canadian citizens who...
	We were showing Canadian pride.
	We're nice.
	We're good people.
	We're good people.
	There are more witnesses coming.
	We're just trying to put out a full picture.
	I'll weigh it all at the end.
	The evidence will be there and I'm going to make some findings and prepare a report.
	Thank you very much.
	But there are others coming.
	So with that, I will adjourn for the day.
	We have a big day tomorrow.
	There will be, I think it will go a little later even than most.
	I hope we'll have no difficulties tomorrow because that just slows up the process.
	But we'll be back tomorrow at 9:30.

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