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Nov. 14, 2022 - Viva & Barnes

03:37:45

Emergencies Act Inquiry, Nov. 14, 2022 - Live with Chat

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	And Røde Adr.
	The Public Order Emergency Commission is now in session.
	Commission sur l'état de gens, c'est maintenant ouvert.
	Good morning.
	Bonjour.
	J 'espère que tout le monde a eu une bonne fin de semaine.
	I hope everybody had a nice weekend.
	I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend.
	So, I understand this morning we have a presentation of an overview report.
	Is that?
	Okay.
	Good morning, Mr. Commissioner.
	Nassar Khan, Commission Council.
	I'll just wait for the PowerPoint.
	To be pulled up on the screen there.
	Okay, perfect.
	So I'll be presenting the overview report titled Federal Government Entities Involved in the Decision to Invoke the Emergencies Act.
	This overview report is now available to the parties on the party database and will be posted on the Commission's website for the public very shortly.
	The document ID for this report is com.or708.
	Next slide, please.
	So, by way of introduction, this presentation focuses on the mandates of three key federal entities.
	That is the federal executive, the prime minister, cabinet, and the governor and council, the privy council office, and the prime minister's office.
	Of course, there were many other departments and agencies Implicated in the decision to declare a public order emergency, and the Commission will hear evidence from these witnesses in the coming two weeks.
	The purpose of this overview report is to contextualize and frame the anticipated evidence for the benefit of the parties, the public, and of course the Commissioner.
	Next slide, please.
	So we'll begin with the definition.
	...sovereign or the governor general acting as the representative of the sovereign.
	In practical terms, however, references to the King's Privy Council are references to the federal cabinet.
	The federal cabinet is a committee of the Privy Council and is effectively its only operative branch.
	And by a constitutional convention, the governor general is required to follow the advice given by cabinet.
	This is, of course, a fundamental part of our system of responsible government.
	Next slide, please.
	So here we have an organizational chart depicting the structure of the federal executive branch.
	You'll see that while the formal authority to govern is vested in the Governor-General, that authority is exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
	In turn, Prime Minister and Cabinet are supported by two central offices, the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office.
	So, to put it into context, the four orders in Council that were issued by the Governor and Council in the context of the public order emergency were issued on the advice of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
	Next slide, thanks.
	The Federal Cabinet is a political decision-making body that consists of all Federal Ministers as well as the Prime Minister.
	The cabinet is sometimes referred to as the federal ministry.
	Cabinet is the forum wherein the government of the day sets its priorities and decides how to advance these priorities.
	The prime minister sets the agenda and will lead ministers to agreement in making cabinet decisions, but the final and ultimate decision-making authority rests with the prime minister.
	Cabinet members are governed by two related conventions: Cabinet solidarity and Cabinet confidentiality.
	Cabinet solidarity requires that ministers, as a group, be held accountable to Parliament for their government's actions.
	Cabinet confidentiality requires that ministers not disclose the substance of their Cabinet discussions to the public.
	The two principles are, of course, intertwined because cabinet confidentiality allows ministers to frankly and vigorously discuss their views with their colleagues in private while remaining united in their decisions to the public.
	Ministers are also individually responsible for the federal departments they oversee.
	The powers and duties in respect of their departments are set out in their departmental statutes.
	In practice, however, the day-to-day operations of a federal department or agency are carried out by the deputy minister and civil servants.
	A deputy minister is the senior-most member of the professional nonpartisan public service.
	Finally, every minister is supported by a ministerial office consisting of a political staff in carrying out their duties as members of parliament.
	Political staff are sometimes referred to as exempt staff.
	Because they are not bound by the strict impartiality rules that apply to the public service and are instead temporary political appointees.
	So, there is a clear separation between political staff and the public servants who work within federal departments in that political staff do not have the authority to give direction or instruction to public servants.
	Next slide, please.
	So here we have another organizational chart that depicts the work of cabinet and cabinet committees.
	The work of the government is also carried out by several cabinet committees.
	The protests and the government's response to the protests were discussed by two cabinet committees in particular.
	The first was the Cabinet Committee on Safety, Security and Emergencies, or SSE, which was chaired by the Minister of Emergency Preparedness.
	The SSE met on February 3rd, 6th, and 8th.
	The second Cabinet Committee was the Incident Response Group, or IRG.
	The IRG took over the management of the issue after February 8th and was chaired by the Prime Minister and therefore had decision-making authority.
	The IRG met on February 10th, 12th, and 13th, and then daily thereafter between February 16th and February 23rd.
	I will also add that there were two full cabinet meetings at which the protests and the invocation of the Emergencies Act was discussed.
	These meetings took place on February 3rd and February 15th.
	Turning now to the Prime Minister's office, the PMO is a central political agency supporting the Prime Minister in his three roles as the head of government, the leader of a political party, and a member of Parliament.
	PMO staff advise the Prime Minister on policy issues, communications, and parliamentary affairs, and PMO is led by a chief of staff who reports directly to the Prime Minister and is also appointed by the Prime Minister.
	Like the staff at ministerial offices, all staff at the PMO are exempt staff in that they are temporary political appointees.
	The PMO operates as a critical link between the partisan interests and agenda of the Prime Minister and the general workings of government.
	For instance, PMO maintains close relationships with political staff at ministers' offices, as well as with officials at the Privy Council Office, and PMO officials often attend cabinet meetings.
	The Privy Council Office, or PCO, is the central coordinating agency within the federal government.
	And in contrast to PMO, the PCO provides nonpartisan advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and ensures that the government's agenda is implemented across all federal departments and agencies.
	And for this reason, PCO is sometimes referred to as the Prime Minister's Department.
	pco is led by the clerk of the privy council
	In addition to its primary role as a central coordinating agency, PCO also serves as the department for some ministers.
	This includes the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, who is supported by the Intergovernmental Affairs Secretariat, as well as the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, who is supported by the Emergency Preparedness and COVID-19 Recovery Secretariat.
	Another important PCO actor is the National Security and Intelligence Advisor, or the NSIA.
	The NSIA holds the title of Deputy Secretary to Cabinet and provides national security advice and intelligence briefings to the Prime Minister as well as to Cabinet.
	The Office of the NSIA plays a coordinating and convening function amongst national security agencies, and the Office of the NSIA itself consists of four secretariats, and it is responsible for convening two standing committees of senior civil servants.
	The NSIA also acts as the secretary to the incident response group.
	So, this chart depicts the relationship between the Privy Council Office, federal departments and agencies, and the various secretariats within PCO.
	It should be noted that there is no legislation governing the role of the NSA or PCO as these entities are meant to play only an advice.
	Thank you.
	National Security and Operations or ADM NSOPS.
	Both the ADM NSOPS and DMOC met frequently, in fact almost daily, in late January and throughout February 2022 to discuss the government's response to the protests.
	Finally, the departments and agencies listed on this slide were also involved in the federal government's response to the protests and blockades and the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act.
	And as I mentioned earlier, witnesses from each of these departments are expected to testify in the coming weeks.
	And I would invite the parties to consult the institutional reports prepared by each department for a fuller explanation of the department's mandate and involvement.
	So that concludes the presentation on this overview report.
	But before I go, I would also like to enter three additional overview reports prepared by Commission Council and that I understand the parties have had the chance to review.
	At first, Commission Council are entering a report.
	Can you slow down for the interpreters, please?
	Yes.
	Commission Council are entering a report summarizing the proceedings.
	Commenced in response to the protests in January and February 2022, including judicial review proceedings commenced to challenge the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
	The document ID for this report is com.or701.
	The second report that Commission Council are entering is a report summarizing the protests that occurred at six international ports of entry in January and February 2022.
	The document ID for this report is com.or706.
	And the final...
	...
	thank you thank you The parties will find that document, the overview report, useful for determining who they should be questioning as we go through the various departments.
	Because for obvious reasons, the amount of time for cross-examination is limited for each of the parties.
	So you should be as much as possible targeting the departments and witnesses who are likely to have the answers to the questions you may pose.
	So with that brief introduction, I'll call on the next witness.
	I think it's a panel, as I understand it.
	Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.
	My name is Shantona Choudhury, co-league Commission Council.
	like to call Mr. Rob Stewart and Mr. Dominique Crescent to the stand.
	Mr. Steeward.
	Stuart.
	Spell it.
	Yes, please.
	R-O-B-E-R-T-N-E-I-L-A-F-F-L-E-C-K-S-T-E-W-A-R-T.
	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.
	Mr. Rochon, will you swear on a religious document or do you wish to affirm?
	I will affirm.
	For the record, please state your full name and spell it out.
	Dominic James Rochon, D-O-M-I-N-I-C, R-O-C-H-O-N.
	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.
	Go ahead.
	Good morning, Mr. Stewart.
	Good morning, Mr. Rochon.
	Nice to see you again.
	I'll just start by introducing your witness summary.
	So you'll recall sitting for an interview with Commission Council on September 1st, 2022.
	Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
	I'll ask you to pull up WTS.00005066.
	Okay, so Mr. Stewart and Mr. Rajan, you'll recall that some of your colleagues who are not with us today, were not called to testify, also sat for that interview, namely Mr. Talal.
	I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right.
	Pardon me?
	Thank you.
	And Mr. Derek Trehearn also participated in that interview.
	I'll just ask you to confirm that you've reviewed the summary of the interview.
	And if you have no changes to make, confirm that insofar as it contains your information, you adopt it.
	And it's accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief insofar as it contains the information of your colleagues.
	And you believe them to have accepted it as accurate?
	I accept it.
	I believe it's accurate.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Stewart, at the time of the Freedom Convoy events in January and February, you were the Deputy Minister of Public Safety.
	Is that correct?
	That is correct.
	Okay.
	And you've since moved on to become the Deputy Minister of International Trade?
	That is correct.
	And when was that?
	Just recently, 17th of October.
	17th of October?
	Okay.
	Mr. Roshan, at the time of the events, you were the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Safety's National and Cybersecurity Branch.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	And you've also since left public safety to take another position.
	Is that correct?
	That is correct.
	Okay.
	Associate Deputy Minister of Transport?
	Correct.
	And when was that?
	October 31st was my first day.
	Okay.
	So also very recent.
	The next thing, I'll just ask you to introduce the Public Safety's Institutional Report, despite the fact that neither of you are currently with Public Safety.
	Mr. Clerk, that's DOJ IR 608.
	Okay, so Mr. Stewart, you'll recall that Public Safety Canada prepared and filed with the Commission this institutional report.
	Have you reviewed it?
	I have.
	Okay, and is it accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief?
	Yes.
	Okay, and can you confirm that it's been filed with the Commission as part of Public Safety's evidence?
	I believe it has.
	Thank you.
	Okay, with those introductions out of the way, I'll just ask you to start by giving an overview of the structure of public safety.
	It's a slightly complicated department.
	It's, as we know, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
	So, Mr. Sear, can you walk us through public safety writ large?
	By all means.
	Public safety is a relatively small department that covers all matters associated with the security of Canada.
	It has three main branches, which deal with national and cybersecurity.
	That's one branch.
	Crime prevention, that's another.
	And emergency management, that's the third.
	It has other branches which do more coordinating or corporate work.
	Okay, but the three that you mentioned are the ones that were most implicated in the events of the convoy.
	Is that right?
	Those are the policy branches.
	Okay.
	And Mr. Rochon, I understand that the National Cyber Security Branch manages five directorates.
	Can you tell us about that?
	and if you'd like to have the reference for your for your notes it's doj ir at page 8 paragraphs 25 and 26 so we can just pull that up If you could just move up the page just slightly, but I can speak to them, yes.
	The National Cybersecurity Branch has five divisions.
	Primarily, it is responsible for national security policy matters, national security operations matters, critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, and over the last three years, there was a special task force regarding economic security.
	Okay, and if we can just scroll down a little bit, Mr. Clerk.
	Under critical infrastructure and strategic coordination, it says this directorate supports the ministers in leading the national effort to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure against a variety of hazards.
	Do those hazards include protest?
	They could.
	Essentially, that particular directorate oversees the critical infrastructure strategy that has been in place since 2010.
	We have been, over the last couple of years, in the midst of refreshing that strategy.
	That particular directorate engages with the 10 critical infrastructure sectors.
	There are private sector leads and public sector leads for each of those sectors, and they deal with matters of we provide risk assessments when there are threats.
	They could be cyber-related threats, but any threats to any critical infrastructure across those 10. Okay.
	And then the next, not bullet there, but the next line in the chart, the Task Force on Economic Security.
	Tell us a little bit about the work of that task force and whether or not it played into the convoy at all.
	It did not.
	That task force was stood up over the last three years, as I pointed out, in order to look at the broader framework.
	That is economic security.
	Economic security is a term that can mean a lot of things.
	From a national security perspective, that task force was looking into, through various lenses, potential threats to Canada's economy stemming from threat actors, potentially hostile state actors.
	Those threats can emanate from...
	And indeed, we have an elaborate control system across Canada.
	We have export controls.
	We have the Investment Canada Act.
	We have a series of tools.
	But the Economic Security Task Force was looking at whether or not those tools were fit to purpose and indeed whether that tool set was adequate in order to protect ourselves against the threats of today.
	And so most of that work Looked at and is moving towards an economic security strategy that would introduce research security to protect intellectual property, for example, things of that nature.
	So, specifically, that task force did not have a role to play with regard to this particular situation.
	Okay.
	Now, getting to your own individual roles and responsibilities, Mr. Stewart.
	Can you tell us, first of all, a little bit about your general role as a Deputy Minister of Public Safety and then describe at a very high level your role with respect to the events of the convoy?
	By all means, as a deputy, I'm responsible for the administration of the department and providing policy advice to the minister on matters associated with public safety and overseeing program delivery.
	The department runs a number of...
	Contribution programs that provide funding for various activities.
	And I also work with the deputy heads of organizations that are in the portfolio.
	And by the portfolio, I mean these are organizations who are responsible to the minister.
	In the public safety portfolio, there are five main organizations.
	RCMP, CBSA, Canadian Border Service Agency, Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
	The Correctional Service of Canada and the Parole Board.
	Thank you.
	They all are independently accountable to the Minister, but we work together as a group and provide advice, and if necessary, the Department will do legislation or regulation on their behalf.
	In the context of the protests, I was working with a subset of that group.
	Who are involved in daily calls and briefings.
	That would be the RCMP and CBSA primarily.
	To a degree, CSIS.
	I think we're going to hear a lot more about that shortly.
	And thank you for speaking without acronyms.
	That's appreciated.
	On the first day of federal government evidence, we're still getting used to all the acronyms.
	I think CSIS we can handle and probably CBSA, but when it gets deeper than that, it's going to be a struggle.
	Okay, Mr. Rochelle.
	Can you tell us at a high level, first of all, your role at the time and your role in the convoy?
	I would describe my role specifically having gone through the five directorates in my branch.
	The one director in particular, the National Security Operations Directorate.
	Through that directorate, I have a responsibility, and I'll refer to the presentation that was given to us this morning where we highlighted the Privy Council Office and its role.
	With the Privy Council Office, they have a Security and Intelligence Secretariat.
	The Assistant Secretary responsible for that secretariat and I have a responsibility of convening the Security and Intelligence community, which is some...
	16 departments and agencies on a regular basis to discuss ongoing operational national security matters for situational awareness and indeed to be able to make sure that we're coordinating the community to be able to respond to potential threats to national security.
	So that particular committee is called the Assistant Deputy Minister, National Security, National Security.
	Thank you.
	The regular meeting on Tuesday, January 25th, we discussed the convoy.
	But after that date, we decided to have ad hoc meetings, so everyday daily meetings of that committee, pretty much throughout the rest of the operational situation, if I could put it that way.
	So I guess my role primarily was to convene, along with my PCO colleague, the Privy Council Office colleague, All the various representatives of these departments and agencies in the security and intelligence community, and I'm happy to walk you through who they might be.
	But we would get together and discuss whether or not this issue was an issue of national security and whether or not it could lead to threats to national security.
	Okay, I certainly do want you to elaborate on that.
	First of all, who was your PCO colleague?
	Mike McDonald is the assistant.
	Secretary to the Secretariat for Security and Intelligence.
	Okay, well, you've anticipated essentially my next question because the first sort of broad topic that I think we're going to cover here is public safety's preparation for the convoy.
	And that feeds into, Mr. Rochon, what you were telling us about public safety's intelligence rules.
	So at this point, I'll ask you to, yes, please explain that and explain how it was, how it fed into public safety's preparation.
	So I'll start by explaining that intelligence, with regard to the federal family, you have collectors of intelligence, you have assessors of intelligence, and you have consumers of intelligence.
	Public Safety Department is a consumer.
	We don't, per se, collect intelligence, and we don't assess intelligence.
	We consume it.
	Why does one consume intelligence?
	In order to be able to be better informed so that decisions can be made.
	And those decisions are made across all departments and agencies.
	The key collectors of intelligence, CSIS, the Communication Security Establishment, CBSA to a certain extent, what they collect and what they see at the border, RCMP, but indeed, beyond the federal family, there's also collection of intelligence that occurs within police of jurisdiction, which I'm sure you would have heard about.
	At the municipal level, at the provincial level, etc.
	Intelligence can be very broad.
	It's not an exact science and really only provides a piece of information at a moment in time.
	The federal family also has assessors of that intelligence, which means they pull different threads of intelligence together in order to be able to fuse it and provide a more holistic picture to, again...
	Better inform potential decisions related to national security matters.
	Assessors are the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Center, ITAC.
	You have the Privy Council Office also has a Secretariat, the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat.
	But to a certain extent, CSIS, the Communications Security Establishment, performed their own assessments and are able to provide reports, as does the RCMP.
	When we convene the ADM NSOPS group, typically we will use different pieces of intelligence in order to be able to inform us on various issues that are happening all over the world that could lead to Okay,
	But there is a distinction between something rising to a national security level and something that is a police matter that they might be dealing with throughout the country.
	and in your interview, we're going to go back to some of that as we go along, but...
	You explained that prior to the convoy's arrival, this is taking you up on your last point, NCSB, so the National Cybersecurity Branch, wasn't gathering or disseminating intelligence about the convoy because at that point there was no indication that the offense would be a national security threat.
	So can you explain and elaborate on that a little bit, what that threshold is and when, if at all, NCSB did start doing that and why?
	So again, our branch does not collect intelligence.
	We're consumers of it.
	So we would be receiving that intelligence from different parties, be it CSIS or be it the RCMP in the federal family context.
	The government operations center is another element of public safety.
	They fall under the emergency management branch.
	They don't fall under my branch.
	Nevertheless, the Government Operations Centre, otherwise known as the GOC, does have a role to play with regard to any potential emergency in terms of pulling together information and disseminating that information about a potential emergency.
	They're a 24-7 Ops Centre at Public Safety.
	So, the reason I mention them is...
	Obviously, if there is a potential protest, or for example, on Canada Day, when there are provisions that need to be made in terms of securing a particular area, or if there is a potential threat that may be arising, the Government Operations Centre does start collecting open source information and sharing that information across the federal security and intelligence community in order for there to be situational awareness about a potential for...
	Social disruption or something that may be of concern.
	So I would say the GOC was aware and within public safety would have been the first entity that would have started collecting information, I think, that the weekend before the convoy decided to make its way to Ottawa.
	They would have started collecting some information and disseminating it.
	Following that, Transport Canada, obviously, given their mandate, would have started having concerns about slow rolls and disruptions to traffic.
	And the member of Transport Canada that is a member of the EDM&S Ops, Kevin Brosseau, would have...
	Would have called both Mike McDonald and I to say that he wanted to make sure that the issue was brought to the attention of the EDM&S Ops Committee, because it did have the potential of rising to a national security level, given the fact that this was happening across Canada.
	Okay.
	And when you say he would have called, you mean he did call?
	He did call, yes.
	That actually happened.
	Okay.
	And so I understand that Gox started monitoring this, as you said, around January 19th, and it started producing two types of reports.
	One is called Key Point.
	Key Point.
	No?
	Okay.
	And who receives those reports?
	Who are they disseminated to?
	I can't say for sure what the broad distribution list is, but it's pretty much federal-provincial.
	And then the key points would have been going to a selected group of deputies and senior public servants.
	I appreciate that it's your colleague, Mr. Traherne, who is in charge of the GOC, so he's the person with the best knowledge on this.
	If you'd like, I could just clarify a point here.
	Because my colleague has talked about the intelligence side of the operation.
	The GOC does not consume intelligence or report it.
	All it does is bring together open source information.
	And operational information that it obtains from various parties.
	And in the event of a protest or an event in Ottawa that requires coordination with police forces, it will sit in on that and it will report that information.
	But none of that is considered to be intelligence and therefore classified.
	So maybe you can help us here a little bit understand the distinction between information and intelligence.
	Who wants to tackle that one?
	Well, I'll go first and Dominic can follow.
	Information is anything that you can obtain via open source and is not by its nature classified to any degree.
	I suppose you could quibble about that, but as a general matter and to the point that I was making, it really isn't needed to be protected in any way.
	Whereas intelligence I would just elaborate that there are different forms of intelligence.
	You have human source, so human intelligence that you get from human sources.
	You have signals intelligence.
	So there are a whole series of different types of intelligence that can be collected, and different departments and agencies can collect that intelligence.
	Under their respective mandates.
	So they can only collect that information provided that it follows the various legislation that underpins their existence.
	Okay.
	And appreciating that public safety is a consumer, neither a collector nor a gatherer of intelligence, and the fact that we're going to be hearing from both CSIS and ITAC next week.
	I won't spend too much more time on this, but there's one thing I did want to raise with you.
	Mr. Clerk, could you please pull up TRN 5011?
	So this is an excerpt from a transcript of Commissioner Kareek's evidence from a couple of weeks ago.
	Thank you.
	Karik was being questioned by my colleague, Monsieur Prousseau, about a reference in an OPP Hendon report.
	And I'll just stop there.
	In the interview, the Commission's heard quite a bit of evidence about Project Hendon and OPP's Hendon reports.
	And in the interview that we had in September, you told us that...
	Neither of you had heard of Project Hendon at the time specifically, and that the Project Hendon reports hadn't been fed up to you.
	And I take it that that goes to your point of provincial law enforcement intelligence would likely not be directly fed up to you.
	But I'm wondering if you can, or if it did, it would be through the RCMP.
	But I'm wondering if you could just explain, elaborate on that a little bit.
	I certainly can.
	I would say, and you'll have the opportunity, I assume, to speak with the RCMP and with CSIS, as you have with police of jurisdiction, whether it be provincial or municipal.
	At every level, I would assume, and I believe is the case, there are intelligence bodies that pull together intelligence on a wide variety of issues.
	And if there's a particular incident that is occurring, they will pull together a particular operation and start collecting information, intelligence about that particular issue.
	So I'm assuming here, in this case, that the Ontario Provincial Police would have started Operation Hendon.
	Police of jurisdiction will get together and liaise with the RCMP.
	So I would be, I'm quite certain that the RCMP would have been privy to anything coming out of Project Hendon as they would have been privy to anything coming out of the Ottawa Police Service and other police of jurisdiction across Ontario or indeed across Canada.
	And for the purposes of our National Security Committee that looks at operational situations, the RCMP would be feeding us.
	Any relevant information, but they would not be referring to an Operation Hendon or an operation, whatever the various operations.
	They wouldn't tell us where the information would be coming from specifically.
	They would simply be flagging anything that would be of interest for the table.
	Okay, so if I can just summarize that.
	If the RCMP was privy to anything from Project Hendon that was relevant, you would expect to have knowledge of that through them.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	That's helpful.
	So just getting back to this little transcript excerpt here.
	So Commissioner Karik is being asked about a reference in an OBPA hand-in report to a potential threat to Canada's sovereignty and national security.
	That's around line 19, I believe.
	And if we can just scroll down now to the next page, page 91. 97. Ninety-one.
	Oh, sorry, yes.
	No problem.
	Okay, so I'm just going to read through the first few paragraphs here.
	Commissioner Karik says, what is required is further analysis of that threat.
	Hendon did have those conversations with the appropriate security partners to see if that potential threat rose to the point that would warrant them.
	And that.
	And one of the items in national security, if you look at the national security strategy and how it's described by Public Safety Canada, actually includes impact to economy, activities at critical infrastructures, international border crossings.
	So, Mr. Rochelle or Mr. Stewart, whoever's best placed to answer this, can you explain and elaborate a little bit on...
	What Commissioner Creek is referring to here, Public Safety Canada's national security strategy and definition.
	I'll give it a go.
	To be honest, the national security strategy dates back to 2004, and there are several academic institutions as of late that have recommended that the Government of Canada come out with a more I'll start by explaining what was meant in terms of CSIS and whether or not the threshold was met with regard to their act.
	What I think Commissioner Crick was referring to was the fact that, as I was mentioning earlier, CSIS has the ability to collect intelligence, but they can only collect intelligence if certain thresholds have been met.
	CSIS are only but one of a number of inputs into the national security landscape.
	And so they do have targets, whether it be, and I'll use a term here that I'm sure is going to come up, or probably already has come up, but will come up fairly frequently, that of ideologically motivated violent extremism.
	Public safety also has a counterterrorism strategy.
	We have a cybersecurity strategy.
	We're developing an economic security strategy, as I mentioned earlier.
	We're looking to create a hostile activities of state actors framework to deal with foreign interference.
	So the reason why we don't have perhaps an up-to-date national security strategy is because national security now permeates A whole host of things, all walks of life in terms of Canadian society.
	And I won't even get into threats posed by climate change, indeed the pandemic itself, the public health situation.
	Unfortunately, there is no, as far as I know, no definition in legislation of national security.
	CSIS does have a definition of threats to the security of Canada, I believe.
	The Security of Canada's Information Disclosure Act, SCEEDA, also speaks to a definition of threats to the security of Canada.
	We have review bodies for the security and intelligence community, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and CIRA and NSICOP.
	They have gone to great pains to sort of define...
	What their purview is in terms of national security.
	And indeed, it covers, as I mentioned earlier, some 16 departments and agencies.
	So when it comes to national security, we're not necessarily looking at one specific threat, a terrorism threat, but rather the impact on Canada's ability to maintain The security of its institutions, its democracy, its people, its economy, the resilience of all of these things.
	Okay, so from public safety's perspective then, or in its modus operandi, there's a distinction between national security and threat to the security of Canada, as defined in the CSIS Act.
	Is that fair?
	Yes, absolutely.
	OK.
	OK.
	Moving on from there, I just want to situate us in time here.
	With the information that Public Safety was receiving prior to the arrival of the convoy, so the information it was receiving from its various sources, and Mr. Clerk, I'll just ask you to pull up at this point, PB CAN 50703.
	This is the Gawk key points from January 27th.
	But as that's being pulled up, feel free to already start.
	And in describing what your state of knowledge was at that point and what you anticipated happening when the convoy arrived.
	So maybe I'll back up just one step for that.
	It's just to say that we were monitoring, as you noted earlier, the rising level of...
	of protest around the vaccine mandate which came into force on the 15th of January.
	So we were through various groups monitoring just that there were protests that were likely to arise and we started getting word of the convoys formation on around January 20th and were through the GOC and its connection to Planning and coordination groups,
	and one in particular called Intersect, which is a group that brings together all the police of the region and various other entities that have an interest in the security of the national capital.
	That would have been meeting and talking about that, and we were hearing reports, and then they would be reflected in these key points, those discussions.
	So this would have been January 27th is on the...
	It was the eve of the arrival of the early, in Ottawa, of the trucks, and I believe just prior to the blockade at Cootes.
	So we were growing, paying a lot of attention to it, getting somewhat concerned about how it would manifest, how many trucks and from where, and there were many.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Clark, if we can just scroll up, I guess, or down.
	Sorry.
	Keep scrolling, keep scrolling, keep scrolling.
	So as you've mentioned, convoys coming from several directions.
	Keep scrolling.
	Mr. Seward, I think you covered most of this in your introduction.
	Keep scrolling.
	Okay, stop around there.
	So we see Ottawa police are planning for around 1,000 to 2,000 vehicles.
	The convoy is going to be directed to CERS or John A. The second to last or third to last bullet there near Vanier Old Jet Forum Park will be used to park trucks and passenger vehicles with cabs and LRT available for demonstrators to get downtown.
	So we've heard a lot of evidence at the commission already about what the plans may or may not have been.
	But I understand this reflects the notion that...
	Protesters would park at, I think, what's now referred to in common pronouns as Coventry Road and then be bused in from there or from various locations.
	And then if we just scroll down here to assessment, Ottawa Police Assessment determines there's no need for people to stay home or businesses to close.
	OPP is advising motorists to avoid travel because of the delays.
	Ottawa Police, OPP, RCMP, as well as the City of Ottawa are coordinating a response.
	Disruption to government activities expected to be minor because most employees are at home.
	Intersect is indicating this will be a significant and extremely fluid event that could go on for a prolonged period.
	It's anticipated to be peaceful.
	Does that reflect essentially the information that you had at the time and your expectations?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So is it fair to say you anticipated that it would be...
	Well, actually, I'll just ask it open-ended.
	How long did you think it would last?
	What were you expecting to happen when the convoy arrived?
	The expectation that I had was that the convoy would park and stay for the weekend and leave on the Sunday.
	Okay.
	Mr. O'Shawn is...
	Is that your expectation?
	As far as the Ottawa situation was, yes.
	And we were also watching to see whether other protests that were bubbling across the country would also...
	But the expectation was they would all be peaceful and they would last for that weekend.
	Okay.
	Is there anything in particular you'd like to highlight about what was going on across the country at that time?
	No, other than to say, you know, transport obviously had...
	Some concerns with regard to various protests happening and how it might affect the flow of traffic, how it might affect supply...
	...was involved, is to make sure that we were mindful that there could be impacts to critical infrastructure.
	And as a result...
	We were being watchful.
	But the expectation, although it does say in this document, I note, that Intersect, which was the broader group that Mr. Stewart referred to a moment ago, they indicated that the situation was very fluid and that it could go on for a more prolonged period, particularly in Ottawa.
	I would like to add to that, if I may.
	Please do.
	It was a very organic kind of protest, and it was very difficult, and I've used the word intelligence in a very technical sense before, but to have good intel of what the plans were for any of the convoys as they manifested.
	And we were starting to see slow roll convoys in other places in the country.
	And as Dominic has said, we were concerned that this movement would grow, and it wouldn't be just a one-time-only event, but this would, in the end, manifest across the country in various places.
	And I believe right by the end of January, we were starting to see the blockade in the Coutts port of entry.
	So therefore, we had evidence that it could, in fact, impair critical infrastructure and the economy and the lives of Canadians.
	Okay, so one eye opened that this could develop into something, but essentially, with respect to Ottawa, at least, the expectation was that it would end after the weekend.
	And as we know now, that didn't happen, and it didn't end after the weekend.
	Some trucks stayed, many protesters stayed.
	So, the next sort of topic I want to address is, very broadly, how did the federal government respond?
	Let's start by talking.
	We know that there were a variety of committees struck and calls and meetings taking place.
	So Mr. Stewart, I'll ask you to walk us through that, starting with the internal federal government response.
	All right, so we've established that prior to The convoy's arrival in Ottawa.
	There were discussions taking place in the regular fora, which included the Deputy Minister's Operational Coordination Committee, and bilateral discussions across departments, including transport, to just take stock, basically, and make sure we had situational awareness.
	And I believe PCO officials would have been informing political officials at their end.
	We were certainly keeping the minister apprised in his office.
	As the weekend progressed and it became clear that the convoy was intending to stay and the original thinking was that they would only stay another couple of days and then it gradually morphed into an extended period of time, we ramped up the internal discussions.
	And started to have a regular briefing on a daily basis of a small group of ministers, including the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, quite often the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs as well, and occasionally the Minister of Justice.
	So these were key ministers in the context of the protests.
	And we started daily briefings of that group at the beginning of the first week after the weekend.
	And they were supported by regular daily meetings of the DMOC, Deputy Minister's Operational Committee and Coordination Committee meetings, as well as other discussions that we were having, and that goes outside of government but with other officials around the country.
	So, those two groups, the DMOC group of senior officials and the ministerial briefing group were the principal fora in which the ongoing protests around the country and the situation all the way was discussed.
	Okay, so DMOC is another acronym that we're going to have to get used to pretty quickly.
	No, no, no.
	This one is going to come up a lot over the next couple of weeks, so we'll learn it now.
	Deputy Minister of Operations Committee, the DMOC.
	Who attended the DMOC?
	Who participated in it?
	The standing membership would be Chair of National Security Intelligence Advisor.
	The intelligence agencies, the Canadian Security Establishments and CSIS, RCMP, Deputy Minister of Transport, Deputy Minister of Public Safety, Deputy Minister of Global Affairs, Deputy Minister of Immigration and Citizenship.
	I'm going to miss one here.
	The Chief of Defence Staff.
	Sorry, I'm...
	CBSA?
	CBSA, yes, of course.
	Defense.
	Okay, and you referred just now to the Communication Security Establishment.
	Can you just explain what that is?
	It's one of the two primary intelligence agencies that does signals intelligence.
	Signals intelligence.
	Can you explain what signals intelligence is?
	Foreign signals intelligence.
	I should point out the Communication Security Establishment is responsible.
	For two things.
	One, collecting foreign signals intelligence on non-Canadians outside of Canada.
	It's a very strict mandate.
	But they also have the responsibility for the Canadian Cyber Centre.
	So they produce threat assessments, for example, for cyber incidents and things of that nature.
	Thank you.
	Okay, Mr. Stewart, sorry about that.
	A little interlude.
	So there was the DMOC, and then you said there was these daily ministerial briefings.
	And at a high level, can you explain what those daily ministerial briefings were about?
	They had multiple purposes.
	The first was, of course, situational awareness.
	So there was a briefing at the beginning of it, typically by the Commissioner of the RCMP, and as well by the...
	And then we would discuss, you know, the federal government's ability to deal with the protests, what we were able to mobilize or what we were doing, such as the provision of RCMP officers to support the Ottawa Police Service.
	And we would also discuss, you know, what ministers' messages would be for Canadians because they were making frequent public appearances.
	Okay.
	And you mentioned that the principal briefer was often Commissioner Luckey from the RCMP.
	Yes.
	Why was that?
	Well, the police of jurisdiction in Ottawa were connected to the RCMP and are on a regular basis.
	The RCMP coordinates because they have jurisdiction over some areas of the city, small areas that are federal.
	And so they work very closely together.
	And, of course, the police were, including the OPP, they had an integrated command.
	Well, they had a national capital region crisis centre that they were...
	That they'd staffed, and that was where the RCMP was getting the information.
	But the OPP was not in these calls, nor was the Ottawa Police.
	So they were in a sense, the commission of the RCMP was in a sense, the person who...
	Collected that information and brought it to the table.
	Okay, so these two things that we're talking about, the DMOC and the ministerial briefings, these are entirely internal to the federal government.
	That's what you asked for.
	That's exactly right.
	Okay, and before we move on to external, Mr. Rochon, I'll just ask you to explain, you touched on this before, but what the ADM and SOPS was doing at the time.
	Commensurate with those two meetings that Mr. Stewart just described, ADM&S Office was also meeting daily and essentially feeding into those meetings.
	So it's just one layer below in terms of Assistant Deputy Ministers from all of those same departments and agencies coming together and discussing situational awareness around the various incidents that were occurring across the country.
	So, would it be fair to say that the information chain would sort of be ADM, NSOPS, up to DMOC, and then from DMOC up to Cabinet, where warranted, to the ministerial level?
	Okay, Mr. Stewart, now I'll ask you about the meetings that were happening that included actors external to the federal government.
	So, a couple of different points of note there.
	As a standing matter, there is a committee of federal-provincial assistant deputy ministers, which was our colleague Talal Dacalbab, who is a co-chair of that committee.
	And it was a committee to discuss crime prevention and policing matters.
	And it exists on a permanent basis and involves ADMs from across the country, all provinces and territories.
	So that fora was used for outreach and discussion, information sharing.
	And that's what's referred to as the FPTCPCC, I think?
	That is correct.
	Crime Prevention and Policing Committee.
	CPPC.
	CPPC.
	So that was one forum.
	On an ad hoc basis, we convened deputy ministers of federal, provincial and territorial governments to discuss the situation with the protests around the country.
	And that happened...
	More than once, because I co-chaired a call, and then my colleague, the Deputy Minister of Transport, had calls with Deputy Ministers of Transport departments around the country as the protest went on.
	I'm sure we'll come back to that.
	But there was, generally speaking, Deputy Ministers' calls and meetings.
	And as well, I reached out to the City of Ottawa early in the week that the protest...
	became entrenched and we stood up calls and discussions amongst officials and also at the ministerial level involved.
	Thank you.
	My meeting on February 6th, which I understand was one of the situation in Ottawa meetings that you described, Mr. Stewart.
	And as you said, I believe you convened these meetings in order to have some input on what was going on in Ottawa and assist with that situation.
	Okay, so I just want to take you to the various things that you're reported to have said in this meeting.
	So the first thing is...
	You convened the meeting and you were looking to get a sense of what was going on on the ground in Ottawa and steps to resolving the situation.
	First thing is you noted that some of your federal ministers were concerned and wanted a quick resolution to the matter.
	In addition, there continues to be concern from the federal ministers about coordination of activities federally and with other partners.
	you just elaborate on on what you were reporting there So I was reflecting the fact that the federal government was taking, and the ministers of the federal government were taking the protests very seriously and were very concerned about how it was evolving.
	I've referred earlier to its kind of organic nature, the uncertainty that prevailed, the sense of, quite frankly, menace that was starting to manifest itself.
	And given that it was happening on a national basis, ministers were...
	Actively, to the best of my knowledge, talking to counterparts across the country and trying to bring things, bring powers and plans to the table.
	It's important to note, I think, at least for the record, that at no time did anybody start to think about instructing police to do anything, but they were very interested in what the plans of the police were.
	In various parts of the country.
	And as well, you know, how we would mobilize, you know, for border crossings with the Canadian Border Service Agency and local police.
	So the sense here that, you know, there was a growing set of protests occurring, that it was taxing the abilities of local authorities to manage or to address them.
	The lack of, at that point in time, a particular sort of coordinated federal-provincial approach, that was what I was referring to.
	Okay.
	And just moving down, if we can scroll down to the next time you see Rob Stewart.
	There we go.
	Just keep scrolling down a little bit, Mr. Clerk, so we can see this quote.
	Sorry, scroll down a little more.
	Keep going.
	There we go.
	Rob Stewart posed the following question to Chief Peter slowly.
	What is the nature of the support that Ottawa is likely going to ask for?
	It says here, note, Rob Stewart was trying to understand in unsaid terms, whether the OPS will directly request non-law enforcement assistance.
	Can you tell us a little bit about what was going on there?
	Well, I didn't take these minutes, and I don't think that's accurate.
	The Chief, Chief Slowly, was saying very openly, Almost right from the beginning, after the weekend, that he needed more resources.
	And fairly early on, the RCMP did add resources to help the Ottawa Police.
	And the number was quite a bit slower than Chief Slowly was asking for.
	We weren't entirely clear as to what exactly he needed in terms of the type of resources, and here we're talking about policing resources.
	I had already spoken to the city, and here I mean city manager Steve Kanellakos, and clarified that the federal government had no intention of mobilizing the Canadian Armed Forces to deal with the protests.
	And so it was not really, I think, a subject of discussion at that time.
	And the issue was more just the scope and nature of the policing resources that the city was calling for.
	Okay.
	And the next bullet point is, what are the obvious and visible successes that ministers can be told and can also see?
	What were you referring to there?
	What were you asking Chief Spoli about?
	Well, Chief, slowly, and I think the document does give some clarity to this, was reporting on what the Ottawa Police Service was trying to do to limit and contain the protests.
	And there had been, for instance, a kind of a shack erected in one of the parks, federal parks, which was causing Quite a lot of heartburn in that the police were successful in negotiating being taken down.
	It was storing gas and was actually, I think, a barbecue stand.
	But that was, as an example, one of the things that, you know, Chief Slowly was reporting on the police having achieved.
	And, you know, he was projecting a sense of...
	The intention that, you know, they were going to continue, the Ottawa Police, to the best of their ability with the resources that they had, stretched as they were, to take steps to interdict and to disrupt the protest.
	And so this is what that question gets at, is what are your plans in the short run to do that kind of thing?
	It wasn't, this is not predicated on, at that point in time, the expectation that the Ottawa Police would be able to actually bring the protests to an end.
	Okay.
	And that, I suppose, reflects the fact that these meetings are sort of information sharing and aimed at sort of information sharing and attempting to sort of brainstorm solutions.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	Now, if we can just keep scrolling down.
	Sorry.
	Just stop right there.
	Nope.
	Keep going.
	Until you see...
	Jody Thomas, National Security Advisor.
	And scroll down a little bit more, please.
	Sorry, keep going.
	Be the next one.
	It's a long minute.
	Okay, there we go.
	So, Mr. Stewart, I just want to ask you a little bit here about these meetings were meetings at the officials level, largely.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And there was participation from Ontario.
	Mr. DiTomaso.
	Yes.
	Participate in these meetings.
	And we heard from Mr. DiTomaso last week.
	And you'll see that quote that's attributed to Jody Thomas, who is the National Security Advisor, and you've already told us that the National Security Advisor is an official at PCO, who is involved in, I think, both chairing the DMOC and coordinating federal government response here.
	So Ms. Thomas-Assadu noted that it was a positive meeting and regrets to end on this point.
	Would the province be looking to the federal government if this protest was happening outside the city of Ottawa, e.g.
	happening in other places like Kingston?
	Mr. Tomás de Tomás, when he was here last week, the transcript reference for this is TRN 5021, page 262, testified that he understood this comment to mean that Ms. Thomas was trying to have the federal government wanting, or this comment indicated that the federal government was wanting to wash its hands of the entire.
	And I was wondering if you could comment on that.
	Was that your understanding of Ms. Thomas' comment here?
	Not at all.
	And I believe Mr. DiTomaso misinterpreted what she was driving at.
	I think that it was never the view of federal officials or ministers that the federal government...
	Didn't have some degree of ownership of the protest and some degree of responsibility for dealing with it as it was a national event.
	So it wasn't predicated.
	The question I don't believe was predicated on the federal government looking to not take action.
	In fact, it was the opposite.
	I believe that the concern here was that the province was not taking as much action as they might be taking.
	I want to caveat that by saying that at no time did I think the OPP was not rising to deal with the event.
	their response was, as far as I was aware and
	So,
	So, I think, you know, I would interpret this exchange as being largely about whether or not provincial politicians would be coming to the table as federal ministers were coming to the table to discuss what tools and tactics they could contribute.
	Okay, and that leads into something I want to ask you about more specifically.
	I think you've...
	I've already introduced it here, but which is Ontario's general position and attitude towards the Ottawa protests and what was going on in late January, early February.
	Mr. Clerk, can I just ask you to pull up WTS 5066?
	This is your witness summary.
	I'd like to refer directly to some of the things he said in our interview.
	If we can go to page 17. There we go.
	So in the interview, you said it was never clear whether the government of Ontario was willing to assist Ottawa.
	You noted that the mayor of Ottawa, in your recollection, was frustrated.
	And then...
	You added, there's a question about how quickly the provincial government would endorse the OPP, whether it would put the weight behind the OPP.
	And then I think you've just answered that the OPP was fully behind this.
	But then you noted there's a misconception that in the normal course, protests in Ottawa are not a provincial issue, but rather they're dealt with by a combination of federal and local police.
	As he explained it, he being you, they were treating Ottawa as Washington, D.C. Can you explain what you meant by that?
	They were treating Ottawa as Washington, D.C. And sort of walk us through what your viewpoint was in the early days in February of attempting to deal with the situation on behalf of the federal government and the response you were getting from Ontario.
	In the normal course, the OPP does not come to Ottawa to deal with small-scale protests or Canada Day or any other major event.
	That's within the scope and capacity of the Ottawa Police Service, and it tends to be coordinated with the RCMP, who have responsibilities in the jurisdiction, as I've said before.
	For protecting ministers and certain federal sites, and also the Parliamentary Protective Service, who have the responsibility of protecting the precinct, the parliamentary precinct.
	So those would be the people who would normally, you know, coordinate around the kinds of events that have occurred in the past, where the scale of the protest is not major.
	Here, we were talking about a situation where it had clearly gotten out of control and had become illegal.
	And notwithstanding that the Ottawa police were being backstopped by the OPP and the RCMP, there was clearly more that needed to be done and ultimately was.
	this.
	You know, municipalities are creatures of provinces, and under the law, if the Ottawa Police Service is in need of assistance, technically they should be asking the OPP first and not the RCMP.
	That's according to the law.
	This isn't normal course, and indeed it wouldn't be the RCMP's, I believe it would not be the RCMP's position that they wouldn't do anything if Ottawa needed help.
	Please come to the help.
	of each other all the time.
	But this issue here of Ottawa turning to the federal government and asking for RCMP and not really articulating, you know, how many more OPP they needed, I think, was also kind of a question that was floating around in the background.
	When you say according to the law, they should go first to the OPP, what law are you talking about there?
	I can't tell you the specific law.
	It's the one that Mr. DiTomaso cited.
	I believe that was the Police Services Act.
	I believe so.
	Okay.
	So, in addition to the meetings that we've already talked about then, the DMOC meetings and the ministerial briefings, there were also a series of tripartites.
	Can you tell us a bit about those?
	So, bootstrapping, in the same way we did with DMOC and ministers, from the calls that we had with Ontario and the city, city manager, city police, OPP, Mr. DiTomaso, we convened ministers and the mayor and invited provincial ministers to attend.
	In the end, only Mr. DiTomaso attended those calls, but they were called tripartite because they were the city, the province, and the federal government.
	And they were of a very similar nature to the kinds of calls we were having with ministers internal to the federal government, a discussion of the situation, a discussion of what people's position and concerns were, a discussion of what we knew the plans to be at that stage, largely a sharing of information and concerns.
	Okay, and you noted that those calls were not attended by any political?
	Any politicians from Ontario?
	It did not have political representation from Ontario.
	Who convened the tripartites?
	I think the federal government did, although it was very much collective with the city.
	The city manager and I would agree that this needed to be done.
	And did you attend all of the tripartites?
	I did.
	Okay.
	I believe the dates of those would be February 7th, February 8th, and February 10th.
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	Yes.
	Before we leave this document, your witness summary here, the other statement I wanted to ask you about was the one where you say the provincial government was more engaged in Windsor because the Ambassador Bridge blockade impacted the Ontario economy.
	I realize we haven't talked about Ambassador Bridge and Windsor here yet this morning, but we heard several days of evidence about it last week.
	So we're aware of what happened in Windsor.
	Can you speak to a little bit that viewpoint that you held or hold that Ontario was more engaged in Windsor than it was in Ottawa?
	Well, to a certain extent, I believe it speaks for itself.
	In my conversations with Mr. DiTomaso, we were also discussing, of course, what was happening in Windsor and what the plans were for...
	Ending the protest there.
	And it was clear that there was a lot of attention being paid to it at the provincial government level.
	And there was, in part because it was a smaller scale protest, a much more active set of plans going on to bring it to an end.
	So in other words, as I understand it, I'm not a police official.
	You know, there are different skill sets that police have.
	And one of the skill sets or one of the types of policing units that was necessary in both Ottawa and Windsor was public order units who wear the helmets and carry the batons.
	These were needed and had to be mobilized from across the province.
	And so I was aware that that was the plan that was underway, that they were mobilizing to take out the protest in Windsor.
	This would support the comment that I made.
	Okay.
	The next series of meetings that I'd like you to tell us a bit about, you've already referred to.
	The acronym is FPTCPPC, so Federal Provincial Territorial Crime Prevention Policing Committee.
	Mr. Clerk, can I ask you to pull up PB NSC CAN 605?
	Seven zeros, five.
	I see you nodding so you know better than I do.
	I see you nodding so you know better than I do.
	Okay, can we just scroll down?
	So these are, this is a readout of the FPT.
	Actually, this is an FPT-DM ad hoc meeting on February 7th.
	Do you recall this meeting, Mr. Stewart?
	Yes, I mentioned it earlier.
	Okay, perfect.
	So here's the readout.
	And the first comment I want to take you to is...
	Just at the sort of the end of that first paragraph where it says, Intel, there has not been significant element of violent extremism.
	We've discussed this before.
	Can set up another meeting with CSIS and how monitoring threats to democracy.
	For now, there's no planning going on, no degree of violent extremism going on, not saying that this will happen.
	Can you just tell us a bit about what you were saying there?
	So, CSIS officials and the CSIS director was on many calls, minister calls.
	In fact, I think attended a tripartite meeting call.
	And actually, can I just ask you to tell us who attended this particular meeting?
	What was this meeting?
	This particular meeting?
	This would have been all the deputy ministers, those at least that were available across the country from provinces and territories.
	Plus myself, and I believe Michael Keenan, the Deputy Minister of Transport.
	So would these be all public safety deputy ministers?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	I mean, they're not all called public safety in those jurisdictions, but that's what their responsibility is.
	And the purpose of this call was to share, as I've mentioned, information, help people come to terms with what was going on, make plans in their own jurisdictions.
	And as we know, police jurisdiction across the country learned very quickly.
	But there was still the broader issue of why are these protests happening and what can we do to de-escalate them?
	So the director of CSIS had been reporting fairly consistently that in terms of the threshold for monitoring under the CSIS Act, he was not observing any.
	Increase in activity or any evidence of plans.
	And this is, to be clear here, a very high threshold.
	CSIS, and my colleague Mr. Rochner can explain this in more detail if you wish, can only monitor people that they believe to be threats to the security of Canada.
	And that's a high bar for them.
	And so it's not a very large number of people that they're monitoring.
	It's quite small.
	It does not.
	As a general matter, include the population or large elements of the population.
	They are very targeted in their activities.
	So in that context, given their targets, they were reporting they were not seeing any activity on the part of those targets.
	And that's what I was reporting there.
	And then the simple observation that on the ground in Ottawa.
	Things were kind of chaotic.
	We didn't have any evidence of planning, weren't hearing about planning, and no sense of extremism in the violent sense, although there was plenty of criminality by that point.
	Okay, and we will be hearing from CSIS directly next week, but I think it might be useful.
	Monsieur Rochon, you can just elaborate briefly on what CSIS can and cannot do and what it was and was not monitoring here, following what Mr. Stewart said.
	Well, in this particular case, it again refers to extremist elements.
	So from a terrorism perspective, I had mentioned earlier the ideologically motivated violent extremism, which is something that CSIS is coming to grips with and indeed have provided language in and around defining that.
	Because historically, I would say individuals are influenced by a singular Definable belief system.
	And that's how we used to treat terrorism.
	There's been an evolution with regard to terrorism as of late.
	Now there is a confluence of a whole series of grievances that can come to bear.
	And it becomes a lot more difficult to track exactly how a particular threat can manifest itself in this IMVE environment.
	So there are Xenophobic violence, anti-authority violence, gender-driven violence, other grievances that CSIS now have to wrap their minds around how do we go after and collect information to protect Canadians against these emerging threats?
	As opposed to a...
	As I mentioned earlier, a belief system where there is a clear head and an org structure behind a particular organization.
	In today's world now, we're seeing more and more that a lone wolf, a lone actor, can actually perpetrate a particular extremist violent event.
	Nevertheless, the tools at our disposal and at CSIS's disposal is very much the CSIS Act that was written in 1984, and there is...
	Part 2C of the CSIS Act, or indeed Part 2 of the CSIS Act, gives four different distinctions as to what they can collect intelligence on, and it describes threats to the security of Canada.
	So in this particular instance, what we were referring to, as you could appreciate, federal provinces and, sorry, provinces and territories, representatives, would be under the impression that federal government...
	Is sitting on a treasure trove of classified intelligence.
	And based on that intelligence, they would want to know, are we seeing something from an intelligence perspective that would show that these protests are organized and that ultimately they constitute an extremist threat to overthrow the government or something to that effect.
	So specifically with regard to that extremist element.
	What we were saying here, or what the deputy was referring to here, is that as of yet, CSIS has not met a threshold to cause them to collect additional intelligence on a broader set of Canadians because they had not seen evidence of that.
	That being said, I should just also qualify that that doesn't mean that they weren't monitoring certain extremist targets of theirs that have met that threshold.
	Seeing whether or not they were interested.
	And I also want to qualify a comment that I might have made earlier.
	Intelligence, again, is not an exact science.
	And it's not foolproof.
	So just because you have a piece of evidence or a piece of intelligence, rather, doesn't mean that you have the full picture.
	And it becomes a very difficult mosaic to try and pull together in terms of pulling together intelligence emanating from CSIS, emanating from police forces, emanating from Canada Border Services Agency.
	Pulling that picture together to determine whether there's a national security threat is a different proposition than indicating whether or not CSIS specifically had evidence of a violent extremism meeting their threshold.
	Thank you.
	That was helpful in understanding that.
	So the second bullet point, then, to go back to Mr. Stewart, on people protesting in accordance with the law.
	In Ottawa, the law has been disregarded, norms of behavior and laws.
	You talk about what's going on in downtown Ottawa.
	Police have not been able to control, have heard comments made to federal ministers, do something.
	CBSA Transport and PS, that's public safety officials, have heard from our ministers.
	Roles of police and government have not tried to get involved in enforcement, but staying in touch with police.
	Police, including RCMP and outside Ottawa, have supported a straight...
	I think that's probably stayed in close touch.
	Political layer is engaged.
	And then the last line is, strong desire not to engage protesters and to let enforcement take its course.
	Do you recall what that referred to, particularly that last line?
	That last line refers to essentially the decision by ministers not to speak to the protesters.
	Okay.
	So this was, to situate us in time, this was on February 7th.
	And at that point, that was the position being taken.
	That was the position.
	Okay.
	Mr. Clerk, we can take that document down.
	And the next one to pull up is SSM.nsc.can50246.
	So, these are the NSIA's talking points on February 8th, and it looks like they're for a cabinet briefing.
	We're going to get into the specific cabinet meetings in a bit.
	But for now, we can go to page four of that document, Mr. Clark.
	Just a couple of specific points I'd like to ask you about.
	Oops, sorry.
	Yesterday, an FPT table of DM of Public Safety and Transport met to discuss a national and coordinated strategy that's built upon quote-unquote maximum and strategic enforcement using any and all tools available at all three levels of government and need to align all communications to protesters about maximum enforcement and the consequences, general support for approach, more to come.
	So the first question is, is that FPT table...
	That happened the day before.
	Is that the call that we just looked at?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Now, I think we're going to hear a lot more about this in detail when your colleague, Deputy Minister Keenan from Transport Canada testifies, which is on Wednesday.
	But can you briefly explain to us what this idea of a maximum and strategic enforcement strategy was?
	The idea here was to use...
	Tools that would not normally be used in addition to the powers that the police have.
	So, in a sense, it would include enforcement of bylaws and traffic laws, but it would also involve, as a means of deterring people from joining protests or being party to protests, the use of regulations and other...
	Provincial authorities, which are related to trucking.
	So here, you know, as an example, and as you say, Deputy Minister Keenan can speak to this, you know, we're talking about deregistering a commercial vehicle, making it unable to be used for, you know, commerce, not renewing licenses or various other...
	Ideas that were being floated around that we could use at the transport level, transport authority level, that would have some effect.
	So that's the general idea.
	Okay.
	And if we scroll down a little bit more to page five.
	Departments have developed a Rolodex of quote-unquote creative alternatives to be explored in addressing this matter.
	So that refers to...
	That's what you were just talking about, this idea of trying to come up with alternatives or ideas.
	And can you give us some examples of what that Rolodex would have contained?
	Well, certainly what I just spoke of.
	I would really need to refer to the lists that we developed to be accurate, and there are lists in evidence which come up.
	Or manifest a little bit later.
	So off the top of my head, I don't recall any other specific things other than in the transport realm.
	Okay.
	Well, again, I think Deputy Minister Keenan will be taking us through this in great detail.
	But sort of skipping to the conclusion, what happened with the idea of the maximum enforcement strategy?
	Did that ever materialize?
	Were steps taken by the provinces to...
	Are municipal authorities to actually implement some of these?
	Well, the most obvious manifestation of action would have been the Ontario Emergency Order on the 11th of February.
	Okay.
	Before we get there, there's another topic I'd like to ask you about, which is requests for federal assistance.
	So this, again, falls within the rubric of what was going on between the provinces, municipalities, and the federal government at the time.
	So requests for federal assistance, I understand that that's a responsibility that falls to the GOC.
	So can I ask you to an extent, at least, to be processed through the GOC, if I can put it that way?
	Can you explain?
	Deputy Minister Stewart, how that process works?
	So it's under the Emergency Management Act and a responsibility of the department.
	And then that's delegated to the Government Operations Center to coordinate.
	And the Government Operations Center, for the record, is a coordination unit, a surveillance and coordination unit.
	It doesn't have powers.
	It doesn't have authorities.
	It just works to bring partners to the table.
	So an RFA is, in essence...
	A situation in which the provincial and territorial capacity to deal with an issue has been surpassed, and they need federal assistance.
	And the role of the GOC is to discuss the request and to coordinate the response.
	They occur most frequently in the world of natural events, fires, floods.
	But there were many in the context of the pandemic as well.
	In fact, there were, I think, well over 190 in the last two and a half years or so, which is way, way beyond the normal level.
	In the context of the protests, there were only three.
	And some of them can be very routine.
	So the first one was to use a federal space, the Carchet Drill Hall, to park police vehicles.
	And that's a federal land.
	It needed permission granted.
	There was also an RFA from the Parliamentary Protective Service at one point in time to make sure that they could be supplied with food and support in the event that they were barricaded in due to police enforcement.
	So those are two RFAs that occurred.
	The main RFA that I think is of...
	Of note is the one that came in from Alberta and that one did not follow the normal course.
	The normal course for an RFA is it to be flagged by a provincial emergency authority to the GOC, allows for some back and forth about, you know, is this possible?
	Can we meet this need?
	How are we going to respond to this?
	And, you know, that just smooths and expedites the process.
	In this case, it came in by letter.
	From a Alberta minister directly to a federal minister.
	And we had no forewarning of its appearance.
	So do you want me to further explain the answer?
	Sure.
	And maybe actually at this point it would be helpful to bring up the document.
	it's pb can five zeros seven one eight So this is the RFA request for federal assistance from Minister McIver to Minister Blair.
	And the request here is for tow trucks and personnel, described largely.
	So I believe, Mr. Stewart, you were in the process of telling us how that RFA was dealt with in public safety.
	Yes, so...
	Background.
	This is with respect to situation in Coutts, the RCMP is police of jurisdiction, and we're, you know, faced with a problem of getting the trucks off the border crossing and the highway, and the absence of tow trucks.
	And in a general sense, it was a feature of these protests across the country, and particularly where they manifested as encampments, that the local tow truck industry would refuse to provide service.
	Ostensibly due to threats to their livelihood.
	So this letter came in.
	It, as they say, came a bit out of the blue.
	It wasn't hard to understand why the request was being made.
	And the question became, you know, is this a RFA that we can address?
	And, you know, two issues surfaced.
	One was whether we had the resources, and that would be, in effect, the towing equipment of the armed forces.
	You know, they have a base in Edmonton, quite a long way from the border, and it has equipment to tow heavy vehicles.
	However, there's a very limited number of those units, I understand, and moreover, they were not of the same type as heavy lift tow trucks and would have.
	Had they been used, likely damaged the trucks they towed.
	So the general conclusion was that the resources of the Canadian Armed Forces were not appropriate to the task.
	And of course, we didn't have any other tow trucks elsewhere.
	The other issue that surfaced was whether the province had exhausted its authorities.
	And here, I note that the province had a Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which gave them the power to Okay, used.
	So for both of those reasons, we signaled that we would not be meeting this RFA, although we bore it very much in mind when we formulated the orders under the Emergency Act.
	so just to make sure I understand that on the one hand, it was determined that...
	The Canadian Armed Forces did not have the appropriate equipment that was not suited to task.
	On the other hand, Alberta did have in its own powers the ability to compel tow trucks under its critical infrastructure act.
	Correct.
	Okay.
	The next topic I'd like to address briefly is the engagement between public safety and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
	I understand there were a couple of calls around February 10th, February 11th.
	Are you able to speak to those at all and tell us a bit about what you were hearing from Homeland Security?
	Well, I'll expand a bit.
	I was party to a call involving an official from the White House and the National Security Intelligence Advisor.
	And the call was essentially to express the concerns that the U.S. had with the situation at the Windsor, at the Ambassador Bridge, and also what was going on generally in terms of public order.
	And that conversation was a situational update.
	We explained and the National Security Intelligence Advisor provided some insight into the thinking in Canada around what we were doing and how we intended to address the protests.
	Offered support, you know, whatever they could think of, and in particular, say, tow trucks from Detroit.
	So that was that call.
	There were subsequent calls.
	That person was the White House person responsible for the Department of Homeland Security.
	What was her name?
	I think it's Elizabeth Sherwood Randall.
	That was the only call I was on.
	There was calls with the Department of Homeland Security officials, and I believe you did one.
	I did two.
	So, the Assistant Secretary responsible for counterterrorism and threat prevention, Samantha Vinograd, did reach out to my National Security Policy Directorate to ask about, you know, for situational awareness about what was going on with regard to the protests and whether or not threats were manifesting themselves.
	And so, I was brought in, I don't have the date off the top of my head, but I was brought in, I think, the week of February 10th.
	During that week, I provided a brief to her and some of her officials in terms of the situation happening in Canada and how we were coping with the potential threat to national security.
	And similarly, obviously, on her side of the border, You know, following the year prior with the January 6th Capitol event, they still had potential extremist elements.
	And there was also the possibility of convoys happening in and around various activities happening in Washington.
	So we were just comparing and we agreed to keep each other in touch with regard to the threat situation from a counterterrorism perspective.
	Were they expressing concern about...
	Various convoys happening through the US as well?
	From my recollection, not specifically, but they certainly had it on their radar as they were expressing concern about what they were hearing about and seeing in Canada and wanted to make sure that they understood how we were coping with it and whether or not it could manifest itself on their side of the border.
	The next topic I want to get into is the inputs that you were providing to Cabinet over the course of the convoy.
	So, Mr. Commissioner, I don't know if you'd like me to start now or if this would be a good time for the break.
	If it's a good time for you, it's a good time for me.
	Always a good time for me.
	We'll take a 15-minute break and come back in 15 minutes to continue.
	The Commission is in recess for 15 minutes.
	La Comisión es leve porque es minute.
	Perfect.
	La Comisión es leve porque es muy importante.
	Thank you.
	Order alert.
	The Commission is reconvened.
	So, as I mentioned before the break, the next topic I'd like to address with you is the various inputs that you were providing to Cabinet over the course of the convoy.
	So, Mr. Clerk, I'll ask you to pull up SSM NSC CAN 50292.
	These are minutes from a Cabinet Committee on Safety, Security, and Emergencies on February 3rd.
	So, Mr. Stewart, the first thing I'll ask you to do is can you tell us what the Committee on Safety, Security, and Emergencies, or SSE, is?
	It's a standing committee of Cabinet under the current government created to provide a forum for discussion on issues associated with its title.
	And it's chaired by Minister Blair, meets periodically, and generally is a forum for bringing forward policy and expenditure items in this domain.
	But it also is a forum for discussion of extraordinary events.
	Okay, and I understand that the SSE committee met three times in relation to the convoy, and this was the first meeting that addressed the events of the convoy, is that right?
	I think that's right.
	I could quibble a bit and say I think one of those meetings was a regular meeting and they talked about the convoy, but I believe there were two ad hocs.
	Okay.
	If we can just scroll down to page five, Mr. Clerk.
	We'll see about halfway down that page.
	There we go.
	Deputy Minister of Public Safety.
	So, Mr. Stewart, I'll read this.
	Slowly, for the benefit of the interpreters.
	The Deputy Minister of Public Safety provided an overview of engagements to date with the City of Ottawa and the Province of Ontario.
	The Deputy Ministers stated that the view of the Ottawa Police is that they will not be able to bring the protest to a conclusion without the assistance of the federal government due to concerns for public safety.
	There is a risk that increased enforcement will provoke some protesters.
	There is work being done by the City on an injunction, however.
	There is no timing on if and when it could be issued.
	Finally, Ottawa may seek compensation for policing costs and consideration for compensating the businesses and people impacted.
	So, if I understand correctly, what you were...
	Putting forth to Cabinet at that point was the result of all of the various conversations you were having both within the federal government and with counterparts from Ottawa, Ontario, etc.
	So this was the state of the situation that you were reporting on February 3rd.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	Okay.
	So a couple of specifics in here.
	The view...
	The view of the Ottawa police is that they will not be able to bring the protest to an end without the assistance of the federal government.
	Can you tell us where that view that you're expressing comes from?
	Chief Sloan.
	Okay.
	And more generally, what was he expressing?
	And also, was he, you say specifically here, without the assistance of the federal government.
	Was it federal specifically or was it both provincial and...
	And federal.
	So essentially, just convey to us what Chief Slowly had conveyed to you and what you were bringing up to Cabinet here.
	I would say that as a general matter, Chief Slowly was not trying to pick who would come to his assistance and the assistance of the Aurora Police Service.
	So I would say I was just focusing on it, the federal government, for the purposes of this meeting.
	It's implicit that the provincial police would also be required to assist.
	I believe the number he was using on or about that time was 1,800 police officers, which is a very large number.
	So I wasn't meaning to suggest that the provincial government was not involved at this stage.
	But what you're conveying essentially is that at this point he'd formed the conclusion that the OPS couldn't do this alone.
	They needed help.
	Absolutely.
	Okay.
	That's enough of that document.
	we go mr clerk to ssm nsc can five zeros 293 So this is the next SSE meeting, which is on February 6th.
	These are the minutes from that.
	And again, at page 5, please.
	There we go.
	Paragraph 3 there.
	The Deputy Minister of Public Safety provided an overview of engagements to date with the City of Ottawa and the Province of Ontario.
	The Deputy Minister stated that there is a clear indication that the City of Ottawa will declare a state of emergency.
	An emergency council meeting is planned for Monday to identify options which will likely result in a request to the Government of Canada for police support.
	The Deputy Minister indicated that the Ottawa Police Services view the dismantling of structures at Confederation Park as a success and will continue to enforce further.
	The Deputy Minister reiterated the call.
	The views of provincial colleagues that negotiation is the ongoing preferred option for resolution at this time.
	So can you tell us what, essentially, in not these words, but your own words now, where that information was coming from and what you were attempting to convey here?
	It was an extension of the activities that we've discussed.
	My conversations, bilateral conversations with the city manager, multilateral conversations involving the chief of police and the OPP and the RCMP, conversations, bilateral conversations with the commissioner of the RCMP and with Deputy Minister Dieter Massa.
	Those are the principal points of contact that I have.
	Okay.
	Now, I want to take you to something specifically that actually arose in the last extract and sort of alluded to here as well, but the law enforcement response in Ottawa generally.
	So what happened in Ottawa, the OPS is...
	And I'll take us away from the minutes for a second to pull your interview summary up again.
	So, Mr. Clerk, that's WTS 5066.
	You can go to page 12, please, Mr. Clerk.
	Okay, so this is a topic, Mr. Stewart, that we canvassed fairly in-depth at your interview.
	And you're starting here, I think, from the very initial reaction of the OPS to the protests.
	And you say from the beginning, well, you're actually conveying Commissioner Luckey's words here, or her views.
	She reported that from the beginning, the OPS were on their heels.
	The volume of people exceeded their ability to do policing, and they made a mistake in allowing trucks to come into the downtown core and park on the street.
	Commissioner Lucky also reported that the NCRCC was not working particularly well because there were personality issues involved.
	Deputy Minister Stewart explained that he got the sense that as time went on, the OPS pulled it together and the OPP got involved.
	So I'll just stop there and ask you to describe in general terms what you were hearing about the OPS response and what views you formed about it.
	My understanding, both firsthand in conversations with Chief Slowly.
	And second or third hand through the Commissioner of the RCMP was that the situation having come to where it was, in other words, an embedded protest that had formed a perimeter,
	in essence, that was hard to enter and to do any enforcement within, that there was some considerable debate behind the scenes as to what The strategy would be for enforcement.
	And kind of a chicken and egg situation where the various police forces involved, and here I'm not just referring to the OPP and the RCMP, but also other Ontario police who ultimately came to Ottawa to assist, were waiting for a clear plan of action before they mobilized the vast amount of police officers that ultimately came to the city to take action.
	And that plan, you know, in the early going, was very fragmentary in the sense that it involved some enforcement actions, but it wasn't a take down the protest plan.
	And the formulation of the take down the protest plan took time.
	And in general, I think there were differences, as far as I could tell, of you about what the right strategy would be.
	A couple of weeks before the right chemistry in behind the scenes in the Integrated Command Center was attained.
	That was my impression.
	Okay, and if we can just scroll down a little bit here to page 13. Paragraph 3, so just scroll down a little bit.
	So here you're adding it was difficult to get people to come to an agreement about a plan because there were personality issues in the mix.
	And then you go on to talk about that.
	So that probably refers to what I'm just saying about chemistry at the RCC.
	Can you elaborate a little bit on the personality issues that you were hearing about?
	Not really.
	I mean, this, in a sense, what I said before is probably the main substance of this and what I knew and understood.
	I would not want to lay this at the door of Chief Slowly, to be honest with you.
	I was hearing that he was very involved and that it was difficult, partly because everybody was stretched so thin, to get to a landing zone on a plan, and that there were disagreements.
	About what the right strategy was.
	My own first-hand experience with Chief Slowly was quite limited, and to the calls that we had with the city.
	I had seen him before in another context, but not met him.
	And I knew he had a strong personality.
	Okay.
	And then just scroll up again, sorry, the previous page.
	There we go.
	The RCMP's position was that the OPS should have asked the OPP for more resources, and it was the OPP's responsibility to come and serve.
	He explained, this is you explaining, that the RCMP felt pressed by the OPS, but that the OPP was the force that the OPS should look to.
	Pursuant to legislation.
	So that's what you were telling us about.
	So that information is information that you were being given by the RCMP.
	We're not the right people.
	The OPP are the first sort of call to action here.
	Is that right?
	I just want to correct the last part.
	The RCMP was always willing to come and assist and always wanted to, you know, sort of play a role and were willing to do so.
	But to get RCMP officers into Ontario is actually quite a significant logistical issue because they only have federal police in the province.
	They don't have contract police.
	Now RCMP is contract police in a number of provinces and territories, which is your regular police and who are trained and equipped to do public law.
	And relatively speaking, they have very few federal.
	Police in Ontario.
	So, to get RCMP officers into Ottawa required them to be mobilized outside the province, and that requires, you know, some paperwork in an agreement and a request of the Minister of the Jurisdiction and approval by the Minister of Public Safety.
	So, they were concerned that they were being pressed to do this without a plan, and they wanted the OPP to be first in line to come and help, but they were always willing to help.
	That's fair.
	I was sort of talking about the order as opposed to willingness, so that's a fair response.
	Thank you.
	The next issue I want to raise here is the issue of swearing in.
	So if we can just scroll down a little bit.
	There we go.
	So there's also the obstacle, you say, of swearing in RCMP officers, so they would have the jurisdiction to enforce municipal and provincial laws.
	We've heard, again, evidence about this already in the Commission.
	Mr. Clerk, if you can just scroll to page 13. Now, I appreciate here that it was your colleague, not you, speaking.
	But can you speak to the swearing-in process at all and how that may have played into difficulties on the ground?
	My understanding is essentially reflected in these comments, which was that...
	When the RCMP had come to a decision about people to bring into the province, they had to go through this administrative process of getting sworn in, which was a decision of the Solicitor General of Ontario.
	And as for that purpose, then they had to send a detailed list of names.
	And then when that list was sent, it wasn't coming back.
	That's what I was hearing.
	As quickly as it might otherwise, I can't really put a time on that, to be honest with you.
	But it was a material enough issue that, of course, when we did the orders under the Emergency Act, we decided to, you know, exempt the RCMP from that requirement so that they could move a lot of people into the province very quickly.
	So, that was a concern that had been raised?
	It was an impediment to mobilizing police resources.
	Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
	take up the uh the february six minutes again so ssm nsc can five zeros two nine three
	Page 5. So, Mr. Stewart, the last line in that little blurb of what you were saying says, the Deputy Minister reiterated the views of provincial colleagues that negotiation is the ongoing preferred option for a resolution at this time.
	What were you referring to there?
	Well, two things, in essence.
	One was my experience two years before, when we had the Wet'suwet 'en protests.
	And we had the situation in Tayindonaga where the trains were blocked.
	And my conversations with, again, Deputy Minister Di Tommaso at that time, where he was very clearly and strongly expressing the view, and this was based on history for the OPP, that de-escalation is very important to managing a protest, and enforcement can only lead to further trouble.
	And that was certainly...
	It seemed very likely in the context of the wet sweat and protests.
	But I'd say as a more general matter, in the context of the conversations that I was having with him, he just always held that view, that from a policing point of view, and I want to say this, actually, I want to say this very clearly.
	The police, as I understand them, and I've come to know them fairly well in the three years I've been in the job, at least the RCMP, are very concerned about public safety and protecting public safety and keeping the peace.
	And they will always prefer, given the latitude to do so, to de-escalate and to find ways to stop protests and prevent violence from occurring without taking enforcement action.
	Because it's safer for their members and it's safer for the public.
	And so this is, in a sense, a first principle of policing.
	Protect the members and the public.
	From, you know, things escalating.
	And in that context, you know, and it's been mentioned, I think, in testimony before the activities of the police liaison teams is very important.
	Okay, so this in time, we're on February 6th here, and this was a view that you say you held from your own experience and was being expressed by Mr. DiTomaso from his policing experience.
	Okay.
	mr clerk can we now bring up february 8 minutes which is ssm nsc can five zeros 295 Page 10, please.
	There we go.
	Paragraph 8. So here, the Deputy Minister provided an update on engagement with Ottawa, confirming that since the injunction has been in place, there have been no horns used in Ottawa by the protesters.
	The OPS is reporting that their staff retired and need enforcement.
	It is evident that the protest is well organized and that the blockade at Ambassador Bridge is designed to divide the attention of the OPS.
	of the Ontario Provincial Police.
	The Deputy Minister confirmed that Ottawa has developed a plan that is being reviewed by the OPP and the RCMP which includes four key elements: reliance on negotiation, ongoing enforcement, containing the demonstrations once an area is cleared, and gathering intelligence of various trucking companies.
	So a couple of things I want to ask you about here.
	First of all, just to situate us in time, this is now February 8th, and the blockade at Ambassador Bridge has happened and sort of coalesced on February 7th.
	So one thing you note here is that there's...
	The Ambassador Bridge blockade is designed to defy the attention of the OPP and that this is evidence that the protest is well organized.
	Can you comment on that and where that observation came from?
	It may have been an overstatement.
	It is evident that the protests were being organized in a way that attracted significant numbers of individuals.
	In fact, just the Ambassador Bridge.
	It was elsewhere in Ontario, ultimately, other ports of entry, where convoys manifested.
	So, well is perhaps too strong a word, but there was definitely organization happening.
	And I want to be a little bit clear here that, you know, we were not well-sighted when it came to how...
	People were communicating with each other.
	They were using different social media platforms and maybe other tools.
	But we, in part going back to comments made by my colleague, weren't monitoring other than through open source what was going on.
	So we would not have felt, we did not feel well equipped to understand what plans were and yet things were happening.
	So that's the genesis of that comment.
	And also, just to flag that, you know, we were sensing that this was nationwide because convoys were happening across the country.
	Okay.
	And I'm going to ask you to tell us a little bit about that, keeping in mind that we're going to be hearing directly from CBSA, Canada Border Services Agency, and from Transport Canada, who will have a lot to say about the specifics of what was going on at various...
	Ports of entry in places across the country.
	Would you be able to give us a sort of high-level overview of what you were seeing and what you were being informed about around this time across the country?
	Well, it was quite a list, actually.
	I'd have a hard time itemizing it.
	But the principal places in which disruption was occurring were Windsor, of course, and that happened well after Cootes started being blockaded.
	And shortly after COOTS started, we had Emerson in the province of Manitoba.
	And slow roll and traffic highway blocking protests near the Blue Water Bridge in Ontario, near the Peace Bridge in Niagara, and some sense that something could happen in Cornwall.
	Later on in British Columbia, we had the Pacific Highway.
	A convoy.
	So those would be the principal ones.
	Every day in our calls with ministers, CVSA would be reporting across a whole set of ports of entry what they were observing.
	And they had taken steps to better equip themselves to see what was going on and to talk to local police authorities to see if it could all be managed.
	It could be managed that if a trucking...
	Or a convoy manifested itself.
	It could be directed away from the port of entry and couldn't install itself in the port or on the bridge or whatever the case may be.
	Okay.
	So essentially, as you've said, you and your position as DM Public Safety were looking at not just what was happening in Ottawa, but what was happening across the country.
	Yes, the federal government was as a group.
	We were all...
	Conscious that this was not something that's limited to Ottawa.
	Ottawa is the most extreme example.
	But the general impression we had was that what had begun as a protest about vaccine mandates had become something more than that and was attracting various people with various issues and causes and had become a kind of a popular thing.
	And we were seeing it in other countries, by the way, too.
	Can you tell us a bit about that?
	Yeah, there were convoys in New Zealand with Canada flags, which were just essentially emulating the protests.
	That was happening in Canada.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Let's go to now the February 10th minutes.
	So this is SSM NSC CAN 50209.
	So these are now minutes from a different cabinet committee called the Incident Response Group.
	And we will be hearing from PCO later in the week and the details of what that is and how that transpired.
	But again, can you just give us a very brief definition of what the Incident Response Group is?
	Well, to begin with, I wouldn't call it a cabinet committee as such.
	Fair enough.
	Cabinet committees in the normal course are standing committees to deal with various...
	You know, policy matters.
	The incident response group is an ad hoc committee that the Prime Minister convenes as and when required.
	And so it doesn't have regular meetings.
	And indeed, it only meets when something extraordinary is happening.
	So, and an IRG, that's the acronym that we'll come to know and love over the next couple of weeks.
	The IRG was convened on February 10th, so this is the first meeting of the IRG, is that right?
	That's correct.
	Okay.
	Can we go to page six, please?
	Scroll down a little bit until you see Public Safety Canada.
	There we go.
	Okay, Public Safety Canada reported on a conversation with the lead negotiator, OPP, who noted that in Ottawa, approximately 80% of protesters had a weak connection to the cause, 5% had a strong devotion to it, and 15% were a swing factor.
	The negotiator suggested...
	That the leaders of the protest could potentially be encouraged to leave and denounce the blockade in exchange for a commitment to register their message with the government.
	Okay, Mr. Stewart, first question is, is the lead negotiator, OPP, you were speaking about there.
	Who's that?
	Marcel Bowden.
	Okay, Marcel Bowden.
	So we've heard Mr. Bowden come and testify here.
	Can you start off by just telling us a little bit what you were...
	We're reporting here to Cabinet at this time.
	So, I've mentioned earlier that the federal government, to the best of my knowledge, had made a decision not to engage formally the leaders or the protesters in, you know, just allowing them to represent their views.
	And that was...
	As far as I was aware, an issue of principle and rooted in a sense that it was hard to know who to engage and also what that engagement would lead to.
	And there was definitely no desire to get into discussions around the federal public health policy, which was one of the original reasons the protests occurred.
	As time passed, the notion of Engagement kind of morphed into more of what I've already mentioned as being kind of a police tactic and a potentially useful one.
	So shortly, the day before, in fact, this meeting occurred, we deputy ministers were meeting and agreed that we would pursue any ideas we could come up with from our list, which you have, I think, attached to this.
	Uh, document.
	Um, and, and see what it turned up by way of, um, possible decisions, possible actions for the federal government.
	So I had reached out, uh, in fact, on the morning of this day, uh, to Marcel Baudin, who had been identified to me by the RCM, no, by, by Mario Di Tommaso, and, uh, and echoed by, um, the commissioner, Commissioner Lucky, that he would be the right person to talk to.
	And we'd had a general conversation.
	Around the role of PLTs and de-escalation, which was very educational for me.
	And what I took from that conversation was that there was some possibility that if they could identify appropriate interlocutors, and he said that they knew of six people that they could talk to who were...
	Leaders of a sort within the protest and offer an opportunity for them to be heard, that this would have the effect of allowing people to achieve something and some success and feel that their objectives had been achieved and therefore leave.
	And this is where the statistics come up, is that 80% of the protesters...
	Particularly two and two and a half weeks into the protest, you know, where they've been sitting on the streets of Ottawa in freezing weather, were probably likely to go if they had the right offer.
	And so we were talking about that possibility.
	And it was really, at that point in time, not about engagement in the way that it had been about engagement before.
	It was more in the context of engagement as a stepping stone to enforcement.
	Because it was very clear by the 10th of February that the RCMP, the OPP, and the Ottawa Police Service were beginning to come together on a plan, and enforcement was only a matter of time.
	And so in the background, of course, was this question, which I think was very material, the overall decision to invoke the act of what would that enforcement engender by way of reaction.
	And we had strong concerns, as Mr. Roshan has mentioned, about, you know, lone wolves and people who've been attracted to the protest and could act out in a violent way.
	So there was a virtue to de-escalation in this context.
	Okay.
	Engagement as a stepping stone to enforcement.
	I just want to unpack that a little bit.
	So you said at this point, the engagement that was being contemplated was not something that would lead to an end to the protest in and of itself.
	Correct.
	So the intention would have been to shrink it, to shrink the footprint, as they say in the lingo that we've learned.
	Okay.
	And we know what ultimately comes of this, or at least part of what comes of this, is something that's come to be known as the engagement proposal.
	Can you tell us how that proposal came to be?
	Well, it flowed directly from what I've just spoken about in the context of coming up with options for federal government action at a point in time when the protests were...
	And in Ottawa in particular, but just nationwide, given the slow roll convoys manifesting all over the place, what could we do that would help?
	And so, with the aid of Inspector Baudin, I drafted a very short document.
	It's attached to the minutes of one of these IRG meetings and, you know, brought it forward for consideration.
	Essentially, it was The notion that the federal government would acknowledge the desire to meet and offer to do so at a later time, away from the protest, on the basis that a protester would denounce the protest and leave.
	So it was essentially a bargain.
	And it was positioned to be just a hearing of protesters' views and not...
	Any discussion of what the federal government would do or could do.
	It happened very quickly.
	We did it over a day or so and didn't have time to do anything other than consult with sort of key authorities, which would have been the RCMP and the OPP and colleagues at PCO, who obviously were leading the overall effort.
	It could have been consulted.
	More could have been talked about, but it was raced forward to the cabinet table two days after this conversation occurred.
	Okay.
	You noted that there were some colleagues from PCO involved.
	Do you recall who was involved?
	When I talked to Inspector Bodin, I was accompanied by a PCO official, Jeff Hutchinson.
	And I included him in the call because I wanted PCO to be fully plugged into what I was doing.
	Okay.
	So, Mr. Hutchison's role there was essentially?
	Observer.
	Observer, okay.
	And I understand there were some back and forth that you had with the RCMP and with Inspector Bowden about the proposal itself.
	So, Mr. Clerk, if we can just pull up OPP50's 150.
	Excuse me.
	So this is an email that is not sent to you, so you may not have seen it before, but this is Commissioner Lucky speaking to Commissioner Karik and Inspector Bowdoin, I believe.
	So she attaches a draft of the engagement proposal and then says, I'm not the SME.
	SME, we know, stands for subject matter in this area, but my folks are a bit worried on a few items and need to get your thoughts.
	Do you know what Commissioner Luckey's concerns were at that time?
	And I'll just say two things.
	One, we're going to hear from her directly so we can ask her that question.
	And two, in the course of our interview, you mentioned that one of...
	Commissioner Luckey's concerns may have been around the issue of police independence.
	So just to situate a little bit, you a little bit.
	I believe that Commissioner Luckey's concerns were essentially A, in the issue of, you know, if this came forward to cabinet table and was decided upon, would it constitute some kind of direction to police to do it?
	And of course, police want to maintain.
	Operational independence and maximum flexibility.
	So she did not want it to be construed in that fashion.
	She may also have had concerns.
	She didn't express them to me about how it played out.
	So were it to have been used as a strategy and failed, would the RCMP or the OPP, PLTs, the police liaison teams, be held accountable for?
	For that in some way.
	So I think the line we've heard expressed is there may have been some concern that it crossed the line between church and state.
	That's a good way to put it.
	One thing you noted when we were speaking in your interview is that the government could benefit from some clarity around where that line is in police independence.
	Is there anything you'd like to add or share about that in this context?
	I believe there is virtue in clarifying the RCMP Act on this basis.
	Recent experience in other contexts has led me to think that too.
	Sorry, you just said recent experience?
	In other contexts.
	And what would those be?
	The discussions that were going on.
	With respect to developments in Nova Scotia and the role of Minister Blair and an ultimately decision to ban assault rifles, which engendered a lot of questions about the communications between ministers and the police.
	OK.
	Mr. Clerk, can we bring up OPP50171?
	So, Mr. Stewart, as you've noted, this is something that evolved over the course of one or two days, and we're just trying to put together the chronology of how things evolved.
	So if we can scroll down top of page three, I believe.
	Okay.
	So, in this email, you're raising some concerns about the engagement proposal, but to the very last bit of the email now.
	Sorry.
	If I can manage to work through this process and the RCMP Commissioner will be privy to the discussion, I think I can assure you that the federal government's commitment will be solid, but we have to get there first, thanks.
	So at this point in time, and this is Saturday, February 12th at 11.23 in the morning, what was your understanding of what levels of support there was in the government for this notion and where it came from?
	I had support from colleagues to bring it to the Cabinet table for discussion.
	I couldn't tell you about the specific, you know, views in terms of whether they thought it was a good or a bad idea.
	It was just in the option set.
	Okay.
	And the next document then that we want to look at is SSM.nsc.can402958.
	So this is a text between Minister Mendocino and Katie Telford, who's the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff.
	And I believe this is the evening of February 11th.
	And Minister Mendocino expresses here that he's just learning about the engagement proposal.
	So do I understand that at this point, while this was playing out, you hadn't yet had the opportunity to brief Mr. Mendocino on this?
	Is that right?
	Well, Minister Mendicino was aware that I was working on this idea, as it had been mentioned the day before in the context of the IRG meeting.
	He had not seen the proposal, and as I say, it came together really very quickly, and I only had time to solicit the views of, and it wasn't the Ontario government, it was the OPP, I believe.
	And just to make sure that nobody had any objections to what it said or put forward.
	So he would have just had seen it in terms of paper, and he would have, I think, felt or did feel uncomfortable that he had not had an opportunity to contribute to the drafting of it.
	So it was the OPP as opposed to Mr. DiTomaso, you think, who you were speaking to about?
	I'm pretty sure.
	I'd have to check the emails, but I wasn't.
	I mean, I was certainly conveying to Mr. DiTomaso that this is something that we were considering.
	And there was a parallel event.
	I think I should note it for the record.
	So he knew that I was talking to Marcel Baudin.
	He had given me the name.
	And he knew that, you know, the general idea of what I was trying to bring forward.
	On the day of Friday the 11th, Ontario did their emergency order.
	Which I didn't know about.
	He called me in the morning and informed me.
	And then later in the day, he called me and he said that they were planning to do enforcement over the weekend on the Windsor Bridge, the Ambassador Bridge.
	And that as a stepping stone to that enforcement, they were going to adopt this idea of offering a meeting.
	And that Minister Jones, Sylvia Jones, was interested in making that offer.
	And would the federal government join the Ontario government in making that offer?
	And I signaled that that was not possible.
	We had yet to discuss engagement at the federal level.
	And so, you know, there was no way on an hour's notice that he was going to get a decision to sign on.
	But he sent me a draft letter that, which is referred to here, that they were going to use with the protesters.
	The OPP was going to use with the protesters on the Ambassador Bridge.
	So it was a kind of a parallel exercise.
	Which was really an independent exercise of the Ontario government, but in a very similar way to what was put forward to the cabinet table the next day.
	Okay.
	And so when you communicated to him that you could get the federal government to sign on to Windsor, that was a matter of timing as opposed to a position being conveyed?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	Because they were going to do it that evening.
	And...
	There was also, we've heard evidence about another potential sort of engagement possibility, which is the mayor of Ottawa's sort of deal that was happening to potentially move some trucks up to Wellington Street, etc.
	That was playing around and around the same time.
	What was your awareness of that at the time?
	I had no awareness of it until it was fait accompli.
	When the city manager, Steve Canalecos, called me and said, we've made a deal.
	With a representative, somebody ostensibly representing the protesters to move these trucks.
	And the mayor is sending a letter.
	So would it be fair to say that there's sort of these different branches of potential engagement going on with not perfect sight over all of them?
	No coordination at all.
	No coordination at all.
	Okay.
	And what ended up ultimately happening to the engagement proposal?
	Where did it go?
	It was not taken up.
	It was discussed, not taken up.
	So it was brought to cabinet, or to the IRG rather?
	That's correct.
	Okay, on February 12th, but it was not taken up.
	Thank you.
	So with the benefit of hindsight, and this I'm going to ask you, although it's completely speculative, but what effect, if any, do you think that might have had, the engagement proposal?
	I only know...
	What Inspector Bodin was telling me, which was that he believed it was worthy of consideration.
	And given the sense he has of the behavior of protests, that it might have effect.
	If I were to push it, I would say I had the feeling that it was a very low order of probability that it would have had a material effect because the protesters had been in Ottawa in a determined way.
	For an extended period of time.
	And, you know, I think the general view here is just it's part of the toolkit of policing.
	And you want to try and discourage people from staying in a protest if enforcement's going to occur, because it's going to get rough.
	So would it be fair to say it's an option worth considering, but not a deus ex machina?
	Right.
	Okay.
	I now want to move to the invocation of the Emergencies Act itself.
	And appreciating that we'll be hearing from a lot of people on this topic, I'm going to target my questions quite specifically.
	You mentioned in our interview that the Emergencies Act started to be seriously considered around February 11th.
	Is that about right in your recollection?
	Yeah, I could go back a day, maybe to the 10th.
	Why don't you just tell us your recollection of how it sort of came onto the radar?
	Okay, so the Emergencies Act has a history in discussions and rooted in the pandemic, where at one point in the pandemic, the federal government conducted consultations on whether the Emergencies Act would be a useful tool to help address the pandemic.
	At the time, it was determined that that was not.
	The case.
	So it was always sort of in the back of people's minds.
	And it came up in meetings along the way as something that we should bear in mind.
	Serious consideration of the use of the Emergency Act began in the latter part of the week of February 6th or 7th.
	Then became, you know, a matter for discussion and decision after that.
	Okay.
	And I understand that public safety was asked to provide its input on potential measures that could be helpful under the Emergencies Act.
	Is that right?
	All departments.
	Involved in managing the protests was that we're asked for ideas that would provide additional tools to police and generally to deter protests and cause them to de-escalate.
	So public safety, we were using the information that we gained from our regular consultations and our calls with federal provincial Colleagues.
	So, an issue, for instance, of note there is the use of tow trucks.
	Other parts of the public safety portfolio, such as the RCMP, provided independent views in terms of what might be added to an emergency measure order, Emergencies Act order, and other departments did as well.
	So this would have been a topic of discussion at the DMOX happening around that time.
	That's correct.
	Okay.
	Mr. Clerk, can we pull up SSM CAN 50399, please?
	So this is an email, and you weren't on this email, but it reports something that you said.
	It's from Mike Keenan, who is the Deputy Minister of Transport, to Kevin Plesso, ADM, of Transport, and it's reporting on the February 13th DMOC.
	And you'll see emergencies act as fast, don't need to pass anything.
	Rob and I argued, Rob being you here, I believe.
	I believe.
	That the Emergencies Act can backfire in building more energy.
	What did you mean by that?
	Well, we were having a discussion around the pros and cons of using the Emergencies Act.
	And one of the concerns that I had at the time was of the potential for serious violence.
	So, in fact, one of the reasons to invoke the Act was also a concern in terms of what happens when you invoke it.
	And if it were to lead people to become violent, then that would be an undesirable outcome.
	So that was just one of the many considerations we were discussing.
	So essentially it might do more harm than good by inciting rather than calming?
	That's right.
	Another document related topic, PB CAN 4 zeros 1147, please.
	Okay, scroll down a little bit, please, until we see something that says these are okay.
	email from Mr. Stewart.
	Page five, please.
	Okay, there we go.
	So this is forward a bit in time, but it's on the same topic.
	This is in preparation for, as it says, some technical briefing remarks that Mr. Rochelle was due to give on February 15th about the Emergencies Act once it had been invoked.
	And Mr. Stewart, your comments here are, these are okay, but will be duplicative, I expect.
	Of what justice will say, and rather short of substance.
	If possible, we need to weave in a few more four instances that suggest how law enforcement authorities and the CBSA, as relevant, will deploy the new powers, e.g.
	intercept and turn away intemptive blockades from critical infrastructure, facilitate synthesis of local police and the RCMP, and then you say, I'm afraid I don't have a lot of great ideas because there aren't a lot of significant benefits.
	But we have to try to tout PS portfolio specifics as much as we can.
	So can you tell us what you were expressing here vis-a-vis the measures that were being implemented?
	Can I get the time stamp on that email, please?
	Sure.
	February 14th, 11, 12 p.m.
	Okay.
	So...
	I believe that I underestimated the impact of the Emergencies Act and that in aggregate, the measures that it contained had material benefit.
	And this was me reacting to what I'd seen drafted and feeling that I hadn't really got a handle on how it would be implemented.
	And also me saying, you know, To Mr. Roshaw, you're in these technical briefings, and you're representing Minister Mendicino, and you've got to talk to the elements of his portfolio that are going to be operationalizing these powers.
	Can you actually explain what that technical briefing is?
	Sure.
	Following the invocation of the Act, I was given the responsibility to lead a number of government officials into a series of technical briefs that occurred over the course of I want to say three, possibly four days.
	Those briefs included briefing leaders of opposition parties.
	In fact, culminating in, I think we briefed all members of the Senate and senators' offices.
	And we essentially offered up...
	As many technical briefs as necessary to explain why the Act was evoked and how it would be implemented.
	So I was chosen, given my position and my role with regard to national security policy, as the main chef d 'orchestre of the brief.
	But included with me were members of CBSA, RCMP, Department of Finance, Department of Transport.
	And of course, Department of Justice.
	Okay.
	So they're essentially explanatory.
	Technical brief here means sort of an explanatory, this is what it is, this is how it works kind of briefing.
	I should point out, I think we also offered same technical briefs for members of the media.
	Okay.
	We do technical briefs a lot, particularly when we table legislation.
	Okay, thanks.
	That's helpful.
	So just to take you back then to Mr. Stewart, to what you were saying, would it be fair to say that at the time, so shortly before and immediately after the act was invoked, you had some hesitancy about it?
	I saw pros and cons.
	And then you said that...
	In hindsight, you think you underestimated the utility of the Emergencies Act.
	Can you tell us a bit more about why that is?
	Not why you underestimated, but why you say that it wasn't an underestimate?
	Well, it's judgment only because the police have attested to the value of the act in terms of getting the protests to disperse, particularly in Ottawa.
	But generally speaking, it was within two weeks.
	Very little manifestation of those kinds of protests around the country.
	So I think it's essentially on the basis of the fact that others have come forward to say that this was a tool that they, in the end, used and found useful.
	Okay.
	And you're speaking there not just of Ottawa, but of the situation across the country?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Okay, another topic I want to touch on briefly, and I appreciate that time is short, is something you noted in your interview was that consultation with the provinces, you said some of the consultation was discounted because it wasn't premised on whether the government was going to decide to invoke the act.
	What did you mean by that comment?
	I can pull up the reference if it's helpful.
	Well, I'm going to infer that what it represents is the view that, you know, we had been actively engaged for over two weeks with a variety of concerned parties, including police of jurisdiction, RCMP, federal provincial officials, and we were not...
	On the face of it, asking the question, should we invoke the Emergencies Act?
	We were asking, what tools do you need?
	What are you facing in terms of challenges?
	How can we work together to overcome these challenges?
	And so we deemed that to be consultation on what was ultimately the decision to invoke the Act, because this is about the substance of that decision.
	Okay.
	So when Mr. DiTomaso testified last week, and I can bring up the references if we need them, but he noted that you spoke to him on February 13th and essentially gave him a heads up, if I could put it that way, told him or advised him that the federal government was considering invoking the Emergencies Act.
	Do you recall that conversation?
	Not in its detail, but yes, I would have talked to him.
	And I do accept that I would have said to him it's on the table.
	Okay.
	Another thing, I'll come back to that in a second, but another thing he noted you said was that the provincial declaration of emergency that had come in on February 11th, quote-unquote, had more teeth than the provisions in the Federal Emergency Act.
	Do you recall that and what you were speaking about then?
	Well, again, more by way of inference than by, you know, kind of clear memory, I would say, I was conveying to him that I would have been, let me back up and say, I would have been trying to be a good colleague with a provincial colleague, but not at the expense of betraying any federal decisions or, you know, kind of thinking in a political sense.
	I would just have been trying to keep him apprised for the state of affairs.
	And I would have said to him...
	I believe that, you know, there are pros and cons of invoking the act, because that was my view.
	And one of the cons, which had been noted in other discussions, was the fact that the penalties under the Emergencies Act are not very big.
	It's like $5,000 on indictment, six months in jail.
	Whereas the Ontario order, which was put out on the Friday, contained very significant penalties, $100,000.
	And so as a form of deterrence to anybody thinking of joining a protest, it was clearly a more substantive tool.
	But that wasn't the only, that was really just one of a number of considerations.
	So the reference to Had More Teeth was specifically in reference to the penalties?
	To the penalties, yes.
	Okay.
	Are you aware of any other discussions with provincial officials on the 13th or before the invocation of the Emergencies Act in which they were notified that the act was under consideration?
	Not aware.
	So the other thing that Mr. DiTomaso mentioned was that you had a call with him the following morning, I believe, on February 14th.
	And on that call, he inquired as to whether the Act was going to be, the Emergencies Act was going to be invoked that day.
	And his comment in the notes was, silence!
	So I'm gathering that you said nothing at that point about whether it was going to be invoked.
	Can you just explain a little bit how that conversation went?
	Well, I can't really give you the blow by blow.
	This would have been a normal conversation to touch base on what's the status of things, where's enforcement, how are things going with the OPP.
	And I would have been, because on that morning, I believe, the Prime Minister held a First Minister's call to formally consult on the invocation of the Act.
	And I was aware that that was going to take place.
	And I didn't want to do anything that would get in the way of that conversation.
	So, I was not in a position, as I've said before, to convey anything about what the state of federal thinking was at that time.
	Okay.
	We'll fast forward now to the issue of revocation.
	So Mr. Clerk, if I can ask you to pull up SSM can 050429.
	Okay, so just to situate us a little bit, you told us in the interview that between invocation and revocation, the government was tracking developments across the country at the ports of entry and receiving input from the RCMP as to what powers were being used, whether they were necessary.
	Mr. Clerk, can we just scroll down a bit here until we get to an email from Rob Stewart?
	Okay, so we'll see this email probably a couple of times over the course of the next couple of weeks, but this is a discussion that's happening between officials, including yourself, Jody Thomas, the NSIA, several officials from PCO, Mike Keenan at Transport, and others.
	About what considerations should go into revocation and when the act should be revoked.
	And your comment here is your quick comment.
	My quick comment is that while these are probably all worthy considerations, they focus too much on the utility of the act and not its proportionality.
	In other words, we need to assess the threat in terms of serious violence, not in terms of whether the truckers are hanging around.
	What were you attempting to convey here to your colleagues?
	Well, I think in the back of my mind was the grounds for invoking the Act.
	And that's a high bar, which ministers decided was met.
	And in that context, serious violence was an important element.
	There was economic impacts as well, but particularly from a public safety point of view, Uncertainty and risk of serious violence was an important consideration.
	And so given that that was the reason for invoking the act, I thought it should be the reason for considering revoking it.
	Okay, so essentially bring revocation right back to invocation.
	Coming full soon.
	Same grounds.
	Okay, that takes us to essentially the end of our time together today.
	But I'll just before...
	Before leaving, completely ask you, is there anything that we haven't covered in the last two and a half hours that you think we should have?
	Or anything else you would like to say about the events?
	I'd just like to do a technical clarification on Intel, if I may.
	Of course.
	For the record.
	Because it's used in many different ways.
	And when we spoke about it earlier today, I conveyed the impression that it was all classified and very kind of secretive.
	And in fact, Intel is a vast spectrum of things.
	And one of the issues...
	That has surfaced in this context, and more generally, frankly, is the compilation of intelligence in the general sense from not just, you know, use of our intelligence agencies, but from open sources is a real challenge.
	And it's one that we are grappling with today.
	And so, you know, intelligence is something that is...
	What was underneath the rationale for invoking the act was the lack of good intel as to what was going on.
	And when I say that, I don't mean top secret.
	I mean a compilation of information from any possible source.
	So, sort of, can you elaborate on what was lacking, essentially?
	Any information about the plans and intentions of protesters around the country.
	And that was a result of inability to gather that information?
	Or was it at the gathering level or the sharing level?
	It may have been both.
	It was certainly in the context of having a clear line of sight.
	And when I say plans and intentions, I mean to convoys and slow rolls and obstructing critical infrastructure.
	I don't mean the causes that they were espousing.
	That was quite clear.
	Okay.
	So maybe some lessons to be learned in the information gathering, sharing, and line of sight.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Commissioner, those are my questions.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	So we can now start with the cross-examinations.
	So first, I'd like to call on the convoy organizers.
	Click
	Good morning.
	My name is Brendan Miller.
	I'm counsel to Freedom Corp., which is the organization that represents the protesters that were in Ottawa in January and February of 2022.
	Thank you for coming here today and testifying.
	First, before I begin, sir, I am going to be referring to one document that I believe I need to leave before I do so.
	It has been referred to in the notice I gave already, but because it is a witness statement with a witness who has not yet testified, But it's relevant to this.
	It's WTS00000060.
	It's the statement from the CSIS panel.
	The relevance materiality of that is that these gentlemen were essentially the consumers of information, and there is a lot of statements in there with respect to what the government was told and when, and I'm intending to put that to them.
	So I would ask for leave to be able to refer to that document through my examination.
	Okay, seeing no objection, that's fine.
	Thank you, sir.
	So, just to begin, Deputy Minister Stewart, you've been the Deputy Minister of Public Safety since December of 2019.
	Is that fair?
	Until just recently, yes.
	Until just recently.
	All right.
	And when you took over that portfolio, I take it that you had familiarized yourself with the process of law enforcement and intelligence agencies with respect to investigations.
	Is that fair?
	Let's say I learned on the job.
	You learned on the job, right?
	And because prior to that, you were with finance, is that correct?
	That's correct.
	Right.
	And prior to your appointment into the portfolio of public safety, is it fair to say that other than financial intelligence, that you had not worked in the area of law enforcement or the intelligence field?
	Is that fair?
	Not entirely.
	Not entirely?
	In the world of finance, there were criminal issues.
	Right.
	Exactly.
	So financial intelligence within The criminal sphere of the Ministry of Finance.
	Anti-money laundering, securities, crimes.
	Right, right.
	And so in your evidence here today already, you've spoken about the thresholds for investigations in your chief, and I want to discuss that for a moment, okay?
	So you understand, I take it, that law enforcement...
	And intelligence agencies in Canada, the threshold that you're speaking of with respect to opening an investigation, it's referred to in Canada as reasonable suspicion.
	Are you familiar with that term?
	Reasonable grounds to suspect?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	So there's...
	And we'll get into that.
	And you can agree with me that that's a pretty low threshold, is it not, in law enforcement terms?
	I would not agree.
	Okay.
	And you're aware that the law recognizes, though, that reasonable suspicion essentially requires more than a mere suspicion, but something less than a belief based on reasonable grounds.
	Is that your understanding?
	I would say it's reasonable grounds to suspect.
	Right.
	And so reasonable grounds to suspect is different than reasonable grounds, generally.
	You understand that, correct?
	No.
	All right, so you don't know the difference between reasonable grounds and reasonable grounds to suspect.
	I don't understand what you're trying to say.
	So there's two thresholds in Canada with respect to investigations criminally and in intelligence.
	We have the lower threshold of reasonable suspicion, which you call reasonable grounds to suspect, and then reasonable grounds, which is also called reasonable and probable grounds.
	Reasonable probable grounds is a higher threshold.
	than reasonable suspicion.
	You understand that?
	I would have gone the other way.
	Pardon me?
	I would have put it the other way.
	So this just shows what I know.
	So your understanding is that reasonable suspicion is a higher threshold than reasonable grounds?
	If you're going to suspect something, you're going to have a particular act in mind.
	Okay.
	And it's the same thing with reasonable grounds, right?
	You also have a particular act in mind.
	Can you agree that reasonable grounds require some reliable information, that there is a reason to believe a person or group?
	Could have committed an offense or posed a threat to the security of Canada.
	Can you agree with that?
	Yes.
	All right.
	So, whereas reasonable suspicion, it just requires a reasonable suspicion, right?
	It's a lesser threshold than reasonable grounds.
	Can you agree?
	And you know that.
	I'm a little concerned about getting into a discussion about legal terminology, on which I'm not an expert.
	All right.
	And so, can you agree, though, that it is CSIS who is the main agency that administers the CSIS Act?
	Yes.
	All right.
	And they're the agency that's primarily responsible for assessing if there's a Section 2 CSIS Act threat to the Security of Canada, right?
	Yes.
	And under Section 12 of the CSIS Act, CSIS is only required to have a reasonable suspicion that there is a Section 2 CSIS Act threat to open an investigation.
	Is that fair?
	Yes.
	And they're not required to meet the higher threshold of reasonable grounds.
	To open an investigation.
	Do you want to comment on this?
	Well, for Section 12, they would have to get a warrant.
	For Section 12, and that's reasonable suspicion.
	That's what it says.
	Again, I'm not an expert when it comes to CSIS acts.
	When CSIS gets a warrant, they have to...
	Bring a case to a judge, a federal judge, so there's going to be more than just reasonable grounds in that case.
	okay so can I bring up WTS000060 please And can we scroll down to page 5?
	Okay, and can we scroll down to the heading Intelligence?
	And just the first paragraph, I'll give you a moment to read that.
	Would you help me with the pronunciation of Minister David's last name?
	We've all been debating about how to pronounce it properly.
	He stated that at no point of the service, being CSIS, assess the protests in Ottawa or elsewhere, those referred to as the Freedom Convo and related protests and blockades in January and February 2022, constituted a threat to the security of Canada, as defined in Section 2 of the CSIS Act, and that CSIS cannot investigate activities constituting lawful protests.
	And I take it you were advised of this, correct?
	Correct.
	All right.
	And can we scroll down then to...
	Page 7. And go to the heading Foreign Interference.
	So, Director Venu explained that the use of the term foreign influence under Section 2 of the CCS Act refers to a foreign state interference as the term is used within the national security community.
	Right.
	CSIS assessed there was no indication of foreign state interference occurring in the course of the protest.
	CSIS did not assess that any foreign state supported the protest through funding, that foreign states deployed covert or over-disinformation techniques, or that any foreign state actors attempted to enter into Canada to support the protest.
	And I take it that you were advised of that by CSIS and Director Vinu.
	Is that correct?
	That is correct.
	All right.
	And if we can go down to page number 8 and the heading Recommendation to Cabinet, there Director Venu states that he learned that the EA referenced the threat definition set out in Section 2 of the CSIS Act once the federal government began to seriously consider invoking the EA between February 10th and 13th.
	He requested that the service prepare a threat assessment on the risks associated with the invocation of the EA.
	He felt an obligation to clearly convey the service's position that there did not exist a threat to the security of Canada as defined by the service's legal mandate.
	The threat assessment prepared by the service was that the invocation of the emergency's legislation risked further inflaming IMV rhetoric and individuals holding accelerationist or anti-government views.
	You were told that, is that correct?
	That is correct.
	All right.
	So, can we now please bring up document number ts.nsc.can.000002006_rel_0001?
	So in this document, which is already actually in evidence, I just want to scroll down to page 5, please.
	So there again.
	On February 3rd, Cease of Success, there's no indications of known IMVE actors were planning to engage in violence.
	And it's on February 13th, I believe, that this is the document that Director Vigneault is referring to that states that, you know, it could have been a risk if you invoke the Emergencies Act to making things worse.
	Is that correct?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And you knew about that?
	I did.
	Right, and so did Cabinet.
	They knew about all of this, correct?
	Yes.
	Right.
	Okay, if I could bring up the next document, which is going to be tsnsc.can.001.0000160.
	0 0 0 0 Now, before I get into this, you can agree that it was clear to both you and Cabinet that CSIS did not have reasonable suspicion that there existed a Section 2 CSIS Act threat during the protest.
	Is that correct?
	It was clear to me, and I believe it was clear to ministers.
	I can't say that with authority, however.
	And I also understand that the Canadian Security Establishment, the CSE, they never advised you or the government or cabinet that they had identified a Section 2 CSIS Act threat either.
	Is that correct?
	That would be correct.
	Right.
	And both the RCMP and the OPP, from at least their evidence and things we've seen to date, they never identified or advised the government that there was a Section 2 CSIS Act threat, right?
	To the best of my knowledge, no.
	Right.
	And so...
	The entire intelligence apparatus and law enforcement apparatus within Canada tells the Cabinet and the government that there is no Section 2 CSIS Act threat.
	Is that right?
	No, that is not right.
	CSIS, and, you know, Director Vigneault will be here to speak for himself.
	CSIS assessed according to their standards under their act.
	Nobody else was assessing under the standards under the CSIS Act.
	You asked me, did they tell anybody it had met a standard?
	They wouldn't use the CSIS Act.
	That wouldn't be their tool.
	They would be looking at broader national security issues.
	Okay, so what intelligence bureau or agency or law enforcement agency told the government Here's the evidence of reasonable and probable grounds, or reasonable grounds, of a Section 2 CSIS Act threat.
	And you know I take it now, because it's advised to you, that that's required to invoke the Emergencies Act.
	It's in the documents.
	You were advised of that.
	Yes.
	Right.
	So what agency gave you the evidence and the intelligence that said, hey, We have reasonable grounds of a Section 2 CSIS Act threat.
	There wasn't one, was there?
	So let me explain.
	Nobody bringing advice to the table other than CSIS is assessing against that threat.
	Nobody advising the cabinet.
	The cabinet is making that decision.
	And their interpretation of the law is what governs here and the advice they get.
	And their decision was, evidently, that the threshold was met.
	And I understand that.
	But you understand that when ministers or administrative agencies, etc., are entitled to make a statutory decision, whether or not a statutory requisite is met, they do so based on the evidence that is before them and the submissions before them.
	You know that.
	And indeed, they had a lot of evidence.
	Right.
	You have the RCMP, you have CSIS, you have the entire intelligence apparatus in the federal government, and none of them said that this threshold was met, did they?
	They weren't asked.
	Okay.
	And with respect to the ministers making the decision, when you're talking about ministers, you're talking about the elected executive, correct?
	I am.
	All right.
	So the prime minister.
	Among others.
	Right.
	To your knowledge, what training in national security and law enforcement does the Prime Minister have?
	I couldn't answer that question.
	Can you agree with me that he doesn't have any, to your knowledge?
	I couldn't answer that question.
	I'm sorry.
	All right.
	And what about Minister Mendicino?
	He, I understand, has training as a Crown Prosecutor, at least.
	Is that right?
	That was his former job, yes.
	And Minister Blair, he was the...
	Chief of Police for the Toronto Police Service.
	That's correct.
	Right.
	And when did Minister Blair first tell you that he was thinking about invoking the Emergencies Act?
	Minister Blair didn't tell me.
	It came up in discussions at the officials level and then it came up in discussions at the ministerial level.
	There's a record not yet in evidence that states that Ministers Blair's strategy was from February 4th on to invoke the Emergencies Act.
	Were you aware of that?
	No.
	Can you please bring up the next document, which is...
	Oh, we have the input, and I'll just ask you about these.
	These are the...
	If you can scroll up to the top, please.
	I take it that this is the input that CSIS gave to your ministry, Public Safety, with respect to the key messages they thought should be put out with respect to the convoy.
	Is that right?
	Presumably.
	I don't have a date on this document, so I'm not really sure where it falls in the overall scheme of things.
	Okay, so I'm just going to go through it with you then.
	You're out of time, so you're going to have to do it very quickly.
	Right.
	I'll be quick.
	This document, you agree that none of the messaging from this document was actually incorporated into the messaging from Public Safety, was it?
	Really, I wasn't the spokesperson for Public Safety.
	My colleague may be.
	Right.
	And I have to be quick, so I just want to bring up one last document.
	And that's ssm.can.00001079 _rel.0001.
	No, that's not the correct document.
	It's okay.
	I'll deal with it with another witness.
	So thank you very much for answering my questions.
	Okay, well, rather than, or maybe I could ask the City of Ottawa, are you going to be taking your 10 minutes?
	Because we can do it after lunch if you prefer.
	I'm content to either do it now or after lunch.
	I think we will need our 10 minutes, and there's a chance, there's a better chance we get right under the 10-minute mark if we have the lunch break to shorten it up and tighten it up, Commissioner.
	But I am content to go now if that's your problem.
	We'll take the lunch break.
	We'll take another one of our long lunches.

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