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Nov. 25, 2022 - Viva & Barnes

02:11:25

TRUDEAU TESTIFIES! Final Day of the Emergencies Act - Viva Frei LIVE!

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	If you agree to testify, I can get the commissioner to organize it.
	Did you agree with me?
	Yeah.
	What's my name?
	What's your letter?
	I was wondering if you like the press button.
	Good morning, everyone.
	Drama.
	Drama unfolds.
	I need your commissioner to organize it.
	Did you invite me?
	Yeah.
	What's my name?
	Talk to you later.
	That is convoy attorney Brandon Miller, apparently asking someone if they want to testify.
	Being reported by Glenn McGregor of...
	I can no longer see what entity he works for because I've been blocked.
	Now, in fairness...
	In fairness, I did say...
	He says, what bizarre moment when convoy attorney...
	What was the exact wording?
	Bizarre moment at public...
	What are you doing?
	At POEC, the Public Order Emergency Commission, bizarre moment when organizer's lawyer asks a liberal strategist if he wants to testify, maybe mistaken identity.
	Who knows?
	And I said, what's bizarre about, other than asking an accusatory question, what is bizarre about him doing his job on his feet?
	He wanted to get the guy to testify.
	I won't hold my breath for an answer because you're a disingenuous hack, but maybe he'll answer.
	And his answer was...
	Where was his answer?
	Oh yeah, that was his answer.
	I asked for it.
	In fairness, I could have asked the question without calling him a name.
	I could have.
	But that would have meant holding my tongue.
	When I think it should have been...
	Let loose like the dogs of war.
	You know, the same Glenn McGregor posting that clip earlier this week.
	You know, reporters asking Brendan Miller if he's afraid of getting sued.
	Taking any opportunity they can to besmirch, mock the convoy attorney.
	Look at him.
	He's mistaken.
	Case of mistaken identity.
	Or...
	It was a troll.
	Hey, liberal strategist, do you want to come testify before the commission?
	Of course not.
	Why would you want to?
	So that's what happened yesterday.
	So interesting.
	Brendan Miller trying to get a late witness in.
	It's the last day of the Emergencies Act inquiry.
	Trudeau is slated to testify today.
	Let me just get the window up.
	And I had to, I was late this morning because I said I was going to start at 8.15.
	I had to get a play date for one kid.
	Half of the family is experiencing Black Friday in America, like the real, what do they call it?
	The real Black Friday madness.
	They woke up at 5.30.
	They just went to, I don't know where they went, but they wanted to see what it's like when people actually line up to just spend money.
	They're going to tell me what the experience is like.
	I said, you know, in as much as it might make for a fun video, I'll stay back with one of the kids, you know, take care of the dogs.
	And speaking of taking care of the dogs, Pudge yesterday got her way into a full box of cashews.
	And it was either going to come up or it was going to go out.
	And it went out.
	And boy, howdy!
	Did I wake up to a disgusting mess in her bed that was a mixture of exactly what you think it would be, but very loose, and intact cashews all over her bed.
	And it's such a mess that you can't just take the sheets from the bed and put it right in the washing machine.
	You have to remove the big parts, take it outside, hose it down, like, you know, when they're hosing down the Anchorman in Anchorman.
	Then I had to wash my hands thoroughly many, many times and put it in the washing machine.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	The bed is not getting dumped.
	The bed has been dumped.
	We've got this bed.
	It's from the store called Little Bear in Montreal.
	And it's like, if there's anything we spent money on that was worth everything we spent on it, it was this bed where you could remove the pillows from inside, wash the thing as many times as you want.
	We've washed it like hundreds of times.
	So, anyhow, that was the morning.
	And then after that, I had to stuff down some egg after doing all that.
	And it's like, your appetite's not all that there after...
	There was...
	There were many a fluid on that bed.
	So, upside, at least you didn't step in it.
	Yeah, this...
	Oh!
	That would have been...
	It would have been nasty.
	But yes, I didn't step in it.
	So, small blessings, Ian Hall, thank you very much.
	I guess I'll do the standard disclaimers.
	There will be no medical advice, no legal advice, no election fortification advice.
	There might be swearing today.
	Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	Hold on, hold on, hold on.
	Okay.
	There might be swearing today because we're going to listen to Justin Trudeau.
	I think he's the last witness and it'll feed his ego well that he's the last witness.
	This commission ends with Justin Trudeau's testimony.
	I don't believe there's anybody left to testify on the list yet.
	If anybody noticed the way she pronounced her name.
	Chrystia Freeland and three other people.
	I didn't catch their testimony.
	Watching Chrystia Freeland testify was one of the more enraging things you can possibly imagine.
	Okay, I can't bring out the comment below this one, but not theater.
	First of all, actually, let me make sure that we're good on Rumble.
	Today, exceptionally, we're going to go live on YouTube and Rumble all day.
	The dishwasher's making some noise.
	Not the dishwasher, the washing machine.
	Okay, are we live on the Rumbles?
	We're going to go live all day on both.
	Because it's going to be a big day.
	And we can't cut the testimony in half if we have to go back and rewind.
	Oh my god, it was excruciating.
	Well, let me just pull up some of the highlights.
	Let me just pull up some.
	I mean, I was sitting there listening to this, and then I'm trying to screen grab these things in real time so that I can document.
	You know what I think about dual citizenship members of parliament?
	I've grown to take issue with it.
	Because for right or for wrong, it creates the illusion.
	It creates the impression of partiality.
	When someone is serving their country, there should be no question as to which country they're serving.
	Dual citizens, regardless of the country, in government, one can ask the question, well, which country are...
	Whose interests are you acting in now?
	One of your countries of origin?
	Sorry, one of your countries of citizenship?
	Or your other.
	Chrystia Freeland, who made a point out of telling us how to pronounce her name in the, I guess, traditional...
	Look at the room, by the way.
	Chrystia Freeland acts in a way that one can question the political lawyers.
	The Public Order Emergency Commission is now in session.
	Okay, good morning.
	Bonjour.
	So we're at the last day of the public hearings on the facts.
	There will be, of course, the public hearings on policy matters.
	So this is our last day to receive testimonies on facts.
	They're going to have arguments and policy issue discussion later.
	No one's going to pay attention to that.
	Certain policies next week.
	Commission Council.
	Then I think he's got a year.
	Our next and final witness is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
	Well, I lost one prediction, but I won the prediction.
	Oh, Justin.
	I said he wouldn't testify because he's a coward.
	He will testify.
	He's a brave, brave Supreme Leader.
	Made the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate decision.
	Is he going to be in person?
	Is he bringing his Bible?
	Chrystia Freeland chose the Bible to swear on, and she had her Bible.
	I brought my Bible.
	She's so religious and such...
	Maybe we'll take a few minutes.
	I'm not sure where...
	What process is.
	A bit anti-climactic.
	We're not sure where Justin Trudeau is?
	Am I going to win my prediction?
	Should we take five minutes?
	I think we'll take five minutes then and see.
	You can come and get me when it is.
	Thank you.
	Oh, boy, oh, boy.
	Oh, there he is.
	There he is.
	How many jokes about socks?
	Nothing to do with your appearance.
	You're welcome.
	To come in, obviously.
	We're happy to get started.
	Can this be sworn or affirmed?
	Mr. Prime Minister, will you swear on a religious document, or do you wish to affirm?
	Pick a religious document.
	Oh, I'd like to do it on the Bible, please.
	Why is he answering an English question in French?
	I would like to swear on the Bible, please.
	Why is he answering an English question in French again?
	Est-ce qu'il va prêter sous serment français?
	Is he going to say the sermon, whatever it is, the...
	What do they call it?
	The solemn oath?
	Please say your name.
	Yes, I am.
	Justin Trudeau.
	J-U-S-T-I-N-T-R-U-D-E-A-U.
	Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
	I swear.
	Thank you.
	Let's see.
	No, I think he might go with French if he does it because more of Canada doesn't speak French.
	As I understand it, as you heard, there will probably be some testimony in English and some in French.
	So please, if you need translation equipment, you should have it in hand.
	He'll reply to the convoy lawyer only in French.
	Let's see if that happens.
	Good morning, Prime Minister.
	Good morning.
	Thank you for being here.
	So we'll start with the routine housekeeping.
	You recall being interviewed by Commission Council on September 9th of this year?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And after that interview, Commission Council prepared a summary of your interview.
	Yes.
	For the record, we don't need to call it up, Mr. Clerk, but it's WTS.5084.
	Oh, I'm going to set up a chat in locals right now.
	Prime Minister, you reviewed that summary and you can confirm that it's accurate to the best of your knowledge?
	Yes.
	Okay, and I'll add there that, of course, it's a summary.
	It's not an exact transcript of your words, but it's a prepared summary.
	Justin Trudeau has been waiting for this moment for his entire life.
	Prime Minister, as you know, you are the final witness to testify before the Commission.
	So at this point, the Commission has heard a lot of evidence about the events of January and February leading up to your government's decision.
	To declare a public order emergency on February 14th.
	But what we haven't heard yet is your perspective.
	So your own perspective, your viewpoint.
	The Prime Minister leading the country through these events and the decision maker in the government's ultimate decision to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time in that act.
	Is he going to cry?
	So we have two hours together this morning and I anticipate that the examination is going to proceed in two parts.
	The first part will consist of fairly specific questions taking you through the chronology of events, often with reference to documents that have been adduced before the commission, readouts of your own calls.
	And the second part will consist of some bigger picture questions.
	questions.
	So addressing some of the key themes that have arisen out of these events and the government's response to it.
	Merci beaucoup.
	In character, Trudeau.
	Deep breath.
	So let's start with the chronology of events.
	I'll warn you, we're going to fly through this pretty quickly.
	Two hours is not a lot of time to fly through everything that happened between these days.
	But if ever you feel like you need to add in some narrative or explanation, please feel free to do so.
	So we'll start with just the pre-arrival days.
	So before the convoy arrived in Ottawa.
	We know that you learned the convoy was on its way a few days before, maybe around January 24th when you were briefed on it.
	I thought they were going to leave when I told them to.
	So in the preceding months, we had seen a certain level of frustration.
	Oh my God.
	Can you imagine?
	The question was in English.
	With regard to the vaccine mandate.
	And we had heard some strong language emanating from several people across the country.
	Corsé is like a level of grain in coffee.
	This also reflected what we had seen during the election campaign six months prior.
	They were scary.
	So when we saw that those groups were coming down to Ottawa, we were expecting some activity and strong language around that, things that we had already seen.
	However, we regularly see demonstrations across the country.
	We pay attention to those.
	I would prefer to translate this myself.
	Question.
	You spoke about the electoral campaign.
	He just told her, ask me in French.
	The electoral campaign was a time when Canadians could be consulted directly on the measures that we wanted to implement to protect public health.
	His position is the election mandated him to do anything.
	The vaccine mandate for people who wanted to use public...
	Consensus is he's a coward.
	It was very important that Canadians could speak their minds with regard to this.
	We want to keep people healthy and safe.
	And I thought it was totally appropriate to have healthy and strong debates on those issues.
	And that's exactly what happened during the elections.
	They were mandated.
	The majority of the people were not for Trudeau.
	He won with the slimmest of minorities.
	He thinks he's mandated to do anything.
	We saw a certain level of frustration, of demonstration, and of...
	He's a loathsome human being.
	...a certain level of aggressiveness.
	Let's say a certain intensity of emotions with regard to that campaign.
	There's nothing aggressive out of blocking children from airplanes.
	It's done very passively.
	And that exceeded what we had seen in prior political events or such campaigns.
	So there, we could see that there was potentially a strong intensity.
	By the way, everyone, share the links around and let's see how many people we can get.
	We saw that in the few months prior.
	And we were suspecting this could reach up to Ottawa with that convoy.
	Yeah, and maybe, Trudeau, you could switch back to English, you know?
	It's good.
	We know you speak French.
	You saw the protest coming, and you've been briefed on it, and as you said, Ottawa's used to dealing with big protests.
	I'm the king of the table here.
	Something could be a little bit different here, so there was a hint of worry.
	English or French, people.
	One for English, two for French.
	Started arriving on the 28th, and then went into full swing on the 29th.
	What was that first weekend like when the convoy arrived from your point of view?
	Well, first of all, one of the things that we noted in the run-up to the arrival was a bit of a disconnect between what the sort of political arms of my office My office.
	We're seeing and expecting from what we'd seen on social media, colored by our experiences from the campaign that was only a few months before, contrasted with the assurances by, whether it was Ottawa Police Services or even the public service, that this was just a normal...
	Quote, unquote, style of protest that we see on the Hill fairly regularly.
	And there was already a little bit of worry that this might be a different brand of event than Canadians were used to seeing.
	And we certainly saw during the first weekend that...
	The expectations that the police had said that they would simply go home, the ability to keep it under control was not exactly there.
	Okay, and I think starting on that Sunday, you made a few calls to various MPs in your Ottawa caucus, sort of checking in and seeing how people were doing, because there was a level of concern there.
	So, on that note, I'll ask Mr. Clerk to please pull up ssm.can.nsc402813.
	Please, be the article about him groping a reporter, or be the picture of him in blacklist.
	It's a readout of a call that you had on Sunday, January 30th, with Yasser.
	It won't be that.
	It won't be the article about Aga Khan either.
	Yasser is the Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre.
	Okay, perfect.
	So if we can just scroll down to the text here, Mr. I thought maybe it was going to be his Aga Khan ethics violation.
	Maybe an article about SNC-11.
	How are you doing and how are folks in the community?
	And Mr. Nagfi says, very dire.
	Community feels under siege.
	You can imagine number of trucks, rigs, honking.
	For them, it's a party, but they forget it's also a neighborhood, especially low-income families.
	I've been getting a lot of feedback.
	Also been in touch with Marco, that's Minister Manichino, Bill, I assume Minister Blair, and local officials.
	Finding ways to make sure these folks are not part of residential streets tonight will be challenging.
	And you say, I feel so gutted for so many people who are just in such a difficult situation.
	It's been two days.
	There's a lot of hateful rhetoric going on.
	No, there wasn't that.
	Liar!
	And Mr. Nakfi says, it's unbelievable.
	Liar!
	The images that we see are hard to believe.
	Oh, yeah, they're hard to believe because they're not believable.
	This is the kind of grossness our country is subject to.
	I have constituents being yelled at for wearing masks while out doing normal chores.
	Did she just cough?
	There are all kinds of issues people are facing in the neighborhood.
	I don't know if they can sleep at night.
	And you then reply, there doesn't seem like much clarity on how long this will last.
	And then you refer to an incident at the Shepherd of Good Health.
	Which was a lie.
	Unsubstantiated accusations.
	I'm so sorry, my friend.
	This is just horrible.
	The RCMP is concerned.
	Everyone's on eggshells.
	Having this going on in our nation's capital is just totally irresponsible.
	So to some extent, that's self-explanatory.
	But I'm wondering if you can...
	Help us a little bit in explaining the context of that call and what Mr. Nakfi was referring to.
	I dare say that citizens of Ottawa are used to political activity and protests.
	Yeah, sure.
	You were at a BLM protest on a range of things.
	During COVID lockdowns.
	This was present and in their...
	Daily lives and disrupting their weekend in a way that wasn't a usual political protest.
	From the intimidation and harassment of people for wearing masks to a very concerning story about folks disrupting the nearby homeless shelter and soup kitchen.
	There were indications that there was a level of Disregard for others that, unfortunately, we had seen examples of during the election campaign.
	And it emphasized for me that this was the same kind of thing.
	His late motif is he was re-elected, therefore he was mandated to abuse Canadians.
	The hateful rhetoric.
	Moving on then, Mr. Clerk, to the next document.
	He's going to bring it back to the election as many times as possible.
	To give the illusion, he was mandated.
	So, Prime Minister, this is moving on to the next day.
	I think at some point there was some hope or expectation that the convoy might disperse by Monday, but it didn't.
	And at that point, you have a call with Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa.
	We'll just look at a couple of things here.
	The initial reference is to a press conference you've done and tells you you hit it at the park, hit all the right notes, and then says these people had their time and need to move on.
	So he's very, and he's trying to get this across to the chief of police.
	It's an amazing thing.
	He gets to rely on the news report from the time to justify his opinion.
	He's not lying.
	CBC reported about the Good Shepherd incident.
	JW, that's Mayor Watson.
	Chief of Police said it's so volatile, but kept under control so far.
	Trucks are starting to leave, but the diehards chained themselves to this.
	It's unfortunate for people living in the neighborhood.
	Chief of Police spoke to Chief Lucky, and we need a few more sources.
	I think that probably means resources, and you say that's for sure.
	And then it goes on.
	Sorry, he says a little more.
	We have to do this with a sense of balance.
	These guys are just looking for a fight, and your comment back on that.
	Let's hear it.
	The remainders will have no choice but to incite as a counterbalance, so we all have to be careful.
	Can you explain those last few comments and the balance and counterbalance you were referring to there?
	Can you scroll back up to the...
	Remainders have no choice but to counterbalance?
	Mine and mine on the screen.
	There we go.
	He didn't write this email.
	Did he write this email?
	It's interesting.
	Why would he need to refresh his own memory so thoroughly?
	These calls were very much about me understanding what's happening from a local sense.
	You know what would help you understand?
	If you had talked to the damn protesters, you're a flipping coward.
	There were some people who were more intense in the protests than others.
	Some were just along to be part of something that they agreed with.
	Others were really shaping it and drying it.
	And I think...
	I believe, I'm not entirely sure what I was saying there.
	Clip it!
	I'm not entirely sure what I was saying there, because I speak so much diarrhea all the time.
	But we need to be firm in standing up for people.
	We need to encourage people to leave, but if they see their...
	That the numbers are starting to dwindle.
	The ones who remain will be more intense.
	So there's a sense already that as we manage this, we have to be careful.
	We want to make sure that we support and protect people living in the city, that we're allowing for life to get to normal despite this protest without inciting.
	Inciting.
	Inciting any reactions that amplify the thing further.
	Okay.
	Oh, so he didn't want to talk to the protesters because he didn't want to amplify it or legitimize it.
	The next one is SSM.can.nsc402814.
	So far nobody's complained that I'm talking too much.
	So now we're at Wednesday, February 2nd.
	I'm going to be talking.
	And this is a call that you have with Anita Vandenbald.
	So again, can you tell us, Prime Minister, who Anita van den Beeld is?
	Anita is a Member of Parliament for Ottawa, Nepean East, or I believe that's it.
	Anyway, she's just to the west of downtown.
	She's a long-time MP and a very strong community.
	A community member of parliament and she was expressing here just how the tone and the tenor of what was going on in the neighbourhoods and around people was worse and more hateful and different from anything she had seen before.
	Number of years as an MP, but a long time involved in political...
	Hateful.
	It was hateful my ass.
	Yes, I do.
	Very much.
	Okay, so we'll just read through a little bit of what Ms. Vandebel said.
	Starting there, you say, I wanted to check in.
	How are you doing?
	She says, I really appreciate it.
	I'm torn.
	I'm scared.
	But I get really mad that I'm scared.
	Kids with autism, the noise, it's one of those things you feel like it's okay while it's awful.
	I'm not a stranger to volatile environments, but it's different because I know the sentiment is directed towards us, you particularly.
	There is this hate for liberals.
	And then after that, I do think it may deter some young women looking into politics.
	Look at the children and women.
	The children with autism and the women.
	Won't someone think of the children?
	There were children at the protest who were having a great time to do about it.
	It's hard, and she says it's hard because I know it's not within your purview.
	People are frustrated and they just want somebody to do something to get the city back.
	And then she speaks about some other hateful messages that she's observed.
	And you say it's about how you balance it again, being responsible and reasonable.
	Do not drink any time to laugh.
	Where she says, a lot of constituents are calling me about what the PM, what the Prime Minister is going to do about this.
	And she then says, it's hard because I know it's not within your purview.
	So what does that refer to?
	That actually refers to one of the challenges and things that we were struggling with from the early days of the pandemic, of the convoy occupation, which is that...
	Because they were very visibly most motivated to protest the federal government and federal government policies, even though many of the mandates they were actually vocally concerned about were provincial measures, but it was very clear that they targeted Ottawa and the seat of our federal government deliberately, that it was a federal protest in a city that houses the capital.
	There is an impression and an expectation that therefore it's Ottawa, or sorry, it's the federal government's responsibility to deal with it, to make sure that it goes away.
	We're protesting federal mandates in Dublin and provincial mandates follow the leader of the federal government.
	Washington, D.C., that is a separate enclave where the RCMP can give out traffic tickets, which they don't.
	But there is a blending of orders of government in protection of Parliament Hill and the precinct that led a lot of people to say, well, they're here, they're angry at the Prime Minister, they're disrupting my neighbourhood.
	Federal government should really do something to get rid of these protesters or move them along.
	Had you thought about talking to them?
	Where we were continually explaining, as Anita said, it's not in our purview, the management of Wellington Street, of neighbourhoods around, was the jurisdiction of the Ottawa Police Services.
	And if they needed support, OPP, and then the RCMP could be providing extra supports.
	But it was their jurisdiction.
	But of course...
	Anyone who's involved in politics, you can be a federal MP walking through your riding and someone complains about garbage pickup.
	They don't want you to hear you say, oh, no, that's not a federal issue.
	That's municipal.
	They say, thank you.
	I'll make sure we pass that message along.
	We'll try and see sure that that gets fixed.
	You didn't even do that, Trudeau.
	You didn't even come down to the protest and say, we'll listen to you.
	This is not a federal policing issue.
	This is not a federal issue.
	This occupation, this is something that Ottawa police at jurisdiction need to take care of.
	And they didn't.
	For a lot of people, sort of say, well, they're here because of the federal government, and the federal government is refusing to do anything about it.
	That's right.
	Talk to them, you jack bum.
	It was the kind of blending of narratives that we had to be really careful about.
	The federal government was not talking to them.
	I think we're going to come back to that when I start asking about Ontario's initial response to all of this, but we're not quite there yet, so I'll take you a few more things and then I'll ask you to pick up where you left off there.
	So, so far we've been looking at some calls you've had with your own MPs, MPs from your caucus.
	The next one...
	Mr. Clerk, you can pull up.
	It's SSM.CAN407738.
	Talk to them.
	It's a call that you had with, excuse me, on February 3rd, Candace Bergen, who I believe had just become leader of the opposition in the House.
	I confess, I was yesterday years old when I learned that, but I now know.
	Okay, so this is a call you then have on Wednesday, February 3rd with Ms. Bergen.
	Redacted.
	Do you recall this?
	Do you remember this call?
	I can't tell from the redacted document, man.
	Can you tell us what inspired that call?
	It was mostly a congratulatory call.
	When someone becomes leader of a political party that's opposite us in the House, I tend to reach out.
	I tend to reach out.
	If you have a personal conversation, I usually ask after family, see how they're adjusting to it, maybe give some recommendations about trying to get enough sleep.
	But I try and keep it a human introductory call even though I had engaged with her many times in the House over the years as an MP.
	When she became leader, I wanted to reach out and establish that personal contact.
	Of course, it was all happening in the context of this occupation going on, so that was part of the discussion, but primarily it was a congratulatory call.
	Okay.
	Get enough sleep is always good advice.
	Mr. Cook, can you scroll down a little bit?
	Oh, you're such a human, Trudeau.
	You're such a fellow person.
	Okay, so this is the part of the conversation that you start talking about the security situation in Ottawa.
	You say, the second set of briefing would be security situation in Ottawa right now.
	Obviously a real concern and we have lots of disagreement on causes and path forward.
	I would certainly like to make sure you're getting briefings on safety and the situation and have you at least fully informed.
	Hopefully we're...
	We're all going to be able to make sure Canada's democracy continues to run and our institutions remain strong and, quite frankly, the citizens of Ottawa get back to their regular lives.
	Scroll down again.
	This is all about the citizens of Ottawa.
	So Ms. Bergen says, absolutely, I agree.
	I'm sure you weren't following question period today, but...
	That's what I'd like to see some resolution.
	You're right.
	We disagree on some things, but I would agree with you.
	The goal is to let's find a way for people to head back home and clear things up in Ottawa.
	Should I talk to them?
	We do want the same thing.
	If you have some ideas or some things you think could be done, extending an olive branch is one way of putting it.
	We'd love to be able to work together to make that happen.
	Did you do that, Trudeau?
	All of us, and you say in reply, all of us need to focus on getting the temp down, the temperature down, and getting people back to normal lives.
	Let's ensure there are discussions on that, and there may be opportunities to work together.
	Some of them, and I think you're referring to the protesters there, have jammed themselves into a corner, and their asks are non-starters.
	We have our democracy and our institutions.
	Their asks are non-starters.
	There are ways we can get beyond this.
	I'm worried about setting a precedent where if anyone wants something, they can set up a blockade on Wellington Street.
	Oh, you mean like the Indigenous blockading the rails?
	BLM?
	Protesting the streets?
	I think that you do have to be cautious.
	And as PM, you don't want to set a bad precedent.
	I'm sure you're talking and coming up with some ideas and then she offers to help.
	So the part of that that I'd like you to elaborate on is it appears there that you're talking, and I take it the olive branch is a suggestion of some engagement with the protesters, some talking to in whatever capacity that would end up being.
	So what comes out of this conversation that you have with Ms. Bergen and what was in your mind at the time?
	Not much.
	I say, you know, we have...
	Ensure there are discussions on that.
	Let's ensure there are discussions on that.
	It was very much, let's make sure, as political parties, we keep talking about it, figuring out how we can work together.
	But I'm not talking to them.
	I don't want to set a bad precedent.
	Some of their asks are non-starters, like overturning the results of the election that we just had.
	Oh, that wasn't one of their asks, Trudeau, you liar.
	In terms of responding to their demands or legitimizing them by engaging, I'm highlighting that I'm worried about setting a precedent that a block in Wellington Street can lead to changing public policy.
	People need to be heard, but we need to get that balance right.
	And then she agreed that I need to be cautious and I don't want to set any bad precedents.
	By talking to protesters.
	Okay, so fairly...
	There's a...
	A willingness to discuss, but you were concerned about setting a precedent where a blockade could equal a change in public policy.
	You want to testify for him, lawyer?
	Yeah.
	I think we have a robust functioning democracy and protests, public protests are an important part of making sure we're getting messages out there and Canadians are getting messages out there and highlighting how they feel about various issues.
	Using lead protests to demand changes to public policy.
	Is something that I think is worrisome.
	Using protests to demand change to public policy is something that you find worrisome?
	That's the definition of a dictator.
	If you're protesting that the government is shutting down a safe injection site or something, you are asking for changes in public policy.
	Protesting to change public policy is problematic.
	You heard it from the mouth of a dictator.
	You know, saying we're not going until this has changed in a way that is massively disruptive and potentially dangerous.
	Versus just saying, yeah, we're protesting because we want public policy to change and we're trying to convince people to get enough of them, that politicians will listen to enough people saying, okay, I'm going to lose votes if I don't change this.
	The usual way protests can be effective.
	Tell us about the indigenous protests.
	Okay, that's a fair point.
	Tell us about BLM protests.
	Mr. Beck, the next document is SSM.CAN.NSC402819.
	So, Prime Minister, we're now heading into the second weekend of the protest, so Saturday, February 3rd.
	Have you talked to them yet?
	Our understanding is that the protest intensified again, with more trucks coming into Ottawa.
	And on that day, on the Saturday, you have a call with the Governor General.
	Mary Simon, do you recall?
	Do you remember that call?
	Yes, I do.
	Okay, so here is the readout of it.
	And we'll just go through some of, or quite a bit of, actually, what was said on that call.
	So again, there's the introduction.
	It's a problem.
	It's been stressful, not so much for me personally.
	The governor general says, yes, they seem reluctant to give it up also.
	Makes it challenging.
	And you say, yep, people blame the feds, but many of the mandates are not us.
	And for the police, well, we don't direct them.
	Trying to get this resolved as peacefully as possible.
	I want them to find a way to save face, but they can't shut down our democracy.
	Sorry, they're trying to pull you into this also.
	They just don't understand the institution.
	Sorry, they're trying to pull you into this also.
	And then the Governor General asked to go further on that.
	Actually, I'll stop there.
	Do you remember what you were referring to in that paragraph?
	Oh, sorry, he's talking.
	Yeah, that was a memorandum of understanding that some groups within or some group within the protesters had declared that what they wanted was to empower the Senate to work with the governor general to create a provisional government or take a point of government committee that would change public policy.
	And displayed a lack of understanding of how our democracy and our institutions actually work.
	Okay.
	I'm checking the date on that memorandum.
	The Rideau Hall, which is filled with good people giving out medals to worthy Canadians, were bombarded constantly by demands that she fire the Prime Minister.
	Oh, terrible, terrible truth.
	God forbid people misunderstand the law.
	And that's what I was referring to as tough for her and tough for her team.
	She was getting emails telling her to fire you.
	Is that what prompted this call?
	It's tough.
	I don't remember.
	Could have been part of it, but I also speak regularly with the Governor General just to check in, and obviously this was something that was worthwhile checking in on, but yes, that was probably the reason.
	Fair enough.
	Fair enough.
	Okay, so then she asked if there's any sense on how it will be resolved, and you say something, and then...
	Well, what did you say?
	What did you say?
	Blair has handled a lot in the past, and we know, we've heard a lot from Blair at the Commission.
	Why was that not a protest, more an occupation, hard to defuse?
	It will take time.
	Be very careful to not try to fix something we don't have the tools for.
	And then there's some discussion of the funding.
	Scroll down a bit, Mr. Clerk.
	Thank you, Reketa.
	Onto the next page, please.
	I haven't gotten the bill yet.
	We'll see.
	The Governor General says, yeah, there's some of the senior staff getting a lot of hateful emails.
	Nick, thank you very much.
	Asking for the Governor General to fire the Prime Minister and to create these crazy things.
	It's difficult to receive these things.
	They made a website in my name saying stuff.
	I have to let it slide off our backs.
	No, declare an emergency.
	And discuss the security situation.
	So is that where you were just referring to, Prime Minister?
	Yes, yes.
	The bombardment.
	God forbid.
	It's terrible.
	Just generally speaking, before we move on, what was your sense of where things were at on that second weekend?
	It was terrible.
	Ottawa citizens were under siege, threatened, violent, hateful rhetoric.
	Caught everyone by surprise.
	Through the second weekend, I think I mentioned it in referring to Bill Blair, talking with the local police with his own expertise and background, talking about things that can be done to try to de-escalate, to start putting an end to this.
	I couldn't talk to them because that would set a bad precedent.
	Overnight, but that there are things that should be done.
	There was an expectation or a hope that on that second weekend, we would see the A decrease in activity and a dwindling.
	Instead, we saw a surge on that second weekend.
	It's almost amazing what happens when you don't listen to people.
	Things that we had heard that the police were going to start doing this or doing that and we're going to be able to respond didn't seem to be materializing.
	There was a sense that the...
	Occupation was just continuing full swing without any real control or even plan to end it.
	And I know from conversations with MPs and others that the citizens of Ottawa were quite frantic about having to go through a second weekend.
	Horns and disruptions.
	Horns and disruptions.
	Yelled at for wearing masks.
	Nobody got yelled at for wearing masks.
	Liar.
	Go to their neighborhood stores and seeing the Rito Center shut down and all these different things.
	The Rito Center had been shut down for two years.
	And people were starting to get pretty upset that this was two full weekends that they were being massively disrupted by.
	Massively disrupted by.
	Take that one down.
	Take it down.
	So speaking of getting a little upset, the next topic I want to address with you is Ontario's initial response to the protest in those early weeks.
	So one theme that's emerged from the evidence we've heard, and we've seen several references to it in the documents.
	Is your government's frustration and your own frustration with what might be characterized as a certain reluctance on the part of Ontario to engage, especially in the tripartite tables that Minister Blair, I think, had put together.
	So, Mr. Clerk, can you pull up ssm.can.nsc402837?
	Can't keep her soul in.
	This is the readout from a call that you had, Prime Minister, with Mayor Jim Watson on February 8th.
	He did nothing and he's all out of ideas.
	I'm going to go check in on the chat in Locals.
	Is it on?
	Okay, so just keep scrolling a bit, Mr. Clerk.
	Pass the key takeaways onto page two.
	So, just to stop there, give a bit of situation.
	So, Mr. Mayor Watson here brings up the expression whack-a-mole, which we've heard several times in the commission.
	Oh, yeah.
	Fighting a losing battle.
	We don't have enough police.
	And we can't talk to them.
	That's entirely right.
	I know we're looking carefully.
	Can't talk to the protesters.
	Oh, it's set a bad precedent.
	And then you say, on the Ottawa policing side.
	Let's beat the shit out of them, then.
	You've seen, as I have, some concerns on how things were handled from the beginning.
	And then you ask about Mayor Watson's relationship with the police chief and how they're working together.
	And you observe that there are moments where Mayor Watson is saying one thing and the chief is saying another and ask if there's anything you can do about that.
	So just briefly before we go on, can you comment on that a little bit and the Ottawa policing situation to the extent that you were briefed on and aware of it?
	I told them to put an end to this.
	One of the things we'd said from the very beginning to the RCMP and to government in general, that if there was anything we could do to support the Ottawa Police Services in what they were doing, if we had resources or abilities because there is a federal presence in this capital city, we should do it.
	That we were there to be helpful.
	Did you try talking to the protesters?
	Try and do whatever she could to send support to the City of Ottawa.
	What we got back, or what we had heard, as I recall, were different numbers from what the mayor said Ottawa needed to what the police chief was saying they needed.
	And the one thing that the commissioner made clear to me was...
	They needed to know that if they were deploying resources, that they were going to be appropriately used, that there was a plan for that.
	We see it sometimes in requests for assistance across the country where someone will say, we need 20,000 police officers.
	No, you need it to listen.
	We need the military to come in with 1,000 troops or we need this or that in RFAs.
	And part of our due diligence is, okay, what do you need them for?
	What are you going to be doing for?
	Because, for example, if you're sending in...
	Military as we did in Hurricane Fiona to help clear power lines as was necessary in Atlantic Canada.
	in no situation do military members engage in policing activity.
	And there was a sense that maybe they can be directing traffic.
	The military isn't there to play police roles.
	And that's why we always have questions that, okay, we're going to send resources, but we need to know how they're going to be deployed.
	And there wasn't always that clarity around what the plan was, how many they actually needed, how they were being used, and how they were, you know...
	Where they were going to be best deployed.
	Okay.
	Just keep scrolling down, please, Mr. Clerk.
	I'll tell you when to stop.
	He couldn't engage with the protesters because that would set a bad precedent that protesting could be used to affect policy change.
	I'm going to ask after this phone call whether the federal government will live up to its commitment.
	Period.
	Boots on the ground very shortly.
	It's not dying down.
	Toke over Metcalfe Street blocked all of it.
	And you reply, listen, yes.
	Yes, you can say the federal government will be there with more resources.
	But again, the thing that frustrates me, and everyone is conflated, but Doug Ford has been hiding from his responsibility on it.
	Who said that, Trudeau?
	It's important that we don't let them get away from that.
	Who said that, Trudeau, that Ford was hiding?
	Mayor Watson replies, if they keep dragging their feet, I'm happy to call them out on it.
	It would be nice if we got something firmed up with the federal government to shame them.
	Ford didn't even make an effort to come and see what's going on.
	Neither did Trudeau, by the way.
	Can I just ask you, Prime Minister, to comment a bit on the politics that are going on there?
	Neither did Trudeau.
	Well, first of all, when I say everyone is, I believe, is conflating, it was conflating, you know, a federal...
	A protest of federal issues with a federal responsibility to do the policing that would dissipate that protest.
	So that was, sorry, a little bit of an interplay that there was a sense that in the initial phases of the protest, the Ontario government was happy for the perception to be out there that this was a city of Ottawa.
	issue and a federal government issue and that as a province they really didn't have a responsibility or a jurisdiction to play in It was an unpleasant situation.
	There were bad headlines.
	I was getting grumbled at by citizens of Ottawa every day because the federal government wasn't dealing with it.
	I can understand that provincial politicians who were being overlooked in the complaints everyone had about why this wasn't getting resolved...
	Trying to pass the box.
	...would say, you know what, let's not poke our noses into this.
	Let's let Trudeau take the fall, and he didn't like that.
	People will continue criticizing those people that helped.
	I'm fairly certain that...
	Behind the scenes, the OPP was engaged with Ottawa Police Services and was providing supports as we were as a federal government.
	But I think at the political level, there was probably a decision to continue to stay back a little bit and let us wear it a little bit.
	What we've seen during the pandemic and during other crises is when the three orders of government are able to work seamlessly together.
	Not only does it deliver better results and better coordination, but it actually reassures citizens to see that people who are not always politically aligned at the highest levels can roll up their sleeves and work for the benefit of citizens.
	And that's certainly something that I've always tried to do and I've been able to do with Premier Ford on many, many issues, but at this point in the evolution of the occupation.
	That wasn't something that we were able to do.
	And so, yes, there was a bit of frustration.
	Thank you, Tony.
	And we'll see that the very next day you had a call with Premier Ford.
	And just in the narrative, what was going on at this point?
	Just in the narrative.
	Give us your narrative, Trudeau.
	There were a few things, as we know, going on across the country.
	But by this time, this 7th, 8th, 9th, the Ambassador Bridge blockade had really heated up and was in full swing.
	And that seemed to be a turning point.
	Several ways, but certainly for Ontario's participation in all of this.
	So, Mr. Clerk, if you can take that document down, please, and bring up SSM.CAN.NSC402845.
	If it was physically possible to vomit over...
	My brain, this would be the cause.
	So, point for advocacy, to make a long story short, this is a call where it seems that you and Premier Ford are engaging and deciding to work together to solve this problem at this point.
	We can skip over the first, oh, here we go, the last part of that first paragraph.
	So, PDF, Premier Doug Ford.
	He says, what we can recommend and what we can work together on is I've asked our AG, our Attorney General.
	To look at legal ways to give police more tools and exhaust legal remedies because the police are a little shy and I can't direct them.
	So that's one area we can focus on.
	We can't take their polar licenses.
	We check that.
	We can shut down their fuel consumption and cordon off highways.
	That's where we're at.
	Might be operator licenses.
	Yeah, probably not polar, but operator licenses.
	Let's go with that.
	Yeah, let's go.
	So then you reply.
	First of all, they're not a legal protest.
	They're occupying a municipal street and are not legally parked.
	You shouldn't need more tools, legal tools.
	They're barricading the Ontario economy and doing millions of...
	As this government acknowledged they've been doing for two years, a whole bunch of people are looking at this and saying, we can't even clear up a protest on a bridge.
	So just stopping there, Prime Minister, do you remember what you were referring to when you started talking about you shouldn't need more tools?
	I mean, that whole question around...
	Legality or illegality of the protest.
	They didn't have a permit to protest.
	Not certainly as long as they had.
	They were illegally parked.
	They were engaged in disruptive activities.
	There are any number of municipal and provincial bylaw infractions, legal infractions that they were engaged in by just being there.
	There is a sense that, and this was based on an earlier conversation I had with Bill Blair about how one proceeds in this, is you can enforce small things as a way of keeping the situation under control and creating boundaries and balances and moving towards it.
	It's an approach.
	The issue here was that there were Things that they could do and things that I know were tried that they realized were unsafe for them to do.
	There are stories of police officers getting swarmed.
	Swarm?
	Stories of it?
	There's no evidence of it.
	With gasoline.
	There was a sense that, you know, giving out simple tickets.
	Wasn't really having much of an impact as they did that.
	And taking stronger measures was going to be resisted and met with significant resistance.
	But these are things that if they feel they didn't have the resources to enforce a prohibition on bringing in jerrycans or a prohibition of parking on the approach to the...
	Ambassador Bridge, well, let us give you more resources to do that between the OPP and the RCMP.
	You know, we should be able to get the numbers up in a way that could lead for an ability to use those existing tools on the books.
	That was very much where our thinking was at that point.
	How many more police officers, how much more resources do you need to get a plan?
	And if there is a concern around...
	Well, we can't get those police allocated to us from other jurisdictions unless there is a clear plan.
	Well, we'll send you planners.
	We'll help get those people there so you can establish a plan that will allow itself to be deployed.
	There was really a sense that there was more things that could be done.
	Apparently, I've just got confirmation.
	The parties are going to have five minutes each to cross-examine Trudeau.
	That's all that they're going to have.
	Nobody can say the Bridges and Tunnels Act means the federal government has something.
	I can't read that anymore, but the federal government has responsibility over the bridge and border.
	Trudeau testifies in chief until 1130, then cross-examine begins for one hour.
	Then it's closing arguments.
	Everyone gets five minutes to cross-examine Trudeau.
	If they're saying they can't do it because they don't have enough offices or equipment...
	We need to remove that excuse as soon as possible so they can do their work and we can prevent Ontario becoming a laughingstock.
	Mr. Clerk, just scroll down to the last page, please.
	We'll skip over.
	There's some jurisdictional discussions going on there.
	Oh my goodness.
	And then...
	She gets two hours to butter him up.
	So this is sort of the conclusion of the conversation.
	You say, what are the next steps?
	You've said the OPP are going in.
	Are they keeping you apprised?
	And do they understand the urgency?
	They can't talk this out for three weeks.
	They need to act immediately.
	And I'm assuming they're the concern of acting immediately is brought about by the situation on Ambassador Bridge, which we heard a lot about from the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday.
	Premier Ford replies they'll act, but without directing them, it's hard to describe their game plan.
	They'll have a plan, unlike Ottawa, where they didn't have a plan.
	I'll get briefed more from the Solicitor General.
	We'll keep you updated.
	This is critical.
	I hear you.
	I'll be up their ass with a wire brush.
	I think Miller was the good pick, and I said Miller is the Canadian bar.
	Yes, that's one of the quotable quotes of the Commission.
	There have been a few.
	That's one.
	Your reply there is, well, we're there with resources.
	Bill Blair will coordinate on our side.
	You can reach out to LeBlanc, Minister LeBlanc and me.
	You and I need to work together on this.
	People will be reassured by the two of us working together.
	We need to demonstrate this is not a place of lawlessness.
	Okay, we can take that down.
	Thank you.
	I will say, though, that they can't talk this out for three weeks.
	They need to act immediately.
	I wasn't just talking about the Ambassador Bridge.
	I was talking about Ottawa as well.
	I was talking about the fact that...
	Barking orders.
	This simply can't continue to be stretched out this way.
	But when I say they need to act immediately, obviously, I'm not directing the Premier to direct police.
	We know all the limitations that we have, but there was an expectation that this was a situation that was going on for too long.
	And as Doug pointed out a couple paragraphs later, there is a sense that the police of jurisdiction had lost control and wasn't able to control the situation.
	Okay, that's fair.
	I took the document down before we got to Ottawa, but that's right.
	Thank you, Mr. Cook.
	One dollar tip in local live chat says, is this a questioning or an awards ceremony for PM Trudeau's current?
	Shifting gears away from Ontario.
	We understand that there's a lot of concern coming at the federal government from the United States as well.
	And again, the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday spoke about the many conversations she was having with stakeholders in the U.S., U.S. officials, Brian Deese in particular.
	And we understand that on, I believe, February 11th, you ended up having a phone call with President Biden.
	Mr. Clerk, we'll just pull up the readout of that call.
	It's pb.can6057.
	Okay, scroll down to the next page, please.
	Maybe that's there.
	It's got to be somewhere.
	Keep scrolling until you see a readout, but in the meantime, oh no, there it is, I think.
	In any event, Prime Minister, can you tell us, just the readout doesn't actually say that much, so can you tell us about your recollection of that call?
	There were sort of two goals I had in that call.
	The first one was to reassure him.
	That despite the disruptions to trade and real impacts on both sides of the border, which were economic, yes, but were also people to people.
	We knew from the pandemic that thousands of healthcare workers crossed the Ambassador Bridge every day from Canada to go work in Detroit in their hospitals.
	There are real meaningful connections across that crossing.
	It's kind of like you were doing for the last two years.
	Do something serious.
	and that we were going to continue to be a reliable partner for trade and for people ties and a safe neighbor.
	That was sort of in response to his concerns around Disruptions to activities on both sides of the border because of the blockage.
	But the second thing I wanted to talk about was just sort of the general context.
	The fact that the 911 centre being overwhelmed in Ottawa a couple of days before...
	By whom, Trudeau?
	...from American calls.
	That there was a significant amount of amplification from certain sectors of the American...
	And there was also a significant amount of money flowing and support for these occupation activities in Canada that were coming from people in the United States sympathetic to that cause and opposed to both he and I in our public health policies but also in our general policies.
	Okay.
	Would you say that President Biden shared your level of concern about the situation?
	No.
	I think I was much more concerned about the blockage to the lives and the disruption and the potential security concerns.
	I think he was very concerned, but I don't think anyone was more concerned than me.
	Okay.
	Fair enough.
	It was happening on your side of the border, so that makes sense.
	Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
	That's it.
	I'm just double checking.
	So this sort of brings us to a pretty critical time in the narrative of what happened in February.
	So we're building to a bit of a crescendo around that time, the 10th, the 11th.
	And we've heard from the Clerk of the Privy Council that on February 9th, she advised you to convene the incident response group.
	And the first meeting of the incident response group was then on February 10th.
	So we have heard quite a bit about different cabinet committees and what the IRG is, but I'm wondering if you can tell us from your perspective, sitting as Prime Minister and Chair of these committees, what it means to convene an IRG and how it differs and what it gives you, what advantage it has versus other structures.
	Regular...
	Cabinet committees are chaired by members of cabinet and feature various cabinet members sitting around the table, assisted by their directors, their deputy ministers.
	But they are discussions amongst cabinet ministers on a particular issue that will then go to full cabinet.
	That's what most committees are.
	The IRG is a special committee, special in that it is chaired by me.
	It doesn't have a permanent membership because we deal with incidents that require or are important for the federal government to respond to.
	These could be floods or hurricanes.
	The most recent IRGs have been on the situation in Haiti and how Canada can respond and support.
	We have them around all sorts of different things.
	and depending on what they are needed for, we pick the areas of expertise we want around the table.
	But differently from most committees, these are meetings in which the officials sit around the table and are not just expected to participate, they actually lead the discussions.
	Whether it's deputy ministers or heads of agencies, the commissioner of the RCMP, the director of CSIS, what have you, they are giving direct reports.
	Ministers are usually, if not always, there as well.
	But if they speak at all, it's at the very end to add a little bit of colour or further input.
	IRGs are all about making sure that the government as a whole is hearing directly, that I am hearing directly from all these different agencies and all these different inputs into whatever incident we're looking at.
	And then we...
	And then we establish a plan or we move forward on that.
	Investigative report.
	We can make determinations about what we do next.
	But that frame is fairly unique amongst our committee structure.
	So it kind of collapses that layer between the officials and the ministers a bit?
	Yeah, we hear directly from the ministers, which is sometimes something that...
	Cabinet ministers who are used to getting briefed by their officials and then briefing their colleagues takes a little bit of getting used to.
	When we have a different IRG on a different subject with new ministers who aren't usually at IRGs, it always is a little adjustment for them that, no, no, no, we're hearing from their deputy minister, not from them.
	It's just so useless, all of this.
	It's also about making sure that everyone is on the same page.
	One of the challenges in any government is The siloing that happens, something that happens in public safety doesn't necessarily get connected to transport, doesn't necessarily get connected as organically as we'd like to immigration and various things like that.
	So making sure that everyone's around the table, getting on the same page in terms of what's happening with this incident that we're looking at.
	What we're going to do about it and there's usually, okay, here are the taskings we're going to do and let's check back in in a few days and see how we've done and see where we are again.
	IRGs rarely happen on a sort of a one-off.
	There's usually a series of them until the incident is over or has been moved to a different body to weigh in on.
	Okay, thank you.
	That's helpful in understanding.
	Thank you.
	That's helpful.
	Can you stop kissing his butt?
	He's the commission attorney.
	She's supposed to be objective, not partial, not biased.
	Met, first of all, three times before invocation, and then I think it met daily after that.
	But we're going to focus on that first part, on the 10th, the 12th, and the 13th.
	I'll just fill in a little bit of the narrative so you don't have to here, but we understand that on the 10th what was discussed was two tracks for a potential federal response.
	One was talk to the protesters, the other was beat the shit out of them.
	But it was certainly under serious consideration that the federal government might have to act in some way, shape or form here.
	Talk to the protesters?
	Track one was what can the federal government do under its existing authorities?
	Track two was what could we potentially do under any new authorities, including the Emergencies Act.
	And I just want to pause here and ask you one thing, which is in the documents, that sort of...
	Maybe not the first, but it's certainly the first sort of confirmation, official confirmation, that the Emergencies Act was under discussion.
	But we have seen references to the Emergencies Act here and there in various phone calls or emails or discussions, etc.
	And I'm wondering if you can describe, if someone asked you, when did the Emergencies Act come into play as a possibility?
	How would you answer that?
	As an idea?
	It would have been from the very beginning, in the back of our heads, as you see a situation that is out of control, has a potential for real impact on citizens, real concerns about what's going on, not just in Ottawa, but right across the country.
	No, internationally, it was embarrassing.
	It started up on the same first weekend that the Ottawa occupation did.
	These are the things that you say, okay, as we look at a whole range of potential outcomes in this, there might be a moment where we have to invoke the emergencies act.
	Not after we talked to them.
	Seriously thought of, because I will say certainly in my thinking right now, it was a fairly binary reflection.
	It was, oh, we might have to invoke the emergencies act.
	There was no reflection of...
	What we would have to invoke the Emergencies Act to do.
	It was just understanding that if this situation continues and is unable to get under control by anything else, the federal government might have to give the provinces more powers, give police more powers, do something to put an end to this.
	So whenever we said, yeah, we're looking at all options, it would have been in the back of our minds, particularly because...
	I think we're probably the first government that had ever actually leaned in carefully to maybe using the Emergencies Act as we did in the beginning of the pandemic.
	We dusted it off and had presentations at Cabinet around what the Emergencies Act was and how it was an update from the...
	previous legislation that existed before.
	War Measures Act, say it.
	It was chartered compliant.
	Because post-1982, a lot of things needed to change for the better in our country with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
	So we got a crash course in the Emergencies Act and the consultations required and all the various steps of it.
	This isn't good one.
	Two years before around the pandemic.
	As I had said during the consultations at that time with the premiers, I didn't think we needed to use it.
	I didn't think it was appropriate for us to declare a public welfare emergency.
	I believe the section is within the Emergencies Act that we would have invoked around the pandemic.
	But there were a lot of people calling for us to do it because it was obviously a national emergency, this pandemic, particularly in the early days of spring 2020.
	So we were somewhat versed in this legislation that had never been used.
	Seeing this particular public order situation, it was a reflection in the back of our minds, or my mind anyway, I can't speak for everyone, that maybe it would end up at this.
	But for the same reason we were loathe to...
	Call an IRG too soon in the process.
	We knew that it wasn't ours to solve at this point, that there were still lots of things that the jurisdiction, the police of jurisdiction and various orders could and should be, orders of government could and should be doing to put an end to this.
	So it wasn't until, as you say, the IRG of February 10th, Thursday, that we found a pretext, said, okay, track one, you know, what more can we do to empower And track two was...
	eat the crap out of them.
	What could we do that we would have to create new authorities for, whether it was through regulation, whether it was through passing emergency measures through the House, or whether it was using something like the Emergency Measures Act.
	And the Key for me in that conversation was it was a shift from that sort of binary frame of no Emergencies Act or Emergencies Act.
	Because if you think about it, the Emergencies Act itself doesn't do anything except declare an emergency.
	It's that it enables government to bring in special...
	Temporary measures to deal with the situation.
	So the useful conversations around the Emergencies Act started on February 10th.
	I was always thinking about using it.
	I asked the question, okay, what are the extra tools that we would need to bring in, either through legislation or through regulation or in various ways or through the Emergencies Act, that we don't actually have now?
	And there were none.
	What would we do with the Emergencies Act if we brought it in that we can't otherwise do?
	And that reflection on what would be the tools actually clarified and got the work going.
	A perfect example was we had heard consistently throughout that commercial tow truck drivers were not willing to come in and remove trucks.
	Well, the Emergencies Act perhaps could compel.
	Truck drivers, tow truck drivers to come and actually fulfill their contracts that are signed with cities to keep the streets clear of illegally parked cars.
	So that reflection was really the one that started then.
	And the tasking that I gave on that Thursday that we will check in again on the Saturday at the next IRG was, okay, come up with those tools that we could...
	get at that would solve this.
	And then we'll look at, well, do we need the Emergencies Act to bring in these tools?
	Or can we do it through another way?
	What are the things that would allow us to get this situation which was out of control, back under control?
	That was essentially the discussion.
	He always wanted to invoke the Emergencies Act.
	He knew it existed because they were prepped on it in the pandemic.
	And he was just itching for an excuse.
	That was a very long clip in verbal diarrhea.
	That's the bottom line.
	And seriously consider invoking the Emergencies Act.
	Can you take us through?
	From your point of view, the chronology essentially of the 13th.
	We know there was an IRG meeting in the afternoon, I think it was 4:30, and the decision coming out of the IRG was to have a cabinet meeting in the evening and to discuss the potential invocation of the Act.
	So how did those meetings play out?
	During the IRG on that Sunday, We took a very close look at the measures that were proposed, the list of tools that we could give ourselves to help the police,
	the provinces, and not only just to get a hold of the situation and control it, but also to prevent them coming back.
	Because you call this the whack-a-mole.
	We saw that the protesters were very clever when it came to moving around and to have a presence here and then move to another place to turn this into a big challenge for the police and the police response.
	So the concern...
	If we put all our resources in one place, we could maybe control that situation.
	But by doing that, another location would become vulnerable.
	Or once we'd settled one situation, two days later, they'd come back.
	So it was more of a question of yes to...
	to amend the illegal occupations, but also to understand that they had to be maintained and they had to remain clear until the situation calmed down across the country.
	So during the Sunday meeting, we took a look at the various proposals, whether they be for the tow truck drivers or provisions for certain areas that were prohibited.
	You couldn't go there to protest there.
	You weren't allowed to bring children there.
	You weren't allowed to cross the border.
	If your objective was to join a group and there were measures that the banks could take, that they would be able to freeze the assets of the protesters while they were on the sites, while they were barricading into sort of Persuade them to go home.
	So we talked about all these measures.
	We wanted to see what are our options to turn those options into reality.
	Can we pass legislation in the House of Commons?
	Can we speed things up to have a unanimous...
	Or can we do it quickly?
	Can we encourage the provinces to use more of their tools?
	And at that moment, it was becoming pretty clear that the situation was so urgent and a fear that it could get worse.
	And go into a free fall and that it was urgent to act and the tool that we had to quickly bring in those specific tools was the Emergency Measures Act.
	The other part of the discussion...
	Always remember, people, when you're having hearings on invocation of the Emergencies Act, you've got a signal that you're bilingual.
	Invoke the Emergencies Act.
	And that brings us to one of the key questions.
	I'll ask you about this several times.
	But what I'm asking you right now is essentially what you can tell us about how that discussion played out in the IRG and the Cabinet meeting.
	And I'll give you a little framing of it, which is, of course, we know that...
	Look at his face right now.
	...that the Declaration of Public Order Emergency is predestined on the existence of a threat to the security of Canada.
	Oh, but there was.
	As defined in the CSIS Act.
	And we know that CSIS, in the process of assessing the...
	The protests assessed that there was no, the protests did not meet that threshold.
	They did not constitute a threat to the security of Canada as defined in the CSIS Act.
	So this is one of...
	As defined for the CSIS Act.
	Okay, please.
	Over to you.
	Because I've been crash course on the Emergencies Act.
	The legislation in the 80s that was built brought in a definition of a national, sorry, a threat to national security.
	I think it's rehearsed answer.
	Imported the words of the CSIS definition.
	That was a handy definition that was already existing.
	Yeah, because it was the War Measures Act, Trudeau.
	The national threats to the security of Canadians would be.
	Those words in the CSIS Act...
	Are used for the purpose of CSIS determining that they have authority to act against an individual, a group, or a specific plot with, for example, a wiretap.
	That in order for them to take action in a particular situation...
	I'm no lawyer.
	...that threshold needs to be met.
	This doesn't make sense.
	...to national security.
	And actually be useful if we could pull up...
	Part C of...
	He's going to teach the crowd.
	Sure, sure.
	You know what?
	We have that in one second.
	The Emergencies Act incorporates by reference.
	National Emergency Act.
	Do you want or do you not?
	Yes, I do.
	Okay.
	Com.com.50954, please.
	He's back to high school teaching.
	The...
	As my understanding goes, the Emergencies Act defines national emergency by referencing the definition in the CSIS Act.
	So national emergency, public order emergency, scrolling down, you'll see the reference to the CSIS Act.
	Go to section 2C, which talks about violence.
	Nope, keep going.
	I love teaching.
	I love pointing things to people.
	So in order for CSIS to be able to do a particular operation, It has to meet this matter of threats to the security of Canada.
	And then they can go and do that wiretap.
	This definition within a declaration of public order emergency under the Emergencies Act is about the governor and council finding reasonable grounds.
	That there are threats to the security of Canada sufficient to invoke the Emergency Measures Act.
	So both the context and the purpose is very different.
	The people doing the deciding, in the case of the CSIS Act, if this is met as a definition, it's CSIS itself that decides that this is met.
	There's checks and balances afterwards.
	But for the purpose of declaration of a public order emergency, it's the governor and council cabinet and the prime minister making that determination.
	So the context within which we look at this definition is very different from the deliberately narrow frame that CSIS is allowed to look at, what inputs it can take in, what proofs it needs to establish this are very well prescribed so that CSIS can be, you know.
	So that CSIS is responsible in what it does.
	Whereas the Declaration of Public Order Emergency is open to inputs, sure, from CSIS, but also from the RCMP, also some from transport, from immigration, from the whole of government, from the clerk, from the National Security Intelligence Advisor.
	So within threats to the security of Canada, what we had to determine was...
	Does the situation going on across the country constitute a threat to the security of Canada?
	Not across the country.
	Not across the country.
	Or no.
	Ottawa.
	And then we looked at particularly C. Are there activities within Canada directed towards or in support of the threat or
	use That was what we were looking at.
	Is that threshold met?
	Are there activities supporting the threats or acts of serious violence, a threat of serious violence for political or ideological goals?
	Good question, Rachel.
	If that threshold was met in our reasoned opinion, then that part of invoking a public order emergency was met.
	The other part of it is, does it constitute a national emergency?
	And there's elements on that that I won't get into unless you ask me about.
	But I was very much focused on, was this bar hit?
	Yes or no, for the purposes of invoking the Emergencies Act.
	There has been a bit of back and forth at this commission on whether these words are different or can be read differently or broader when they're used in a public order emergency than they're used for the CSIS.
	It's not the words that are different.
	The words are exactly the same in both cases.
	The question is, who's doing the interpretation?
	What inputs come in and what is the purpose of it?
	And the purpose of it for this Freud was to be able to give us in special temporary measures as defined in the Public Order Emergency Act that would put an end to this national emergency.
	National emergency.
	Okay, so...
	So essentially you're saying that around the table that day, you were looking at the inputs that were given to you by officials and by the ministers and concluded that there was activities within Canada.
	Threats of serious violence was the key ones.
	And can you elaborate on what those threats were?
	What led to that conclusion?
	And again, we went around the table with officials from all different agencies and heads of departments to talk about this.
	Militarization of vehicles, for example.
	We'd seen, sorry, weaponization of vehicles.
	We'd seen cars ramming into police officers or other cars at coots.
	We saw an incident like that in...
	Winnipeg?
	Surrey, I believe.
	When a man ran over pro trucks used as potential weapons, certainly in Ottawa, with their presence and unknown...
	There was the use of children as human shields, deliberately, which was a real concern both at the Ambassador Bridge and the fact that there were kids on London Street that people didn't know what was in the trucks, whether it was kids, whether it was weapons, whether it was both.
	Police had no way of knowing those.
	You could see them and nothing happens.
	There was concern around weapons being stolen in Peterborough that we didn't know, but 2,000 guns, we didn't know where they had gone at that point.
	We later found out they didn't go there, but that was a real concern that we had about what was happening to them.
	There were a number of others as well.
	There was the fact that police trying to enforce laws.
	We're met with active resistance and a group of 30 police officers trying to interdict someone or arrest someone who was carrying a jerrycan into the site in Ottawa, got swarmed by 100 people and they had to leave because there were threats to their safety and they weren't able to arrest that individual.
	There were layers of danger that CSIS kept bringing up to us.
	Oh my goodness.
	The presence of people promoting ideologically motivated violence and violent extremism in the convoys had a danger of triggering Not necessarily them to act, but lone wolf actors or people who can be radicalized to take actions that were violent.
	None of this happened, by the way.
	We saw increasingly counter-protests of people who were trying to take back their city.
	For example, we all saw images of grandmothers standing in residential streets against...
	You know, massive trucks heading their ways to try and, you know, prevent them from coming to joint conflict.
	What the hell are you talking about, Zudo?
	There were all these things that positioned or presented real threats of serious violence.
	And every input we were getting on that weekend at the IRG was that things were not getting better, things were getting worse.
	Even as...
	It looked like there was a plan for the Ambassador Bridge to move forward.
	It looked like there was going to be a plan for Coutts moving forward.
	It wasn't a sense that things were dissipating.
	On the contrary, we were hearing about Fort Erie.
	We were hearing about the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia.
	We were hearing about potential blockades in New Brunswick.
	We were hearing about potentials at Blacol.
	We were hearing more.
	Convoys and more supporters heading to different places to take action.
	There were things going on in BC and Surrey.
	There was a sense that this was a broadly spread thing.
	And the fact that there was not yet any serious violence that had been noted was obviously a good thing.
	But we could not say that there was no...
	Potential for threats of serious violence, for serious violence to happen over the coming days.
	We were seeing things escalate.
	There was no violence.
	Not things get under control.
	We had not seen any violence.
	But there was the potential.
	You mentioned that the Ambassador Bridge was on its way to resolution.
	In my delusional mind.
	And Coots was on its way to resolution.
	Drink that water, Trudeau.
	One of the things that's come up in the evidence is that at this juncture, Ottawa could also...
	Perhaps it's been said to be on its way, perhaps at an earlier stage, to resolution in the sense that an integrated plan for policing was coming together at that point.
	And that may not have been something that was clearly expressed on the 13th half to the IRG and or cabinet.
	So first I wanted to ask you what your understanding of that situation was at the time.
	First of all, from the beginning.
	From the approach of the very first weekend, we heard from various authorities and police of jurisdiction, don't worry, we got this.
	There's a plan.
	There's a plan.
	Everyone let Trudeau down.
	I didn't want to do it.
	It's not going to happen.
	We've got this.
	We're getting more resources.
	No, there's a plan.
	We kept hearing there was a plan.
	And they didn't do it.
	And it was embarrassing to me.
	And even we heard in testimony here that there was a plan on the 13th that the Ottawa Police Services pulled together.
	I would recommend people take a look at that actual plan, which wasn't a plan at all.
	It was a talk about using liaison officers to try and shrink the perimeter a little bit.
	But as you look at the annex for...
	How the police officers are deployed, what resources are going to need, every annex is to be determined later, to be determined later.
	It was not even in the most generous of characterizations.
	A plan for how they were going to end the occupation in Ottawa.
	When the plan did come together, and if someone wants to compare the supposed plan on the 13th with the actual plan on the 17th that Ottawa Police Services pulled together, you see the crisp difference between these are the types of units we need, these are the resources we need, this is how we're going to do it, this is all the stagings of it on the 17th.
	It was not there on the 13th.
	But even beyond that, because I'm not...
	Fully aware how much of this is hindsight and how much of this was that general sense we got, that people continued to say, oh no, we're going to be able to get this under control.
	I think we're jumping ahead.
	We're jumping ahead?
	You know what's coming, Trudeau?
	You were prepped that well?
	Yeah, Coots is well on its way to being under control.
	A little admission there.
	We had heard that before, and there were fluctuations going on in the various sites across the country.
	It was not enough just to have a plan to clear a couple of lanes.
	It was getting the situation under control so as to prevent a re-staging of a protest elsewhere.
	What was very clear from all the perspectives around the table, that there was not confidence that we were on a track to getting...
	The national emergency under control in the coming days.
	They wanted to make sure that it was continuing to be a situation that was not being controlled by police, by officials.
	Okay, so we will get to the first minister's meeting, but let's just finish off on this point with the 13th.
	In a lot of the evidence that has come out before the Commission, we see hesitancy and reluctance to invoke the Emergencies Act.
	So officials advising that this may make things worse, this may inflame tension, this may embolden protesters, etc.
	And we also obviously heard from Mr. Vigneault saying, and the CSIS assessment, that there was no threat to the security of Canada under the CSIS Act.
	What do you have to say about that?
	And then we heard Mr. Vigneault say, but I still thought that the...
	The act was necessary and I conveyed that to the Prime Minister.
	That's because he's an idiot.
	That's called motivated reasoning.
	Can you tell us, was there consensus on the use of the act?
	Yeah, we wanted to use it.
	What did you hear about whether or not people agreed with this interpretation?
	We agreed we were going to use it.
	We just needed to find the pretext.
	Yes, there was consensus around the IRG table on Sunday the 13th.
	Yeah, we were going to use it.
	There was no question about it.
	And Director Vigneault is...
	The answer on that is absolutely consistent.
	CSIS, for example, wouldn't feel that they had the capacity to bring in a wiretap against one of the convoy organizers under the CSIS Act.
	Why not?
	You were spying on Canadians for the last two years.
	The tools that they have and the threshold they have to meet for what is a threat to the security of Canada, according to CSIS's evaluation, was not...
	Was not met.
	And that was something we heard from the very beginning.
	CSIS continued to say from the beginning of the protest, we haven't yet, under the CSIS Act, reached a level of threats to Canada.
	The director of CSIS is also one of the national security advisors to me, and in looking at the frame and scope of the situation we were in, was very comfortable in saying, yeah, for the purposes of the CSIS Act, this is not met, but for the purposes of the Public Order Emergencies Act that the governor and council has to make a reasonable decision about.
	We feel that it is met.
	And that was the consensus from officials around the table.
	And again, it was about...
	Did she just do to her hand?
	Did she just put something in her mouth?
	Not even just sort of that binary, okay, do we declare the emergency or not?
	It's, do we declare a public order emergency so that we can bring in these specific measures?
	Yes, militarized police.
	We went around the table on that, and my expectation is...
	And beat the shit out of the process.
	Virtual table, I believe.
	But my expectation is...
	Always, if you have significant disagreements, this is the time to speak up.
	There was no voice saying, "Hold it." We don't think you should do this, or I don't think you should do this.
	Why do you think that is true, though?
	Which does happen from time to time in cabinet meetings and in IRGs.
	It does happen from time to time.
	Not when...
	If someone had come up and said, okay, we don't think...
	Us and Transport Canada, we don't think that we should invoke a public order emergency.
	I would have said, thank you.
	I would have taken that into account.
	But no one said it.
	But I didn't need unanimity or full consensus in order to make the determination in governor of council according to that that we were moving forward.
	Obviously it helped and in this case there was.
	Consensus around that table that invoking the Emergencies Act was what we needed to do.
	Yeah, of course it was, because everyone knew you wanted to do it, Trudeau.
	Are you speaking of the IRG in the afternoon or the eventual cabinet meeting?
	It's not a question of whether or not it exists.
	I'm speaking of the IRG right now with where we went around the table with officials, but we did a similar thing that afternoon, sorry, that evening with the cabinet meeting.
	I can talk about that a few ways.
	Yeah, that's the same way.
	I knew you were going to ask me.
	Tell us about the cabinet meeting.
	Did you give him the questions in advance, ma 'am?
	Oh, he's back to French.
	By the way, guys, share the clips.
	Ordinarily, I would snip and clip and put on Twitter, but I can't do that real time.
	We submitted the conditions that needed to be met to invoke the act.
	And we discussed at length of the tools that were needed and of the, I believe, six provisions.
	Nobody disagreed with me at the table.
	That's not evidence of good decision-making.
	It's evidence of tyranny, you fascist dictator.
	It's evidence of surrounding yourself with people who don't say no or scaring people into silence.
	You'll get the comeuppance politically, and then maybe people will think twice about going along with it, but there'll be no consequences to any of this.
	So there was a healthy discussion around the table.
	He needs to show that he's bilingual.
	Every minister who wanted to express themselves did so.
	And I won't go into that detail, but I can say that there was consensus, clearly.
	Consensus that I had to move on and consult the premiers.
	Nobody disagreed with me.
	Amazing.
	We did not decide on invoking the act then, but I could hear...
	Remember that earlier part of his testimony where he said it was a binary consideration from the beginning?
	I always knew that it was there.
	We'd been briefed on it during COVID.
	People felt comfortable enough and together enough on this issue.
	Yes, we could...
	Move on towards the possibility of invoking the act the next day.
	Part of the discussion at the cabinet table as well.
	She doesn't speak French.
	Yes, you made the same consensus then.
	So that brings us to what we can loosely call Decision Day on February 14th.
	Yeah, D-Day.
	I call it T-Day.
	Trudeau Day.
	I'm just going to try and lay out the chronology of that day and then ask you, first of all, whether that is the correct chronology of the day and then ask you to speak to various parts of it.
	I stare at people as I drink.
	The first minister's, the decision coming out of cabinet the evening before was to convene a first minister's meeting to have the obligatory consultation under Section 24. He admitted it.
	He admitted it.
	It was on his mind from day one.
	That's called looking for the excuse.
	I came to my conclusion.
	Just give me the premises that allow me to get there.
	There could be pilots.
	Children shields.
	But in any event, so the first minister's meeting was held, I believe, at 10:15 the following morning on the 14th.
	Following that meeting, you had a call with opposition leaders, I believe, and a call with your own caucus?
	No.
	The caucus call was before the first minister's meeting.
	I wanted to make sure that we shared with our members of caucus who were going to be...
	For the cross-examination teams.
	Why did you not talk to the protesters?
	Very much a part of a government that would invoke the Emergency Measures Act.
	I wanted to let them know before premiers were consulted.
	I wanted to let them know that I was about to consult the premiers, but the sense was that caucus should hear it before the premiers heard about that.
	That makes sense.
	Okay, so caucus call first, then first ministers meeting, then I think you spoke to opposition leaders, then around 3.41 p.m.
	I said around 3.41 p.m.
	Why did you not bother talking to any of the protests?
	The clerk recommends that you invoke the Emergencies Act, and shortly thereafter, there's a public announcement of it.
	So just unpacking that, starting with the caucus call briefly, but the focus of this will obviously be in the first minister's meeting.
	I'm going to read the rumble rants a little later.
	Take us through that day.
	The caucus call was informing them that I was about to go into a first minister's meeting in which I was going to present them with the fact that we were...
	Thinking about invoking the Emergency Act.
	Invoking the Emergency Act before thinking about talking to the protesters.
	Makes sense.
	That these were the kinds of things we would be giving police and various new authorities.
	It wasn't a big discussion.
	I wasn't looking for consensus.
	There wasn't a lot of feedback.
	It was just informing them that we were taking this seriously and moving forward.
	And I dare say the response was very positive from our caucus.
	Then the first minister's meeting.
	As I'd mentioned earlier, this was not the first time I talked about the Emergencies Act with the Premiers.
	I think as Ms. Telford had talked about yesterday, I have had many, many, many First Minister's meetings over the course of the past two years to deal with the pandemic emergency.
	And we have always worked very constructively together.
	And for me, being able to sit down with them and highlight that We were seriously considering invoking the Emergencies Act in order to do the following things.
	And I wanted to hear from them.
	And then I went around the table across the country to hear from each of them on their reflections, their inputs, their concerns, their support.
	Disagreements in some cases, but really wanted to hear what it was that they were going to be, what their thinking was on this situation that would, by definition, affect all of them on a situation that was, to a certain extent, affecting all of them.
	At the end of that meeting, I reached out to the opposition leaders.
	Conversations with them about what I was reflecting on doing and asked for their support and then started preparing for a potential announcement that afternoon as the note from the clerk came in, making the official recommendation to the government.
	That we invoke the Emergencies Act.
	Okay, so let me start with an initial question, taking you back to first thing in the morning.
	Had you made up your mind already?
	I made up my mind two weeks ago, ma 'am.
	I made up my mind before they even arrived in Ottawa.
	I certainly, I was a long way down the road of realizing that it was probably the path we needed to take.
	I knew that two weeks ago.
	I did not make up my mind until the note from the clerk was in front of me and it was in black and white that the public service made a formal recommendation that I invoke the Emergencies Act.
	If I had gotten to that point and they had said, no, we still don't think the threshold is met, it is possible that we wouldn't be here today and I would not have invoked it, but I don't know.
	The fact that when that note came in, I made that final decision with all the conversations, all the inputs, all the feedback that I'd gotten from caucus, from cabinet, and from first ministers, opposition leaders, and all the officials I'd talked to, that was when I made the decision.
	No, the question was, when did you know you were going to do it?
	We went back to the first minister's meeting, and we understand it lasted about an hour.
	All of the premiers had a chance to voice their opinions and their concerns.
	But is there anything they could have said or done at that point to change your mind?
	Nope.
	Absolutely.
	If the protesters have just gone home, they're leaving.
	Listen, I hear those six things you're planning on doing.
	You don't need them.
	Because these are the tools we're going to use instead.
	We have the power.
	We're going to be able to, in Ontario, do this.
	And we're confident that that will end the situation in Ottawa and end the situation at potential blockades.
	Like you did at the Ambassador Bridge.
	Nobody told you that?
	You don't need to bring in compelling of tow truck drivers because we've figured out how to do it for good.
	We have a plan to put an end to this in a...
	Concrete and compelling because I'd heard a lot of plans.
	It's called a court injunction, just like they did at the Ambassador Bridge.
	But if I had been convinced that other orders of government or any other law in Canada was sufficient to deal with this emergency, then...
	We wouldn't have met the threshold because part of the threshold for the Emergencies Act is unable to be dealt with under any other measures or laws in Canada.
	Did you get a court order injunction to tell them to tell the trucks away?
	No, no, you don't need it because we have it under control.
	Which is, to a certain extent, what they all said to me when I had this conversation with them around the pandemic.
	I said, listen, there's a lot of pressure for us to look at the Emergencies Act.
	Do we need to bring in the Emergencies Act?
	And they all said, no, don't bring in the Emergencies Act.
	We've got it under control.
	We're able to do this in our own jurisdictions, in our health care systems.
	Yeah, you found out how to do it.
	Border emergency is different than public welfare emergencies.
	But that principle was there.
	And we didn't invoke the act.
	At the federal level.
	In the spring of 2020.
	So yes, they could have said things that prevented me, that would have said, okay, let's give it a few more days or let's not do this at all.
	She doesn't want to piss Trudeau off too much, even though she's a commission attorney.
	That threshold that I had personally wasn't met.
	And you mentioned, I mean, some of them did express opinions around the lines of, well, we kind of got it under control here.
	This problem isn't really cropping up here, or it's cropping up here in a way that our law enforcement can deal with.
	So are you drawing a distinction there between, okay, the premiers may say it's under control here, but that doesn't mean it's under control everywhere.
	So they would have had to come to you with something that would have solved the big problem as you saw it, is that?
	I think there just would have been a sense that the measures I was proposing were going to be useful or effective.
	Two hours in chief from her, five minutes in cross for every other party.
	And I guarantee you he's got to go before lunch, so nobody's going past the limit.
	What I heard on the contrary was concerns that we shared that this might inflame the protesters to declare a public order emergency and bring in martial law, which was one of the concerns, or that they would interpret it as that.
	Of course, it wasn't martial law, and it did not suspend people's fundamental rights and freedoms.
	Except the right to protest, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.
	And it had a military beating the crap out of veterans at the front.
	They didn't bring in the military.
	Danger of further inflaming the situation, but the situation was already pretty inflamed, and my concern was if we continue to not do anything, are enough citizens going to start counter-protesting and taking things into their own hands at various places across the country?
	Ah, so he beat the shit out of the protesters to prevent counter-protesters from coming in and escalating the situation.
	Got it, got it.
	That's good rationale.
	We need to declare the Emergency Act before violent counter-protesters can get violent.
	Highlighted that he didn't have any real, that the six elements we had seemed reasonable enough, but he was in disagreement with the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
	That those six elements we should maybe move forward with in some way, but without doing the Emergencies Act.
	That was something that we'd looked at trying to do as well.
	But it was clear that in order to do those, bring in those tools, the Emergencies Act was the vehicle that...
	It was created for that purpose, so that we could respond to a national emergency.
	Jason Kenney, I believe, said, "I'm not going to quibble with the use of the Act, but we don't need it here in Alberta." And that was something that came out a number of times, even by those who were supporting it, said, "Yeah, you do what you need to do.
	Don't think we need it here, but I know this is a situation where you should probably do it." Or, "Can you..." Not do it in my jurisdiction and just do it for Ontario.
	Kind of means it's not a national emergency if you can only do it for specific jurisdictions.
	Kind of means it's not a national emergency, by definition.
	The reality is there were pop-ups and troubling reports right across the country that we were getting from all of our various inputs.
	There was a...
	Every corner of the country, God forbid!
	He wasn't suppressing any constitutional rights people, but telling that you can't support protests.
	He required a use of the Emergencies Act.
	Oh, le Premier Legault expressed some concern.
	Oh, no, Legault, so he's going to go to French.
	He didn't want to have the RCMP suddenly...
	Take over all the police interventions and operations in Quebec when he thought he didn't need that.
	And I was able to reassure him.
	And it's something that I actually incorporated in my communication subsequently, that it was there to be used if necessary.
	But if, for instance, there was a blockade at La Colle, And the SQ is perfectly able to deal with it.
	They responded very well at the second weekend at an attempted convoy in Quebec City.
	The RCP was only there to be a support if necessary.
	And that was the framework.
	So it was a very useful conversation.
	And I heard a lot of points of view.
	And it was a good thing for me to be able to hear them, even with different opinions, and just to reassure what I was doing.
	Very quick question, then we've done this entire part.
	It's the last question I want to ask you about that day, Prime Minister.
	So at 3.41, you received the decision note from the clerk.
	We call it the invocation memo.
	Technically, it's a decision note.
	Presumably, you read it.
	Yes.
	And was there anything in it that surprised you?
	Was that the advice you were expecting to get from the clerk?
	Oh yeah, that's what I wanted.
	It was the advice that was consistent with the consensus around the table the day before.
	This is what happens when children petty tyrants get in power.
	The caucus said so.
	They all agree.
	Then I get the memo.
	On the various measures and on the invocation.
	And there was a clear consensus coming out of there that this is what we should do.
	But it was a big thing, not a small thing, to have the head of the public service formally recommend the invocation of the emergency.
	It wasn't him, everybody.
	He was just relying on the advice of emergency.
	It's not something that had ever been done in Canada before.
	And it'll be done whenever we want now.
	It was certainly not something that we undertook to do lightly.
	Bullshit.
	It was something that you undertook to do in advance, Trudy.
	You just testified to that earlier.
	From day one you were thinking about it.
	Sign off and agree with these notes, or in some cases disagree with them.
	And that was a moment that I took with the weight of the decision I was about to take.
	And I reflected briefly on, first of all, the reassurance that it gave me that the entire system, all the inputs in the system had come up to the clerk of the Privy Council, the top public servant in Canada, impartial professional public service, making the recommendation to move forward on this was essential to me.
	But I also reflected on, okay, what if I don't sign it?
	What if I say, okay, we now have advice from the professional public service to invoke a public order emergency?
	And I decide, you know what?
	Let's give it a few days.
	Such an emergency.
	Such a national emergency.
	We have a few days to think about it.
	That the use of it was appropriate and responsible and the measures were the right ones that we were going to put in it.
	You know who appoints the Privy Council?
	Let's wait and see another few days, another week to see if we really need to do it.
	First of all, what if the worst had happened in those following days?
	What if...
	Someone had gotten hurt.
	Well, someone got hurt.
	You trampled them with your horses, Trudeau.
	You shot a reporter.
	When I had an opportunity to do something.
	Tear gun canister.
	I had waited.
	You're police.
	And we had unthinkable happen over the coming days, even though there was all this warning that it was possibly coming.
	I would have warned that in a way that we would certainly be talking about in a forum such as this.
	But more than that.
	More than that.
	Oh, dig deep, Trudeau.
	Dig deep.
	Are you frozen?
	The responsibility of a prime minister is to make the tough calls and keep people safe.
	And this was a moment where the collective advice of the people I appointed and my own inclination was that This was a moment to do something that we needed to do to keep Canadians safe.
	Keep blood off the faces of children, like Dylan said yesterday.
	Knowing full well that this was an inevitable consequence of me signing, I agree, on this note, I was very comfortable that we were at a moment where this was the right thing to do.
	I was embarrassed.
	They didn't go home when I told them to.
	Biden was angry with me.
	It was an international embarrassment.
	And it is a certain amount of comfort that, first of all, the system is working as it should.
	That people who are defending civil liberties are able to say, you really should be careful about doing this.
	Maybe you shouldn't have done it.
	We have a system pushing back on this because it's a big thing, not a small thing to do this.
	But that also...
	Sorry, I can't stand this guy.
	We were able to solve the situation with it.
	No shit!
	That's not the issue, Trudeau!
	You used the sledgehammer to kill a fly.
	You killed the fly.
	You just destroyed the house.
	We were able to get neighborhoods back under control.
	Border services opened.
	No, border services were opened before that, you liar.
	The border services were opened.
	The ambassador blockade was over by the time you invoked it.
	Liar.
	I'm not going to pretend that it's the only thing that could have done it.
	But it did do it.
	And that colors the conversations we're having now with the fact that these could be very different conversations.
	And I am absolutely, absolutely serene and confident that I made the right choice in agreeing with the invocation.
	I made the right choice in agreeing.
	Mr. Commissioner, definitely a good time for a break.
	Okay, so we'll take the morning break.
	We'll take 15 minutes, please.
	Oh my God, is that hard to watch.
	Oh my God.
	Hold on one second.
	Okay, good.
	Can you pop on now?
	Oh my goodness.
	The consensus is he's a liar.
	Okay, we've got Mark Joseph again from the Democracy Fund.
	Let's just...
	We got some inside...
	Well, I don't know if we're going to get inside scoops.
	We've got limited time.
	Oh my gosh.
	I mean, it's enough to make you puke.
	I mean, literally, it's enough to make you vomit.
	I'll have to weigh my words more when a lawyer involved in the process is on.
	I will be surprised if he stays for cross.
	We'll see about that.
	All right, Mark, I'm bringing you on.
	This is Mark Joseph from the Democracy Fund, who is...
	They are involved in the proceedings, not representing any given party, representing democracy at large.
	Mark, for those who may not know who you are, just 30 seconds.
	Yeah, thanks for having me on, David.
	I'm Mark Joseph, the Senior Litigation Counsel at the Democracy Fund.
	And yeah, I'm watching just like you and your viewers and a little bit surprised and shocked.
	But, you know, that's our Prime Minister.
	So first things first, for people who are asking, I think I've mentioned it, but he's being examined by Chaudhry.
	She is the commissioner lawyer.
	So she's not supposed to be partisan.
	She's there, you know, just to get the facts out.
	Mark, people are asking, do you know, did Chaudhry, did the commission lawyers prep Trudeau or prepare with him, or did they have to give him a list of the questions?
	How does it work?
	Do you know?
	You know, I'm not 100% certain.
	I would expect that he reviews the previous evidence he gave in written form with the commission, because they all did interviews.
	All the witnesses did interviews with the commission counsel before.
	So he would probably review that.
	And there's no pre...
	You know, questions aren't provided before the interview, as far as I know.
	He just, you know, the commission couch just walks him through the evidence he's given before and allows him to speak it in his own words.
	What are you finding particularly, let me see if anyone else notices a problem with my mic.
	What are you finding particularly shocking from his testimony in chief?
	Well, I mean, I come at it with a legal bias, right?
	So I'm looking for the...
	The spin or the interpretation they're giving to Section 2 security threat.
	Because when you read the Act, that is the crux of it for us legally.
	That test has to be met because it's incorporated.
	Those words from the CSIS Act are incorporated into the Emergencies Act.
	And CSIS found, as you'll recall, I'm sure everyone knows, that there was no Section 2 security threat.
	And the government's saying, well, for their purposes...
	There was no security threat.
	But for the government's purposes, we are allowed to broaden that definition.
	And we found that there's a security threat.
	So we're listening for articulations about that interpretation.
	The government's putting on those words.
	And so I was listening to him when he mentioned that, well, we heard about lots of Threats of violence.
	But then he said, but okay, there was no actual violence, but there were threats.
	So I want him to specify the threats upon which the government found there was enough to declare a security threat.
	You are going to get, let me just get rid of this super chat.
	You're going to get to cross-examine?
	I'm not sure if TDF does or JCCF does.
	I think JCCF is cross-examining Prime Minister.
	We cross-examined, I believe, the panel yesterday and the Deputy Prime Minister.
	So I think it's JCCF today.
	Yeah, well, I know JCCF is going to.
	I just wasn't sure if there's going to be more than one.
	I mean, I've got to ask.
	What evidence has been adduced anywhere during this entire hearing?
	As to children being used as shields.
	I mean, I remember the CBC, the propaganda arm of the Liberal government, running stories about it being risky.
	Dangerous for children.
	They're going to use children as children's shields.
	We've got to get DPS, what is it?
	Child protectors?
	CPS, whatever.
	Get CPS in there to take the children away from this danger.
	What evidence, other than vague illusions by the government, was there of any children being used as shields or any risk to children at all?
	Well, that was put to one witness, and forgive me, I can't remember if it was Bill Blair or one of the police commissioners or deputy commissioners, and they had to concede that they had no, at least not enough to start a criminal investigation or not enough to get children's protection services involved.
	So it's basically anecdote and hearsay at this point, as far as I'm aware.
	I mean, that's a pretty serious allegation to make, but it couldn't be.
	Substantiated, as far as I know.
	My two cents, it's a bold-faced lie.
	It was propagated by the CBC and Radio Canada.
	Maybe not Radio Canada.
	CBC, I was there.
	Was I there or did I see the video?
	I'm pretty sure I was there when they were going around suggesting that the police might be coming in to take children away.
	Making accusations of using children as human shields, it's something you find in areas where people...
	Fire rockets from schools or hospitals or from populated residential areas.
	I don't even understand the concept of what children's shields could even mean in the context of this protest.
	It was people parking their cars in four blocks, four streets in downtown Ottawa.
	There was no war zone in which to be using children as shields.
	It was run by the CBC and it became a talking point, as did another thing, the incident at the Good Shepherd homeless shelter.
	Mark, do you know anything about that?
	My best recollection was that story was quickly debunked as either being a fabrication or having not exactly happened the way it was alleged to have happened, that the truckers weren't there asking for food.
	The truckers were actually feeding the homeless and not asking for food from homeless shelters.
	Was there any definitive resolution as to that story that has now become the stuff of lore for the government?
	I don't think so.
	I mean, we're always looking for allegations that can be substantiated and therefore made credible.
	And that one, I think I put into category with the arson story, which made an appearance at the commission, and it turns out that that wasn't connected to the convoy either.
	So it's funny, there's misinformation and disinformation is the hot topic, and it turns out, you know, Media, mainstream media often perpetuates or contributes to this, quote, you know, misinformation we're hearing about.
	So, yeah, a lot of these fantastical allegations were made and I don't think any have been substantiated.
	The arson had been definitively debunked.
	It was absolutely not related to the convoy.
	And I just couldn't find the story.
	The Good Shepherd incident, I'm fairly certain.
	The only evidence that it occurred the way it did is unsubstantiated tweets from the time, which I'm fairly certain have been debunked through counter-anecdotal evidence.
	Robert, force of habit.
	Mark, I think I know the answer to this.
	Cross-examination, the various crosses, they are in fact coordinating, working together.
	Are they even, from what I understood, ceding their time if someone else wants to get 10 minutes instead of 5 interrupted after 5?
	Are they working together?
	Well, see, everyone wants to shot at the Prime Minister.
	So unlike with past witnesses where you'd see some horse trading for time, there's not a lot of horse trading going on here.
	Everyone wants to cross-examine Justin Trudeau for their own self-interested purposes.
	I mean, you've seen a lot of infighting here between the various police forces and the cities.
	And so they need to cross-examine for their purposes.
	Obviously, the civil liberties organizations like the Moxie Fund, you know, we want to cross-examine for our purposes with respect to the legitimacy of the invocation.
	So everyone has their own perspective, and we all want to be heard.
	Mark, I'm going to bring this up because it's just classic.
	You know, Trudeau, his excuse now is, I was only listening to the clerk of the Privy Council.
	I don't know if this is her.
	I'm not trying to put anyone on blast.
	I'm just trying to illustrate the absurdity that Trudeau is relying on a member of his cabinet.
	If it's not her, I don't know who was before her, but just notice here, a pointer.
	Who appoints the, what do they call this person?
	The clerk of the Privy Council.
	The advice upon which Justin Trudeau is making the ultimate decision.
	Who appoints her?
	The governor and council.
	Who, on the advice of the Prime Minister, Mark, is it not patently absurd that you have Trudeau talking about a caucus of people who, if they don't work for him, you know, they work for him, telling him what he wants to hear, the people that he appoints, giving him the recommendation that they know that he wants because he wanted this from day one.
	How do you make sense of the absurdity of this vicious circle of tyranny?

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