Please enjoy my #PierrePoilievre cartoon for Tuesday's @TorontoStar pic.twitter.com/UHF3AVp4VE
— Theo Moudakis (@TheoMoudakis) December 5, 2022
Majority of Canadians favour Emergencies Act invocation, poll shows https://t.co/7S0prdOJIK
— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) December 5, 2022
The replies to this are out of this world. https://t.co/JSosmVJdwt
— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦 (@acoyne) December 5, 2022
This weekend there was a fascinating article in the Globe and Mail summarizing what was learned from the Emergencies Act testimony at the POEC. Here are some revelations of note:After the televised testimony at Inquiry
— G.T. Lem (@gtlem) December 5, 2022
46% of Canadians have a NEGATIVE impression of the Truckers involved in the #FreedomConvoy
That is DOUBLE DIGITS over the 23% of Canadians who have a negative impression of the government for using the Emergencies Act#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/ZdApSgIkAD
Convoy leaders egged on the protestors but did not risk their own trucks:
Ottawa police failed:...only through the inquiry did the public learn that while the leaders encouraged others to put their trucks – and therefore their livelihoods – on the line, most of the convoy leaders did not. Mr. Barber removed his truck, ‘Big Red,’ from the “red zone” after the second weekend. Mr. King left his motorhome in a “secure location” and hitched a ride downtown. Ms. Belton left her big rig at home, as did Mr. Dichter.Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor at Carleton University and a former federal intelligence analyst, said the convoy leaders have shown – at the protests and in the inquiry – that “they see reality entirely differently.”“They’re not delusional,” she said, but added, “I’m not sure anything would have convinced them that they were causing harm.”
The Ontario government failed:...In an emergency situation, a police services board and a police chief are the only ones that can ask the OPP to take over when a police force is not providing “adequate and effective” policing, Prof. Kempa said. Mr. Sloly’s senior commanders believed he thought that other police services coming to Ottawa to help craft an enforcement plan illustrated a plot against him, the inquiry has heard.Police stood by as protesters formed supply lines of fuel-filled jerry cans and indiscriminately set off fireworks near condos and office buildings. Yet Mr. Sloly testified that the chaos never met the threshold where he should have relinquished command. And then-Ottawa police board chair Diane Deans testified that she couldn’t recall if the board ever considered making a request to the OPP.The chaos should have triggered an automatic threshold for the OPP to take control, but no such mechanism exists, Prof. Kempa said.
And Canadian intelligence agencies weren't as helpful as they could have been:...the Emergencies Act assumes all parties do their jobs, as expected, not that the Ottawa police would be “dysfunctional” or that Mr. Ford would decide “he didn’t want to get involved and kick it up to the federal government.”“It assumed that the Ontario government would be working and solving this and it wasn’t. So what do you do?” she said.
I'm not sure what the POEC will make of all this, except perhaps to conclude that Mulroney and Beatty were maybe indulging in a bit of wishful thinking back in 1987 when they thought the process of declaring a state of emergency would be polite, orderly, and unencumbered by bureaucratic incompetence at several levels....The inquiry has heard that the protests in Ottawa and elsewhere did not rise to the level of a national-security threat, under the CSIS Act. Yet CSIS director David Vigneault testified that he recommended the act’s invocation – after receiving a legal opinion from the Justice Department that the Emergencies Act could take a broader interpretation than the CSIS Act.On Feb. 14, about an hour before the act’s invocation was announced, Mr. Trudeau received a memo from Canada’s top public servant recommending the act’s use. A detailed threat assessment was meant to follow “under separate cover,” but it did not. Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser, had sought that threat assessment earlier that day but she testified that it “fell through the cracks and we were overtaken by events.”
