Volume 6 (October 20, 2022)
Volume 6 has 283 pages of testimony. 18 people spoke before the Commission, including 3 witnesses.
Very important disclaimer: testimony from this site should not be taken as authoritative; check the relevant public hearing for verbatim quotes and consult the associated transcript for the original written text. For convenience, testimony includes links directly to the relevant page (where a speaker started a given intervention) in the original PDF transcripts.
The testimony below is converted from the PDF of the original transcript, prepared by Wendy Clements.
Speakers, by number of times they spoke:
- Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief - Ottawa Police Service / City of Ottawa (Ott-OPS) (spoke 719 times)
- Frank Au, Senior Counsel - Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) (spoke 316 times)
- Eric Brousseau, Counsel - Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) (spoke 193 times)
- Craig Abrams, Superintendent (Supt) - Ontario Provincial Police / Government of Ontario (ON-OPP) (spoke 191 times)
- Rebecca Jones, Counsel - Peter Sloly (spoke 122 times)
- Christopher Diana, Counsel - Ontario Provincial Police / Government of Ontario (ON-OPP) (spoke 84 times)
- Anne Tardif, Counsel - City of Ottawa (Ott) (spoke 65 times)
- Paul Champ, Counsel - Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses (spoke 63 times)
- Paul Rouleau, Commissioner - Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) (spoke 39 times)
- Jessica Barrow, Counsel - Ottawa Police Service / City of Ottawa (Ott-OPS) (spoke 32 times)
- Brendan Miller, Counsel - Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers (spoke 30 times)
- Rob Kittredge, Counsel - Democracy Fund / Citizens for Freedom / Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms Coalition (DF / CfF / JCCF) (spoke 23 times)
- Caroline Laverdière, Counsel - Government of Canada (GC) (spoke 13 times)
- The Registrar - Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) (spoke 9 times)
- Tom Curry, Counsel - Peter Sloly (spoke 3 times)
- Unidentified speaker (spoke 2 times)
- Brendan van Niejenhuis, Counsel - Government of Canada (GC) (spoke 1 time)
- Diane Deans, Councillor - City of Ottawa (Ott) (spoke 1 time)
Upon commencing on Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 9:34 a.m.
The Registrar (POEC)
Order. À l’ordre. The Public Order Emergency Commission is now in session. La Commission sur l’état d’urgence est maintenant ouverte.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Good morning. Bonjour. Today, we have a new witness?
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
We do.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay. Go ahead.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Good morning, Commissioner.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Good morning.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
It's Frank Au, Senior Counsel for the Commission. Our next witness is Deputy Chief Ferguson.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Sorry, Commissioner, if I can interject. There's an echo here that's quite distracting. I don't know if there's a difficulty with the sound system.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay. I'm not sure. There is a bit of an echo. Okay, is that better? Okay.
The Registrar (POEC)
Deputy Chief Ferguson, will you swear on a religious document, or do you wish to affirm?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I'd like to swear on the Bible, please.
The Registrar (POEC)
Please take the Bible in your right hand. For the record, please state your full name and spell it out.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Patricia Ferguson, P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A F-E-R-G-U-S-O-N.
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF PATRICIA FERGUSON, Sworn
EXAMINATION IN-CHIEF BY MR. FRANK AU
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Good morning, Deputy Chief.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good morning. It's actually Acting Deputy Chief.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Acting Deputy Chief. We met in the summer when you attended an interview with the Commission.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I recall.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And after that interview, we prepared a summary for you to review?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And I understand that you've adopted the contents of that summary?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I have.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Is there any corrections that you'd like to make to that summary?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, none.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Commissioner, will that be the evidence, then?
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
(Inaudible response)
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, I'll just call you Deputy Chief for short.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Just for the record, maybe do the number.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Oh the -- yes. It's WTS00000 -- sorry, WTS00000023. Now, Deputy Chief, during the Freedom Convoy protests back in January and February, you were the executive responsible for Community Policing.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And in that role, you supervised the Specialized Policing Directorate.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I did.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And that directorate includes the Special Events Unit, which was responsible for planning before the arrival of the convoy.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And just to get a sense of the top executive level at the Ottawa Police Service, at the time at the top there was the former Chief Sloly?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And then he was assisted by two Deputy Chiefs.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And you were one of those?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And the other -- who was the other Deputy Chief?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Deputy Chief Steven Bell.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And he's now the Interim Chief of the Ottawa Police Service.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he is.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What portfolio was he responsible for back in January last -- well, last winter?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We refer to it as the Three I's, Information, Intelligence, and Investigations.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So whereas you had strategic oversight over planning as part of the Community Policing, Deputy Chief had strategic oversight over Intelligence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, you've told us during our interview that you first learned about the Freedom Convoy, the fact that they were travelling to Ottawa, at -- during the week of January 17th; is that right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And yesterday, the Commission heard evidence that the OPP started sharing Intelligence reports related to the Freedom Convoy with the OPS as early as January 13th.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's my understanding.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So I want to explore with you the extent to which that intelligence was shared within the OPS.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the initial sharing of that report went to our Intelligence Section, or our Intelligence Superintendent. And I should lay the groundwork in that in January of 2022, so January 3rd, a number of our senior officers changed portfolios. So the person who received that was Superintendent Rob Drummond; however, he had moved portfolios at that point in time. I do know it was shared with him, with our Special Events Section, and with former Chief Sloly.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And when did you first learn about those Hendon reports?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe the first one that I was privy to and actually received was on the 27th of January ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- the 28th of January, in and around then, so after the convoy was well underway.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Can I call up document Number OPS00014479? If we go to page 26. Now, Deputy Chief, so this is your notes. There's some reference, I believe, to February the 1st. So during the interview we had in the summer, I believe you said that the first time you learned about Project Hendon was after the arrival of the convoy. Do you recall that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I would have received it on the 27th or 28th, but those were hectic times. So I can't say for sure that I actually saw the report at that point in time, I just know that's when it landed in my email inbox. So I -- my recollection was, as I mentioned when I spoke to you in the summertime, I had not been aware that this project was underway with the OPP.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And if you received the report as of the 27th, what did you do with it since you first learned about it?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't recall. I expect I probably would've seen it at some point in time in my inbox, but it was a chaotic time so many things were going on.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, you had your team started planning for Project -- started planning for the arrival of the convoy sometime before the 27th. Do you know the extent to which they were privy to those Intelligence information?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
The Special Events Planning Team, I can't say. I believe that our Intelligence -- some of our Intelligence officers would have seen it prior to the convoy arriving, but I don't know the exact date of that. And my role was really at the strategic level, so the plans were being developed, and I -- you know, they -- normally they're developed with Intelligence open source information, Police Liaison Team information.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Tell us about the usual process for the OPS in planning for a major event, like these convoy protests. What's the expectations in terms of information- sharing as between the Intelligence Unit and the Planning Unit?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It's generally fairly smooth. I would say that the bulk of the information for demonstrations prior to the convoy was not Intelligence-based, it was information, and so it was, you know, open source. Whether that is, you know, for an example, if we have a concert coming into town, the Special Events Unit will look at what kind of, you know, music it is, what kind of crowd it draws, they will speak to places where that band has played before, and they will develop a plan that is, you know, commensurate with what they've seen in other places. And so for the convoy, they did their usual where they looked to, you know determine as much as they could, reached out to other police services where the convoy was travelling through, getting information from them, trying to get an assessment or an idea of numbers that we were looking at and what kind of behaviour they were engaging in along the way in their cities. And up until point we were hearing that, you know, they were cooperative, they were providing lanes of traffic across the Prairies. And so our special events team was alive to those issues and continued to gather that right up until the day they came into town.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, yesterday we heard from Superintendent Morris that the intelligence that was available strongly suggested a long-term event, meaning weeks, not days or a weekend. Did your planning team take that into account?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe what our planning team did was assessed all of the information that they had, and perhaps there was some information saying that some factions of it would be staying for longer. I think what they did was they developed a plan commensurate to the experience that we’ve had for over two and a half decades in this city, as far as I know, on what demonstrations generally look like, how long they last, and the type of behaviour we see. And so I believe they planned taking into account all of that information and developed the plan that we had.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, were there not signs that this protest was going to be different in the days or weeks leading up to the arrival?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe what was fluctuating for us was the numbers, the actual volume of trucks. And as -- and the money that they were collecting. I think towards the last few days, we were seeing that there was a big spike in the GoFundMe money being raised, so that was different than most of the demonstrations that we see. Did that tell us specifically that they were planning on staying for a long time and that when they got here, they would engage in the behaviour that they did? It did not. And I think what we’ve learnt is that there’s a lot of misinformation, disinformation and false information surrounding this group, and so they were trying to assess as best they could, but they relied general on the experience that that seasoned planning team had.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, let’s take a look at some of the documents that we know were available to your team. First of all, the initial plan that was developed by the OPS, that was written by Staff Sergeant Kevin Kennedy; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And it was then approved by Inspector Lucas?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And they both reported to you; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They reported to Superintendent Rehaume, and then to me, yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. They reported to you through Superintendent ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So if we could call up, please, OPS00002878. So Deputy Chief, I’m showing you an email from Sergeant Sean Kay to Staff Sergeant Kennedy dated January the 21st. It was forwarded to you at the top, as you can see. We go down to the -- to the -- to page 4. At the top of page 4. You see that -- it’s written there that, “The goal of the convoy is to remain in Ottawa until the restrictions are repealed.” Right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And there’s no expectation at the time that those restrictions would be repealed any time soon.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So didn’t that suggest to your team that it was going to be a long-term event, not a weekend event?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think it suggested there was the potential for that. There were no guarantees, I don’t think, in the information that we had or the intelligence, even, to say that it was going to be here for the amount of time it was.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
All right. Let’s call up another document, OPS00002932. I expect this will be an email dated January the 24th from Sergeant Louis Carvalho, and it was forwarded to you. If we go to page 1 near the bottom. Sorry. Page 1. Maybe we go up. I’m looking for the reference where it says different groups now getting on board. (SHORT PAUSE)
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you see the cursor here, “Different groups now getting on board such as the farmers and right wing extremists calling for major disruptions.”
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do see that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what does that suggest to you?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it suggests that there’s -- there’s interest in this. A lot of times some of the information that we will look at are things like, you know, if there’s a Facebook live group and we’ll see that a whole lot of people “like” an event. And we’ve used that to sort of assess our level of staffing needed for an event, but it doesn’t always translate to actual numbers. And so when they say “getting on board”, that could be a number of different things. That could be that they are contributing it, that could be that they are supporting them. That could be that they’re standing on a highway overpass, you know, honking horns in regard to that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, the Commission heard evidence last Friday from a businesswoman, a Ms. Carrier. She’s a layperson and she said it was clear to her that the trucks wouldn’t be travelling all this way to Ottawa from the west to stay a day for a short protest. It was obvious to her. She didn’t have access to any police intelligence. Why wouldn’t it be obvious to someone who’s trained to analyze this kind of events?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I think we’re trained to analyze a lot of information, and so that was part of the information that formed the planning that was going on. But as I said, with this campaign there was a lot of information coming at us from different sources. Some sources are more reliable than others, and I think even the Hendon reports were -- left it quite open that this could be, you know, a prolonged event but then, in another sentence, indicated that they were expecting they would be leaving town by the end of the weekend or by the middle of the following week. So when we addressed the community preparing them for this, we said a prolonged event and, for us, the experience in that was over the three days, you know, of the weekend. So did we err in our assessment of this? Clearly, we did.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Well, in addition to the Hendon reports, there were also other sources of information being provided to the City and to the OPS corroborating those intelligence reports such as the email from the Hotel Association suggesting that people were booking somewhere upwards of 30 days to stay in the hotels, lots of people doing that. Why wouldn’t that strongly suggest an event beyond the weekend?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, we did work to track down some of those sources of information, and we were getting misinformation, I said, and disinformation. And I think that was one of those things that they weighed in assessment. We followed up with Steve Ball of the Hotel Association to determine just how many rooms had been booked, and over the course of the convoy, that piece of information came up on a number of occasions. And the reality was that our hotels were not able to be booked to capacity because they did not have the staff. We were still in the sixth wave of COVID and they were working at very limited capacity at that point in time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, the trucks started to arrive on Friday, the 28th; right? And you gave a media briefing on that day at 11:00 a.m., so let’s go to OPS00003851. So you see, Deputy Chief, that these are your speaking notes.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So if we go down a little bit, you said: “Over the last few days our team has been finalizing operational plans in anticipation of the demonstrations. Planning has involved coordination with our policing and intelligence partners at all levels of government and the Ottawa Police would like to thank them [and so on]. Information gathered continues to indicate this will be a large and significant event that is expected to last through the weekend.” There’s no mention that there was any expectation it would go beyond the weekend.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There was none.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why was that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
As I said, we weighed the information intelligence we had, and that was the plan that was developed based on what our best assessment of that was.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Wouldn’t it have been helpful to notify the public, the business owners and the residents that, at the very least, there was a strong possibility of the event going beyond the weekend?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it may well have been helpful.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, you agree that the planning was premised entirely on the assumption that this was going to be a two-day event; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Tom Curry, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Commissioner, may I just ---
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Yes.
Tom Curry, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
--- raise one issue? I appreciate that Commission Counsel has control of the presentation of the evidence of the hearing, and also, that given the number of parties, each of us has a limited time with each of the witnesses called. May I ask through you that the witnesses -- and this is a good example -- be taken to the parts of the record that might balance the premise of some of the questions that we have heard so far. And I raise that because with this witness, we have 25 minutes. I know my friends have - - some of them have less, maybe some have more. It's not possible for us in the limited time that we have to put each of the pieces of information that might, for example, put into context the questions my friend Mr. Au has raised so far about the premise of his question, a strong possibility that it was going to be longer. Well, there's evidence that it was going to be a weekend, and we can draw it out, but I would be grateful if I could raise through you that the Commission's time with the witnesses be perhaps more balanced in presenting the information that in this case Deputy Chief Ferguson had at the time rather than counting on her to remember all of it. Thank you.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay. Well, I think the - - certainly you're correct in terms of the Commission is to bring out the evidence either way and to bring all of the facts to the public eye. And to the degree there is material that goes the other way, I'm sure Commission Counsel will refer to it, and if they don't, I'm sure you will, but I can assure you, our objective in this hearing is to provide the public with all of the information, pro and con, of course, as you point out. And can't guarantee we're always a hundred percent correct in what we do. We do the best we can. And, of course, you also know that there is always enough cross-examination time to equal the amount of time Commission takes. So in total, we hope that all of the different perspectives are brought out. And yesterday I think was a good example, where there was some very useful, I thought, information brought out by the various parties participating. So I certainly am grateful for the contribution of all the parties. So your question is noted, your concern is noted, and I'm sure Counsel will take it into account.
Tom Curry, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Thank you, Commissioner.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now when you spoke to us in August, you mentioned that the OPS had standard plans that it used for parades and other major events like Canada Day; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now the initial plan for the Freedom Convoy, and by the way, the document number is OPP00004262. We don't need to call it up right now but just for the record, that's the plan I'm referring to, the January 28th, 29th plan. Do you agree that that initial plan was largely a boiler plate plan that followed the standard template?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I believe the components of the plan were the standard components that we employ, so, yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And according to this initial plan, the convoy, convoy vehicles would enter downtown Ottawa and the plan was to stack those vehicles along Wellington between Kent and Elgin; am I right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe we had four areas where we ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- were going to be stacking vehicles, but, yes, that was one of them.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now as this plan then, this graphic component, was it premised on this being a two-day event?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And so here's something perhaps you can help me understand, because we heard from Councillor McHale on Friday that even for an event like Canada Day, there would be road closures in the downtown core and barriers set up to control the mass of vehicles that might otherwise cause a problem. So why wasn't this done here?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe we had officers in who were -- our Traffic Unit was leading the trucks to where they were supposed to be, so I believe that was -- you know, barriers and road closures impede our ability to get around, and so I think that was what they were doing, was that once the vehicles were in place. So we've had a number where people have stayed for two days on Wellington, and that is -- you know, it's obviously the place where they want to be. That's the whole point of their protesting the federal government. And so that was what happened in this case. And in terms of road closures and barriers, I'm not sure that that would have been helpful. If people were wanting to leave, the barriers would have impeded them from being able to do that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Was any consideration given to, for example, taking the trucks somewhere beyond downtown and have transportation arranged so that people could protest downtown, so the people could be there?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, there was, in fact, the area designated, I know it as Coventry Road. I can't remember the full name of the baseball park, but that was an area that was designated as somewhere they could go. And, in fact, some people did carpool from there and come downtown.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
But my -- I guess the intent of my question was to move all of the trucks away from the downtown, not just some of them.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think realistically, a number of them really wanted to be in front of Parliament Hill. If we could have done that, if we had gotten cooperation, that certainly would have been our goal, but there was a -- we didn't know the size of, you know, of the convoy, how many trucks we were dealing at and how big an area we had to work with. So we did our best, I think, to keep them out of residential areas, and that was why, you know, parkways were chosen, Sir John A MacDonald Parkway, in order to make sure that -- you know, we could afford losing that road for the weekend and limit the disruption for Ottawa citizens. That was the intent.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now in hindsight, what would you have done differently in this planning phase?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I suppose we would have given more credibility to the information in Intelligence telling us that there was a faction that were planning on staying for a much longer period of time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. All right. Now so far we've been talking about the OPS planning before the convoy's arrival and we're going to turn now to the OPS response after they've arrived.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
But before I do that, I want to ask you some basic questions about what's known as the Incident Command System.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now I understand that in responding to incidents including protests and demonstrations that police sometimes use a model called Incident Command System.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And within the system, the role you played back in January and February was the role of a strategic commander; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now there are three different levels to the command.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Strategic, operational and tactic.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What does the strategic command do?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the strategic really informs the goals of what it is we're trying to achieve. So in this case, you know, to safely, you know, manage this event, and ultimately, once they had arrived and, you know, not left, our goal became to encourage them to leave. And so that's the strategic level and that really is what -- you know, where I was sitting at. The event commander, who was Superintendent Rheaume ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Sorry, before we get to the next level ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- we're going to talk about the operational; right? So before we leave the strategic, so just to clarify, you'd be setting the strategic objective, and would you be also responsible for appointing the operational commander?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So once the objective is set and you've appointed an operational commander, is there some expectation that you'll give autonomy to the operational commander?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely. That's the only way it works.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And why is that important?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, because they're the ones who have, you know, much more connection with what is happening in the different areas. And so they are much more aware of, you know, from the ground what is going on and they're able to take in that information, measure it against what they know that's going on in another area and be able to make a decision in event. I'm not always privy to those.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And would it also be the role of the strategic commander to ensure that the operational commander had the requisite resources to see to the end of the situation?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Now let's talk about the operational commander, the next level down. What does that involve?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay. So that would be the event commander, and that is somebody who takes in, as I alluded to a little bit already, the information that's coming at him. He's got a variety of different people who were reporting to him, and providing him with updates, and he is really sort of the quarterback, I guess, if you will, making sure that resources are being sent to the right places in order to assist achieving our goals here in this. And then we would move to the tactical level.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So is it the responsibility of the operational commander to develop a suitable plan to address the incident?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think he assigns that task to his team to do that, and ultimately he’s the final approver of the plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And depending on the severity of the incident, perhaps the operational commander is sometimes called an incident commander, sometimes a critical incident commander, and I guess with the OPS they’re also the event commander; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And your role as the strategic commander is also known as the major incident commander?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
All right. Now, you mentioned that the operational commander may get other people to help them?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Would these be, like, subject matter experts in specialized policing areas?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and he would work at his level. So with other superintendents. So let’s say the intelligence superintendent, or the investigation superintendent, to make sure that they are feeding into -- that their people are involved in the plan and the aftermath and carrying out whatever needs to be done at the time of the tasks.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And some of these specialized areas that I suspect we’ll hear about include the Public Order Unit?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And the Police Liaison Team?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Let’s talk about the next - - actually, before we leave this, we’re going to be hearing from Insp. Lucas and Supt. Bernier next week. Would they be operational commanders?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Insp. Lucas was the incident commander and Supt. Bernier was the event commander.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And they would both be at the Operational Command level; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, Supt. Bernier was at the -- yes, sorry, operational. And I believe that Insp. Lucas was more in the -- you’re right, sorry, he would be in that operational phase, and the tactical one is more the POU, PLT, Traffic.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So they would both be reporting to you back in January/February?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they would.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So finally, the tactical level, what does that involve?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that involves specific units and their tasks are very focused on -- as I said, the Traffic Unit, they came up with their plan to -- on how to -- and this one was very much a traffic related incident or event. But we also had our Public Order teams, our Police Liaison Teams, we had Intelligence Teams, we had Investigations, we had our Communications Team, we had Logistics, Staffing. And as the event grows, you build out the pieces that you need, Finance for example, HR was involved, we were swearing in other officers from other jurisdictions. So as that progressed and grew, so did our table.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Would it be fair to say that the tactical level of command is responsible for executing the plan that is developed by the Operational Commander?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it would.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Let’s talk about the two specialized units that I put to you before. The PLT or Police Liaison Unit. What are they?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that’s a group of specially trained officers who, when we have demonstrations, before, during, and after, they’re engaged in reaching out to organizers to build rapport with them, to find out what it is that the group is trying to achieve, to work with them to help facilitate what they are looking to achieve in town. And so, you know, part of that is if a group would like to, you know, have a march down Albert Street at 8:00 o’clock in the morning, we might try and speak with them and saying, “Maybe, how about we did it at 10:00 o’clock? That might be --” so those types of conversations happen. They look to, as I said, build rapport and relationships with the people who are involved so that when they get here, that relationship is already established and they can have conversations with them about what is acceptable behaviour by the people of their group, where, you know, their Charter of Rights end, and perhaps criminal charges could be -- or, you know, disobedience and civil disobedience type of things will occur. And in the event that something is going on during the event, where there might be an agitator or an antagonizer, then they would speak to that person that they already had the relationship with and let them know what the consequences are, or that this behaviour is problematic and we’d like for that cease, insomuch as it really is about negotiating and trying to change behaviours through conversation.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So if disruptive behaviours occur during an event, would it be the role of the PLT to engage in order to try to de-escalate the situation?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it would.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What about the Public Order Unit, or POU?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Public Order Unit, we refer to them, you might see in some of the documents, as ESU, Emergency Services Unit. They have a two- fold sort of -- when we have a missing person, they will go out and search an area. They’re trained in those types of things. Again, we have about 100 officers, both sworn and civilian, mostly sworn, who are trained in being able to -- whether it’s crowd control, crowd management, those types of things. So they are the ones who ultimately we saw take the streets on that weekend that moved forward with moving people out of the streets. So if you think of it in the way of a triangle, the incident commander is at the top of the triangle, and on both opposite corners, you have the ability to use force should you -- your PLT and negotiations break down.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So in responding to the freedom convoy after they’ve arrived, was this the model that the OPS used to address the incident?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, to a certain extent. I think we failed in certain areas regarding PLT, and I think they struggled as a result. But that was what we were hoping. And you saw one of those -- Louis Carvalho was on our PLT team. He was a sergeant there. And he was working also with going out to businesses and letting them know, and doing that engagement piece as well. So not just with the convoy organizers, but with the areas that they believe are going to be impacted and affected ahead of time ahead of time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So with that background, let’s start talking about how the OPS responded to the freedom convoy. And now we know that they arrived the weekend of the 28th and they -- and the incident was not resolved until those three and a half weeks later.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So let’s break down the time period and let’s talk first about the first week after they arrived. So let’s say from January 28th, to -- which is a Friday, to February the 4th; okay?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now during that period? Well, first, tell us what happened on the first weekend?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So as they arrived into town, you know, we were monitoring numbers where it was -- you know, safety, obviously, is always our first priority. And so we were monitoring with that lens for sure. And we were starting to see, you know, they were pulling into the areas that they were sent to or steered to. And then we started to see, I would qualify it as a bit of a party atmosphere, sort of festival-like, people were very excited to be there. Myself and Deputy Bell walked around in the downtown core and saw some of the, you know, the people that were there. And it was, in those first few days, not as, I would say, as disruptive as it got to be. When the weekend came and went and Monday morning arrived and they were still on our streets, at that point in time, Ottawa Police was in a situation of, “Okay. We’ve got to pivot. We have to reassess what we’ve got here. We have to evolve our plan.” So began starting to, you know, strategize and brainstorm as to what actions could be taken, what did we have available to us. I know that, you know, at the command level, we had considered an injunction with the City, we had spoken to other police partners. A lot of those things were going on at all levels. So at the strategic, the operational, and the tactical level, I know our members were fully engaged in those types of behaviours, to try and come up with what our next plan -- we knew we needed to evolve and move into another stage, really. So it was reorienting ourselves to the situation that we had at hand.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, during that first weekend, when did you first realize that this may last longer than a weekend?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think really as Sunday progressed. We expected that a number of people would be heading back to, you know, their home cities. And I knew that there were some people from out west, we were seeing the Alberta plates, we were seeing, you know, Saskatchewan, but we expected that, you know, the -- we had an influx of pedestrians that came over from Quebec side. I think we had some expectations that those folks who were in the surrounding areas, would retreat back to their homes. And I think, you know, really, Sunday -- as Sunday night carried on, we had been talking about a demobilization plan up until that point, and clearly that was not the plan that was going to be required.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Let me take you to a document dated the 31st, which would be the Monday; OPS00004976. This will be an email from Robin Millbank. Who’s Robin?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Robin is my Executive Assistant.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. I expect this email will -- is a kind of minutes for an executive briefing at 8:00 a.m.; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct. We were briefing twice a day, and Robin was taking notes from those briefings.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So if you take a look at the second bullet, you see a reference to: “Staffing is #1 risk; priority is working on plan;” Can you explain what that refers to?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Sorry; why was staffing the number one risk?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
The state of the Ottawa Police at this stage was one of very poor staffing. We had been in that state for, I would say, a number of years. Prior to becoming the Deputy of Community Policing, my position was the Superintendent of Frontline, and so it was a challenge every day to make sure that we had all the shifts covered. The pandemic obviously, like any other workforce, had a large impact on our people; we had some high sick levels. At this point in time, we were in the sixth wave of COVID and so what we had done to try and mitigate that was -- and it had been quite successful in the early days of the pandemic, was to establish a reserve staffing. So a group of officers who would be healthy at home, should we have an outbreak where we have an entire platoon taken out, we are able to upstaff. Another measure that we took was to limit our -- we have six platoons, generally; we cut it down to four platoons. So if you think of 30 people per platoon, when we divided one in half, then we had 45 members on each platoon to up our numbers a little bit to try and mitigate that. And that was going into the convoy. We were already -- I would describe us as being on our knees and having run a marathon for the last two and a half years, and it felt like they’d moved the finish line 100 yards, or another mile, and given us 200 pounds to carry to get to the end. So staffing was, I would say, our number one Achilles heel in all of this. And so all of these people who had worked for the week leading up to the convoy, over the weekend -- and long hours; you know, our frontline members were working 12 hour shifts. When the convoy came and we were trying to manage staffing and clear posts, some of them were working up to 15 hours, and it was -- they were -- they were exhausted. So we needed to make sure that our people had time off. And so that, I believe, is what we’re thinking about, is it’s a risk for us to be able to staff all of this.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Yeah. Did staffing become the number one risk overnight because there was no contingency plan within the initial plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that’s part of it. You know, I think we had some extra resources for the weekend. We had some additional public order units from other services that had some into town, but they all had to get back as well. So our contingency plan really was for the weekend into Monday morning, and, you know, staffing -- I believe that really is what they’re referring to there.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So to the extent there was any contingency planning, it only covered up to, perhaps, Monday at noon.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think that’s fair.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, that bullet also talks about, “priority is working on plan,” so I assume this refers to some kind of a new plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Or evolving the plan that we have, depending on what the planners determine is the -- they’re saying it’s an entirely new, we’re starting from scratch with a new position now with the situation we have on hand.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So what’s the vision, now, for the new plan? What was that going to look like?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I think ultimately we wanted to move the truckers out of the downtown core, and to limit the impact on our residents, and always to keep in mind public safety, and our officer safety as well.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
All right. If we go -- scroll down a little bit. Go down. Okay. Do you see the bullet, the third bullet from the bottom it says: “No longer a protest but an occupation now; need to move away from operational plan and reset - new plan needed to go forward;...” Now, whose view was it that this is no longer a protest, but an occupation?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe this is Chief Sloly.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what makes it an occupation as opposed to a protest?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think at this point because they weren’t leaving. They had, you know, expressed that they wanted to protest. Protesting, you know, generally is a limited window, in our experience. And so the fact that they were now no longer leaving. And the behaviour that they were engaging in, I think was what really upped that temperature to making it an occupation; that they were settling in, that they were starting to put up tents and, you know, really begin to entrench themselves.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, at around this time, Supt. Abrams of the OPP was also in Ottawa. He’ll actually be testifying this afternoon after you, and we expect that he may say that the OPS was struggling to develop a new plan; that Chief Sloly would give inconsistent direction and there was much confusion. What’s your perspective on this?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think those are fair statements. We struggled because we didn’t have people who were strictly planners. Our planners were also people who were site commanders on the ground, who were trying to manage things at the very tactical level. And so I think to say we were struggling is fair and accurate. I think we did on that Monday morning -- you can see the conversation in this, we’re trying to get our heads wrapped around what we were looking at. And in terms of former Chief Sloly providing direction, and -- yeah, direction, he definitely was of what he wanted to see happen.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So who was the Event Commander, the Operational Level Commander at this time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So at this point in time it remained Supt. Rheaume, and I was the Major Event Commander.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And in terms of developing a plan to resolve the incident, would it be on Supt. Rheaume; would that be his job to develop a plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What would have been your role at that time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
In making sure that they were aware of what the strategic goals were, ultimately, to have, you know, this resolved as safely as possible, but for these trucks to be removed from our streets.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why, then, would the former Chief be giving directions?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think you’d have to ask Chief Sloly, but I think, you know, from a human perspective, I would say that it was a -- this was not what he was expecting, and his reaction was one out of concern, out of stress, and out of pressure at this point in time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
All right. So let’s take a look at what happened a few days later, on the 4th of February. Can we call up OPS00014454, please? And I want to go to page 52. So Deputy Chief, this is -- these are scribed notes or minutes taken at meetings that involve former Chief Sloly. So I want to scroll down to the part where it says, “Last Friday”; it’s page 52. So Deputy Chief, you see: “Last Friday’s operational plan is not valid. If so, then we need to update it.” Now, help me understand here because as of the 31st, there was a recognition that you needed a new plan, but here we are on February the 4th, three days later, and we’re still talking about last Friday’s plan not being valid. Was there no new plan yet by the 4th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We did not have a new plan by the 4th. We had -- as I said, our planners, I think, were working on developing it but they were also dealing with a number of the live issues, putting out fires, as it were, within their area; and again, staffing, I think, for those folks was as limited as it was everywhere else in the organisation. So I'm not sure whose notes these are.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
These are scribe ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Scribe notes? Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Yeah.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, so I think it's fair to say that we did not have another plan developed by the 4th.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So if we go back in time to the day before, February the 3rd. And I want to show you the document, OPS00014484. So this looks like an email that the former Chief sent to himself with respect to a meeting that he had with you and Deputy Chief Bell. So if we go down to page 3. Go down. Keep going. Keep going. Okay. Do you see the part where he says: "I advised that I cannot approve a recommended course of action without being briefed on all other reasonable courses of action..." So the context was a discussion of POU plans. What's your recollection as to the Chief, the former Chief's role in terms of approving actions?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it was generally felt, and because of statements like this, that he was the final approver of plans, and that became the sentiment for everybody who was producing those plans, that they needed to have them approved by former Chief Sloly.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, are these not operational or tactical decisions involving the POU?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They are.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
But at that time, it was -- it's your understanding that he was directing decisions at this level of command?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, he was directing a staff sergeant.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And did you feel any need to intervene and perhaps speak up and say, "Hey, we have the Incident Command model here to run. Each one has their role within the model." Did you do anything like that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We did speak to him about not directing Operations, and reminded him of what role he played in it on a number of occasions throughout this time. Because there were a few incidents where he would engage with constables or he would, you know, engage with the Event Commander outside of the chain of command. I think you see in this email or notes to himself. I was working with Staff Sergeant Stoll and the group to try and get a plan, and indicated that we would like to see them, and he -- the former Chief wanted him to present to him, he wanted to see specifically a public order plan. And a public order plan, it just forms part of the larger plan, but he was fixated on this one.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So as of February the 4th, there was no plan. Let's move to the next week, roughly from February the 5th, which was a Friday, to February the 10th, which was a Thursday. Can we have the document OPS00007355, please? So this is an email from the former Chief to you, Deputy Chief, and I'll give you a moment to look at it. Can we slowly scroll down? So this seems to be about a meeting that he was having with the Command Team at 8:00 a.m., and he set out some priorities. So for example, here, you see three general priorities listed, "surge, contain and enforce"; the second being, well, "close everything", in brackets: "...(roads, bridges, highway off ramps...) as early and as long as possible." The third priority being to shut down -- well, shut down a number of things: Shut down the funds, the fundraising; shut down the fuel; shut down the fun, the bouncy castles and so on. So these are the general priorities, and then some specific priorities with respect to locations are set out, and we see four here. There's a Confederation Park being one; the Rideau, we've heard some evidence about the Rideau/Sussex intersection, I assume that's what this is referring to.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Wellington. Is that the Wellington?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And then SJAM, is Sir John A. MacDonald ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you recall the substance of this meeting?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I do.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, was this an outline for a new Operation Plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It certainly seemed that way.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So who set these priorities?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
This would be Chief -- former Chief Sloly.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So it is not the Operational Commander setting these priorities or developing a plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, it isn't.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And was this outline developed into a fully operational plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We took portions of this. The surge, contain and enforce had been announced the day before, and that was something that he wanted us to be doing in the neighbourhoods that were most affected. And he talked about flooding the areas and having a cop on every corner, which in concept is a good idea to try and address some of that stuff, but in practical reality we did not have the, again, the staffing to do that. He had some good ideas, but to implement them was very difficult, given the numbers that we had. So some of these things did form what we call the Concept of Operation Plan, which I believe we had dated on the 9th of February, but ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Oh, we'll get to that.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, sometimes these meetings, we have multiple accounts. So here, we see the former Chief's notes to himself, basically ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- but you also recorded this in this in your notes; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
(Inaudible response)
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So I want to show you the document OPS144 ---
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
If I might interrupt just for a second. Sorry to my friend, but I just wanted to let you know that Deputy Chief actually has a hard copy of her notes on -- in front of her, so I just wanted to let that -- let you know of that, and also in case there's a specific page you could turn her to, she could actually turn it up in her notebook.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Very good. I think it would still be helpful for everyone else so that we can look at the same document as the same time. I only, unfortunately, recorded the electronic record page number, but... So this is your notes, the document number being OPS14479. And I want to take you to page 43, which is the electronic record number.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So we see that you recorded the meeting starting at around 8:00 or 8:06. If we could scroll down a little bit. I'm looking for the part where it says "need to turn the corner." There we have. "Need to turn the corner..." Perhaps you can read it to us.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure: "Need to turn the corner...today, not changing the [operational] plan - need to implement the hell out of that plan for the next 72 hours. The plan we have is excellent. Nothing has changed with [C]ommander's intent - or mission."
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay, let's stop there. So this is the Chief saying that the plan is excellent; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you agree that it was an excellent plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't think we had a plan at that point in time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, we expect to hear from Superintendent Bernier next week. As you've described, he was the Event Commander later on. I think he was appointed on or about February the 10th. And I expect that he may tell us that the OPS lacked an overall plan with all of the supporting components to end the protest when he took over the Operational command as of the 10th. Would you agree with that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
We saw in the previous document, the February 5th email from the former Chief, that one of the priorities was to shut down fuel; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So I want to take you to what's been referred to in some of the evidence, the so-called "Coventry incident". Now, that happened on February the 6th; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So I guess things are happening according to the outline of the plan on the 5th to shut down fuel, and then on the 6th, we saw actions shutting down fuel. Tell us what happened on the 6th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So on the 6th -- I should maybe let you know that the incident commander, at this point in time, or sorry, the event commander was Superintendent Patterson.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So there was a switch.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There was a switch. He began on the 6th of February.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Sorry, maybe we should go back, because you mentioned that the first event commander was Superintendent Rheaume.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And how long did he serve in that role?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He served until the evening of the 4th, so the Friday evening.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why so short?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, he was the de facto event commander because this took place in his specialized policing event, but he did not necessarily have the -- he had the skills and capacity to manage the initial event, but then as it got more protracted, first of all, I think he needed some time, some rest days, but Superintendent Dunlop was ultimately engaged and working with one of the groups, POU and PLT. He also had some, you know, I felt reasonable experience and skills to come in at this stage in our operation, and so I had approached him to take on that role.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So when did Superintendent Dunlop take over?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the overnight from the 4th into the 5th, so the Friday into the Saturday morning.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And how long did he serve in that role?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Until the evening of the 5th.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why so short?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Former Chief Sloly did not believe that he was the right person for the job. He gave us some -- myself and Deputy Bell, who both were part of the decision making into who would be the best person at this stage of the operation, but former Chief Sloly had, I would say it's fair to say, a past history with Superintendent Dunlop, and whether it was a trust factor or whether it was because Superintendent Dunlop had I think challenged him on a few issues that he didn't feel he was right for the position in that stage, and he made it very clear to me that he didn't approve of that decision and he was going to hold me accountable for whatever the results were of that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now you told us earlier that, according to the Incident Command model, it was -- it's supposed to be the strategic commander, who was you at the time, to appoint the operational commander. How did you feel about the Chief stepping in and essentially removing the operational commander that you chose?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I wasn't happy with it, but I recognized it was an untenable situation for Superintendent Dunlop to be in. And so with further conversation with DC Bell, we determined that it would be fair - - more fair to have another person step in, and so that's when Superintendent Patterson was selected, and ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And when did he step in?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He stepped in on the morning of the 6th.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Who chose him?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It was a conversation with former Chief Sloly, and I could tell he approved of him as an incident -- or as an event commander. And so it was a -- I would say a conciliatory conversation and that's ultimately it was my decision, that's where we went.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So back to the Coventry incident.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
February 6th, this is when Mark Patterson had assumed the role of the event commander. Tell us what happened on that day.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So as the event commander, he determined he was going to start getting some wins, I guess would be the -- showing some action and showing some, you know, movement on the part of the police. And so he determined with -- former Chief Sloly was very much about let's interdict fuel, let's do what we can to stop the supply going to them. And so we knew that Coventry Road was the site where the -- it was sort of a camp for them. They came back and they had a tent where they ate. They were pretty well established there. I believe there were saunas and things set up. And they had a fuel truck there. So we were aware and I believe our PLT team had been working with people on that site to engage, to establish a rapport and a relationship. And Superintendent Patterson set up to do what we would call an action, and engage the Public Order Team, and wanted them to go in and, you know, seize the fuel and stop the source of fuel. So that's what took place on the evening of the 6th.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now when you spoke of engagement by the PLT team earlier, are you referring only to the PLT team from the OPS?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I should have clarified that. The OPP PLT team was assisting our team throughout, both as being a backup, if you will, or an increase in numbers, but also as being sort of sounding boards and guidance. They had a lot of experience in dealing with longer-term protests.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Specifically with respect to the Coventry location, what was the PLT team's objective at that time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think they were trying to reason with the organizers, and there's always a give and take with the PLT approach. So if we, you know, if we can agree with something that you get something, we get something, that was what they were trying to establish, I believe, without being in the leads of that, but that was the relationship they were working on.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
They were looking for small wins for everybody?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And now you spoke earlier about this command triangle with the operational commander at the top of the triangle and then the two sides being the PLT or negotiation and the other one being the kind of enforcement action on. What is the -- like, how are those two sides in the bottom supposed to work together?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
In concert with each other. I mean, I think what has to happen is that the PLT team needs to be given the time to actually effect some change and they need to be given the room to do so and the authority to make decisions. And that, I believe, was not happening. That's not in concert. That's the incident commander, the event commander. The Public Order Team understands that they have a role to play, and so oftentimes, they will be waiting in the wings until they're given the, you know, go ahead, we've done everything we can, we have cleared as much as we can, and now these people have been advised that they're no longer welcome, and if they don't leave that they will be arrested, that type of thing.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So because you -- when you described the role of the PLT earlier, you talk about how they were the first point of contact. They were supposed to engage and deescalate and to show the protesters what the lawful limits are; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So is the idea then that they will make contact and then see if, you know, it can be successfully deescalated before part actions is enforced?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. I think in the Coventry example, you know, there were some things that were concerning in that there was fuel on site. You know, the fire department had a -- they have a house right across the street. They were seeing some things that they were worried about for safety reasons for the people involved there. So I think that's the approach that they took was that we're -- you know, we're concerned about some of these things, and we want to make sure that you're all safe, and it's upsetting the residents in the area.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So those types of conversations, but they take a while to happen, and it requires patience on the part of the event commander.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And how important was it then that the -- these two arms, the PLT and the POU kind of, that enforcement part, that they coordinate a coherent strategy in terms of the timing? Because you said you need to time it so that there's sufficient time for the protesters to cooperate; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, it's very important.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what happened in this case?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I believe in this case, and I am not 100 percent, I think Inspector Lucas could probably provide you with more details, but Superintendent Patterson requested that the Public Order Team arrive at the location at Coventry, and I believe there was some back and forth that they did not feel that was -- that that should have happened when it did. They felt that PLT should have been given more time. And ultimately, Superintendent Patterson was very frustrated by that, that they were not engaging in -- when he wanted them there. I do believe that they did eventually attend, but the resulting action was that it really damaged the relationship with our PLT team, with the OPP PLT team and with the event commander. That was a fractured situation after that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And just so we understand, when the enforcement action started, was the PLT team even notified that this was going to happen?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, they were not.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So were they caught in surprise?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Entirely off guard.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
As much as the protesters?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And when you spoke of a sense of betrayal, what do you mean? Is it ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think they had been experiencing frustration that whole week in terms of being able to negotiate with the convoy organizers. They had established fairly reasonable relationships and open lines of communication. And there was some back and forth leading up to this event. And they were not empowered to make decisions to be able to get those quick wins. One example was porta potties. You know, that the organizers had asked for those to be delivered into the red zone. And the direction from the event commander was we’re not giving them one inch. So, you know, they will have to try and come up -- it was basically a win-lose scenario. If you leave, we’ll let you go. That was sort of where they were given direction that there was nothing beyond that for a period of time. And I think they were really frustrated by that, and I think the OPP team were frustrated as well. And there was some, you know, I received emails saying that they were going to walk, they’d had enough, that type of thing.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, before this unfortunate incident happened, the PLT team actually had some success earlier that week, right, with the Confederation Park?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Tell us about the Confederation Park?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Confederation Park is a location that happens to be right across the street from City Hall. And we were getting information, I can’t recall the exact date, but that people were setting up in Confederation Park and they had actually set up a food preparation area, like a little kitchen and a hut, and they had propane and they were really, you know, setting up for being there for a while. And so this caused, obviously, the Mayor and a number of people concern that this was going on. They were concerned for the safety of having, you know, fuel and those types of things. So our PLT team went in to speak to the people who had set up in there and they engaged them in conversation and started to try and get some movement there. It took several days, and much to the frustration, I think, of former Chief Sloly, as well as a number of city officials, but we were able to -- we brought in an Algonquin Elder, because they had indicated that that was -- that they were from the Algonquin Nation and that they -- you know, this was a means to try and engage in conversation and get to a middle ground we could. Ultimately, they were able to talk people into leaving that area on their own and cleared the park and were able to secure it.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So the Confederation Park was one example where the surge, contain, and enforce proved unnecessary, because the PLT team did its work?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, I want to take you to -- back to your notes, which relates to the Coventry incident. So we’re back to OPS00014479. Page 55. So Deputy Chief, if you want to look at your hard copy, I’m taking you to the time around 17:18, so 5:18 p.m.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I actually don’t have my hard copies in front of me. I left them with ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Oh, okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- a colleague, but ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Well then we’re all on the same page.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
The same electronic page.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Very good.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So page 55. Now do you see: “Conversation w DC Bell re[garding] the operation @ Coventry road.” And then if we go down: “weighing all options…”
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
“…including state of emergency. Advised we may lose OPP PLT if we do actions.”
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So that’s what you were just describing to us?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And if we go further down, page -- the next page, 56, please? I want to take you to the part that says: “PLT is pissed - OPP has left - set [up] back…” Could you read it to us? Is it “set up --”
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah: “set us back days or a week [on PL -- or a week] our PLT is demoralized and Marin is very upset Patterson was not there”
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. “set us back days or a week on PLT”. What do you mean by that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Any ground that they had gained, any relationship that they had made at that point in time had been damaged significantly and it would take them days or weeks to re-establish that rapport.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
The person who was very upset, who was that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That was Insp. Marin, who was working with S/Sgt. Stoll on the Public Order Team.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what did you mean when you said Patterson was not there?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That he was not at the scene, I don’t believe.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
At the time when ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
At the time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- when the enforcement action happened?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
I see. Now, we’ve spoken to Insp. Lucas back in the summer and he said that the Coventry operation was an example of the OPS prioritizing a quick win on enforcement without an overall plan that integrated the role of the PLT in operational decisions. What’s your view on that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s exactly my view on that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, I want to ask you about the Former Chief Sloly’s attitude towards negotiating with protestors. I want to take you to the document -- I believe these are minutes of meetings involving him. So OPS00014479. Oh, it’s the same. At page 63. I want to take you to the part where he seems to have asked the question -- so he -- the question: “…why […] negotiate w unlawful protestors…” Do you see that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. Okay. So sorry: “Chief has said he does not know why we would negotiate w unlawful protestors…”
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
M’hm.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you remember this kind of sentiment being expressed by the former chief?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What -- can you tell us more?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I don’t think that the chief -- I know he had some former public order experience, but I don’t think he had used PLT as much as we were, you know, experienced here in Ottawa. We, you know, have had people trained on this for a number of years and it has served us incredibly well in a lot of demonstrations and really taken the temperature down and been able to get us, you know, longer term wins, but wins where people walk away safely, where they feel like they were heard, and that their goal was met. And that is part of it, because we want to make sure that we’re, you know, we’re not creating a situation that they will be coming back again. So our PLT, I knew, had that capacity. I was familiar with the program. I was involved. I was a superintendent when we had a previous demonstration that shut down a major intersection not long before this, and we used the PLT quite successfully in that. but after that event, they came to me and said, “We need more people. We need a little bit more importance placed on this, because it really is an amazing tool.” And so they convinced me and they said they were, you know, would like to get more people trained, and I approved that, and that did happen. And I’m glad we did have a number for this protracted event so we were able to rely on them. It also creates good will with other police services. And so in this case, the OPP stepping in to assist us in this bolstered our numbers that we were definitely needing. And it means that you have to be able to work in an integrated manner. I don’t believe Chief Sloly was familiar with the framework. There is a national framework that has been developed on police response to demonstrations, and this was borne out of a lot of Indigenous -- protracted Indigenous demonstrations. And the OPP, obviously, have had a number of experiences with that. So what they brought to the table was very valuable to our team. And I believe, as you cited Insp. Lucas’ assessment of Chief Sloly, and I think Supt. Patterson as well was on that page, was that we were needing to demonstrate to the community that we were actually -- we were taking actions. And I understand the pressure and stress that they were -- they both felt. I felt it as well. But I also felt that we were going to be judged on this, here we are all these months later, on our coming out of this with as few people hurt as possible, as, you know, much good will as possible, that we haven’t burnt any bridges with our community, with other policing agencies, and with anyone, really. So I felt that taking a longer-term approach and potentially getting a, you know, a bigger win at the end was the way to go. And I, you know, was receiving information that crowds, generally 80 percent of people are law-abiding and they want to follow laws, and if you give them an opportunity to have a win they will often go on their own. And so those were some of the things that I felt we needed to give that a really good try, and I don't believe Chief Sloly, at this stage in it, was feeling the same way about it.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
But surely we can understand the pressure that the Chief was under.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
We heard from the residents last week that they were feeling abandoned, basically, by the police. They felt helpless and very frustrated. Is it fair to say, then, that within the OPS there was disagreement as to the most appropriate way to approach the situation and to resolve it?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
Brendan van Niejenhuis, Counsel (GC)
(Off mic)
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Yes, thank you for that suggestion. I believe this is February 6th. But let's scroll up so we don't have to guess. Keep going up. Oh, February 8th. Okay. So now, on February 8th, the same day that -- as this meeting, a new development happened, and that's that arrival of the Integrated Planning Group, led by the OPP Chief Superintendent Pardy and the RCMP Superintendent Lew (ph); right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Tell us what that was all about.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So at the time, it was actually only in reviewing and preparing for this that I realised how they came about at the time. I was not sure what the genesis of them arriving was, but my understanding is it was some non-OPS leaders, police leaders, who determined that Ottawa needed help, and assessed that they could come in and assist us in providing a plan. We had been asking for resources, Chief Sloly had been going to a variety of services, mostly with the RCMP and the OPP, requesting assistance in the way of police resources. And I think what they were trying to -- this group was trying to determine how many people we needed and what was, you know, what was the ultimate goal and what was the plan, and we struggled a little bit with coming up with a plan per se. So like I mentioned earlier, the concept of Operations, that was part of what we were working on there to provide them those services to say, "This is what we are hoping to do and this is how we would like to do it in broad strokes", not without, like a full, full plan. And so this team, I was made aware of them. I was spoken to -- Carson Pardy reached out to me by phone and said he was coming into town, and that they were here to assist, and in helping us to, you know, work out the details of our plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, I understand that there was a meeting, the first meeting between the OPS and the Integrated Planning Group happened on the 8th ---
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- at around 5:35 p.m.; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
You've referred -- you've told us about this Strategic Concept of Operations. Was that something that you came up with?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, along with some of the points that you saw the Chief ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- you know, suggest on the 5th, and so this was, yeah, a loose, I would say, framework that we had come up with.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. I want to show you a one-page document and see if that's the document that you were referring to.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
OPP00000774. Not OPS, OPP. Okay, can we go down? Oh, I see. Page 77, please. Is there a way for us to rotate the view? No? All right, then -- now, I wanted -- it may be a little challenging, but let's see if we can read the Mission Statement. So it's near the top: "The Ottawa Police Service, in a collaborative approach with other police agencies, federal, provincial and city partners..." Sorry, I'm missing the last word on...
So I think help is on the way, Commissioner.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Can we try the rotation button on the top? I'm not sure it's doing it. Okay. So: "...federal, provincial and city partners, community organizations..."
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
I'm sorry, I wonder if I could interrupt for a second. I don't know about the witness, but I can tell you it's nearly impossible to read from where I'm sitting. It may be the case that this document exists in some other format elsewhere in the record. I don't know if we can take a minute to try to find it. I just don't want to be unfair to the witness.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Of course.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay, so do you want to take a short break?
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why don't we do that.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay. Well, we can take our morning break, 15 minutes, and we'll come back in 15 minutes.
The Registrar (POEC)
The Commission is in recess for 15 minutes. La Commission est levée pour 15 minutes.
Upon recessing at 11:00 a.m.
Upon resuming at 11:14 a.m.
The Registrar (POEC)
Order. À l’ordre. The Commission has reconvened. La Commission reprend.
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF PATRICIA FERGUSON, Resumed
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Go ahead.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Thank you, Commissioner. So during the break, we managed to resolve the technical issue. The document that I read out the document number of previously was an OPP document, but there is a duplicate provided by the OPS, and the document number is OPS00008518. And so we're now showing the OPS version of the same document, and this one is easier to read.
EXAMINATION IN-CHIEF BY MR. FRANK AU (Cont'd)
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So if I could take you, Deputy Chief, to the Mission Statement. This is the Strategic Concept of Operation that you've developed, and the Mission Statement says: "The Ottawa Police Service, in a collaborative approach with other police agencies, federal, provincial and city partners, community organizations and the event organizers will provide a safe and secure environment in the City of Ottawa during the Freedom Convoy 2022 event. The primary goal is to end the protest peacefully. This may be achieved through proactive engagements by all officers including Police Liaison Teams, facilitating communication, de-escalation and negotiation as means to achieve a peaceful resolution." So there was an inclusion of the engagement process, and specifically, the Police Liaison Team here. With that in mind, I want to take you to... Now -- so we were -- before the break, we were talking about this meeting, initial meeting, with the Integrated Planning Group at 5:35 p.m., right, on February 8th.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And was it at that meeting that you presented this strategic concept of operations?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m not sure if it was this document per se, but I believe we had the same points established.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, about two hours after this meeting at 7:30 p.m. the same day, there was a command team meeting. And I want to take you to the minutes of that meeting. This is OPS00014454 at page 124. So you see a reference of something the former Chief said. He said, “People came to assess my readiness and if we’re ready to receive their resources.” We go down further. The Chief said, “Enforcement is where we need to be. We need to show teeth and that the officers”. It seems to be an incomplete sentence in the notes, but do you recall this command team briefing?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Can you refresh my memory as the time of this?
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
7:30 p.m.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Then I do remember that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Can you tell us the nature of what was discussed at this meeting?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the Chief wanted sort of -- it was a meeting after the meeting to determine what my perception of what was taking place here. And as I was the only one who actually was physically at the location with the other partners, everyone else called in on the phone. I believe I had a scribe with me who took notes for me. So the Chief was -- he was late to join the call for a very good reason, but was unable to hear the initial part of it. And I think he was disappointed that we weren’t able to be on Teams. It was an RCMP facility. So there were a few things about it I think he was frustrated about it, and he wanted to know what my perception of, you know, their position and more of sort of a strategic what do you think they’re looking for from us in order to give us resources.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What did you tell him?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
My sense is that they were here to help, and I shared that with him. I knew some of the -- Carson Pardy, for one, was somebody who I’d worked on a committee with before. I knew him to be a very genuine, good man, and I felt that they were here in response to the fact that we needed some help, and that’s what they were doing with -- without reservation.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And how would you -- how you describe the former Chief’s perspective on this?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He seemed to be suspicious of what the -- why they were here, you know, why couldn’t they just give us the resources that we were asking for. I think he was feeling tested, and we all were being tested, I think, to a certain degree, where is our plan, what is -- -- you know, what is our goal, what do we -- what’s the impact we’re trying to achieve. So they were asking some pointed questions.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, if we go to the next day, February 9th, early that morning at around 7:10 a.m. there was another briefing involving the Chief, you and, I believe, perhaps Deputy Chief Bell as well. And I want to show you the document OPS00014479. So this is perhaps your notes.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
I know it’s page 66 of the electronic record. So do you see at around 7:10 a.m. there was a reference to the Chief briefing the team?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And the top, “Mission Hydra”. Does that ring a bell?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it does.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Tell us what that means.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was unfamiliar with what Hydra was. I guess it’s a mythological Greek figure. But he spoke about it -- you know, this thing having many heads and so, you know, we needed to, as I wrote here, “cut off and cauterize the heads”. So as we were able to take control of a situation, then we held that position. I think that’s what he was referring to as cauterizing. It was a term that I’ve not used in event planning before.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Just to help us understand, what did you understand the many heads to be an analogy of?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I think this was his seven points strategy, and I think each of them was one of the means that we would be able to use to bring this to an end.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
I see. Carry on.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay. So he had called us all in there, I think, in response to the meeting of the night before and my assessment of things that I don’t know that he necessary agreed with or I might not have instilled the confidence that he was hoping to hear, so he set out to -- all of us to meet and then to actually put this plan into some form of a visual documentation which you saw. That was one of our very adept planners who was -- or project manager who was able to come up with that visual that you saw that we shared with them with the -- each of the different points and how we were going to go about affecting those actions.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, you made a note about, in the middle of the page, “very aggressive posture, language throughout the whole briefing and mission statement”. What’s the next sentence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
“Asked if anyone needed clarifications”.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So what do you mean by “very aggressive posture”?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So he was very much at this point in time, I would say, frustrated by where we were at so many days into it, and I think he was, I would say, having challenges not allowing that to show. And so he had us all in a room, made sure that everybody came in at 7 o’clock and that we were all going to be part of this meeting and all hands on deck. We were going to get this written up and here’s what it’s going to look like.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, the plan that this Mission Hydra -- the plan that the former Chief wanted to carry out, we have a document that I believe is the one he referred to, and I want to show it to you to confirm it. Can we call up OPP0001889, please? It’s a plan that’s also been referred to by various witnesses as 3.0. Does that ring a bell?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it does.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What does that refer to, 3.0?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Generally what happens is plans develop and you have versions of them and for everybody’s sake these, when you are sending a plan around for people to see, you put the most recent version of it, so I think that’s what the 3.0. And I think we dropped the “Hydra”. I don’t think that was necessarily a plan name we wanted to go with, so I think this is what replaced that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So are you able to confirm, then, that this is the plan that the former Chief wanted, the one that he spoke to you about on that morning at 7:10?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so. If we could just scroll up beyond maybe the first page or two. Yes, that looks to be correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Now, if we can go to page 6. I believe that’s where the mission statement is. This is a shorter mission statement compared to the Strategic Concepts of Operations document that you had provided the day before. And this one simply says, “To end the unlawful elements of the Ottawa truck demonstration and restore safe and open neighbourhoods and businesses.” There’s no reference to the engagement process of to PLT. Tell us about any discussions you may have had with the Chief on that point.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So coming from the world that I had before my experience as an Incident Commander, when we are engaging in any event, we will give our if you say commander’s intent or mission of what we are trying to achieve and it always begins with -- my training has indicated it always begins with to safely negotiate the unlawful elements of the -- you know, and carry on. And you start with that really focus on negotiation as a starting point. I think my recollection of that meeting was he and I had some arguments, I will say -- we had a discussion, we had a disagreement on that and, ultimately, he said it was understood that we were going to be negotiating and he did not want it to be in the mission statement, so this mission statement is what was put in in the end.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So I want to go back now to the -- to your notes, OPS00014479, at page 66, because there's some subsequent notes that I want to ask you to clarify. So do you see: "At 7:20, chief said -- chief laid out his plan, omitted negotiations, and when I brought it up, he reacted angrily, saying, 'We're not negotiating.'" It's better that you read it.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure. "Then said it's implicit. I advised our CIC mission statement always have explicitly stated in the mission statement if it doesn’t reduce the size of the footprint, that is not a good negotiation."
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So that was the exchange?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And that was at 7:10 a.m. And then later that morning, at 9:15 a.m., there was another meeting with -- the chief had with you and Deputy Chief Bell. This is at the next page, page 67. That’s okay. Sorry, go up. Oh, sorry, yeah, sorry, go down a little bit. Do you see the part where the chief said -- he said, "Anyone" -- I'll let you read it.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure. Anyone who undermines the operational plan, he will crush them. And I wrote in my -- in brackets that he said it twice, and I noticed that his chin was twitching. I was kind of aghast at the comment, and that anyone who executes the plan will be supported. The takeaway was, don’t bother arguing with anything that Patterson offers. Chief and he are in communication and whoever gets in their way will be crushed.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What did you understand the chief to convey by those comments?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That this was the plan we were going ahead with, and that he didn’t want to hear any further dissenting positions on it. This was where we were going.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, if we go down further -- okay. Here, we just talked about the plan.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Talked about the plan for briefing the embedded cell. I think those are planners and commanders, and he spoke of a type of conspiracy that is happening at provincial and federal levels, that this team is being handled by their political masters and promoted to the idea that they're not really here to help.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So before you carry on, the cell or the team, is that the integrated planning group that just came to Ottawa?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
The one that you met with the day before?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and that we were planning to meet with that same day around noon with this plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So do you remember this conversation?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Very well.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What did you understand him to mean by political masters and so on?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe he thought that was all very politically influenced, and I will, you know, say at the outset, I was five or six weeks into being an Acting Deputy Chief at this point in time, and did not have the same view, but I have not lived the -- you know, the same number of years that Chief Sloly had in that realm. And so I felt they were simply cops coming to help cops, and he had a different view from, I guess, his experience in the conversations that he was having at that point in time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. Now, so these are your notes, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
But this meeting is also being recorded as a form of minutes by other people?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So I want to take you to another record. This will be OPS00014454, and I want to take you to page 113, please. If we go down a bit? Keep going. Okay. So there's a reference at Comm. C, OPP. Is that Commissioner Carrique of the OPP?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I believe that’s who he is.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Is assessing if we are worthy of getting the additional ask resources, and there's a note that -- Trish is you, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
That you said, "I want us to limit politics." And the chief said, "Last week, we didn’t have an incident command. Everyone was running with confusion. Now we know our roles as of noon." "Does that -- none of us did our jobs last week in what our teams needed? We need to stay focused and stick to the plan." And then we have the minutes recording you saying, "They're here to help. Not sure why we're --- "
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s "forcing them".
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
"--- forcing them to arrive here." And the chief said, "The last night was amateur hour." Do you recall this?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Can you give us the context and what was -- what you remember was exchanged?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. So that morning, the chief had said, you know, when we were sitting in that briefing room, that they will be coming down to 474 Elgin, and we will be presenting our plan there. There was probably five or six of them, and we had a full team ourself. And I suggested that perhaps a better option was to go out to where they were set up. They had come in from out of town. Some of them didn’t know Ottawa, but they were already out at the -- one of the RCMP stations, and that we could go out there and present. There was plenty of room. I had just been there the night before. It was set up. And the chief said something to the effect of, "This is the strategy. This is a -- you know, I don’t expect you to understand, but this is our house and we're going to do this in our house." So I felt that was a bit of a power move that I didn’t think was necessarily was necessary in the circumstances, because I really did feel that they were here to help and why are we inconveniencing them? The chief referred to it as, you know, having -- we shouldn't have to drive out to the boonies to go and -- he called it "Farrhaven" to go for this meeting. So that was what that conversation was. And then when he talks about last night being amateur hour, that’s what I was alluding to in that we couldn't get the computer set up, we couldn't get Teams going. It was, you know, different agencies, different key fobs, and that type of thing. So that’s where his frustration was in that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So you mentioned that you were going to meet with the group again that day, and I believe that meeting took place at 12:10 p.m.; am I right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it sounds right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So if I could take you back to your notes now, OPS00014454 at page 136? Oh, I'm sorry. That’s not your notes. It's the same document. I apologize. So if we just go down a few pages to page 138, if we go down further. Okay. I want to ask you about this. So we're now at the meeting with the integrated planning group, and the chief asks this question. "We can add the information that was provided by the RCMP, but we haven't agreed not to proceed with our plan for tonight."
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you remember this?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What was that about?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That was the plan for an actions on -- at Rideau and Sussex that Supt. Patterson had proposed and was working towards executing.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Tell us about Rideau Sussex. The Commission has heard some evidence about why that intersection might be problematic.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Can we just establish the date of this meeting, please?
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
It is at February the 9th at around 12:10 p.m. So ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Rideau and Sussex, from the start of the arrival on the convoy was a contentious and volatile, I would describe it, intersection. The people who were there, the protesters or the -- the people who were there were -- they seemed to be operating on their own. They were known to us as the Farfadaas. I believe they were a group that was originally mostly from Quebec, from the Quebec area -- I’m not sure exactly where -- and they were -- I would say the ones that were, they were antagonistic. Over the course of the convoy, you know, when people were trying to leave, they were the ones, I would say, intimidating people saying, “Hold the line. You’re not going anywhere,” those types of things. And because of the location where they were, that was a major intersection that we were trying to gain back and their presence there certainly contributed to the Rideau Centre being closed, which was obviously one of our major businesses in the city and was suffering as a result, and we were trying to open that intersection up to be able to get -- you know, there’s obviously access to Quebec that comes with that, and the Byward Market.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what was the plan that was discussed at that meeting?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So they were planning on -- and it wasn’t so much -- actually, I think it was discussed at this meeting. Supt. Patterson presented his plan after we -- I gave the presentation on our concept of operations and he described how he planned on taking that intersection, and it was involving Public Order Units, a number of troops, or a number or “sections’ as they’re called, were going to be employed in taking the areas, making arrests, and then holding that area, consequently.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, we’re going to hear from Supt. Abrams later today, as I said, and we expect him to -- he may say that he was quite critical of this OPS plan; he thought it unsafe. And he thought, also, in that discussion that Supt. Patterson might have represented the PLT involvement. What is your perspective on that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree with that. I believe he told the team, or the people at that meeting, that they were engaged when Supt. Abrams specifically asked him, “Are they aware? Have they been engaged to this point? And have they exhausted all other measures?” And I believe Supt. Patterson’s response was yes, they had.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So that meeting between the OPS Command Team and the Integrated Planning Group took place at around noon and then, at 1:40 p.m., the OPS Command Team had a debriefing; do you remember that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Vaguely.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So if we go down to the next page, 139. So do you see “OPS debrief from meeting with the OPP/RCMP meeting”? And it recorded the Chief as saying: "As far as I consider, keep going. Nothing has changed until I hear something different coming from the RCMP and OPP." So I just want to be clear here because at that meeting, right, at the meeting with the Integrated Planning Group, there were at least two things being discussed, one was the degree of integration. There was the OPS Plan 3.0 and I understand that the RCMP and Chief Pardy, they were also starting to prepare a kind of plan to support what the OPS had?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they were.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right, so there were those two plans and then there was these Rideau/Sussex discussion ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- at the same time. So just to be clear, when the Chief said here, “As far as I consider, keep going,” do you recall the context? Was he referring to the integration issue or was he referring to the Rideau/Sussex issue?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m actually not sure that I was at this meeting. These are, I believe, our Legal Services notes so I don’t know that I was there and heard that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it may not be fair for me to comment on what it is that he was saying if, on the face of it, it looks to me like he’s talking that action that we were planning.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. All right. Now, moving on to the next day, February 10th, at 11:00 a.m. -- now, I can take you back to your notes, and that is OPS00014479. If we could go to page 75, please. So do you see that first bullet: "Patterson said the OPP want to make sure this stays in Ottawa and have no interest in resolving this. They only want to negotiate and not do any actions on." And then the next line says: "I disagree."
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Tell us about that exchange.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So this was in relation to the actions on at Rideau and Sussex and this was out daily briefing so there was a number of people on that call and this was -- Supt. Patterson had not got the plan approved and it had not been carried out in the overnight hours as they were hoping, and so he was updating the team as to what happened and his perception of what the OPP’s, I guess, ultimate goals were. And at the same time, there were things happening across the province.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, when we spoke about this, about this day, during our interview back in the summer, you said February 10th was probably the worst day in your professional career.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why was that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So this meeting -- this was -- you know, as you were showing here, this is a series of discussions that I’m having with both the Event Commander who’s reporting to me and Former Chief Sloly about the approach that I felt we needed to be taking. And as the Major Event Commander, I was trying to drive in that direction and was continually getting pushback, some of it very public and some of it, you know, behind closed doors. And this was a meeting, when we got to this point, Supt. Patterson was also very frustrated and he was, you know, presenting his point to the group. And so there was a comment made during this meeting where he, in my estimation, maligned one of our most seasoned Critical Incident Commanders on a decision that he made not to approve this plan and he chalked it up to him not being involved and not knowing enough and that’s why he didn’t approve it. And so at the end of the call, once we did all the checks that we did on these briefings -- go through communications, through, you know, “What’s the update? How many people on the Hill?” those types of things -- once that was completed, I had asked for a number of people to stay on the call. So, you know, our corporate communication folks would have dropped off, and some of the other players, but the Chief was one, Supt. Patterson was on. I don’t know all of the people who remained on the call but our legal -- Christiane Huneault was on that call as well and I started by saying, “I want to clarify the role of the Incident Commander.” In this case, it was Supt. Burnett who had not approved the plan that Patterson put forward for actions on at Rideau and Sussex, and he had his reasons for it and a lot of them related to safety of our members and it was involving POU teams from other police services who had also expressed their concern about the safety of this action to Supt. Burnett. And so I wanted to clarify that and to say that I didn’t believe that these types of actions were going to -- that they were a good move at this point in time. If we had said we were going to negotiate, which is what we agreed to with the OPP just yesterday when we presented our -- it was yesterday -- when we presented that plan, then that’s what we had to commit to, and I didn’t feel we were doing that and I felt we were doing a disservice to everybody involved, and not to mention, you know, putting pressure on -- and putting our members at risk. They had been swarmed by protestors at this location before. We knew that they had that potential and so this of all of them was probably the most dangerous of all the intersections that we would take on. So I expressed that, and then you probably see conversation back and forth between myself and Superintendent Patterson, and the Chief weighed in. And then at one point in the meeting, Superintendent Patterson asked here, and you see in my notes, if Christiane Huneault, who was our legal -- our lawyer, was on the call, and she said, "I'm here." And he said, "I want this for the notes." And then he made, you know, I would say an attack on my integrity on behaviour that he felt that I was engaging in that was unethical. And at that point in time, I, you know, indicated that I didn't think -- that no one said anything, so I said, "I don't -- you know, I think this is going to really be difficult for me to move forward in this position. I feel like I'm a fly in the ointment that's going on right now and that I'm fighting on two fronts, and that I wasn't willing to do that anymore." So I said to the Chief at that point, "If you need to remove me in order to be able to go ahead and carry out your plans, you're going to have to do that, but I cannot -- I fundamentally disagree with the way we were going, and that I couldn't put our members at risk in that way." So that was pretty much the end of the conversation. And the meeting ended at that point.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what decision did the former Chief make after that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He came to see me, and we discussed the situation. And I -- you know, in his defence, he didn't know me very well. He didn't know my history. He's come to the organization as an outsider, but I assured him that the behaviour I was being accused of was not, in fact, what was happening, and it involved, you know, myself and my husband colluding. My husband at the point was working with the PLT team, and that I was getting, you know, information that I shouldn't have been having at that point was really the accusation. And so I suggested to the Chief that if he really believes in the direction that he is suggesting, then I'm not the person to be the commander of this event. And so he said he would think about it, and at the end of our conversation, he ultimately said, "I will keep you as the event commander, but you must promise me that you are going to take some days off, that you need a couple of days rest."
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Not event commander. Strategic commander.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sorry, strategic commander, yes. That -- and at that point in time, you know, I had been working a number of days in a row. It felt a little bit like I had gotten emotional, and he walked into my office right at the tail end of that meeting, and I was frustrated, and I was angry, so it felt a little bit like he was saying, you know, you need to go home and get some rest. He was probably right, but I was a little bit frustrated by that, and I'm frustrated in hearing that it sounds like I was sent home because I was on the wrong side of things. As Chair Deans said yesterday that that was not the case. I think it was out of concern for, you know, for where I was at. Certainly, I was angry, frustrated and upset. And he said, "Deputy Bell will take over for a couple of days. Go home, get some rest because I need you healthy for the long run."
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So you did take some rest ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- on the 11th and the 12th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And then you came back on the 13th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now when the Chief made the decision to remove Superintendent Patterson, who stepped in?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So at that point in time, it was Superintendent Bernier who was requested to come in.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Were you involved in that decision?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was. The Chief and I discussed it as to what options we had, and Superintendent Bernier was ultimately the decision at that stage.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why was he selected?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He has lots of experience in the Public Order world, but also in planning and in specialized events, that type of thing. He has been, you know, incident commander, event commander, and has worked in that world quite a bit.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
M'hm. Now before I -- before we get to your return on the 13th, I just want to show you another document. It is one that I've shown you before during our interview. If I could call up the document number OPP00004283? If we can just look at the first page? Can we do that? So this appears to be a draft document prepared by the Integrated Planning Group. And these are the services involved, right, the RCMP, OPP, TPS is Toronto Police, YRP ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
York Region.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
--- York Regional Police, and what's PRP?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Peel Regional Police.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
All right. So this document is a draft dated February the 10th. Can we go back to the title, please? SMEC proposal, what is that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
SMEC is a term that's used in both military and policing and it's basically Situation, Mission, Execution and the C can stand for Command or Communication but ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
M'hm. Now if we go to section 3.1 of this draft proposal? It appears that the group was trying to get a sense of where things were at as of that time on February the 10th. It seems to be an assessment of the current situation that the OPS had to confront with. And these are -- well, we see the list. Can we go down the list? I don't mean the -- I don't mean scrolling down, but I mean, Deputy Chief, can you tell us -- look at each bullet and tell us your perspective on whether this list accurately reflected the state that the OPS found itself in as of the 10th of February.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So "Not Intelligence Led." I think that's fairly accurate. We were not really relying on the intelligence to formulate the actions and the things that we were doing.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Does that include the preplanning phase, or are you referring strictly to the February 10th ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I'm thinking just of the state that we were in the 9th, 10th when I'm assuming this was drafted up.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Yeah.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
"Participants have the initiative." This was, in fact, something that was becoming -- we were becoming aware of this. There were retired police and military members in the protest, and they knew a number of our, you know, police tactics, and they had a chief of security, and they were really, you know, keeping themselves in those types of, I guess, command. So I think that is true. "Reactive, tactical, aggressive, [and taking] risks." I would agree with that. Some of the actions that they were seeing us doing, whether that was the interdiction of fuel, those types of things that the Chief was hoping for us to make some headway there ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Would that include the Rideau Sussex POU action?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it would. "Poor communications, no communication strategy," I think that's fair. There was some good communications and I shouldn't paint everybody with that brush, but certainly at -- I know that our Intelligence folks who were working with OPP members and that, there was communication going on there, and some people were more effective at it than others, but I think it's a fair step. "Unclear and vague Command and control." I think we had a system in place, but we had players who were, you know, jumping up or jumping down the -- our Incident Command structure. "Unqualified trained leadership." We had lost a lot of our subject matter experts in the four, five years leading up to this. We used to be really, really strong and, you know, our response to -- when I think of what happened here in 2014, the shooting on Parliament Hill, we were subject matter experts and we had leaders in that area, and a lot of that had gone with retirement. And because we hadn't had any big events, you know, with COVID, with a no presidential visits, none of those things, we hadn't flexed those muscles. And so this was obviously unprecedented in terms of its size and the type of thing we were dealing with. So I don't know whether unqualified is fair. I would think that there's some people in that chain who would say that they very much are qualified, but I think from an OPP or somebody looking in maybe would see that. No poor -- "no or poor partner collaboration." I would agree.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What does that refer to?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I believe at the strategic level. The relationship was strained. And whether that was Chief to Chief or Chief with some of the City partners, some of the, you know, political people who needed to be involved. We did have, I would say, good collaboration. Kim Ayotte and I spoke fairly regularly in terms of, you know, “What are your people seeing and what are you experiencing” How can we support? How can help?” Those types of conversations were going on fairly regularly, but at certain levels we were not seeing that same level of collaboration. “Focused on local issues only.” I believe that statement that Supt. Patterson made was right, and I also recall former Chief Sloly saying, “I’m not -- I don’t care about what’s going on elsewhere. Ottawa is where I need to, you know, have my focus.” And, you know, from his perspective I can understand that. But we did know that when we took actions here it had ripple effects across the country; these were very connected, reactive people. “...only maintenance and not resolution.” And I believe that OPS focus -- that was our focus, and a lot of that had to with simply the realities of our staffing situation. The “Boots on the ground” are officers who were at posts and who were taking on those roles, and I think fairly accurate to say low morale. They were frustrated. Some of them were left out for hours in the cold without the ability for them to be freed up or provided meals. “Lack of leadership/confidence in command - no clear direction.” I think that’s -- we did hear some of that, especially from the PLT folks. “Physical &” I’m assuming that’s mental, mentally “exhausted. Poor decision making.” I’m not sure what the “Longer” is referring to but I think the -- you know, obviously we were not our best selves at that moment and maybe weren’t making the best decisions, and the, “Information sharing [was] - incomplete and unknown command structure.” And the operational plan not being signed off. That’s fair.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Let’s take that a bit further, “Information sharing - incomplete and unknown command structure”; do you agree with that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, there’s -- we use different command structures than the OPP and the RCMP, and so I think they were looking to see us following true models. They vary slightly but I do think at points we were not following the command structure ,and I believe that, you know, as I alluded to before, we had people who were jumping -- jumping chains and maybe getting down into areas they didn’t need to be to try and speed things up, I think that was probably the ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And in terms of information sharing, did you see that as an issue between OPS and external agencies, or was that an issue within the OPS itself?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t think I experienced that myself, that there was lack of information sharing internally. But I’m assuming if they are -- no, I can’t make that assumption. I don’t know what ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- they are referring to, specifically.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you recall when we interviewed you back in the summer, you described some challenges to us, in terms of this sharing of intelligence within the OPS?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Tell us more about that.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So our Intelligence unit gets all sorts of information, obviously, and they go through it and there is an analysis piece that takes place with the information, the intelligence that they get. And they will determine, often, who that is -- relates to. And sometimes it’s one of those things that is a “Nice to know” and we will hang onto that and do up a report, and sometimes it’s something that needs to be actioned by somebody. And I think we were still relying -- at this point in time, we have since evolved, but we were relying on them being the keepers of that information and it being shared on a need-to-know basis. And you know, up until this point the major things that they were looking into were organized crime and were, you know, national security threats, not so -- I mean, that was obviously the purview of the RCMP, but those types of things. And so they would share information like, you know, the latest ITAC threat and some of those pieces of information as needed. But it was really a hierarchy and if you were not in that level, then you didn’t necessarily receive that information.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Do you think those barriers that existed back in around January, February impeded the degree of integration of the planning and the intelligence in preparing OPS for the arrival of the convoy?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think it’s fair to say it may have had an impact on it. I think what we were missing was that bridge between Intelligence and Special Events to operationalize the information that they had, and we were lacking there.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now -- and the point about “Lack of leadership”; looking back, what do you think you could have done differently to provide more leadership?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s a good question. I think to convey to the people who reported to me that we are -- this is -- you know, we are moving forward in this direction; to express my trust in them maybe a little bit more vocally; to let them know, you know, they were the subject matter experts, they had all the -- you know, the information that they needed, and we needed to come up with a plan. I think, again, a lot of the issues were staffing, and so try to rotate people to provide them with a rest, provide them with the -- you know, the ability to breathe and focus on what they needed to, and maybe I needed to be more task-driven in terms of, you know, “We need this plan and I need it by such-and-such a time.” Those types of things. Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, I’ve asked you about your leadership but what about when you look around, do you see other leadership issues around those around you?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. I think policing in gen4eral attracts a certain type of a person to it and I think there’s a lot of very strong characters, and one of the things that I felt we maybe could have done better was listening to each other and communicating better and being a little more cohesive as a command team. And I think in moments of stress and crisis, people are not their best selves and maybe rely on behaviours that are not helpful in the moment, and you know, just show kind of the cracks that are coming through. And it was an incredibly long, exhausting, period of time for the Ottawa Police and I think many of our members are bruised as a result, if I can say that, and are still, you know, in that state. So it had a big toll, and obviously what took place, you know, in the top job and with the Council -- City Council showed just how difficult it was for everyone, not just OPS but for, you know, the community as well.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. Now, we spoke a bit about Superintendent Bernier, who assumed the role of Event Commander as of the 10th, and so he would have been reporting to you when you returned on the 13th, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Right, yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
How did you find him as a leader, as the Operation Commander?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Superintendent Bernier’s very intense, as you will likely get to know him. And he got right in, dug in and started to work on developing his plans. One of the parts of the conversation I do recall was he said, “I will accept this role,” because he needed some time to think about it; I think he understood this was a very big job. And he said, “With the understanding that I have a liaison between myself and strategic command. And so he identified somebody who, you know, he trusted who would be able to feed information to us and the strategic sort of command level, and he wanted to be unfettered; he wanted to be able to execute the command as -- or execute the plan as he saw fit, and that it was in his hands, it was very much a, “I got this.”
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Speaking of unfettered, does that go back to what you said earlier about the importance of having autonomy for an Operational Commander:
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And who became that liaison person?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Supt. Rob Drummond.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And you said Supt. Bernie insisted on the autonomy as well as the liaison. Why was the liaison so important?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think you’ll have to ask him that but my sense is that he wanted -- he didn’t want to be sucked into lots of meetings; he wanted to be able to work on the plan, and traditionally, up until this point, we had had a lot of meetings where the Event Commander is actually being taken away from the tasks of doing the job to talking about plans and this type of thing, and I think that he felt that was not a good use of his time. And I think he just wanted that flow of information to go through one person.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Well, Supt. Bernier will testify next week, and I expect he will tell us that one of the early decisions he made was to appoint OPP Superintendent Springer as his deputy.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Did you know about that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did. In my first conversation with Superintendent Bernier, I said, “What do you need? What do you think you need to accomplish this?”. And he said, “I’m going to need sort of a back- up, I guess, if you will”. And I said, “Who do you want? Build your team. Tell me who you want and I will do what I can to make sure that those resources are afforded to you”. So he identified Dave Springer, who I knew as well, and said, “Can you see if he will do it?”. And in speaking with, at the time, Inspector Springer, he agreed. I had a phone conversation with him. He just said, “Can you please, you know, give my boss a call to make sure that they’re okay with it?”, which I did. And he joined the team at that point in time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. Tell us about the degree of integration in the days after your return. So you took two days off and you came back on the 13th. What did you find when you’d come back?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So by that point in time, people had their sleeves rolled up. They were all working at one location, all at, you know, sort of that level of the Superintendent Bernier, Chief Superintendent Carson Pardy. Chief Superintendent Phil Lew was also on the team. There was a room full of planners who they had brought in. There were experts in our traffic, in public order. Everybody was working at the same location. And I believe at that point in time -- I might be wrong on the date exactly -- but Superintendent Bernier was beginning to set up what he called his integrated table, and so each of the units that needed to be involved that were in an incident command structure had a spot at the table and that that could have been an OPP officer, it could have been an RCMP officer, it could have been Ottawa Police.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So I understand from interviewing Superintendent Bernier that a plan that he worked on with the Integrated Planning Group was signed off as between him and the other members of the group. But it appears there might be some confusion around that time just as to what extent additional review or approval may or may not have been required from strategic level commanders, including yourself or the former Chief. So I want to take you to an email chain and see if you can help us clarify some of this confusion. Could we call up document OPP00001547, please? So if we go down to the very bottom to the beginning of the email chain, so Deputy Chief, you see that this email began with the former Chief sending you an email as a request. He said: “Please send me the latest version of operations plan that I approved on Wednesday, February the 9th.” Now, which operations plan did you understand him to be referring to?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe this was the 3.0.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
The 3.0. And then he also asked: “Also, please advise if the plan has received all official approvals, signatures, etc., as there seems to be some concerns about this from the RCMP.” Tell us about this.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I’m not sure if this was at the Chief’s level, whether it was Commissioner Lucki or where that -- the concerns were coming from within the RCMP, but we did have Chief Superintendent -- or Superintendent Bill Lew from the RCMP involved in our plan at that point in time. I do know that in Ottawa there’s the national policing side and then there is the operational policing side for the RCMP, and so I don’t know if there was a disconnect there in terms of that communication, but Superintendent Lew had been working on the plan, the plan was moving forward and had been built out from what we had supplied, the 3.0. That’s what they had been working on from that date forward, from the 9th of February to the 13th, on these plans. And Superintendent Bernier was receiving these plans, reviewing them and then approving them.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So in this one email, he seems to be referring to two different plans.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So if we go further up, we see your reply at 5:58. Now, by the way, in between the request and your reply, did you speak to anyone that you remember?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t recall.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So let’s take a look at the reply: “Good evening, Chief. In checking with Rob Bernier, he finally had a chance to review the plan from the Integrated Planning Team and has sent it back with his comments. He would prefer that it be completed and signed off and will then share the plan, as he is the final approval of it.” As for 3.0, Ottawa Truck Demo ’22, February 9/22, it looks like you attached that 3.0 plan. So were you responding to both requests and trying to -- like I’ll let you tell us what you were trying to do.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It would appear I’m talking about two different plans, and I don’t believe I had seen these -- the integrated plan. Not before Superintendent Bernier had signed off on that. So I think what I’m saying is, he’s had a chance to review the plans. It’s a large document, lots of pages involved in details, and Superintendent Bernier wanted to go over all of them. And he’s obviously done a first review and sent it back with his comments to the people who were developing the plan and he’s saying he would prefer that he’s -- he’s had a chance to really make sure that it is tight and he’s happy with it before sharing the plan, and -- as he is the final approver. And I was making that point to say that it is up to him to approve the plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Up to?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Up to Superintendent Bernier to approve the plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And in -- you said “in checking with Rob Bernier”. Does that refresh your memory?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. So I suspect I had a conversation with him probably over the phone about where things were at and what was going on.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So if we go further up, this is the former Chief replying to your response. He said: “Thank you for the clarification. I was not aware of this delay, as I had approved the plan last Wednesday.” Now, this is February 13th. And when he said, “I had approved the last Wednesday”, would that have been the 9th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
I appreciate and support the need -- sorry. Yeah. “I appreciate and support the need for A/Supt Bernier to make adjustments to the plan that he inherited.” What did you understand the Chief to be saying here, adjustments in the plan “that he inherited”?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That he was simply building out the 3.0 plan. I think that’s what the Chief was assuming.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So were you left with the impression that -- like I -- like what did you understand? Because we started with you explaining that there were two plans. What did you understand the Chief to mean when he said this?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think the Chief was looking for what the plan was and that it was based on that plan that we had presented to the integrated ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
The 3.0.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So he appeared to suggest that there were adjustments made to the 3.0.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. When -- what, I think, Superintendent Bernier was doing was tasking the planners with “Give me a full, robust plan”, which we eventually see as the demobilization plan that we worked off of.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So while Superintendent Bernier was asking for action on the Integrated Planning Group plan, he wanted to have it move ahead, the former Chief was asking about the 3.0.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe that’s what’s going on here, yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And then he said: “That said, please ensure that the plan is fully signed off at the earliest possible opportunity as this is a priority need expressed by our integrated partners.” The plan in this third paragraph or fourth paragraph, to ensure that it’s fully signed off, what did you understand which plan he was referring to now, the 3.0 or the Integrated Group Plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe it was the Integrated Work Plan, the one that Superintendent Bernier was working on, and that, as I had alluded to, Superintendent Bernier wanted to -- he’d made some comments, he’d sent it back and when it came back to him the way he wanted it, he would sign off on and approve that plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So help me understand here. Was there simultaneous work being done on two plans as of the 13th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t believe so. I think the chief was under the impression that 3l0 was being worked on, but it was not. It was concluded, and I believe that’s what I sent him, was the final document with his signature on it that was from the Wednesday prior. And what I knew was that Superintendent Bernier was working very hard, tasking his people to come up with plans, traffic plan, you know, public order plan, PLT plan, all of the plans that form his ultimate demobilization plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Now, when you were responding to the chief's request on this day, have you seen the integrated group plan yet?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I have not.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. So his last paragraph to you: "As such, please communicate by email to the OPP and RCMP the reason for the delay in the approval ID, the current plan, along with the timeline that they will receive the approved plan. Copy Christiane an I on these emails." (As read) Christiane is the lawyer, right, the ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right, yeah.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What did you understand his request to be? Was he asking that the integrated group plan be actioned on?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think he wanted the final plan to be sent to the RCMP and the OPP, and to make sure that he and Christiane were copied when that was done. And I'm not sure if that was because he wanted to, you know, take a look at it as well and have Christiane over -- look it over, because that had been his practice before. We had -- he had asked for legal services to look over plans to make sure that they were meeting -- you know, that they were legally sound, I think was -- would have been his thought process on that. So I think he wanted me to make sure that our OPP and RCMP partners were provided the plan as soon as it was signed off on, and that he also wanted to have a look at it, but I don't know -- he said once the plan has been approved, so I think he understood at this point in time he was not the approver of the plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And you speak about the lawyer reviewing documents as a practice, but we're talking about an operational plans here.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So the practice includes having legal review of operational plans?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It did for former Chief Sloly. It doesn’t in the ICS model. It's not part of the ---
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And in your experience, at the executive level, was that the practice of other chiefs?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
What did you understand to be the significance or the reason that he wanted to have these kind of legal review?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I'm not quite sure. As I said, I think maybe because he wanted to make sure from her perspective it was legally sound, but these were operations, and so I think she would be the first one to tell you that she has no place in that.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And was it understood that the action, the plan could not be actioned on before the legal review was completed?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. All right. Can we go further up? Okay. So this is your -- this belongs -- "The plan that was sent to you just now is one that both party and Lou worked on to include the additional and necessary parts to ensure it met everyone's needs." (As read) So you are now sending the former chief the new integrated groups plan, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
"Both Carson and Phil were aware of the reason for the delay, as they have been in regular contact with Rob yesterday and into today. The plan now has the proper signatories on it and will be the one referenced, moving forward. I thank everyone for the patience ---" (As read) And so on. So was that the end of it for that day for you?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
If we go up to the top, we see that the former chief forwarded it to the RCMP and OPP Commissioner. "Please be advised our operational plan was updated per the integrated model with the input of your respective representatives and has now been fully approved." (As read) And we go further up. We have the Commissioner Carrique thanking the OPS chief. What was your understanding as to the status of this plan, the integrated groups plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That at the operational level, it had been signed off and this was simply a notification to the strategic level, that this was the plan we were going forward with.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
All right. Now, were you aware of any subsequent delay after the -- this is all on the 13th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think there might have been some further conversation about it, but I don’t have any independent recollection or exactly what that was right now.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. How am I doing with the time? Okay. If I could now take you to the plan that was signed off on the 13th, I believe this is OPP00001851. Could we go to page 22, please? Oh, maybe further down. I'm looking for the organization chart. Now, this is a document that you didn’t see until later -- well, I guess on the 13th you had it, and you had an opportunity to review it. Tell us about this organization. Was this level integrated -- integration kept ever before, in your experience?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Hard to say. I have not been part one such as this before, so this was my first foray into this world, but it -- I think what you see are the dotted lines are, you know, the sort of even level of command and control, and then the straight lines are the -- who is reporting to who in that. So you see the event -- the strategic command that report to OPS command team, which would have been Superintendent -- or rather, former Chief Sloly. And then when we get down to the operational level -- and I think it's making pains to show the -- where one ends and the other begins, the clear lines in between strategical operational and tactical. And so then you see, you know, Superintendent Bernier as the event commander with support from both the OPP and the RCMP, but ultimately, that the Ottawa Police event commander is the lead on the command. So you see, he's got a straight line down to everybody else, and Deputy -- or Inspector Springer has a dotted line.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Right. And we see in one of those blue boxes an executive liaison, Acting Superintendent Drummond. That’s what you talked about, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And comparing -- we haven't seen - - we're not going to have time to look at the contents of this plan, but you've had the benefit of understanding this plan -- comparing this to what was the 3.0, can you describe -- summarize for us the main differences between those plans and which one was superior?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It's the level of detail that’s involved in this plan that makes it different. This is a true plan, and it encompasses all of the boxes that you see in there. It's got plans, sub-plans from each of those categories, and this is the superior plan.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
I expect that we will hear more evidence from members of the integrated group who did not consider the 3.0 an adequate plan, the kind of plan that would enable the proper allocation and deployment of resources. What's your perspective on that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I would agree, and I can understand from their perspective. They were sending resources, they were providing us with bodies, and they wanted to know what's the impact that we're looking to achieve? What is our goal? And I don't think 3.0 maybe necessarily laid out as clearly as they needed to be able to invest the resources that we were asking for.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And what was stopping the OPS from developing this kind of plan earlier? It's had more than two weeks.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
These plans take a long time to draft up and what we benefitted from was an influx of members from -- like, people who are true planners, that that’s their one and only job, to come in and assist us and do this over a 24/7 basis. Our planners had been trying to -- you know, they came up with the plan and they had to go and execute it as well. So staffing, I think a -- some leadership and some subject-matter experts, Chief Supt. Carson Pardy is a guru as it pertains to these things and has done numerous protracted events and plans and demonstrations and so those key players to be able to have around the table and tap into lessons learned that they’ve already had before was key in crucial, and we did not that have that capacity before this time.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
So, looking back, having regard to all that the citizens of Ottawa had to go through during those three and a half weeks, what could the OPS, in your view, have done differently or better to have shortened that period to resolve to incident or protest earlier?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think we had period after that first weekend where I say we were orienting ourselves. I think we were floundering a little bit in terms of our staffing, in terms of our ability to really take stock of what was going on and then move forward and come up with a plan to get out it, and I think we lost some time there. We lost some time with some of the, you know, actions-on that were being taken that were setting us back. We didn’t have a pathway, a clear pathway that we were working off of and there was a number of different views, obviously, on what we should be doing, so I think that set us back.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
And finally, there may be a debate as to whether the plan should drive the number or the number should drive the plan. Do you know what I’m asking?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I do and I believe it’s common that the plan drives the numbers.
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Why do you say that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, because you are identifying what the outcome’s that you want to achieve and then you work back from that, how do we then build a team that’s going to assist us in achieving that? And I think when you start with just a number, then there’s no strategy involved in that. And this does really need to be laid out in saying that we need, you know, 10 Public Order Sections to achieve this goal, so how many is that? That’s 50. But it’s more about, what is the outcome that we’re looking -- what are our goals and objectives and how do we staff to that?
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Thank you. Those are my questions.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. The first up in cross-examination is the OPP.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner. I’ll set my clock here and try my best to stay within my allotted time.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. CHRISTOPHER DIANA
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right, good afternoon, Superintendent. My name is Christopher Diana. I’m counsel for the OPP. There’s a few areas that I’d want to ask about just to get some more clarity to you evidence, and I want to start with kind of what was known before the convoy arrived in Ottawa. And I want to start by the basic proposition that Ottawa is very experienced at dealing with protests and large events. This is something that OPS deals with -- well, we’ve heard some evidence about the frequency but this is not an uncommon event, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It’s not uncommon for us to manage protests. This was an uncommon event.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right, sure, sorry. And sometimes the events are large, sometimes they’re small, sometimes they’re predictable, for example, you know, Canada Day and other large events often kind of follow a certain pattern where you kind of know what to expect and you can plan accordingly; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But regardless of the nature of the event, whether it’s large or small, the gathering of intelligence is really important to planning the proper police response; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And we heard from Supt. Morris yesterday that intelligence has certain limits; would you agree with that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I believe he said that when it comes to numbers, for example, you never know exactly how many vehicles or how many people are going to show up until the day of the protest itself; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s true.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that’s just something that’s inherent in intelligence; there are no guarantees?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s true.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But that, of course, doesn’t mean that you don’t plan; you make due with that you have available to you?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And in good planning, the intelligence that you have should drive the way an event is planned; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I would say intelligence and information.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, of course ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- there’s a difference, and I don’t want to get into that ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, okay.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- at this point. I won’t enough time. So when the Ottawa Police Service heard about the convoy leaving Western Canada, I expected the OPS would have immediately started planning for how to deal with it; is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that’s fair.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And as a starting point, that requires collecting and reviewing information and intelligence to know how to respond?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
At that time, I believe you said you were not familiar with Project Hendon?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was no, no.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Of course, in fairness, you were not in the Intelligence Bureau at the time, correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No. I believe it was -- was it Chief Bell who was the deputy -- who was involved in intelligence at the time?
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, he was.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
And he was head of the Bureau?
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So he was the Deputy in charge of it but there was a superintendent who was in that position?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Right.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I don’t know if you heard Supt. Morris’ evidence from yesterday but he gave a number of names of various individuals within Ottawa Police Service would have received copies of the Hendon Reports including, for example, Supt. Patterson, Chief Sloly, and Insp. Bryden, and others; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That sounds right.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe you indicated that you didn’t -- even though you received a copy, I believe, on the 27th or 20th of January, you didn’t actually become of the Hendon -- Project Hendon until somewhere February 4th to 6th; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so, yes, to the best of my recollection.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it that when Hendon crossed your desk in late-January, since intelligence was not particularly your area, you probably felt that others would kind of deal with that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think in my position as a strategic, you know, kind of advisor in this role, I was not reading those reports, per se.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
What I am interested in, though -- of course, intelligence being as important as it is for planning, were there any meetings of senior command to discuss the state of intelligence before the Freedom Convoy hit Ottawa?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe it had been mentioned in some of our meetings in terms of what Deputy Bell was doing with his team, that he was -- they were chasing down as much of the information and intelligence as they could. But beyond -- as a senior command, did we sit down and talk about it? I don’t recall that.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So in those meetings, then, it would be Deputy Bell that would have been responsible at the time for kind of bringing forward that information?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And no one at the time said anything about the Hendon Reports during those pre-arrival meetings?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t remember.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were aware during this period of time that as early as January 20th that OPP Intelligence had indicated that there was exit strategy for many of the protesters?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am now. I was not then.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you consider that -- as the strategic commander, would you have considered that important to know?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe it would have formed part of how we evaluated our plan, for sure.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And did you know about the OPP’s intelligence on fundraising that was brought forward in the Hendon Reports?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I knew about some fundraising and I don’t know where that was sourced from but I do recall Insp. Lucas keeping me up to date saying, “This money has grown exponentially,” in the day or two before they arrived.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And, of course, that’s important to know because it speaks to the potential support of the convoy; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I don’t know that you can necessarily the conclusion that it means they’re going to stay longer. I don’t know what that money was laid out to do. It might have been to be funding initiatives. So one could, you know, make an assumption out of that but it may not be accurate.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Did you know that the OPP intelligence was reporting that many of the protestors will not leave until their demands were met?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I know that now but I don’t believe I knew that then.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And again, that would have been important for you to know as a strategic commander because it speaks to their intent?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did anyone at these meetings speak about heavy equipment being brought in?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
This is difficult. I’m not sure when I was aware of that information. I do know at some point in time, you know, there were reports on the convoys, and whether that was shared to us through PLT Team or through reports, I don’t know how I came to know that or when I came to know that.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And, of course, that obviously would be important to know?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I would that you’ve ---
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, since then, have you had a chance to go back and look at any of the Hendon Reports?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would agree that those reports provided important intelligence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They provided a lot of information, some was consistent with what we saw, some was not consistent with what we saw. There were some statements that, you know, said they would do this and they absolutely didn't. So -- yeah, to answer your question, I -- we have had a number of events here since, and I have since moved over from Community Policing to what former Deputy Bell was working on. So I'm very much alive to Hendon reports, and anytime they show up in my inbox I read them right away now.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And of course no intelligence was generally 100 percent, but ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- for -- as a planning tool, would you agree that those reports would've been useful to have been known, at least the basics of those reports as part of your planning process?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. I think there was also, though, a lot -- what we found is a lot of misinformation/disinformation, huge volumes of information, and I think Hendon has done a great job of sifting through that as much as possible, but there's still a variety of information that is presented on those, and some has come to fruition in past events, and some has not.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And that's kind of a challenge, right, of ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- intelligence gathering is to take the information, put it through the lens, and then come out with a product to assist in the planning process?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that was the very purpose of Hendon; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Now, I want to ask about the plan. There was a plan in place to deal with this event before the convoy arrived; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, there was.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And it was a plan that was predicated on a weekend-long event?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it fair to say that was based more on previous experience than it was on actual intelligence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know if that's fair to say because I don't know what our Intelligence folks had in the way of information and how of that fed into the plan. I think, you know, traditionally, 25 years of planning here, with fairly similar types of protests, experience was definitely something that our team was likely relying on.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But do you think that might have been part of the challenge here, is that Ottawa -- still Ottawa Police Service was so used to dealing with certain kinds of protests that perhaps, you know, the template plan was dusted off, a few revisions were made and presented as being something that would be appropriate for this event?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know that any services across the country would have anticipated what we saw arriving at our doorstep. So I -- you know, do we have plans and do we use, you know, some of the same ones and change dates and names and, you know, build upon them? Yes, we do. And the case, I don't know that that's exactly what happened.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, but I guess the reason I'm asking is just because, you know, asking whether there may have been complacency, and we're trying to understand what happened here and how to prevent these things. Are you concerned that maybe there was a failure to appreciate what may actually happen here, and there was just too much reliance on what was done in the past?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think there was definitely a failure to appreciate.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
If we can bring up OPP3531, please. Actually, sorry, I think OPS3531. I got one of the letters wrong. All right, so this is the Operational Plan, I believe, that you're aware of, this document; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you have approved this document as a Strategic Commander?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I would have seen it but not approved it.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Can we turn to page 6, please. And scroll down where it says Threat Assessment. Do you see that where it says Threat Assessment?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I take it that's an area that would typically provide relevant intelligence to help guide the response?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you agree that there is no -- I'll put to you that there is no reference, obviously, to the Hendon reports in that assessment. Would you agree with that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Not from the portion you're showing me. I don't know if it goes on.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay, we can scroll down to the end of that section, please. And I guess the point I'm trying to make through this is that that section on threat assessment does not reference concepts that were in the Hendon report, such as the fact that there was no exit plan, there was nothing about fundraising, nothing about the intentions of the protesters to stay until their goals had been met, nothing about heavy machinery. All that was in the Hendon report. And I guess the point that I would put to you is that was all important information that should have been in the Threat Assessment. Would you agree?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would. I do note here that they say that they, you know: "...investigate existing intelligence pieces and to liaise with its federal and provincial partners for any indicators of possible disruptions to the Convoy." And: "Should this...change...[with] new information...[it] will be updated accordingly and disseminated." So I gather they didn't have any additional information.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Would you agree, then, with the proposition that this plan was not an Intelligence-led plan, it was more of a traffic plan based on experience than one that's truly led by Intelligence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would agree with that.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I'd like to ask about the Integrated Planning Team that came to Ottawa. You've said some positive things, obviously, about Chief Pardy and others involved in the plan. My take, I believe they arrived on or about February 8th; is that about your recollection?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sound right, yeah.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe your evidence was that you fully supported the concept of an Integrated Planning Team?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
You were aware, of course, that Toronto Police was involved, York, Peel, you had subject matter experts from a number of police services?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you agree that this was not the B Team; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I mean, these were highly regarded incident commanders, excellent planners, POU experts, and people that were top in their field; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And they were all coming to Ottawa to help the OPS kind of resolve the situation; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
And I was very grateful for them; yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But is it fair to say that your enthusiasm or your support wasn't shared entirely by all members of OPS Senior Command?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's fair.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it also fair to say that that lack of initial buy-in caused some delay in the ultimate agreement on the plan and the execution?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that's fair to say.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And one of the -- it's problematic in a sense that the planning team can -- was brought there to assist OPS; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
The Ottawa Police Service was a police service of jurisdiction, so unless and until OPS agreed with it, there was really nothing that the team could do; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
A few questions about PLT. Again, you said some very favourable things about the Provincial Liaison Team. The -- in Ottawa works differently, I believe, than the Ottawa Police Service than it does in the OPS. Obviously, the OPP is a much larger police service. My understanding is that in the Ottawa Police Service, PLT members are all part time; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right. They were until this point.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So in other words, I guess so others can understand, like being a PLT member is not their full time job. That as the need may arise then they can go and they can do PLT duties ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- if asked?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They would be freed up for that, yeah.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so that -- the implication of that is that PLT is only engaged if commanders feel that their involvement would be helpful or necessary?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would say that depends on the Incident Commander. I think the current cadre we have and had at that time were very aware of what PLT was capable of, and engaged with using them.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah, now is actually -- I mean, you were able to know what my next question was, but in that, it very much depends on the Incident Commander as to their own personal view of the effectiveness of that style of policing, or their own knowledge about how PLT works; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Indeed, yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you consider that a bit of a, you know, a problem in terms of lack of consistency and approach?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it fair to say that in January 2022, there were very few in OPS Senior Command or at higher command levels that really understood the potential value of PLT?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would agree.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Or that understood the national framework put out by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Definitely.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe in your evidence in-chief you said PLT is an amazing tool. And I expect that that's kind of the attitude towards the use of PLT?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But would you agree that in reflecting upon lessons learned here, that PLT was misused by OPS in this dispute?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And finally, on the point of jurisdiction. Once the convoy arrived in Ottawa, you would agree to the obvious proposition, but it's worth repeating, that Ottawa Police Service was the police service of jurisdiction; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, we were.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Which meant that at that point it was no longer the OPP's responsibility, jurisdictionally?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, it was ours.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And, in fact, it would have been improper for the OPP to try to step in and kind of take over policing; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Agreed.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That there's no legal mechanism for the OPP to take over unless certain scenarios are met; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That the Police Services Act sets out very specific circumstances where the OPP may take over command of a certain incident or area?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And one of those would be if a formal request would be made from the OPS Chief to the OPP Commissioner; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that's how it works, yes.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Although no such request was made in this case; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would have been surprised if it was. I don't know though for sure.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, I didn't hear you.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know if it was made or not.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, but did you say it would -- you'd be surprised?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would have been surprised if the request was made.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Why would you have been surprised?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Because I don't think that that's what former Chief Sloly was -- wanted.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Why?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think you'd have to ask him. It was clear to me that he was pushing back on that.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, I'm asking you though because you have a -- you've had a lot of dealings with Chief Sloly. So why, in your opinion and in your experience, do you believe Chief Sloly would have refused to consider or would not have entertained the possibility of asking for formal assistance in that way?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't believe he wanted to give up control. I think he felt that this -- he was the Chief in the police of jurisdiction, and he wanted that to be maintained.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
When it came to providing assistance, would you agree that the OPP did everything it was asked to do by the Ottawa Police Service?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they did.
Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you very much. I appreciate your evidence.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Thank you.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay. Thank you. Next is former Chief Sloly's Counsel, and it looks like it'll be like yesterday, you'll be split in two, if that's agreeable. You'll do 10 minutes before lunch and then -- and finish after lunch.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS. REBECCA JONES
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Good afternoon.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, you were ---
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Could you just introduce yourself, please ---
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
I apologize.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
--- for the record.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Yes, Rebecca Jones for former Chief Sloly. Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, you were the MIC for the Freedom Convoy; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And as MIC, you had overall responsibility for the OPS's planning and response to the protests?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And your testimony is that you weren't reading the Hendon reports, though you knew that they existed; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
As of the 28th of January when I think I was forwarded one.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right. Okay. And your role, though you were the MIC with the overall responsibility, you were working with Deputy Chief Bell, who had overall responsibility for intelligence; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And I take it you were relying on the Intelligence team to provide you with the information you needed from the Intelligence report to input into your plans?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think my team was, yes. I wasn't writing the plans, but, yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
You, yourself, weren't writing the plans?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And you weren't writing the plans directly and you weren't reading the intelligence reports directly. You were at a higher strategic level?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And similarly, there would be no expectation that the Chief of Police would be pouring through the Hendon reports and trying to reconcile the different pieces of intelligence; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I don't think that would be realistic.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And the Chief of Police would be at an even higher level, relying on his team for operations and intelligence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And one of the things that you noted was that you did not believe that the initial plan, the January 29th plan was Intelligence led. And I just want to suggest to you that Chief Sloly's expectation for his command had been from when he entered as Chief, that all operational plans were to be Intelligence led?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. Now for this initial January 29th plan, I take it that Chief Sloly's involvement in the process is as you would have expected?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
So he did not direct the planning unduly?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Not at this point, no.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Didn't interfere?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And, in fact, Chief Sloly did not even see the plan or a draft of the plan until the morning of January 28th when it was provided to him for the first time; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's possible, yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And he said looks fine to him and the team proceeded with that plan.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And he would have been looking in -- when looking at that plan, he would have been considering the intelligence and operational details that had been provided to him by his senior command team?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's fair, yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Now if we pivot forward a few days to Sunday night, January 30th, at that point, your evidence is that it became clear to the OPS that the people were not going to leave.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And that there needed to be a pivot in the plan.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. A pivot in our response anyway, but, yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Pivot in your response. Okay. Fair enough. And you as the MIC were responsible in that pivot; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And that required evolution, significant evolution of the January 29th plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Because the January 29th plan had been based on, you know, a big, boisterous, traffic impeding protest, but not an occupation.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And as of January 30th, I take it that you agreed with the assessment that the OPS was now facing an occupation?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Now you were taken to notes from February 3rd and we can perhaps put them up. OPS14484, page 3, please. And for everyone's benefit, these are February 3rd notes of Chief Sloly. And he's referring to a meeting with you and Deputy Chief Bell; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And he refers in the first line to, "I [have] advised that [we've] had 2 days since the POU meeting on Tuesday..." So that was a meeting that took place on February 1st; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, that's right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And Chief Sloly had made very clear in that meeting exactly what you said. There needed to be a pivot and the plan had to be significantly evolved to deal with the situation.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And at the point of this meeting now, two days later and four days after the determination that this was, in fact, an occupation that required a new plan, he had not seen a new -- and I shouldn't say a new plan. I'll go back to what we have spoken about, an evolution of the plan. He had not seen an evolved version of this plan; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
What he was looking for here was specifically a Public Order Unit plan, not the wider plan.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And that would be part of the evolved plan; right? There would be ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
--- a Public Order component of the plan, to try to figure out how we're going to resolve the situation with the people that were occupying the city.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There would be Public Order plan. There would be a PLT plan. There would be a Traffic plan. There would be Investigations plan. All of those things form the plan, but he was fixated solely on this one.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Well, the word "fixated" is - --
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sorry.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
--- a bit loaded. So he was interested in a Public Order Unit plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
In fact, he met with them in person.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And met with them in person. But to be fair to your former Chief, he also expected that there would be a Traffic plan, and a PLT plan, and all of those other plans were evolving at the same time.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he just didn't meet with any of those other groups. I think he might have met with the PLT when there was some discord that he'd heard about, that they were unhappy, but this was the only group that he met with.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
I take it you’re not being critical of him for not meeting with the other groups?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, not at all.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay, because it’s a bit hard to be Chief Sloly sometimes, I think, in terms of criticized for being too involved versus criticized for not being involved enough, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
For sure, yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I can understand that.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
So here on this day, this -- you were taken to this document but you weren’t taken to the very end of the document, if you can scroll down a little bit more -- keep going. Sorry, go up a little bit, end of this paragraph. The paragraph at the top of the page: "I directed once again Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson to ensure that Sgt. Stoll…" And he was -- S/Sgt. Stoll, I apologize -- and he was involved in the POU component of the plan; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he was, yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay, that he: "…got the resources he needed to make the assessments/final recommendation."
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right? Okay. So S/Sgt. Stoll, the Chief wanted to make sure he had the resources he needed to put the -- make the inputs into this plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And now if we can go, please, to document OPS7355. And we looked at these notes earlier today -- February 5th, these are notes of Chief Sloly about -- well, actually, if you scroll up a little bit -- okay, so it’s actually an email from Former Chief Sloly to you, copied to many people on the team and this is the document, if you scroll down, where Chief Sloly sets out some general priorities for planning purposes; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He’s directing the plan but yes, that’s what he set out here are his priorities for that.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And you felt that this was directing the plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And your suggestion is that that was somehow too directive?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. So I’m going to return to that but when we look at these priorities, I’m going to suggest to you they’re pretty high level -- surge, contain, and enforce; demonstration, fully implement plan; shut down, secure enablers for unlawful and unsafe protests.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
“Fuel, fun,” those are much more in the weeds.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay, but this isn’t -- you’re not suggesting this is some sort of tactical-level plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There are portions of it that certainly look tactical to me ---
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
So, you’ve seen ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- that he’s wanting us to interdict in the fuel, specifically, and that was one of his things that he returned to on a number of occasions.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. The fuel, in particular, was an issue of a lot of public attention in Ottawa, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was. Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. So -- and I’m almost out of time for lunch so I’ll just ask you to agree with me about this. If you step back and try to put yourself in Chief Sloly’s shoes, we are now on February 5th; we are now seven days after a determination had been made that the city was facing an occupation and that the plan needed to be evolved and he hadn’t seen an evolved plan; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. So when we talk about how involved you would expect a chief to be or how involved you’re -- how much autonomy you’re supposed to be giving your team, this was an exception circumstance; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
It was an exceptional circumstance and he was trying to get his team to move forward with the evolved plan; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
But without the resources to do so. That was the impediment to us at that point in time. For those seven days, that’s exactly what we were struggling with.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
I could not agree with you more and we can return to that after the lunch break.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay, so we’ll take an hour for lunch and come back and continue this. Thank you.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Thank you.
The Registrar (POEC)
The Commission is in recess for one hour. La Commission est levée pour une heure.
Upon recessing at 1:01 p.m.
Upon resuming at 2:00 p.m.
The Registrar (POEC)
The Commission is reconvened. La Commission as reprend.
ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF PATRICIA FERGUSON, Resumed
CROSS-EXAMNIATION BY REBECCA JONES, (cont’d)
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
I want to turn now -- we will get to resources by the end of my cross-examination but I’m going to turn first to the PLT, which is something we’ve heard a lot about this morning. The PLT is on of many important groups that -- within the law enforcement efforts that was working to resolve the issue of the convoy; right? And there were very important groups, such as Intelligence, people that were doing enforcement at POU, all also had a role, correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Agreed.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And some people may favour a bigger role for the PLT and some people may favour a bigger role for enforcement, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Depending on the circumstance.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right. And reasonable people could disagree about how much emphasis to put which law enforcement tool you have?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it’s always a balance.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And is it fair to say that you and your partners with the OPP favoured the PLT-type approach here.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that’s fair.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And others, you felt, such as Chief Sloly and Supt. Patterson, you felt they favoured a more enforcement based approach?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That was the impression I had, yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. But I just want to return to one thing, which is that February 1st POU meeting. At that meeting, were you aware that Chief Sloly ensured that the PLT was there?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. So making sure that the PLT was integrated with the POU when talking about planning, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And that’s a good idea.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It is, oh, yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
But this sort of tension existed between how much enforcement to do versus how much negotiation through the PLT to do?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And just as a slight aside to that, is it fair to say that the public frustration was focused, in large part, what the public perceived to be a lack of enforcement?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that’s fair.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And I’m not asking you to weigh in on whether or not you agree.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
M’hm.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
There was a lot of complex considerations that were going into all police action at the time, right, but you’ll agree with me that public confidence in police is itself a crucial public safety issue?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that’s fair.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. This tension between the more PLT-type approach or an approach that also incorporated enforcement really came to a head on February 10th, right, and you’ve talked about that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And that is the meeting where you and Supt. Patterson had a dispute?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And in that dispute, Supt. Patterson suggested that you favoured -- and I’m not using the right words but the overall gist of it was that you were favouring a PLT-driven strategy, in part, because your husband was leading the PLT, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t think that’s what his -- and maybe I’ll ask you to rephrase -- or to repeat it ---
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Sure.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- if that’s what I felt or if that’s what he was thinking.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And if I’m characterizing it incorrectly, please feel free to clarify. My understanding was that Supt. Patterson made a suggestion that you were somehow favouring a more PLT-driven approach in some way related to the fact that your husband was a team lead for the PLT.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know that that’s what he was insinuating but I can tell you that that was not the -- that was not why I was favouring PLT. I favoured PLT because I had seen it in action before, and my husband was actually not normally with PLT, but was a crisis negotiator, so was placed in the position.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And I'm not -- I just want to be very fair, I'm in no way suggesting that that’s what was happening.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
But just at that, there was a dispute about your husband's role in PLT and whether that had any influence on your favouring of a PLT strategy.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I am -- I don't know that that’s what he was trying to say, Superintendent Patterson. I don’t want to put words into his mouth. I didn’t take it to be that angle that you're suggesting, so I don’t want to agree to that, because I don't know that that’s what he was ---
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. So please feel free to clarify what you think he was suggesting about your favouring of a PLT strategy and its relationship to your spouse.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think he was insinuating that I had communicated with my spouse about this particular operation and that that had undermined his ability to proceed with the operation.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Ah, I got it. Okay. Fair enough. And you felt that this was an inappropriate suggestion?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And it was very upsetting to you, I imagine?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, it was.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And you spoke to Chief Sloly, who supported you, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Chief Sloly understood why you were upset?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And Chief Sloly removed Superintendent Patterson from his position within the incident command?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
After some discussion and my request, yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Yes. And that’s appropriate, right, to ask you what you want to do, right, and then he supported you?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he did.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And this is just a very small point, but my friend spent some time looking at the mission statement of the February 9th plan. Do you remember that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And I just want to be clear for everyone. The upshot of that was that you wanted the role of the PLT or negotiation to be stated explicitly in the mission statement, and Chief Sloly said it's implicit in the mission statement?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I wanted the word "negotiation", not necessarily mentioned in the PLT, but that we were doing this through negotiated methods.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right. And Chief Sloly said, "Yeah, I think that’s implicit. I don’t think it needs to go in the mission statement"?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
But he said no first, sorry. Sorry for my interruption. He said no first, and then he said it's implied.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And then he said it's implied?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. One other point before we turn away from the PLT, which is, you referred to the fact that you did not feel that senior command necessarily had great facility with the National Framework for Police Preparedness, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And it's fair to say that you as well became familiar with that National Framework during the Freedom Convoy?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I had seen it before when I spoke with the group that asked to have more members trained post-the recent demonstration at Nicholas and Laurier, and they came back and provided me feedback, and they shared the framework with me at that point in time. I looked at it, you know, supported what they were trying to do, and then put it on the corner of my desk so I was refreshed of its existence, certainly, during the convoy.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And I'm going to suggest that the language that you've used is, you became familiar with the National Framework during the convoy?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. I'm going to turn now to the integrated planning group. You gave evidence that the integrated planning group support arrived on February 8th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And your evidence was that Chief Sloly was -- I think you used the word "suspicious" of the group and he was worried about politics, right? That’s your evidence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. And were you aware on February 8th of the motion that had been passed by City council the day before on February 7th? Were you following the motions at City council at this time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know which motion you're referring to, specifically, so ---
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Fair enough. On February 7th, a motion was brought and passed by City council to have the City ask the federal government to assume responsibility for public safety in the Parliamentary precinct.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I'm aware of that one.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. So you were aware at that point that something quite political was happening, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Oh, there was lots of politics.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right. Okay. And of course, that never happened because the motion was entirely without jurisdiction, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
But when, again, to be fair to Chief Sloly, when this integrated planning group arrives and you perceive him to be somehow resistant or suspicious or whatever words you're using, this is within 24 hours of a motion to have the RCMP take over policing in the Parliamentary precinct, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And so it's fair to say that Chief Sloly was dealing with a lot, including at the political level at this time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No doubt.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
I'm going to ask you now about this issue between the February 9th and the February 13th versions of the plan. And I'm going to ask if we could put up email at OPP1547, please, which is an email we looked at this morning. If we scroll down to the bottom, please, okay. So you were asked about this email and this is an email where Chief Sloly asks you to send him the latest version of the operations plan that I approved on February 9th, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And when you were giving your evidence this morning, when first asked about this email and this operations plan, you explained that this operations plan that had been signed off on on the 9th had then been taken by the integrated planning team and they were refining it and adding to it and making changes to it, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think they were building it out.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
They were building it out, okay. And I think your evidence just got a bit confused about the suggestion that there was confusion that there were two different plans, right? There weren’t two different plans. There was the February 9th plan and it evolved into the February 13th plan; is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They're two very different plans in their final states, to say what was happening at this stage in the game would be unfair. I think Superintendent Bernier could probably tell you that piece in greater detail.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Fair. But the Commissioner shouldn't be left with the impression that there were two independent plans floating around and no one knew how to reconcile them, right? That would be fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I think, further up, we sent him the plan that he's talking about, and then the conversation carries on about this integrated plan that is being developed waiting for signatories in that piece. So it would appear to me that there are two plans at this stage, but one may be the predecessor of the second.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right. And the difficulty in this email that I'm going to put to you is that you had not been following the -- I shouldn't say you weren’t following -- I'm sure you were following -- but you had not seen the February 13th version, or at this point, yes, the February 13th version yet, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I had not.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
So what you sent Chief Sloly back was the one that you had?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It was the one that he'd signed off on on the 9th.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And that you had?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Right, because you didn’t have the February 13th?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did not.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
So -- and I'm going to just take you now if I could to OPS10470, and if you scroll down, please, and this is -- sorry, if you go up just a little bit, this is an email from Superintendent Leu, I believe it is, at the RCMP?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And Superintendent Leu refers to the fact that he is working on the plan, and in the second sentence: "Obviously, this plan originated with your plan, which we examined, bolstered, and strengthened." Right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And that was consistent with your understanding of what was happening?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
I'm going to turn now to the relationship between the Police Service and the Board and Council You attended several Board and Council meetings with Chief Sloly, both before and during the convoy, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And when questions came up about operations, often Chief Sloly would defer to you, and you would provide an operational update?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And is it fair to say that you and Chief Sloly did that work, you updated the Board together, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And you were on the same page about what sort of information the Board should have as to the status of operations. I only have another minute, so I’m going to be fast. I’m going to ask you now about resources. Ultimately, it took the additional 1,800 officers that the OPS determined it needed to clear out the occupation; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think it actually took more than that, but yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. It took more than that. And this was done without any serious injury or loss of life?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
And in -- partly in doing this, the police used the powers given to the police by the Emergencies Act?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think it assisted. I would say greased the wheels of the plan that we had in place.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Yes, okay. Fair. So it assisted you in executing the plan.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Because you used powers such as threats of seizure of vehicles, right, threats of seizures of bank accounts?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
It helped you get tow trucks.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
It prevented -- allowed you to prevent assembly in the red zone?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
So that things, I think we can say fairly, resolved more quickly and more safely because of those additional powers.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. And Superintendent Bernier may have more details on this. I understand that we did -- we had secured some tow trucks, but I would say, you know, in terms of the plan that we had in place, it allowed us to move with further confidence than we would have had, say, without it. We may have seen more challenges later on in court, but we were going ahead with that plan anyway.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Perfect. And before the over 1,800 additional resources arrived, you’ll agree with me that the OPS did not have sufficient resources to end the occupation.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I absolutely agree with you.
Rebecca Jones, Counsel (Peter Sloly)
Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. Next up are the convoy organizers.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. BRENDAN MILLER
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Good afternoon, Acting Deputy Chief. And as I was saying, first thank you for your service and thank you for your forthright testimony already here that you’ve given today. I just need to pull one very small strand before I begin. I’m scrolling to it in my own disclosure.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
If you could first introduce yourself and speak up a bit, please.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. Sorry, sir. Brendan Miller. I am counsel to Freedom Corps, which is the incorporated entity that represents the protectors that were in your city in January and February of 2022. So beginning first with the area that I want to chat with you about is the Hendon reports. You said in your evidence in-chief that Acting Chief Bell’s unit at the time, which I believe was Intelligence ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
--- they were the ones that would receive the Hendon reports; correct? Okay. And it’s fair to say that it would have been now Acting Chief Bell’s responsibility to pass those reports on to the Office of the Chief and Chief Sloly. That’s who would pass them on to him.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think what he would be passing on is the products of what that unit worked on to share up. I don’t think it was his job to pass it up to the Chief, but the information would be assessed, analyzed and then passed up the chain.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Now, we heard yesterday that Chief Sloly had to get the Hendon reports from the OPP directly in January of 2022 and Superintendent Morris found that odd because the OPP had been providing those reports to OPS since Project Hendon started in early 2021. To your knowledge, were the Hendon reports not provided by now Acting Chief Bell or his department to Chief Sloly?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
You don’t know.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I couldn’t comment on that. My understanding is that the Chief was receiving them as part of an All Chiefs. Sometimes that’s how the initial -- there’s two separate levels, so he might have been receiving it in that. That’s generally one of the ways that the -- that information is disseminated across the province, but whether Chief Bell was getting them and when he got them, I don’t know. I couldn’t speak to that.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. And so it’s fair to say that -- we’ll have to just ask Chief Bell or Acting Chief Bell that. It’s fair to say, then, that these Hendon reports, they went to someone likely in Chief Bell’s unit but not necessarily Chief Bell?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, that’s fair.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
And then that individual, whomever received them, or group would then put together their own product and then provide it to either Chief Bell and then Chief Bell may or may not provide it to Chief Sloly; fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Fair.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to get that clarified because it’s an important point. I want to talk to you a little bit about the media reports and some of the misinformation that was spoken about yesterday by Superintendent Morris. The media, through reporting at times and statements of elected officials reported that the residents of Ottawa were experiencing unprecedented violence. Do you remember reading that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t remember reading that, no.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
All right. Can you agree with me that there was not an increase in violent crime or events of violent crime in the City of Ottawa during the protests before the invocation of the Emergencies Act?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t think I can agree with you on that. I do believe we saw an increase in violence. I don’t have the exact measures or the stats, but I do know that we did see some increase in violence and acts of violence as a result of the protests in town.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right. And so I understand that prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, between January 27th and February 14th, there was a total of only 13 charges laid as against the protestors. Can you agree with me on that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Can you repeat the dates please? Sorry.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Between January 27th and February 14th, the invocation.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that charges were laid during that time? Charges may have been latent in terms of once the information was all gathered, then charges were laid after, and my understanding is there were upwards of 400 charges that were laid in relation to the convoy.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right. And those charges, I understand, the great majority of them arose after February 14th with respect to the enforcement. It wasn’t for things that happened during the time period prior to the invocation. Is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I think they were acts that took place during that time period when the convoy was in town but that the information was only able to be solidified into a state where we were able to lay charges.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right. So would Acting Chief Bell be able to provide us an accurate number for this Commission with respect to that question?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m sure he could if he knows the question now.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. Well, hopefully he’s able to do that because I believe that’s an important point. Now, I take it that during the protests, of course, that the Ottawa Police Service, though they weren’t, at times, enforcing by-laws or weren’t enforcing provincial infractions, they were enforcing the Criminal Code in full force and effect; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I wouldn’t say that. I think we were struggling to be able to do that.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
You’re struggling, but if a police officer saw an individual assaulting another or there was a report of an individual to a police officer that they had been assaulted, that was investigated?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Those individuals after that investigation, if it was appropriate, charges were laid against them.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, in many cases.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Now, did Chief Sloly at any time advise you that he had been advised by RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki on January 31st, 2022 to not have the City of Ottawa get an injunction because it's an official movement to another stage, this will involve the whole country and anything official will spark a national response? Did he tell you about that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was part of the conversation with Commissioner Lucki and Commissioner Carrique, I believe, at the time. I don’t remember those facts specifically, but I do remember Commissioner Lucki saying that it was -- it was a bit of a double-edged sword, getting an injunction, because, you know, then you would need to be enforcing and if you don’t have the resources right now to enforce all the Criminal Codes and other offences that were being broken here, then to get an injunction sort of sets the expectation for the community that we were then going to be able to actually come down and enforce it, and we didn’t have the resources there. So there was conversation for sure about it, but I don’t know what her specifics -- what you’re saying, whether that was attributed to her or not.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right. So I just want to go through again. You had mentioned in your evidence the Chief under examination from my friends, counsel for Mr. Sloly, that there were certain provisions with the Emergencies Act Order, the Order in Council that assisted removing the protestors. I want to deal with each. So first is the threat or the freezing of bank accounts, all right. So I'd like you to turn your mind to that. How many individuals whose bank accounts were frozen, to your knowledge, immediately exited the downtown of Ottawa?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
All right. Do you have any information that these individuals who had their bank accounts frozen couldn't leave because they couldn't pay to get out of Ottawa?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I had heard anecdotally through the media some of those stories, but I am not aware of any specifics.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. So with respect to that, can you agree with me that it was only about 58 or 59 individuals who had their bank accounts frozen?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I can't actually agree because I don't know those figures. I'm sorry.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. And dealing with some of the other enforcement provisions, of course you can agree that the Emergencies Act Order did not order an increase in officers for you to remove the protesters?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, what it did do was, there was some legislative things that it was able to -- we were able to get RCMP members here without swearing them all in, which was a bit of an administrative hurdle for us. We were, you know, struggling with that throughout the convoy. With the Emergencies Act, they were able to come and just be police officers here without that step.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Okay. And so that is one of the things that sped it up, but can you agree with me that if there was an order, once you got resources in place, if there was an injunction in place that had the terms of removal inside of it, that these police officers could have done the same thing; couldn't they?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they could have. I think I said that of most officers across Canada here.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Right. So I just want to touch on, and we've talked a little bit about misinformation, and, you know, the evidence from Superintendent Morris yesterday was very interesting. He talked about misinformation in detail and misinformation in the media and it was very enlightening. And, of course, there's still some misinformation going around and, you know, even we have misinformation. We don't know what's true and what's not. So I'm going to ask you some questions here. I don't know what the answer to this is going to be, but it may or not be misinformation. Did you tell any of your friends and colleagues within OPS that at some time prior to you giving testimony here today that you were approached by someone who wanted you to give certain evidence that was not true?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Thank you. Now I take it that you prepared in advance for giving your evidence in this proceeding in the sense as a police officer would before they testify in a trial or any proceeding?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
And unlike regular court proceedings, this proceeding is unique, and there's no exclusion of witnesses' orders and, in fact, the proceeding plays out online and live on TV. I take it you're aware of that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I am.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Did you have the opportunity and privilege to listen to the evidence of Superintendent Morris before testifying today?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
His was the one I missed because I was intensely prepping for today so.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
All right. Well, I'm not going to ask you about his evidence then and ask you to confirm it if you haven't heard it. But can you agree with me that Superintendent Morris is the most senior Intelligence officer within the provincial government in the entire province of Ontario?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't actually know that. I believe that, but I don't know that that's a hundred percent.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
And you know he works hand in hand with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Communications Security Establishment and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. You're aware of that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
And if anyone in the province within the provincial and, you know, even municipal apparatus knows anything about threats to the security of Canada, it would be him; wouldn't it?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know how to answer that. I mean, I think that's speculative, but he's a very learned colleague in this regard for sure.
Brendan Miller, Counsel (Freedom Corp / Convoy Organizers)
Yes. Those are my questions. Thank you very much.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. I'd like to now call on the City of Ottawa.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS. ANNE TARDIF
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Good afternoon.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
My name's Anne Tardif. I'm one of the lawyers for the City of Ottawa. You were asked this morning, Acting Deputy Chief, why the Ottawa Police Service did not proactively lock down Wellington and the downtown core before the first trucks arrived. You recall being asked that question?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
In fact, I think you were asked it several times in fairness to you. Are you familiar with the farmer's protest that I believe occurred in or around 2006?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
For referral, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Okay. And you're aware that certain large farm vehicles like tractors came up and protested on Wellington in front of Parliament Hill?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am aware of that, yeah.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And my understanding is they came, and they left without incident; is that in accordance with your understanding as well?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I expect that we will hear evidence that Chief Ramer -- and I -- am I pronouncing that right? I am? Chief Ramer of the Toronto Police Service, that he's indicated that using Ottawa, they locked down the City of Toronto, and that had Ottawa not happened, Toronto Police Service tactics would not have been accepted. And this was in relation to TPS's decision to lock down the area around Queen's Park after the convo had arrived in Ottawa. Are you aware that Chief Ramer has said that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And in fairness to you, since - - fairness to you and the Service I should say, since the events of the Freedom Convoy, my understanding is that the police working collaboratively with the City of Ottawa have, in fact, locked down the area of Wellington, exercise their authorities to close streets to prevent the event from recurring; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That is correct, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I'm thinking, for example, of Rolling Thunder.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Okay.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I think there was also a veteran's event around Canada Day. You're familiar with those?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Thank you. Now I take it you're also aware that during the Freedom Convoy community members in Ottawa were being harassed by protesters in areas such as Kent Street, for example?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, those were reports we received.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Okay. And for those who aren't quite familiar with the geography of Ottawa, fair to say that Kent Street is on the periphery of what later became known as the red zone?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I also understand that while the City and OPS were generally successful in maintaining emergency lanes open and clear, there were some issues in that respect; is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There were. I think probably after the first weekend we struggled with that, keeping them open.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
My understanding is that Kent Street never had an emergency lane open?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, it didn't.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And that Wellington Street, the intended emergency lane was in fact lost during that first weekend?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Now obviously, that represents a public safety concern. You'd agree with that, Acting Deputy Chief?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
So I just want to get the overall timeline. Perhaps you can help me here. I think I've got it now. The -- let's start with the first weekend. So the first truck rolled in on January 28, which was a Friday.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And that first weekend, January 28th to Sunday, January 30th, OPS's plan, the Police Service's plan focussed primarily on traffic management; is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that is fair, yeah.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And you've described how on Monday, January 31st, when a number of the trucks did not in fact leave, the Service pivoted and considered it now, the event that is, to be a critical incident?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and an occupation.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
An occupation. In other words, not merely a traffic event.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Right.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And you described this morning how by February 4th, that's the Friday of that first week, OPS still did not have a new or evolved plan; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That is correct.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I think I heard you say this morning that during that first week, there were times, in fact, when the Service was floundering. That's the word you use. Is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And by February 6th, that's the date that Chief Sloly, former Chief Sloly, pardon me, asked for 1800 additional resources or officers; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I know he made the ask. I'm not sure of the date, so if you're saying the 6th ---
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Does that sound about right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It does, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
I think that's the evidence the Commission has heard today.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I think I heard you say earlier that, in fact, you believe more resources than that were effectively needed to end this convoy occupation; is that correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe in the end it was somewhere near 2200.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
That same day, February 6th, the events that you described at Coventry took place?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
POU, that's the Public Order Unit, they conducted some enforcement there ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
--- that resulted in arrests?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And they did so without, as I understand it, advising the Police Liaison Team?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Came as a surprise to Police Liaison Team members?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And that team I think you said felt betrayed?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And the result, of course, was a breakdown in the trust between the Police Liaison Team and the protesters, to a certain extent at least?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes ---
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Yeah.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- I think there was that impact.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
You said you do think there was there an impact.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do think that was -- yeah.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And again, for those of who are still learning about police Operations and don't have the experience you do, as I understand it, the Police Liaison Team is the group that is primarily responsible for communicating and negotiating with protesters.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they are.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
So the breakdown in trust would be a significant event?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would categorise it as that, yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Moving ahead to February 8th, we're now 11 days into the convoy?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
We still don't have the almost 1,800 resources that former Chief Sloly has requested?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And that turned out to be necessary; you'll with that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
We still don't have, if I've understood you correctly, a final operational plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
At least not one that's been approved?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Were working on it.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Or, sorry, or which?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Were working on it.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
You were working on it. Fair enough. And I think you'd agree with me that by this time the force is probably exhausted.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Mentally and physically.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And you'll agree with me that Ottawa residents, particularly those living on the periphery of the red zone, those facing harassment, noise, pollution, so on, so forth, they're also frustrated.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And they're also exhausted.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And it's not an understatement in the least to say that things were dire by that point.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't think that's an understatement.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
You're aware that on February 8th that the Ottawa Police Service reached out to the City Manager, whom everyone in this town calls Steve K?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
To ask him to meet with protesters?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And they felt, your Service felt, it would be a win for PLT to gain trust with the truckers.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think we were looking for a win in terms of movement of the trucks. I don't know if we were positioning it as a win for PLT per se.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Oh, sorry. I guess what I meant was it's a win in terms of re-establishing trust with the truckers, between authorities and the truckers, so that you can get to a negotiated solution.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's fair.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Right. I think you said earlier that, you know, that was the goal. You in fact had wanted to see that in the Mission Statement, that a peaceful negotiation was the best outcome overall.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Steve K agreed to work with police and PLT and to meet with the protest leaders?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
(Inaudible response)
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And then I understood that you were off on February 11th and 12th; did I get that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
So I won't ask you about the events of those days, and we'll jump ahead to February 13th. I understand that Steve K briefed police about the negotiations on February 13; is that right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he did.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And he told you that we needed the police at the table to confirm where the protesters should park, what locations.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, for logistics.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
Sorry, which?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
For the - --
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
For logistics, yeah. That's probably a better word. And so he wanted the police because you were -- the police is going to need to execute this on the ground; fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, fair.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And he wanted a senior OPS member involved at that stage?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And as I understand it, former Chief Sloly assigned Superintendent Drummond to that task.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And that meeting occurred on the evening of February 13th.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
With Superintendent Drummond at the table.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Anne Tardif, Counsel (Ott)
And I know we'll be hearing from him next week, so I'll pick it up with him there. Thank you very much, Acting Deputy Chief.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Thank you.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. If I could now call on the Ottawa Coalition.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Thank you, Commissioner.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. PAUL CHAMP
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Good afternoon, Deputy Chief Ferguson.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
My name's Paul Champ. I'm the lawyer for the Ottawa Coalition for Residents and Businesses, and want to thank you very much for coming today to answer some of our questions. I want to start, Deputy Chief Ferguson, asking you about the decision to allow the heavy trucks to come downtown right at the outset. Now, we've heard previous evidence from the City Manager, Mr. Kanellakos and the Mayor and Chair Deans that the police were telling them that it was the opinion of the Ottawa Police Service that you could not prevent the heavy trucks from going downtown because of the Charter rights of those truckers. Was that your understanding of what the Ottawa Police were telling the City of Ottawa officials?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And was that a legal opinion that the Ottawa Police obtained?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't remember if we obtained a legal opinion on that. I believe this was based on decades of past, you know, experience in managing events, and that we have allowed it in the past, and that we were going to again in this case.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Notwithstanding the dramatically larger scale and the larger number of like heavy trucks?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think we have had trucks, and as previously alluded to, tractors in that area of the downtown. It's obviously the sought after spot when people come to protest.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And this idea of vehicle protests or vehicle associated protests, you've told us the Ottawa Police Service had some experience with that before. Has the Ottawa Police sought input or guidance or expertise from other police services about how they manage large vehicle protests?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Not to my knowledge. I know that it's possible. I know there is a whole network of officers who, you know, go to conferences on public order things, and I have been to one of those. So there may be a network and that might have happened already.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
There might be police services reaching out to OPS now after this incident ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
--- I'm sure. Yeah. Deputy Chief, on January 26th, we know that you gave an interview to Global News; is that right? Do you recall that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's possible, yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And you made a comment to the media at that time, or Global News, that you expected the convoy protests could go on for a prolonged period. Do you recall making a comment like that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And by that, you -- I understand you are later suggesting that by prolonged period you just meant like a long weekend.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
But isn't it true, Deputy Chief, that by that time there were in fact all kinds of, I would suggest, of glaring indicators that these protesters were coming here for a very prolonged period. Isn't that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So there were indicators. Was I aware of them at that time on the 26th when I made that statement? I don't believe I was, but prolonged in my experience, being, you know, a police officer in the Capital for 27 years, prolonged was a weekend for a protest.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
But this one was different, Deputy Chief. You had a very, very large number of trucks that were coming from a long distance, right, from Western Canada; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and we'd had a similar one I believe in 2019.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Yeah, some of the same folks involved.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
I think we might hear about that later in these hearings. But nowhere near the numbers; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, the numbers were something that was fluctuating as they travelled across the country. And even right up until the, you know, the three days prior to them arriving in Ottawa, my understanding is the Hendon reports had three different numbers, somewhere in the high four hundreds, then five-and-a-half, and then ultimately 1,300 I think was the last number that we had prior to them arriving here.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
This one was also different, I would suggest, Deputy Chief, because it was known and very publicly known that they had in fact raised an enormous amount of money to support this journey, and perhaps more, given the amount of money raised. That made it different, did it not?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It did. Without knowing what that money was going to be used for, whether it was going to support truckers who could no longer work because they couldn't cross the border or whether -- you know, we could speculate as to what that was for, we didn't automatically attribute it to being to support the people who arrived in Ottawa.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Well, you knew from the GoFundMe page it said for raising money for fuel and lodging and food for the protesters in Ottawa. You were aware of that.,
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sorry, I didn't know that.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Okay. That might have been the Intelligence folks might not have shared that. And also that the protesters had no exit strategy. You weren't -- but you weren't aware of that in the beginning.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, not at the beginning and, you know, to be fair, I think there were comments saying that they were planning leaving after the weekend and then other ones had said the fourth I think was given as a date, and then there was also information that there was no exit strategy for some of them who were planning to stay.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
But you would agree with me, Deputy Chief, there were some indicators that they were prepared to come here for a number of weeks perhaps?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree, yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And at the time of the first weekend, at least at that time, unfortunately the Ottawa Police Service did not have a contingency plan about how to manage that for several weeks if we had a few hundred trucks parked in Downtown Ottawa.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, we did not.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
We were crossing our fingers and hoping for the best at that point. And I don't mean -- I know there's a lot of armchair quarterbacks at this stage, Deputy Chief, but it was a bit of a traumatic event for a lot of folks downtown. Now, at one point the deputy, or pardon me, Chief Sloly said this is no longer a protest, it's an occupation, and you've told us today that the protesters had begun to entrench themselves, and you'd mentioned they had set up tents. But did they also were starting creating wooden structures; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
A number of them at different locations?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
There were kitchens that were set up ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
--- outdoor kitchens? We know they had different fires at different locations to keep them warm in multiple locations.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I heard that, yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
They had supply chains of fuel and food from the staging area, Coventry, to bring food and fuel regularly downtown; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s my understanding.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Well, the Ottawa Police was monitoring, I gather, those supply chains?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And you’re also aware that the convoy protestors had very strong logistics and experienced people managing those logistics? You’re aware that they had retired military and police managing those logistics?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
So, over time, it became quite clear to Ottawa Police Service there was a serious problem, that they could well be here for a very long time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And on the impact downtown, there was, is it fair to say, Deputy Chief, a fair amount of lawlessness in Downtown Ottawa at that time, aside from just the bylaws, the parking, the idling, open fires everywhere, at almost every intersection, and so forth; correct.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Fireworks were shooting off, binging off buildings, and so forth?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’ve heard that, yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Large numbers of propane tanks and jerrycans were around downtown?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
People were ignoring public health regulations on masks?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And we heard some questions around other more serious crimes, about assaults. There were reports of assaults during the course of the protest?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There were.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Now, those would have been, I gather, Deputy Chief, difficult crimes to investigate because they weren’t in situations where the victim and the perpetrator don’t know each other and it’s at a random place in a street; I gather that’s very challenging for police to investigate?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, sometimes to identify the subject or the accused and the subject and the event, yeah.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Right. And in many cases isn’t it fair to say, Deputy Chief, that for Ottawa citizens or residents calling saying they were assaulted and making those reports, the police, unfortunately, couldn’t do much more than just take down the information; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s fair.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And that’s really what happened with the vast majority of those cases?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t if it’s the vast majority but I would suspect there’s a large number, that that is in fact the case.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And there was also a large number of people reporting threats, being threated by the protestors; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And in many cases when there wasn’t actually an assault, the police weren’t even necessarily taking police reports on those because there were so many; is that right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know that we weren’t taking them -- not everybody was calling was and we were -- by the second weekend, we were imploring people in the press conference that was done to please call us, “We would like to know about this.” I know we had an influx of calls around the protest time but not all of them were reporting. Some of them were threatening our staff. Some of them were, you know, espousing their views on the convoy in the positive or negative. So our lines were pretty jammed and it might have been difficult for some people to actually makes those reports.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Right. Yeah, this protest was kind of affecting Ottawa on many levels. We were -- our public officials were receiving serious threats as well, correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And that’s -- those are things that Ottawa Police resources had to deal with?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, as much as we could.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
As much as we could. We also -- obviously, we had the deluge of fake 911 calls and bomb threats to our hospitals; those things happened?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Making it difficult on Ottawa’s Police Resources?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And Deputy Chief, as well, the police officers, you’ve already told us how exhausted they were working around the clock. Some of them were also reporting they having concerns with the sound and the diesel fumes; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, we actually engaged our police association and got some tools that were measuring the noise that our officers were being exposed to along with air-quality things. Some of the officers were wearing them on their uniforms so that we could assess just what sort of impact it was having on their health.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Because many of them were complaining as it went along about how loud it was?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Now, just the final area, Deputy Chief, about the Ottawa Police and what was happening with the Ottawa Police at that time. Now, this significant event, it occurred a very difficult for the Ottawa Police Service as an organization; is that fair to say?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Very fair.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And you’ve indicated that there was a lot of retirements and resignations at the senior levels at that time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
We had a Deputy Chief who had been suspended for a prolonged period of time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
The Deputy Chief position that you were occupying, that was Deputy Chief Jaswal spot?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And for the previous two and half years, they were rotating people through that spot, a number of different officers, Inspectors McKennna, Ford, Burnett, I think Rheaume, Dunlop, Drummond, all of you occupied that position for some period of time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
McKenna and Ford rotated back and forth over several months a time for a period of, I think, probably about 18 months, and then, yes, Supt. Dunlop was there. I think he was the only -- those were the only three.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And other senior officers had resigned or retired at that time so you’d some of -- some of the normal robustness of the Ottawa Police Service?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Corporate knowledge and subject-matter experts, yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And there was also the issue, was it not, Deputy Chief, that there were some -- there was a lot of people within in the Ottawa Police Service who disliked the Chief and were not very happy with the Chief’s leadership; is that fair to say?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There was definitely some dissention and I don’t know what all the reasons for leaving were but it was a time where I would say we were pretty divided, exhausted, and -- I don’t know. There was, as I said, a number of people who left but they were able to because they had their years in and it was a good time. With the pandemic restrictions lifting, I think a lot of them went on to do -- whether it was travel or do other things, so.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Right. Well, we know in the in the midst of this, Deputy Chief, of this convoy, not only did Chief Sloly end up resigning but, prior to that, there was a CBC story that was coming out critical of his leadership that apparently came from those within the Ottawa Police Service; do you recall that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do. I think it was convoy-related, though. Like, it was from incidents that occurred during the convoy and prior.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
But do you think that those who leaked that information, they were trying to undermine Chief Sloly or wanted to see him fail?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know what their motives were but I think it had that impact.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Okay. And just the last -- the last thing here, Deputy Chief, now, you’ve testified -- you’ve given us evidence that you yourself had some concerns with the decision-making and actions of Chief Sloly at times?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I did.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And your concerns about that grew over time as the convoy progressed?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that’s fair.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And you were aware that -- and we’re going to hear evidence of this -- that the OPP and others from the other police services also had some concerns in that regard?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And now, did you discuss these concerns with Deputy Chief Bell at any time? Like, as the two, you know, executive command under the Chief, did the two of you discuss these concerns that were being raised and your observations about Chief Sloly?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I remember Deputy Chief Bell saying, “Make sure that you keep the Chief informed. That’s going to be the best way to make sure that he is satisfied with what is going on so make sure that that communication goes to him as often as possible,” and that was more a sort of, “You’ve stepped into the Deputy role; here’s what’s expected.” I don’t know that we had much conversation about the Chief, per se. I mean we were both up to our necks in operations and things so ---
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
So it never got to the level of concern that the two of you were expressing concerns to each other about your confidence in the Chief’s decision-making abilities at that time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I don’t think so.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And if you had, would that have -- what would you have done? Was that something that you and Deputy Chief Bell could have perhaps raised with the Police Services Board, perhaps?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I guess if that’s where we were -- if we’d had that conversation, them or OCPC, I think, would be ---
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
The Ontario Civilian Police Commission?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yeah.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And just finally, on the integrated command, once the integrated command occurred, that’s when the resources really began to flow; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
So it seemed that there was some concerns by other police services that they didn’t want to provide significant resources when it was under exclusive leader command of the Ottawa Police Service?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m not sure what their reluctance was but when we did start to work, you know, collaboratively with the other services, the flow of information and the requests were much quicker.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
And so, Deputy Chief, is it fair to say that had there been a shift to the integrated command much sooner in this event, perhaps the actions that were finally taken to clear out the protest could have occurred sooner; is that fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s fair.
Paul Champ, Counsel (Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses)
Thank you very much, Deputy Chief.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. Next is the Government of Canada.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS. CAROLINE LAVERDIÈRE
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Hi, my name is Caroline Laverdière. I'm one of the Counsel for the Government of Canada. You mentioned in your witness summary that OPS would not have been able to manage the -- or resolve effectively the convoy occupation in Ottawa without the invocation of the Emergencies Act; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I think my -- at the time of my statement, I was under the impression that things like tow trucks, that was the only way we were going to be able to get them. I may be corrected by Superintendent Bernier, I think they did have some lined up and they were on their way just prior to us beginning our actions. But I think, as I stated before, that I think the Emergencies Act made us more confident in the approach we were taking and enabled us to, you know, get past the issues of -- it was the seizing of assets I think that was helpful in terms of setting a tone for some of the people who may be deterred by that, and the tow trucks specifically was the piece that I remember being very helpful, and, you know, the red zone. We were moving in there regardless, but the Emergencies Act was helpful.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Excellent. One aspect of that I want to further develop with you, and it builds on what you previously said about PLT and its role in managing protests, and in this case, an occupation, there was a lot of talk, or actually, things written in the final plan that was approved on February 13th about PLT negotiation, but also, there was a focus on the objective of shrinking the footprint of the protest and occupation. That assessment is correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That is, yes.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
And my understanding is that shrinking the footprint would -- it involves having people leave on a voluntary basis before, for example, POUs are brought at the forefront to remove -- forcibly remove people; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct. We were -- our PLT team was engaged in a notification, I guess, campaign you would say, where they were advising people that you are now breaking the law. You will be arrested if you stay. You are being, you know, provided the opportunity to leave. And I think we did that over a series of, you know, 12- hour periods.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Increments?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Increments, and then eventually moved in. And it did -- it was somewhat successful in shrinking the footprint.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Okay. And so just -- let's stay on that notice to protesters for a little bit there. In that notice, OPS did provide information about if you are staying, your vehicles and property may be seized or towed; correct?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's quite possible.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
And building on what you just said but also referring to your written summary, it seems like you were convinced at the time that communicating that information to protesters would be -- would have the effect of deterrence or convincing them to leave voluntarily because you thought that people would not want to have their vehicles or property seized. And if I -- I don't think I have the quote and I won't take the time to do it, but it's -- you said it was their lifeline or very important in their life, and so it would move them if they knew that there was a very real prospect of actually being able to tow the vehicles and seize the property; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. For many of them it was their livelihood, their truck.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Yeah. And also for deterrent purposes, these notices contained information about the prohibition to travel to or within the restricted zones, which was designated as unlawful demonstrations; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right, yeah.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
There was also something about anyone travelling to Ottawa for the purposes of taking part in the Ottawa convoy occupation would actually be breaking the law; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
The notices to protesters also included language clearly telling protesters that if they stayed, their personal or business accounts may also be subject to restrictions; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Yeah, and the question about bringing a minor to protests was also included. And some of these notice to protesters actually stated that if you brought a minor to this unlawful protest, you could be fined up to $5,000 and potentially spend 5 years in prison; right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That might be true. I don't remember the exact details ---
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
In that one ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- but, yeah.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
And just circling back to what you've said in the very beginning of my examination, but you agree with that -- with the -- you would agree that as of February 17th, the size or the footprint of the protest in Ottawa had significantly been reduced?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would.
Caroline Laverdière, Counsel (GC)
Thank you. No further questions.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. Next the JCCF and Democracy Fund.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
At the outset here, I'd like to ask for leave to read a sentence from the witness' interview summary. I won't do that right away, but I figured I'd ask now so as not to disrupt whatever flow I can muster.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
I think that would be fine. It's been entered in evidence, so ---
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
All right.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
--- if she needs it, it can be brought up.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Sure.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. ROB KITTREDGE
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Good afternoon, Acting Deputy Chief. I am Rob Kittredge, Counsel for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
As I understand your testimony earlier, there were only two ways in which the invocation of the Emergencies Act was of use to police in ending the freedom movement protest. One, it bypassed the requirement to swear in officers from other jurisdiction, which saved a bit of time, and two, it helped to procure the services of heavy rig tow truck operators. Is that a fair characterization of your testimony?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Of my testimony, yes. I do believe though the seizing of assets was also helpful.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
The -- can you expand on that?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the threat of seizing assets of ---
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Oh, right.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- bank accounts and rigs and things like that.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Okay. Useful but not necessary?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, useful but not necessary.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
How much time did not having to swear in officers from other jurisdictions actually save?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Could you give -- would it be on the order of hours or days or ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Probably hours. And I don't know how many of them we had already done at that point in time, but ---
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
So ---
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- a number of hours, administrative probably, you know, people being involved in that and filing paperwork.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Right. So it sidesteps in paperwork and headaches and a few hours.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
All right. I'm interested in what steps were taken by police to obtain towing services prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Can you describe the efforts made by the City and police to procure towing services before that date?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't have all the details of that. I think probably Inspector Lucas would be able to assist in that, potentially Superintendent Bernier. The information that I had at the early stages, we didn't think the tow trucks were going to be an issue until we looked to try and procure some. And we have contracts obviously with some companies in town, and when push came to shove, they refused to engage. And so, at that point in time, I don't know at what stage we were in the convoy, if this was after the weekend or leading up to the weekend. And so when we looked at what our options were for heavy tow, I do recall a number of conversations about that, and that we believed OC Transpo might have had a couple of heavy tow trucks that we could potentially use, but I think that was it.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Right. Despite the fact that your answers may be that you weren't aware of the details, I'm going to walk you through a series of carefully crafted questions here that I don't want to throw away. How many towing service providers did the police contact?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
We've heard that some towing services were concerned about driver safety. Did you offer to ensure that police would accompany towing operators to ensure their safety?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know what offers were made.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
All right. We've heard that some towing services were concerned about damage to their vehicles. Did you offer to compensate them for damage to their vehicles?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know what offers were made.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
All right. Isn't it true that pursuant to – and it occurs to me that I'm probably torturing the sign language interpreters, so I'll slow down. So isn't it true that pursuant to the Highway Traffic Act, police officers do not require a licence to operate any motor vehicle in the performance of their duties?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Oh, I don't know about that. I'm not sure.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
I'll put it to you that it is true.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
If -- so in other words, if - - you're not going to be able to answer this -- but I'll put it to you that if police officers were ---
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
If you could try and focus on questions she can answer? I mean, I appreciate you've prepared them, but you know ---
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
Sure. All right.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
--- I'm not sure it's helpful to the Commission.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
All right. So I guess I'll skip right to the end here and say, you stated earlier that you did have tow trucks lined up and that they were on their way to Ottawa prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act; isn't that true?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
And your interview summary says that OPS knew that if it arrived with tow trucks, many protestors would leave because the trucks were their home and livelihood. Do you stand by that statement?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
Rob Kittredge, Counsel (DF / CfF / JCCF)
All right. Those are my questions. Thank you.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. Next is the Ottawa Police Service.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS. JESSICA BARROW
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon, Deputy Chief Ferguson.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
You obviously are familiar with me, but for the record, my name is Jessica Barrow, and I represent the Ottawa Police Service. I only have a few things that I would like to cover with you this afternoon. So I want to start by talking about some of the comments that were made by you in response to questions with respect to those protestors that came, the ones that stayed, and the ones that left. Is it your understanding that OPS has filed an institutional report in relation to this Commission?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Are you familiar with it?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Are you prepared to adopt the content of that report?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I am.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
I would like to pull it up. The number is OPS.IR.00000001, and if we could turn specifically to page 13? What do you understand this chart to represent?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that looks like the number of vehicles that rolled into town and the dates and the people and where they -- sorry, I think it's just the vehicles and the areas that they were -- whether they were at Parliament, whether they were on Wellington, and Elgin and Rideau.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
I think if you read paragraph 44 as well, it may assist in understanding what, specifically, is set out in that chart.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So yeah. I think the individual protestors are the ones that are under "Parliament", and then the vehicles, yeah. So the vehicles are listed in the thousands and the people are estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 on January 29th.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
So we've heard a lot about the vehicles in particular and the fact that they had not left. What do we see as between January 31st and February 1st in terms of the number of vehicles that are listed?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It starts to dwindle from thousands to over 500, 600s and down to as low as 481, and then builds back up.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Would you say that this chart aligns with your experience at the time in terms of the ebbs and flows of the trucks?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would, yeah.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Could we now please turn to page 33? And I'm bringing this to your attention in response to some questions that we heard earlier. What do you understand this chart to be?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So this is our -- the total charges that were laid and the types of offences that were charged during the convoy or that occurred during the convoy.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
And if we scroll to the bottom of that chart, does this demonstrate how many charges in total arose out of the events of the convoy? If we could go -- I guess it's on the next page, actually.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
As well, does it demonstrate how many charges were laid per day?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It does.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
And if -- I'm sorry, if we could go back to the top of the chart, does it demonstrate how many charges were laid in relation to violent offences?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it does. So the assaults, the -- yeah, the assaults, the carrying weapons. It's a variety of different offences, obviously, in the list here.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
And can you see whether charges were laid during the period of at the beginning of the convoy through to when they ultimately left?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. I can see that, for example, the weekend of the 17th, 18th, 19th, which I believe was when we were doing most of the clearing of the streets, 11 peace or public officers were assaulted during that time.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Great, thank you. I want to turn to another issue that has been discussed with both Commission counsel as well as counsel for former Chief Sloly, and that is the request that was made by Chief Sloly for a POU plan. Do you recall that evidence?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
And do you recall evidence in relation to a meeting that occurred on February 1st with respect to that plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Did that POU plan materialize?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Ultimately, it did not from the people who he was initially tasked with.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Right. And you spoke earlier in your testimony about a POU being one part of a larger plan.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Do I have that right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Can you explain to the Commission a little bit more about how POU would fit into a larger operational plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it's one component. Obviously, if we get to a position where we are no longer able to -- we shrunk the footprint as much as we can through negotiations or just through whether it's threats of charges once people have decided that they've had enough and they're leaving, then POU would be -- they would have a plan to the approach that they were going to take. You know, in this case, they had six or seven intersections, some large ground to cover, so how they would go about doing that, and it was, you know, the plan ultimately that they had was down to line-by-line as to what time they would move in, which direction of travel they would be going in, how they would contain it. The 1st of February, the chief, two of the PLT sergeants, and myself met with these POU commanders who had been in Ottawa. And I'm not sure if some of them were left over from the weekend because they had their teams here, but these were commanders who had some expertise in executing POU actions, but not necessarily in creating plans. And so when they were tasked with, at that point in time, what was a colossal area to cover, I got the sense from the group that they were -- and I certainly know that I communicated back and forth with our staff sergeant, but it was mind boggling, I think, would be a good term. They just couldn't -- you know, this was -- would have been the largest public order movement in Canada, and that’s actually what it turned out to be. And they said when we initially spoke with them, "How do you think we could execute this?" And they said we would need every public order unit or section in the country to be able to clear the streets the way they are now. And that was on the 1st of February. So I think -- my sense is that they struggled with trying to come up with a plan on its own, you know, just six of them sitting around a table at a hotel in Kanata, I think was thrilling for them.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Would it normally be the case that a POU plan would be created in isolation from other plans?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Would it normally be the case that it would be created in advance of all other aspects of the plan?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, it would be in concert with the rest of the plan.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Can we turn please to Document OPS6085? And if we could just scroll down a little bit, there's an email there from Superintendent Dunlop to yourself, as well as a few others, right?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
And it's dated February 2nd. And perhaps you could just take a minute to read that. And my question to you in relation that is, what did you understand the concern to be at this time from Superintendent Dunlop?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So he was tasked with, I think, the liaison with the POU and PLT teams, and I had been asking at the behest of the chief for this plan and were they willing to come and present to him what they -- how they foresaw this occurring. And so this, I think, was in response to another one of my asks saying where are we with the plan? Are we -- you know, is -- any issues? And so his response here was saying that he met with them all afternoon and this would have been the following day, and I’m not sure what the recalibration he’s referring to but he’s recommending that we meet again and discuss the approach. And when he talks about neighborhood issues, I think he was talking about the things that are our communities were facing and whether that was, you know, noise pollution. There was -- you know, people were defecating on lawns, those types of things, and he was -- I think his approach here was, “If we can focus on those and improve that situation for those people, that would probably go a long way to reduce, you know, the impact on the communities.”
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
After this email, or perhaps before, I suppose, were the concerns in relation to the scope of the ask that was being direct to them raised with Chief Sloly?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I believe it was. He -- the -- one of the commanders had asked for a mission statement. They really wanted to be able to understand what he was he asking because again I think it was that mind-boggling, enormous task that he was expecting of them. And I don’t want to speak for them but I don’t know if they knew where to start with that.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Would it normally be the case that a plan such as this would be drafted by the people that were being asked to draft it?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I think it would be in conjunction with people who are excellent at planning and writing plans ---
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Right.
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- with being fed the subject-matter experts.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Earlier in your testimony, in response to a question from counsel for Former Chief Sloly, you referenced the request for a POU plan as compared to other types of plans and used the word “fixated” when describing Chief Sloly’s attitude towards the POU plan. Can I ask you to explain a little bit what you meant when you used that word?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that he valued this plan and anticipated this plan more than any other; this is what I would say to that.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
I’m going to move on now to the expectations of the community and City Council. And we’ve heard some evidence about that; you’ve been asked some questions about that. We heard evidence in relation to the level of communication, or perhaps the lack thereof in some people’s minds, between the police and City Council. Can you tell us about the extent to which the police and you personally were in touch with City councillors?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I was contacted on a number of occasions by Councillor Fleury. He had my phone number. He texted me fairly regularly. He sought for the opportunity to meet. He requested I attend his BIA meeting almost every evening during the thick of the convoy and many times I -- in fact, I don’t think I ever made one of the meetings. We did communicate back and forth but we did have a superintendent and inspector who were designated to be liaisons with the councillors. They also had their community police officers who were very present and very engaged with all of that. So, on a one-on-on basis, Councillor Fleury was somebody who I communicated with a fair bit. And then just through the Council meetings, we were obviously all present for those and some of them lasted for hours and many questions posed of us. And some things we were able to answer and some things we weren’t, and so of it was just a venting session, I think, explaining that they were very frustrated with the situation and the City.
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
And kind of along those same line we’ve heard from multiple witnesses that there was a feeling from the community that there was insufficient presence and enforcement by police officers during this time period, and we’ve also heard some evidence about some enforcement actions that were taken. What the impact, from your perspective, of enforcement actions that were taken by police during this time?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think we were doing them to try and show the community that we were present and we were in the communities. I think it was very difficult for us because it sent us in a variety of different directions where, if we had been able to really come that straight path to get to the plan and get those things -- so our frontline officers, we were policing the rest of the city and we were trying to figure out how to position people here so that there was a presence and people felt somewhat safe but there was lots of things that our members were being tasked with and responding to, you know, fire barrels and things within the zone of -- you know, the red zone. So I think, you know, things like interdiction of jerrycans, of gasoline, that was very troubling for -- you know, in terms of the reaction of the people and their -- and it was difficult for our members because in order to be able to do that effectively, you needed a number of officers because they were getting swarmed. They were getting, you know, intimidated. They were, you know, sometimes hundreds of people and I watched it happen on street to see it happening and it was frightening. And so our members were not comfortable doing that and I respected that they had they the discretion and on occasions they said, “This puts our people at risk and we are -- you know, there’s not enough of us out there to be able to do this effectively.”
Jessica Barrow, Counsel (Ott-OPS)
Those are my questions. Thank you very much, Deputy.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Thank you. Any re- examination?
Frank Au, Senior Counsel (POEC)
No re-examination, thank you.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay, well, Deputy Chief, thank you for coming. I just have a couple of very quick questions. I’m just trying to understand a bit about PLT that you talk about it. And would I be correct in saying that they are intended to stop lawlessness and turn the protest into something that is legal or not disruptive -- would be an objective of PLT?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That could be one of them. When I talked about places where there’s antagonizes and agitators, we would go to the PLT to say, you know, “This person is causing your cause -- it’s creating issues for your cause.” In this case, we were hoping that they would be able to do that and prevent people from honking and all of those actions that they were taking but also to leave, so two- fold.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
And “to leave”, i.e., leave where they’re disruptive?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Now, in terms of the process here -- and I think I saw somewhere in your testimony that by the Monday, you called it an “occupation”; it moved from a protest to an occupation?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Was there any discussion or thought given to how to allow the protest to continue in some form because -- as opposed to -- it seems, and I’m not putting words in your mouth, like it was from black to white or black to white, however you want to call it; it was a protest, “Okay, you’re okay until the end of the day Sunday,” but now it’s an occupation. Do you understand what I’m trying to get at?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I do understand and I’m not sure if there was any conversation from our -- some of our site managers and PLT Team. So Insp. Lucas in a position to be able to tell you what was going on there. I know from a command and strategic level it was that they’re here and now they’re entrenched and they’re not leaving, so that’s where it switched from a protest to occupation.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
So there was no part of the plan to allow a continuing or to encourage the protestors to in some way -- and I realize there’s a lot of trucks and a lot of problems but the move towards something that was -- because as I understand it, there were a lot of people who were protesting who weren’t violent and were not problematic; would that be fair?
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that would be fair, yeah. I don’t want to speculate. I don’t know whether those conversations were happening and the PLT may have been engaging in those and saying like, “If we bring it from, you know, Metcalfe to wherever on Wellington, is that sufficient?” I do know there were a number of trucks who were - - in other parts of the city who very much wanted to get to Parliament Hill. They wanted to be on Wellington and they were upset because they tended to be some of the trucks that came from far west and they were the last ones to get here and the good spots were taken. And so I know there was conversations with some of those folks, convoy organizers who said, “You know, we’ve been cooperating with you this whole time and then all of the great spots were taken,” but we weren’t, you know, taking names and reservations for spots on Wellington, so.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay, well, thank you very much. Thank you for coming and thank you for your testimony. I think what we’ll do is take the morning break now and -- or “morning break”, I’m sorry. I’m hinting you’re going to be here a long time. But no, that’s just a slip of the tongue, sorry. So we’re going to take the afternoon break so we’ll take 15 minutes and let the -- everyone have a -- get their -- stand up and get a little exercise, so 15 minutes.
The Registrar (POEC)
The Commission is in recess for 15 minutes, la commission lever pour 15 minutes
Upon recessing at 3:25 p.m.
Upon resuming at 3:40 p.m.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Good afternoon. Bonne après-midi. Just before we call the next witness, just to give you an update for counsel and for those who are glued to their computer at home, we’re planning to go ahead with the next witness, who I believe will be two hours or so, and then we’ll adjourn for the day. So we’ll give you an early day. Tomorrow at the moment, it appears it’s not going to go very late. It will be a bit shorter than normal for those who want to make arrangements, so just to update you on the plan so far. So with that introduction, go ahead.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Commissioner, for the record, Eric Brousseau, Commission counsel. And the Commission would like to call its next witness, OPP Superintendent Craig Abrams.
SUPT. CRAIG ABRAMS, Sworn
EXAMINATION IN-CHIEF BY MR. ERIC BROUSSEAU
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Good afternoon, Superintendent Abrams.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, sir.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
If I could have document WTS00000013, please. Superintendent Abrams, I’m showing you a copy of your interview summary from when you attended an interview this summer. I take it you’ve seen this document?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I have.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And you reviewed it when you were signed off on its accuracy?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And it remains accurate, to the best of your knowledge?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It does.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Thank you. And you have no corrections or additions to make to it?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I have no corrections.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Thank you. Superintendent, I take it you have more than 20 years of experience with the OPP. Is that right?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Twenty-seven (27) years, correct.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Twenty-seven (27). Okay. Could you just very briefly in a couple of minutes walk us through your background?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly. I spent 12 years at Detachment Central Region, five years in uniform, seven years as a detective/constable. Two and a half years as a detective/sergeant in our Professional Standards Bureau in the East Region. Nine months as Executive Sergeant at our local crime unit at Brockville, Ontario. And then with our Provincial Criminal Investigations Branch, I spent three and a half years there as a Staff Sergeant and Detective/ Inspector, and then transferred to East Region Criminal Operations for a couple of years and then became a Superintendent in my current role for the past six years.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And your current role is Superintendent of Operations for the East Region. Is that right?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct. I had a minor title change. We’re all called Field Operations Superintendents now.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And in that current role -- you were in that role at the time of January and February 2022?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I apologize. Yes, at the time I was Director of Operations.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And what does that role entail specifically?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So within each region, we have a Chief Superintendent and two Superintendents. We have 16 detachments. So I took care of eight detachments operationally and took care of their needs. I also took care of Criminal Operations as well as Traffic in this period of time.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And who did you report to at that time?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Chief Superintendent Carl Thomas.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And I want to ask you about Critical Incident Command. I take it you’re not formally trained as a Critical Incident Commander. Is that right?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct. I’m a trained Incident Commander. I’ve not taken the Critical Incident Commander course.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. You’ve sat in on it, I believe?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I have. Most of our Critical Incident Commanders are of the Inspector rank, so as a Superintendent I sat in on one of their courses so I could understand what they were being instructed on, so that’s how I obtained some of that knowledge in observing those courses.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And before the freedom convoy events, what was your experience in policing wide-scale protests?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
At various ranks, I was involved in at least a handful of different protestor blockades, primarily in the Tyendinaga Mohawks in the Bay of Quinte area. I was the strategic commander for the Tyendinaga rail blockades in 2020 and then strategic commander for this current here for the OPP.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I was going to ask you about sort of what that means to be strategic commander for an event. If you can describe that for us.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly. I think you heard the witness this morning. She very eloquently described the structure system as how it works. You have the strategic, operational and tactical, so in my role as a strategic commander, my role is to help facilitate the Critical Incident Commanders that are the operational level. If they have exceptional needs or resources, they’ll come to me and I’ll try to make that available to them. My role also is as a -- to create situational awareness for OPP Command and brief OPP Command regularly as to what’s occurring. I also have some oversight on the command and control just to make sure that what our mission we’re trying to accomplish is going to be successful, so I oversee that command and control. And I also look at those areas, try to mitigate any risks that might be involved in our operations. Many of our Critical Incident Commanders are obviously very focused on the jobs they’re doing and may not be aware of what’s occurring around the outside of them, and that’s my job, to make sure their understanding of any political issues or other issues that might be going on outside that could affect what they’re operating on. It’s kind of my job to bring that to their attention.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
All right. And you had a significant amount of sort of decision-making authority over this event, I take it?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Not in an operational capacity. I had decision-making authority in relation to -- when this event started, this was a traffic event for the OPP, so my job was to create an Incident Command team to be able to represent the OPP on the arrival of the convoy vehicles, so that was my role initially as strategic commander to make sure that the organization was well suited and prepared for the arrival of the trucks.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And you used the term “traffic event” there. Can you describe that for us?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly. So as we saw it, as we’ve heard in evidence, we knew vehicles were travelling from across the country from the east and west and from northern Ontario to converge here in Ottawa. Well, to get to Ottawa, you have to travel through OPP jurisdictions primarily. So within each region, we had many jurisdictions on Highway 17, Provincial Highway 417, which are OPP responsibility. I had to make sure that the small communities were prepared for the large influx of convoy vehicles and protestors, so I had to create a team that could support those communities and then also I had to create a traffic plan as to how we’re going to manage the vehicles on the highway. As you heard, I think, from Superintendent Morris, there is a concern are they going to blockade highways, is there going to be damage to highways possibly, so we need to have a strategy in place to manage that if it was to occur. So we used our provincial highway blockade strategy. I had an Incident Commander create an operational plan to prepare for the arrival of the trucks and, as part of that plan, we communicated with the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Police Service to figure out how can we support them in that because they obviously had a plan for where they wanted these vehicles to be and since we controlled the 417 and the on and off ramps, they needed our support, and so we had to work together on that.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And we’ll get into that. But just to go back to one thing you said, you talked about assisting smaller communities sort of along the way. Are these communities that are policed by the OPP or would they have their own municipal forces?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, policed by us. So specifically the communities of Arnprior and Casselman, Casselman to the east, Arnprior to the north, we knew that they were overnighting in those communities and we did have situations where there was tension at some restaurants where convoy participants maybe not comply with the mask mandates at the time, so we had business owners calling asking for OPP assistance, so I had to prepare my members to be prepared, okay, this is what you may see, so do we have a system in place to help support the citizens and make sure that they remained safe. And we know that they’re only going to be there for the one night, but we needed to make sure we had bolstered members to assist in that capacity.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And I also understood that you set up or, to use the police term, sort of stood up the Emergency Operations Centre. Can you describe that for us?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct. Many times in these major events you have to have a command post. You have to have somewhere to work out of. So within East Region Headquarters, which is located in Smiths Falls, Ontario, we have a room which is called Emergency Operations Centre. And so we have a place for all the parties that help participate in these events, so Traffic Services, PLT, Media Relations, Criminal Operations, Incident Command that all sit in that room and focus on that one task of completing the mission, and that's kind of where we try to have a unified command sitting in that one location. And I'm available to them when they need me.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And you mentioned that you were coordinating with various police agencies, but I want to ask you about the OPS now. When did you start coordinating with the OPS to plan for this event?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Right. January 24th, I was asked to be the strategic commander for the OPP in relation to the traffic event, and then I would say at least that day or the day after I called Deputy Bell and said, "This is my role. What can we do to assist you?" And then we had Intersect calls, which I can explain if you like what Intersect is. And on those calls, we discussed where vehicles would park and how the OPP could support the influx of the vehicles later in that week.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
I do want to ask you about Intersect. I also just -- I was reminded that I wanted to ask you just to slow down. We have interpreters and then translators. So I will make an effort to speak slowly and they appreciate that as well.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so you've mentioned Intersect. So if you could describe that for us?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure. It's a multijurisdictional all hazards emergency preparedness group that focuses on the national capital region. It's been in place for many years now. I've been part of Intersect for over four years. And there's over 60 clients that are connected to Intersect. And we talk about many different pillars: health, cyber, terrorism, law enforcement. And we have regular monthly meetings and phone calls, and there's also subgroups of Intersect, one of them being law enforcement, where we meet and have discussions. I want to say it was January 24th. I emailed -- I apologize. I'll go back with the -- Intersect Program is chaired by the Ottawa Police Service, co-chaired by Ottawa Police Service, the Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP. And currently, they have a civilian kind of a programmer that runs the program that Ottawa Police provides. Her name is Kim Stirrup (ph). So I emailed Kim early in the week because I'd heard about -- I unfortunately was away from the workplace for two weeks prior to the 24th, and I knew that we regularly met when major events were coming to the national capital. Normally, we would talk to each other, and I hadn't seen an invite for a meeting. So I emailed her and said, "I think we should get the group together and have discussions about how we're going to -- this is all going to affect us." So she generated that meeting invite and we had a meeting shortly thereafter.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And going back to the 24th, the start of the coordination, what did that look like in terms of coordinating with OPS? What were you doing?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I was -- I spoke with Deputy Bell and I also worked with my -- I had my traffic inspector connect with the Ottawa Police traffic inspector to say, "Okay, you guys need to work out traffic angle and then report up to myself as an incident commander as to what we can do to facilitate the traffic." He would have to come up with a traffic plan. So that Inspector Dave Tovell is the one who wrote the operational plan for the OPP response to this event that was supposed to occur over a single day. And he worked with his counterpart with Ottawa Police to make sure that we were supporting them in the way they needed it.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Now you say the OPP response was planning for a single day event. Why is that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I should back up, sorry. Obviously, it was a multi-day in our purposes because they were stopping overnight in Arnprior the night before, so it was more than one night, but they expected the majority of the vehicles were going to make their way into the City of Ottawa on one particular day. So that was kind of the day we wanted to make sure that we had all our resources available to prepare for what with vehicle stoppages, road blockages, those types of things. And our Provincial Liaison Team, as the Commission has heard about, they were engaged with many of the convoy leaders and they talked about routes they would take and they would only take up one lane of 417, wouldn't take up all the lanes. And then Ottawa Police had told us what off-ramps that they wanted us to have them go off at. So we worked with our partners with EMTO and ourselves to make sure we had those ramps ready for their arrival.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so maybe I just - - I want to make sure I understood you correctly, when you say a one-day event, you're talking about one day where a lot of vehicles will be converging on Ottawa?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Is that correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
The majority arrived in the villages of Arnprior and Casselman the night before. They overnighted there. And the plan was the next morning to make their way into the City of Ottawa.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Right. And I believe you were familiar with Hendon reports?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was. As Superintendent Morris spoke about, Hendon originated many years ago and not just because of this event. And because of my involvement in many of the Indigenous protests in my role, I have been on the Hendon remail distribution list for many years. So I received all those Hendon reports, not only for this period of time, but also in the past.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And were you reviewing them as they were coming out?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Like I said, for the two-week period of January 11th to the 22nd, I was away from the workplace. When I returned, I reviewed my emails and caught up on my Hendon reports upon my return from work. But, yes, I have reviewed the Hendon reports as they came in because they directly impacted our planning as to what we were going to do to make sure that we had all our angles covered in case something from the report indicated that there might be a problem in the Village of Arnprior, or there might be intelligence in the case there might be problems in Casselman. Those are things I needed to know, and my incident commander needed to know, so we reviewed them religiously.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I understand Casselman and Arnprior are sort of areas under OPP jurisdiction where you would have a particular attention, but did you have an understanding or a view of what was going to transpire in Ottawa based on those reports in the week leading up to the convoy?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I certainly, based on the reports, saw many different views of what might happen in Ottawa. We saw social media reports that said there might be 34,000 vehicles that arrive in Ottawa. We saw the reports that might be only in the hundreds. I think as recently as January 24th Hendon report, one of the intelligence gaps that's indicated on the report says unknown exact number of vehicles that will be attending Ottawa. So even as late as the 24th, we weren't a hundred percent sure on numbers, so we had an intense range from social media saying 30,000, 32,000 to in the hundreds.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did you discuss the Hendon reports with anyone at OPS in your sort of role of coordinator?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not discuss Hendon directly with anybody at Ottawa Police Service, no.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Now I want to ask you about an Intersect call, I think it was the morning of January 27th. Do you remember that call?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I do.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And could you describe it for us?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, it was part of the regular Intersect call. Normally, they do round table -- this is more specific to this event, so we kind of open the floor to Ottawa Police Service, and they spoke about their event, and they spoke about their plans to manage the convoy vehicles that were travelling to their city.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And what were the plans that were shared on that call?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
There was no written plan shared on the call. It was all verbal. They indicated that they had a plan and had a capacity to accept 3,000 vehicles in their city. And then they set about describing on what streets those vehicles would park in. In my notes, I made notes of the call. I noted the streets. I just don't have the streets and the exact vehicle numbers, but they had, you know, Sir John A MacDonald Parkway, X number of vehicles could park there. Wellington Street, X number of vehicles could park there. They spoke about how the convoy leaders agreed to only take three of four lanes on Wellington Street and leave one lane open for emergency vehicles. Other vehicles would take up side streets off of Wellington and keep the curb lane open for emergency vehicles. That's how they described their interactions with the convoy leaders.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And prior to this call, were you aware that they -- the OPS was planning to allow the trucks into downtown Ottawa?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
This was the first I'd heard about how Ottawa planned to deal with the vehicles that were travelling to their city.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And did you have any concerns about that proposal?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I didn't. As much as I had seen Henton reports like we've heard evidence here that obviously motivated individuals travelling from east coast to west coast, very well funded, indications that they may spend multiple days, some in the reports said three days, but, certainly, it looked like multiple days. But I think Superintendent Morris talked about being in your lane. I had to stay in my lane, and I had a lot of experience working with the Ottawa Police Service with other major events and seen their abilities, very professional organization. And it wasn't my place to question whether they were ready. I had to make that assumption that they were ready. They were talking calmly about what their plans were. They felt that it was going to be successful, and it was not my place to question them. I assume they had that plan in place, and my job was there to just -- to support them.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And I understand that, and the whole sort of “Stay in your lane” mentality, but did you have any concerns? Even if you didn’t voice them, did you have any concerns about that number of maybe heavy commercial vehicles in downtown Ottawa?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I didn’t have concerns. It certainly was unique. Not something that I’ve ever experienced, large vehicles -- I’ve experienced a large number of persons but not that number of vehicles. But, once again, I had to rely on the Ottawa Police with that experience; they were the police of jurisdiction, and it was just not my place to question. I had to assume that they had a solid plan, and ---
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did ---
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- we were there to support. Sorry.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
No, sorry. Did anybody else on that call, any of the other participating agencies raise any concerns or question that plan?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t recall it. I just recall conversation about how, you know, vehicles travelling from Quebec had impact the citizens of Quebec, Gatineau Police. We just talked about impacts that traffic flow would have, but I don’t recall anybody questioning what Ottawa Police was speaking about.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And there was also a discussion of a plan to have vehicles kind of park further away and protesters sort of bused in; do you remember that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I recall discussions about, you know, could we have the vehicles park at the Canadian Tire Centre, the hockey arena, and have them shuttle-bused down to the downtown core. My view, that’s more difficult; if you’re a truck driver and you’ve driven your truck multiple days and weeks across the country, you’re likely not going to be happy to park it at the Canadian Tire Centre. But -- so I know some areas were opened up by the City to allow some overflow parking but those ideas, I didn’t believe came to fruition.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And based on your participation in this call, what did it appear -- how long of an event did it appear that the OPS was planning for?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
The weekend at the most.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And was that consistent with what you understood at the time?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sorry; consistent in what context?
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did you also believe it would be a weekend-long event?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Because I was relying on Ottawa Police believed it would be a weekend event, so who was I to question that it wasn’t -- if they believed it, I believed it, and we were partners in it. And as much as Hendon did say those other things, I had to take some faith that Ottawa had a plan and that we would be done on Sunday evening, maybe Monday morning at the latest.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Well, you’ve anticipated my question because Supt. Morris was very clear yesterday that the Hendon reports in the week leading up used the word, “Long term” and sort of made it clear that protesters would be staying. So I guess I’m wondering if you were reading them, why you weren’t left with that impression as well.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
There was more Hendon report -- there was more intel to indicate that they were staying longer, than staying shorter, for sure, there was. And I just had to assume that Ottawa had a capacity to manage what may have been a longer-term event; that there must have been a plan B, let’s say, for lack of a better word, that, “Yeah, if these people do stay after Monday, then we pull out plan B and we activate plan B.” Those were just assumptions I was making that because we all knew, and we all had access to those Hendon reports, we knew the possibility it could be longer, there must be a contingency plan in place if Monday is still locked up.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Right. Was there discussion of that contingency plan or of a plan B on this Intersect call?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
There was not.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Who, if anyone, at the OPP did you sort of report back to after this Intersect call about the plan to let the vehicles into downtown?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I reported to my Chief Superintendent, Karl Thomas, about what was occurring. I reported to my Incident Commander, of course, because he wasn’t on the call; it was Inspector Scott Semple, he was Incident Commander at the time, to say that I’d had this conversation, this is what Ottawa’s plan is for the vehicles. And that’s when I asked my traffic inspector to connect with their traffic inspector, and just filled my superior in on what I’d heard on the call.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And ultimately there was a sort of a plan that dated January 28th or 29th, I believe, that was put together by the Ottawa Police Service. Did you ever see a copy of that plan?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t recall seeing q plan for that weekend.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Did you ever ask for a copy?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
No. Would you normally see a copy of a plan for an event like that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Not as much. Not in -- it’s another policing jurisdiction, unless it had ties to OPP operations in the plan, I wouldn’t normally see it because it didn’t impact me or my service.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
We’ve heard evidence, and I expect we’ll continue to hear evidence that this was a fairly unprecedented event. Would you agree with that assessment?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I would agree.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
All right.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
On many levels; unprecedented in size, the vehicles used. Lots of unprecedented natures to the event for sure.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
If we could pull up OPP00000773, please? I’m just showing you another document. This is the Will Say that I believe you prepared in connection with -- attending the interview this summer; is that correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Actually, within a week after the end of the event, I just felt because of my role that the organization would likely want to hear from what I experienced, so I created the Will Say then. I didn’t even know that a Commission was coming for that, or that interviews may be coming several months later. I just did it because I knew the facts were fresh in my mind at the time. There was so many things that happened that -- most made it into my notebook, but there were so many things that were independent recollections that I didn’t want to lose, so both myself and Chief Pardy created these type of documents around the same period of time.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So that’s helpful to know. So this was created in, we’re talking late February, maybe early March?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. No later than two weeks after the end of the event.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so I won’t take you to it, but I just wanted to understand the circumstances under which it was created. And so it references a conversation with an Insp. Ferguson on January 29th. Who is Insp. Ferguson?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s Insp. Dawn Ferguson. She’s Detachment Commander of our Renfrew Detachment, but she’s also a trained Critical Incident Commander. So as part of our planning for this event, because it was a traffic event on the 417, the National Capital Regional Command Centre was stood up and most of the policing partners were housed there: MTO, OPS, Gatineau Police. So it was important for us to have a leader there to be able to help direct the traffic and have better communication flow between all the agencies. So I asked her to be there and be able to report back to the Incident Commander at the OC, which was Insp. Semple and myself; they both fell under myself. And her role there was to kind of monitor how things were occurring and how the vehicles were travelling into the city and report back at what was occurring with our partners.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And she did report back to you on the 29th; correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
She did.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And what was that report?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I want to say it was around mid-morning; 11:47, I think the time was. I may be mistaken on the time, but she indicated that she was experiencing dysfunction within the NCRCCs, specifically to the OPS commander, Insp. Lucas. He was yelling profanities, not only at her but we also had a staff sergeant there, Lisa Nicholas, and also they were yelling profanities at each other. And they had clearly, seemed to her, had lost some control over what was occurring and didn’t have a way to figure it out and they were trying to offer assistance to them in the form of officers to help. If they had calls for service in the City of Ottawa they weren’t able to get to because all their members were tied up downtown, that we could provide some of that service, but they weren’t able to get command communication back to say yes we could use that or not.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And what -- specifically what type of assistance was the OPP offering at this point?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
We offered everything from a public order unit assistance, Rapid Response Team, QRT Teams, we kind of use that term. We had Quick Response Teams; if they had an armed robbery, let’s say, in Kanata, and everybody was tied up with the convoy downtown, we could rally members together to help them out with those major calls that they were obviously stretched to be able to get to.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I think your Will-Say includes this phrase: “This event was clearly beyond their capabilities.” Is that -- and “Their” being OPS. Was that a view that you had formed already on January 29th?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That was the term Insp. Ferguson used to me.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Because obviously I wasn’t experiencing it, that’s what she was experiencing and that’s how she described it to me.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did Inspector Ferguson relate to you or did you have a view of kind of what was going wrong, what was overwhelming, I guess, the OPS at that point?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Just a lack of what to do. There was no real plan as to who do we send where, what do you want me to do? Lots of questions about where the resources -- their resources were supposed to go; lots of confusion in that aspect.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I understand that you spoke with Deputy Chief Bell on that day as well, correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Can you describe that conversation for us?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure. Essentially, it was an agreement that we would be the contacts with each other throughout this event. Obviously, they're going to have to have a contact from the OPP, so we agreed that we would be each other's contact. If he needed something from the OPP, he would call me, and vice versa, so we had arranged that process early on.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did you offer any assistance on this day in particular?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'd have to check my notes. I know I've offered assistance; I just can't remember if it was this particular day.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Which date -- I can look quickly here. I have my notes with me as to what date.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
We can pull it up. It's OPP00000774, and it's at page 12. It's the entry at 16 -- just about 1642, I think, advise D.C. Bell 18 at ---
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I -- so I advised him that we had 18 members at our Kanata detachment, which is our Ottawa detachment, including two sergeants that could assist if required. He acknowledged and stated that he would relay that information to his incident commander. And we waited. There was no real reply, and then at 1830, I again contacted and made a final offer for assistance to the Ottawa Police Service, and at 1900 they advised us that there was really no help required. And that was through Staff Sgt. Nicholas who was in the NCRCC.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so you offered them some point in the afternoon, didn’t have a response, and then at 7 o'clock were told, "We don’t -- thanks, but no thanks"?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. They were just -- there was no -- we never heard back. We just called again to say, "We made the offer at just after 4 o'clock. Do you still need these 18 officers?" and there was just no reply back to say they wanted them and then finally, at 1900, they stated that there was just no help required.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And what type of officers were these 18 officers?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
They were just frontline constables that we would have pulled from detachment operations within 45-minute tower radius of Ottawa, the soonest we could get members there to help support without critically damaging our ability to police the communities they were serving. It was strictly just members who were currently on duty that we could pull. We have a region immobilization plan that kind of has a set number of -- based on how many are working on this day, this is how many officers we could move to other locations in an emergency, so we were able to dictate, okay, we can survive with pulling 18 if they need it.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so was 18 the most that you could sort of put together in that short order?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s the most I could summon in that short order. This region's a rather large region, but within an hour of Ottawa, that’s the most I could muster at that period of time.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did the OPS ultimately take you up on that offer at some point?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe the next day they agreed. My inspector, Luc Duval, indicated that we had members that were prepared to go to Ottawa, and they were sending -- they had 18 but I think initially they were going to send 10, and they sent 10 downtown to Elgin Street to be deployed, mainly in a traffic service capacity and helping out with traffic control, closing streets. And then shortly thereafter, I heard back from my incident commander, Inspector Ferguson, that only two of those members had been used and the rest had been sitting there for over, I believe it was four hours, and they were on day shift. It was late in the day. And I said, "Pull them from Elgin. We can't let them sit around there any longer." So then I reached out to Deputy Bell just to let him know this is what's happening, and he indicated that he apologized and said there was a lack of communication within their bureau, within their service, and that he would rectify it.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did you -- did either you offer additional assistance or did he ask for those 10 back or additional officers at that time?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It's hard to recall, because we spoke so often, but certainly, there was the offer. He knew that he was going to have to ask for more assistance. Inspector Duval indicated that through Inspector Lucas that there was going to be a formal ask coming for more assistance from the OPP. It was unknown what that number was going to look like, but it was likely going to come. And so Deputy Bell and I would have had that conversation to say, "Look, it's coming. They haven't figured out the exact number yet, but there's going to be a further request for resources coming."
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And that was going to be Chief to Commissioner, Chief Sloly to Commissioner Carrique?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
In a formal way it would do that, but Deputy Bell could call me to say, "I need 30 people," and we would operationalize that right away. The formal paperwork can take its time and move its way from Ottawa to Orillia, but we're not going to wait for the formal paperwork. They're partner agencies. We're going to help them in their time of need, and I would have mustered those members and got them to Ottawa prior to any letter being signed by the Commissioner.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. But if that’s the case, why pull back the officers that you had sent who were just, in your words, sort of sitting around doing nothing? I mean, they were there. They could have been activated.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Mainly because of the hours they'd already been working. They'd already been working over 12 hours that day, so they're on 14 hours. If they were then just starting to work, it would be unfair to those members to work past the period of time they were working, so that’s why I pulled them.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
In this first weekend, sort of January 29th, January 30th, can you just share with us any other observations about what was happening on the ground, what was going well, what was not going well?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was really not going well. I was getting lots of reports from my members at the NCRCC. There was lots of dysfunctions to lots of yelling, lots of unknowns of what they were going to do. On the 31st of January I had a conversation with Deputy Bell where he basically said, "We're planning for a protracted event and we really don’t know our way out of this." So that was the first indication to me on the 31st that we were going to be in for a long haul to assist them. So I had to prepare my incident command team to kind of switch to say, "Okay. Now, might have to switch operations to supporting the Ottawa Police, and I'm not 100 percent what the numbers are going to look like yet, but it's clear, through talking to Deputy Bell, that it's going to be protracted. They don’t see a way out and they're going to be relying on us and other services to help them."
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And we'll get there. But first I'd like to pull up an email. It's OPP00001593. If we can go to the bottom email, the one from Joseph Varga. He's an inspector with the OPP, correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. He's a critical incident commander, a major critical incident commander.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And what was his role at this point?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Early on, there was discussion within our own organization as to, you know, how were we going to structure this support for Ottawa? Would Inspector Varga come down and act as the MCIC to help direct OPP resources to assist Ottawa? What was the command structure looking like, because there was concerns over what the Ottawa Police command structure was going to look like. So there was just a lot of general discussions about how best can we insert ourselves and integrate ourselves and provide the support that’s required. A lot of that conversation resolved around that.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I think this email kind of touches on some of that regrouping. So Inspector Varga writes: "Supt. As you are aware, OPP POU direct supports to PPS will conclude this evening. At the request of OPS and the NCRCC Command Group, OPP POU has now been requested to support OPS with the ongoing POU deployment in the City of Ottawa." So what assistance had the OPP rendered to the PPS, being the Parliamentary Protective Service, during that first weekend?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Within Ontario, a lot of the services have Public Order Unit hub, and they communicate with each other when they require services. So this request wouldn't necessarily have gone directly through myself. POU and POU commanders reported to me indirectly, but I certainly didn’t direct other operations, because they're trained POU commanders. They would tell me when the request comes in. So I recall that a request from PPS came in for support, and we discussed about well, where is this support? Is it at PPS or is it with Ottawa? Who needs the support the most? And it was, as agreed amongst the POU subject-matter experts that they would begin supporting the Parliamentary Protective Services first and then, if required, transition to support Ottawa.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And do you know why that agreement was reached?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I didn’t ask specifics because it wasn’t my subject-matter expertise. I relied on their expertise to say that something -- PPS told them they needed protect them and support them first and then always be available to Ottawa if they required it.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. If we could scroll down a little bit, Insp. Varga shares the plan for the next three days. " This concept of operations is anticipated to utilize OPP POU in connection with all other assisting agency POU units in the following timeline." And then it set out what was going to occur on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, including a possible injunction of the injection -- and then the injunction would be enforced. So at this point, on January 30th, which is the Sunday, is everyone planning to basically wrap this up by Wednesday of the coming week?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I can’t say that that’s the case because I wasn’t engaged in these conversation with Public Order. My role was on a frontline capacity; we call them Soft Hats, so your normal police officer you’d see on the street. So that was my focus. Public Order command was separate to me so they would have their conversations and if they felt they needed to added Public Order to Ottawa they would do that on their own and just notify me that it was happening. I was providing around 30 officers a day at this period of time to Ottawa Police, 15 on days and 15 on nights, primarily to just do traffic services, traffic enforcement just at intersections, closing roads, and I let the incident commanders like Joe Vargo and his Public Order Unit commanders work out what system they felt they needed to do with their Public Order partners in Ottawa and other services.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So the 30 were traffic officers under your command and then Insp. Varga had POU units that may have been in Ottawa as well?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And this is a POU plan so weren’t involved in preparing that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was not. There would have just been a phone call to say, “Superintendent, there’s going to be POU in Ottawa supporting PPS and Ottawa Police,” and I would general, “We’re on the ground today and we’ve got this many on the ground doing QRT, or this many on the ground doing this.” But that was the extent of the notifications I was receiving.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And if we just scroll down a little bit, the next paragraph: "A review of the shift of OPP/POU support from PPS to OPS has resulted in a re-evaluation of required OPP/POU resources." And you see it talks about the: " …release of 14 bodies back to their home location. Further, eight POU members will be returning to their home locations." And so my question is, it’s January 30th, it certainly doesn’t look like the protest is ending on Monday morning but POU members are leaving the City of Ottawa; do you know why that is?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I can’t say. And that’s the - - kind of the essence of the command structure. As a strategic commander, I’m not going to get necessarily into the weeds. I trust my subject-matter experts, incident commanders, POU commanders to know what they need to do. We had many other priorities going on around the province with other borders through Bluewater Bridge and the Ambassador Bridge; we had to protect international border crossings so they may have been redeployed to those other areas. But kind of the nature of that major critical incident command structure is, for a person like me and the role I was in, do not get too far into the weeds. So that’s why I would not necessarily have been advised.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. You referred earlier to a discussion with Deputy Chief Bell on the 31st where he indicated they were now planning for a four-week extended occupation. How did you react to that timeline?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was concerned. I really thought and hoped that we could resolve it prior to that period of time because as -- from my experience with other blockades, the longer they go, the more people that are attracted and the more people you now have to deal with, and it makes the job of a police service that much difficult -- that much more difficult to be able to manage. So I was hoping that we could develop something between the multiple groups at the table to be able to deal with it prior to the four weeks. But there was -- it was a surprise to hear that early in the game, that they were already looking four weeks down the road.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
All right. And based on that, did you escalate that within the OPP; did you change anything about your own planning when you heard that anticipated timeline.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Most certainly. I had to reach out to my inspector, my Chief Superintendent but also my Inspector and incident commanders to say, “Okay, now we have to start scheduling for four weeks out. Let’s try to figure out how we can provide the resources that Ottawa needs. We’re going to expect that they’re going to expect more than 30 a day as the days move on, so how are we going to do this?” We had to engage -- in our organization, we have an Emergency Operations Centre in Orillia, and that’s part of their role is to help with major planning for major events. So it was clear that it was going to start getting out of my ability on a regional level to staff Ottawa police with just regional people. We were going to have to start bringing in people from all over the province so that we needed help in that logistic so we reached out to Orillia Emergency Operations Centre to say, “Okay, get ready. It’s going to be an extended event,” and we start identifying regional contacts to start relaying what Ottawa’s going to need and how many people we can get to Ottawa. And then I had to stand up a much more robust logistics team and now plan for hotels and be able to staff and feed and deploy all these people and most likely find a bigger command post to manage it because now it’s going to be growing.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. I’d like to pull up OPP00000024, please. This is an email from -- I believe it’s Supt. Alakas; is that correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, he’s in our Field Support Bureau.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And what role was he playing in the response?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Right, so as Superintendent of Field Support Bureau, they cover the majority of the OPP’s Emergency Services, so Tactical Response Units, Emergency Response Teams, which are our Public Order Units -- they’re Emergency Response officers and they’re POU trained so that falls under their bureau, which falls under Deputy DiMarco’s bureau, so he would have had -- and he also is in control of our EOC, so he had a lot -- a large role to play in what was happening.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So I want to go down and start with Supt. Alakas identifies three issues. He says: "Much of the uncertainty around response and especially around the utilization of our resources has resulted from three main difficulties." And so if you could just help us understand these, if you had observed these, and just take us through, sort of, one, two, and three.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure. This is the first I’m seeing the email so you’ll have to -- I apologize. I’m reading through it.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So he has concerns about, I guess, a terminology. I think we’ve kind of heard with Deputy Ferguson that the Ottawa Police may refer to their critical command structure a little bit differently than us so nomenclature and naming can sometimes cause confusion. So I think that’s what he -- they’re referring to in No. 1 and what - - whether they need -- do they incident commanders? Do they need major critical incident commanders? And do they understand what the true function of a CAC is? Could that be done with just an incident commander? So I think he’s just trying to clarify to them, “Can you go back to them to clarify what is it they really need because then we know what we can send them?” because there’s three levels of command. Incident command, critical incident command, and major critical incident command come with many different skills so you want to try to keep it to the lowest level as possible.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so before we move on to 2, is that an issue -- or a function of the fact that there isn’t standardized Incident Command System across various police agencies?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
As far as I’m aware, there’s fairly standardized processes but, as we heard, they had the term “event commander” which meant “incident commander”, so I guess some municipalities may choose to use different terminology than others but, from my understanding of the critical incident command process, naming conventions are fairly consistent.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so if you’d just point to: "OPS requests were framed in terms of specific amounts of resources rather in terms of the effect or impact they wished these resources to impart." Was that something that you had observed?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct. And that’s kind of where the line divides here. So I’m getting requests from Deputy Bell for frontline officers and we’re very clear around what he wants them to do and what they're going to do. They're getting requests from Ottawa Police Public Unit Command about what they want them to do. So his concern is what he's hearing from the Public Order side of Ottawa Police. And I'm making assumptions here because I wasn't involved in this email. It's a little more clear on my side because I can ask those direct questions, what do you want them to do? How many cars do you want them to bring? What are their roles and responsibilities, so I can find those people with those skills. Whereas, here, it seems that the Public Order Unit request from Ottawa was maybe a little vague and not as specific about exactly what they wanted and what exactly what they wanted them to do. And that can cause frustration for sure.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. But in your view, you had a better, I guess, relationship with Deputy Chief Bell and were able to have that direct conversation in a way that's better than what Superintendent Alakas was able to accomplish?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Initially for sure. I mean, along the way, there was certain frustrations about where do you want our people and when. That was more minor, but it was very clear he needed the most help relieving his members from the downtown core, so they could get some rest. And that's -- what his -- kind of his focus was on the maintenance piece first, and that was the easiest piece for us to help him with, because they didn't have to have specialized skills. They just had to be police officers with a cruiser.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And then just briefly on the third point, an initial lack of internal communication and unified incident command which created barriers to effective information intelligence flow. Is that something that you had observed at that point?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did. Observed -- and I did speak to Deputy Bell about this as well, I just observed multiple points. They had an incident commander at their Greenbank location. They had some commanders at their Elgin Street Headquarters, and they had Inspector Lucas at the NCRCC. They were all spread out across the city. It was almost like a left-hand, right-hand situation. Inspector Lucas may not have been aware of what the incident commander superintendent was doing at Greenbank. And it bore out in Public Order Unit work as well. So I had some conversations with Deputy Bell about that, just to say these are the frustrations my people are seeing. He recognized that right away. He understood they were trying to do their best to become more unified. I wasn't telling him anything he hadn't heard or seen himself, I think. But we -- yeah, for the benefit of my people, that's why I was there. To protect my people, and when they wanted me to message with Ottawa Police, that was my role. And we did have lots of conversation around the difficulty we were seeing in their incident command structures, yes.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And was Deputy Chief Bell as receptive to those comments?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, he seemed very receptive. He seemed to understand and said, "Yes, Craig, we're doing the best we can."
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. If we could get OPP00001342, please. I just want to show you, this is an email, I believe, from Pat Morris to you and others February 2nd. And if we can just go down, there's an organizational chart here and I just want to understand and make sure that this is -- this accurately represents the sort of command structure for the OPP for this event at the time.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It is exactly how it was at the time, yes.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And can you -- what's the difference between the NCRCC and then the OPP Ottawa Command Post?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Essentially, it was the NCRCC housed all our partner agencies and I felt it would be a real -- we'd be missing out on a lot if we didn't put something there, so we needed somebody to coordinate what was happening. They had access to MTO cameras. They had access to Ottawa Police radios because Ottawa Police was right there. So they were able to provide a lot more real time and quick information to those incident commanders that were sitting at the Ottawa Command Post. So that's why we had those two inspectors at those locations. And then Inspector Dave Springer, who is a trained POU commander and an MCIC, he was taking care of the POU command side.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
And they all kind of reported up to myself.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so this email's from February 2nd, which is also the date of Chief Sloly or former Chief Sloly, you know, saying he doesn't believe that there's a policing solution, or there may not be a policing solution. I take it you're familiar with that, with him saying that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I am.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so as somebody who was on the ground and sort of witnessing what was going on very close, close hand from the OPP, did you share that assessment of the situation at that time?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Why not?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Based on my experience, I guess, is the best example. I hadn't -- even up to this point, I had already heard about issues integrating PLT into this process. And all the blockades I've been involved in, I've seen nothing but success from our PLT team. They're a amazingly dedicated group of individuals who are able to establish relationships with protestors and able to start discussions about, okay, why are you here. You know, what are you protesting? How long do you plan to be here? Can we help you with an exit strategy? They're obviously trained in the framework that's been adopted by the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, which I think the Commission's heard about already. And they've done amazing work to be able to resolve a lot of situations without having to use POU, just through negotiation and discussions and allowing groups, whatever they happen to be, exit on their own and without having to have police enforcement. Now we've had to use police enforcement at times, for sure, but I did not see that piece being used in this situation. I didn't see Intelligence being used to lead a solution. I didn't see PLT being used to lead a solution. So that's why I felt maybe he was being a little premature. I didn't see that all these steps had been tried yet. I guess if all those steps had been tried and every tool in our toolbox had been used and we were still at ground zero, maybe you could think about that in that way, but I just didn't think that we had used all our tools yet, so I couldn't agree with that statement.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so hearing that, did that prompt a renewed extension of support, or did you do anything with that to say -- to go back to your team and say we have to step up our assistance because, clearly, this is a situation that's getting out of hand?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Not too longer -- not too long after the February 2nd date -- my other date's wrong -- we had already sent our OPP PLT team to Ottawa to support them. So they were already on the ground trying to support. So I was already hearing frustrations on integration. They weren't able to be integrated. They weren't given autonomy to make decisions. So I was more communicating with Deputy Bell because they would call me and Inspector Beaudin, which the Commission will hear from who runs the PLT program, he would call me, his sergeants would call me to say, "Sir, we're not getting anywhere here." The actual Ottawa Police Service team's not giving autonomy to connect with convoy drivers, make a lot of those concessions, which they do. And so they were just -- they were floundering. They didn't feel they had a role. They didn't see a plan. There was no PLT plan, which normally there is a plan for PLT. There was none. So I wasn't as much communicating with them as they were communicating with me about their concerns. And part of my role as strategic commander was deconfliction. So I would reach out to Deputy Bell and say, "Steve, this is what we're seeing and we're hearing from Chief Sloly and other commanders that PLT is important to the solution of this problem, but we're just not seeing it be operationalized." And that's not unique sometimes if you're at a high level like a Chief and you're not seeing what's happening on the ground. Maybe that's news to Chief Sloly; right? So it was important for me on behalf of my members and for the Ottawa Police Service to bring it to their attention and see if they can make some changes to get them more autonomy, and get them more engaged, and try to stress upon Deputy Chief Bell the successes I've seen and the importance of using them to help move this forward.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And sort of generally speaking, when you relayed those concerns, what was the reception?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Positive. Deputy Bell agreed. He understood the importance of the integration and that he was going to make sure that that was happening.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I understand that the OPP assigned two planners in the very early days, Inspector Younan and Staff Sergeant Gauvin (ph); is that right?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Can you just describe what their role would have been?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Right. So they were asked as part of the kind of formal ask from Chief Sloly to come and help their planners come up with a plan. And I heard from them regularly about their frustrations. And they were kind of given three tasks and number 1 was a plan to go intersection by intersection, and number 2 was -- I don't know if -- mass arrest may be the wrong word, but just another plan, another enforcement plan. And the third plan was kind of a status quo plan that it kind of hold the streets for a certain period of time. There was questions about who they reported to within the Ottawa Police Service, who's responsible for this plan, who's going to sign off on the plan. And at a certain period, one of the OPS inspectors, Marin, came in the room and said, "Whatever you were told to do, forget it. Chief Sloly wants you to come up with a whole new plan. You report to me now, and go to work." And they essentially walked away from the table and called me and relayed this information to me to say, "Sir, can you help us? This isn't working." And then I called Deputy Bell and explained, and he explained, "No, these members report to --" I think it was Superintendent -- maybe Acting Superintendent Dunlop -- and they were to take direction from him. So the planning table was having its own frustrations itself.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And but these two OPP planners were working alongside OPS planners?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did that group ultimately come up with any sort of plan?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Not that I ever saw, no.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Now, I understand there's a bit of confusion also about the role that Superintendent Mark Patterson was playing at this time as well.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was clear myself that he was their incident commander in the early days. I knew that he was the one I needed to contact if I had incident commander type conversations I needed to have. I knew he was the one to call. So it wasn’t unclear to me at that stage. It changed as days moved forward. It became confusing because they changed incident commanders fairly quickly, but in the early days, the period of time we're talking about, I knew that he was the person to contact.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Did it appear to you, I guess, based on this incident that you just described or otherwise, that there was some confusion in the OPS about lines of authority and who was -- who needed to sign off on what, or who was in charge of PLT or the plan or whatever it is?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, very much so. There was confusion amongst the PLT. They didn’t know who they reported to. Obviously, just -- the planners didn’t know who they were supposed to report to and there was confusion about who had authority to make decisions and move our plan forward.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did you raise that within the OPP at all?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. That’s kind of the job of a strategic commander again. I talked about situational awareness. It was important for me to let my command, including Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner Carrique be aware of what I was seeing and the concerns I was seeing in the hopes that Commissioner Carrique or Deputy Commissioner Harkins could have higher-level conversations with Chief Sloly. So I had to make them aware of what was occurring because in a way, we had to protect our members, you know? If we're going to bring more members into an event that was dysfunctional and dangerous, that’s -- my job is to protect our members, so I didn’t want to do that either. So and that really, I was the eyes and ears of the organization for the -- until Chief Pardy arrived, that was essentially my role, situational awareness reporting up to senior command and deconflicting the issues that I saw with PLT and our planners, and just trying to navigate logistical challenges that Ottawa Police required help on the street with traffic.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And when you talk about deconflicting issues, you're talking about sort of direct conversations with Deputy Chief Bell?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. So I would hear from my members, either attached to the PLT team or attached to the planning teams, and they would express concerns to me, and then I would commit to them that I would reach out to Deputy Bell to see what we could do to try to resolve.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
I want to go to February 4th now, and there was the press conference, I believe, at which it was announced that all off ramps from the 417 into Ottawa and the bridges into Ottawa were going to be shut down, closed, essentially. Do you remember that press conference?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I do. In fact, I remember it was predicated with Chief Sloly saying that due to new intelligence, this is what he wanted to do.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
On the intelligence piece, were you aware of any new intelligence?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. That’s why I was quite confused. I was in my command post watching the news, and I saw Chief Sloly and Deputy Bell on the TV announcing this, and it caused me great concern.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And were you aware that this was going to be announced or that this was a new proposal or plan?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was totally out of the blue, unprepared, unaware.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And why was it concerning, or why was this an issue for you?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
The OPP was responsible for the 417 and all on ramps and off ramps. We had partnerships with the MTO. As you're aware, Ottawa has many on ramps and off ramps on the 417. I certainly also even had a -- even if we had the members to do it, which we did not, I still questioned what that does. There's lots of ways to get into downtown Ottawa. You don’t have to use the 417. So I had two issues. Number 1, I currently did not have the capacity to do what I was hearing I wanted to be done in relation to OPP-policed highways; and I also questioned the intelligence just because three things; and I questioned how would that help? So I reached out to Deputy Bell right away.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And how did that conversation go?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I just -- I texted him, I believe, to say, "Steve, if this is true, we need to talk because this is going to have huge additional impacts on me and my organization, and you haven't talked timelines. Chief Sloly's almost talking immediately. It's never going to happen immediately." And then he called me shortly after to say, "No, Craig. We're not going to do this." And then I asked, "What's this new intelligence?" And he said, "Obviously, there's no intelligence, Craig. You're the ones, the OPP, that are providing us the intelligence." But certainly, maybe CSIS or another intelligence network may have provided the information. That was my concern. But he indicated that that there was no new intelligence and there was no plan to close ramps. And I reached out to my inspector, Inspector Ferguson at the NCRCC. She talked to her Ottawa Police Service inspectors, and they also had never heard of this plan and started to become upset because they were never even notified this is the Chief's idea.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Was closing off ramps or bridges something that the OPP had done as the convoy traversed Ontario?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
We closed some off ramps on the initial arrival just to try to focus them to use ramps that were open. We did that. And off and on throughout this whole event, we would do that. If we saw a large convoy wanting to come to Ottawa, we would open and close certain off ramps just to get them into the city in a cleaner fashion, and we would communicate with the convoy leaders to make that happen. So -- and the bridges, the bridges, I believe almost every bridge is within ease of the City of Ottawa, so the only time we ever did bridges was during the COVID lockdown when they had the provincial lockdowns and we did bridges in OPP jurisdiction, but not in the City of Ottawa. But it obviously pre-dated this event.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And when you closed off ramps, at some point, was that done at the request of OPS or was that just done ---
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was totally at the request of OPS. OPS was the police of jurisdiction so we were essentially attached to their hip. What they wanted, if they wanted us to do it, we could only do what they wanted. We couldn't read their mind as to what their plan was because there was no plan, so we would essentially wait, they would phone us, they would say, "Could you close this ramp for this period of time for this reason?" If we had the resources to do it, we would do it, and then reopen the ramp.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. So just help me understand that though, because my understanding is that the OPP are the place of jurisdiction for 400-series highways, and so that’s why they were asking you to close ramps, because the OPS couldn't send cruisers to close an off ramp on a 400-series highway; is that correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct. I apologize. I mean, it come out wrong. The Ottawa Police would have wanted us to close the ramp because of an operational issue they had, so they were reaching out to us to do it for their purpose.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Right.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
As the OPP, we generally did not just close ramps just because we wanted to. It would have been at the request of Ottawa Police because they had an issue within the City and they need our help on the ramp. Sorry, I wasn’t clear.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
No, I just wanted to make sure it was clear for the Commissioner's benefit. And so it had been done before, closing of ramps at the request of the OPS. In this case, it just caught you by surprise?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, yeah, just based on the sheer number. I mean, obviously, a ramp or two for collisions is normal, but to hear all ramps, that was concerning because that’s a large number.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. In your witness summary -- and I won't take you there –- but refers to a conversation with Deputy Chief Bell. What do you characterize as a formal conversation with Deputy Chief Bell on the 4th? What can you tell us about that conversation?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That was about the unified command conversation?
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Sorry?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That was about unified command?
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Yes. Once again, that was triggered by my calls from my members on the ground still concerned with not seeing a plan, no unified structure, no inability to integrate, no inability to have autonomy, so I wanted to express it to Deputy Bell in a formal way to say, “Deputy, this is what we’re seeing and we need to try -- or you need to try to come up with a more unified structure to make this work a bit better, much better.” And Deputy Bell was very receptive to our conversations, understood the need, and stated that that’s what their goal was, and they were trying to do that. It was difficult. Deputy Bell, obviously, is a senior officer to me; I don’t want to be seen as trying to tell him what to do. I think he recognized it himself when we discussed it. But, once again, as the role of strategic commander, that was my job. I had to protect my people and when they were signalling to me they wanted help, it was my job to help them.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And during this conversation, did either did either Deputy Chief Bell ask for more resources or did you offer more resources?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t recall that happening in that conversation. More resource requests happened continually throughout the event but I just don’t know if that happened in that conversation.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so after the early days, the resource requests were not coming directly to you; is that right?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Once the incident commanders were in place at the NCRCC, all of those requests would go to the incident, and then they would come to myself or my incident commander, and then we would do what we needed to do logistically in the province to try to get those officers to the City of Ottawa.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. If we could pull up OPP00000556, this is an email that, I think if we scroll down, I believe Insp. Younan forwarded you and Supt. Alakas an email. And if we go further down, this is an email which we saw in evidence this morning, from Former Chief Sloly to a number of members on his team at 6:30 in the morning of February 5th. Do you recall getting this forwarded email from Insp. Younan?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I recall Insp. Younan sending an email as it relates to -- I think this is the period of time where it was an email where Chief Sloly was directing a lot of different things that he wanted to see happen and one of those things, S/Sgt. Gauvin was woken up in the early hours and the request was for OPP/Public Order Unit to help clear this particular area. S/Sgt. Gauvin handled it himself and put them off, just saying like, “No, this is not part of our framework. This is not how we operate,” and was able to delay that operation.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
But it was part of a bigger email chain, I believe, on that day.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And if we could just scroll down to the “General Priorities” list there. No. 1 is “surge, contain, and enforce” which I think gets referred to as “surge and contain”. What -- did you have a view on, sort of, whether that was an appropriate strategy at the time or whether there were -- like, there was a plan in place to effect that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I certainly had concerns because there was no plan. These were ideas and concepts of what they wanted to happen but if it didn’t come with a plan, I certainly wasn’t going to offer OPP support to just do that based on, you know, a one-line email. I understand that was our goal but there had to be a cogent plan for that to happen and, up to this point, I still hadn’t seen on. And so we couldn’t allow that, to have OPP participate in that.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so that’s something we’ve heard, and we will hear from a number of witnesses, I think, is the idea that -- as my colleague put it this morning, does the plan drive the numbers or the numbers drive the plan? And so I think you’re saying, you know, the OPP isn’t going to make more resources without a plan that it can review; is that accurate?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m a -- you have to have a plan. It’s backwards to do it just by numbers. You have to have a plan. And once you have a plan that your subject-matter experts, your incident commanders, your MCICs all agree on, then, okay, what human resources do we need to make this plan effective and successful?
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And is that standard practice? Is that always the case that you wouldn’t be offering up OPP resources unless you knew exactly how the local police jurisdiction plans to use them?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Every situation is different but, certainly, my POU commanders are going to want to see an operational about, “What was the intent? What are you going to ask our people to do? How many of them do you need? And what is the expectation of them?” because they want to make sure it matches with out framework, it matches with our organizational values, so they want to be able to have answers to all those things before they ever say yes. So, normally, that involves seeing a plan.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. But what about the view that, you know, if you send them to Ottawa, at least they’re there to be used when there is a plan. If there’s a delay, if it’s going to take you two, or three, or four days to get 500 OPP officers to Ottawa, then when you have a plan, you still have to wait two, or three, or four days?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s just it’s not an appropriate use of our resources. We need to have an idea; “What do you want to do with those 500? We’ll get them going but we have to have some idea. Currently, there is absolutely nothing that says what they’ll do. Will they do traffic control? Will they do QRT patrols? What will you have them do? I’m not going to bring 500 officers to Ottawa, literally fly them from Sioux Lookout all over the province, try to find somewhere for them to stay without having an understanding of what they’re doing.” And that’s -- that goes for municipal police service, too. They need to have an understanding of what their members are going to do. We’re protecting our members; we’re not going to send them several hours away and say, “Go to Ottawa. I really don’t know what you’re going to do. I really don’t know how long you’re going to be there. I don’t know what to tell you to pack. Just show up there and we’ll figure it out when we get there.” That’s just not how we operate.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And at this point, this is February 5th; are -- Is Insp. Younan and S/Sgt. Gauvin, are they still embedded with the OPS Planning Group as of February 5th?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe they’re still there trying. I don’t know that they’re sitting around the table working on it because I feel that their frustrations have bubbled over to the point where they just couldn’t put pen to paper at that point.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And did you speak with the Commissioner on February 5th?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’d have to check my notes but I know I had a couple of different calls directly with the Commissioner to advise them of what I was seeing and what I discussed. I’d just have to look to see the date.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
If you say that’s the day, then ---
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
I believe that’s -- I believe you spoke with him perhaps twice that day, actually. But what concerns were you elevating to the Commissioner?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Many of the things you’ve already heard, the disorganization, inability to have PLT get engaged in what needed to get done, concerns with the incident command structure within the Ottawa Police, and an uncertainty of what role they wanted us to play in supporting their operations, and was really looking for him to engage with Chief Sloly to have those conversations to say, “In case you weren’t aware, this is what’s happening. What can we do to try to resolve?”
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And do you understand that the Commissioner did have those discussions with Chief Sloly?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. I know from one recollection, Commission Carrique advised that he had talked to Chief Sloly had told him, “Yes, PLT is an important part of our plan and we want to embed it in our plan. It’s the way forward,” and he indicated that he thought that that’s what was occurring and he felt that there was a productive conversation.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And just generally, sort of, how often were in contact and relaying your observations and concerns to Commissioner Carrique?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
In the early days, I’d say maybe every third or fourth day we would have a group call and update him on what was occurring. If things were stressing to the point -- around this period of time, things were getting more stressful and, basically, my members, Insp. Beaudin, and them were saying, “We need to talk to the Commissioner about this to let him know what’s happening,” and I would ask those calls to happen.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. I want to ask you about the Coventry Road enforcement. So if you could just tell us what -- what happened there, as far as you understand it.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So the first I learned about it was in -- I received an invitation to join a Zoom call, video call with Chief Sloly and his command. And apparently, he had heard that the OPP PLT team was leaving, and he wanted to talk to me about it. I didn't know anything really about that until I got on the call and then I heard the story, much like Deputy Chief Ferguson told this morning. Essentially, PLT had gone to the Coventry Road site to try to negotiate the removal of some gasoline, and Major Incident Commander Patterson was aware of this and chose to use it as an enforcement opportunity. And when the gas was being driven away, his members pulled the vehicles over, seized the gas and charged the members. And that caused extreme stress amongst the PLT team, both Ottawa Police Service and OPP PLT members to the point where the Ottawa Police PLT members just said, "You folks, you should go home. We've lost." We've lost all -- any goodwill we were able to reach with some of the convoy organizers or operators was now lost because there's no way they could not have seen the connect between them trying to negotiate a removal of gas and then being arrested. It was too obvious. So there was much concern about that, but on this call, I learned that Staff Sergeant Ferguson, who's in charge of Ottawa Police PLT, didn't know that that was Superintendent Patterson's plan all along. They hadn't communicated. It was a shock -- it was as much of a shock to him as anybody else.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I think you transcribed your recollection of the call in an email, so if we could pull up OPP00001532? And if we can go down just to the top of your email, there we go. "The following is a summary of the OPS video call that Insp. Beaudin asked me to participate in on his behalf this evening." So Inspector Beaudin was not -- wasn't able to make it?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. The next paragraph, "I can say that OPS Chief Sloly said numerous times that PLT needs to be embedded and engaged in operations and that it was mission critical that they be. I sensed however that they just do not understand how best to utilize PLT." Where did you get that sense from and where was the disconnect in the organization?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was having discussions with my own PLT members who were -- they had decided on their own to try to pair up with Ottawa Police PLT members because they were seeing it firsthand. As you heard this morning, the Ottawa Police PLT program is different than the OPP program. Ours is full time, OPS is part time. And they seemed to be used more as an intelligence gathering capacity rather than trying to make concessions, figure out what exit plans are. There's more, hey, who's in this truck, who are you, what are you doing here. And didn't seem to be that measured approach that our PLT members are used to doing. And it was more hard tact you're going to get arrested if you don't get out of here type thing.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
The next paragraph mentions a Dr. Peter Collins who was on the line. What -- who is Dr. Collins and what role was he playing?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure. Dr. Collins is a forensic psychologist. He has worked with the OPP for many years, mainly in the tactical capacity, crisis negotiator capacity. I've used him when I was in our homicide unit if I was going to interrogate a person that was to have known mental health problems. I would speak to Dr. Collins to get his perspective on how best to approach a person that may be suffering whatever ailment they were suffering. But he mainly works with the crisis negotiator side of our organization. I understood at some point he was brought into this operation, and he was made aware of this incident. And he wasn't on video. I think he was on a telephone. I didn't see his face anyways on the video call. And those were the comments he gave about the impact this was going to have on the program and on the members that are in the program.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
The next paragraph, "OPS Command feels that there is a silver lining as the arrests were made away from the fuel depot so there is not as strong a connection between PLT and the arrests." Did you share that silver lining assessment?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. I have trained PLT investigators that are getting calls from their contacts in the convoy saying, "We're not going to talk to you again. This just happened. Why would we ever trust you again?" So it was clear that as much as Superintendent Patterson may have hoped that there was a disconnection and then the members couldn't make that connection, that connection was made right away.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
If we go down to the next paragraph, "They then had a long conversation about staffing and again Chief Sloly stated that PLT needed to be embedded in all they do. Chief Sloly expects all policing partners will engage in arrests for Aiding and Abetting the offence of Mischief and if they refuse then he will call that police services senior management to ensure they do." Can you describe for us what that captures there?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
He was expecting all officers, regardless of who they work for, to effect mischief arrests for members who were believed to be carrying gasoline. That's what he was looking for.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Oh, is this just in relation to Coventry Road and the gas issue or is this a larger issue?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, it was the larger issue.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. But at this point on February 6th, there's no large operational plan that's ready to be actioned; is there?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
There's not.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so when you've written down all policing partners, that includes the RCMP, the OPP, any other municipal agencies that were there participating?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
When he says all policing partners, I got to believe he means all policing partners and that's who was there.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. If we go -- there, the next paragraph. "I was not asked to speak on the call. At the end I was asked to confirm the rumour that OPP PLT was leaving. I explained that it was in fact the OPS PLT members who suggested our PLT folks leave [as] the Coventry Road fuel arrests had made their jobs untenable and there seemed to be no use trying any longer using PLT tactics since the trust was [...] broken." So just to be clear, did OPP PLT leave or reduce their -- the numbers in light of this?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
We never left, no.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And then you go on to describe two major operational plans upcoming, and I wonder if you could just take us through one and two and what was being planned at that time?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure. Chief Sloly was looking for action, what's happening, what are you doing, certain type of action, so he detailed, number one, he wanted to do a dynamic arrest and takedown at Rideau and Sussex. They planned to do that the following day, but because of lack of assets, they postponed it to possibly Wednesday. And they were going to have a call tomorrow at nine o'clock that myself and Superintendent Alakas were invited on, and it was advised that they will work through the top convoy organizers and influencers, and they will pick a few, and there will be planned arrests and extractions tomorrow of those persons. And they wanted PLT engaged in that along with POU teams.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Did you have a view on either of these two operational plans?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I had a view on both, yes. I didn't agree with either, for various reasons. And I didn't see a plan for dynamic arrests that were supposed to happen within the next couple days. There was no -- nothing I could read to how they planned to use the POU, what time of day they planned to do it. I hadn't seen what intelligence or PLT work they'd done on that intersection to understand who was there. I had no understanding of how they planned to get rid of the trucks. There was just a total lack of information on that call anyways, so I couldn't support that. And then basically, what he's describing in number two are snatch and grabs off the street, which we're normally not associated with. And again, he doesn't speak about time of day. And again, he speaks about involving PLT in them. How are PLT engaged in snatch and grabs? From my experience, that's not what OPP PLT are involved in. So I certainly right away had concerns for both of those.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And, sorry, when you say PLT, like, the PLT would actually engage in the arrests?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That was the struggle. All I can see is he said they want PLT engaged. In what aspect or how was unknown. He didn't go into those details on the call.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And then I believe you spoke with Superintendent Patterson after the call, if you can just describe for us that second call with Superintendent Patterson.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I had heard, because I had heard that our POU Unit had been engaged as part of this Coventry Road exercise. So I contacted Insp. Dave Springer to say, like, “What are we doing there?” He said, “We’re just here to protect PLT. We’re not engaged with the gasoline. We’re just making sure nobody gets hurt.” And in our conversation, I had understood that even some of the Ottawa Police detectives were uncertain about their legal authorities to do what they were doing. Could they seize the trucks? Could they seize the gas? Could they lay the charges? So I wanted to talk further with Supt. Patterson to say, “Where are you getting this authority? I’m assuming you’ve consulted the Crown Attorney. What has the Crown Attorney told you about this? What was the Crown Attorney told you about your authorities? Do you have a Crown opinion letter that I could have? Because until and if I see that letter, I’m not directing my OPP members to be engaged in this type of activity, until I can be certain that the Crown Attorney supports it.” Once again, my role as strategic commander is to protect my people from -- their physical safety, but also their civil liability. I don’t want them involved in illegal arrests. It’s a difficult thing to make the connection between gasoline and a criminal offence of mischief. So there may be a memo out there, which eventually there was, the Crown Attorney was able to explain that these types of offences, as long as you can articulate them correctly, can lead to charges. I had conversations with OPP senior command either the next day or two days later, once I got the letter. Once they saw it in that conversation, they said, “No, it’s okay. OPP members can participate in this type of activity.” So then I had to work my incident commanders to build a training package for my members to say, “Hey, here’s your authorities. Here’s how to approach it.” Even down to the basics about what do you do with the seized gas? You can’t throw it in the trunk of your car. Down to that level. But we had to create a system for our own members to understand and educate them.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
But as of the evening of February 6th, that level of planning didn’t exist for the OPP’s POU; correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m sorry, the planning for the POU?
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
The work that you did over the next two days ---
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
--- to ascertain that, you know, this was something you could do and you had planned for what to do with the gas. That work hadn’t been carried out, but at the time that you’re having this conversation with ---
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
--- Supt. Patterson?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. I’m just trying to gather information.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Yeah.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
If we could pull up OPP00001546, please? So this is an email you sent, I believe, the following day, after the call. If we could scroll down? You sent it to Deputy Harkins and C/Supt. Thomas.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
“Deputy, I did not want to mention this on the call with the group but feel it important for you to have this information. On my call with OPS Command last night Chief Sloly asked his people to send him their resource needs. They told him that they need 250 members a day to run things. Chief Sloly told them that if they need 100 he will ask for 200, if they need 200 he will ask for 400. He seemed very comfortable asking for twice what he really needed. He looks at it that it the other partner police agencies can’t meet the ask number then Ottawa may still get more than they really need.. [It] was a very strange call to be a part of.” (As read) Could you sort of tell us how that came about on the call and why you were relaying that information to Deputy Harkins and C/Supt. Thomas?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It came near the end of the call. I believe the Chief had to leave, so it was more, “Okay, before I leave, this is what I want.” So his direction to his members was, “I need to know how many people we need to operate and control this event. And if you tell me, --” like, I don’t want to repeat the email, but that was what he was saying. And that was his rational for saying it. I was surprised only because I thought, “He knows I’m on the call. He knows I’m here. Is he -- he welcomed me on the call and we talked about PLT not leaving. So he knows I’m still here, but he’s talking about basically doubling the ask he’s going to ask from other police agencies in Ontario to support what’s happening in Ottawa with no plan.” I mean, there was no plan to plug these numbers into yet, but these were just random numbers. So I found that strange and I felt it was important for my Chief and Commissioner to be aware of it, because I knew that higher level meetings were happening with Chiefs around Ontario about how they could support Ottawa and I thought it was important for them to have in the back of their mind about what occurred that night.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did you say anything on the call with Chief Sloly and the other members of the OPS at the time?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, he left the call rather abruptly. He basically said, “This is my direction,” and then he left the call. And there was a bit of that awkward silence, like, you could tell the other people knew that “Abrams is on this call,” which was awkward. But we moved forward after that. There was no direct talk about this doubling of numbers. We never discussed it.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Again, going back to the issue of numbers driving the plan or the plan driving numbers, that, to your knowledge, like had you said it, or to your knowledge, had anybody else said it directly to anybody at OPS? Like, we don’t need a number, we don’t need a number that’s doubled, we need a plan and you’ll get resources when we have a plan?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s essentially the conversations we were having all along with Deputy Bell, is where’s the plan? We need an operational plan. And Deputy Bell agreed, like, “Yeah, we know we need a plan. We’re working on a plan.” So really, the numbers were irrelevant. As we’ve spoken about, it’s about the plan first and the numbers can come later. It may be 1,800, as we’ve heard. It was actually more than that. But to ask for all these numbers without plan and explanation of what they will be used for seemed odd to me.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
I think the 7th is the same day that Chief Sloly publicly requested 1,800 officers.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I thought it was the 8th only because I thought how could a team come up in under 24 hours when they were just told on the 7th to come up with a number, and all of a sudden the number is 1,800 the next day? How did they figure that out in under a day? So I may have my dates wrong, but I thought it was the 8th that the announcement came of the 1,800.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. I believe it’s the 7th, but ---
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
--- in any event, did you -- how did you view that number in light of this conversation?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I viewed it with suspicion.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And so around this time, the 8th and the 9th, former Chief Supt. Pardy became involved in the events. Can you describe how he became involved and what his role was?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was invited on a call on the morning of the 8th with the Commissioner. Deputy Harkins was on the call, Supt. Matt Denal (Phonetic) and Chief Pardy. And the Commissioner announced that there was going to be an Integrated Planning Team that would attend Ottawa. He gave us a mission. Essentially the mission was to help the Ottawa Police restore trust and confidence in their service, obviously help them with planning to get themselves out of this situation that’s occurring in the City of Ottawa. Those were the essentially high-level expectations from this integrated planning team. The Ottawa Police would still be the police of jurisdiction. This wasn’t a situation where the OPP were coming to take over an incident. That experts would be drawn from other police services to come with Chief Pardy, subject matter experts in public order, major events, to help Ottawa police to come up with a plan to see this come to an end. I didn’t hear where this idea came from. I assumed it was from higher level meetings that Commissioner Carrique was a part of. But it was told to me because I was the lone senior officer on the ground up to that point, that I would be important to have beside Chief Pardy, to inform him of what had been occurring, because he was the regional commander in North Bay. He didn’t really have intimate details of what was happening in Ottawa. So that’s why I was placed on a team with him. And then he was given direction to come to Ottawa.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did you remain part of that team?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Only for a short period of time. I’d say 48 hours at the most. Once it was clear that larger plans were going to be put in place. And at that point, OPP was probably providing around 150 officers a day. We were kind of reaching our capacity in the command post we were in Kanata. And it was expected that a much larger number would likely come once Integrated Plan Team got their work together. And they were under a tight timeline. Like, they wanted to have a plan within 48 hours, if possible, to get this done. My time was better spent rotating back to coordinating the logistical challenges of getting all those members into Ottawa. So I helped Chief Pardy out for the first couple of days. Then once he was established with his subject matter experts, I rotated back to my role of overseeing a deployment of frontline officers to the City of Ottawa.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. You just mentioned that, at this point, you're at about 150 officers a day, up from 30 a day maybe a week ago.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, it basically went 30, 60, 120, and then obviously, on weekends, we always had surge weekends because more people would come on a weekend, so we'd have to have more numbers for weekends. We'd bump up to 156, 160 on a weekend, and then back to 120 on a Monday or a Tuesday, just because there always was a surge of population on a weekend. We were around that number when Chief Pardy arrived.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. But so these numbers had increased in the absence of any sort of concrete operational plan; is that fair to say?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct. And we're - - and because there were traffic points, they were easy to articulate and the reasons why they needed our people for help. They just -- they needed to restrict the flow of traffic into the downtown core and the traffic points just continued to grow and they were running out of Ottawa police officers to stick on those traffic points. So in a maintenance phase, you don't necessarily need a super detailed plan to help out on a maintenance phase. You're just essentially holding ground until a plan can be developed. So we were comfortable in deploying those members because they knew exactly what they were supposed to do, exactly what their role was, and I could articulate that to our members. So we were -- we felt safe and confident to bring them -- to tell them to do that.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And I understand you attended a couple of early Integrated Planning Team meetings as I guess this transition was happening. What can you tell us about those meetings?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So the first meeting was the evening of February 8th around the 5 o'clock mark. Chief Pardy had a scribe with them, and normally, my general rule of thumb is if there's a scribe in the room and they're taking notes, I won't take notes because they're religiously taking notes. So his scribe took the notes. We received a presentation from Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson about her concept of operation, that single sheet we saw early this morning with the points. Sorry. She displayed that to us and explained that to us. And then we had general discussions about how they felt about integrated team, and does she think it's as value, and just had those kinds of discussions about what was happening and how this integrated team could help them move forward.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And what did you sense the reception of the integrated team was like on the OPS side?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Deputy Ferguson was very much in support of it. I think she'd explained Chief Sloly was supposed to be on the call, but he had an emergent issue he had to deal with that night, so he wasn't able to be on the call. There was some technical issues. Being at RCMP headquarters, everybody who wanted to be on the call could be on the call at that time. But we gained very good ground. We had good conversations. We requested -- Deputy Ferguson stated that they were just finishing up a larger concept of operational plan. It just wasn't quite ready yet. She indicated it'd be ready the next morning. So the plan was for her to come again and show us the more broader, expanded plan the following morning on the 9th.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did that happen?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, Chief Pardy called me early in the morning to say that he'd heard from Acting Deputy Ferguson that it wasn't quite ready yet. They were just finishing it up. And that they would prefer if we attended downtown Elgin Street around the lunch hour.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And can you describe that meeting for us?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly. It was in a boardroom on the second floor of police headquarters. Chief Sloly was present, and two deputies were present, a few inspectors. Superintendent Patterson was present. Counsel Huneault -- I apologize if I don't pronounce your name correctly. She was present. And there was myself, Chief Pardy, Inspector from York Regional Police. Tim's his first name. I apologize I can't remember his last name. Superintendent from the RCMP, Phil Lue, and Staff Sergeant Darwin Tetreault. And we all sat on one line on one table, Chief Sloly sat at a table, flanked by his deputies. They spoke -- Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson gave her presentation on the expanded concept of operations and what that looked like. After that presentation, Chief Sloly turned to me directly, which I was surprised because I just happened to be the first OPP in the line. Chief Pardy was next to me on my right. And in a clearly unhappy fashion expressed his unhappiness with the fact that the Solicitor General reported that there was 1500 OPP officers in his city when clearly there was not. And he was quite upset about that. I explained to him that I was the one who provided numbers. On the second of February I was asked by the SOLGEN's office to provide a document to show how many OPP members were in the City of Ottawa. Clearly, there was more than just frontline officers. We had Public Order officers, we had Intelligence officers, we had PLT members, we had Logistical officers, Traffic members. So my team created a chart, daily chart from the beginning to that period, 2nd of February, with rows and columns to fill in any POU and Traffic, and then the total for each day and then a total cumulative. I want to say the cumulative total at that point was 826, could be 862. It was around that number. And I stated that each day moving forward was going to average about 125 a day. And I submitted that to my Chief Superintendent, and I never saw the numbers again. So I explained to Chief Sloly that -- I didn't explain to Chief Sloly in that detail. I just said, "I'm the one who submitted the numbers. In my opinion, I think that a SOLGEN media staffer just maybe crafted a bad sentence. The intent was not to say there was 1500 literally that day. The intent was to say it was cumulative." Chief Sloly again became upset and basically said, "Don't explain the politics of the SOLGEN's office to me. I know that was done intentionally." And I just said, "I can't speak to that. I just provided the numbers." And we moved on.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And was there discussion about Rideau and Sussex at this meeting as well?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
There was. So we were provided -- I want to say it was a three-page document by Superintendent Patterson that detailed kind of his daily plan. It was weekly. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and what he planned -- what they planned to do. They were dynamic actions primarily. And one of them was supposed to happen that evening at 11 o'clock. So he detailed that and basically just kind of left it there to say -- as if for us to say, okay. So sensing no one else in the room was speaking, I started to ask some direct questions to Superintendent Patterson to say, "What are you going to do with the trucks? What's your plan with the trucks?" He had two plans with the trucks. One plan was to use retired Ottawa police members to drive them out of there, indicated they'd been there for quite a period of time. Many of them had been chained and altered to kind of make it difficult to tow them. I'm not a diesel mechanic, but a lot of -- you probably need mechanic skills to get them started again. And he indicated, well, if that didn't work, I'd use the Canadian Armed Forces tow trucks to tow it. And I said, "Have you asked for an aid to the civil power from the federal government?" And Superintendent Patterson indicated that he didn't require that, it wasn't necessary. So then I asked, because I knew through those weeks, that week, I was getting regular phone calls from my PLTs, I've described about their frustrations of we're not being on the same page, no autonomy, no connection, I asked, "Has PLT been engaged in this plan, this takedown plan?" And Superintendent Patterson said they had. I knew they hadn't. So that concerned me. So I told them directly, I said, "I'm not a Public Order Unit Commander, but based on what I'm seeing and what I've just heard, you will never see OPP support on any operation tonight or tomorrow based on what I'm reading." Literally, it's two lines on a page to take down a whole intersection. There was no idea of -- no indication any way at that meeting is there children in the car? How many people are in each truck? That wasn't told to us. Essentially, they were looking for us to agree, and I wasn't comfortable. I had to ask the questions because it was dangerous for my members. That's what I’m being paid to do, protect our members and our organization. And it was at nighttime. Only in emergent extreme situations would we ever do Public Order exercises in the dark. We don't operate in the dark. It's too dangerous for our members. It's too dangerous for the public. So there were so many reasons why I could never support it. That's why I had to ask the direct questions I did.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And how was it left at the end of the meeting?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Then we transitioned and Chief Pardy and RCMP members then piped in to basically say to Chief Sloly, "Maybe you should pump the brakes, and slow down a bit, and allow" -- this is Darwin Tetreault talking now -- allow -- he had coordination for a Public Order Unit in the RCMP. "I can get you bodies here to Ottawa, but it's going to take some time. Give me a week. We can get you 400 people here,” and that really seemed trigger Chief Sloly. He became very passionate, a raised voice again, and basically said that the head of hydra is in Ottawa and we needed to cut the head of the hydra off in Ottawa. Sorry, I’ll back up quickly. We also talked about the impacts around the country, that this isn’t just an isolated incident. We have Coutts, Alberta; we have Ambassador Bridge; there’s more events that happened. And I think Supt. Morris called it the “rubber band effect” or “elastic effect”; one event that happened in one part of the country has an immediate effect on another. When we tried to bring that to his attention, he didn’t want to hear that. His focus was on his city which, he’s the Chief of the City, I can’t say I blame him, but he was very passionate about he didn’t like to hear that. He didn’t like to hear about a delay and essentially said, “I want you to promise me that you will get 400 RCMP or POU members here or I will go the Minister.” He never named the minister; he just called -- just said “the Minister”.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Did you speak privately with any OPS members after that meeting about this -- the Rideau-and- Sussex Plan in particular?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Immediately after the meeting, Chief Sloly left the room rather quickly and Acting Deputy Ferguson, she was seated to my left, she grabbed my elbow and she just pulled me to the side and she thanked me for asking the questions I asked because they were almost the same or very similar questions that she had been asking all along and was not able to get answers for. And then a day later, I received a text message from Deputy Bell saying that he appreciated my direct questions and felt it helped move the issue along.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And then, just very briefly, what was your role after this. I understand this was the last of your sort of involvement in the Integrated Planning Team; is that correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Essentially. I returned to the headquarters after that meeting. We debriefed the meeting and we talked about how dangerous what we’d just heard was, how we could never support what we heard, and how there was a need to start an integrative plan. But I’m not a Public Order SME so my role was to get back and deal with the hundreds of OPP officers that I had to deploy onto the street of non POU frontline members. Chief Vardy had the SMEs he needed and my job was to basically make what needed from his plan, from a frontline perspective, happen. So I moved to our command post and allowed him and his team to do the work they needed to do.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Now, you talked just a minute ago about events around the country and so I want to ask you a little bit about Windsor. You had a few discussions with Supt. Dana Earley there; is that correct?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t recall speaking to Dana directly, no.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay, you don’t recall having conversations with her?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. I recall sending messages of support to another NCIC, Insp. Needham, just about the good work they were doing on the Ambassador Bridge but I don’t recall ever having direct conversations with Supt. Earley.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. Well, I’m -- Supt. Earley has recorded that in her notes so perhaps we’ll pull those up and see if that helps you. If I could get OPP00004543, and it’s February 10th and I don’t have the page number. I apologize -- page 33, sorry.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
There is no 33.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Oh, it may be -- OPP00004543. It’s February 10th. I’m looking at 10:21 on February 10th. So there were are. I think it’s probably on the next page, two pages. She takes quite detailed notes.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Apparently even better than myself.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay, there we are: "Call from Craig Abrams to confirm resources." And so I guess we’re now 10:21 on February 10th. I don’t know if that helps situate you -- helps you recall whether you had a call with her.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
In my original notes, on page 52, on the 10th of February, I just have her name, “Dana”, with a slash. I don’t have any information.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So clearly, we did connect at some point but I wasn’t able to detail what we discussed.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And so she records the calls: "Call from Craig Abrams to confirm resources. Ottawa has been sending resource sheets to EOC. Advised Abrams Windsor is priority according to Deputy." Do you recall Supt. Earley telling you that?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I can’t say that I do.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m not saying she didn’t; I just can’t recall.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
If we go further down at 10:28, I think you’re sort of giving her some advice: "Abrams advised…" Or sorry, 10:28: "Advised Abrams - Windsor has told us this is now ours." So you remember hearing that from Supt. Earley at all?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t know if heard it from Dana but I knew that there had been an agreement that the OPP was going to take over the operations in Windsor. I just can’t say that I heard that from Dana.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And then the second entry of 10:28: "Abrams advised that’s easier. Ottawa doesn’t like PLT nightmare. This will allow you to make your own plan. Ottawa is just truck on side streets, not affecting livelihoods." Is that -- is she recording what you’ve -- you’re saying to her at that point?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’ve got to assume so. It seems pretty detailed. I recall -- because the comment about “making things easier”, it certainly is a lot easier. As I discussed, we were kind of attached at the hip with Ottawa Police; we could only move as fast as they were willing to move forward as the police jurisdiction. If she was now in the situation in Windsor where she could essentially control the event, it made her job a lot easier to be able to just move forward without having to work with the police jurisdiction directly.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay, and I want to ask you about the “Ottawa is just trucks on side streets, not affecting livelihoods.” Is that a view that you held or that you had heard sort of espoused within the OPP.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, it’s not a view I held because I was on the street. I visited my members on the street, and I talked to my members, and I talked to storeowners who described because they were wearing masks and the difficulties they were having in the businesses so I knew that there was impacts on businesses. Whether I had those meetings with business owners after this conversation or before, I can’t recall for sure but it’s not a position I espoused because there was clearly an affect on the residents in that area. I think I may have been commenting more -- because I talked to other members about this -- if you drove the 417 through Ottawa or used any streets south of the 417, you’d never know what was happening in Ottawa. Ottawa seemed to be functioning as per normal outside of that core area. So I may have been reflecting on my experience driving around the City of Ottawa kind of impeded with no real traffic problems generally south of the 417 but clearly lots of effects and impacts in the downtown core.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Right, okay. And again, just kind of backing up one more step, you’re not aware of the OPP having prioritized sending resources to Windsor over Ottawa for, I guess, economic reasons?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I never had conversations about priorities. It was more about, “We have this many members tied up in Windsor so we can only send you this many.” It wasn’t about making Windsor a priority over Ottawa that was ever communicated to me that I’m aware of.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. I just want to ask you a last series of questions about the Emergencies Act and its invocation. And I understand you -- you know, you learned on February 17th about the creation of the red zone in Ottawa, right?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Okay. And is it your understanding that that was only made possible by the invocation of the Emergencies Act?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was my understanding, through reading Twitter accounts and media releases that Ottawa Police had indicated to the public that the red zone was created as a result of the Emergency Act, that the restriction of movement, the subsequent stoppage of vehicles to determine if they have lawful authority to be in that controlled area that they described was based on authorities obtained under the Emergency Act, yes.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And did you have experience and had you advised officers that there were existing authorities or you had done it previously without the Emergencies Act?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
We had talked prior because prior to this date on the 17th, our members were doing traffic enforcement and -- but more in an observation capacity, looking for criminality that may be obvious or vehicles that may look like they want to block a roadway. So we had a formal education package. The EMCPA was in authority at that period of time, so we educated them on the provincial EMCPA Act. That gave them some authorities. And we educated them on their normal Highway Traffic Act authorities, their normal Criminal Code authorities, about their ability to stop traffic, determine what they're doing, and the ability to turn them around and/or make arrests if they feel they have the reasonable grounds to do so. I did a lot of the briefings with the members to explain their authorities and I tried to explain in the simple terms as I could, just saying, "You're all police officers. You all understand your authorities to make arrests, and you all have -- you understand the concept of discretion. And these authorities are available to you here, just like they are back at your home detachments. Nothing has changed." So this is prior to the 17th. So they knew they had those abilities. If they saw something, they could act. They didn’t need the Emergency Act to do it. But then when the Emergency Act was invoked and there was restrictions placed and "headlines" is the wrong word -- but restrictions or regulations put in place about boundaries and certain street boundaries and entry into those boundaries, and that members of the public entering that area had to have three or four different excuses; is there a lawful purpose, a business owner, going to a hotel. So there's three or four different areas that they were allowed to. So my officers were then expected to essentially do that. So it turned from what was officers really observing traffic to once the Act was invoked, I went downtown to see what our members were dealing with, and it was essentially a 14-to-15-hour ride program. Members were out in horrible weather, standing on the roadside, checking vehicles, going through the list, "Where are you going, what are you doing, why are you travelling here, do you have a reason to go here?" and then turning around vehicles that may need to be turned around.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And the government revoked the Emergencies Act on February 23rd, and you were asked by your members, "What can we continue to do?" What did you tell them?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
So it wasn’t necessarily an ask. So I was sitting in the command post. I saw our prime minister on the television revoke the Act, and I looked at my watch, and I knew I was less than an hour away from briefing 300, close to, officers that were going to go on the street that night. And I knew they were going to want to know what -- "What can we do, Boss?" essentially. They could see the TV as well as I could. So I had to really consider what are our lawful authorities to do that we're doing, minus the Act, Emergencies Act? So I looked at what we were doing prior, I looked at the common-law authorities to stop vehicles. It was a very restricted area. We had literally just cleared the streets almost less than 24 hours before. How could we ever just turn the streets back over again that we'd just secured less than 24 hours? We've got to have a presence and still maintain some presence of restriction in some capacity. So I tried to call Chief Pardy. He was my kind of commander and just to run it by him, just to make sure I was on the right track. Unfortunately, he was tied up. I think that announcement caught everybody by surprise, so the phones were ringing. So I appeared before them and that’s essentially what I explained to them. I said, "Use your discretion, but we're going to continue to stop vehicles until and as such time as I'm told that the lawful authorities doesn’t exist any more. The emergency has passed." And at the end of the day, the next morning, that’s what had happened. Our meetings were held and it was agreed there was no intelligence to indicate that convoy participants were going to return. Therefore, a common-law authority that we base our authorities on was -- didn’t exist any more. There was no emergent need, there's no intelligence to support us stopping vehicles, so the direction was made to now fall back to an observation mode again. On that first evening when I gave that direction, they continued to stop. We stopped 11 vehicles that were convoy related, according to my members, that wanted to get back into the zone that we just cleared. So I was glad that we continued it that evening. They gave lots of excuses. They wanted to pick up an old hockey net that was left behind, but who knows? Maybe that was accurate, maybe not. But the count was 11 vehicles that we turned aside, and after conversations the next day with Chief Pardy and council, they agreed the authority didn’t exist any more, so we went back to pre-Emergency Act and developed an observational posture.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
We're almost out of time. I have two final questions for you. The first is, as somebody who had an early vantage of the Freedom Convoy and the preparations, you know, can you give us a very short list of sort of what went well and what could have been improved upon in preparing for the arrival of the convoy?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
From an OPP's perspective or an Ottawa Police perspective?
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
From your perspective as somebody who observed them coming into the city.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I thought the OPP role in the initial convoy arrival on Ottawa went very smooth. We had minor issues in our smaller communities with members not obeying the mask mandates. We had some restaurants who just chose to ignore the mandates altogether, but overall, we had no assaults, we had no criminality. I wasn’t aware of any charges being laid. They said what they would do. They kept to one lane. They entered the City of Ottawa in an orderly fashion. We had minor issues with supporters on the roadside on the 417 getting kind of dangerously close to the side of the highway, which was a concern, but that wasn’t convoy -- the convoy participants couldn't control that. They did what they said they would do, and they didn’t damage any highways and they didn’t cause any criminality. So from that perspective, it was a success in getting them into the City of Ottawa, from an OPP. That was our mission, that was our goal for that period of time, to have the convoy come through OPP-policed areas without a blockage of a highway, without assaults or damage and injury to the public, and we were successful in all those areas.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
And I guess the reverse side of that question is, what would you say to the suggestion that this could have been avoided if the OPP had more actively inserted itself or actively offered support, maybe no strings attached, maybe "Here's people. Show us the plan later", that that might have avoided the situation?
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'm not a subject-matter expert in public -- or I'm not a subject-matter expert in principles of Commander MCIC. If you're asking for my opinion, I'll give it to you, but I'm not a highly-trained public order manager. But certainly, if you could go by the intelligence and do an intelligence-led assessment of what was coming to your city, I think there was ways to block streets. I don't think you could ever stop them coming to the city at all. That was a foregone conclusion. They were coming to Ottawa. It would have been a matter of how can we lessen the impact to our city? Can we divert them to other areas of the city that have less impact? Can we divert them somewhere and then they go and they protest on foot as opposed to protesting in what is essentially a mobile house, once it's in one place it's hard to move? Monday morning quarterbacking is an easy thing. I don’t like to do that, but you asked me a question. I think that’s a way that perhaps, just like Toronto did, but Toronto admitted that they learned from the lessons of Ottawa and that’s why they blocked roads and were able to clear the Queen's Park area the way they did so effectively. So hindsight is always 20/20. So that’s my humble submission, but I'm not naïve enough to know that that is 5:49:01 with hindsight and knowledge that I would never had at the beginning.
Eric Brousseau, Counsel (POEC)
Thank you, Superintendent. Those are my questions.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
Okay. Well, thank you, Superintendent. That’s very useful, and the bad news is, we want you back tomorrow.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
So we're going to adjourn until 9:30 tomorrow morning, and if everything goes right, you should be out before lunch.
Craig Abrams, Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner.
Paul Rouleau, Commissioner (POEC)
We'll rise til 9:30.
The Registrar (POEC)
The Commission is adjourned. La Commission est ajournée.
Upon adjourning at 5:49 p.m. Ottawa, Ontario