Carson Pardy
Carson Pardy spoke 593 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Swear.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Carson Pardy, surname Pardy, P-A-R-D-Y.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Sorry?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I'll swear.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The Bible's good.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I do, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You did.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was the version of it, yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think, like all documents, context is important, but I'm sure that will come out in evidence.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thirty-six-and-a-half years, sir. I started my policing career in '86. I left active duty in July, July 15th, but I'm officially retired now for three weeks.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Only three weeks.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I spent 28 years of my OPP career, six wonderful years with the RCMP in New Brunswick, but my 30 year OPP career, 28 of it was spent in eastern Ontario in various roles. And the latter part, the last 12 years of my career was in the senior leadership role as a superintendent, and I did a lot of work in the National Capital Region with major events, presidential visits, North American leader summits, Canada Day events, et cetera, yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
First class.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
First class.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, certainly, upon my arrival in -- with the Integrated Planning Team, I asked the question, "What's going on? What happened to you guys?" And certainly the pandemic has had an impact, retirements, people moved on, lack of major events to keeping you -- keeping those skills honed when people move on. The emergency readiness, emergency preparedness is much like crime prevention, nobody wants to pay for it when nothing's happening, and that's across all sectors. But certainly, you know, there's been a lull, perhaps since about 2016, with the massive large-scale events, that since -- that they have had in Ottawa. So it's just been a considerable passage of time that there hasn't been anything major, but yet, Ottawa is renowned for almost daily protests of some sort.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was the evening of February 7th that I received a telephone call from my supervisor, who is Deputy Commissioner Chris Harkins, asking that -- advising that they were putting together a team of -- a team to go to Ottawa to assist Ottawa, and asked if I would be interested in leading that team. He felt that I was a good fit for it with my background, and he gave me, you know, 10 seconds to say I'm going to do it. I accepted the assignment, and that very night packed a bag and headed to Orillia for a briefing the following morning.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe it was about 9:00 a.m. in the Commissioner's office.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Commissioner Carrique was there, Deputy Commissioner Harkins, Superintendent Mike McDonell was present, Superintendent Craig Abrams was on video link. I believe perhaps the Commissioner's executive officer may have been present as well, but I don't particularly recall.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was started while I was still in Ottawa.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
During the month of February. My supervisor, Deputy Commissioner Harkins, said -- suggested that, you know, start putting my mind to developing or preparing a Will Say for the events leading up to and to the conclusion in Ottawa. I started it with high intentions of catching up and keeping it live, but within a few hours my schedule was overtaken, and -- so I had maybe one page done while I was in Ottawa, and I completed it when I went back to my regular duties in North Bay.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
First week of March.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, the mandate was to provide Ottawa Police support. I was given a broad range to ask for anything I needed. I received from start of the deployment to the conclusion of deployment that type of support from, not just my organisation because I was an OPP officer but leading a team, integrative team from multiple organisations. So it wasn't just OPP, it wasn't about the OPP, but I was giving incredible support to ensure that we got what we needed, understanding the complexities of the events in Ottawa and the evolving events that were happening both provincially and nationally.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I got an overview from Superintendent Abrams as to the state of the union in Ottawa, that the concern was there wasn't a plan. They were asking for a lot of resources, but there was no concrete plan in terms of how those resources were going to be utilized. There was dysfunction. There was a loss of confidence and faith being displayed by the public. The narrative in the media was certainly slanted, you know, there was no -- in terms of the protest and by the protesters. Generally, it was -- reached -- it was a crisis in Ottawa.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know, one of my most common phrases that I uttered throughout my time is -- in Ottawa with their senior executive, their officers is, we're here to help.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Whatever they need. You know, we were there to help build and complement any plans and direction that they had. There was never an intent, and I was - - this was explicit in my assignment, we were not going to Ottawa to take over, man and control of the event. We were going there to support them. Certainly, there was a goal to integrate or unify commands. This is an event that was clearly now beyond the capability of one single organization just by its size and the need for resources. It stretched well beyond what Ottawa Police themselves could provide, which, in my world, that's generally the kickoff for developing, like, a unified or integrated command with others. So, you know, that was the focus, to get there, to have a team of dedicated people, of which I only knew one of the people that were assigned to me. I was going to be meeting these people that evening when I arrived. We were given -- I was given a contact with the Ottawa Police. And later that morning, I got in my vehicle, and I started making my way, and spent the next four hours on the phone.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I know I had someone taking minutes for that meeting. I know Deputy Chief Trish Ferguson, who I'd known previously, was at the meeting, Superintendent Patterson. There was a number of other folks with them, both on conference and video link. I know that initially, even in my own minutes it reflected that Chief Sloly was present at the meeting because that was on the invite, but he did not make that meeting due to an emergency -- an emergent family issue.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don't recall him joining and the minutes don't reflect any comments or whatsoever from the Chief. My recollection is he did not join the meeting at all.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And that is very possible. As I said, I reviewed the minutes from the meeting and it -- when you look at all the minutes that we took throughout the event, it is very clear, in my humble opinion, who was speaking. There was certainly no indication from those minutes that he was there, but it's very possible that he was, that he did join.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, yes, sorry.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know, we started the meeting by just doing introductions of those that were available from my team. My team were still not all in Ottawa. They were still arriving. But we did have Inspector Tim Skinner from the York Region Police; one of my planners from our Emergency Unit in Orillia, Brad Taylor was present; Superintendent Phil Lue from the RCMP; and -- sorry, then Sergeant, now Staff Sergeant Darwin Tetreault from the RCMP as well was present. You know, we stated our objective. We're there to help. What do you need? We need a plan. Let's start building on. We're there to build -- building on what your objectives are. And they proceeded to give us a broad overview of their concept of operations for the occupation. And it was just -- there was a concept of operations. We had lots of questions. We received an update from Superintendent Patterson, and he was the incident -- the Event Commander at that time, about things that were on the horizon, or potential arrests and some strategic takebacks, if you will, in the downtown core. Listening intently just to find out. Our goal, start to finish in the meeting is learn as much as we possibly could. You can only help when you have a true understanding for what the needs are and to understand those needs. And we left that meeting with a commitment from Ottawa Police that they would provide the plans to us. We asked for e-versions, whatever version they could get to us would be very helpful, so that we could see what they have on paper in terms of a plan and then what we would reasonably need to do to complement that plan. Also, it was critical for us to have access to the Ottawa Police. This is -- we're there to work with them, to get through this, so we wanted to establish a liaison who had the authority to access and provide the information that we would need.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was raised by me at that meeting that they would consider ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- integration or a unified command and that there's inherent benefits with it. You know, from my experience, I -- just about all of my major events that I had been involved, what we ended up having here in Ottawa with the integrated command has been my experience.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know, whether it's a presidential visit, you still have the police of jurisdiction who have the lead, or the RCMP because of their IPP responsibilities or internationally protected persons responsibilities under legislation, but when you call on multiple organizations to participate, they bring their command structure. You inject your advice to them. You work as a team. Ultimately, someone is leading that and makes the final call. But as an integrated team, you're all on the same page. You're not working in silos. You're working collectively with the same objectives and goals.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
They call it the -- that was the assignment, to create this Integrated Planning Cell. We quickly deviated from the word cell and just called it our Integrated Planning Group.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But, yes, I was provided with planners from Toronto Police Service, two planners, Sergeant Arlene Duffy and Constable Isabel Ethier. Their background and their credentials were impressive in terms of emergency planning. I had Inspector Tim Skinner, who I already mentioned from York Region Police. His background is in Public Order maintenance and command and control, again, a wealth of knowledge. I had Tom Warfield from the Peel Regional Police Service. Tom came to us with a background in case management to ensure that we were capturing to the best that we could in a very kinetic and dynamic environment as much of the information, versions and what not as we went forward. We had Brad Taylor, a planner extraordinaire from the OPP. Brad is a civilian member, but his expertise is in emergency planning. We rely heavily on Brad for his expertise. Then, of course, we had the two RCMP officers, Phil Lue, who became my right arm throughout the event. Phil’s background was in major incident command, National Standards, and had extensive background in training and developing and mentoring people in the incident command world. And Darwin Tetrault, who to this day has impressed me incredibly with his leadership in public order command.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And he’s renowned nationally and connected internationally as it relates to public order maintenance.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir. In fact, I would say that I was the only one that wasn’t a subject matter expert.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I was just brought there to bring in this team together and get them working and lead our way through this.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, the key components, you know, have to align with your objectives and your goals and your -- and then that drives your strategies in terms of what that operation is meant to entail. Certainly you need to have a clear understanding in creating a mission or the event. A mission statement is something that, in every event that I’ve ever been involved in, whether it was a peaceful event or not, is something that is critical that your members, your employees, your officers on the ground, everybody is in line with the mission of the plan. From there are commander’s objectives and the, you know, what are we looking to achieve with this plan and then every single -- so if it’s a public order issue, you would need -- the key aspect there is the public order consult and a good idea, okay, what is the nature and scope of the event and what kind of public order plan will we need to inject with it. You need crime, you need victims, you need key things like messaging, communication. Logistics is key. In fact, at major events from a policing perspective when we debrief up, then our success or our fail on the backs of good solid logistics support. When you get people there, what are you doing with them, where are they staying, how are we feeding them, what’s their duties, how are they being briefed. That all has to be fleshed out so that when you have people arrive, you have a seamless operation.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely. And I was speaking with people about -- I had confidence also we were on the same page and understood that.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, that’s always built into your planning. When you look at public order as an example, it’s filled with contingency plans. If -- this is the intent. If it doesn’t work, this is -- this is our main action plan or direct action plan and then there would be an alternate action plan if they had to deviate.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Again, you know, you -- when you’re developing plans for major events, the ultimate goal is to succeed. And in order to succeed, there needs to be -- we’re police officers. We’re creatures of habit. There needs to be clear line with communication, there needs to be clear command and control, who is in charge, who is responsible for this right down the line. In major events, you might have a major event commander right down to a commander on the ground. All have distinct roles. But roles and responsibilities are absolutely key to getting through the event and in a successful way.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I was making an assumption based on my experience with OPS that, in fact, they did have that depth, although some of the ones that I had worked with in the past were absent and I learned had retired because, as I said, the OPS have always been renowned -- we’ve been there to support them countless times in major events. We’re different organizations. We have different structures. But make no mistake about it, they were good at what they did.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
There was references to it on that date. I do believe I may have been given a copy, but -- -
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We asked for more and they indicated that there was a nod from Superintendent Patterson that any plans that were approved would be, in fact, supplies to us.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we learned very, very early in the -- in our time in Ottawa that the Chief was very much engaged and that, ultimately, everything that they intended to do had to be approved by him.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I heard it from just about every OPS employee that I dealt with there in some way, shape or form.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was very clear to me in my dealings with senior officers, Chris Rheaume, whose name is there, Rob Drummond, who was at times working with us in different aspects, Patricia Ferguson. I didn’t deal a whole lot during my initial days with Deputy Chief Bell, but certainly it was very, very clear that Chief Sloly was to be informed of and approving all aspects of the operation.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t lay blame, sir. I look at it this was an incredible event unfolding in his city that was -- the loss of confidence that you were seeing in the media in the police service undoubtedly brought a lot of stress to bear. That he wanted to be looped in on everything that was going on, I can’t fault him.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. I did find that to be -- from my experience, to be a little bizarre.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, needless to say, I’ve been involved in a lot of major operations over the years and there’s always consult with legal on our legal authorities and common law authorities and the different tactics were used to make sure that we’re sound within -- in the law. However, it was a first-time experience to have counsel actually sit through operational discussions.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well again, as it became more protracted, the event, I suppose it could be. You know, where you would have counsel there immediately to give advice back on legal points that were being discussed. But as we proceeded, it certainly came across a little bit more than that, ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- that she was tantamount to an approver of the action or the plan, which was very concerning. It’s police operations.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well we had called for a meeting to discuss things more broadly. And it was downtown Ottawa at the Ottawa Police Station, 474 Elgin Street.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was an upstairs board room. We couldn’t bring all of our team. I would have liked to. But we -- you know, we were going to be somewhat restricted. And we were still in the pandemic, so we were mindful of all these things still going on. So we brought a smaller part of the team, including Craig Abrams, who also joined our team initially, along with Mike Francis, two OPP officers who had been in Ottawa already, assisting Ottawa, one, from a POU perspective, one from the strategic command perspective. Myself, Tetreault, Skinner, and Phil Lou, and there was another RCMP officer. I believe his name was Charles Mason, was present with us at that meeting, along with the OPS command team and their counsel.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, again, we discussed a few different documents that they provided, their strategic operations.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Very similar. And yes, I believe it was the same.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
A broad or overarching kind of concept of operations for the truck demonstration. And we had discussions about that. We were given -- we were asking for numbers. We had -- there was a sergeant -- or S/Sgt. LeBlanc from the Ottawa Police Service who provided us the breakdown on numbers, what they needed to sustain operations. And the number, if I’m not mistaken, was 516 IFTEs, or police officers, to sustain operations at all the checkpoints that they needed. We had a lot of debate about that. Ultimately, you know, there’s some math issues that we came to terms with. But again, our goal was there to completely understand. We didn’t just go in blank and say, “What do you need? Here you go.” So we had discussions about that and then we had discussions about -- well, overview provided to us by Supt. Patterson of an operation at Rideau and Sussex that they were contemplating. It was -- my notes reflect that it was scheduled for 4:00, with a possibility of being moved up to 11:00 p.m. that night. As I noted, I brought those that I did to this meeting for a specific purpose. And, you know, we had discussed prior to, “We’re going there as a team. If you have input to give, give it. You know, we have a lot to get done here in a short period of time. Let’s not hold anything back here.” So Darwin Tetreault asked if he could speak when he was being presented this thing, and I do appreciate when I heard the tail end of Supt. Abrams’ evidence that he mentioned a number of 400. The number in my mind, in my notes, was 800. He said based on his knowledge of POU, when you look at the dynamics of this event, the number of areas that were blockaded, and the work that had to be done, we would need approximately 800 POU officers to effectively dismantle this protest. But furthermore, and the key thing for me, hearing from a subject matter expert with his level of experience, is that once you start this operation, you should not stop. And their intention, as it was presented to us, was kind of do it -- to use the words that were used, “chunk by chunk”. And there was recognition that it would be very resource intensive, that it would take a significant demand on resources to do it that way.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But we didn’t have a significant number of resources. And we -- the best advice in evidence -- or sorry, best advice I was receiving right out of that meeting from our SME is that strategically, if you’re going to do this appropriately, when you start your POU action, you should not stop. You need to start moving systematically through all the points to shut it down.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And he suggested that we pump the brakes, let’s stop this, let’s not proceed with this operation, and ultimately that is what happened. Although I did have conversations with the incident commander who was assigned to the operation just by happenstance, ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Paul Burnett. Yes. And ultimately, that operation did not happen, but that was -- back to the meeting, that was his inject into it. There was a lot of discussion around resources, because when raised that number, and again, the number sticks out to me because it ultimately was the number of POU, approximately, that we needed to successfully dismantle. So Darwin Tetreault is from the National Capital Region, he lives in this area, he runs these programs nationally for public order maintenance, he is a Public Order person himself, and he had given a lot of thought to in understanding the zones which had been presented the day before in terms of all the checkpoints and key areas of concern in the red zone. So, you know, I thought, you know, very clearly he’s already put some significant insight in terms of what needs to be done to successfully shut this down. So Chief Sloly very passionately, and very concerned about the reliability of getting resources. He was very concerned that we would come through. He wanted guarantees, with no caveats, that “If you’re going to say you’re going to give us X, you’re going to give us x. Period. No questions asked.” We just stressed that we’re building a plan, we have the support of our organizations to get what is needed to develop a plan to successfully shut this down.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, they didn’t suggest 400. I think that was Craig Abrams’ evidence, that he thought that Tetreault suggested you would need 400 to do it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
In my view -- my notes reflect that Tetreault said you need 800 to effectively -- because when you start ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- this POU action, when you start kinetic action in this way, you can’t stop, ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- which means when you look at the number of areas that needed to be ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- controlled, needed to be taken back, that was his immediate assessment, and that proved to be very accurate, as our planning assumption of that day, and as we then engaged all the SMEs to develop that plan. It was exactly what was needed.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It absolutely does, because we did have a number of times throughout my time in Ottawa where there was deviations, like, sudden deviations from the plan that would impact the broader plan if we were to do it. But yes, planning from end to end is always your goal. You always like to have lots of time to plan. We were planning in crisis mode and doing it as quickly as possible and trying to consider everything that needed to be considered, from the residents, to victims, to the cold weather, the conditions in the City of Ottawa. Everything needed to be factored into the plan.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It does, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well that’s a very loaded question. Essentially you need a plan to be able to communicate with police leaders. When you’re asking for resources from around the province, and in this case, around the country, you need to be able to articulate what that need is and why that need exists. And in doing that, it’s always about, you know, what are my officers going to be doing when they get there? How -- what are the logistics? What are the plans, the briefings? Everything is something that you always provide. We’re in a state right now that, you know, I learned really quickly that staffing was an issue for OPS. Staffing is an issue with just about every policing organization out there for a myriad of reasons. So as a regional commander coming into this from another region where you’re going to be called upon to provide resources to supplement an operational plan, you’ll pulling from resources that you have available to police your communities. And oftentimes, in a lot of my detachments, we’re already at our base level. So when you’re still, because of a crisis, you’re going to pull -- you’re going to pull them only when they’re needed, not to sit around waiting to know what they’re going to do when they get there. Plan is absolutely critical. And it can be a concept, because we developed a concept of operations within 48 hours of being in Ottawa. A concept of operations that we ultimately used throughout the event.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
So you can have that and know that you’re building this, this, this, and this, and we’re going to need to staff those up, so let’s start preparing that. But it can’t just be, “I need this number.” We need to know what these people are going to be doing when they get there, right down to where are they staying? Who is feeding them? You just -- we’re human beings. You need those basics in place. None of that was in place.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir, it does.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well it’s a mission statement. It wasn’t broad enough for my liking. You know, it was -- it was just really, really focused and not encompassing the broader event. My experience with mission statements, safety needs to be factored in. Officers -- our officers need to know -- every officer needs to know. It’s drilled into them. every briefing, the mission for the operation is drilled into them. so safety for the residents, safety for officers, safety for the protestors’ Charter rights often are embedded. So you have all those considerations in a more broader mission statement.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir. That -- and that is my signature on it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well it is a mission. The other one is more an objective. This is the broader mission of the entire integrated response. When it’s all done, we’ll have accomplished this, to ensure safety for all involved, maintain public safety for the duration, et cetera. So the mission is your very high level, your strategic direction you want to go in.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would say no, it’s more objective. I mean, I go back to my training in incident command, my involvement in multiple North American Leader Summits, presidential visits, G8, G20, First Nations issues, blockades. No, we’ve always been taught very early, your mission needs to encompass that broader range to ensure how you’re going to accomplish your goals and what you’re hoping to accomplish.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well that’s not a question that I can really answer. I went the day ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- that I was asked to go. Before then, I was commander for the northeast region. I was alive to what was going on with the convoy, because it came through my region. We had an Ops plan for that. But that’s a question that perhaps should be posed to somebody else.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, that’s a fair statement. Sure.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was getting there. I mean, we were, -- as I mentioned, when you’re building a plan in crisis, you’re ensuring that you are encompassing all key elements to that plan, knowing that there was - literally, things are going to be continuing to be built into that plan once the event is even finished, you know, because it’s based on your concept you know what you’re going to do and how you need to resource it, but you’re still continually -- the plan will continue to evolve through the duration of the event.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It wasn’t that I disagreed that the guarantees could be given. I think we need the context of the conversation. You know, there’s debate about some misrepresentation of numbers in the media that he had with Superintendent Abrams. There was discussion -- because he made it very clear, from my view, in conversations that I had, that there were people, in the Ministry that wanted him to fail and he had sources in the Ministry that were letting him know that, you know, people wanted him to fail. And I just assured him that, well, we’re not those. We’re here to help.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I’m going to suggest the opposite. If they had a plan that -- an operational plan that encompassed 1,800 officers with duties assigned in a rotating cycle, then we would have been -- refined, likely, that plan to ensure that it was sound, and we could have done that fairly quickly, and started our deployment because we actually started deploying officers on our team pretty much on day one as needs were arising.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, as I said, when we attended this meeting we fully anticipated to, you know -- and I’m not looking -- I don’t look for thanks, but expected that we were going to be welcome there, that he was going to be happy that we were there. You know, the meeting -- well, the meeting overall, the tone, I would say, was very antagonistic. It was disrespectful in terms of we’re there to help and he’s just not trusting it. It was very clear he had confidence issues in what we were there to do.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly not what we expected. I think just about everyone on my team at some point in time within the minutes of leaving the meeting received apologies from other members of his command for his behaviour.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I want to stress as well notwithstanding the tone of the meeting, it did not change our result. You know, we went -- Debbie Palmer was the person that was initially -- the name that was initially provided to me as our go-to person. She was replaced the following morning by Chris Rheaume, but that’s what -- like the Chief had meant there still was some last-minute planning going on. And she said she would do her best to get it for us. You know, in the end, we really never did receive a plan from the OPS.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we just committed to continue to build and work with his team and to build a plan to complement what their objectives were from their conn ops they provided us.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I obviously wasn’t there because I received no such information of approvals. I think it’s reflected in the follow-up meetings we had when I would call him and say, “What’s our status?”. “Well, we need a meeting before we can -- we need another meeting before we -- for me to understand that before we can move forward”. So there was no implied -- certainly no implied or explicit approvals for anything.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I do recall an exchange about working under their command.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
In the Integrated Command Structure, that’s kind of how it does work, but there was some clear differences of opinion, I think, in terms of what integration would look like, which I -- which I’m sure we’ll get to as we go through.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But I had no issues. We had some very loose talk around where we would work. The location that we were situated at had significant capacity to expand, and that also became a contentious issue because it took some time even to get us to work in the same area, which proved the added layers of difficulty to it. Eventually, it did happen and it became quite seamless.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We were explicitly -- I was directed from my Commissioner that we are not going to Ottawa to take over. The Chief and the police of jurisdiction still have primacy over his event. We’re there to assist them, hopefully in an integrated and unified fashion.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
As a Regional Commander, I was receiving the Hendon reports.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Reading them and just -- oftentimes there was aspects that would just repeat going through the changes and the -- because I knew it was internally produced by the OPP Intelligence Bureau, and attended briefings as required on significant changes that would occur.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I appreciate that when you look at it from an appearance perspective, they look like very different plans. At its core, however, the plan that we developed was a build-on in support of, to complement the plan that -- the concept that they had in place ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- which was all strategically directed in the same way about ending the protests and bringing Ottawa back to a state of normalcy.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Not in the way, certainly, that I would have anticipated, no. I do not believe. You know, when you look at intelligence-led policing, you’re looking at your threat assessments, your risk assessments and how you can effect some positive change using that intelligence. They were in crisis mode and in crisis mode, they -- I did not feel that they were using the intelligence to look at the broader event, see about how they could dismantle this event peacefully.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, two of the key things that we did as a team is I arranged intelligence and PLT briefings for my team at the highest level, so Superintendent Morris and his entire team joined us. Inspector Marcel Beaudin and a number of both, I believe, OPP and OPS PLT joined us. We wanted their perspective on the lay of the land, the current intelligence, what we know, what we don’t know, what are the gaps. And likewise with the PLT in terms of how are things going, what can be improved upon, what is -- what levels of authority did they have to engage, what is the plan moving forward, is there opportunities that we could capitalize on to persuade some of the protestors to leave on their own accord, et cetera. So we see those briefings. I wanted my planners and my team, all the tacticians, I wanted them to be fully aware in that point in time what we were dealing with. We did a subsequent and additional briefings throughout from those entities just to make sure that there was -- if there’s any change that we might need to pivot to adjust to those changes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Marcel, he’s got a background -- he’s an Inspector with our Indigenous Policing Bureau and he has a background, yes, in provincial liaison.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It does. You know, you need to know the sentiment of the community, what the desired outcomes are. PLT do amazing work at ensuring that they understand all sides, and that's what the good negotiators do, and they are just that. They are negotiators. They're trained to do what they do, to understand the perspective of all sides, to ensure that information around expectations around the law are properly communicated to all sides, and to do their best to prove and gain -- build those relationships, build that trust with the people, so that what they say -- they know that they can take what they say to the bank and they're going to be following through with what they say.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
"Obstacles with OPS still exist at the Chief level however we're working effectively with this rank and file."
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we're at this point, we still don't have their plan. It's -- was a frequently -- frequent made request to get what they had, to get access to their people, and the replies were all we're waiting for the Chief.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Everyone from their command team, their strategic command, Deputy Ferguson, Chris Rheaume, those that were sent to our unit to assist with the planning. We didn't have their planners embedded with us until some days later, but we were back and forth with them as well.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so the first says, "We don't know what resources are deployed here before and beyond any request [that] we have [made -- we have] been coordinating." And this was -- this -- that bullet is in essence in reference to silos. You know, others are doing something. We all need to be out of those silos. If we're asking for something, you're asking for something, are we asking for the same thing. We need to break those down. It was a constant pressure. We were asking for a lot of resources here, so we needed to ensure that we were effective in our request.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The second bullet says, "Anything sent to [the] OPP POC from [the] Chiefs executive office -- can we get that, please!" And those were some requests that the Chief had made, so can we just please get access to what requests have been made, what replies have been received. He just said he too is very frustrated. I asked if the Chief's Executive Officer was looking after resources. He advised that he was working on getting that information for me.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Back on our February 9th meeting, I think it was Sergeant or Staff Sergeant LeBlanc from the OPS did provide us a bit of a breakdown in terms of their plan and intersections, what the numbers they needed, and that number was 516, if I'm not mistaken, from the February 9th meeting. We were trying to understand that. We later learned that it was based on a three-shift rotation. Most organizations work on a two-shift rotation, so the needs -- again, I mentioned earlier, we corrected some of the math, but it's around that number at that time. And that was based on their concept -- without duties assigned, but based on their concept of operations we would need approximately -- not approximately. They would need 1600 officers to maintain this on a 24/7 cycle.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
M'hm.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well it was the plan that we actually executed in the end. That concept of operations was developed at that stage and with a POU plan that was going to be very detailed in terms of the number of resources that were going to be needed, which came to fruition, that same 800 number I mentioned earlier. We talked about everything from communication to restoring trust and confidence in the Ottawa Police, to responding to the narrative, to change the narrative, because the narrative certainly was not reflective of what was actually going on on the ground, what we could see on the ground. So it was that all encompassing concept of operation and plan to dismantle the protest effectively, start to finish.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. So we presented it, and her response was very favourable, which we felt good about. And I was prepared to go to the Chief myself if necessary. But based on the dynamic that we’d been seeing, and the feedback, you know, we trusted her judgement, and she felt that it would be best for her to present it. It was -- you know, it was late into the evening, about 9:30ish when we finally got a deck to her, hoping that we would get a response probably not that night, but certainly by first thing in the morning.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I didn’t know that.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think I found out during the process that she was, but ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
She answered our calls ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- always. Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, if I could, just prior to that, ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- I mean, I put in the points here, but earlier in the day, I made some outreach to see if we’d gotten any response back from Chief Sloly on the plan and whether or not it would be a good time for me to call him. And I was told it was an ill-advised time to call because he was in a meeting with -- I believe he was in a meeting at the time with Bernier, Rob Bernier. So I said, “Well, fine.” I left it until a little later. And yes, I did make a phone call. So just a short conversation.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But I made that call to him and, you know, when I reflect on my notes and how quickly I was writing, it was temporaneous in that I was writing the note as I was speaking with him. And yeah, that was the context of the conversation. You know, “Got the slide deck? Have you had an opportunity to take a look at it? Your thoughts on it?” His concern was around what does integration look like? Where do we fit? How does it fit in other theatres of operation and what not. And he really felt that a follow-up meeting would be beneficial to answer some of those questions.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
So once again, we’re at 12:00 o’clock on that date, hoping that we would be greenlighted to move ahead with, you know, implementing the plan that we were working on. And we then started preparing for this meeting that we ultimately had later in that day.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well I certainly have it from my notes. And at that time, I was using a scribe. I mean, my notes are -- you can’t be on your notes with an event like this. I had over 400 pages of notes. You would never catch up if you weren’t doing them live. I wrote my notes. The time has been my best tool in my 36-year career, to make sure that I captured the essence of what was said. And I’m going to suggest that that is the tone of the conversation.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, it does.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Just that we’re good to go.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct. So I felt that maybe there was -- well, not me. There was some obvious miscommunication going on. You know, that we did actually require that meeting with the Chief, I’m going to leave to the response that I got directly from Chief Sloly that a follow up meeting was required. And that follow up meeting did occur with a detailed overview of the plan. So I just felt that maybe Supt. Bernier misunderstood, or -- it was obviously inaccurate.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, the key members of our planning group. Specifically I wanted the subject matter expert to present the plan.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I introduced it, and then had the subject matter expert present the plan. Phil Lue was on the call. I can’t remember exactly who without looking at the meeting invites.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
He was having discussions that were separate and apart from our purpose to be at that meeting and it was really direct. Heads were down. You could sense -- you could feel the tension over the video link in the room. And we just felt -- and I mean, Phil Lue also spoke up. We just felt that perhaps it’s not our time to be in this meeting, if he needed some privacy to deal with his people. And he said, “No, I’ll get to your next.” “I’m getting to you next.”
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was. I mean, this obviously was a significant event in our nation’s capital, it was having a significant impact on its residents, on the policing, but we also were working hard to ensure that what our actions do help rebuild that trust and confidence in the police. It goes back to our mission in ensuring that safety is built into your mission, and that was a key component for us. We wanted to reduce the component -- the footprint of the protest zone to the utmost extent possible. You talk to planners in major events like this, they’ll say, “We’re not going to arrest our way out of this. We’re not going to -- it’s going to be impossible”. So you have to look to compliance and appeal to the better senses of people that are involved to get them to want to voluntarily exit the zone. And that was a key component of our plan because we knew that from a capacity perspective if we had to start putting bracelets on everybody there, we’d need 10,000 officers to do that. So we had to -- we had to put a plan in place that was scalable but one that we could accomplish with the resources that we intended to bring.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I guess this is the advantage of video, right. We’re on video. I do believe his command team, his counsel was there.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, because Bernier was very vocal and spoke up in support of our plan.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, he was -- he was there. He was ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, a few things happened during the presentation -- and it speaks to what, I think, integration and/or unified command brings to the table about taking this off the shoulders of one individual and spreading it around and bringing the collective expertise to bear on the problem. But during the presentation, Darwin uttered a statement about single point of failure, and admittedly, it kind of came out that the Chief was the single point of failure. It was not the intent. It was meant to show that, you know, he was -- Darwin was very passionate about the fact that, “All eyes are you on, Chief, what you do, what you say, et cetera. You are the face of this for the Ottawa Police Service. We’re all going to bring a plan to you so that, essentially, you’re not going to be seen as the single point of failure”. The Chief responded -- and understandably. He responded very quickly that he was not the single point of failure in this and he -- unless he had confidence in what his team could do, he’s not going to support it or approve it. He went on a bit of a talk in that regard just to -- I actually, on behalf of our team, apologized because it was not the intent of our being there that day. Our intent was to go there and walk away with kind of support that we were unified and let’s get this done.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We still did not have an approved plan, no.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
There was no implicit, explicit approval of a plan that day. That did not come until - - I’m sorry. Was this the -- this was the 11th?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The 12th. That did not come until the 13th.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Command Post or Command Centre.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Incident Commander. Rob Bernier.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we had given them the plan and we had hoped that they would approve it. Again, as supporters of the OPS, we weren’t in a position to start actioning a plan without their approval.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And that’s one of the significant benefits of integrated command. So the way that we set it up, we had a seniors table, which is Deputy Commissioners and Deputy Chiefs with the Ottawa Police Service. We had our Strategic Command, which I then, after we went kinetic, became a member of the Strategic Command with -- again, with the RCMP and the OPS. And then we had our Incident Commanders, the three guys. So the whole goal there is to give them objectives, be a sounding board. We’re able to effectively keep anything and everything political out of it. They are able to strictly focus on operations. We’re able to give them feedback, report up, report down. They’re never reporting jumping over a rank. They’re reporting to us and we’re updating the seniors table to ensure that they’re aware of everything that’s going on and the progress that we’re making with our daily objectives.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We -- our team remained incredibly optimistic throughout this and in spite of the adversity that we faced at times. And I mean, I’d like to say this because I think it’s important to be said. There was still amazing collaboration and support to get things done. Everybody in Ottawa, from the Chief down, wanted this to be over and we wanted -- we were with them that way. So there was a lot of tremendous work, and we -- at no time did we just say -- do a full stop and say, “Well, until we get approval there’s nothing else we can do”. There was tons more that we could do. So we never stopped from day one until I left there on the 27th or 28th, whatever it was at that point.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s accurate. I made that call because of concerns in all partner organizations that, look, we don’t have approval from the Chief yet, which is what we’d been expecting all along. So that call got made to Deputy Chief Ferguson and, following that call, I forged ahead and was completely confident we were going ahead, we’re moving in.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I accepted it and moved on. And I remember telling my boss, “Are we certain that the Chief is on board? I’m good with it. I’m moving in”. I’ve got someone -- I’ve got a signed document in my hands. I’m moving forward.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I challenged this a couple times with some other people, can you help me out here, can you intervene, can you, you know, give me some better context. And I know that Chris Rheaume made a call to the lawyer and that's what came back. Well, no, I'm not approving the plan. I've been asked to review it before it's actioned.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
In my view, however, as much as approval may not be the right word to use, if a plan cannot be actioned before it's reviewed, then it's not approved.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I just tell them we need it -- we -- he is critical, absolutely critical to this operation. He is the key decision maker, a key incident commander, and he needs -- his input is absolutely unequivocally required, especially as we were looking at the POU to plan, which was the crux of our plan to dismantle the protest. He was absolutely vital to its success and needed. So obviously, I was the person that often went to OPS to have discussions, but throughout my time there, I would get the feedback from the different planning components that we need access to this. We need access to this. Can we make this up? So I was the guy trying to work our way around any barriers that we were facing. And I know that the lead planners who I had tremendous trust and confidence in just said, "We need him, and he's being pulled away again. We need him back here ASAP. If we're going to put this together, his input is critical. We can't spend hours and hours developing a tactical solution that the incident commander can't support."
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was just that we -- he was well aware of the overarching plan that we had created for them that would systematically dismantle the protest zone. And to go back to the chunk-by-chunk dismantling would require additional resources and we knew that. We challenged Bernier on the plan, but we brought key members of the team in to a PLT intel. POU, they actually supported it. So it wasn't, like, we don't want to do this. Okay. Now we have a plan and we're going to pivot, so we need to adjust. So are we all on the same page as to where we're going. And, I mean, ultimately, it did not happen.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- the action.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And I'd wrestle in my brain, I do believe it relates to a resource reliability from a POU perspective. So this is the tactical portion of our operation plan with POU. So ultimately, it did not occur either, because it was -- again, it was contrary to the plan, the systematic plan that had been proposed. But, again, when we put the team together, POU said, "Yeah, we think it's doable if it can resource." PLT felt that they had exhausted all that they could do with this particular group. And intel gave us nothing that would suggest that it would be ill-advised to do so, so it's, like, okay, we're good to go. Now we have to start resourcing. And I do believe it ultimately came down to a resourcing issue why it did not occur.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Sorry, which date?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The next day you say?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Fifteen.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So I reviewed those notes. I, unfortunately, after retiring, my notes all went back to archives, and I just got them back yesterday.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I remember reading this, but this is not in reference to a conversation with the Commissioner. It might have been from an earlier conversation, but at that time, I was in a meeting with a broader group. I was called out for a conversation with the Commissioner in relation to providing an update to the Ottawa Police Services Board. It was a brief callout from that meeting. I do, however, recall talking about the challenges.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know, I had made statements through this that publicly we're integrated, but in reality, we're still missing a lot, so we're truly not integrated until we reach all of these points. We are still at times working in silos. So if -- in an action that's going to happen if the broader group who's planning for resources to support it is not aware of it, it just makes it difficult to action. You need to have a plan.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, it's not my writing, so I ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
If my scribe wrote that down ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
In the room is everything we have been ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- they have done so far have been blocked by the OPS Chief.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Conversations, yes, that, you know, we were in an intense planning meeting that morning because we got our approval the day before, like, we're good to go. We were in a significant meeting when I got called. My phone started ringing and I did not answer it after multiple times, and finally I got the nod that, you know, the Commissioner needs to speak with you ASAP, can you -- so I x-ed the meeting and I left my scribe at the meeting. And I went and had a separate meeting with the Commissioner and the two deputies, and it's in different notes. So my scribe wasn't with me. I took another notebook, and I took my own notes. So there's other notes ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- that overlap the exact same time here.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And I recall -- like, because I knew that they had a relationship certainly much more significant than mine. I had only -- I met Chief Sloly at a swearing in for the -- for his job and at a conference once, I believe. But I really didn't know him like the Commissioner did. And I just thought if you have any influence that you can talk with him so we can move things along, please do so. And again, it's based -- in fairness to Chief Sloly, it is now based on how things have gone and what I'm being told that it's -- you know, we're waiting for the Chief on this. We're waiting for the Chief on that. We have to wait for the Chief on this. So I'm just asking, you know, if there's something we can do to intervene, please, let's do it, so we can move this thing along. Everybody on the team had a goal, to get out of Ottawa as quickly as we could but doing so safely and efficiently with a plan that would end these protests.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was just that. You know, he resigned and it was like, “Let’s go.” Everybody for OPS were ready to go. And we just fully implemented everything that was in the plan.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And there were still barriers. I mean, we still had our issues. I don’t want to think that -- I don’t want anybody to think that it was just Chief Sloly.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We had issues right throughout the plan in Ottawa that we wrestled to the ground. But, you know, once that happened, for example, the meeting that I was called to go to with the Board also got cancelled. So that freed up my time to put focus where it needed to be.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, it did.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It did. It did incorporate.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, like every plan, one of the things that every operational plan considers is your people. Our people are the absolute most valuable asset that we have in any operational plan. It’s important that we have information and inform them of everything. So we ensured that our officers were aware of the piece of legislation that Parliament had given us, and to use it to the best of our ability.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, you know, if we didn’t have the Emergencies Act, that would imply that we couldn’t tow vehicles. We tow vehicles every day, but for different things. We have laws under the Highway Traffic Act, we have common-law authorities that we use on a regular basis. So we -- you know, if a vehicle is used in the commission of an offence, it’s evidence, or whatever the case may be, we have various authorities to seize and/or remove or tow that vehicle. So we did not need the Emergencies Act. We had legislation under the province that assisted us when it comes to towing or removing permits and CVORs and impounding vehicles. But again, we did not explicitly need those authorities to tow a vehicle.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well I think it just says what it says. Our operational plan, when we put it in place, we did not have those authorities. It did not suddenly turn us on our wheels that we had to change a lot. We just added it. There’s a plan. It helped. I’m not going to say that it was not useful. It certainly -- it provided us with some authorities relating to tow, relating to perimeters, relating to preventing people from going into the red zone, et cetera. But we could have done that anyway.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s a loaded question. I’m a police officer. Parliament gives us legislation. We don’t make legislation. They provide it to us and we use it to the best of our abilities. They gave us a piece of legislation to use. We were thankful for it and we used it to the best of our abilities to incorporate into our plan.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
A police solution?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
There was a solution and we reached that solution. We had some help with EMCPA, the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, regulations that we have with the Province, and the Emergencies Act, but in my humble opinion, we would have reached the same solution with the plan that we had without either of those pieces of legislation.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t think so, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely one of a kind, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No. I would say that in my role, my operations superintendent, who prepared an Ops plan, which was largely traffic based, but in partnership with the municipal police services that the convoy went through, the Hendon Reports, what we were hearing, we kind of felt that Ottawa was kind of in for it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well all of that was reported up. There was a major incident commander overseeing it as it went through the northwest region into my region. PLT was engaged heavily with the protestors. They were travelling in vehicles. You know, for example, they split at Highway 11 and 17. The weather in the north was terrible. The heavy trucks came down the 17. The smaller vehicles, we felt was safer, the weather was less severe because of the lake effect of the Superior, they went via Highway 11. So the convoy split there. Everything -- I mean, I was not deeply involved. In fact, I was in Sioux Ste. Marie, Ontario, I arrived there 7:30/8:00 p.m. at night for business the next day, because at that stage, I had a team that looked after them and I trusted that they had a plan, the Ops plan that the Ops superintendent has signed off on, intel-led, good to go, “Just keep me informed if there’s any difficulties.” I was doing my regular business. I remember it distinctly, because it took me 15 to 20 minutes to turn into my hotel because the convoy was coming through with a steady stream of tractor trailers, so I couldn’t get a turn.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We did, but it didn’t work that way, sir. I mean, this is a major event for the OPP. So there’s an incident commander in Orillia. Everything is being fed up through logs with PLT. We’re seeing it, but we’re not having to really report it because Orillia is actually getting it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, sir.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, but I mean, I didn’t learn something troublesome is coming based on them coming through my region. I learned that from the briefings that we had.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Generally, yes. I mean, in the case where we participate in the calls just to get, and large it was my Ops Superintendents that would be engaged in those meetings and briefing me. You know, we widely -- it was widely felt that, you know, they’re going to Ottawa for the long haul. They’re going -- just because of what they were looking to accomplish, we knew nobody was going to give in to those sorts of demands like ending the -- ending the demand -- health mandates for the country and shutting down government or having people from government removed. That was just not going to be accomplished.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
In what way, sir?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
East Region, yes. I mean, in -- again, we’re one organization, so it’s not like we’re separate organizations here. It’s pretty seamless. The PLT, there will be handoffs. These are people that work together, intel, all -- again, these are people that work together. So my point is, my region wouldn’t continue on to here. There’d just be a handoff kind of to the next team and my team go back to their regular business.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That is correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s fair.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s fair, yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t think I saw it before my arrival there. I know we discussed it because I know -- I distinctly recall being broken down right -- even down to civilian members and analysts and e-crime analysts and a whole myriad of resources. So I do recall seeing the list. We may have discussed it on that February 9th meeting. There was a lot of things in a short period of time. But yes, I was aware.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No. That’s fair.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s a fair statement.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was. I mean, I have friends in the downtown core that live in the downtown core and reported to me the devastating impact that it had on their ability to just sit and think in their own living room.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It did.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I mean, I was briefed, obviously, that -- because it could impact our requests here in Ottawa. I can’t speak to the specifics of what was attempted prior to, sorry.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
As well, yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, because that’s exactly how it was portrayed in that February 9th. You take it chunk by chunk, understanding it would be resource intensive, but one kind of -- one section at a time. That’s fair.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Concept of operations.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s -- you know, you know all components of what you’re bringing into your plan and you’ve got your SMEs now off building those components, but now we know where we’re going with that concept, with that skeleton. Our concept was much more detailed than the one that they provided us ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- because it did break it down in terms of the teams that we’re going to need to fulfil each concept.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Phil Lue?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Superintendent.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Very fair, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
This email is just about proper context. In my evidence in-chief, I mentioned we reached out to Trish Ferguson on that evening, and we followed up with a deck. This was the email attaching the slide deck to help her explain the plan to the Chief.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir, I did. And this email was what we call the big 12.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The big 12 police agencies in Ontario, with a couple of additional ones that had stepped up, small agencies that actually stepped up and were routinely supplying OPS with resources.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know, from a planning perspective when you start thinking about your concept of operations and where you’re needing to take it, you need to be thinking about how you’re going to be resource that plan, and we knew that no one organization in the province had the capacity to resource that plan. So it’s like you’re kind of putting the bug in everybody’s ear as early as possible that, “We’re coming, we need.”
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s fair. I mean, I hadn’t watched closely. I know I saw some of the media and repeated -- asked for a resource, absolutely I saw that.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would agree, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, sir, I was not aware.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s fair.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, I actually just flat- out denied and said, “I’m not going,” and then I was asked in a follow-up with the Commissioner in light of the Borden Report from G20, ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
To the detail that we were seeing, absolutely. Very unusual.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I knew -- I mean, she was the person that I dealt with pretty much exclusively after I arrived in Ottawa, in terms of any -- if I had contentious issues or things to deal with, or questions about getting the plan approval, it was Deputy Chief Ferguson.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t know if I was aware. I certainly learned that he was but certainly not aware. I mean, I had met Chief -- Deputy Chief Bell at that initial meeting, and until he became Interim Chief, I don’t think I had two words with him.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
M’hm.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well I think for that to happen, there had to be a request from the Chief, and the Chief made it very clear that that wasn’t going to happen.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
So are you at the bottom here?
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
So I think context is very important.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And the context is here, starts with “They’re on their knees.” We witnessed officers burn out, just getting up and walking out of meetings saying, “I’m done. I can’t take this anymore.” They were burning out daily. We saw their senior executive, Chief Sloly. The stress was very evident on all of them. That perhaps if they focused their efforts on policing the city, we’ll build a plan for the event. Still going to be involved, but just remove them from the equation to allow them to build some strength, because quite frankly, they were -- we saw the burnout. We saw the stress. We saw the anxiety throughout the whole event.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
There was never sure plans to replace OPS. And we never thought -- we had lots of brainstorming sessions. You know, we’d start every meeting by saying, “Listen, we need everything on the table. If you have an idea, let’s consider it.” We -- there was nothing offered.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well I think, again, context is everything. The support that I and my team receive never changed in terms of we’ll get what we need. But going back to my very first meeting with Ottawa Police, we were very clear that we’re looking at this not just at the local level, but at the provincial and the national level. And we have to keep our eyes on all that. What’s happening in Coutts could have an impact here. What’s happening in Manitoba could have an impact here. So we, as a team, wanted to be alive to this. The word “pivot” became very instrumental throughout the deployment. It was used a lot. We had to pivot daily on things because a plan needs to be able to pivot and adjust the impacts to it. So when Windsor happened, we knew that, okay, we’re not going to get all that is available, because Windsor is going to need some. And Windsor, it became not the priority, it became a priority, ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- in my view. Ottawa never changed, in my -- I did not say, “Okay, I’m going to put my folks on Windsor. Thank you very much for letting me know about Windsor. Now let’s get back to what our problem is here.” Our focus still remained solely Ottawa.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
So him and his family. I understood it to be not just him, his family as well. I mean, uncalled for, but there was threats against him.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we have seen PLT used in a myriad of situations over the years. I’m a big of them nonetheless. I think it’s obvious. We’ve seen them have complete success. But it depends. We use PLT in the OPP in our daily operations now. In my region, for example, I have a PLT officer in every one of my detachments, plus I had a full-time component in addition to a designated PLT in every one of my detachments. They handle contentious issues, right down to a protest as neighbours, between two people, and resolve lots. You know, resolution, if you’re saying complete resolution, there’s a massive process and PLT alone was able to resolve it? That’s a fair statement that it doesn’t happen often. But they are an instrumental part of the solution to get a protest to a workable size that allows us to effectively dismantle it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That is correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, it’s not fair.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m a proponent to leading a measured approach and if enforcement is a part of that, then absolutely. However, I think you’re attributing that maybe to my comment that you’re not going to arrest your way out of this. I could find a hundred police leaders that would say the exact same.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It can be a part of. Strategic arrests are always a critical part of a lot of these types of operational plans, but we -- that alone is not going to solve this problem.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Negotiation is a part of the plan. If you looked at our plan in detail, there’s a time when negotiations are no -- and it calls for the next. There’s always graduated steps of enforcement.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Running parallel to, not after, parallel to the negotiations and what method are going on.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. They have proven their value over and over in major events over the years, and I would see no reason why we would not incorporate them in any type of operational plan of this nature.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That is correct. I mean, I should point out, I have knowledge about, obviously, OPS background. They wrote the book on this stuff. They do it well. It just wasn’t happening.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I am.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It could, again, be part of that measured response. It absolutely still could be part of a measured response where there’s blatant offences occurring to deal with them. Absolutely. But there’s no one solution to this. Go in and enforce you way out of it? Not going to happen. Negotiate down the size of the footprint? Absolutely a viable option, along with a measured approach on enforcement.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It certainly wasn’t being used. We were getting information that PLT were in a tent drinking coffee and not out engaging with protesters trying to have an understanding of their intentions. Whether or not there was any room to negotiate to maybe move or leave the area, they were sitting in a tent drinking coffee.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think the standard would be. I mean, you’re putting this that I felt this? This is a program that was in the OPP that was borne out of the Ipperwash Inquiry, and they have proven their weight in gold over the years in terms of the connection that they can make with and trust that they can build with protestors or otherwise. You know, so you can reach some common ground on some issues. If they can fix the issue or resolve the issue, that’s a huge plus, but they have become a vital part. I mentioned in my cross with Mr. Sloly’s counsel, we even use them now at neighbour disputes. Instead of taking the hard hand of law enforcement laying charges on both sides, maybe we can negotiate a settlement here so that people can live in a little bit of harmony. And it works. It brings about better community safety.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
They have to have the autonomy, but at the same time, they had the commander’s intent. They had to understand what that autonomy means, what they’re being given.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And in this case early on, it is my view, based on everything that I heard, all the information that was provided to me, that they really did not have that direction nor autonomy.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think it went beyond maybe Chief Sloly that others felt that it’s time to get in their -- there’s a lot of pressure on them to take action that is seen to be taken.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
PLT is action taken that nobody sees.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We see it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The optics of it. And so, I don’t think it was just Chief Sloly. I know that in my meetings and in conversations with him, there was -- he had mentioned, for example, that they didn’t have this type of concept with the Toronto Police Service when he was there. So, he was not overly -- as overly familiar with it as we were. We were told that negotiations had simply failed.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, he certainly still talked about it and understood where we were going with it. Absolutely. But you know, it was our belief, because they were challenged by Superintendent Abrams in my meeting with him on the 9th of February about PLT, because we already had it directly from PLT that they don’t have authorities. They don’t have autonomy. They’re not doing what they do, and we were told simply that, oh, they’re used, but that’s it.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think that was Superintendent Patterson that said that at that meeting.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, that -- I want to be careful, but that makes it sound like we negotiated what goes into a plan.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
What we’re talking about what we built is what I would consider in our policing world right now, for major events and protests, standard practice ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- in terms of the engagement. So, there was agreement, because it’s what we do, and it works. They do provide that layer of assistance to get us to where we need to be when we take kinetic action.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I wish.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, I wish they were. There was a time when we absolutely did say that we were, but we -- I think police services have largely moved away from being able to characterize themselves. When I joined the job, we were paramilitary.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But there is a chain of command.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s the only similarity that ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- I probably would agree. There is a chain of command.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
A lawful order.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s a relationship thing. I mentioned earlier about my team, I had constables, civilians, up to chief on my team, and they were given -- you know, “I need your voice. If you have an opinion, I need you to tell my I’m wrong.” So it depends on the environment and the expectations of the leader.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, it did.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think criticism is probably fair. I ran interference a lot on that very topic to actually -- you know, as I mentioned, at one point in time, publicly, it was announced we have integrated. Behind the scenes, I’m telling my folks, “But we’re not there yet.” You know, integration means they’re actually working with us; we’re no longer in silos. We’re actually talking about the direction that we’re going in. And we had obstacles, but those obstacles were not just human.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It started.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The positive work started.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And that was borne out of -- you know, I think the Commissioner has heard reference to the NCRCC down in Orleans. Well, Ottawa Police Headquarters were at the NOC. We have command posts in various different places that add to the complexities of integration. Ideally, you want your key command positions to be integrated and also have access to one another.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And as our team worked towards securing the right position -- right location at the RCMP Headquarters that could house the type of integrated team, we’re talking well into 100 plus that were needed on operations day. For every component of the plan, we had to have a rep there.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. I think he’s retired now.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, that’s right.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was still that perception amongst everyone, right down to my bosses calling and asking me, “But has he approved it?” They understood that Bernier approved it, but they asked if he had, and that was that follow-up call I had with Trish Ferguson, and I trusted her, and when she said, “You’re good to go,” we went.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Not only the job, but inconsistent with approval, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We did that over phone, I believe.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Very supportive, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s fair.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Unequivocally.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s not entirely correct, no. So very early on, in fact day one, we engaged with our OPP Traffic Services and Operation Support Command, Deputy DiMarco, her team that ran all of our traffic programs. We had a gentleman by the name of Kirk Richardson -- I believe he’s a sergeant with the OPP -- everything tow is expertise, and he had the relationships with the MTO. So they had been working tirelessly behind the scenes to build a plan, and I do know they had some 34 rigs lined up. There were, however, some I’m aware that were reluctant because of some liability issues, and the Act gave that support.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
He was working with -- directly with MTO.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
M’hm.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Certainly reading this, I would say that was my understanding going through, that we -- when I say “tows”, there’s companies with multiple equipment. It was my understanding we had a significant number available, but there were holdouts that the Emergencies Act absolutely supported their engagement and -- to bring this to a successful action.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. I’m fully alive to the fact that there was significant issue with tows. Our friends from Ottawa Police, in one of their preliminary plans, were going to use police officers because they could not get access to tows. They were going to use police officers that had the ability to drive those types of vehicles to remove them, so I would agree it was a significant achievement.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It certainly assisted it, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It just means putting hands on everybody that’s in there and two officers per, just do the math. You’d need a lot more officers, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s fair, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
There’s always risks. I mean, we assess those risks on a day by day, then, on operations, hour by hour, minute by minute. You know, when PLT is engaged, they’re really good at reporting back to us whether or not they believe they’re reached their limit and in our plan, in our measured approach, it’s PLT that gives us that final nod, what’s the status, do you have any more room to move. No. Okay. They’re out. We go in with positive action.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Although I think it’s important when I hear the words “violence and injuries”, that was a key aspect of our plan -- of this integrated plan ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- to ensure that we -- from start to finish, a systematic dismantling of the process is done with everything in our power to minimize injury to anybody, and we succeeded in that.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Again, it was -- yes, it was a good part of it.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
They’re negotiators. You know, their role is to ensure that the protestors or those that are inside that perimeter are aware of the law, of the expectations, you know, around lawful protests. And then when they go to the point that it’s no longer lawful, now you’re committing criminal offences, to inform them, negotiate. It’s about building trust. Sometimes they make concessions and they’re willing to do things. We have to give them the leeway to make some concessions if necessary. But this all happens with the Commanders being fully aware of what’s going on with PLT, what their mandate, what autonomy they’ve been given, what authorities they’ve been given.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. It’s possible, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe so, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We -- they seized -- if that was a vehicle from out of province, plates were removed, the stickers were removed and we would seize. And we have those agreements with other provinces, yes. So it’s my understanding on enforcement day that’s exactly how it was used.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
They’re in the Province of ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
If it was in British Columbia, yes, that is my understanding.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct. Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Any piece of legislation that we’re given, we use to the extent that we could possibly use it. Absolutely did support it.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I don’t have any metrics for their success, but I -- you know, the more that you can give them, absolutely.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Possibly.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, she is a Deputy Commission of Traffic Services and Operation Support with the OPP.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Right.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It appears, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It is possible, but I personally don’t believe that, sir. There was a reluctance very, very early with tow companies to be engaged. As I mentioned, the OPS on February 9th were unable to get any tow companies to engage, to the point that they were going to use their own people, and I do believe there was even reference to getting even the military to come in and tow some vehicles for them if needed. So, while it may have had an impact, I think it was an issue, and I think that issue was connected broadly to the broader issue that we were dealing with in the public domain, namely, the pandemic, this massive protest, and the unwillingness of some agencies to simply be engaged.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think the key comment that I think is appropriate for me on the tow issue is that we knew it was a contentious -- our team knew it to be a contentious issue from the very start of our deployment. I was fortunate to have a team that I could just say, “Can you deal with this?” And Kurt Richardson, MTO and the folks in that email went up to Deputy Commissioner DiMarco, took that off on her plate. So, they might be better -- in a better position to answer that question. I simply asked for a tow plan, and can you give me people that have the capability to develop that plan, and I got a plan, and it worked.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not hear his evidence, and I think I listened to about 10 minutes of it as I was doing -- arrived in Ontario looking to do some of my own prep. So, I didn’t spend a lot of time.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think I may have read that somewhere, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, it’s just that things were happening, and this protest group were incredibly well organized, in my opinion, and the narrative about what was happening in Ottawa was being controlled or was one sided and ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, and -- that’s the basis for that comment, because there was a lot of good things happening. You know, we -- there’s things that were going on within the protest group that, you know, we heard about the bouncy castles and the prayer meetings in the mornings, but we didn’t hear publicly about threats to people inside the perimeter who wanted to leave, and they didn’t want them to leave. We didn’t hear about that publicly. Things of that nature. It’s just one small example of, you know, the narrative that was out there about, you know, this is a family event. Bring your kids. There’s a bouncy castle. We can have fun. Yet there were people within that red zone that wanted to leave, felt threatened and couldn’t.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was not being conveyed at all, in my opinion.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I do, because I’ve been involved in the events in the past from OAS summits to some of the G-events where we had a lot of extremists views. There was fringes of it with the two groups, I believe, that were around Nicholas and Waller, and Rideau/Sussex maybe, that were of concern, but they were not a major concern, but there’s always that risk of escalation that you see from those extremist groups. It was -- the profile of the protestor for this event was none like I’ve ever seen in my 36-year career. We had everything from grandparents -- you know, my first day in this assignment, I was shown a picture of two officers that had worked for me in the past who are retired, who were in the crowd with the protestors. We saw children. We saw a lot of crestfallen police officers in the crowd, military, nurses. So, it wasn’t your normal group of people that you were dealing with. I guess that’s the point. Was there still concerns from our perspective on extremism, absolutely. But we relied on and trusted the intelligence as it in came in on that regard.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I’ll wait for the screen, sure.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, you may have to help me with my handwriting. Sorry.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
“Daily siege from federal gov’t”.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Just pressure.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The police service, the community, to get this result.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, this is notes that I took. I’m being briefed on my assignment.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It might be better from those who gave me that, but that was my sense from the briefing, that there’s pressure around, like, we’ve got to get this fixed.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was jointly provided by Commissioner Carrique, Deputy Commissioner Harkins, Mike MacDonell at Injects as related to POU. And Craig Abrams, who was on video link, gave me -- gave us the overview of the state that was leading up to that.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. “…shut down both directions 40 kms from the border by farm tractors…”
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s “shut down factories”.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s regarding the GTA dump, the waste would be impacted on where it could go.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Not the Ambassador, because it’s Lambton County, and I -- sorry, my geography for western Ontario is a little off.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It may have been as a result of the 402.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s separate from ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
“…current resource deployment is to the City of Ottawa.”
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. As I said earlier though, there was some math problem with it. Ultimately, that number, you divide 516 by 3, I think it’s -- sorry, 174 or 178 or something like that. Because they were adamant in deploying a three-shift model. And as we talked through it, it was like, “Oh, we have to tell you, we actually, with the support of the Ottawa Police Association, they reverted back to the two-shift model, which would allow you to spread.” There are inherent benefits with the three-shift model, but with my organization coming in, it certainly would be a benefit to be on the same type of rotation, which they did. The RCMP, however, remained on a three-shift model.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
On three shifts.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would put it in the range of 350.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s a third less.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
M’hm.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, no, that’s not accurate.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We continued to deploy POU, to make plans for POU. We had -- there was obviously a plan in Windsor at the Ambassador Bridge for action down there. But that did not slow us down. We knew that of course there was going to be impact, because we’re drawing from the same pool.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But it did not stop. We just realized at that stage that -- if I’m not mistaken Darwin Tetreault, in that same meeting, said, “We need that 800.” That’s about all that we have in the Province of Ontario. Suddenly we have to pivot. We’re not going to get all that we have in the Province of Ontario because they’re going to be used and they’re going to be needed down in Windsor. And we started our outreach to Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and the Province of Quebec.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
M’hm.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe so, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And that’s accurate, but ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But when we talk about that in our plan and we continue to build, we’re asking as we need. You know, we add -- also, we’re not taking action. We’re not in a position.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
We needed 800.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And our ask will immediately go out for others now. We want others to join in and we need -- we need Vancouver, we need Calgary and Edmonton to join the team because we need this number and then the logistics around arranging all that, getting the approvals, the supports for them to be deployed.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s Commissioner Carrique, I’m assuming, since he joined the call later?
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think so.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Issue.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know what; I’d need a lot of information in front of me to be very specific in terms of when we finally did it. We certainly made the ask and ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, if you say it was reported that it took till then to do it, I believe that.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was a struggle. A lot of people did not want to be deployed to Ottawa.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Did not want to be deployed there.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You want people to want to be there, but it was a struggle.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
And when you say OPP, OPP and partner agencies.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It wasn’t just -- I just happen to be OPP, right. We’re there with an integration with multiple agencies. We’re all in it together.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Sorry. The February 9th plan that the Ottawa Police presented to us?
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It was going to be 4:00 a.m. with a possibility of being moved up to 11:00 p.m. on that date.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we didn’t get into the weeds in terms of numbers, but POU was part of the plan that they were going to execute and an Incident Commander had been assigned on that plan.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, that’s fair.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t have independent recollection right now. There’s so much that was going on. It’s possible, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, what happened, myself and Phil Lue, prior to leaving Ottawa headquarters, met with Acting Superintendent Burnett. We both knew him, and Phil had worked closely with him in the years prior. We stopped by to say hello as we were leaving the building, aware that he was being assigned the task. We did not -- we didn’t get into the details of it other than he told us that he had some legal concerns that he was seeking advice on, and that from there he was going to be consulting with his POU experts. And it’s 1820 that they -- we learned that they did consult the broader group and they didn’t find it to be tactically sound and decided to defer.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I learned that on February 10th, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No, sorry. I learned that on February 9th that it was ---
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- that it was shut down.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we knew that, you know, POU was going to be stretched in the province with the capacity that we had.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I’d need to know some greater context. I’m not sure where that’s from. I don’t recall it, but I’m not saying it didn’t happen.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. It’s a sub-plan of the master plan.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The mission has it. That’s normally where it’s contained, but what you read there, no.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
For the purposes of setting up an integrated command structure, no. We’ve done that in ever major event that we’ve had with OPS in the past.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would agree with that.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That was a version. There were multiple versions, but that was a version, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Not at that time, no.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we certainly felt that we had what we needed to develop a plan to dismantle the protest with what we had.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, that’s fair.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I do believe so, yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I’ll be honest, now you’re getting into weeds of it that I would have to say I need to look at it.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
But I was looking at it, and I focused mostly on the enforcement powers it gave us.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m not sure, because I know we had some difficulties with our earlier planning where we had a robust tow plan in place, and it all fell apart because of the indemnity issue and the length of time for that indemnity, that the operators just felt that given the nature of the protest, the fear of reprisal, that they needed an extended period of indemnity that we just couldn’t provide.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
So again, I left the tow issue to our tow experts, but I would have to look at the legislation, maybe even consult a lawyer, looking at the legislation as to how far and how deep the indemnity of either the EMCPA or the EA provided.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
If you’re telling me that, then I would say it would be.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Very fair.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes and no. Sometimes it’s a failure of leadership for not asking for help.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, they could have.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would say they were stretched as it related specifically to the protest. To say that they were not otherwise providing -- because Ottawa is not just the downtown core, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Because we talk regularly with them about their ability to respond to their day-to-day business.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s correct.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It absolutely would.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Whether or not it’s ceding responsibility to another organization, you know -- I’ll just back up and qualify this answer with another statement. The OPP policy, for example, when an incident exhausts the ability of the local detachment to respond, we would stand up an EOC, so we have a more coordinated response. So now we’re going to be needing resources from other -- so it’s kind of inbred in our nature that when an event overwhelms one jurisdiction, OPP jurisdiction, and others are needed, we stand up a broader group to support, to ensure that the response. So that the locus is -- we’re still focused, and we can bring in supports. So I don’t believe it’s about policy that you would have to cede responsibility, but certainly that when you are overwhelmed, that it’s time to ask and integrate with our organizations to seek their assistance to collectively bring an end to the unlawful activity.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It is now.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would say there is probably no guidance or written guidance in that regard.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely. It’s absolutely critical to our success in any event where it’s beyond the scope of organization.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, we’ve already heard about, you know, the personalities that exist in a lot of police leadership roles.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Oftentimes that can be the impediment; they simply don’t want to -- they want to do this on their own. They don’t need help, or “I need your help but I want command and control of your resources.” There’s no organization out there that I know of what would ever say, “Okay, we’ll send you 500 officers and just use them gently.” It doesn’t work that way. You know, when you stand -- when you deploy five, 600 officers to another organization, they come with a command and control. If you don’t integrate, you’re going to be working in silos. If you don’t integrate, you’re not going to be communicating about the ultimate strategic objectives and goals of what you’re trying to accomplish. So it’s absolutely critical that leaders buy -- leadership is actually absolutely key at all levels, in my humble opinion. If you don’t have the leaders, a leadership team buying in, then it’s not going to work.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, it’s useful because of, you know, the power of the human brain. The more people that you have, the more expertise you bring to bear on a problem, the more communication that you have, you know your solution is going to be that much more refined and appropriate. It takes -- as I mentioned earlier in my evidence, it takes the weight off one pair of shoulders who was feeling the burden of this event, and I feel for Chief Sloly, the burden that he was under for this event. But bringing in an integrated command and all that it brings to bear with the resources, the subject matter expertise can only produce a win.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I certainly have used them synonymous today, as one and the same. It was absolutely, in my view, an occupation, but it’s often referred to as a protest. A protest can be an occupation. So they’re one and the same from my view.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
It would be in that document, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Maybe it’s down.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely was taken into consideration in our message and through PLT that, you know, you want to protest, where you are now is deemed illegal, you need to leave. If you want to protest there’s some other venues. And this is why we put in this mission about the Charter of Rights, because there is -- there are lawful protests that you can do and ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The same, but I guess I should qualify within that red zone that’s now deemed to be an illegal occupation, if you’re in there, you’re breaking the law. If you’re in there, you need to leave because it has been deemed illegal, what you’re doing, an illegal occupation. So that meant -- because we had a lot of people that our PLT interacted with that continually pleaded that, “Well, we’re all doing everything lawful.” A lot of them felt they had that plausible deniability until they -- so PLT had to educate them, okay? It’s a lawful protest to a point. Now you’ve reached a point there’s injunctions, there’s criminal mischief going on. There’s all these things that are happening. This protest, this demonstration, this occupation is now deemed unlawful, and you need to leave. If they chose -- and we gave people an exit strategy. If they chose, “Well, we’d like a protest location where our voice can be heard,” that would have been facilitated by PLT.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
If someone said to them, “Well, we have a right to protest,” they would have said, “Not here. There’s other ways that you can protest but now you’re in an illegal zone to protest.” And they would -- I don’t want to say facilitate. I mean, they’re not going to, you know, stop what they’re doing so we can -- and they’ll set up a place for you to protest. But they would certainly -- and we have done that. I’ll use the example of G8; we set up the protests with the stages, everything. You want to protest? Here, you go here and protest. PLT, they’ll help facilitate this, because you’re not getting to there.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I think by that time we had exhausted all negotiation. And without reading the final plan, I would say no, because our negotiations with the protestors had reached the point that they were proving to be futile. So now enforcement action was next ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- in that measured approach.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t doubt -- I don’t independently recall those -- I didn’t actually -- I avoided the media and the news ---
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
--- so I could focus. But I don’t particularly recall it, but I don’t doubt it. We have to look at that with -- you know, very, very carefully. I’m certain there was a lot of people in that protest zone, they realized, like, “Oh, they’re actually telling us the truth. This is an illegal occupation. We have to move.” They skedaddled out of there. As I mentioned earlier about the profile of the protest, it was unlike anything we’d ever seen. There was a lot of good people in there that simply wanted their voice to be heard. We knew that. But they were mixed with a lot of dangers while inside, in terms of the potential and threats of violence that existed in there. So we gave the opportunities. That was all part of negotiations. They even looked at having alternate locations for the trucks to go so that they could stage there, and we’ll bus you to the protest. And that did not work out.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
At the stage where we executed this plan and went kinetic, i.e., we went hands on with the operation, that was the option that was left available to us, with all other aspects of the plan exhausted. I do believe that we acted appropriately, professionally, and accomplished not only our mission, but all of our goals and objectives in terms of, A, assisting in restoring the confidence and faith in the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police, returning Ottawa to a relative state of normalcy for business to be able to open, and doing so without injuring people and having to arrest too many people. We know our -- you know, a lot of people put a lot of stock in arrest, arrest, arrest. We also know our justice system just doesn’t have the ability for us to arrest and charge 3,000 people. We all know what would happen there. So I believe that we accomplished those goals, and did so and returned -- because very shortly thereafter, there were protests again in the City of Ottawa that were permitted and were peaceful.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
In their initial.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
The leading up.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
You know, within a day of our arrival there, we engaged with Marcel Beaudin, who I believe you’re going to be hearing from. And we got things back on -- we -- they -- collectively, when I say “we”, got it back on track with a PLT focus.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I -- my personal opinion is if we took an enforcement action directly every time just to end it, we’d be sitting for another Commission of Inquiry about a lack of a measured approach. So in my humble opinion, I would use PLT in every circumstance. They may last 10 minutes and be rendered ineffective, but we tried. We’ve given -- we’ve tried a negotiation route. We’ve tried the de-escalation route. It did not work. Before we go kinetic.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
I would say that’s a fair statement, sir.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
There’s a significant role. In fact, when you look -- I’m sure you’ll get this from Insp. Beaudin. A lot of what PLT does, because it’s not just with the protestors that they deal with. A lot of what they do is education as well. You know, they -- our PLTs are active not just in the middle of a crisis. They’re active all -- so education is absolutely critical. The public needs to know. When we engage PLT in these events, we have PLT members who are dealing with the Business Association. We have PLT members dealing with the residents so that we know, collectively, all of the issues that we’re facing. So they’re not just negotiating with the protestors necessarily. They’re looking at everybody that is impacted by. Education. I would love for every member of the public to become a PLT. One of our goals in our communication strategy was to make every uniformed officer, with their messaging, from the constable on the street up to the Prime Minister of Canada, if we could get everybody saying the same message, we’re educating the public, we will succeed. That was the stated goal right within our mission.
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Carson Pardy, C/Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.