Christopher Diana
Christopher Diana spoke 525 times across 18 days of testimony.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good morning, Commission, counsel, parties, members of the public. My name is Christopher Diana; I’m here as counsel to the OPP. I’m joined by my colleague and co-counsel, Jinan Kubursi, and our articling student, Alice Blue (phonetic), a small but mighty legal team. As between the two of us, Jinan and I, at least one of us will be here in person through the entire course for this Inquiry. You will hear from a number of OPP witnesses during the course of this Inquiry. You will hear that the OPP became engaged well before the Freedom Convoy reached the Ontario border. You will hear about the OPP’s intelligence gathering process, and the way that the OPP disseminated intelligence to its policing partners and the timing of sharing that information as the convoy moved across Canada. You will hear about the OPP’s responsibility for highways and how it policed the areas within its jurisdiction in Ontario as the Freedom Convoy moved through Ontario. You will hear about the effectiveness and the importance of the OPP’s provincial liaison team. You’ll hear reference to PLT frequently throughout this Inquiry. And you’ll also hear about the effectiveness and importance of the -- what we call the framework for dealing with events of this nature. These were lessons learned and incorporated from the Ipperwash Inquiry many years ago that have informed OPP practice to this day. You will hear about concepts such as incident comment, public order policing, and related concepts. Even though the OPP was not the police service of jurisdiction, you will hear about how the OPP provided crucial assistance to Windsor, Ottawa, and Toronto. In Windsor, you will hear about how the OPP took on a leadership role working with the Windsor Police Service, and with the help of additional resources from other police services, successfully cleared the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge. Windsor was very much a success story in terms of how it was handled. In Ottawa, after some delay, you will hear that the OPP took on a leadership role in coordinating resources from different police services working with Ottawa Police Service, the police service of jurisdiction. Specifically, you will hear about what worked well, what may not have worked as well, and potential lessons that were learned through these incidents in Ottawa, Windsor, and across the country. You will also hear about federal and provincial emergencies’ legislation and the extent to which the OPP relied on those authorities. The OPP has significant experience in responding to protests, blockades, and similar activities. While the emergencies’ legislation; in particular, the provincial legislation provided useful tools, there was sufficient level authority in their absence to deal with the protest activities that took place over this period of time. This Inquiry is a unique opportunity for the OPP to share how it responds to protests. It’s an Inquiry that the OPP takes very seriously, and will consider any and all recommendations that arise from it. The OPP is looking forward to engaging in a meaningful way to contribute to this very important public discussion. Thank you, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Superintendent, my name is Christopher Diana, as you know. I’m counsel to the OPP. Just a couple of questions. You’ll recall my friend from the Commission brought you to a document that showed the various HENDON Reports and their distribution; do you remember seeing that document?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And there were quite a large number of recipients; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
You mentioned some names of people you know within the Ottawa Police Service that received those reports and you named them. I’m not going to but you remember naming those individuals?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
If a recipient organization or person wants to ask questions about a HANDON Report, how do they go about doing that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So before the arrival of the convoy in Ottawa, did you receive any requests directly from Ottawa Police Service for more information about intelligence or to clarify any of the information that had been provided?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Do you recall whether you received gratitude from Ottawa Police Service?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, do you recall any of the specific individuals that gave you that gratitude?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Before the arrival of the convoy, did anyone from any of your recipient organizations express any concerns about the quality of your intelligence product?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Superintendent. Those are my question.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner. I’ll set my clock here and try my best to stay within my allotted time.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right, good afternoon, Superintendent. My name is Christopher Diana. I’m counsel for the OPP. There’s a few areas that I’d want to ask about just to get some more clarity to you evidence, and I want to start with kind of what was known before the convoy arrived in Ottawa. And I want to start by the basic proposition that Ottawa is very experienced at dealing with protests and large events. This is something that OPS deals with -- well, we’ve heard some evidence about the frequency but this is not an uncommon event, right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right, sure, sorry. And sometimes the events are large, sometimes they’re small, sometimes they’re predictable, for example, you know, Canada Day and other large events often kind of follow a certain pattern where you kind of know what to expect and you can plan accordingly; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But regardless of the nature of the event, whether it’s large or small, the gathering of intelligence is really important to planning the proper police response; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And we heard from Supt. Morris yesterday that intelligence has certain limits; would you agree with that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I believe he said that when it comes to numbers, for example, you never know exactly how many vehicles or how many people are going to show up until the day of the protest itself; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that’s just something that’s inherent in intelligence; there are no guarantees?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But that, of course, doesn’t mean that you don’t plan; you make due with that you have available to you?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And in good planning, the intelligence that you have should drive the way an event is planned; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, of course ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- there’s a difference, and I don’t want to get into that ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- at this point. I won’t enough time. So when the Ottawa Police Service heard about the convoy leaving Western Canada, I expected the OPS would have immediately started planning for how to deal with it; is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And as a starting point, that requires collecting and reviewing information and intelligence to know how to respond?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
At that time, I believe you said you were not familiar with Project Hendon?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Of course, in fairness, you were not in the Intelligence Bureau at the time, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, he was.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So he was the Deputy in charge of it but there was a superintendent who was in that position?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I don’t know if you heard Supt. Morris’ evidence from yesterday but he gave a number of names of various individuals within Ottawa Police Service would have received copies of the Hendon Reports including, for example, Supt. Patterson, Chief Sloly, and Insp. Bryden, and others; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe you indicated that you didn’t -- even though you received a copy, I believe, on the 27th or 20th of January, you didn’t actually become of the Hendon -- Project Hendon until somewhere February 4th to 6th; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it that when Hendon crossed your desk in late-January, since intelligence was not particularly your area, you probably felt that others would kind of deal with that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
What I am interested in, though -- of course, intelligence being as important as it is for planning, were there any meetings of senior command to discuss the state of intelligence before the Freedom Convoy hit Ottawa?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So in those meetings, then, it would be Deputy Bell that would have been responsible at the time for kind of bringing forward that information?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And no one at the time said anything about the Hendon Reports during those pre-arrival meetings?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were aware during this period of time that as early as January 20th that OPP Intelligence had indicated that there was exit strategy for many of the protesters?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you consider that -- as the strategic commander, would you have considered that important to know?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And did you know about the OPP’s intelligence on fundraising that was brought forward in the Hendon Reports?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And, of course, that’s important to know because it speaks to the potential support of the convoy; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Did you know that the OPP intelligence was reporting that many of the protestors will not leave until their demands were met?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And again, that would have been important for you to know as a strategic commander because it speaks to their intent?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did anyone at these meetings speak about heavy equipment being brought in?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And, of course, that obviously would be important to know?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, since then, have you had a chance to go back and look at any of the Hendon Reports?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would agree that those reports provided important intelligence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And of course no intelligence was generally 100 percent, but ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- for -- as a planning tool, would you agree that those reports would've been useful to have been known, at least the basics of those reports as part of your planning process?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And that's kind of a challenge, right, of ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- intelligence gathering is to take the information, put it through the lens, and then come out with a product to assist in the planning process?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that was the very purpose of Hendon; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Now, I want to ask about the plan. There was a plan in place to deal with this event before the convoy arrived; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And it was a plan that was predicated on a weekend-long event?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it fair to say that was based more on previous experience than it was on actual intelligence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But do you think that might have been part of the challenge here, is that Ottawa -- still Ottawa Police Service was so used to dealing with certain kinds of protests that perhaps, you know, the template plan was dusted off, a few revisions were made and presented as being something that would be appropriate for this event?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, but I guess the reason I'm asking is just because, you know, asking whether there may have been complacency, and we're trying to understand what happened here and how to prevent these things. Are you concerned that maybe there was a failure to appreciate what may actually happen here, and there was just too much reliance on what was done in the past?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
If we can bring up OPP3531, please. Actually, sorry, I think OPS3531. I got one of the letters wrong. All right, so this is the Operational Plan, I believe, that you're aware of, this document; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you have approved this document as a Strategic Commander?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Can we turn to page 6, please. And scroll down where it says Threat Assessment. Do you see that where it says Threat Assessment?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I take it that's an area that would typically provide relevant intelligence to help guide the response?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you agree that there is no -- I'll put to you that there is no reference, obviously, to the Hendon reports in that assessment. Would you agree with that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay, we can scroll down to the end of that section, please. And I guess the point I'm trying to make through this is that that section on threat assessment does not reference concepts that were in the Hendon report, such as the fact that there was no exit plan, there was nothing about fundraising, nothing about the intentions of the protesters to stay until their goals had been met, nothing about heavy machinery. All that was in the Hendon report. And I guess the point that I would put to you is that was all important information that should have been in the Threat Assessment. Would you agree?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Would you agree, then, with the proposition that this plan was not an Intelligence-led plan, it was more of a traffic plan based on experience than one that's truly led by Intelligence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I'd like to ask about the Integrated Planning Team that came to Ottawa. You've said some positive things, obviously, about Chief Pardy and others involved in the plan. My take, I believe they arrived on or about February 8th; is that about your recollection?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe your evidence was that you fully supported the concept of an Integrated Planning Team?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
You were aware, of course, that Toronto Police was involved, York, Peel, you had subject matter experts from a number of police services?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you agree that this was not the B Team; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I mean, these were highly regarded incident commanders, excellent planners, POU experts, and people that were top in their field; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And they were all coming to Ottawa to help the OPS kind of resolve the situation; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But is it fair to say that your enthusiasm or your support wasn't shared entirely by all members of OPS Senior Command?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it also fair to say that that lack of initial buy-in caused some delay in the ultimate agreement on the plan and the execution?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And one of the -- it's problematic in a sense that the planning team can -- was brought there to assist OPS; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
The Ottawa Police Service was a police service of jurisdiction, so unless and until OPS agreed with it, there was really nothing that the team could do; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
A few questions about PLT. Again, you said some very favourable things about the Provincial Liaison Team. The -- in Ottawa works differently, I believe, than the Ottawa Police Service than it does in the OPS. Obviously, the OPP is a much larger police service. My understanding is that in the Ottawa Police Service, PLT members are all part time; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So in other words, I guess so others can understand, like being a PLT member is not their full time job. That as the need may arise then they can go and they can do PLT duties ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- if asked?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so that -- the implication of that is that PLT is only engaged if commanders feel that their involvement would be helpful or necessary?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah, now is actually -- I mean, you were able to know what my next question was, but in that, it very much depends on the Incident Commander as to their own personal view of the effectiveness of that style of policing, or their own knowledge about how PLT works; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you consider that a bit of a, you know, a problem in terms of lack of consistency and approach?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it fair to say that in January 2022, there were very few in OPS Senior Command or at higher command levels that really understood the potential value of PLT?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Or that understood the national framework put out by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe in your evidence in-chief you said PLT is an amazing tool. And I expect that that's kind of the attitude towards the use of PLT?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But would you agree that in reflecting upon lessons learned here, that PLT was misused by OPS in this dispute?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And finally, on the point of jurisdiction. Once the convoy arrived in Ottawa, you would agree to the obvious proposition, but it's worth repeating, that Ottawa Police Service was the police service of jurisdiction; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Which meant that at that point it was no longer the OPP's responsibility, jurisdictionally?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And, in fact, it would have been improper for the OPP to try to step in and kind of take over policing; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That there's no legal mechanism for the OPP to take over unless certain scenarios are met; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That the Police Services Act sets out very specific circumstances where the OPP may take over command of a certain incident or area?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And one of those would be if a formal request would be made from the OPS Chief to the OPP Commissioner; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Although no such request was made in this case; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, I didn't hear you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, but did you say it would -- you'd be surprised?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Why would you have been surprised?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Why?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, I'm asking you though because you have a -- you've had a lot of dealings with Chief Sloly. So why, in your opinion and in your experience, do you believe Chief Sloly would have refused to consider or would not have entertained the possibility of asking for formal assistance in that way?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
When it came to providing assistance, would you agree that the OPP did everything it was asked to do by the Ottawa Police Service?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you very much. I appreciate your evidence.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, sir, it’s Christopher Diana, counsel to the OPP, as you know. I’d like to maybe take a step back a little bit. You’ve answered a lot of questions about, you know, the details of what happened in Ottawa. Part of the mandate of this Commission and part of what I think the Commissioner may be interested in hearing about as well is taking a look at the bigger picture. Lessons learned is part of the mandate of this Commission and you’re in a unique position, as a recent retiree, with 36 years of experience doing this kind of public order policing and incident command, to maybe give some thoughts that may be of assistance to the Commissioner. And the question I wanted to ask you in particular is about an integrated or unified command. So you believe in the value of that concept?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And what are some of the impediments? So if we’re looking at lessons learned, what are some of the impediments going forward that the Commissioner may want to consider while contemplating the evidence that he hears?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I think just to maybe kind of drill down a little bit into the why; why is a unified command a useful tool? Even if there’s an event in a larger city that has a large police service; Ottawa has a fairly large police service, Toronto -- or, rather, you know, large police services may benefit from this concept, but maybe you can explain why this is useful. Toronto Police Service, for example, may have a lot of resources, but why is a unified team useful for a large event?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Ultimately, though, it comes down to whether the police service of jurisdiction kind of buys into the concept; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I believe it’s page 8, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
If we had just gone down a little bit from where we were.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, Supt. Christopher Diana for the OPP. I’d like to start by asking about the Hendon Reports. I believe your evidence was that you did not start receiving them until, I believe, January 27th? Is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Of course, you would acknowledge, as we’ve heard from other witnesses, that OPS as an organization was in fact in receipt of these reports basically from the inception of Hendon?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so I think from Supt. Morris’ evidence, I think he name checked around six individuals who were receiving them. There were a couple of others that were referenced in Supt. Drummonds’ witness summary. So there were at least eight members in OPS that would have received these reports; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And if I heard your evidence correctly, I believe that when you started to receive them, you didn’t go back and read the earlier ones. So is that your evidence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But considering the nature of the report, do you think maybe in retrospect you should have went back to review the earlier reports?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Although that was your bureau at the time; correct? You were in charge of intelligence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
One of the things that you said in your evidence in chief, and you may have repeated it since then, was that there was no intelligence to indicate there would be any significant community impact. Was that your evidence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. I wrote down “significant community impact”. So maybe I misheard, but that was my understanding of what you said. You would agree that the Hendon Reports did make reference to certain things, such as, as early as January 20th, there was reference to an elective strategy in the Hendon Reports; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, as early as the January 20th Hendon Report, there was reference in that report, and subsequent, that there was no exit strategy for the protestors; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And the reports also reference that the protestors would not leave until their demands were met; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sure. And the demands articulated include the demand that all mandates would end, but that was what the protestors were, at least according to the Hendon Reports, that’s why they were coming to Ottawa; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Well what I’ve done, to try to save some time, is to refer to the Hendon summary. Supt. Morris prepared a Hendon summary which may be useful. So if we could go to OPP349? All right. So this is -- rather than try to bring up a bunch of different reports, this was a summary put together by Supt. Morris that reviews some of the relevant excerpts from the Hendon reports. So if we could go to page 3? All right. So there’s some points here that ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
The point that I’m trying to make, because I don’t have the control number for every single of these reports to take you to, nor was that my intention. My intention was to put to you that there were a number of items in these Hendon Reports that are already on the record. I don’t need to go through each one, in my opinion. And if you’d review them, then you would probably remember the fact, as you’ve testified, that they do indeed say there’s no exit of strategy; correct? You’ve already confirmed that.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And they do also say that the protestors do not intend to leave until their demands are met; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And the reports also say that the protestors may disrupt the workings of government?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. I could you to other statements that talk about the potential community impact, but my point is this. There’s enough information in those Hendon Reports to show that, collectively, all those statements taken together even in that context that you speak of, there’s enough in those reports to paint a clear picture that there could very well be significant potential community impact. The potential was there, wasn’t it?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Well, that’s my point. You wouldn’t expect it to. You wouldn’t expect an intelligence report would specifically identify every single community disruption that could occur; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Even the large number of people and vehicles, and while those numbers did fluctuate, it did indicate it would be a large number of both vehicles and people; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. So I just want to make sure I understand your evidence. And as I understand it, your evidence was that the intelligence did not set out significant potential community impact.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. You also indicated that your planning was predicated on a weekend-long event; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Can you point out the report that indicates they were only going to stay for the weekend? Because I’m not aware of that.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So you’ve continually said that it was predicated on a weekend-long event. I’d like you to point me to that -- the source of that intelligence because it’s not in the Hendon Reports.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Correct, but the reference to intelligence gaps simply means that the intelligence did not know exactly what was going to happen on those days. There's no reference that they were going to leave after that weekend; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And part of I think what you said earlier in your evidence in-chief, you talked a lot about experience; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And certainly it’s acknowledged that OPS for many years has responded to protests large and small. And I believe your evidence was that experience did play a large part in the planning for this event; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. I would put to you that your planning was based more on what you thought would happen based on your experience more than the actual intelligence you had at your disposal.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And you would agree that the operational plan should accurately reflect the intelligence; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And would you also agree that the operational plan prepared by the Ottawa Police Service for that weekend made no reference to Hendon, did it?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sure. It’s OPS3531. Just one second. We’ll pull up the other one, OPP4262. Thank you. Now, this is a document I believe my friend had up earlier. No, that’s not it. Sorry. That’s not the document. OPP4262. And if you can scroll down, this is the operational plan; correct? My friend took you to this earlier?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So if we go down to the index, I believe it’s page 6. Maybe it’s page 4. Go up to page 4. Right there. Stop. Where it says “Threat Assessment”, if you can just scroll down a little bit and allow the witness to take a look at that. And when you look at it, I’ll be asking you whether or not there’s any reference to the Hendon Reports or whether or not there’s any reference to the fact there was no exit strategy, the potential long-term stay as referenced in the Hendon Reports, the references that there may be interference with the operations of government and those other things that I brought out. But please, take a moment just to scroll through and take a read of that. You can scroll down. Thank you. So I absolutely agree there isn't reference to the Hendon report. I wouldn't specifically expect there necessarily to be references to the Hendon report in that area. What I can tell you is I know that the Hendon reports, as you indicated earlier, were received by these groups and used in developing the threat assessment and in developing the plan. And I also do acknowledge that it is a gap that there is no reference to the potential of the convoy lasting longer than the three days.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
When it comes to planning, you know, you can kind of hope that something might turn out a certain way, but in policing, you always need a contingency; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I asked Deputy Chief Ferguson whether or not she agreed with my proposition that this plan was not intelligence led and she agreed with my proposition. Do you agree that this plan was not intelligence led?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So you disagree with Chief Ferguson then?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Deputy Chief Ferguson.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So even though it doesn't reference Hendon and the various attributes that I pointed out, you would still say it's intelligence led?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Thank you. No further questions.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good evening, Commissioner. Christopher Diana for the OPP.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
We heard some evidence earlier, and you were taken to a series of text messages with Deputy Minister Di Tommaso. Do you remember speaking about those text messages?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe your evidence was that your role in this was to provide him with -- I think your words were "situational awareness". Is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And there were, if I remember, there were a lot of text messages in that exchange. Is that unusual that there would be that many text messages?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And all the communication that you had with Deputy Tommaso, the text messages, the phone calls, did the deputy ever try to direct you to do anything?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did the deputy ever suggest that you ought to be pursuing a certain course of action?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did anyone from the Government of Ontario try to pressure you in any way?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were you ever asked by the deputy -- were you asked by the deputy at any point if there were any tools that the OPP could use in helping you resolve this issue?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. So when you were asked for your views on the tools you could use, kind of what do you recall asking for? You've mentioned a couple of things, but what do you remember asking for, essentially?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were you provided with the tools that you requested?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And were those tools useful to the OPP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I recall you mentioning the Highway 402. Was that a context where those tools were used?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Switching gears to talk about the federal Emergencies Act, did you know that the federal government was going to declare or going to invoke the Emergencies Act?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
When did you find out?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were you consulted by anyone within the federal government or on behalf of the federal government as to whether any of those tools would be useful to the OPP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did RCMP Commissioner Lucki ever raise the issue with you as to whether those tools would be useful?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Obviously, a big part of what we’re doing here is kind of looking at what happened, but the other part is looking forward. My question for you in that respect is, would it be useful if the federal government, in such a context down the road, perhaps through the RCMP Commissioner, consulted with the OPP Commissioner about whether such tools would be useful?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Or whether the tools would be necessary?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, obviously, you have a number of different types of relationships; you report up to the deputy minister; you have discussions with the RCMP Commissioner. How do you think suck consultation could take place?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Now switching over to intelligence and Hendon Reports.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
There was a little bit of discussion and evidence about the origin of Hendon, but my question is, considering Hendon looks almost at a national picture and OPP is a provincial police service, how is it that the OPP ended up taking this on?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But I -- the RCMP did not have a similar program?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were heard evidence yesterday from Supt. Bernier of the Ottawa Police Service who, when he saw -- upon seeing the Hendon Reports, remarked upon how comprehensive they were. In your role as Commissioner, did you receive any feedback on the quality of Hendon Reports?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I do want to go into another area which I think there may be some confusion and I want you to try to clarify this so that everybody can understand your perspective on it. My friend from the Commission took you through your thoughts on whether this was a national security threat. You talked about the word “potential”, what that means. On cross-examination, the two Brendans each asked you to look at different aspects of this. You know, one asked you about definition under the CSIS Act. One asked you whether there was a risk or a threat to national security. And I guess my question is, just to avoid any confusion, at any point, did you become concerned that the situation in Ottawa and elsewhere gave rise to a national security threat?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And what was your basis for that conclusion?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And you also referenced the description by, I believe, Public Safety Canada and various criteria. Is your assessment based on the Public Safety Canada criteria?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And there is a document, which I don’t believe has been referred to in the evidence that I think I’d like to ask you about, and that’s a Hendon Report dated February 19th. It’s Document ID OPP1634.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
It does indeed, yes. And so obviously you’ve reviewed this Hendon Report, consistent with your evidence; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So let’s go to page 6 and scroll down. All right, you see under “Assessment” -- if you could just take a moment just to read the first paragraph to yourself, and I want to ask about that.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Now, what’s - - and the context of this, of course, of February 19th, is during the operation in Ottawa, but what’re your understanding of what that paragraph is trying to convey?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And that certainly is a cause of concern for the OPP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Can you go to page 7, please? And if you can again read that last paragraph to yourself.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So when you look at this paragraph and you look at the previous one that I read, kind of what’s the time horizon in this kind of assessment?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
In terms of potential threat or risk to Canada, is there a timeframe identified in those paragraphs?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right, that’s fine. If we can put up -- I’d like to address the concern raised by my friend, counsel for the City of Ottawa, in terms of the numbers that were at your disposal. If we can put up the OPP’s Institutional Report. That’s OPP.IR., probably a bunch of zeros, and 1 -- probably 7. All right, so you’re familiar with this document, I expect?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Can we go to page 36, please? All right, if you scroll down -- okay, that’s good there. All right, so do you see that chart?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So to your knowledge or understanding, are those numbers accurate when it comes to the number of frontline officers?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And you’ll see on the top of the chart, it says, “OPP frontline officers provided to Ottawa Police Service,” and then a footnote, 50. If we can scroll down to the footnote. And that footnote tells us that: “These numbers only refer to frontline officers. It does not refer to the large number of OPP members in OPP POU, OPP Logistics Support Team members, OPP PLT, POIB members, OPP Auxiliary and Special Constables and Aviation Services members.” Do you see that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. You have, again, no reason to be concerned about the accuracy of those numbers?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner. Those are my questions.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, sir. Chris Diana for the OPP.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Just a couple of topics that I'd like to discuss with you. The first one relating to OPP assistance that was received by OPS during this time. As a general proposition, I'm sure that you would agree with me that the OPP provided a significant level of assistance to the Ottawa Police Service from the beginning to the end of the convoys, plural, presence in Ottawa?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And even before the convoy arrived the OPP was already offering to provide assistance; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, we've seen text messages between you and Commissioner Carrique. Is it fair to say that you communicated with Commissioner Carrique almost every day, if not every day, during the course of late January until the day you left.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So if we can go, please, to OPP4586. All right. So these are the text messages that I was referring to you between you and the Commissioner. And it starts off, I believe the first one, it says: "Good afternoon, Tom. Just left you a voice mail. Please have a listen and call me back at your earliest convenience." Now, that's January 27th, so that's the day before the convoy arrived; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take even the day before you had already established kind of a relationship with Commissioner Carrique where you felt you could discuss issues.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes. Thanks for clarifying. You are correct, but I always think of it as the 28th, because that's when a lot of them really started to come in. But I guess the point that I'm trying to make here is that even early stages, before many of the people and trucks arrive, you've already got an established relationship with Commissioner Carrique?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay, so if we scroll down. We've got January 28th, which is the next day. My understanding, based on what we've heard before, is that the timestamp is actually five hours earlier than the time actually stamped, and that appears to be a text from the Commissioner: "Hi Peter - just checking in to ensure you have everything you need." Your response was to thank him for checking in and your response is, as it says: "All good right now - we greatly appreciate the public order support. Please also keep the intel coming." That's on January 28th; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And so you're at this stage happy with how the OPP has stepped up and offered that kind of assistance, as well as the intel?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, that's fair enough. For that first weekend, we've heard evidence prior that the OPP provided frontline officers in addition to Public Order Unit members. Is that your understanding?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes. If we can go down to page 3. I'm looking for the time that's stamped 11 -- February -- so this is February 4th. We're looking for the time that's stamped 11:07. There we go. So this is to situate you. Sorry, this is February the 4th. It says: "Peter, over and above the number of people we have supporting, checking in to ensure you are receiving the level of support and counsel you were hoping to receive from our POU, CIC and PLT command group that is contributing to your concepts of operations and planning process." Scroll down. And you've asked for a quick call. Scroll down again. Okay. And so he was available at your convenience. So again, on February 4th, we're a few days into this now, the Commissioner is again reaching out by text to make sure you've got everything you need; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that's consistent with how the Commissioner was available to you throughout this time period.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right, can we go to another document. I want to go back to this one eventually, but let's go to OPS7455. All right. So if we can go down to the bottom of page 1. All right, so stop there. This is an email, again to situate you, an email from yourself to Commissioner Carrique, February 4th, 5:30 p.m. Scroll down. And here, again you can read it just as well as I can, where you're expressing your appreciation for "your significant and ongoing support" that the Commissioner and his team "have provided to the OPS over the course of the demonstrations." And you refer to OPP officers: "...demonstrating the highest levels of professionalism and work ethic..." And that: "...their turn out is universally 'top shelf'." I'm curious what you mean by "turn out". I'm not sure what that turn of phrase means.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it that -- I mean, this is you obviously showing your appreciation for the support you've been given, but I take it this is a genuine email. I take it from the tone of that that you generally did appreciate that ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay, so we can -- can we go back to the text exchange, please, which is OPP4586? And let's go to page 6. So we're looking at -- if you scroll down a little bit. We're looking for February 7th at -- the time stamped is 10:58. Right. So it says: "Hi Peter - at your convenience, can we connect regarding operationalizing the request for additional police resources that the province received from the mayor. Thanks.” Do you see that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And your response: “Hello Tom. I’ve consulted with Deputy… Ferguson and the resource planning team will be established within the current OPS Incident Command. Inspector… Palmer will be the contact point for your OPP team.” So do you recall that exchange?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes. And you also indicated that this would be under OPS Command, so I guess you were just being clear so there was no misunderstanding. This was an OPS operation.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it the Commissioner respected those jurisdictional boundaries at all times?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And because we understand under the Police Services Act, the OPP just can’t walk into another police services jurisdiction and take over, right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And there’s only very limited exceptions that would even allow that under the Police Services Act.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you felt at the time that the OPS was more than capable of handling this with extra help?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And in addition -- and I don’t need the document any further -- you're probably also aware that during this period of time the Commissioner also chaired various calls, almost every day with Big 12 or OACP to help coordinate further resources, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And you may be aware -- you may not have see the document. It’s an OPP document but he sent correspondence out to other police services to try to integrate all of that.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so you understand, of course, that the OPP provided not only boots on the ground but a lot of specialists as well, and services such as logistics, aviation, PLT, undercover, incident commanders, planners, POU?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And did you hear Commissioner Carrique’s evidence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
One of the comments he made was that when it comes to providing assistance the OPP unfortunately doesn't have extra officers that he can take off a shelf and send where they’re needed. Do you recall him saying that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And so he also indicated that every frontline officer that goes to help with Ottawa or Windsor or anywhere is taken out of a community where that officer would usually work.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so you can recognize that when -- and I believe the OPP’s institutional report -- and I won’t pull it up. I think the maximum number of frontline officers on any given day was 463 on one day in Ottawa. You would recognize and understand the kind of strain that could put on the OPP and the other communities it polices?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. The other area -- I’d like to move on to Intelligence because I think one of the things we’re trying to figure out here is kind of what happened and how do we do things better going forward. And so we need to figure out what happened on the Intelligence side.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I’ve spoken about the different levels of assistance but I'm sure you would agree that the Hendon Reports and the daily conference calls on Intelligence were another form of assistance provided by the OPP.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe your evidence was -- and I misstate it, please correct me -- was that you became aware of the January 13th Hendon Report received at -- you understandably had a lot of other things on your plate at the time and so you asked Deputy Chief Bell to conduct an Intelligence review; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that made sense, of course, because Deputy Bell at the time was responsible for the Intelligence part of the portfolio?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And Deputy Ferguson was responsible for planning?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And if I get the chain of command incorrect, then please correct me. But under Deputy Bell would it be Superintendent Patterson at the time on the Intelligence side?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, when it comes to Deputies Bell and Ferguson, you did give some evidence about a lot of the changes that were taking place and the challenges that you had in senior command, COVID, turnover, other things. But neither had been in their positions for long, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But both of them were senior officers though, right? They’d been with the OPS for a long time?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And both had many years of experience dealing with large protests in Ottawa?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But either way, you trusted in their ability to review the intelligence and prepare an appropriate plan, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you testified that you did not review the Hendon reports in detail and that for the most part you skimmed them when they came in.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right, because there were a number of OPS members on the distribution list so you trusted in your team to review them and to keep you apprised as necessary, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it that once you skimmed kind of the -- or once you saw the first Hendon Report I expect that you knew that that could be a valuable source of information as the convoy made its way across?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, I take it you did not participate in the daily Hendon conference calls?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that’s something that you would have relied on, either Deputy Bell or Superintendent Patterson or someone within that ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you testified that it was your expectation that this would primarily be a weekend long event, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Now, this is what you were told by your team. You're not coming to your own assessments necessarily at this point? You're relying on your team to tell you that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so I believe in your witness summary you indicated that you were advised by Deputy Bell that he expected the vast majority would leave at the end of the weekend or shortly thereafter.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did he tell you -- and this is why I just want to get into kind of your own personal awareness of what was in the Hendon reports and kind of when you knew. Did Deputy Bell tell you that there were a number of indications in the Hendon reports that suggested there could be a lengthier stay?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, can you say that again?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, that’s good clarification. But you're hearing it from Deputy Bell and Deputy Bell can kind of speak for himself as to where he heard it or who he heard it from or who briefed him.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
You're hearing it from Deputy Bell, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so my question was, did you hear from -- did Deputy Bell inform you of some of the warnings in the Hendon reports?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Because ultimately, as a chief, you need the higher level, right? So you don’t necessarily need to hear the details, you need to hear from Deputy Bell who needs to hear from his people, "Look this is going to be a weekend event," or "This is the sum total of what the problems could be," correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so -- but Deputy Bell, again, just so I understand this -- your understanding was this would be a weekend event, and was that kind of the summation of what you were told by Deputy Bell?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But he did not say, "Look, we think this is going to be a weekend event, but there are some indications that suggest it actually could be a long- term event"?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And I'm going to ask if you, at the time, and this is ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No worry.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, were both possibilities being given as kind of equal probabilities that it might be -- it's equally likely they're here for the long term and equally likely they're ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So what I'm trying to understand now is again -- and I know you were briefed, and then that was primary source more than your own review of the Hendon Reports, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so I'm just trying to understand kind what you knew before the convoy arrived. Did you know, for example, that the reports indicated that there was no exit strategy?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
M'hm. And did you know that the intent was to remain in Ottawa until all mandates and restrictions had been lifted?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, and the reason I ask, and particularly the last point, I think, is an interesting one about their stated intention to remain until the mandates and restrictions were lifted, because it's one thing to say there's an elective strategy; it's another to set a specific goal before they leave, and that’s something that you probably wouldn't have experienced before, is it?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Well, what's not -- and I just put to you -- what's not regular is that the protestors would come all the way across Canada, have millions of dollars of fundraising, lots of trucks and people all converging with that stated goal. That’s not regular, is it?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Well, I ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, I understand that, but I think what we're trying to do here is to try to figure out to what extent the planning here was based on the actual intelligence that was being received, or as I would suggest, it was based more on experience of OPS and others that have seen a lot of protests come and go and that perhaps there might have just been a bit of an over-emphasis on what had happened in the past.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, I know we're looking back at it and we have a certain lens because we can look back at what happened. But when we look back, isn't the -- the issue isn't the quality of the Hendon Reports, isn't the issue the fact that Ottawa Police just didn’t take them seriously enough?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Because the Hendon Reports, in fact, were actually very useful tools, right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I'm not sure you would get any disagreement with the OPP on that point, but I guess, again, looking back at things with the hindsight -- which is what we're forced to do here, of course -- a lot of the warnings in the Hendon Reports were correct, right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But a lot of them were correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
We heard some evidence from Supt. Bernier who indicated that even though that wasn’t his role at the time, he did happen to see some Hendon Reports, and his evidence was that they were, in his view, comprehensive and like nothing you usually would see in advance of a typical demonstration.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So Deputy Ferguson's evidence was that the plan that was prepared, presumably under her own watch, was not intelligence led. That was her evidence. Would you agree with her or disagree with her?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So again, just to get the answer, you would disagree with her then on that point?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your evidence.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I have no questions. Thank you, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
(Inaudible) if anyone can hear me, I’m now online. It’s Christopher Diana for the OPP, and I have no questions.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Can you hear me now?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I apologize for the inconvenience with my audio. It’s Christopher Diana on behalf o the OPP doing this virtually for the first time, and so I apologize for the inconvenience. No, I have no questions this afternoon. Thank you, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I have no questions. Thank you, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Can you hear me now?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry about this. I have no questions for the OPP.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, Commissioner. The OPP have no questions today.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Apologies for the delay. I have no questions. Thank you. Sorry, I wasn't plugged in. I apologize for the delay. I have no questions.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
The OPP has no questions. Thank you, Commissioner.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, good afternoon, Commissioner. I have no questions. Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner. Good afternoon, sir. Can you see me and hear me okay?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Can you hear me okay now?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. I guess there might be a bit of a delay, which caused that issue. But sir, can you see me and hear -- can see me on the screen and hear me okay?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
My name is Chris Diana. I’m counsel to the OPP. I just have a couple of questions that just arose out of some of the evidence that you gave in response to questions from my friends, counsel to Government of Canada. He brought you to a document where you expressed some concern that a number of firearms had been stolen from the Peterborough area. Do you remember that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it you were concerned about the possible existence of firearms, perhaps, in your area there?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Do you know what happened with those firearms?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So I would put to you, and just because I don’t think that’s information that should be out there without resolution, but I would put to you that those firearms were recovered only a couple of days after they were stolen. Did you know that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Well I think ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, thanks. I think police services were aware of it. But, Commissioner, I think this is an important fact, that, again, that I don’t think should be just kind of out there as a loose end, and although this document was not on the list to be put to the witness, I think it’s relevant to this issue, and so I would like to refer to it now on this point. And that’s Document OPP00001549. If we could make it a bit bigger? Thank you. And, sir, you will not recognize this document. It’s internal email correspondence within the OPP. If you could go to page 2, please? And under where it says “Update 10”, this is an email from Brad Collins, who is with the OPP to a number of others that are in the OPP. You’ll see it says: “Peel Regional police confirm the recovery of the stolen load of firearms from Peterborough [Police Service] jurisdiction. Information developing, but the load of rifles has been recovered save for possibly a few individual pieces removed from skids.” Do you see that, sir?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Well thank you, Commissioner. I have no further questions. I thought that was a factual issue that should be dealt with.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No further questions. Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good morning, Commissioner. The OPP have no questions. Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes. Perhaps I can speak to this, sir.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, Commissioner. Commissioner, it’s Chris Diana for the OPP. Can you hear me?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, the OPP agrees with the position of our friend, Mr. Migicovsky, both the main position or the alternative position. At this point, we don’t know if the OPP was involved or not in these incidents, and based on procedural fairness, we either -- that evidence either should not be permitted, or we should have a chance to respond to it. I won’t add anything further to the comments by my friend, but the OPP supports that position.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner. My questions have already been asked and answered, so I have nothing further.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Commissioner, I have no questions. Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good evening, Commissioner. I have no questions. Thank you. Commissioner, I have no questions.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon. My name is Chris Diana, counsel to the OPP. I wonder if we can start by bringing up your witness summary, which is WTS66? And while that's coming up, I expect that most of my questions will be directed to Mr. Stewart through Mr. Rochon. If you have some insight or some information, then please chime in. All right. So this is your witness summary. Can we go to page 21, and the last paragraph? And I want to ask some questions about the consultation that took place before the invocation of the Act. It reads: “DM Stewart added that the Act was welcomed by law enforcement (especially police of jurisdiction). Though they were never explicitly asked to invoke the Act, they were asked whether they had the tools they needed and the answer was consistently that they could use more tools.” I want to ask about that paragraph in particular; you used the word “they” which suggests that multiple law enforcement agencies were canvassed about tools that could be used under the Act. Is that a fair characterization of the summary?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so my question arising from that is, which law enforcement agencies were consulted about the use of the Act.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And so my question is, which agencies were asked whether they needed more tools?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Do you have any knowledge on how that consultation took place?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Because Commissioner Carrique, and I don’t know if you heard his evidence, he testified that the OPP was not consulted about the use of the Emergencies Act or any tools by anyone with the Federal Government; do you have any reason to dispute his testimony in that regard?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So is it fair to say that that paragraph is based on information that you would have received from the RCMP rather than your own personal direct knowledge?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Or other law enforcement agencies?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Because we were talking about tools which in terms of law enforcement agencies, is what I am referring to. And so do you have any direct knowledge of other law enforcement agencies that were consulted about those tools?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Now at the time of course you would agree that the OPP had a very prominent role within the province, both in Windsor, Ottawa and elsewhere in Ontario?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you would agree that the OPP, considering its role and multiple scenarios would be in a good position to provide a meaningful response to a consultation request?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And indeed the OPP would have a different perspective in the RCMP because they have different jurisdiction; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And do you know if there is a written record of consultation with law enforcement agencies on the Emergencies Act?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Considering the extraordinary nature of the Emergencies Act do you agree that perhaps there should be a written consultation record for accountability purposes?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And the reason I ask, is because there is a consultation record which I won’t take you to unless you want to see it, but that consultation record refers to consultation with different provinces and officials, but there is no specifics about consultation with law enforcement; and my question is, whether -- are you aware of any document that deals directly with the law enforcement side of the consultation?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But you would agree that perhaps considering the fact that law enforcement has to use those tools, it would be a good idea to have written records of that consultation?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Did you have any direct involvement with consulting law enforcement? I think you said you did not; is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. If we can turn up document PB.NSC.CAN.000003256.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Now, I don’t think -- I don’t know if you were -- you don’t appear to have been copied on this document. This appears to be an exchange of emails between Commissioner Lucki and Mike Jones. Do you recognize this email?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now Patrick Vezina is counsel, I believe; who are Alison Whelan and Dennis Daly?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Did you see this document at the time that it was generated or around the time it was generated?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now Mike Jones as I understand it, was Chief of Staff for Minister Mendicino; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And if you scroll down to the bottom, it starts with an email request made on February 13th from Mike Jones to Brenda Lucki. Part of it is redacted; if you scroll up I think it’s clear kind of what the purpose of the email is if you scroll up a little higher, higher, higher. Commissioner Lucki -- stop there. Commissioner Lucki kind of gives a list of some tools that she might find useful; is that your understanding of this email?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, I note that this exchange ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So this is evidence of consultation with the RCMP from the Federal Government side; my question is whether or not it’s unusual that this request comes from the political side, comes from the Chief of Staff rather than from your office, from the Deputy Minister’s Office?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Because typically, and I know the way it works provincially of course, because that’s my area, but Commissioner Carrique testified that almost all his dealings were directly with Deputy Di Tommaso and the communication went through the level of the Deputy Minister, but the Commissioner of the RCMP is a direct report to the Minister of Public safety.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so it’s more common then for the political side to engage directly with the Commissioner of the RCMP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I wanted to follow up on a comment, because this is an opportunity for us to look at all these issues, all of these kind of broader systemic issues because you raised it yourself earlier in your evidence about Nova Scotia. And maybe taking another look at what is the appropriate role of the political side as opposed to your side of the house; do you have any thoughts on how, from the federal side that could be improved from where it’s at now?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I guess one of the reasons I ask, you’re not copied on this and as Deputy Minister, if there is going to be direct engagement with the political side, don’t you expect you would at least be copied on it for your information or awareness?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And I guess again we’re here, we’re in this context where we can look at these issues; these opportunities don’t come across very well. And you’ve got a lot of experience in your role, as do you, Mr. Rochon, so you can weigh into this question as well, but is there any merit in having clearer lines or more clearly defined lines about how the interaction between the political side and the RCMP Commissioner to avoid any kind of misunderstandings. There is merit. Do you have any recommendations on how those lines should be drawn?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Do you have any thoughts, Mr. Rochon?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And just finishing up on the question about intelligence; you were asked a question by my friend who was up before me about whether or not there was essentially a failure of intelligence. Now your evidence earlier was that you’re in a position where you’re only receiving, or you’re consuming the intelligence; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But you only know what’s provided to you; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So for example, you didn’t even know about Hendon, what you’re looking at is what other people are synthesizing, putting together, and letting you know; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So really, you wouldn’t be in a position, especially at the time, to know whether you would have reviewed all the intelligence, or whether what had been provided to you was an accurate reflection of what was out there; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so if the RCMP or whoever is reviewing this information decides that information such as there’s no exit strategy, an intention to make the workings of government more difficult, if that doesn’t get included, then obviously you would never know. So there’s a lot that’s put on the shoulders of those who are providing the information to you. would you agree?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, gentlemen. Much appreciated.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good evening, Commissioner. Chris Diana for the OPP. We also have no questions. Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner. My name is Chris Diana. I'm Counsel for the OPP. We've heard some evidence from Commissioner Carrique that, Commissioner, he worked very closely with you throughout the convoy time period; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And we've seen some of the text exchanges between you and him. So is it fair to say that you either spoke with him or texted with him pretty much every day during the course of this event?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And it's fair to say that you worked together to help support former Chief Sloly in trying to manage the Ottawa event; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And in particular, Commissioner Carrique had probably more kind of one-on-one dealings with Chief Sloly than you did; is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And ultimately, your mutual cooperation with Commissioner Carrique helped lead to the development of the integrated planning team; is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Where both provided subject matter experts to make sure that there was a way to resolve the Ottawa occupation; is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now I believe it's in your -- the institutional report that at no point did you ever ask for the invocation of the Emergencies Act; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But you did -- you were asked though what tools would be useful; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So we've already seen that document, but I want to bring it up again. So if we can look at PB.NSC.CAN.00003256, please? All right. Now we've seen this already today. If we can scroll to the bottom and see what the genesis of this was, it's an email from Mike Jones, who I understand is the Chief of Staff for Minister Mendocino; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And this is sent to you February 13th at 7:25 p.m. And there's a section that's blacked out there. I'm not entirely sure why. The reason for the redaction is not entirely made clear, but my understanding is that you were asked to speak about two things. You were asked to give some information on what tools would be useful and you were also asked questions about critical infrastructure; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And as you can see, obviously, there's a -- timing was important here because as it says, "quick follow ups before Cabinet". Now what was your understanding of when that Cabinet meeting would take place?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, I didn't -- can't hear you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah, but regardless, your understanding was that this was a very time-sensitive request; is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sure. So if we can scroll to the top, we'll see that you responded, I guess 12:47 a.m., so approximately 5 hours later; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Oh, thank you. So ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I had figured ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- I had figured that issue out for the text messages, but, okay, so that applies to this as well then for the -- if we scroll to the bottom? I just want to make sure I'm clear on the time too ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- but that says 7:25 p.m. Is that actually 7:25 p.m. or is it my time?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So in the same email exchange, you've got two different ways to figure out ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Okay. Well, thank you. That's very complicated. All right. So then let's go to the top. So the email was sent from Mike Jones 7:25 and your response is at 7:47 then. Would that be -- you responded almost right away?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So I take it that in that time period, you clearly wouldn't have had an opportunity to consult with other law enforcement agencies about what tools might be useful; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Well, I'm going to get to that in a moment.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But let's backtrack a little bit because I want to ask about the initial request from Mike Jones. You were being asked for advice on what tools would be useful. Was it your sense when you received that email, and either from that email or from conversations you had around the same time, that they were waiting on your advice on these issues, or was it your sense that they'd already made up their mind that they were going to invoke it?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah. I wanted to ask about that because I haven’t -- there are a lot of documents, thousands of documents, and maybe I’ve missed it, but do you recall how that information came to you?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Now, we’ve heard from Comm. Carrique, and he was very clear in his evidence, that at no point that anyone from the RCMP reach out to him to ask him for his advice ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- on what tools would be useful; and you have no reason to dispute that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so -- and he said it very clearly, I can bring up the transcript ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- if you wish, but ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And certainly, there’s no documentary evidence to suggest that you ever consulted with him. You would agree, I take it, that because the OPP was involved kind of as a lead in Windsor, they were very involved in leading the integrated planning team in Ottawa. There were issues all throughout Ontario that the OPP had an important interest in what tools would be made available to it; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that in retrospect would you agree that it would have been a good idea to have consulted with Comm. Carrique so he could have given you his opinion on what may have been helpful?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And the reason I find it odd is because, you know, you would communicate with him by text, by phone call; you could’ve simply just picked up the phone and said, ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- “Oh Tom, I just got this email. You know, keep it on the downlow, but -- because we don’t -- because there are confidences involved here, but are there any tools that the OPP would find useful here?”
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. So somewhere there was a breakdown in communication; OPP should have been consulted but they weren’t.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. And I know that, whether it was you or the Deputy, ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- had mentioned there were two possible factors, one was timing. But, of course, that could’ve been done very quickly with your relationship with the Commissioner; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And the other issue was matter of confidence, but we all know when policing that confidential information between police services is shared. And I take it that you would’ve trusted Comm. Carrique enough to have that conversation with him; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. But you could’ve done it another way. You could’ve said, “Commissioner there’s some consideration about the Emergencies Act,...” ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- “...and so what are your...” -- and so I don’t -- because you had mentioned the Emergencies Act several days before. So you could have said that as a hypothetical, “If Cabinet was to invoke the EA, or are there any tools that would be useful?” You could have done that, right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. But you referenced Emergencies Act possibility -- I forget the day, maybe it was February 5th, and that ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Now, I might circle back to this. I want to make sure I don’t run out of time, make sure I get a couple of my points in here. I’d like to go to towing, ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- very briefly. And I’ve heard your evidence that you weren’t directly involved in that aspect. But I think, you know, there’s been some back and forth and some question, but there’s a document that I think needs to go into the record that I need to put to you, that I think will help clarify the issue. Do you know the name Sgt. Kirk Richardson from the OPP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. He was -- and we’ve heard from Carson Pardy that he was one of the subject matter experts on the integrated planning team who was responsible for towing. If you can, Clerk -- Mr. Clerk, put up the document PB.NSC.CAN.00005777? All right. So you can see that there’s an email exchange here between some folks in the RCMP, Kelly Bradshaw. Deputy Commissioner, do you know who Kelly Bradshaw is?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe, there’s already been reference to Mark Flynn. If you could scroll down please, so we get the context of this email exchange? Further down. All right. So stop there. You’ll see Kelly Bradshaw, and this is to the -- an email to Kirk Richardson from the OPP: “Hi Kirk,...I am being asked the following question: Did OPP use [Emergencies Act] on tow companies yesterday in Ottawa?” So if you can scroll up, for the response, and this is from the subject matter expert that was dealing with this, and you can see his response on February 20th. He writes: “Hello. The tow contractors used for the operations to clear the protest areas were approached to see if they would provide service. The heavy tow providers (two companies) both are contractors with the...(MTO)....The light duty tows were arranged by Ottawa Police I am not sure what the arrangements were related to costs. I do not believe the EO was used to make them tow but it was referenced in relation to protection and compensation if damage occurred related to the protest.” Now, I take it you wouldn’t have any information to contradict that from the subject matter expert?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And you have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. That’s fine. Can we -- I want to take you to your witness summary, please. And the reference for that is -- I have it written somewhere, if we can go to the RCMP witness summary, which is WTS69, and go to page 24. And again, this is just another loose end that I want to tie up because it’s important to have all the facts before the Tribunal. You’ll note that there’s a reference to the theft of about -- approximately 3,400 firearms from Peterborough area; do you remember that incident?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, your witness summary doesn’t make a reference to the fact that those firearms were recovered about two days later. You will recall that; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so I think it’s just important for the record that we hear acknowledgment that while that was a significant -- that was a matter of significant concern at the time, it was resolved within two days; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that, in fact, you told the in -- and I’m not going to bring the minutes up, unless you want to see them, but because it was an important issue, you made sure that you told the incident response group the next day that the guns had been recovered; do you remember that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Because you did not want to leave the mistaken impression that there were ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- 3,000-odd guns out there.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so that was important to make sure you cleared that up; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. It wasn’t in your witness summary, the conclusion; I wanted to make sure that was on the record. Now, if I can go to -- going back to the consultation piece, if -- I think I may have a few more minutes yet.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
If we can go to page 22, second paragraph. Next paragraph down. Okay. So it says, “Commissioner Lucki sought input...and...other police agencies....” Here you talk about seeking input from different divisions, and you’ve spoken with that already. And one of the question -- and a question that I really wanted to ask is that when you consider the extraordinary nature of the Emergencies Act, do you agree that it would be useful to keep a written consultation record so that when we go back and look at how we use the emergency powers, we’re able to identify who we spoke to, what -- and what they said about what tools would be useful? Do you agree that should be kind of clearly set out in writing so we can keep a record?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, but I mean I think that it’s -- and I ask the question because it’s not entirely clear who was consulted, when they were consulted, and what they were said. And again, for future reference, it would be helpful, wouldn’t it, to have that? Because we have a consultation report filed by Government of Canada that talks about consultation with the political leaders, but what I’m putting to you is it would also be helpful to have that kind of record on law enforcement consultation?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Thank you. I appreciate your time.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good morning. My name is Chris Diana. I’m counsel to the OPP and I have some questions and I may be asking all of you, at some point, for your thoughts. The area that I’d like to start with is about information flow, so Mr. Vigneault, maybe I’ll start with you as the Head of CSIS, because you can speak to your role in advising kind of up the line. But as I understand it, and my friend has taken you through the definition of CSIS, but the mandate of CSIS is to investigate threats to the security of Canada? Is that correct? Is your mic on? Can you try again? Okay.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sorry, I didn’t hear you. That’s all. And part of your role is to share the appropriate information with senior decision makers in the federal public service, including the National Security Advisor and Minister of Public Safety? Is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes. And so that’s how it worked. We know in the federal sphere there are a number of law enforcement type relationships that work in a similar way, in that they’ll collect information and they’ll share it with senior level decision makers. Is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So such as CBSA, RCMP, and there are a number of others?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And obviously you would agree that it’s crucial that those senior level decision makers have all the information they need to make informed decisions?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so when we’re thinking about information flow and we think about things that can go wrong in that process, there are a couple of things -- well, there were a number of things, but a couple of kind of main things that can go wrong in terms of what you do in advising decision makers. The first may be that CSIS may fail to identify certain information on potential national security threats. In other words, you might just miss on the intelligence side?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And if you don’t know, you can’t advise; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
The second, the information may be available, but it may not be properly communicated up the chain? That could happen; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And it’s a human process, so you might have some information that may come into certain offices, regional offices, and then it has to go up, and then it be reviewed, and go up again, from your level, to senior decision maker, and whether it be inadvertence, or maybe not realizing its significance, there’s always a possibility that something important may be missed; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That’s right. And that’s for all law ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- and federal law enforcement type agencies; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And obviously sometimes you may not be aware -- when I say you, it could be CSIS, it could be another law enforcement agency, may not be aware of the potential significance of a certain fact and it may just be missed?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. I would like to ask about Project Hendon briefly. And maybe, Ms. Tessier, because you were kind of the lead on the actual intelligence side, as I understand it, the operational side, we do have evidence, of course, that CSIS did receive the Hendon Report, it went to a number of recipients? That’s correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And of course, your interest in these reports would relate to the mandate of CSIS? You would be reviewing them with the CSIS mandate in mind? Is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And presumably other federal law enforcement agencies would be looking at those reports in relation to their own respective mandates? Fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe in the witness summary, it was stated that it was unknown if the information in the Hendon Reports was actually used in reporting? Can you confirm whether that information was used?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And important information would have been communicated by those regional people up to your level; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Now according to OPP Supt. Pat Morris, and I don’t know if you heard his evidence some time ago, but he testified that the OPP works very closely with CSIS. Is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
In particular, I think the Provincial Anti-Terrorism Section works closely with CSIS?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And OPP is also embedded with INSET? The Integrated National Security Enforcement Team?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you would agree the OPP is a valuable law enforcement partner?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that while the Hendon -- Project Hendon and the reports were a new product, but they still provided a valuable source of information; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I also want to ask about the conflict of information silos, which is always, I think, somewhat of a challenge in the intelligence field. It’s an obvious proposition, of course, that different federal agencies have different mandates. We’ve looked at that before. One of the concerns, potentially, in the federal sphere, is that one agency may not know or have access to information from another agency? Is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And so efforts have been made to get around the silo issue, and you would agree that one of the best ways to get around is to ensure a broad distribution of intelligence; fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Because we don't want the third party rule to kind of get in the way of broad information- sharing; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so as far as Project Hendon is concerned, and you may not be aware, but it had a very broad distribution list. It went to all federal law enforcement related agencies. And that works to break down silos; fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And the final topic is on social media. We've heard a lot in this Inquiry about social media. Anyone can go on -- fire up the Twitter machine and you can find lots of vile content and threats and things of that nature on social media. Fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I believe it was mentioned in your witness summary that it's very difficult to assess the intent and impact of violent online rhetoric. That's fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
You would agree that useful intelligence requires a lot more than simply scrolling through Twitter; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And Ms. Chayer, you spoke about this in your evidence not that long ago, that it really requires a trained analyst to review what's there on social media and pass it through an appropriate intelligent lens, trade craft, as you put it, before you can have a useful product. Is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And that is in fact what OPP did with Project Hendon; correct? They took information and they passed through their lens and then produced it out to its partner agencies.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. And my last question, Mr. Commissioner, I know I'm probably up against the clock. And the point I'm trying to make here is that analysing social media to identify risks is something that should be done by subject matter experts or those trained to do so. Is that fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sure. But from an intelligence perspective, you need an analyst to really give proper intelligence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Commissioner, I will endeavour not to go overtime.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good evening, Minister. Chris Diana, counsel to the OPP. We've heard pretty extensive evidence from both Ottawa Police Service and Windsor Police Service witnesses that the OPP provided significant support to both Ottawa and Windsor. I don't know if you've heard any of that evidence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And former Chief Sloly in particular was very complimentary of the assistance provided by Commissioner Carrique and the resources provided that helped bring an end to the protest, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And as you said, you would agree with that assessment?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And that assistance started with the Hendon Reports, went to frontline officers, POU support, integrated planning team leadership, and that’s just in the Ottawa context, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Can we go to Document SSM.NSC.CAN00002983? So what I'm bringing you to appears to be a text exchange between you and your chief of staff, Ms. Astravas. Now, unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a date on this. If you can scroll down an allow the witness to see it, it's fairly short, down to the end. Now, at the bottom you'll see that you suggested that Chief Sloly does not have a strong support network within provincial police leadership. Now, again, I don’t have a date on this, but certainly, at the time you wrote this, you would not have been privy to the many text messages and phone calls between Chief Sloly and Commissioner Carrique, correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Oh, I see. So when it says "within provincial police leadership", you weren’t referring to the OPP, you were referring perhaps to other police leaders?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But not the OPP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And was this your own observation or was that observation made by others that you were forwarding on?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
But was that the view of Cabinet?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. I'd like to move to another issue which is consultation on the Emergencies Act. If you can bring up, Mr. Clerk, Document ID PB.NSC.CAN00003256? And while that’s loading, we've heard evidence from Commissioner Lucki that the RCMP did not request the Emergencies Act, but she was asked to provide a list of tools that may be useful in terms of the Emergencies Act legislation. I'm sure you're familiar with that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So what we have here is an email exchange between Mike Jones, who I understand is the Chief of Staff of Mr. Mendicino?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And of course, Commissioner Lucki. If you can just kind of scroll down a little bit, this appears to be the Commissioner's kind of list of tools that could be potentially useful. Did you see a copy of this list?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now, by this point -- if you can scroll to the top just so we can get the date -- this was February -- if we subtract five hours, this was the evening of February 13th, and by this point on February 13th, the OPP was heavily involved in policing protests all across Ontario -- you spoke about this in your evidence -- both leading the enforcement in Windsor, integrated planning team in Ottawa, 402, there were other areas in Ontario ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- correct? So the OPP, you would agree, was heavily engaged throughout the province?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. I asked both Deputy Minister Stewart and Commissioner Lucki about consultation, and both agreed that in light of that context where OPP was heavily involved and would be using these tools, the OPP could have provided valuable input into the request as to what would be useful or necessary policing tools. Would you agree with that?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, fair enough. But it would have been relatively easy for Commissioner Lucki to reach out to Commissioner Carrique to say, just in case at some point we get to an Emergencies Act invocation, are there any tools you might find useful? That could have happened; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sure, but you're not in the command room anymore; right? I mean, you're observing from afar, but you -- Commissioner Carrique would certainly have the better perspective on ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Sure. The decision is made by politicians, but ultimately, in terms of proportionality and using only the tools that are useful or necessary, it's a good idea to reach out to law enforcement; isn't it?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So we heard from Mr. -- Deputy Minister -- sorry, Deputy Minister Di Tommaso that that's what happened before the Ontario Emergency legislation, that he consulted that way. And, of course, Commissioner Lucki was consulted for tools, but you think it's somehow inappropriate to ask police for input on this?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Okay. So just so I'm clear, would you disagree then with Commissioner Lucki and Deputy Minister Stewart that there ought to have been consultation in that regard?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Now, of course, you're not like most of their Cabinet Ministers, because you're looking at this as a 30-plus year police leader yourself; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. As a police leader; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Fair enough. I'll move on. I've only got a couple of minutes left here. In your capacity as a politician, as a Cabinet Minister, of course, you're no longer in the room, the police room, so that you're no longer having a direct look at the intelligence reports. You have to rely on your federal law enforcement advisors, various agencies to advise you what the situation is; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you rely on those agencies and the National Security Advisor to give you credible and reliable information, so that you can make informed decisions as Cabinet Minister?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Now you mentioned you had never heard of Project Hendon, and nor would you have had any reason to; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Now we know from the Hendon reports, and we've looked at this in some detail, that as early as January the 20th, which is a week before the protest started to arrive, that the OPP had warned in its reports that this may not be a short protest. You've probably heard some of that evidence?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That there was no exit strategy and that some -- at least some protesters intended to stay until their demands were met; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. As a decision maker, it's important to know as much as you can about potential risks of any situation; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And, of course, intelligence like you'd get in the Hendon reports would be more valuable than simply opening the Twitter machine; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. I see I'm exactly my 10 minutes. I need about 45 to 60 seconds. Can I have it, Commissioner?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So not only is it important that you would know this information, but you want to be told in a timely way, so that you can make appropriate preparations.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And the reason I ask, and go back to a phrase used by my friend for the Commissioner earlier when he talked about if there's a hurricane moving up the coast, you know, you want to know well in advance. And I'm not analogizing necessarily between the convoy and a hurricane, but the earlier you would know the better; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And so your first briefing, according to your witness summary, was actually January 27th? That's in your witness summary?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that's a full week after the OPP reported in a Hendon about the fact it could be a long protest?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Thank you. Thank you for the indulgence, Commissioner. Much appreciated.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, Minister. Chris Diana, counsel to the OPP.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
We received some documents last night that we’re all frantically trying to review; some of them are quite interesting. And of the ones I’d like to start with, Mr. Clerk, is PC.CAN.00001849. And this appears to be a text exchange with you and an unidentified person, who I'm hoping you'll be able to help us identify. And if we can go to page 26? All right. So if you could help situate us as to kind of context here, this appears to be a text with someone. I believe you're on the left and somebody else is on the right. If you could scroll down a little bit, so that the witness has a chance to review it? Do you know who this text exchange was with?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And he would be your Chief of Staff; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And someone who you would have been in touch with, obviously, every day, your closest contact ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- within the -- within your system. All right. And so if we scroll to the top again to set the time context here, Monday, February 14th at 12:48 a.m. So very early in the morning February 14th, so basically, the night of February 13th if we were to look at it that way. And the context here is that the Ambassador Bridge had just been opened to traffic, I believe, about 30 minutes earlier; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
That accords with your recollection of when the exchange took place?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yeah, but I think for clarity, I think the Windsor Police Service institutional report identifies 12:12 a.m. on that day, so ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And so you would agree that everything you had heard was that, well, it was open. There was still a concern about potential volatility; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. If we can ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So I'm interested in the text that says, and I'll read it, "Following the declaration, we should go to ambassador and inspect the bridge re-opening and thank law enforcement and rcmp Assuming things go according to plan" So I'd like to follow up on what -- and this is you texting Mike Jones; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Your term "following the declaration", I assume you're talking about the Emergencies Act declaration?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you would agree the Emergencies Act had not yet been invoked at this point; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And in fact, there had not even been consultation with the provinces at this point; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. But I think it -- and I'm not going to go to the document for lack of time, but I think it was made very clear by the Prime Minister and others that his mind hadn't been made up yet, that the consultation was essentially being done in good faith ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
--- correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Not may have been. Following the declaration, it sounds to me like you're pretty convinced that it was going to be made, regardless of what happened at the consultation?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. "Assuming things go according to plan", and so what plan are you referring to here?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So a cynic might suggest, and we're both lawyers, and there are a number of us in that category, a cynic might suggest that it appears here you're talking about setting up a photo op in Windsor, even before the Emergencies Act is invoked.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. So let's read the rests of it. Your Chief of Staff says, "Ok -- do you know when that will be?" Presumably being the invocation of the Act; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Your response, "I'm hearing as late as tomorrow morning I think it's a powerful visual Otherwise it's just tweets" So basically, what you're saying is, I should go there, get some pictures, get some video, because it sends a better image than just tweeting about it; fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. So let's go to that then. The OPP was not impressed with this idea; is that fair to say?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. If we can take up the document ID OPP4582? And I'm going to be taking you to text messages between Commissioner Carrique and Deputy Commissioner Chris Harkins on February 14th. And once that's up, if we can go to page 71? All right. So you can see at the top it says, "Dana called." And that would be a reference to Dana Earley, as you know. And this is from Chris Harkins, "Dana called. She is not happy. The rcmp called and the federal public safety Minister..." (As read) And that would be you; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
"...is coming tomorrow for a photo op, tour the command post, etc. Not appropriate. Optics are terrible. Can we stop it?" Commissioner Carrique responds a little while later saying, "Visit is being postponed." So you can see here that obviously the OPP was not happy with the idea and described it as a photo op.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Part of the reason that they were concerned, of course, and I think you've heard this from the RCMP as well, was the potential that it could further inflame the situation if you actually showed up and took pictures; fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. Can we go back to the other document, which is PB.CAN.1849? And this is back to your text exchange with Mike Jones. And page 32. Here it says, "RCMP..." and this is, I believe, Mike Jones saying, "RCMP Commissioner also strongly advising against a trip to Windsor. Concerned that it's still quite volatile and things have been inflamed by today's announcement. (Someone drove at an officer again). I want the visual as well, but with two levels of forces asking us not to, my .02 [cents] is that it's not worth the risk of going and something happening in response. Delaying gives us more time to plan,..." Et cetera. Scroll down, "Ok I hear you let's discuss." So essentially, it was your Chief of Staff that was saying, "Look, we've heard from two police services. Let's not do this."
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
In retrospect, and I raise this because, you know, I think you would agree that sometimes having politicians attend these kinds of sites can have perhaps unintended consequences; fair?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that in retrospect, you would agree that it probably wasn't a good idea to have gone?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And in my last minute I'm going to ask you about consultation, and I've put these questions to other witnesses, but I'm just simply going to ask you -- or put to you the proposition about consultation with the law enforcement, and the suggestion that I'll put to you is that it's a good idea that when there is consultation with law enforcement on tools, that that be done in writing for purposes of accountability, so we can go back and check exactly who said what to whom.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Would you agree that's a good idea?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I am out of time, so as I’m leaving, I’m just going to say that we’ve heard evidence that -- some ambiguous evidence about conversations within the RCMP, perhaps with others, that haven’t been written down. And I think you would agree that it’d be helpful to have everything clear, unambiguous so there’s no room for doubt.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Minister.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good morning, Commissioner. Chris Diana for the OPP. I have no questions, sorry, Justice Minister. I will be ceding my time to the CCLA as well, and next time I'm going to drive a harder bargain.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Chris Diana for the OPP. And we likewise have no questions, and have ceded our time to the Government of Canada.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good evening. It's Chris Diana, counsel to the OPP. And Commissioner, if I can advise that I've been gifted five additional minutes from the Windsor Police Service, for which I'm very grateful. I may not need that time, but I appreciate the gift and if I need it, I will use it.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
It won't be my concern at that point.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I wanted to ask about Ipperwash. You mention Ipperwash in your witness summary, and as far as who answers this, it doesn’t really matter, whoever has knowledge. I was going to bring up your witness summary, but I don't think that’s necessary. You referenced that there was a verbal briefing. You said that in your evidence in-chief, and I wanted to ask you about that verbal briefing. What did that come out of?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And the reason I wanted to ask was because, I mean, that’s very pre-emptive of you, but were there any concerns that you had about comments that had been made by anybody at that time?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And when you say Day 1, like, the first day? The day of the arrival of the protesters, approximately?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Were any members of Cabinet asking you, "How far can we go as far as police" because understandably, there were some frustration that we've heard about police enforcement?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. Mr. Clerk, if you can bring up PB.CAN.1870? And Mr. Clow, these are some text messages, I believe, that you were involved with so I'd like to ask you, because I think you may have some specific knowledge. All right. And it's not entirely clear from the texts themselves although the description of the texts in the day to day suggest that this may have been a text exchange with Chief of Staff Mike Jones, who I believe was the chief of staff for Minister Mendicino?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. And so I wanted to ask, and that’s what I thought, based on the content. So this is an email exchange you had -- sorry, a text exchange with Mike Jones on February 6th, 2:40. Do you remember this exchange?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. And so Mike Jones writes -- he expresses some concern about OPS enforcement and concern for the safety of the PM. I assume he's referencing the prime minister there?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And he says: "He wants to go out and say that OPS needs to get control over the situation, and if they need more from OPP, they should make that clear, but they should get working on removals within the next 24 hours." Now, I take it that when he says "he wants to go out", he's referring to Minister Mendicino; is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Do you know if Minister Mendicino or anybody else actually went to OPS with that kind of direction to try to remove people within the next 24 hours?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And when you say "we were aware", are you talking about the prime minister's office or are you talking about all of Cabinet?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And is it because people were expressing concerns about police enforcement?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Yes, and I would have asked -- to be clear, I would have asked Minister Mendicino, but we didn't get this in time for me to do that, which is why I'm trying to understand from you whether or not Minister Mendicino or anybody else actually contacted anyone from Ottawa Police Service, or even the RCMP to say, "We want people gone, we want them gone quickly."
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Okay. But you would agree ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Certainly. And it sounds like the Prime Minister's Office was very aware of Ipperwash, which is great, and I'm sure you would agree that if that had been communicated to the Police Service, that would have been inappropriate; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And you would have no reason to doubt that -- you know, what his Chief of Staff was saying, you wouldn't have a reason to believe that wasn't what he was hearing from his own Minister; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Do you know -- when you talked about the briefing that was done on Ipperwash, were the Ministers involved in that briefing? I mean, it sounds like there were a number of discussions, but, Ms. Telford, you mention there was one briefing in particular at the beginning. Was that a Cabinet briefing?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And again, when you say we, I just want to make sure I drill down on who are we, are they the politicians, their staff members? Kind of who is we?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Thank you.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
I apologize ---
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Good afternoon, Mr. Prime Minister. Chris Diana, counsel for the OPP. Just bear with me for a moment while I set my timer. All right. Perhaps, Mr. Clerk, if we can start by bringing up document SSM.NS.CAN00000625. And while this document is coming up, Prime Minister, it’s the transcript of your call with the Premiers to situate you in time and place, which I believe was February 14th in the morning. Is that correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
All right. If we could turn to page 6, please? Scroll down a little bit. Where it says “PM” on the second line down. I’m just going to read it out. It says: “On a personal note, everything I’ve heard [about] RCMP and OPP have been excellent. OPP commissioner regarded very highly by federal officials. Windsor operation was outstanding. Will continue to collaborate.” So I take it that that’s what you were hearing from your senior officials? That the OPP had been very effective to date?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that would have been in accordance with your own personal views over what you had seen in recent days happening in Ontario in any event; right?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And I take it that your government had full confidence in the OPP to discharge its policing responsibilities within the Province of Ontario?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, but my point is, you -- and this is not a call where the media was on, this was you were talking to the Premiers, and you, without prompting, brought up the OPP and the OPP Commissioner. So I take it that your government was satisfied with what it had seen at the time of that call with the OPP?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And because by that point, and we’ve established earlier in your evidence that the Ambassador Bridge had been fully opened to traffic; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that was an OPP-led enforcement?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
We also know at that point, I think you testified that you were aware that the OPP had sent subject matter experts to lead the integrated planning team in Ottawa?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And they were working with other police services, but you may have heard some of the evidence of Carson Pardy who was leading the exercise from the OPP; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And you also mentioned some other areas of difficulty in Ontario. You mentioned the Bluewater Bridge, you mentioned Fort Erie. Those were the other areas the OPP was actively engaged in; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And to your knowledge, there were never -- there was never an occupation or a blocking of either of those crossings?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. And the OPP were actively engaged in those movements; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Right. Now in that context, where the OPP is active across the Province of Ontario, you would agree that OPP Commissioner Carrique could have provided valuable input on what tools might be useful under the Emergencies Act?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
No, and fair enough. And you may not have heard the evidence. Both Deputy Minister Stewart and Commissioner Lucki thought that the OPP had been consulted, but in fact, they had not been. And I guess what I’m putting to you is the notion that if we’re dealing with a question of either necessary or useful tools, if a protest is happening in Ontario, it would be a good idea to seek some input from the OPP; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And that can be done quickly from Commissioner to Commissioner; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
And for purposes of transparency -- and Commissioner, I understand I’ve hit my five- minute mark, this is my last question. For purposes of transparency, we know that there is a consultation record, as we’ve seen here, when you talk with the Premiers, that there should also be a written record of consultation with law enforcement so that for accountability purposes, when we go back and take a look at the circumstances in terms of the tools, that there’s no ambiguity about what was needed or what tools might be useful. Would you agree with that suggestion?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
So you would agree with my suggestion then; correct?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
You wouldn’t disagree then?
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister.
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Christopher Diana, Counsel (ON-OPP)
Thank you, Commissioner. As you heard in the evidence of Inspector Marcel Beaudoin of the OPP, the OPP is impartial on the issues underlying any particular dispute. That’s fundamental to policing any protest is the notion of impartiality. Consistent with that commitment to impartiality, the OPP takes no position on whether or not the Government of Canada ought to have invoked the Emergencies Act. That is not a question for law enforcement. That is a decision to be made by the Government of Canada. But it was obvious that an important factual issue would relate to whether or not police services could deal with the protest within existing powers and authorities. As I forecast in my opening submission, the evidence you consistently heard from OPP witnesses and, indeed, many witnesses from other police services, was that while the tools were useful to varying degrees, they were not necessary. Ambassador Bridge was cleared without those tools. The Ottawa protest would have been cleared without those tools. You’ve heard about Blue Water Bridge, Fort Erie, other areas in Ontario which were not subject to blockades or occupations because of the work of the OPP using existing tools. So it’s an important discussion that we’ve had and that we’ll have in our written submissions about what are those existing authorities. It’s the position of the OPP that there were sufficient legal authorities within statute and common law to, for example, set up exclusion zones and the Emergencies Act was not required for that purpose. I think we need to be careful, Commissioner, with how we look at this issue of existing authorities and those authorities, common law especially, should not be so narrowly construed in support of an argument in favour of the Emergencies Act that police services lose the ability to act. In other words, the way we interpret the common law will be important for understanding what police can do in the future under the common law, so I think it’s an important discussion and certainly I’ll be submitting case law in that respect in our written submissions. With respect to towing, we heard a lot of evidence. Ultimately, I think, that the -- where the evidence lands was useful -- provided useful tools for indemnification and for sure business purposes, but the email from the OPP subject matter expert indicated that it was not used to compel tow trucks. You’ve heard a lot of evidence about the policing response and the involvement of the OPP. That response started well before the convoy arrived with Project Hendon. You’ve heard about the broad distribution of Hendon in order to break down silos. The Prime Minister today actually spoke about silos within the federal law enforcement sphere and expressed concern about how those silos could have an impact. The Hendon Reports went to all of those federal law enforcement agencies to try to avoid that concern. As early as January 20th, you’ve heard that there was intelligence that suggested this would not just be a weekend event. And I agree with my friend that, you know, hindsight is 20/20, but it’s fair to say that the Hendon Reports and the teleconferences provided significant information to law enforcement across the country. OPP was not the police service of jurisdiction in Ottawa or Windsor, but worked to provide assistance in a number of ways that I won’t go over now. The effectiveness and professionalism of the OPP and its Commissioner has been a consistent theme in the evidence from a number of witnesses, including former Chief Sloly. I referenced the Ipperwash Inquiry in my opening for a reason. Those recommendations fundamentally changed the way the OPP engages in policing, the framework, Provincial Liaison Team, operational independence, and the reporting relationship between the Commissioner and the Deputy Minister. All of these are legacies of Ipperwash, and I will explore themes in more detail in my written submissions. But it’s fair to say that there needs to be a broader understanding amongst the policing community of the importance and effectiveness of some of these tools. There may be some gaps with respect to some of those among certain police services. I understand that those recommendations from Ipperwash are in evidence, and I expect will be valuable to you in your consideration of this matter. Commissioner, the OPP asks that you consider recommending consultation with the OPP before invoking the Emergencies Act, assuming there’s an Ontario component. That can be done quickly, as between RCMP and OPP Commissioners, and can be done on a hypothetical basis so as not to betray any Cabinet confidence. And for purposes of accountability and review, there should be a written record of such consultation. And of course, our written submissions will more clearly articulate these and other issues and other potential recommendations. The OPP’s been very pleased to participate in this important process. I want to thank you and others. Thank you.