Diane Deans
Diane Deans spoke 652 times across 2 days of testimony.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I will affirm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
My name is Diane Deans, D-I-A- N-E D-E-A-N-S.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Good morning.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I am.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I have.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do not.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That is correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Daily, sometimes multiple times a day.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That is accurate.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was very -- it was the first indication that I had that this was happening, and I hadn't been following it in the media, so it was the first time I sort of took stock that there was this convoy rolling across the country heading to the nation's capital. So it was basically we know about this, we're working with intelligence agencies to gather information, they're coming at us, and we're preparing for them to arrive on Friday.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't -- the timeline's a little fuzzy in my head, but I don't believe at that very first briefing they had that much detail. They just sort of conveyed to me that this was happening. There was a Council meeting on the 26th. I had asked the mayor if we could come to Council and brief Council on it when we were getting more information, but he said no, so I called a meeting of the Board on the 26th when there was more information shared.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, it's interesting because, you know, I was starting to watch what was happening coming across the country. I was aware that there was large trucks. I was aware that, you know, they seemed to be picking up some steam as they rolled across the country. I was aware of this unique situation where they were gathering a lot of money through a GoFundMe site. So, you know, I understood that it was coming at us quickly and that it was different than things had - - you know, other -- we see a lot of protests in Ottawa. Everyone that lives here knows that, but this one did feel different. And, you know, it said could go on for a prolonged period. I had discussed with Chief Sloly that possibility, and what I recall Chief Sloly saying to me is that he would be very surprised if they were still here on Monday.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, it was on the Thursday, so I guess it was this day, the 25th, because I had phoned him several times. And, you know, the more I was watching this, the more concerned I was getting. And he said to me, "What are you so worried about?" And I told him just what I told you, the number of trucks, the size of those trucks, the amount of money that they have. And he said that he would be surprised if they were still here on Monday.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I think this is different. I mean, I think that there was a recognition that this was unique among demonstrations. I don't think we knew how unique it was going to be in the end, but I think there was, you know -- just watching the whole thing unfold as it moved across the country was something that we really hadn't seen often.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, as I said, I had asked the Mayor to allow us to come to Council and share that information through the Council process and include the Board members. He didn't want to do that. So I still felt that it was important, based on what I was hearing and seeing, that we provide an update to the Board and that they have an opportunity to ask any questions they had.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did speak to Chief Sloly about this, and he did -- he didn't share the intelligence information with me, but he did tell me that he did not feel that anything that they were receiving through Intelligence channels would lead them to believe that this was other than a protest that would come and go in a typical fashion.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
During a one-on-one call.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
They did not provide the Board with a detailed operational plan. In fact, we never saw a detailed operational plan throughout until close to the very end. We were given assurances that there were operational plans in place to address the situation.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I can't recall.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
They -- the Board was asking about the plan. I don't know that we ever asked for a detailed briefing. I know I had had conversations with Chief Sloly about the plan, and my impression of what he was saying to me is that they didn't want to share too much detail, but they, you know, they were providing assurance that there was planning in place.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I think as the protests went on, the Board became more interested in a lot more of the details of the planning.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We discussed the high level priority, which was that, you know, we recognised the right of protesters to come to our city and protest in a peaceful way. That we recognised the volatility of this situation. We recognised that our Number 1 goal is that there would be no serious injury or loss of life to anyone.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think we were sympatico with the service on what those high level priorities were.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't believe that that question specifically was asked until after they got here and we started seeing what was happening, unfortunately. But you can see here what we were told, that it was, you know, flexible layers of scalable resources, and maximum flexibility. But I don't think we got into the details of that. And I -- soon after their arrival, I started asking those questions, like why did we let them in here. Yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think that we were aware there was a possibility that they wouldn't all leave, but listening to the Chief, the probability was that they would. So I -- you know, and the Chief was also telling me that we had negotiators speaking with representatives of the convoy, and he was conveying to me that they were representative of about 70 percent of the people that were here, and that not 100 percent. So that even when there was discussions, there was some potential that what they were learning wasn't necessarily always going to take place. So I think there was the sense that things could be different than the anticipation.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, they’re -- I mean, I think the level of detail I had is that they were working with the organizers and that they believed, or maybe it was hopefulness, I don’t know, but I had the impression that they believed that they were going to leave.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not to the best of my recollection.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, my impression is that there’s a sense at the OPS that being the nation’s capital, we’ve seen a lot, in terms of large-scale events in this city. And generally speaking, there is coordination with, you know, the other policing agencies that occupy space in the City of Ottawa, and that that kind of thing would continue in this. But in terms of looking for extraordinary, you know, assistance, at this point, that wasn’t being discussed.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t believe so.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I think that’s fair. I didn’t know about this information, so didn’t know what to ask for, but, you know, hindsight is a great thing, but in hindsight, yeah, I would have liked to have this information and would have liked to know about it.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
In my -- my initial goal for that meeting on the 26th was to share the information that was available. Of course, I didn’t have the benefit of knowing what information was available, apparently. So, you know, I didn’t know that there was perhaps some intelligence information that could have been shared. I guess I really had the impression from Chief Sloly that intelligence information was not to be shared. So maybe a lesson learned there, but I had the impression intelligence information is kept in very close proximity to the people on a need-to-know basis and that it’s not generally shared.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
My impression is this information was not going to be shared with the Board what they were receiving intelligence. I mean, Chief Sloly was telling me things like, you know, “We’re not getting any messages from intelligence agencies that it’s other than protest. We expect them to be gone on Monday.” That’s what -- the message I was getting.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I guess I took Chief Sloly at his word.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Of course.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well a lot of the protestors did leave on Sunday night, but the expectation was a lot more of them were going to go than actually vacated the Parliamentary precinct. And Chief Sloly was telling me that they had negotiators, they were talking to them, they were still hopeful that they were going to clear out. And I think it was really about the Thursday that the conversations had broken down and it appeared that there were more people coming back on that second weekend, that it really resonated with me that, you know, perhaps it was a bit of wishful thinking that they were going to be able to get this wrapped up and gone after that horrific first weekend. And then the thought of going through a second weekend with more people, you know, wreaking havoc in our neighbourhoods in the downtown core was disturbing.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Chief Sloly.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, I believe that’s correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
So there was some conflict and I was being advised by some people that I needed to limit the number of meetings that we were calling because police resources were stretched thin and every time I called a meeting, it took a whole lot of police resources off the street and off the front- line, and that they needed to prepare for that time consuming endeavour, so we needed to package up questions that we had and filter them through the communications department of police to try and give as much flexibility to police to do their primary job, which was to try to shut down the occupation of our city. So I was trying to be respectful of that, but also, I was in touch with Chief Sloly a lot, I was communicating with Board Members and with Members of Council as they requested. But the Vice-Chair of our Board, Sandy Smallwood, who has been on the Board a lot longer than I had, and has connections across the country, one of the things that he was doing was speaking with other experts in the field of police governance and talking about what we needed to be doing as a Board. And Sandy and I were talking regularly about that because, you know, we’re finding our way in something -- I’d never been through something like this before and it was new to us. And we were very concerned. We were cognisant of the -- what happened in Toronto with the G20, very aware of the Morden report. I’ve read the Morden report again through that process and we didn't -- we wanted to make sure that we were doing things properly. And so, Mr. Smallwood was in touch professor Andy Graham at Queens University, he was in touch with Alok Mukherjee who had been the Chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, he was in touch with other experts across the country. And Sandy and I were talking frequently about this, and on the Saturday morning we had this conversation about the depth of questioning that we as a Board were doing, and I had decided at that point that I needed a lot more detail about what the resource requirement was. Because our -- the Board is an oversight body. It has very limited roles, but what we need -- our primary mandate is to ensure adequate and effective policing in the City of Ottawa, and I wasn't feeling comfortable that we could -- we were meeting that test. And so, I decided that I needed to call an emergency Board meeting on that Saturday, to put really a simple question to the Chief, and that was, what do you need? What will it take to end this occupation of our city? And that was the purpose, it was sort of the sole purpose of that meeting, to get to the heart of the resource issue and what it would take for us to restore peace to our city.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, the police and their communications people. I listened to Serge Arpin’s testimony the other day, where he noted he had also suggested to me that we not call a lot of Board meetings because it was consuming resources that were needed elsewhere.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Vaguely.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
At that point, yes. I mean, we were kind of -- we were kind of finding our way, in terms of not taking up too much time and making sure that we were getting the information that we felt we needed in the performance of our oversight role.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That’s correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, it varied. There were a lot of police agencies that were offering to assist the City of Ottawa, there was Hamilton and Peel, I think Toronto, Cornwall, there were a lot, and they were coming and going. They were freeing up resources as they could and some of them would stay for a week, some of them would stay for a number of days. We were taking what we could get because we were in need of all of the help we could get at that point. And so, there were other events they would take them back, for example the convoy decided to go to Toronto in that, I think it was the second weekend. And so a lot of the GTA resources that had come to Ottawa got sucked back out of Ottawa to help with the City of Toronto.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, we were grateful for the help that we were getting from those other policing agencies. But you know, this was I think the 1st, and it was the 5th when I had actually really drilled down with chief Sloly in that meeting that I called, the special meeting, and said we need to know exactly what this is going to take to end this occupation of our city, and I need to see detail on that. Like, what is it, who is it? And you need to lay that out. And I think that was a turning point.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, they were -- I guess that was my issue. They were more vague, in that Chief Sloly, and I can't exactly remember the timeline, you probably have it there. But Chief Sloly had made a comment that there may not be a policing solution. I can't recall what day he said that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
The 2nd.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Okay. He had made that comment and it sort of sent a ripple through the city and the downtown core, and a lot of observers of what was happening there, because it wasn’t entirely understood. But it was alarming that the Chief of Police is saying there may not be a policing solution to this situation. And I guess what I took it to mean is that, there wasn't a policing solution locally with OPS, and OPS is -- it's a city police service. It does community policing, and emergency response, and a lot of other things, and certainly it involves itself in large scale events, because we are the national capital and we have over time. But we hadn't seen something like this before. It was clearly different, had a different flavor. You know, the whole thing was not like anything anyone had seen in the city before, and I think it had become clear to Chief Sloly that we did not have the resources inside Ottawa police. Nor did we have the expertise in terms of, you know, setting out a real plan on how you're going to get this tiger by the tail, inside police. We just hadn't had much experience with this, and so that's what I took from what Chief Sloly, is that we're going to need a lot of help, and that's what I took him to mean from that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Um, no, I ---
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I came to that conclusion. I can't specifically say it to you, he specifically said that to me, but I got there in terms of understanding that, and maybe it was later. Because once the RCMP and the OPP embedded into our command centre and they had a joint command structure where are they brought with them those kinds of resources, we were starting to see things coming together.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think they were just saying we need help, but my issue when I called that meeting later that week on the Saturday, was that we needed to enunciate what that was.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think so.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think it was Trish Ferguson.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t remember specifically Trish answering this, but I know there was one discussion around an injunction. There was -- I mean it’s interesting now that you put it in front of us, but there was a lot going on here. It was as whirlwind for 20 days and it’s hard to remember every single thing that every person said and ordered, so it’s nice we have notes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I phoned David White, who was the City Solicitor, to talk about the issue of an injunction, because it was one of the tools that occurred to me that was in the toolbox that could provide some help. And I had that conversation with David and it was a bit -- it went a bit like this; it was like ---
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Maybe then if I could just broadly answer your question; I think that the part that says there was a clear indication that an injunction might be the worst way to go, I think they were referring to the concern if they wrote an injunction in a way that it was denied by a court.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think it might have been Chief Sloly.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There seemed to be a view that there was a Charter right to allow those vehicles into that area. And also I had taken that up with the City Manager, Steve Kanellakos in an email exchange I did with Mr. Kanellakos, and he said that there were no other places for the vehicles to go basically, so -- that seemed to be their view, those sort of conflicting views, but the two that I had heard at the time when the vehicles were there.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
She, at the time, was the Board advisor from the Solicitor General’s Office.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t believe I was on that call.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We were -- the Board was very cognisant of our role as an oversight body, and we -- you know, we really had the problems that the Toronto Police Services Board had gotten into during the G20 in the forefront of our mind, we didn't want to go down the same path and make the same mistakes. So we were trying to, in real time, I guess, learn from that and seek as much advice as we could about our role and, you know, the art of the possible, what we were allowed to do, where that line was. And you know, it might be a little bit foggy to some people, but Morden shed a lot of light on it in their report. And it's a valuable document, and we wanted to understand the Solicitor General's interpretation on some of that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
So the Morden Report, basically, is sort of a guideline for what happens in this kind of a large event situation, large scale situation, and where that line between the oversight and the operations is. And I think what Morden was pointing out, and my understanding, is the Board can -- the Board cannot direct the Chief in terms of Operations, but the Board can certainly ask questions about the plan, the details of the plan. The Board can asks questions about the resource requirements, what the Service needs, and the Board can work to assist the Service in those areas. And so -- and you know, all of that, with the backdrop of our mandate, is to ensure the provision and adequate and effective policing. So we were in this situation trying to learn from the Morden Report and make sure that we were ultimately fulfilling our oversight role.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I would suggest to you that there was -- it was just a resource issue. Our Board office has an executive director and one administrative assistant. And there was an awful lot coming at that Board office during this, and I think it was just a resource issue.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
This was for additional, mostly boots on the ground officers. Yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
See, that was the issue. I -- they weren't providing them with, in my estimation, enough information about the resource requirement, they're just saying "we need help, and send what you can." And to me, that wasn't good enough, it wasn't clear enough. That's why I ultimately called that meeting on the Saturday.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was in constant touch with Chief Sloly. We were talking about resources every day, how many were there, how many were coming, how many were going. You know, they -- what was possible with the resources that we had? We're getting requests from members of Council, especially in the impacted areas, to send more resources, we don't have more resources. We have a police service by now that is very tired. We've had people working overtime, they have been working under very stressful conditions, they haven't had any time off. And we know that there is a real need for more assistance.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, in one conversation, I can't tell you the day because it's all kind of melded together in my mind, but in one conversation with the Chief, I mean he was saying, "The resources that we're getting now are just allowing us to do what we're doing, they're not allowing us to advance any further. And you know, we have a whole city to police out there, it's not just the downtown, and we've pulled resources out of that as well, but you know, it's not sustainable."
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe it was.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was the weekend. A lot more people had come to town. They were wreaking havoc, honking horns, having parties on Parliament Hill, you know, really terrorising our residents, and it was just going on and on. And I felt at that point we're spinning our wheels, and something more had to be done, something had to change. And I was getting frustrated. And we're probably going to talk about this later, but I didn't know that there were issues, you know, that the RCMP and the OPP had because nobody told me that. But I couldn't understand why the resources weren't coming, but in my mind we needed to enunciate exactly the resource requirement and what that was for, and what it would take. I mean, we'd had the Chief say publicly that there was perhaps no policing solution. I took it to mean we didn't have enough at Ottawa Police, so what did we need? What would it take? What did that look like to bring it to an end? And by Saturday, I was just -- I think I was just, you know, at my wit's end, honestly. And I was just bombarded with constituents, and calls from members of Council, and calls from Board members, and people with all kinds of suggestions, and what we might be thinking of doing, from bringing in the army to everything else. And I'm -- and I just -- trying to be rational about this and think we need to lay out exactly what we need, and we need to do it now. And I phoned Chief Sloly and I said, "I'm going to call a special Board meeting and I'm going to ask you what it would take in terms of resource requirement to bring this thing to an end, and I want you to answer that question." And, I mean, he was really busy. I understood that. He didn't want me to do that meeting, but I just felt it had to be done.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We were advised that there were plans in place, there were pieces of plans, and, you know, that they were working -- it was an evolving strategy, as I understood it. As things evolved, the plan was evolving, and there -- and being worked on in sort of real time. But I just - - I was looking for more detail.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
The next day the Chief came back and provided more detail. He provided a list of his resource requirements and what that looked like in terms of officers and other civilians that would be useful in the overall plan.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Okay.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't remember how much information they gave us on, like, detail -- laying out we're going to do this on this day and this on this day. We didn't get that level of detail. Until the very, very end, we were starting to see those levels of here it is, but my impression was it wasn't that well hatched at that point.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. Well, I think the ultimate goal was to bring it to an end. I know that some of their strategies were specifically targeted to specific installations. And, you know, I guess they felt that it was methodical. You had to do things in a certain order and, you know, address one issue before you addressed the next issue, and it was a resource requirement. I guess, the more resources we had, the more they could move forward.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. But, I mean, yes, I was aware of them coming in, but it was -- there was some creative math around how many resources were actually there and who knew they were there and on the ground, because there were three shifts, I believe. One time there were 10-hour shifts. They moved to 12-hour shifts. So to get the -- to really get a clear understanding of how many police officers at any one time were, you know, in active service was a bit difficult.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, it's such a good question because, you know, we were hearing that there were more resources than we were seeing. And Chief Sloly and I, not just this day, but many days had conversations about who was there, and who was saying what, and what those officers were, and both from the provincial perspective. I mean, I think Sylvia Jones actually dialed back. She said they had sent 1500 officers. They had done no such thing. And but she did actually walk that back later and said that's actually not correct. And then some of the RCMP officers weren't under the command of Ottawa Police for the purpose of this demonstration. They were doing other things. So there was some creative accounting when it came to the number of police that were available for this occupation.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, in practice, they're not all on the ground at the same time, obviously, because you have shifts, either two shifts or three shifts a day. So, you know, that many are approved that are available, but in the case of those 257, I believe some of those were ones that weren't under our command. So we -- I mean, it sounded like we had 257, but we didn't. We had far less.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe it was Chief Sloly.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, just ---
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
--- that we didn't have the tools that we needed in terms of this specific convoy with large 18-wheel vehicles to be able to effectively address legal issues around that, because this had not perhaps ever been considered in terms of criminal code or even our own Ottawa bylaws in the past.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t know that I would say I understood it just to mean enforcement authority. I think I understood it to mean that the actual policies that were in place under those Acts were insufficient to deal with this particular event.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I honestly can’t recall what those would have been now.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Most of the information the Board was receiving was provided by Chief Sloly. Some of it was provided by Deputy Chief Bell, and others was provided by Acting Deputy Chief Ferguson, but most of the information conveyed to the Board -- I mean, really, the Police Service and the command, senior command, was the Board’s really only point of information.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think that the Board was increasingly becoming concerned that there wasn’t enough of a plan. And I can’t specifically remember that conversation, or who had raised it in-camera, but I think the point was that there was some pressure being brought to bear on the Chief for more detail around that plan.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You know, there’s always this little push and pull between an oversight body and the service itself, and the senior command. And you know, if you talk to chiefs across the country, it wasn’t just ours, they will tell you that we’re only entitled to this much and we can’t interfere. And there is some tension between boards and the service in this regard. And I think it’s fair to say that as this occupation of our city continued, the Board started pushing harder and harder for more details around that plan and were perhaps a little embolden in recognizing that we needed that information.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t remember those words, but, you know, I definitely had the impression that we didn’t have the resources to bring about an end to this occupation. He’d made that very clear. So yes, you need to understand your resource availability in having an operational plan.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well I think in fairness, there was a lot of frustration and we all wished that there was more we could do. You know, this is Councillor Meehan’s statement, that she felt that we were watching from the sidelines. I mean, I don’t think I necessarily fully share that sentiment that’s expressed here, but certainly the role of the Police Services Board in terms of oversight is limited.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean, I think I’ve described that to you earlier, that we felt we could push for more details of a plan, we felt we could high-level set an expectation, we thought we could assist in the acquisition of resources from other police services and use our political channels to perhaps put pressure on other levels of government to shake loose those resources that we needed.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That’s right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I mean a good question for the Chief, but the -- I think it boiled down, again, to lack of resources. I mean, they secured one area, but the plan was to secure the entire area, and they didn’t manage to do that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Chief Sloly and I spoke about some of those issues around the failure. Again, I think our focus was on the resources that were needed and what was happening there. And you know, a lot of information about, you know, did they have more information, did the freedom convoy people have more information about that operation than we anticipated? Did we have enough resources? But it didn’t go well. I mean, that was the bottom line. And again, it came down to having a plan that we could operationalize and having the boots on the ground to make it happen.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. There were a lot of concerns. By this time I think there was, you know, a growing lack of faith in the City, in the Police Service and just about everyone to get this job done. There were frustrations being spoken about, about how By- law Services was or was not assisting and, you know, I had heard issues around By-law Services giving our own citizens in those areas tickets but failing to ticket the Freedom Convoy members. There was just a lot of frustration. So, you know, we’re trying to practically assess are there by-laws that we could focus on right now, in real time, that would be of assistance to help with the situation we’re in.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think we could have passed new by-laws if they would be helpful, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, just tell us what we’re not doing as a municipality. I mean this is where wearing my hat as a member of Council and the Mayor wearing his hat as the head of Council, to say, well, if they’re shortcomings in our by-laws that are an impediment to progress here, then tell us what by-laws you need fixed and what that would like that and we’ll take it from there.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t think so.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, the difficulty in enforcing by-laws was specific to some of the by-laws we were asking them to enforce, and if there were other by-laws that would be useful. I mean I think just the exercise of passing a by-law in the middle of this and bringing attention to it might have been helpful, and there might have been by-laws that Chief Sloly could have assisted -- could have identified that were enforced.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was on the 6th; I think this meeting is on the 6th -- it was on the 6th, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct. Well, it was a response to the discussion the day prior and to the meeting of the Board on the 5th.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Generally-speaking, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do not believe we were.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do not know.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean that would be a question I think best put to Chief Sloly.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Can you just repeat that question?
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, certainly I was aware that the Chief was frustrated in being stonewalled in getting the resources he believed he needed. I was not aware that the Mayor was reluctant to sign the letter.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not to the best of my recollection.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M’hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean I took it as generally positive that the lines of communication at the police level were open; they were going to continue to discuss it. I guess, you know -- we’re politicians; we sent the letter between politicians to try and put a little pressure because Chief Sloly was expressing concern that he wasn’t getting the resources at the policing level that he needed. And so, you know, my feeling was we needed to exert some political pressure on the process.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That is correct. They were not helpful to us in this situation unless they were embedded in the OPS and deployable.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, we -- yeah, you may be correct. I wasn't at any of the swearing in personally.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
But the swearing in was done by the CEO of Ottawa Police. It was done twice daily, I believe, at nine in the morning and nine in the evening. And it was flexible, so if there was a need to do it any other time, Blair was flexible to do that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I guess ---
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I -- so I would do the approval, and then the CEO would do the swearing in. There was -- I asked Blair Dunker about this, was there any delay on our end in swearing in officers and her answer was no.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Presumably, there's some -- I mean, that's an operational issue, so probably best to put to the Chief, but I presume there's some sort of training that goes with, you know, being deployed under the OPS and, you know, our specific issues and then they would be deployed.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was occurring throughout. When they'd send me a pile of MOUs, I would sign them.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It would come before the swearing in.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was aware through Chief Sloly that the numbers that he was actually seeing on the ground and the numbers that were being communicated were different.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I'm not aware of that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That information was not shared with me or with the Board. And I was actually a little bit surprised to hear that City officials were given information in that regard that was not shared with the police oversight body.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I didn't have a vantage point on where the holdup was. It's just the way it was communicated to me was more that there was confusion or, you know, some sort of creative accounting in the actual numbers, but what was being spoken about and the reality were different, but that was as far as it went.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
They were -- we had not seen the full plan.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think this was the real point of tension in the whole thing that we needed to have a solid plan, they needed to be properly resourced, and there was this continuing tension that we weren't getting the resources that we needed. And by then, there -- you know, the incidents had happened in I think Coutts, Alberta and the Ambassador Bridge and other places, and there appeared that the resources load easier to other locations then they'd flown to Ottawa. So it was a point of contention.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
And I know because I was listening to the testimony in the last 48 hours that City officials were made aware of that, but they did not communicate that to myself as Chair of the Board or to the Board.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Just I think they were similar threats, threats that other officials were receiving. They were extremely aggressive, mostly by telephone call. I had forwarded the most egregious ones to the Ottawa Police Service who followed up. They offered me -- they offered security. I turned it down. I didn’t think I needed to take those resources. And I believe that some of the most egregious one, which were, you know, threats of murder and -- it was -- they were ugly. I mean I -- some of them weren’t even coming from inside the country so -- but one of my assistants, a young woman that works for me and was the person on the frontline because she answered the phone, was very, very upset by some of the messages that we received and I ended up giving here some time off work because she was so triggered by it.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. Yeah, there -- there were a number of them. Like, there were a number of them and, yeah, they were definitely linked to the occupation of the City and comments that I had made publicly that they took exception to.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It’s a tough question because what they were talking about publicly was, you know, that they would send more than this, but the commitments that were being made at the police-to-police level, I couldn’t answer that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe that is the case.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right. As I said, almost all the information the Board was receiving was through that sole channel.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I know there was starting to be conversations about what tools would be available to assist. I can’t recall any details. I know I was actually receiving calls from lawyers who were also my constituents suggesting that we needed to ask for enactment of special, you know, help, whatever that would look like, because this was not being resolved and the anxiety was just growing and the public concern was growing. And it wasn’t about people’s freedom to protest; it was about the occupation of our city and the disruption of people’s daily lives.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t know who made that statement.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t remember. I don’t think I can comment on it because I don’t think I have a clear enough recollection.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe it would be OPS. When they come under our command, it would be OPS that would make those deployment decisions.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You'll have to give me a minute. I mean, large scale, it shows the number of deployments, I believe by shift, and it shows the officers from each municipality, Durham, London, Peel, York that were here; the numbers from OPP that were here; RCMP; and then other municipal services.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe these are officers that have been deployed.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't know if I was terribly impressed one way or the other with it. I mean, it was just -- it's a chart, it's information, it's showing that we have a pretty specific understanding of who's here on shifts and where they're from.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
This is getting closer to the end and the logjam seemed to be breaking. And at the time, my understanding is because the command centre had integrated RCMP and OPP into the command. And once they were integrated in the command centre and started having more of a senior role in terms of decision making, they were freeing up more resources.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It's a short term. Yes, I believe it did.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t have that number off the top of my head, but I do know that when the ultimate climax occurred that the number of resources deployed were very similar to the number that Chief Sloly had weeks before told us that he needed.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
John? He's the Communications Director for Ottawa Police.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was a little frustrated that Toronto City Council seemed to get more -- or Toronto Police Board seemed to get more information from their senior command than we got from ours, and we had been asking and asking. And so I just got to the point where I want the whole thing laid out.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, the line that you just read to us, the Board members were briefed on the details of the operational plan including the priorities and objectives for the operation and had opportunities to ask the chief to -- and obtain further information. I mean, I never felt that we were briefed on all of the details of the operational plan. I mean, given there was one day -- well, sort of melding together in my mind -- but there was one day when there was an intention to go in with an operation to take out the installation at the corner of Rideau and Sussex, and the chief had not given me the details of the plan, but he told me that there was a significant operation to occur that evening, and it didn’t happen. And so I just -- at that point, I just felt like we weren’t getting the whole story. We weren’t getting enough information. I just felt the Board, as the oversight body, needed to understand more about the operation, so I was pushing harder. I was -- from the beginning to where we are now, two and a half weeks in, or whatever it is -- and maybe my patience is running a little thin -- but I wanted more information about what was happening, what we needed to do, and how this was going to end.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No. I didn’t know it was possible. I mean, I hadn’t been around that long. You know, I was in my first term as Chair of the Board and so I mean, this was a bit of a learning curve for me too.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We were getting little snippets.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
But we weren’t getting a whole plan.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I think you can sort of see it in the flow of information and in just the information you put up here this morning that it was getting like, okay, now I wanted -- I want the number, I want the resource requirement, I want the plan, I want it -- I want to see the details. And it was like that. It was -- I think it was growing as we went along, and we were realizing we weren’t getting information. And I have to say, through this Commission I’ve realized there was a lot more information the Board was not privy to that the City was. It was very frustrating.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I would have to look back at the motions that we did. I know we certainly were asking for it. Were we directing it through motion? I’m not sure.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean, we were working together. I mean, this was a -- this was a tough situation. It wasn’t -- you know, it wasn’t that we wanted to create any more angst for the Chief than he was already under. We’re just trying to assist him in bringing about an end to this, and be as useful as possible and ensure that, as the oversight body, we were doing our job. So it wasn’t -- it wasn’t -- it wasn’t a relationship that I would describe as, “We’re going to tell you what to do because you’re not doing it.” And it was more conversational. It was like, “We’re all working together here, and we need to get this done.”
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I think just what I’ve been describing here this morning, that we’d see parts of a plan; we’d hear little bits about, you know, there’s going to be some form of an operation. But, you know, I recall at one point Chief Sloly telling me that he couldn’t share the details because, you know, obviously the element of surprise is important in these operations and if you start sharing the details, the City has a way of that not becoming a secret for very long. So I mean, on one level I kind of accepted that because I know that to be true. But on the other hand, I just felt that we needed more.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M’hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
She’s a principal at Navigator, which is a crisis communications firm that the Ottawa Police Service uses to assist in communications in lieu of having a communications -- a full-blown communications department at OPS.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
She was advising the Service, but I was also speaking to her.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was worried that there -- I mean, I knew they were working on a plan. I knew there were pieces of a plan. I knew there had been some operations. But I was just increasingly becoming concerned that there wasn’t a soup-to-nuts plan to bring this thing to a peaceful, expeditious end.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
The Chief was under intense stress. Throughout this I was -- I was just doing wellness checks with him. I was just calling to say, “Are you okay?” I mean, he had the weight of the city on his shoulders. He was getting it from every corner; from the public, from Council, from the Board, from internal sources inside police that were -- I mean, I think some of them using it to get to Chief Sloly. I mean, there was a lot going on and I was concerned for Chief Sloly. He was our coach, if you will, and we had a crisis and we needed to see this through, and I -- it was not my goal to add to his anxiety level. It was my goal to support him and to support the Service and to assist them to get the resources they need to get this job done.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I would have to check through the minutes. I just can’t recall offhand what the motions that we did were.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Pertaining to the Freedom Convoy?
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not that I specifically recall.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, we are the employer for the Ottawa Police Service, and we are Chief Sloly’s employer, so to the extent that we have an employee/employer relationship, there are tools available. Some of them are hammers. I mean, one is suspension; I mean, I don’t think -- that’s a big hammer in the middle of a crisis. So, you know, the tools that are available, in my mind, it wasn’t about that. I wasn’t focused on that so much as I was focused on working together. My view, we needed to be in the same boat; we needed to be rowing in the same direction. We didn’t need to be infighting or fighting amongst ourselves or, you know, calling each other out; we needed to be working collaboratively every step of the way at all levels to bring this thing to a peaceful end. And I still believe that to this day. I mean, one of the issues I think at play here is that it was new. We didn’t -- it wasn’t like the G20; we didn’t have a lot of preparation time to really get our ducks in a row. But we didn’t work as smoothly together; it wasn’t a well-oiled machine, and there were a lot of people, in my estimation, working at cross-purposes here. And everybody, you know, with the best of intentions, let’s assume, but not necessarily working at their very best. And when people aren’t working together, I don’t think you get the best result, and I think that’s what we saw.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe that was aware of that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, it’s so hard to remember the details of, you know, who asked for what when, but I can't tell you how it came about, but I believe I was aware of it.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
With the OPP?
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't have a clear recollection of when they were fully embedded and taking more of a -- they took more of a leadership role coming near the end, which I think was very helpful. But I think it was at that point when they started providing this kind of information.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, yeah. Yes, that’s right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, it was scheduled, I think, for the next day or day after, but then I was gone so I never saw it.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I saw it in the documents that were provided in the run up to this hearing, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't think so.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. So as I was describing to you a little while ago, you know, there was increasing anxiety in this community at all levels, and a lot of the concern was aimed at Chief Sloly. And you know, I told you I was doing wellness checks with him. I was, you know, checking to make sure he was okay, because he's a human being and he was under intense stress, and I felt that that was important to do. And I'd had a conversation with him the week previous and I had made some comment along the lines of, Chief Sloly, you know there's a lot of people in this city that want your head. And he sort of surprised me with the reply that he made. His reply was, well, cut me a check and I'll be out of here. And I didn't expect that, and that didn't know if it was kind of just in passing, if it was flip, it was just you know, frustration in the heat of the moment. I didn't know, I didn't really understand the context necessarily of that comment. But in the days after that, in the next week, there was a lot going on and one of the things that was going on, and you heard it inside of the testimony from the witnesses that came before me, is that members of council were considering a motion to ask Chief Sloly for his resignation in a public forum. I was very opposed to that, that one, it's not City Council’s job, and I know they were under intense pressure too, and they wanted to look like they were doing something, but they were not members of the Police Services Board. Chief Sloly was not their employee, and it was not their job. It was also in my mind, constructive dismissal to ask a public official like that, in heat of the crisis, for his resignation is tantamount in my mind to constructive dismissal. And you know, if I can take a moment to explain the sort of culture that exists at City Hall, the mayor has a group of counselors that are very supportive of his agenda, and generally speaking, will deliver to him any vote on any issue at anytime. And so -- and that's a reality. And I know that no motion of that magnitude would ever see its way onto the floor of council without the mayor’s consent. And so, when I got wind that this was being contemplated, I started asking the mayor's staff if this motion was coming, because I was very concerned about it. I didn't share it with Chief Sloly, I thought he had enough stress, frankly, and if it was never going to see the light of day on the council floor, I wasn't going to tell him about it because he didn't need that stress. But if it was going to see the light of day on the council floor, then I felt that I needed to let him know. So there was that happening, and then there was what I would describe as some sort of insurrection from within that was happening, and there was always some tension in the ranks with Chief Sloly, right from the beginning. The honeymoon for Chief Sloly in this town was short lived and there was always -- I never -- I don't think he ever felt -- maybe I shouldn't speak for him, he can speak for himself, but I don't think he ever really felt entirely supported by his senior command, or by the rank and file inside police. And so, in the midst of a big crisis like this it all comes to a head, that's what happens, crisis sort of beget crisis. And he -- I don't think he had enough support from within, and then I was contacted by, I believe his name was Steven Hoff, a producer at CBC, and he told me that there was a story coming out about Chief Sloly and his behavior inside police, and he offered to share with me the highlights of that story, and they were extremely damning. And they were also disturbing in that, I mean, we at Ottawa police, and the Board is the employer of Ottawa police, and you know, we've spent a lot of time on the issues around workplace sexual harassment violence, and you know, I really take seriously the notion of having a positive working environment. And so, this kind of -- these kinds of serious accusations against our Chief, I mean if I describe them to you in broad strokes it's like, he's yelling at people, and is sort of a tyrannical dictator, I mean that was -- I might be overstating it slightly, but not too much. I mean it was that kind of accusations that clearly came from within the service. And Chief Sloly had been intimating to me that there was infighting occurring inside Ottawa Police. I didn't ask him for a lot of detail on that, nor did he share a lot of detail. He did tell me the Deputy Chief Patricia Ferguson had gotten caught up with some of the wrong elements and that, and he had had to send her home for a number of days, which was in the middle of a crisis so obviously extremely worrisome. He had told me that the Incident Commander had changed more than once during this crisis, and so there was obviously this other problem that we had inside Ottawa police, probably not well known to the public. But inside Ottawa police there's a bit of an insurrection going on and there seems to be -- there seems to be an intent to use this crisis to undermine the Chief further. That was my assessment of what I saw in that situation. And that story, they gave me a heads up, CBC gave me a heads up that they were going to be breaking that story within hours. I believe that was the evening of the 14th, so I called Chief Sloly about 9:30 at night. I asked him -- I talked to him a little bit about the CBC story. I asked him if he was aware of it, which he was. And I just said to him, I said, "Chief Sloly, last week when I spoke to you, you said if we cut you a cheque, that you would be out of here. And I just wanted to ask you if you meant that, or not, or if you wanted to stay." And Chief Sloly said to me that, you know, that he's the Chief of Police. He's put his heart and soul into this operation. He's worked very hard. We're getting close to bringing this thing to an end. He had every intention of seeing it through to the end, and that he wasn't going anywhere. And I said, "Okay, fine, Chief. I just wanted to check with you because, you know, it's going to be a little bit of a rough ride." And I just left him with saying, "If you sleep on it and change your mind, let me know." And the next morning, I think it was about 8:30 in the morning, he called me, and he said, "I want to leave."
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I mean, I heard all the talk about, you know, my Council colleagues wanting to push him out and interfere in all of that, but, no, not directly.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, because in light of the CBC story, the Board felt that we needed to understand our options and expectations that would be upon us and what would be the right thing for the Board to do. And, yeah, so, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We concluded we did not have the authority to remove the Chief. We did conclude that we had the authority to suspend the Chief.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, and -- yeah, the -- yes, it was related to the allegations that CBC were going to run with.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
My personal interactions or my interactions as the Chair of the Board?
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There were some occasions, there -- there had been two issues raised about Chief Sloly's performance that the Board had referred to the OCPC for follow- up. Neither one of those, I believe, have been dealt with. One was an anonymous complaint, and one was a complaint from an inspector at Ottawa Police.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean, I -- Chief Sloly is a very passionate person. Chief Sloly was under intense pressure. And I saw the emotion in him, and I know that he could get very excited. And when I spoke to him about, you know, some of the things that were outlined in that Ottawa -- in the CBC story, he didn't deny that, you know, he had raised his voice and perhaps acted in a manner that he would prefer he had not acted in. But -- and I think he also -- you know, his defence was that it was very stressful at all levels.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
The Board never stated that they had lost faith in Chief Sloly. I do not believe the Board had lost faith in Chief Sloly as the Chair of the Board. I publicly stated my support for him. I did it willingly. I did support the Chief. I did not agree with my Council colleagues interfering. I understood that there were a lot of questions that were being raised and I believed that there would be time after this incident had ended for a post-mortem where we could - - you know, we could consider all of what had happened and, you know, hopefully, learn some lessons from it and make some determinations, if any changes had to be made. But in the midst of this crisis, in my opinion, it was not the time to be questioning the actions of our Chief.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was clear that things were improving. I could not tell you that I understood how imminent the end was.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You know, I've contemplated that so many times since this. I really feel that integrating the OPP and the RCMP into the command centre and giving them more of a role in developing a plan was important because I don't think OPS really had the skillset inside OPS to really build a plan like that. I just don't think they had the experience. So I think having those senior police agencies integrated into the centre had helped a lot in developing a plan. And you started seeing in the stuff you're showing me, you start seeing more of the development of a plan as they integrated. And as they integrated, they started sending more resources and it was always that we were never going to end this thing without a clear plan and without the resources that Chief Sloly had said early on that he needed.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Torigian.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, it is absolutely a hundred percent false. Mr. Arpin did not ask me about this. There are in-camera board minutes available that reviewed this. It was -- the authority was delegated, unanimously delegated. And Mr. Arpin discussing this issue with Board Members frankly was putting them in conflict of the Code of Conduct because this was in-camera information not to be shared. So it’s wrong. He should not have been asking them about this in-camera meeting. And, I mean, if a Member of the Board -- and I don’t -- I wish perhaps you had asked who, but if a Member of the Board did provide that information, I would suggest to you that it was probably a Board Member does not have a lot of governance experience and perhaps did not understand delegated authority. But it was the unanimous vote of the Board.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I had a conversation with the Mayor. I told him that the Board had come to a decision to hire a new chief, Matt Torigian, and that I would be signing a contract that afternoon. The Mayor expressed his concern, I think from a place of not fully understanding all of the internal issues that the Board was aware of, but nonetheless, he's the Mayor of the City and I provided that information in advance of the announcement to him, and out of respect for the Office of the Mayor of the City. And I said to the Mayor, “If you are telling me not to sign that contract, then I will go back to the Board.” But the Board decision had been made. Let’s be clear. The Board -- that was done. And I said, “If you are telling me not to sign the contract, I will go back to the Board.” But the Mayor stopped short of giving me that direction. So we proceeded. In the intervening time, I mean, the Mayor was on the telephone to my colleagues, who in turn were letting me know that he was asking them to unseat me as the Chair of the Board. And by the way, you also heard some testimony in the last couple of days that when I was asking about the council looking to constructively dismiss Chief Sloly, they were also looking to unseat me as Chair of the Board, and I was aware of that, asked them about it, and they said they didn’t know. But nothing comes before Council without the Mayor’s knowledge and consent. So it was pretty clear to me that that was the event that was unfolding. As soon as I left that room, the phone calls started to set up the votes to unseat me. And a member of the media, I recognize it’s hearsay, but it’s a member of the media that I held in high regard that told me that it was the Mayor’s Office that leaked the information about the hiring of Matt Torigian, and the problem with the leaking of that information was that it created, in my estimation, a false narrative about the hiring of a new chief. I mean, they were suggesting to the public that we had abandoned our own process, we didn’t go through, you know, the normal process. And this was a short-term hiring designed to shore up the senior command. We were flying with one wing in our senior command. Senior command normally has two deputies, a chief, and a CEO. We had hired a brand-new CEO, we had one of our deputies was suspended from the service, our chief had just resigned, we were bare bones senior command in the middle of our biggest crisis ever. And so there were a number of considerations that the Board had made in coming to the conclusion that it was in the best interest of the police service and our citizens to go outside. One was to shore up the senior command to get the resources. Frankly, one was to protect Deputy Chief Bell, because in my estimation at the time, anybody that was going to assume that role, if it didn’t come to a positive conclusion quickly, was probably going to, you know, take some of the criticism for it. And I would have expected that he would, in all probability, be a prime candidate to be our next chief and I didn’t want to damage Steve Bell through this process. And frankly, we were looking for depth of experience in these types of issues than we had internal to OPS at the time. And it was basically those three reasons that said, okay, we need to shore up our senior command, we need to get more help from the right people, and we need to protect Deputy Chief Bell. And it was for that reason that we thought hiring someone on an interim basis from outside the service made sense. And with all due respect to the Mayor, I do believe that the Board and the Chair of the Board were in a better position to make that calculation than was he.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
She did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Sure. So when I provided documentation to the Commission, I might be a technological misfit; I don’t know a lot about getting all of this stuff off my telephone. And so effectively -- or off my devices. So I handed over my devices to the City to take whatever they wanted from any of this and then yesterday when I was listening to the Mayor’s testimony on this point -- because in my estimation it was quite inaccurate. I sent a message to my former assistant who is now on a leave of absence from my office, but I said did we -– did they get that document? And she said, no, because it was on my phone, not your phone. And so I had -- Mayor Watson is aware of the existence of this recording because I had shared it with the City’s Integrity Commissioner. So I sent a message to the City’s Integrity Commissioner yesterday and asked if that recording was still in her possession, and it was, and she sent it to me. So I disclosed it this morning to you.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. We saw a lot more detail around the plan.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t recall.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He was.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He was.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That’s correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He was, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I don’t think so but -- I had the impression that the Police Association would have liked to choose their own candidate; I don’t think they were pleased with who our second choice would have been either, from messages that were sent my way. Actually I don’t know initially how much information or knowledge they had of Chief Sloly, but I can tell you that the honeymoon was short-lived.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t recall the details of that, but I’ll take you at your word.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right, and I happen to believe in the right to protest. I’ve participated in some of those protests.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It is.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We have.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
What do you mean?
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't have access to any of the intelligence.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Makes sense.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think what I was saying is we relied on Chief Sloly to provide us that information.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
"...until the government rescinds all COVID restrictions", not the convoy.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That was much more the information that we were getting.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't know how much I really understood the part about there would be some hangers-on, but I guess there's always some hangers-on.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, we would hope to enjoy what Ottawa has to offer and not to continue the protests.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I suppose.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Of course.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't think we demanded operational planning information, I think we, you know, enquired about operational issues in accordance with what we understood that limit to be under the Act.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
A lot.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's fair, yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I will.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It is fair.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M’hm.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Sorry.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t know if that’s why he stepped down. My impression at the time was he stepped down the same day the other two provincial appointees stepped down. And I was left with the definite impression that they got pushed out.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
An example of it? Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not a lot but a very, very high level.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
In Ottawa that’s the kind of detail we were accustomed to getting.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No. Or even as much information as, after I had seen that Toronto report, I thought they were getting.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, okay.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
But no -- okay, carry on.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I heard that evidence.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I don’t think I would agree with you on that. I -- you know, as Chair of the Board, any highly sensitive information that was being shared with the Board, I would have really, you know, read the riot act to the Board members about confidentiality and reminded them of their oath that they took when they joined that Board, and the sensitive nature and potential for putting officers in harms way by leaking that information. So, no, I don’t think I can fully accept your premise.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Okay.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Absolutely.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t believe we asked.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I would like to have seen more detail. I’d also like to have been able to greater satisfy ourselves that there was a plan.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
What days are we talking about? We were seeing more details of a plan as we went on but for a lot of those 20 days, it did not feel that I was getting detailed information about a plan.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Okay.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. And for at least a considerable amount of the time that there was a full plan.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Oh, yes, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I think that was sort of standard practice in some large-scale events that the City hosted in the past, that there was sharing of some resources at that level.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, and it amped up as time went on.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, it wasn’t usual.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He had been asking for help, but we hadn’t -- it’s like, “Send more resources. Send more resources” but I didn’t -- I didn’t have the information what that actually looked like; how much.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
The numbers.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
What would it take, and he had made that comment, as you will recall. He had made that comment about not being certain that there was a policing solution. So, yeah, with all of, like, yeah, we need to understand this better.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Very much so.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe he was very right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Probably had more information than everyone else but, yeah, I think the way this all ended actually did prove that Chief Sloly, what he said early on, was in fact correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
What he asked for?
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe that he was right about what he asked for.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I was in constant touch with Chief Sloly, but we were chatting about -- you know, we had a lot of stuff to talk about, but I also wanted to make sure that he was okay and that he was aware of, you know, what was happening in the broader community, and so we did speak about that.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't know if it was those exact words, but I mean, in a broad sense, that was -- he knew that. I knew that. There were calls for his resignation and you know, I probably crassly described, but I think the sentiment was clear.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No. I mean, that might be what happened the next week in terms of closer to what you're suggesting, but the first week, I mean, I think it -- as I said this morning, I wasn’t certain of the -- what he was trying to convey. Was it just the frustration of the moment, or like, is it something he actually had in his mind? I didn’t have a sense of that. I didn’t pursue it. I had just heard that comment, and it may have been -- and I said this this morning -- it may have just been off the cuff and he may not have meant it at all. I didn’t know. I didn’t pursue it, so I didn’t know. I followed up on a week later.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I asked him if what he had said the week previous was what he was thinking about.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There was -- there were problems in the senior command.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It wasn’t intended to be that. It was -- I don't know how he would interpret it. I was concerned for him, as I said this morning, and was concerned for the story that was going to be coming out from CBC that was casting him in a particularly dark light. And I didn’t know how much he could withstand, and I -- you know, I wasn’t doing it to suggest in any way that he should leave. And when he said no, he was going to see it through that evening, I said, "That’s fine, Chief." It's like, I didn’t want to leave him with the impression that we were pushing him out. That wasn’t the case. It was a conversation. I probably knew more about some council motive than he did because I hadn’t shared that with him, and I -- you know, I just thought it was going to be a tough few days.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Oh my goodness, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Exactly.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Alone? Absolutely.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There was a lot of blame to go around.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Oh, correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did not.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That is fair.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That’s what I meant.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was concerned. M’hm.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t think I was aware of that.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I don’t believe I was aware of a contingency plan.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M’hm.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
If it’s in a text message, I guess I got it. There were a lot of text messages.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, there were.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, there were -- I mean, there were a number of questions being asked about that because, I mean on one hand, first they were telling us that there was a constitutional right, there was no where else to put the trucks, they were allowed to come. Then it was like, “We’re going to try to kick them out.” And then they’re coming in. It was just -- it was -- it was a fluid situation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well I think it was the latter, and perhaps partially the former too.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you what he told me.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Mr. Kanellakos.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He is. It’s the only city manager.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, and I listened to the testimony and I have to say I was angered by it. I really believed that the oversight body could have usefully used that information in the performance of our duty. And I listened to the testimony from Mr. Kanellakos, where he said, “Well it was operational. There was no need to give it to Councillor Deans or the Board.” And I respectfully disagree with that. That was very important.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well we definitely could have questioned, we could have asked, “What is it about the plan that is insufficient to gain resources? What do they need?” I mean, I think there was a lot we could have done. I think our focus would have, perhaps, shifted to that plan and what we needed to shore up the plan to get resources, rather than just asking for resources. But we didn’t have that information.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, no, that information was not shared with the Board.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I phoned Deputy Chief Bell one day. I mean, I felt that I had a good relationship with him and it was a, you know, just between him and I conversation, which obviously it’s not now, but I intended it to be then, and I just said to him, “Deputy Chief Bell, I just really just wanted to ask you one question. If you were the chief right now, what would you be doing differently?” And his answer was very simple. It was, “Nothing.”
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t know if that’s what I drew from it. I just drew from it that they wouldn’t be doing anything ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
--- different.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I asked Mayor Watson early on in my tenure as Chair of the Police Services Board if he would share his phone number with me in order that we could converse and, I mean, in times like this in particular, it was actually during the protests of the Black Lives Matter, and you probably recall that ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
--- there was a lot of tension during that particular protest. And I had gone through his Chief of Staff to get to him and I said, “Could you just give me your phone number? Because, like, it would just be easier if I could phone you when there are issues that, you know, are on the front burner and urgent?” And he just said, “No.” He said he doesn’t answer his phone, he doesn’t usually have it on, nobody has the number, and you know.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
In December, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Absolutely. I think I described that this morning. You know, you can have disagreements with someone at any point. We’re not all going to like each other. But you have to be able to rise above that and work together. And especially in a time of crisis, that has to be entirely set aside. You have to be, as I described it this morning, in the same boat, rowing in the same direction.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean, certainly, it was impeded. I guess I take a little bit of issue with the term "rivalry". I was always willing to work with Mayor Watson. Always. And, you know, I -- I mean, we have political disagreements. It doesn't have to extend to a personal animosity, and I didn't want that. I had spoken to Mayor Watson about that on a number of occasions. I didn't see the benefit of it. So I don't know if I was feeling any need to carry on a rivalry. I was just feeling a need to do my job.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean, it's just -- to me, the suggestion of that is kind of ridiculous. I mean, you can't go through a protracted process in the middle of an emergency when you're trying to shore up your senior command and make sure that that senior command has the tools in place to address a crisis in your city. And so there was never an intention to hire anyone to be the ongoing Chief of Police in Ottawa without a process. And I was frustrated that it was characterized -- I mean, the mayor's office got ahead of that story in the media by leaking it, which it was confidential information that was leaked, and they got ahead of that story and characterized it as something quite different than it was intended to be.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I guess to a certain extent that old maxim about never wasting a good crisis, it also presents an opportunities to settle some old scores, and I guess that's the way I viewed that.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's right, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Senior command is two deputies and a chief and the CEO. And as you mentioned, we had released our CEO in the past year and we had just brought in a new civilian senior member of the command team, Blair Dunker, and she had only just started. So not only did we have everybody in an acting position, we also had a brand new hire in the civilian member of that senior command.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We had some text exchanges, I know that they've been provided to you, about this, but, yeah, I think, you know, he intimated through that that at that point, they weren't going to agree to it. But there was a lot of room for that to change in the conversation. And there was one text he said -- I forget what he was referring to now, but he said if Peter's that stupid, then it's his own funeral. So he didn't give me any confidence that the mayor's office -- and I had described before this strong mayor model before Doug Ford even conceived of a strong mayor model, we had one in Ottawa that was devised by the mayor at the beginning of the term, and that our mayor could really win any vote, and, you know, put on -- have any resolution put on the floor of Council, or not have a resolution, as the case may be, put on the floor of Council. So it was always with the consent of the mayor that what Council was dealing with.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I didn't hear anything that was telling me that motion wouldn't come forward. It was there was some hesitation there that didn't give me relief. And it -- when I say that any motion wouldn't come to the floor of Council without the consent of the mayor, I'm talking about with his 15 members of Council that, you know, always vote with him. There are other ---
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
--- more into ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Often referred to as the Watson Club. But the independent members of Council may well have brought a motion, but that group usually worked with the mayor - --
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I'd heard it, yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I knew it.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I'll take your word for it.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There was definitely more information provided this day. So yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I mean, things were really heating up, and I think the Board was getting more assertive in demanding information. So yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't think I talked about it. I think I confirmed in answer to a question that I had recorded that conversation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
My executive assistant.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's not what we did. I don't know if I knew that or not. I -- as I said earlier to the Commissioner, I'm not the leading-most expert in anything technical, but I just wanted to make sure that we had an accurate reflection of that meeting.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did not, nor did the Mayor mention to me that Steve Kanellakos, the City Manager, was a silent observer in that room. You heard at the beginning, he said that Serge was in the room, but he failed to mention the City Manager was also in the room.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I don't feel a need to justify why I recorded it.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I didn't understand there to be any reason not to, and I could see in this particular tense situation, where I was hearing rumours that I was going to be unseated, that there might be a reason for me to file an Integrity Commissioner complaint later, and an accurate record of our conversation might be in order.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. I wouldn't have had any problem with that either, I just failed to do it.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't think it was calculated.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It's not.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
This was a very tense moment. I've been a member of Council for 28 years. I take pride in my reputation. I think I've worked hard for this city and for the citizens of our city. And I could see that -- you know, my feeling was that the -- at this point... You know, there was a lot of information that was possessed by senior City officials and the Mayor that had not been shared with the Board, and they felt no reason to do that, even though we had the political oversight. And the only time we seemed to come into their orbit was when they were looking for a scapegoat.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I would suggest to you, Counsel, that openness and transparency is providing to a Commission a fair and reasonable and accurate description of a conversation. And what I said to the Mayor is that if he told me not to go ahead with a motion that had been approved by the Board, I wouldn't, but he fell short of that. He never -- he said he hoped I would reconsider, but he never told me not to. And so if you want to talk about openness and transparency, maybe we could start there.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Sure.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I don't think I would.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I think these were tense times, and I think that, you know, there -- I felt a need to do that.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think I've been very open and transparent in my career.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There was ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, and then you also heard -- -
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No. I agree. Mayor Watson did not support what I was doing, but Mayor Watson does not direct the operations of the Board. I -- I'm the Chair of a Board that had taken a decision, and unless the mayor of the city was directing me not to, then I was going to proceed, and I think I made that clear. I mean, I can understand there's some nuance on the tape. I understand that. But I thought I was quite clear. If you are telling me not to, then I won't, and I'll go back. But he fell short. He said he hoped I would reconsider at the end of that message.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I don't think so.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, and I ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I think there were two parts, but perhaps we'd have to play it again. But I said, "If you are telling me not to, I won't."
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
And I understand there's some nuance on the tape and perhaps he misunderstood what we were saying to each other, but I thought it was quite clear that unless I had a direction from the mayor of the City of Ottawa to overturn a decision of the oversight body, that had been taken, then I would proceed. I report to the Board, not to the mayor. I informed the mayor out of courtesy and out of respect to the office of mayor.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. I told him if he did direct me, at that point, I would go back and have another conversation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
An elegant solution, I said.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
M'hm.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We had taken a lot of steps to delve into the significant issues of workplace sexual violence and harassment inside Ottawa Police. We hired Janice Rubin from Rubin Tomlinson in Toronto. We conducted a 10-month investigation into what was happening inside Ottawa Police with a view to improving the work environment and the culture.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
And ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
And harassment in the workplace.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We forwarded specific concerns to the OCPC for investigation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
We had not received a report from the OCPC as to the outcome of their investigation. It's not the Board that investigates themselves. They forward it to OCPC for investigation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, you're operating on perhaps allegations, but they are unsubstantiated until the outcome of an investigation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, we didn’t have time to investigate that, but I had heard that Deputy Chief Bell was involved in some of it, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't think I was tarnishing Deputy Chief Bell's reputation. With all due respect, I mean, I had felt that we were making a good decision at a very difficult time and the way I saw it at the time is, we were preserving Deputy Chief Bell's reputation.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe he was.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, it turned out that what he had identified early on as the resource requirement to end the occupation of our city was quite correct. In the midst of that chaos that our city was facing, I was wondering if there was more that could be done, and I phoned Chief Bell -- he had a lot of experience inside the Ottawa Police Service -- to ask him, frankly, what he might do different, and he said, "Nothing."
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I think that’s fair.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t think I talked about it. I think I answered a question about it.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, it was just my observation of what Chief Sloly faced when he got here, racist memes, other things I’m sure you’re familiar with that made it very difficult for him early on in his tenure.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well I think what I was referring to in that conversation is the reason that the Board had decided to go outside with the temporary hire.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I would agree with you that there needs to be a full examination. We need to learn from this, ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
--- lest we repeat it.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You’re welcome.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Good afternoon.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Fair enough.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, a senior officer inside police had phoned and shared his version of events with me, sort of just informing me, from his perspective, what was happening. And he said that the day of that particular planned event, that the Incident Commander was changed that day, and that all -- there was some internal disagreement and it led to the end of that particular operation.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was to -- a planned takeout of the intersection of Sussex and Rideau.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was not invited, no.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
On what date?
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It’s all a little foggy. There was definitely discussions about injunctions that didn’t move forward. I don’t think I can confirm for you exactly the dates.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t think I had that level of detail, no.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not to the best of my recollection.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There was -- I believe -- I mean, the timeline is just a little bit all meshed together in my mind, but I believe there were still ongoing discussions.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Among others. Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't believe there's any prohibition doing that. I think the protocol though would be that politicians speak to politicians and police officers speak to police.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I've been asking myself that question too. I mean, our -- I don't know. I mean, if I were doing it again would I do that? Probably yes. But at the time, we were receiving information through the channel of the Police Service and that was our primary source of information.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Months and months previous to this event. I mean, we -- the Board had given a direction to the Police Service to amp up the communications function because we felt that it was quite inadequate, but they came back to the Board with -- I mean, I'm not going to get this entirely right, but they -- the sentiment was we don't have time to amp up because we don't have enough ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
--- people to do that. So we just need to hire some help for now. And they wanted to hire Navigator because they had some relationship with Navigator, and so that's -- they chose -- I know they're a crisis communications firm, but they were also providing regular communications advice to Ottawa Police.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. No, that was not the case.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Way in advance.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't know if I actually knew what the details of that retainer were.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
In -- certainly in advance of this occasion. Chief Sloly had brought a representative from ASI to the Board basically to talk about the benefits of ASI, and he felt that there was -- that their services could be useful.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I'd like Chief Sloly to explain it, if you don't mind, because, I mean, my very, very limited understanding of ASI is that it basically searches many, many, many sites and sort of pulls out key words to create an impression of public opinion, if you will.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Probably, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think generally speaking that's correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Vaguely.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I mean, I don't know what there is to tell. I have worked with Mayor Watson for a very long time. We have worked on many files together over the years. I think I enjoyed more confidence in the mayor until relatively recently, until this term of Council when I detected just perhaps a change in Mayor Watson's general approach. And it goes far beyond me. He had, for whatever reason, at the start of this term, decided to build more of a coalition approach to governing than he had in the past. And I wasn't part of that coalition, so I suppose in some ways became a bit more of an outsider than I had been before. But when I had worked with him on Transit Commission, for example, we were landing a PRESTO card that didn't work, we worked very well together.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I don't think that's when it started. That was just one of many, many, many disagreements politically we had. And listen, I don't think there's anything wrong with political disagreements. I think it's actually quite healthy for our democracy. So we don't have to agree on every issue. I think the issue is when it becomes personal.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You mean at the very end when he ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't think he did any.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I don't think I really knew that until, you know, some time after he was hired.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, it was just an observation that I had made through the budget process in the setting of the 2022 budget. The Ottawa Community Health and Resource Centres came forward with a proposal really for some alternative service delivery in terms of addressing mental health calls and addictions calls and housing crisis calls, and there was a lot of tension through the budget process between those organisations that I observed.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Ontario Police Service?
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No, I don't think it was that. I think it was that there was a growing perspective in our community that police are responding to calls for crisis situations, like someone experiencing homelessness, or someone having an addictions crisis or a mental health crisis, and that that isn't always the right response. And there are growing cries in the community to set up a new system where if you called 9-1-1 you might be calling for a paramedic, you might be calling for fire, you might be calling for police, or you might be calling for a mental health worker. And -- so I think there are a lot of voices in the community, and including community health and resource centres that would like to see, you know, at least an opportunity to where, I mean, if you might be dispatching more than one. You might dispatch fire and police and a mental health worker. But right now, police are the responders because they take up that space, not because they're necessarily trained in crisis response of that nature, or not because they're necessarily the best response. And so I think there was some tension between Chief Sloly and the community that would like to see a change in -- some modest change in police response to those types of calls.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not recently.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I -- I mean, in broad strokes I think that's fair.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No. And if those resources hadn't arrived, or perhaps if we hadn't had extra tools, like the Emergencies Act, they might still be here.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Sure.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don't know if that's fair. I don't think that I am the person to assess that.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Okay.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Sure.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Fair.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I took that they believed there was a possibility that through legislative changes we could create a better situation.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
He said that.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think all of this was taken seriously by the Board, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That is how I felt.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That is exactly what I said.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It is.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That’s correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Friday.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Right.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
No.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Oh, right. Okay, yeah.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Very.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
There was growing evidence of that.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe it did.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That’s correct.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. After that February 5th meeting when Chief Sloly outlined his resource requirement, not all 1800 were uniformed officers; some were civilian, but he made that clear at that time.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, skilled resources, yes.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You mean like weapons or what are you ---
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I think by and large it means skilled, trained people.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I do not believe so.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t know the answer to that question. I mean it may well be required and it might be something that’s very useful, but in the moment it probably wasn’t going to happen.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It’s probably a question much better put to Chief Sloly, because as we’ve made pretty clear, I’m not involved in the day-to-day operations.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, another kind of difficult question to answer because, you know, was I satisfied with the response the whole way through? No, I was not. But did that mean they weren’t using the resources wisely? I couldn’t answer that question with any degree of certainty. I was aware that they did not have sufficient resources.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I was frustrated with some of the enforcement efforts, especially getting calls from constituents and other members of Council about enforcement. I understood the reasons that were given to us. They had to put public safety first and the safety of the by-law officers and their officers first. I certainly understood it, but from a public perspective, it was frustrating.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It was done quite quickly, I believe. I can’t tell you exactly how long it took.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Possibly.
-
Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You know -- as I said earlier, I believe that everyone needed to be working together. You can equate that to a team sport, to kicking the ball up and down the field in two different directions and you’re on the same team, you’re probably not getting where you need to go. And I don’t think it was just the Mayor and myself, I think that there were, you know -- just listening to the evidence about the information that was shared with the City of Ottawa and not shared with the Police Board, is frustrating to me. We all needed to be on the same team. And I think -- you know, I’m not going to center it at the Mayor for special intention, I just think that -- I mean -- and possibly part of it was the pandemic and we weren’t all in the same room; we weren’t all operating out of City Hall. I was operating out of my home the entire time. And, you know, perhaps some of it was that too. Because when you’re not together, you’re not getting that same dynamic as if you’re all in the same room, and it might have been some of that too.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think it’s fair to say that we weren’t all on the same boat or working in the same direction at all times.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
It wasn’t optimal.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Not entirely, no. Maybe -- maybe we made different mistakes. You know, if you don’t learn from your mistakes you risk repeating them, and I think that’s the benefit of all of this. Hopefully we’re going to learn from our mistakes and the next time something happens, it will go smoother than it did this time.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I think we could have done better.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
You’re welcome.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I believe that’s the case. I have not been told that throughout.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, it is.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I did, yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah I’m going to agree with that because it’s right there, but I can’t recall exactly what I was referring to in this statement. I mean the level of detail that I’ve been hearing through this process and heard from Mr. Kanellakos and are in the reports from the OPP and RCMP about their level of concern, was never intimated to me. I mean I may have broadscale heard something but I had no detail that is now entered into evidence from this Commission, and it came as a huge surprise to me.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
I believe the Board could have done a better job in exercising its oversight function if it had been provided with relevant information that it did not receive.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
The Mayor fell short of directing me not to do something, so that clearly would have been interfering with the Board. I think that the Mayor and Council came very close, in the Mayor made some public statements that he was going to ask Matt Torigian to step aside and put Chief Bell into place. And I think the Police Services Act there is some draft legislation that hasn’t been proclaimed yet that would preclude that type of interference in the work of the Police Services Board, and not allow that kind of political interference by a Council or a Mayor. So I think it was very close to the line, yes.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
Well, I understood the consequences being imposed on me, that was pretty clear. But I felt -- I've always felt this way; I’m there to do a job and I have to do the job to the best of my ability, and I believe -- and I believed I had the most information, that that is in the interest of the community, then I need to do the job and not be unduly influenced by political pressure.
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Diane Deans, Councillor (Ott)
That's right.