Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau spoke 442 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
J’aimerais le faire sur la bible, s'il vous plait.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
J’affirme et… Justin Trudeau, J.U.S.T.I.N T.R.U.D.E.A.U.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Je l’affirme.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Merci.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Morning.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
On avait vu euh… pendant les mois qui ont précédés, un niveau de frustration et de dissatisfaction avec les politiques gouvernementales par rapport au mandat, par rapport à la vaccination. Et on avait entendu de la rhétorique assez corsée de la part de plusieurs personnes à travers le pays. C’était un reflet aussi de ce qu’on avait vu pendant la campagne électorale, qui s’était passée six mois avant; alors, de voir que cette… ces groupes allaient venir manifester à Ottawa, on s’attendait un petit peu au genre de rhétorique et à l’intensité qu’on avait vue. Mais on… on a régulièrement des manifestations à travers le pays, on est vigilants, on est attentifs. Mais on se prépare, dans la mesure du possible.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Oui. La campagne électorale avait été un moment où on a pu consulter les Canadiens directement sur les mesures qu’on voulait amener pour protéger la santé publique. C'est-à-dire, spécifiquement des exigences de vaccination pour quiconque voulait embarquer dans un train ou dans un avion. Ou bien, travailler pour la fonction publique fédérale. Et c’était des gros enjeux, une grosse décision de limiter l’accès aux transport fédéral, comm ça. Donc, pour moi, c’était important que les Canadiens puissent se prononcer sur cet enjeu-là. C'est sûr qu’on le faisait ancrer dans les recommandations de santé publique, dans le désir de garder des gens en santé, en sécurité. Mais je pense que c’était tout à fait approprié qu’on ait des débats robustes à travers le pays sur ces enjeux- là. Et c’est exactement ce qu’on a eu pendant les élections. Il y avait plusieurs partis qui étaient en faveur de ce que nous on proposait. Il y en avait d’autres qui étaient farouchement opposés. Et les Canadiens, pendant cette campagne électorale, ont pu se prononcer. Mais ce qu’on a aussi vu, et ce que moi et mon équipe et mes candidats on vu en particulier, c’est un niveau de manifestations, de frustrations et de… d’agressions au moins d’intensité d’émotions, par rapport à cette campagne-là, par rapport à ce que nous proposions, ce qui était pire que… et plus intense que tout ce qu’on avait vécu dans d’autres campagnes électorales ou dans d’autres événements politiques. Donc, on voyait que, il y avait une intensité potentielle qui était là pendant la campagne électorale, qu’on a vue à quelques reprises dans les mois qui ont suivi, et qu’on soupçonnait, s’en venait peut-être à Ottawa, pour ce convoi.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Well, first of all, one of the things that we noted in the runup to the arrival was a bit of a -- a bit of a disconnect between what the sort of political arms of my office were seeing and expecting, from what we’d seen on social media, coloured by our experiences from the campaign that was only a few months before, contrasted with the assurances by -- whether it was Ottawa Police Services or even the Public Service, that this was just a “normal” style of protest that we see on the Hill fairly regularly. And there was already a little bit of worry that this might be a different brand of event than Canadians were used to seeing. And we certainly saw during the first weekend that the expectations that the police had said; that they would simply go home, the ability to keep it under control, was not exactly there.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yasir is the Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Well, I dare say that citizens of Ottawa are used to political activity and protests on the Hill on a range of things. But this was present and in their daily lives and disrupting their weekend in a way that wasn’t a usual political protest, from the intimidation and harassment of people for wearing masks to a very concerning story about folks disrupting the nearby homeless shelter and soup kitchen. There are -- there were indications that there was a level of disregard for others that, unfortunately, we had seen examples of during the election campaign and it emphasized for me that this was the same kind of thing that we had seen, the intensity, the anger, the hateful rhetoric.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah. Can you scroll back up to the -- okay. No, keep both Jim’s line and mine on the screen. There we are. Yeah. These calls were very much about me understanding what’s happening from a local sense and, you know, there was expression in this that there were some people who were more intense in the protests than others. Some were just along to be part of something that they agreed with. Others were really shaping it and grinding it. And I think -- I believe -- I’m not entirely sure what I was saying there. I’m not sure the transcript is exactly right, either, but it’s enough. This sense that we didn’t want to further provoke, but we need to be firm in standing up for people, we need to encourage people to leave, but if they see their -- that the numbers are starting to dwindle, the ones who remain will be more intense. So there’s a sense already that as we -- as we manage this, we have to be careful. We want to make sure that we support and protect people living in the city, that we’re allowing for life to get to normal despite this protest without inciting -- inciting any reactions that amplify the thing further.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Anita is Member for Parliament for Ottawa Nepean East, or -- I believe that’s it. Anyway, she’s just to the west of downtown. She’s a long-time MP and a very strong community Member of Parliament. And she was -- she was expressing here just how the tone of and the tenor of this -- what was going on in the neighbourhoods and around people was worse and more hateful and different from anything she had seen before in a number of years as an MP, but a long-time involved in political engagement.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I do, very much.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That is she refers to one of the challenges and things that we were struggling with from the early days of the pandemic -- of the convoy occupation, which is that because they were very visibly most motivated to protest the federal government and federal government policies, even though many of the mandates they were actually vocally concerned about were provincial measures, but it was very clear that they had targeted Ottawa and the seat of our federal government deliberately, that it was a federal protest in a city that houses the capital. There is an impression and an expectation that, therefore, it’s Ottawa or -- sorry, it’s the federal government’s responsibility to deal with it, to make sure that it goes away, to stop it. It’s -- there is a general expectation even by people who are longtime residents of Ottawa, that this is somehow like Washington, D.C. that is a separate enclave where the RCMP can give out traffic tickets, which they don’t. But there is a blending of orders of government in protection of Parliament Hill and the Precinct that led a lot of people to say, “Well, they’re here. They’re angry at the Prime Minister. They’re disrupting my neighbourhood. You know, Federal Government should really do something to get rid of these protestors, or move them along, or have them leave.” Where we were continually explaining, and as Anita said, it’s not in our purview, the management of Wellington Street, of neighbourhoods around was the jurisdiction of the Ottawa Police Service. And if they needed support, the OPP and then the RCMP could be providing extra supports, but it was their jurisdiction. But of course, anyone who is involved in politics, you can be a Federal MP walking through your riding, and someone complains about garbage pick up, they don’t want to hear you say, “Oh, no, that’s not a federal issue. That’s municipal.” They say, “Thank you. I’ll make sure we pass that message along. We try to see that that gets fixed.” The idea that I was saying, “This is not a federal policing issue. This is not a federal issue, this occupation, this is something that Ottawa Police have jurisdiction, need to take care of,” for a lot of people, sort say, “Well, like see, they’re here because of the Federal Government, and the Federal Government is refusing to do anything about it,” was the kind of blending of narratives that we had to be really careful about.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I do.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was mostly a congratulatory call. When somebody becomes leader of a political party that sits opposite in the House, I tend to reach out and have a bit of a personal conversation. I usually ask after family, see how they’re adjusting to it, maybe give some recommendations about trying to get enough sleep. But I try to keep it a human introductory call, even though I had engaged with her many times in the House over the years as an MP. When she became leader, I wanted to reach out and establish that personal contact. Of course, it was all happening in the context of this occupation going on. So that was part of the discussion. But primarily it was a congratulatory call.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I say that we have -- ensure there are discussions on that -- let’s ensure there are discussions on that was very much let’s make sure, as political parties, we keep talking about it, and keeping up figuring out how we can work together. And then some of their asks are non-starters, like overturning the results of the election that we just had. But in terms of responding to their demands or legitimizing -- engaging, I’m highlighting that I’m worried about setting a precedent that a blockade on Wellington Street can lead to changing public policy. People need to be heard, but we need to get that balance right. And then she agreed that I needed to be cautious, and I don’t want to set any bad precedents.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah. You know, I think we have a robust functioning democracy and protests, public protests, are an important part of making sure we’re getting messages out there, and Canadians are getting messages out there and highlighting how they feel about various issues. But using protests to demand changes to public policy is something that I think is worrisome.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Although, sorry, to a certain extent ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- protests, if you’re out protesting that the government is, you know, shutting down a safe injection site or something, you are asking for changes in public policy. But there is a difference between occupations and, you know, saying, “We’re not going until this is changed,” in a way that is massively disruptive and potentially dangerous, versus just saying, “Yeah, we’re protesting because we want public policy to change and we’re trying to convince people to get enough of them that politicians will listen to enough people saying, “Okay. I’m going to lose votes if I don’t change this.” That’s the usual way protests can be effective in our democracies.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I do.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah, that was the -- I believe it was a Memorandum of Understanding that some groups within or some group within the protestors had declared that what they wanted was to empower the Senate to work with the Governor General to create a provincial government or -- and/or appoint a government committee that would change public policy and displayed a lack of understanding of how our democracy and our institutions actually work.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
But, I mean, it also meant she was getting bombarded. The Rideau Hall, which is filled with good people giving out medals to worthy Canadians, were bombarded constantly by demands that she fire the Prime Minister, and in a very, very aggressive way. And that's what I was referring to as tough for her and tough for her team.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Could have been part of it, but I also speak regularly with the Governor General just to check in, and obviously this was something that was worthwhile checking in on. But yes, that was probably the reason.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The first weekend, you know, caught everyone by surprise. Through the second weekend, I think I mentioned it in referring to Bill Blair, talking with the local police with his own expertise and background, talking about things that can be done to try to de-escalate to starting putting an end to this, understanding that it can't happen overnight, but that there are things that should be done. There was an expectation or a hope that on that second weekend we would see a decrease in activity, and a dwindling. Instead, we saw a surge on that second weekend. And things that we had heard that, you know, the police were going to start doing this or doing that and we're going to be able to respond didn't seem to be materialising. There was a sense that the occupation was just continuing full swing without any real control or even plan to end it. And I know from conversations with MPs and others that the citizens of Ottawa were quite frantic about having to go through a second weekend of horns and disruptions and, you know, being yelled at for wearing masks, and not being able to, you know, go to their neighbourhood stores, and seeing the Rideau Centre shut down. And all these different things that were really problematic, and people were starting to get pretty upset that this was, you know, two full weekends and that they were being massively disrupted by.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
One of the things we had said from the very beginning to the RCMP and -- to the Commissioner of the RCMP and to Government in general that if there was anything we could do to support the Ottawa Police Services in their -- in what they were doing, if we had resources or abilities, because there is a federal presence in this capital city, we should do it. That we were there to be helpful, and I instructed Brenda to try and do whatever she could to send support to the City of Ottawa. What we got back or what we had heard, as I recall, were different numbers from what the Mayor said Ottawa needed to what the Police Chief was saying they needed, and the one thing that the Commissioner made clear to me was they needed to know that if they were deploying resources that they were going to be appropriately used, that there was a plan for that. And, you know, we see it sometimes in requests for assistance across the country where someone is saying "We need 20,000 police officers from" or from -- or "we need the military to come in with a thousand troops", or "we need this or that in RFAs", and part of our due diligence is "Okay, what do you need them for? What are you going to be using them for?" Because for example, if you're sending in military, as we did in Hurricane Fiona to help clear power lines, as was necessary in Atlantic Canada, in no situation do military members engage in policing activity. And there was a sense that maybe they could be directing traffic. And we have to make sure, "no, they're not police -- military isn't there to play police roles." And that's why we always have questions, "Okay, we're going to send resources, but we need to know how they're going to be deployed." And there wasn't always that clarity around what the plan was, how many they actually needed, how they were being used, and how they were -- you know, where they were going to be best deployed.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Well, first of all, when I say everyone is, I believe it was "conflating", it was conflating the federal -- protest of federal issues with the federal responsibility to do the policing that would dissipate that protest. So that was, sorry, a little bit of an interplay that there was a sense that in the initial phases of the protest the Ontario Government was happy for the perception to be out there that this was a City of Ottawa issue and a Federal Government issue, and that as a province they really didn't have a responsibility or a jurisdiction to play in there. It was a unpleasant situation. There were bad headlines. I was getting grumbled at by citizens of Ottawa every day because we were -- the federal government wasn't dealing with it. I can understand that provincial politicians who were being overlooked in the complaints everyone had about why this wasn't getting resolved would say, "You know what? Let's not poke our noses into this, and, you know, people will continue criticizing those people that helped." I'm fairly certain that behind the scenes the OPP was engaged with Ottawa Police Services and was providing supports as we were as a federal government, but I think at the political level, there was probably a decision to continue to step -- to stay back a little bit and let us wear it a little bit. What we had seen during the pandemic and during other crises, is when the three orders of government are able to work seamlessly together, not only does it deliver better results and better coordination, but it actually reassures citizens to see that people who are not always politically aligned at the highest levels can roll up their sleeves and work for the benefit of citizens, and that's certainly something that I've always tried to do and I've been able to do with Premier Ford on many, many issues, but at this point in the evolution of the occupation, that wasn't something that we were able to do. And so, yes, there was a bit of frustration.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Might be operator licenses, I think.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah, I mean, that whole question around legality or illegality of the protest, they didn't have a permit to protest. They -- not certainly as long as they had. They were illegally parked. They were engaged in disruptive activities. There are any number of municipal and provincial by-law infractions, legal infractions that they were engaged in by just being there. And there is a sense that, you know, and this was based on an earlier conversation I had with Bill Blair about how one proceeds in this, is, you know, you can enforce small things as a way of keeping the situation under control and creating boundaries and balances and moving towards it. It's an approach. The issue here was that there were things that they could do and things that I know were tried, that they realized were unsafe for them to do. There are stories of police officers getting swarmed, there -- when they tried to arrest someone with a jerry can filled with gasoline. There was a sense that, you know, giving out simple tickets wasn't really having much of an impact as they did that, and taking stronger measures was going to be resisted and met with significant resistance. But these are things that if they feel they didn't have the resources to enforce prohibition on bringing in jerry cans, or a prohibition of parking on the approach to the Ambassador Bridge, well, let us give you more resources to do that. Between the OPP and the RCMP, you know, we should be able to get the numbers up in a way that could lead for an ability to use those existing tools on the books. That was very much where our thinking was at that point. Like, how many more police officers, how much more resources do you need to get a plan? And if there was a concern around, well, we can't get those police allocated to us from other jurisdictions unless there is a clear plan, well, we'll send you planners. We'll help get those people there so you can establish a plan that will allow itself to be deployed. There was really a sense that there was more things that could be done, and he seemed to be agreeing.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I'm at least consistent.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I will say though ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- that, you know, they can't talk this out for three weeks. They need to act immediately. I wasn't just talking about the Ambassador Bridge. I was talking about Ottawa as well. I was talking about the fact that this simply can't continue to be stretched out this way. But when I say they need to act immediately, obviously, I'm not directing the Premier to direct police. We know all the limitations that we have, but there was an expectation that this was situation that was going on for too long. And as Doug pointed out a couple paragraphs later, you know, there is a sense that people -- that the police of jurisdiction had lost control and wasn't able to control the situation.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
There were sort of two goals I had in that call. The first one was to reassure him that despite the disruptions to trade and to -- and real impacts on both sides of the border, which were economic, yes, but were also people-to-people. We know -- we knew from the pandemic that thousands of healthcare workers cross the Ambassador Bridge every day from Canada to go work in Detroit in their hospitals. There is -- there are real meaningful connections across that crossing that were being disrupted in meaningful ways. I wanted to reassure President Biden that Canada was going to be able to solve for this, and that we were going to continue to be a reliable partner for trade, and for people-to- people ties, and a safe neighbour. That was sort of in response to his concerns around disruptions to activities on both sides of the border because of the blockage. But the second thing I wanted to talk about was just sort of the general context; the fact that the 911 centre being overwhelmed in Ottawa a couple of days before happened from American calls; that there was a significant amount of amplification from certain sectors of the American politico sphere. And there was also a significant amount of money flowing and support for these occupation activities in Canada that were coming from people in the United States sympathetic to that cause and opposed to both he and I in our public health policies, but also in our general policies.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No. I think I was much more concerned about the blockage to the lives, and the disruption and the potential security concerns. I think he was very concerned, but I don’t think anyone was more concerned than me.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Regular Cabinet committees are chaired by members of Cabinet, and feature various Cabinet members sitting around the table, assisted by their Directors, their Deputy Ministers. But they are discussions amongst Cabinet Ministers on a particular issue that will then go to full Cabinet;; that’s what most committees are. The IRG is a special committee, special in that it is chaired by me; it doesn’t have a permanent membership because we deal with incidents that require or are important for the federal government to respond to. These could be floods or hurricanes. The most recent IRGs I’ve had were -- have been on the situation in Haiti and how Canada can respond and support. You know, we’ve had them around -- you know, we have them around all sorts of different things, depending. And depending on what they are needed for, we pick the areas of expertise we want around the table. But differently from most committees, these are meetings in which the officials sit around the table and are not just expected to participate, they actually lead the discussion; whether it’s Deputy Ministers, or heads of agencies, the Commissioner of the RCMP, the Director of CSIS, or what have you, they are giving direct reports. Ministers are usually, if not always, there as well, but if they speak at all, it’s at the very end to add a little bit of colour or further input. IRGs are all about making sure that the government as a whole is hearing directly --that I am hearing directly -- from all these different agencies and all these different inputs into whatever incident we’re looking at. And then we establish a plan, or we move forward on that. It’s actually a decision-making body, we can make determinations about what we do next. But that frame is fairly unique amongst our committee structure.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
We hear directly from the Ministers, which is sometimes something that Cabinet Ministers, who are used to getting briefed by their officials and then briefing their colleagues, takes a little bit of getting used to. When we have a different IRG on a different subject with new Ministers who aren’t usually at IRGs, it always is a little adjustment for them that, no, no, no, we’re hearing from their Deputy Minister, not from them. It’s about informing us, but it’s also about making sure that every one is on the same page. One of the challenges in every government is the siloing that happens; something happens in Public Safety doesn’t necessarily get connected to Transport, doesn’t necessarily get connected as organically as we’d like to Immigration, and various things like that. So making sure that everyone’s around the table, getting on the same page, in terms of what’s happening with this incident that we’re looking at, and what we’re going to do about it, and there’s usually a, “Okay, here are the taskings we’re going to do and let’s check back in in a few days and see how we’ve done, see where we are again.” IRGs rarely happen on a sort of a one-off, there’s usually a series of them until the incident is over or has been moved to a different body to weigh in on.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
As an idea, it would have been from the very beginning in the back of our minds. As you see a situation that is emergency, is out of control, is -- has a potential for real impact on citizens, potential for violence; real concerns about what’s going on, not just in Ottawa but right across the country; the Coutts blockade that started up on the same first weekend that the Ottawa occupation did. These are the things that you say, “Okay, as we look at the whole range of potential outcomes in this, there might be a moment where we have to invoke the Emergencies Act.” It wasn't seriously thought of because I will say certainly in my thinking right now it was a fairly binary reflection. It was "Oh, we might have to invoke the Emergencies Act." There was no reflection of what we would have to invoke the Emergencies Act to do, it was just understanding that if this situation continues and is unable to get under control by anything else, the Federal Government might have to give the provinces more powers, give police more powers, do something to put an end to this. So whenever we said, "Yeah, we're looking at all options", it would have been in the back of our minds, particularly because I think we're probably the first government that had ever actually leaned in carefully to maybe using the Emergencies Act, as we did in the beginning of the pandemic. We dusted it off, and, you know, had presentations at Cabinet around what the Emergencies Act was and how it was an update from the previous legislation that existed before, and how it was Charter compliant, and, you know, because post 1982 a lot of things needed to change for the better in our country with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So we got a crash course in the Emergencies Act, and the consultations required, and all the various steps of it two years before around a pandemic. As I had said during the consultations at that time with the premiers, I didn't think we needed to use it. I didn't think it was appropriate for us to declare a public welfare emergency, I believe the section is within the Emergencies Act, that we would have invoked around the pandemic, but there were a lot of people calling for us to do it because it was obviously a national emergency, this pandemic, particularly in the early days of spring 2020. So we were somewhat versed in this legislation that had never been used. Seeing this particular public order situation, it was a reflection in the back of our minds, or my mind anyway, I can't speak for everyone, that maybe it would end up at this, but for the same reason we were loathe to call an IRG too soon in the process, we knew that it wasn't ours to solve at this point. That there were still lots of things that the jurisdiction -- the police of jurisdiction and various orders could and should -- orders of government could and should be doing to put an end to this. So it wasn't until, as you say, the IRG of February 10th, Thursday, that we said, "Okay. Track 1, you know, what more can we do to empower police and public safety officials to put an end to these illegal occupations? What more resources can we spend with existing authorities?" And Track 2 was what could we do that we would have to create new authorities for? Whether it was through regulation, whether it was through passing emergency measures through the House, or whether it was using something like the Emergency Measures Act. And the key for me in that conversation was it was a shift from that sort of binary frame of no Emergencies Act or Emergencies Act, because if you think about it, the Emergencies Act itself doesn't do anything except to declare an emergency. It's that it enables government to bring in special temporary measures to deal with the situation. So the useful conversations around the Emergencies Act started on February 10th, when I asked the question "Okay. What are the extra tools that we would need to bring in, either through legislation or through regulation, or in various ways, or through the Emergencies Act that we don't actually have now?" Or "what would we do with the Emergencies Act if we brought it in that we can't otherwise do?" And that reflection on well, what would be the tools? actually clarified and got the work going. Perfect example was we had heard consistently throughout that commercial tow truck drivers were not willing to come in and remove trucks. Well, Emergencies Act perhaps could compel truck drivers -- tow truck drivers to come and actually fulfill their contracts that are signed with cities to keep the streets clear of illegally parked cars. So that reflection was really the one that started then, and the tasking that I gave on that Thursday that we would check in again on the Saturday at the next IRG was "Okay. Come up with those tools that we could get at that would solve this, and then we'll look at well do we need the Emergencies Act to bring in these tools or can we do it through another way or convince the Province to do it, or are there other ways of doing it, but let's figure out what are the things that would allow us to get this situation which was out of control back under control."
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Pendant le groupe de réponse d’incidents de ce dimanche, on a regardé attentivement les mesures proposées, la liste d’outils dont on pourrait se doter pour aider la police, les provinces, à non seulement remettre les situations sous contrôle, mais aussi empêcher des situations de revenir. Parce que vous avez parlé de cette expression du « whack a mole », on a vu que les… les manifestants étaient très habiles à se déplacer, à faire une présence ici puis ensuite se déplacer pour l’autre, pour réduire leur présence dans une place, pour donner beaucoup de défis aux policiers pour pouvoir répondre. Et l’inquiétude, ce n’était pas qu’en mettant toutes nos ressources dans une place on ne pourrait pas remettre l’ordre dans une situation, c’est qu’en faisant ça, on laissait vulnérable une autre place où ils allaient pouvoir le faire, où une fois qu’on l’a réglé, deux jours plus tard ils allaient revenir. Donc, il y avait plus une question de, oui, de mettre fin aux occupations illégales, mais aussi de comprendre qu’il fallait les garder clairées jusqu’à ce que la situation se calme réellement à travers le pays. Et donc, pendant cette rencontre du dimanche, on a regardé les différentes propositions. Que ce soit les propositions par rapport aux conducteurs de remorques, que ce soit les dispositions pour des zones d’interdictions où tu n’avais pas le droit d’y aller, tu n’avais pas le droit d’y aller pour des besoins de manifester, tu n’avais pas le droit d’emmener des enfants, tu n’avais pas le droit de traverser la frontière canado-américaine avec un but de te joindre. Il y avait des mesures, que les banques allaient pouvoir geler les comptes de banque des manifestants pendant qu’ils étaient sur le terrain en train de barricader, pour les inciter de rentrer chez eux. On a discuté de toutes ces mesures-là, on a regardé qu’ici… c’est quoi nos options pour emmener ces outils-là à être une réalité, est-ce qu’on peut passer de la législation à la Chambre des Communes, est-ce qu’on peut l’accélérer et demander le consentement unanime ou accélérer le débat pour emmener ça rapidement, est-ce qu’on pourrait le faire en encourageant les provinces, d’utiliser plus d’outils ? Et à ce moment-là, ça commençait à être pas mal clair que la situation allait… était si urgente, avait une préoccupation que ça pourrait s’empirer et dégringoler encore plus ailleurs. Qu’il y avait une urgence d’agir et que l’outil qu’on avait pour ramener rapidement ces outils spécifiques, c’était la Loi sur les mesures d’urgence.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
As defined for the CSIS Act.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The legislation, in the 80’s it was built, brought in a definition of a national -- sorry, a threat to national security, imported the words of the CSIS definition. That was a handy definition that was already existing. And there, that’s how we can define what a national threat to the security of Canadians would be. Those words in the CSIS Act are used for the purpose of CSIS determining that they have authority to act against an individual, a group, or a specific plot with, for example, a wire tap, that in order for them to take action in a particular situation, that threshold needs to be met of threats to national security. And actually, it’d be useful if we could pull up Part C of ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, go ahead.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I do. Sorry.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Just -- no, sorry, keep it going.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
There we go. Good. So in order for CSIS to be able to do a particular operation, it has to meet this matter of threats to the security of Canada, and then they can go and do that wire tap. This definition within a declaration of public order emergency under the Emergencies Act is about the Governor in Council finding reasonable grounds that there are threats to the security of Canada sufficient to invoke the Emergency Measures Act. So both the context and the purpose is very different. The people doing the deciding in the case of the CSIS Act, if this is met as a definition, it’s CSIS itself that decides that this is met. There’s checks and balances afterwards. But for the purpose of declaration of a public order emergency, it’s the Governor in Council, Cabinet, and the Prime Minister making that determination. So the context within which we look at this definition is very different from the deliberately narrow frame that CSIS is allowed to look at, what inputs it can take in, what proofs it needs to establish this, or very well prescribed so that CSIS can be -- so that CSIS is responsible in what it does, whereas the declaration of public order emergency is open to inputs, sure, from CSIS, but also from the RCMP, also from Transport, from Immigration, from the whole of government, from the Clerk, from the National Security Intelligence Advisor. So within threats to the security of Canada, what we had to determine was is -- does the situation going on across the country constitute a threat to the security of Canada? Yes or no? And then we looked at, particularly, C. Are there activities within Canada directed towards or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political or ideological objective? That was what we were looking at. Is that threshold met? Are there activities supporting the threats or acts of series, a threat of serious violence for political or ideological goal? If that threshold was met in our reasoned opinion, then that part of invoking a public order emergency was met. The other part of it is, does it constitute a national emergency? And there’s elements on that that I won’t get into, unless you ask me about them. But I was very much focused on “Was this bar hit? Yes or no?” for the purposes of invoking the Emergencies Act. There’s been a bit of back and forth at this Commission on whether these words are different or can be read differently, or broader when they’re used in a public order emergency than they’re used for the CSIS. It’s not the words that are different. The words are exactly the same in both cases. The question is, who is doing the interpretation, what inputs come in, and what is the purpose of it? And the purpose of it for this point was to be able to give us special temporary measures as defined in the Public Order Emergency Act that would put an end to this national emergency.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Threats of serious violence ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- was the key ones.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
First of all, from the beginning, from the approach of the very first weekend, we heard from various authorities and police of jurisdiction, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this. There’s a plan. There’s a plan.” And for the second weekend there was a plan. “We have a plan for this and it’s not going happen. We’ve got this. We’re getting more resources. No, there’s a plan.” We kept hearing there was a plan. And even, I mean, we heard in testimony here that there was a plan on the 13th that the Ottawa Police Services pulled together. I would recommend people take a look at that actual plan, which wasn’t a plan at all. It was a talk about using liaison officers to try and shrink the perimeter a little bit. But as you look at the annex for, you know, how the troops are -- how the police officers are deployed, what resources are going to be needed, every annex is “To be determined later”, “To be determined later”. It was not even, in the most generous of characterizations, a plan for how they were going to end the occupation in Ottawa. When the plan did come together, and if someone was to compare the supposed plan on the 13th with the actual plan on the 17th that Ottawa Police Services pulled together, you see the crisp difference between, “These are the types of units we need. These are the resources we need. This is how we’re going to do it. This is all the stages of it.” On the 17th. It was not there on the 13th. But even beyond that, because I’m not fully aware how much of this is hindsight and how much of this was that general sense we got that people continued to say, “Oh, no, we’re going to be able to get this under control.” I think we’re jumping ahead, but you know, Jason Kenney was saying on the Monday morning, in our First Ministers Meeting, “Yeah, Coutts is well on its way to being under control.” We had heard that before. And there were fluctuations going on in the various sites across the country. It was not enough just to have a plan to clear a couple of lanes. It was getting the situation under control so as to prevent a recurrence or a restaging of a protest elsewhere. And that’s what was very clear from all the perspectives around the table, that there was not confidence that we were on a track to getting the national emergency under control in the coming days, that it was continuing to be a situation that was not being controlled by police -- by officials.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, there was consensus around the IRG table on Sunday the 13th. There was no question about it. And Director Vigneault’s answer on that is absolutely consistent. CSIS, for example, wouldn’t feel that they had the capacity to bring in a wire tap against one of the convoy organizers under the CSIS Act because that -- the tools that they have and the threshold they have to meet for what is a threat to the security of Canada, according to CSIS’ evaluation, was not met. And that was something we heard from the very beginning. CSIS continued to say from the beginning of the protest, we haven’t yet, under the CSIS Act, reached the level of threats to Canada. But the Director of CSIS is also one of the National Security Advisors to me and in looking at the frame and scope of the situation we were in, was very comfortable in saying, “Yeah, for the purposes of the CSIS Act, this is not met. But for the purposes of the Public Order Emergencies Act that the Governor in Council has to make a reasonable decision about, we feel that it is met. And that was the consensus from officials around the table. And again, it was about not even just sort of that binary, okay, do we declare the emergency or not? It’s do we declare a public order emergency so that we can bring in these specific measures? And as we went around the table on that, and my expectation is, and that was a virtual table, I believe, but my expectation is always if you have significant disagreements, this is the time to speak up. There was no voice saying, “Hold it. We don’t think you should do this,” or, “I don’t think you should do this,” which does happen from time to time in Cabinet meetings and in IRGs. And if someone had come up and said, “Okay. We don’t think -- us at Transport Canada, we don’t think that we should invoke a public order emergency,” I would have said, “Thank you,” I would have taken that into account, but I didn’t need unanimity or full consensus in order to make the determination in Governor in Council according to that that we were moving forward. Obviously it helped. And in this case, there was consensus around that table that invoking the Emergencies Act was what we needed to do.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I’m speaking about the IRG right now with where we went around the table with officials.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
But we did a similar thing that afternoon -- sorry, that evening with the Cabinet meeting. I can talk about that if you want.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Alors, à la rencontre du Cabinet de ce soir-là, on a présenté les conditions qu’il fallait rencontrer pour l’invocation de la Loi sur les mesures d’urgence et on a parlé longuement des outils que ça nous permettrait d’amener, des — six, je crois — provisions qui allaient pouvoir, on l’espérait, mettre fin à cette situation, six éléments qu’on n’allait pas pouvoir amener ou invoquer par d’autres processus que l’appel à la Loi sur les mesures d’urgence. Il y a eu une bonne discussion autour de la table, tous ministres qui voulaient parler ont pu parler, et sans partager les délibérations, je peux dire qu’on est sortis avec un consensus clair que je devais procéder aux prochaines étapes de consultation avec les premiers ministres avec la possibilité d’invoquer la Loi sur les mesures d’urgence. Ça n’a pas été un moment où on a décidé d’invoquer la Loi sur les mesures d’urgence, mais j’ai pu entendre, comme j’avais entendu lors du groupe de réponse d’incidents plus tôt cette journée-là, qu’il y avait un niveau de confort et de consensus au lieu du fait que, oui, on va procéder avec les prochaines étapes vers l’invocation possible le lendemain.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Oui.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Oui.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The caucus call was before the First Minister's Meeting.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I wanted to make sure that we shared with our members of caucus who were going to be involved in, well, very much a part of a government that has -- or would invoke the Emergency Measures Act, I wanted to let them know before Premiers were consulted. I wanted to let them know that I was about to consult the Premiers, but the sense was that caucus would -- should hear it before the Premiers heard about that.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The caucus call was informing them that I was about to go into a First Minister's Meeting in which I was going to present them with the fact that we were thinking about invoking the Emergencies Act. And I shared with them that these were the kinds of things that we would be giving police and various new -- various officials of authorities tools -- which tools would be able to move forward with that. So I presented it. It wasn't a big discussion. I wasn't looking for consensus. There wasn't a lot of feedback. It was just informing them that we were taking this seriously and moving forward. And I dare say the response was very positive from our caucus. Then the First Minister's Meeting. As I'd mentioned earlier, this was not the first time I talked about the Emergencies Act with Premiers. And I guess Ms. Telford had talked about it yesterday, I have had many, many, many First Minister's Meetings over the course of the past two years to deal with the pandemic emergency. And we have always worked very constructively together. And for me, being able to sit down with them and highlight that we were seriously considering invoking the Emergencies Act in order to do the following things, and I wanted to hear from them. And then I went around the table, across the country, to hear from each of them on their reflections, their inputs, their concerns, their support, their disagreements in some cases, but really wanted to hear what it was that they were going to be -- what their thinking was on this situation that would by definition affect all of them, on a situation that was, to a certain extent, affecting all of them. The end of that meeting, I reached out to the opposition leaders, had conversations with them about what I was reflecting on doing, and asked for their support. And then started preparing for a potential announcement that afternoon as the note from the Clerk came in, making the official recommendation to the government that we invoke the Emergencies Act.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No. I certainly -- I was a long way down the road of realizing that it was probably the path we needed to take, but I did not make up my mind until the note from the Clerk was in front of me and it was in black and white that the public service made a formal recommendation that I invoke the Emergencies Act. If I'd gotten to that point and they had said, no, we still don't think the threshold is met, it is possible that we wouldn't be here today and I would not have invoked it, but I don't know. But the fact that when that note came in, I made that final decision with all the conversations, all the inputs and all the feedback that I'd gotten from caucus from -- or, sorry, Cabinet and from First Ministers and opposition leaders and all the officials I'd talked to, that was when I made the decision.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Absolutely. If someone had said, "Listen, I hear those six things you're planning on doing, you don't need them because these are the tools we're going to use instead. We have the power. We're going to be able to, in Ontario, do this and we're confident that that will end the situation in Ottawa and end the situation at potential blockades further on and keep us safe. This -- these -- you don't need to bring in compelling of tow truck drivers because we've figured out how to do it for good. We have a plan to put an end to this in a concrete and compelling..." Because I'd heard a lot of plans up until that point. But if I had been convinced that the -- that other orders of government or any other law in Canada was sufficient to deal with this emergency, then we wouldn't have met the threshold because part of the threshold for the Emergencies Act is -- and is unable to be dealt with under any other measures or laws in Canada. And if they had said convincingly, or enough of them had said, "No, no, you don't need it because we have it under control," which is, to a certain extent, what they all said to me when I had this conversation with them around the pandemic. I said, "Listen, there's a lot of pressure for us to look at the Emergencies Act. Do we need to bring in the Emergencies Act?" And they all said, "No, don't bring in the Emergencies Act. We've got it under control. We're able to do this in our own jurisdictions, in our healthcare systems. We don't need to do it." But the quarter emergency's different than public welfare emergency, but that principle was there, and we didn't invoke the Act back in the spring of 2020. So, yes, they could have said things that prevented me, that I would have said, "Okay, let's give it a few more days, or let's not do this at all." They said lots of things, but that threshold that I had personally wasn’t met.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think there just would have been a sense that the measures I was proposing weren’t going to be useful or effective, and what I heard on the contrary was concerns that we’d shared that this might inflame the protestors to declare a public order emergency and bring in martial law, which was one of the concerns, or that they would interpret it as that. Of course, it wasn’t martial law and it did not suspend people’s fundamental rights and freedoms. But it -- at the same time, they expressed these concerns which we had shared, but I was balancing off against, okay, there is a danger of further inflaming the situation, but the situation was already pretty inflamed and my concern was if we continued to not do anything, are enough citizens going to start counter- protesting and taking things into their own hands at various places across the country that we do get into dangerous, violent situations. Even Premier Moe, I believe -- we could pull it up, but I think people have seen it a few times -- highlighted that he didn’t have any real -- that the six elements we had seemed reasonable enough, but he was in disagreement with the invocation of the Emergencies Act, that those six elements we should maybe move forward with in some way, but without doing the Emergencies Act. That was something that we’d looked at trying to do as well, but it was clear that in order to do those -- bring in those tools, the Emergencies Act was the vehicle that was created for that purpose so that we could respond to a national emergency. Jason Kenney, I believe, said, “I’m not going to quibble with the use of the Act, but we don’t need it here in Alberta”. And that was something that came out a number of times even by those who were supporting it, said, “Yeah, you do what you need to do. Don’t think we need it here, but I know this is a situation where you should probably do it” or “Can you not do it in my jurisdiction and just do it for Ontario?”. And that was certainly something that I had reflected on and certainly reflected on further through that conversation, but the reality is there were pop-ups and troubling reports right across the country that we were getting from all of our various inputs. There was a financing of these convoys that was coming from every corner of the country and internationally. These were things that were generalized across the country, and therefore, required a use of the Emergencies Act. Par exemple, le premier ministre Legault a exprimé une préoccupation qu’il ne voulait pas que tout à coup la GRC vienne prendre contrôle de toutes les actions policières au Québec, ou qui n’en avait pas besoin. Et puis j’ai pu le rassurer, et c’est d’ailleurs quelque chose que j’ai intégré dans mes… mon discours et mes communications par la suite, que c’était là pour être utilisé si nécessaire, mais si par exemple il y avait un blocage à Lacolle et la SQ était tout à fait capable de « dealer » avec, de le régler, comme ils ont pu très bien répondre lors de la deuxième fin de semaine à un attentat de convoi à Québec, la GRC n’allait rien faire, n’était que là que pour appuyer si nécessaire, et que c’était ça l’encadrement qu’on allait faire à ce niveau-là. Alors ça a été une conversation très utile, et j’ai entendu bien des perspectives là-dessus, et ça a été… ça a été bien pour moi de pouvoir les entendre, même avec les différences d’opinions, pour être rassuré dans ce que je faisais.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was the advice that was consistent with the consensus around the table the day before at the IRG. You know, the clerk and the National Security and Intelligence Advisor and the deputy clerk and all the heads of departments and agencies had had a chance to weigh in on the various measures and on the invocation, and there was a clear consensus coming out there that this was what we should do. But it was a big thing, not a small thing, to have the head of the public service formally recommend the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the declaration of a public order emergency. It’s not something that had ever been done in Canada before. It was certainly not something that we undertook to do lightly. And as the Prime Minister, I get to sign off and agree with these notes or in some cases disagree with them, and that was a moment that I took with the weight of the decision I was about to take and I reflected briefly on, first of all, the reassurance that it gave me that the entire system, all the inputs in the system had come up to the Clerk of the Privy Council, the top public servant in Canada, impartial, professional public service making the recommendation to move forward on this. It was essential to me. But I also reflected on, okay, what if I don’t sign it? What if I say, okay, we now have advice from the professional public service to invoke a public order emergency and I decide, you know what, let’s give it a few days? Where the professional public had made a determination that the thresholds were met, that the use of it was appropriate and, you know, responsible and the measures were the right ones that we were going to put in it and I said, no, you know what; let’s wait and see another few days, another week to see if we really need to do it. First of all, what if the worst had happened in those following days? What if someone had gotten hurt? What if a police officer had been put in the hospital? What if when I had an opportunity to do something I had waited and we had the unthinkable happen over the coming days even though there was all this warning that it was possibly coming? I would have worn that in a way that we would certainly be talking about it in a forum such as this. But more than that, the responsibility of a Prime Minister is to make the tough calls and keep people safe. And this was a moment where the collective advice of Cabinet, of the public service and my own inclination was that this was a moment to do something that we needed to do to keep Canadians safe and knowing full well that this was an inevitable consequence of me signing I agree on this note, I was very comfortable that we were at a moment where this was the right thing to do, and we did it. And it is a certain amount of comfort that, first of all, the system is working as it should, that people who are defending civil liberties are able to say, “You really should be careful about doing this. Maybe you shouldn’t have done it”, that we have a system back on this because it's a big thing, not a small thing to do this. But that also we were able to solve the situation with it. There was no loss of life. There was no, you know, serious violence. That we were able to get neighbourhoods back under control, border services opened, and there haven't been a recurrence of these kinds of illegal occupations since then. I'm not going to pretend that it's the only thing that could have done it, but it did to it. And that colours the conversations we're having now with the fact that these could be very different conversations, and I am absolutely, absolutely serene and confident that I made the right choice in agreeing with the invocation.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It exists because it was debated and voted on in Parliament many years ago, but duly written into the books and the laws of Canada as a tool available for a situation around emergencies like this. It requires -- they're written for situations where the emergency or the urgency requires a government to have tools to put into place in unforeseen circumstances that can't be anticipated years or decades in advance, but that's why it was an important debate when it was brought in, and that's why there are mechanisms afterwards to ensure that it was not used erroneously or lightly. First mechanisms, votes, a vote in the House. Next one, a Parliamentary committee, designed to look into it. The third one, and most importantly, this process itself, which is a really important one that knew from the moment I invoked that we were going to end up in a room such as this doing this work and I would have to explain and we as a Government would have to explain and justify this decision to Canadians because the use of special temporary emergency powers is something that Canadians need to be reassured is within the rules and the principles of our democracy, and that's exactly what this is.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sitting in this chair, and having watched the questions posed of officials and ministers and now me, I can say that it's not something that any government would undertake lightly. This is a serious process where there is a serious challenge function being exercised, as it should be. As to whether it's the best way of doing things, this law was brought in almost 30 years ago. There's always ways of reflecting on doing it differently or better, but that'll be the will of the House and that'll be based on perhaps recommendations by the Commission. But I think this process works.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It's hard to prove a hypothetical, that if we hadn't done it, things could have been resolved. Perhaps. Perhaps they would have gotten much worse. My role was to make what was the responsible call in keeping Canadians safe. The Act was used in many different ways. And far from being, as you perhaps suggest, a proof point that it wasn't needed, that it was only in place for such a short period of time, I think that goes to the fact that it was needed and it was effective in actually doing, with as light a touch as we thought we could have, a resolution to this ongoing situation and emergency.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
But CSIS isn't the decision maker in a matter of public order emergencies. The use of the definition in the CSIS Act, as I said before, has two very different contexts from the use of it by CSIS and the use of it in invocation of a public order emergency. The context is different, the purpose is different, the decision maker is different. The requirements around it, the inputs are different. And the fact that the Director of CSIS, while consistently saying it doesn't yet meet the CSIS threshold for CSIS to act in wiretapping people or whatever it is, it is still something that is necessary for a public order emergency.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think, first of all, the excellent work of this Commission and all the cross- examiners have been doing over the past number of weeks highlights that it's not something to be undertaken lightly. And I didn't need to have seen this Commission to consider this very much to be a measure of last resort. This wasn't something we were eager to do. And I dare say that future governments are likely to look at this experience and say, "Yeah, no, it's not - - really not something we want to go through lightly." But the law is on the books to assist in dealing with national emergencies, and the determination was made by the Governor in Council, by the professional Public Service, that the thresholds were met and that this was necessary. And regardless of any setting of precedence, I think it would be worse thing for me to say even though the thresholds have been met, even though it is needed and necessary, we're not going to do it because someone might abuse it or overuse it in the years to come. When there's a national emergency and serious threats of violence to Canadians and you have a tool that you should use, how would I explain it to the family of a police officer who was killed, or a grandmother who got run over stopping -- trying to stop a truck, or a protester who was killed if I hadn't used the tools, if one of the protesters, one of the occupiers had been killed in a violent clash with someone else? Getting this situation under control and protecting the safety of all Canadians is a priority.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Again, the checks and balances we have and the need to demonstrate and meet the high threshold, but also from experience over the past even years, we've seen many protests and disruptions across this country, including protests of, as you say, critical infrastructure and economic -- of economic importance, and it never occurred to me or to the government to invoke the Emergencies Act around any of those. Now, to your point around maybe future governments will run to it as a tool now that the seal has been broken, but I have greater faith in Canadians and in our institutions than the fact that we might sort of shrug as our fundamental rights are casually brushed aside in the name of political expediency or a national emergency that actually wouldn't be one.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think, first of all, we heard them. We knew exactly what they were asking for. They were very, very clear that they wanted an end to mandates. The convoy protesters were expressing their disagreement with very specific public policies that they were very vocal, both in mainstream communications and through social media on what they wanted, and they were very much heard. They had political parties in the previous election very much carrying those messages, and, you know, presenting them to Canadians as part of the options that Canadians had to chose in that previous election. So people were well aware of the opinions and concerns and perspective of those individuals. But it was clear that it wasn't that they just wanted to be heard. They wanted to be obeyed. They wanted us to change public policy, Public Health policy designed to help Canadians and were going to occupy locations across this country and interfere with the lives of Canadians until such a decision was taken. And I can't help but have noticed that when Premier Kenney in Alberta did during the course of these convoy occupations, remove a number of mandates instead of decreasing the amount of concern, the convoy at Coutts, the occupation at Coutts seemed to be emboldened, say, “Look, it’s starting to work. Let’s keep going,” instead of actually de-escalating. So I was -- I am very aware that expressing concern and disagreement around positions of public policy is the right and is to be encouraged by any Canadian who wants to, but the occupation and destabilization of -- and disruption of the lives of so many Canadians, and refusal to maintain a lawful protest, is not all right.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think it’s a piece of it, obviously. If people are facing losses of income, if we’re seeing massive disruption in a country’s economy that will have, and that could have, real impacts on the stability and security of individuals within that country. But it was an additional concern on the situation, it wasn’t the primary or the foundational one. Our job in here was to make sure we’re keeping Canadians safe and countering the threats of serious violence that the occupations represented, and that’s what we focused on.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think we saw during the past couple of years, and beyond that, in the times we’re living in, that people’s faith in their institutions and in their democracy is really, really important. In -- during the pandemic, one of the things we knew that was really important was if we wanted people to follow Public Health advice, if we wanted them to stay safe during the pandemic and stay home during those first weeks of pan-Canadian lockdown, we needed to be delivering income supports; support for small businesses, support so people could hang on and know that as they did the things that kept themselves and their families safe, their institutions were there to support them. And building up that confidence in institutions is really important. And when people across this country were noting that our police can’t even maintain order in our capital city; that we cannot maintain the flow of essential goods and services over our most important border crossing; that armed protesters at Coutts in Alberta were able to defy the police for so long, people’s faith in our country’s institutions able to do the basic things around keeping them safe, gets eroded. And that is something that one has to take very -- that I took very, very seriously.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry; it was more of a informing Caucus than consulting with them, but yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
M’hm.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was one of many, but yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That sounds right.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Correct.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry. Yes, I agree that the Emergencies Act did not address creation of joint commands, although it did allow for the easy deputization of RCMP officers to enforce municipal bylaws and municipal rules without having to go through the usual processes that are required, if they want to do that, ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- which allowed for a greater integration.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
So it did facilitate the coming together of those three forces.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, I disagree with that.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. I do not believe that the plan that was either signed off on, supposedly by the RCMP, or presented by the Ottawa Police Services on the 13th, was in any real regards an actual plan for clearing the protests.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I was spoken to about it. I did not see it myself.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I don't remember.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was not one that we had confidence in, no.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
In hindsight, yes, during this process.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
What we saw consistently was the occupation was continuing and the ability of the police to resolve it was not there.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Or had not been able to use ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- these legal tools. Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I was not aware of that at the time. As we went around the virtual table at the IRG that day, the consensus from everyone, including the Commissioner of the RCMP, was clear that we were advancing on these extra tools. And I -- as I said, I don't disagree with that assessment that not all tools had been used, that was part of the problem, that not all tools were being used to end this occupation.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Okay, yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No. It wasn't just because people had expressed frustration, it was real concern. As you mentioned that a number of places were moving in the right direction in terms of resolving the situation at Coutts, resolving the situation at the Ambassador Bridge, there was a very real and present concern that it is one thing to clear a lane or two it is another thing to keep a border location, or otherwise, open. And what we had seen was intentions for the convoy to pop up again at the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, at Fort Erie there was discussion of a call, there were more activities starting in Surrey in B.C. at other border crossings. There was a ongoing concern that it wasn't just about ending the places that were there, it was ensuring that they simply didn't shift to another locale. Because many of these convoy participants had come a long way across the country, and were mobile enough to go to another nearby location.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, that was a concern, but at the same time there was very much a concern that it be temporary, that we'd rather that we not keep the Emergencies Act in place for a minute longer than necessary. And when the RCMP suggested that they wanted it in place for three weeks or they would need it in place for up to three weeks, you know, we took that very seriously as a request, but we ended up saying "no, we're going to end it as quickly as we can", and we did.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, we were very careful about that ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- and aware of that.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
We were very clearly saying that we need to restore enforcement of the law and we need to restore public order. But as I said clearly a little earlier, in the situation of a theoretical blockade at Lacolle, I was very clear with the Premier of Quebec, and indeed in communications, that if the Public Order Emergency tools weren't necessary they didn't need to use them.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I'm not sure, but I'll take your word for it.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I do.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I am.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That is a principle. Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That’s a bit of a leap. We say that the Emergencies Act was required because the situation as a whole could not be resolved under existing authorities and was not being resolved under existing authorities.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
One of the barriers that we heard regularly from police of jurisdiction to removing the trucks occupying various locations was the difficulty in securing towing services. Yes, that was one of the barriers they were facing in being able to restore public order.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, it was.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was an element of the solutions to the situation that we were dealing with.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was important in, yes, solving the emergency situation, yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The invocation of the Emergencies Act wasn’t because people couldn’t find tow trucks. The invocation was because there was a public order emergency that posed serious threats to Canadians and the inability to solve this public order emergency that posed a serious threat to the safety of Canadians was compounded by the inability to actually move those trucks, for example.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Municipalities and provinces have contracts with tow truck companies to keep the highways clear, to keep the roads clear, and tow parked cars that are illegally parked all the time. So they had, theoretically, the authority to compel people under breach of contract to actually tow vehicles that they -- that were illegally parked. For various reasons, they were unable or unwilling to use the civil powers they have under contract, or perhaps it would just take too long for them to be able to do it. But in feedback with everyone from Alberta to Ontario, to elsewhere, was that they needed to be able to compel those tow trucks to actually do the job of clearing the streets.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, we did.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
There have been hundreds of public inquiries over the course of our country’s history, and only four times were there waivers of Cabinet confidence. For this situation, it was extremely important to me that all the inputs, or as many inputs as possible, that Cabinet received in making the determinations that we did, were -- are visible to Canadians. So yes, we waived Cabinet confidence in terms of the inputs that Cabinet heard to make the decision. But the actual deliberations, as you point out, remain secret.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It appears to say irrelevant and Parliamentary privilege.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
“Americans offering tow trucks.”
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I’m not the one who made these redactions. It’s the Professional Public Service that made those redactions. So you’d have to ask them.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No. No, I do ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I know there was a lot of time spent on tow trucks during the past six week.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah, that was in a series of questions, you know, linked to, you know, who ultimately decides who's in the room or not. The reality is the authority rests with me. If I in seeing what the Public Service has prepared for me as a list of subjects at Cabinet, or attendees at Cabinet, or documents to be provided at Cabinet, if I have significant issue with any one of them, and I can say, no, we're not going to present that to Cabinet and it won't go to Cabinet. But as par for the course, I do not spend time going over in advance every possible document going to Cabinet to say, "Yes, this can go. This can go. This shouldn't go. This can't go." It's in exceptional circumstance ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, for example, if we're dealing in Cabinet with a particular MC from -- or particular proposal from a given department, they will put forward that document, that proposal. I will, as par for the course as all Cabinet members do, read through that documentation as part of our deliberations that we're about to have. But for me, I have the power to say, "No, you know what, we're not going to discuss this today, or this document's not going to go in", which I do from time to time if we decide no, it's not ready to go forward, we're not going to do that. But I guess I'm not entirely sure what power you're trying to get me to admit to having or not.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The way Cabinet works is we do an awful lot of work in Cabinet Committees. We do not, as a par for a course, dig into every item that comes forward in a fulsome way because we have subgroups of Cabinet that dig into that. So there will have been, before any Cabinet meeting including that one, subgroupings meeting to debate, to discuss things that then get reported back to Cabinet.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Governor in Council.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, that's right.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Cabinet subcommittees deliberate, but as a matter of generality, they don't make final determinations.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
In this case, it was something very important to me. I could imagine catastrophic scenarios in which a government might have to declare a Public Order Emergency without a meeting of full Cabinet, either because of urgency or because of circumstance that prevents Cabinet from gathering.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
In this case, I chose to have a meeting.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
In matters of legal opinion in many situations, most situations, we hear from the Attorney General and Justice Minister who reports to Cabinet on this or that legal opinion.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I believe it was a report from -- a verbal report from the Minister of Justice.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
In our reporting to Cabinet, there was a reporting on the consensus reached by the IRG including the Director of CSIS who recommended and agreed with the invocation of a Public Order Emergency. We were not at Cabinet dealing with whether or not CSIS had the authority to move forward with a wiretap on one person or another. It was a discussion on the invocation of a Public Order Emergency, which requires reasonable grounds for the Governor in Council to make a determination.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Which document is that?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, no. Throughout the IRGs, CSIS, as a par for a course, would mention that the threshold had not been met for CSIS operations within this of a particular type, according to their context and their mandate. But we were not looking as an IRG or a Cabinet as to whether or not CSIS would be allowed to do this or that thing. We were looking at, certainly by this end, whether or not we had a threshold met for the invocation of a Public Order Emergency.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, that would have been provided to the IRG.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I agree that it was -- that the report was given that -- and I'm -- that the narrow CSIS threshold was not met for a CSIS operation, but because that was not the issue at play in this Cabinet discussion, the issue was, was the threat of serious violence threshold met in the context of a Public Order Emergency was the discussion at play.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That is my understanding of it, yeah.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I have not -- I have heard about this. I haven't ever actually seen it so.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, I have not.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I certainly had not read it on the 13th.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
M'hm.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Indeed. I -- as I said, I haven't read the plan, but we were in a situation where, as can be imagined, I have access to unredacted information, and what I know and my understanding of this plan was, and I'm happy to testify to that, that it was not a complete plan of engagement.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It's in the first line of the Public Order Emergency section of the Emergencies Act that the Governor in Council can, on reasonable grounds, declare a Public Order Emergency if in their reasonable opinion -- I'm paraphrasing obviously -- the -- there are threats to the security of Canada, and it is a national emergency. That doesn't mention a CSIS threshold anywhere.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, it's not.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, certainly not.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That sounds right.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That sounds reasonable, yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I was aware of that.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, or -- yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Looking at the sentence before where it says: "There appears to be a lack of a plan in Ottawa, with the Chief of Ottawa Police Service...having yet to approve the plan developed with the RCMP and OPP."
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Fair.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, I agree, because what we heard was the plans were not adequate, they were not operational plans at that point.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't speak to what she was knowing or not, but I can say that when we were briefed on the 13th as to the Operational Plan or readiness of enforcement in Ottawa, we were understanding that there was not a full Operational Plan at that point.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That was consistent with everything we heard throughout the course of the three weeks, that there were not yet concrete plans to be able to actually do the work that Canadians were hoping to see.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
My understanding was there was not a complete Operational Plan to end the protests in Ottawa as of the 13th.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
(Inaudible response)
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Okay.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry. No, it is -- yes, it is fair to say that no, I have ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- never seen it before.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That was my understanding, yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
If there wasn't a plan then ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- we probably didn't have confidence in it.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, the entire Deployment Plan is on page 13.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, is this a table of contents?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
So the entire Deployment Plan fits onto one page?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Okay.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't speak to whether this is a good plan or a complete plan or not, I haven't read this obviously.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No. I rely on the inputs of the experts around me to reassure me or not that there is a capacity to move forward.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Listen, I am hesitant to speak to fragments, but I don't know that that Objective 1 looks like the enforcement action that actually happened later that week.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
If they talk about a de-escalation, graduated measurable and multi-phased response, sounds like something that would take longer than the 24 to 48 hours that the enforcement action actually took on Friday and Saturday. But I'm no expert on this, and my lawyers ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- are probably glaring at me for opining on this too much.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think evaluating various testimonies is the job of the Commissioner.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I’m unable to speak to that.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I wasn’t aware -- I wasn’t following that presentation of evidence, so I can’t comment on it.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That I was aware of.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Thank you for your generosity.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It would have to have been more than one of them, but yes, this was a national emergency we were facing. But if there was compelling reasons why the Emergencies Act wasn’t necessary, it certainly would have given me pause.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, that makes sense.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Throughout the two weeks, three weekends leading up to those conversations, we had many engagements with the provinces, the officials, Ministers, and indeed there was a letter from the Province of Alberta asking for exactly that, help with tow truck resources. So they felt very strongly that the Federal Government needed to step up with extra tools and extra support so that they could get those vehicles towed from Coutts. So there was engagement with the provinces throughout and they were -- we were certainly all talking about what would be needed to put an end to these occupations and blockades.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The consultation on the use of the Emergencies Act needed to center around what we’d actually do with the Act. If I had consulted with the Premiers early on without saying, “These are the six things we would do with the Emergencies Act, their first question would be, “Okay. You might want to do this Emergencies Act, but what are you going to do with it? What powers will you be giving yourself or the Federal government, or our officials and police services?” So there was ongoing conversations about tools and the consultation on the Emergencies Act was done when we had a very clear list of the things we would actually be bringing in with the Emergencies Act.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I disagree.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, I had no reason to doubt Premier Kenney's good will and hopes that Coutts would be resolved soon, but I also knew that Coutts had been in place for, at that point, three weeks. There had been an ebb and a flow. There were moments where traffic was let through, moments where people showed up more intensely. And it goes to the preoccupation we had that even if, as he indicated, there were good chances that it would be cleared in the coming moments, there was going to be a continued challenge to hold open that area given the current context.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, it was something that we had been monitoring for a while. It would turn out that the RCMP, who had intended to do enforcement action as the provincial police force, many days if not a week before had to suspend it because of genuine concerns around officer safety and the presence of significant numbers of weapons and problematic individuals in that. So it was something we were anticipating and hoping was going to happen, certainly hoping was going to happen peacefully, but it was something that we had been hoping would happen for a while.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, it did. It was -- that was good news that it was true, yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
We had been told throughout the process, throughout these weeks that things were about to happen. Sometimes they happened, sometimes they didn't, and not just at Coutts, but elsewhere. So there was an understanding that, inevitably, things were more difficult than -- well, reality is always more difficult than plans. It was good news that the province was able to clear. But I will also say -- or that the situation was able to be cleared in the province at that point. I will also say that it was done in part with resources drawn from British Columbia. And one of the things that Premier Horgan attested to or said in that meeting was he understands it's a national emergency. He understands and agreed with our use of things, but he was very concerned that even as he was worried about what was happening at the Surrey border crossings, as he was worried about convoy activity in the interior and other parts of B.C., he had had to give up a number of police officers to help with enforcement in Alberta. And while, yes, it was good news that Alberta looked like it was going to be resolved, there was a constant challenge that -- the whack-a-mole challenge that was brought up in other contexts, that things kept coming back, and we had a level of concern that even if one place was resolved, the threat environment, the concerns we had were going to replicate themselves elsewhere.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, because they were brought in well before the Emergencies Act. But it did go to the challenge facing being a national emergency when we see police -- well, when we saw the police action in Ottawa at the end of that week, it drew on police members from forces spread across Ontario and beyond.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It facilitated that.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It facilitated.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, but it highlighted that you couldn't just look at one place and say, oh, we have enough resources to fix in this one place. It was a broad challenge across the country at the same time. So Alberta being on a hopeful track at that moment was obviously good news, but it wasn't sufficient to say, oh, great, there's no more national emergency.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, with the caveat that they -- a lot of the people who were leaving the Ambassador Bridge were purportedly headed towards the Sarnia crossing or the Fort Erie crossing, meaning that there were still real concerns that even as we settled things in one place, the rhetoric across the country and the online activity indicated that people were not going home, but they were looking for the next thing they could engage with.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
In -- at that moment.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
They were able to clear the -- clear lanes at that moment, yes, in that spot.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
But there was a real concern there would be more.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Or they would return.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't speak to what their intent was.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Thank you.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, and there was concern that more locations were going to be closed. Coutts didn't open until Tuesday.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That is not how I remember it, no.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
An agreement ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- with whom?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
With the Mayor and whom?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Which ones?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
And we were also advised that that agreement wasn’t holding and that many of the convoy had decried it as fake news and not actually an agreement that they would abide by.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, we learnt that at the IRG meeting.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
By our collected officials.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can’t speak to that, but I’m sure others have, or will.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, I am not. My understanding was the police were allowing anyone who wanted to leave, to leave.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I believe the answer was no, but you can repeat the question if you like.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
So no, I don’t agree.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can’t speak to the number, but yes ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- there was -- there were many supporters, yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I am moved, and I was moved as I heard these testimonies, as I saw the depth of hurt and anxiety with the present and the future expressed by so many people. The COVID pandemic was unbelievably difficult on all Canadians. And my job throughout this pandemic, was to keep Canadians safe. And the way that I chose to do that was to lean on Public Health officials, lean on experts and science on the best way to keep Canadians safe. And because Canadians got vaccinated to over 80 percent, we had fewer deaths in Canada than places that didn’t reach that. And every heartbreaking story I hear of a family who sat beside the bed of a loved one dying because they had believed that the vaccines were more dangerous than the disease, I take personally, because I wish I could have done more ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- to convince people ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- to get vaccinated.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I did not call people who were unvaccinated names. I highlighted, there is a difference between people who are hesitant to get vaccinated for any range of reasons, and people who deliberately spread mis-information that puts at risk the life and health of their fellow Canadians.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
And my focus every step of the way, and the primary responsibility of a Prime Minister is to keep Canadians safe and alive.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The invocation of the Emergencies Act was a measure of last resort, was not something to be taken lightly ---
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- it's something to do when other options were not effective.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It was a proposal, but we had -- and it was presented to us. We had more questions about how it would actually work. There -- it was not a complete proposal.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I am not, and we are not.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Excellent.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I'm talking about the fact that we were regularly briefed throughout that there were different requests coming from the police, then from the Mayor, then from other elements within Ottawa's orbit.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Perhaps.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Okay.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I do.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I'm sorry, the -- it is clear that Mayor Watson is asking for 1,800 officers?
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, Mayor Watson was regularly clear in wanting many more officers. It wasn't always clear what the plan for those officers would be. Those we turn to the OPS for that, and the OPS tended to give us different numbers than the City of Ottawa was giving us. That was how I was briefed throughout.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Okay. But in a contemporary way, as I was watching things unfolded, the briefings I received, and what was consistent was there was confusion or misalignment between different sectors of the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police forces in terms of what they needed, how they needed, how they were being delivered, and that was one of the realities we were dealing with.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, scroll down a bit further? "There are moments where you are saying one thing and he is saying another, is there anywhere we can help around that?" I think that was me expressing that there were different messages coming out of the policing side versus the Mayor's side.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, but just to your suggestion that we didn't talk about the differences between those, I actually did talk about the differences between what different groups were saying.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
"There are moments where you are saying one thing and [the police are] saying another, is there anywhere we can help around that?"
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can’t speak to the Mayor’s intentions in reaching out to me. I know that I reached out to the Mayor to talk about the situation in Ottawa and to express that I had expressed to the Commissioner of the RCMP and others that we should be providing whatever resources can help the City of Ottawa.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah, but we don’t -- we don’t provide police officers in order to shame or make political points. We’re providing police officers to be useful on the ground and to be able to deliver things. So maybe there are political points to be scored or made, but our focus every step was what could we do to help deliver the resources that Ottawa obviously needed in order to move forward on dealing with this occupation.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
As I believe I testified, my understanding was that the OPP was engaged but it was at the political level that there wasn’t as much engagement at that particular point. As we know, as time went by, the province got very much activated and engaged and, indeed, I had call with Premier Ford the very next day in which he showed his engagement.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, was evidenced by my call with Yasir Naqvi, who highlighted a number of those things and a few more.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, reports of people being harassed for wearing masks, the constant noise, the people not feeling safe in their own streets. There were many examples of that.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That was, I believe -- remind me. I believe that was where a number of residents prevented trucks from getting to the downtown core.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It’s possible that it achieved those, but having civilians having to do things that would be more appropriate for trained police officers to be doing, I think we can both agree is not an ideal situation.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. When I talked about threats of serious violence, the increase of counter-protests and citizens taking issues into their own hands increases the possibility of conflict and violence.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think there were moments of festiveness and collegiality amongst people who were there. At the same time, CSIS also reported to me and to Cabinet that there were IMVE purveyors of extremist ideology within the protest. And one of the concerns was people could be inspired or convinced or amplified in their behaviours to actually lash out and take actions in ways that were threats to public safety.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think a protest in which law enforcement are prevented from being able to do their jobs because of threats of violence to themselves cease to be a -- ceases to be a legal or peaceful protest.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah. If someone’s telling me, “Oh, you know, you should be careful about actually enforcing the law because that might make people more violent”, that’s not necessarily a good argument as to why we should sort of let it slide or not intervene when people are emboldened or digging in to their illegal behaviours and that enforcement of public order is actually a threat. And this is actually something that Jason Kenney brought up at the FMM, highlighting that these are not rational actors. There were conspiracy theories and he was concerned, as we were, that the invocation of the Emergencies Act could have people who are irrational over-react, but at the same time, we had to balance that risk against the risk that people who were already starting to get fed up and engage in counter-protests would start taking more and more into their own hands, which was a greater risk, I think.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Thank you.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. And I would have mentioned -- you’re always looking for positive things to say in these FMMs, where sometimes there are contentious issues. But that would have been the understanding I had of the past previous days. It may not have held from the very beginning of the protest, I won’t speak to that, but at that moment, yes, that’s what I was hearing from officials.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, that there were -- that there was progress, yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It is not up to the Federal Government to determine who is policing. So it’s not up to us to have confidence in the OPP to execute provincial responsibilities.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I was prompted, because the Premier was talking of the OPP before. So it wasn’t entirely unprompted. But I was happy to say yes. I’m not trying to argue about it. Yes. Things seemed to be working well at that point.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
If you say so.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, I knew that they had sent experts to support in Ottawa.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I hadn’t, but I’m sure that’s true.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I assume, yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I believe there were slow rolls headed towards one or both of them at one point. There was chatter about people moving from the Ambassador Bridge to one or to the others, but I don’t believe those -- I’m quite sure that those blockades never actually fully materialized.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, both before and after the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I’m fairly certain that the OPP did provide inputs. We, as a Federal Cabinet, got our inputs through the RCMP, but part of the RCMP’s role was to inform us on suggestions and requirements by all other police organizations as well.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It would not be up to me to call the OPP. It would not be up to necessarily even a Federal Minister to do it. Our expectation, my expectation certainly would have been that it would be for the RCMP to work with their fellow police organizations on coordination, and I would have assumed that that was done.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I know the Commission will be reflecting on suggestions on how to move forward in future emergencies.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It’s not up to me to agree with what needs to happen in the future.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think more consultation is good, but understanding that in an emergency, one needs to move quickly.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. That was one of our concerns, that it could get worse very quickly.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. And others as well. But yes, that is one of the roles of the Prime Minister.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
We certainly need to take into account the perspective and concerns and expectations of citizens. That’s an important input into leadership. But ultimately we have to -- getting the decision right is more important than making the popular decision.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Indeed.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. And a credit to residents, and a credit to people who were there on the ground. There was no violence. It would have taken one person on any side to create situations of violence. So we are -- it is fortunate that there was no violence, no significant violence at that point, ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- or at any point.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I’m not positioned to evaluate how much what the police did or didn’t do in Ottawa was directly responsible for the lack of violence.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I do.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
You mean diverse Canadians in positions of power?
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
They were certainly a very challenging time and many Canadians experienced them as trauma. Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I think there was a lot of trauma to go around on all sides.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That I wasn't given the operational plan.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That's right.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't comment from personal knowledge, but my understanding, both at the time and subsequently from people who are aware of the plan, was that it was not a complete plan.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, that was the plan of the 17th that cleared there the occupation, not the plan of the 13th.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, what was my view, that the plan was ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That was my view.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can only speak to what I both knew then and what I know now. What I knew then was what I was -- what my understanding was then was that there was not a complete plan or a workable or operational plan to clear Ottawa at that point ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- and I now know that indeed there was not a plan on that weekend ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- and I can't speak to what people said.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
So what I understood then was that there was not an ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't comment on that.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It is our problem together. It is our, as in different orders of government together is I assume what I meant on this one because the rest of the sentence is really showing that I knew and had been apprised that in the -- in regards to what was happening in Windsor, the OPP and the RCMP were working well together.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Probably question period on the federal side because I think we were -- he was talking about the challenging that he was -- challenges he was facing in council chambers as well, and some of the debates that were happening at the municipal level.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't speak to the existence or not of that, but it is clear that if there was, it wasn't as effective as it could have been, and if there wasn't, perhaps there should have been.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
But that sounds like operational police coordination and that's not something that as Prime Minister I would be particularly closely involved in.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, the IRG and the federal government was looking to offer resources to police of jurisdiction in helping out, yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That makes sense, yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I have made it clear to the appropriate Ministers that working -- particularly Minister Blair, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, that preparing for emergencies of all types must be a priority for this government, and must involve working with partners at all layers of government.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I have no reason to disagree, yeah. No.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, those seem to be my comments.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
It is.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I had a lot of telephone conferences with the Premiers around then, yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yeah.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That is correct.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Except insomuch as the most recent use of the Emergencies Act was linked to the COVID pandemic, at least indirectly.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
They certainly had more appropriate tools and experience to deal with the public health emergency than the federal government did to do that, to take over the public health side of the public health emergency, yes ---
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
--- delivery is the provinces in this country, so that’s the point.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, it was.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Actually, if I can be allowed to elaborate as to why they were different?
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
The Emergencies Act isn’t a monolithic Act. It actually has many different categories and types of emergencies within it. In the spring of 2020, what we were talking about was a public welfare or public health emergency; I don’t have the exact categorization, but one can imagine that a public health emergency like the pandemic would require a different set of tools than or a different perspective, and certainly a longer-term opportunity with more opportunities to write letters back and forth and consult with the whole Council of Federation and draw paperwork in response to the consultation. And we certainly took advantage of that because in the section of Public Order -- sorry; of the Emergencies Act, it refers to public health emergency and invocation of the Emergencies Act, it says clearly you have to have that consultation done before. In the section on Public Order Emergency, the requirement for consultation is, I believe, laid out that if there is no time for consultation, that consultation can actually happen afterwards, after the invocation it certainly highlights that it wouldn't be ideal, but it recognises that a Public Order Emergency might require a much more rapid reaction time than a public health emergency. And the fact that we were looking at two different parts of the same Emergencies Act I think goes a long way towards explaining why we were able to do an extensive consultation, even though, as I had said from the outcome -- outset, it wasn't -- I wasn't leaning towards, it wasn't our intention to invoke a Emergencies Act around public health, but we wanted to do the consultation because people were concerned that we look at all tools to deal with this pandemic, and we did. But when it came to the exigency and the urgency of the public health, sorry, the Public Order Emergency, we went from a Sunday, establishing the six or so different tools that we would bring in, to consulting the very next morning with the premiers, with this freshly-established list of tools, and then invoking just hours later. And those compressed timelines made it a very different context from one type of invocation of the Emergencies Act to another.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Definitely, yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. Not me, directly, but yes, as a Cabinet, yes, we did. Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Most days, in the thick of it, about an hour a day minimum, some days most of the day. Certainly towards the end, my days were filled with that, and with, yes, other things that was the business of Government, but it was quite a bit.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
But that's not a police power.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, and it wouldn't have been my role as Prime Minister to go through such a plan either.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I can't speak to the law of property, I'm not a lawyer.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Again, I -- I'm not entirely sure what you mean by privilege claim.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Actually, on that last question. A significant division of perspectives, I think there -- I don't know that it would be fair to describe it as significant, but there certainly are different perspectives on the use of the Emergencies Act.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I know that there was an awful lot of consensus on one side of that.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
We waived Cabinet privilege on the inputs we received so that the public and the Commission could see what we saw as a Government while this was unfolding, and to demonstrate that to go to the opening paragraph of the Emergencies Act, or one of the early paragraphs, that the Governor of a public order emergency, that the Governor in Council had reasonable grounds to declare a public order emergency. Given all the range of inputs that Cabinet was receiving, which, for the large part, Canadians have been able to see through this process, I am confident that reasonable test was met.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Sorry, can you rephrase that?
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
I’m always wary to try and distinguish what I know now from what I knew then. I’m comfortable in saying that what I knew then, whether it was from Commissioner Lucki or others, or what I was briefed on, was Ottawa did not yet have a firm and concrete and convincing plan that they were going to be able to take care of the occupation this time as opposed to all the previous times where they had said they were going to do it and were unable to do it, to a certain -- that was certainly the sense that we had, versus what I know now, was that it turns out that what they say was a plan on the 13th was an engagement plan, and not a ending the occupation plan.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
With the redactions?
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, that was the 72 page one?
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
From the Ottawa Police Services?
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. Sorry. Thank you.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
As I testified earlier, on the 13th, at the IRG, my understanding from officials in general, and most likely Commissioner Lucki primarily, was that the plan that the Ottawa Police Services had at that point was not a plan to end the occupation. As I would later testify or later find out, the plan of the 13th was not complete the way the plan of the 17th was, which was the actual plan that led to the clearing of the occupation in Ottawa. So this evidence is entirely consistent with my understanding of what was happening on the 13th, and of course, my understanding of it in hindsight as well.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
If this is -- I didn't see what section this was. If this is indeed a public welfare emergency, then yes, as of 14(1), you know, we -- the -- before the Governor in Council moves forward with the public welfare emergency we have to consult with each province in -- to the affected province in response to it. That lays it out clearly for that.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes. You can see there are conditions, "Subject to subsections (2) and (3)", which talk about the effects or the urgency or the negative impact that a consultation could have on the situation, which is a caveat when it comes to a Public Order Emergency that was not present in the otherwise very similar paragraph applying to a public welfare emergency.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That's what I was referring to earlier.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
That sounds about right.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
No, if it had to take two hours it would have taken two hours.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
None expressed surprise that that -- what we were talking about, no.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
As I said, we had talked about it a couple years ago, not with all of them, I believe there were some different folks around the table. But the idea and the concept of the Emergencies Act invocation and consultation was something we had collectively gone through at a previous iteration. So they all had reflections to share during that tour de table. They did not say, "Listen, I don't know what to say, I haven't thought about this, give us more time to think about it." They had ideas. I have no doubt they would have had more ideas had we had the luxury of much more time on consultation, but this was -- these were exigent circumstances.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Not that I recall.
-
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes, it was.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Yes.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
My motivation was entirely about ensuring the safety of Canadians. My secondary motivation was making sure Canadians continue to have confidence in their institutions and in our society's ability to function and enforce the rule of law when it's not being respected. Politics was not a motivation at all in the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister (GC-PMO)
Et merci pour tout votre travail, Monsieur le Commissaire.