Marcel Beaudin
Marcel Beaudin spoke 371 times across 2 days of testimony.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, ma'am.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Marcel Beaudin, B- E-A-U-D-I-N.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Bodin (ph).
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Currently, the Acting Superintendent in the Indigenous Policing Bureau.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was not. I'm doing a temporary assignment right now and will be back to an inspector shortly, I'm sure.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Inspector.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I did.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, they are.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, they're all good. Thank you, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
As far as my role in policing right now, or ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay. So my role in policing right now is the Acting Bureau Commander for the Indigenous Policing Bureau, which oversees four areas. So those areas involve the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Implementation Team, the Ontario First Nations Policing Agreement, which oversees the administration of 18 police services, and the Indigenous Awareness Training Unit, and then also the PLT, which is, I'm sure, what we'll be speaking about today.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, this is 1 of 19 critical policies for the OPP, and it ultimately works through a conflict cycle when it comes to Indigenous critical incidents or non-Indigenous related conflicts.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So this police was created as a result of Ipperwash. So in 1995, obviously, there was the shooting death of W. George in a provincial park, and, obviously, lessons learned there was communication strategies, the importance of gathering mediators or people that could liaison or people with influence that would have influence on outcomes, as well as correcting misinformation is probably the big takeaways. For us, obviously, it didn't necessarily start the PLT, but it definitely contributed to the part of the average All-Relations Team Program.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so it's interesting when you talk about police language, right, because sometimes people will say, "Oh, like, this is critical." And to me that's bad as far as a community member, but when it comes to policing, critical to me means it's of high priority, it's something that we take very serious, and it has tremendous ramifications if it's not followed.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'm not certain, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely. Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so when you look at pre-critical, right, so we have an analyst, or I think we've heard from Intelligence talking about, okay, this is a potential conflict that's coming up; right? So the number one predictor of conflict is real or perceived inequality, so that's something that we look for; right? And when you look at the Province of Ontario right now, you have potentially, you know, roughly 50 land claims up for negotiation. And sometimes -- I remember Inspector Morris saying it's interesting that, you know, PLT sits within IPB, but -- or Indigenous Policing Bureau, sorry, but the reality is, it's extremely important for us to have relationships with Indigenous communities as a result of that number one predictor of conflict. And so in that, what our job is and what the PLT member's job is, is to when they -- when we see that there's going to be potential conflict, our job is to reach out, build relationships. And by relationships, you know, sometimes people just say the word relationship and they don't necessarily break that down. But to us, it actually means something. Like, it means something to build a relationship. So in there, obviously, you need trust. So for me, when I talk about trust, I think it's really important to recognize the person knows that I have their best interests in mind, you know, I'm competent, I'm able to -- and then, ultimately, I do what I say I'm going to do; right? And so we build relationships and then we also get into agreements or ideas of what the protest, demonstration, occupation may look like. So we have those not verbal contracts but pretty much; right? Like, okay, so this is the law. This is what you should avoid doing. This is some alternative options to ensure that it's lawful, peaceful, and safe. And then if there's any deviation from that, here's the potential consequences associated to that. And the reason that we have those up-front conversations is because, typically, emotions and intelligence work as a teeter-totter. So if someone's emotional in times of crisis, typically, intelligence gets low. So when there's no emotion involved, ultimately, it's a great opportunity for us to have conversations that are meaningful and to understand what the objective is, what people are trying to achieve, and how we can facilitate that lawfully, peacefully, safely.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
And so that would be pre.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
And then ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, for sure. And then during critical, so, ultimately, when protests are happening, you know, I think during the Freedom Convoy the OPP PLT took part and I believe from January to February 222 protests provincially. So when protests are happening, we're trying to ensure that they're lawful, peaceful, safe. And so our job is to make sure that we are having open and transparent lines of communication with people, to ensure that they know that they're -- can be trusted with what we're saying, and they can trust what we're saying to be true, and then, ultimately, working through to ensure if someone's doing something that's not lawful, peaceful or safe, obviously, we would have to have some sort of police intervention and we would try and facilitate one that is lawful, peaceful, safe. So, ultimately, if they're on the roadway, hey, off the roadway; right? This is a better spot for you ultimately.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- it is ultimately what -- I think what we're doing here, right? Like, we're debriefing, we're trying to learn best practices, we're trying to understand what went well, what didn't go well, deconflict areas and perceptions that may be different, and then just discuss it and take lessons learned from those and try and do better next time, and then also, restore, rebuild relationships. And, you know, sometimes, you know, you have people that don't necessarily get along, and it seems interesting that the police would be such a contributing factor of that, but that's what we're called for is for safety. And so in there we would basically, you know, try and mediate a strategy for people to co-exist, right, recognizing the intersections with liberties that are out there.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. There's a lot of similarities, obviously. So when this was created, there was -- it came from the Policing with Indigenous People's Committee for the CACP. And one of the ideas or areas where the Policing with Indigenous Peoples, so I'll call PWIP, just for the sake of time. So we're concentrating on was for, you know, a consistent measured approach to large-scale demonstrations. We recognized that there was demonstrations that happened in British Columbia that had demonstrators at, that happened in Quebec that had the same demonstrators, that happened in Ontario that had the same demonstrators. And, you know, there's no jurisdiction for protest, demonstrations, occupations, but there certainly is for policing, and a consistent, measured approach is obviously something that was a priority to the Policing with Indigenous People's Committee as well as the CACP. And so I was asked to take part in just kind of being one of the people that kind of put this together in 2018. And then with the Policing with Indigenous People's Committee, went through a variety of different steps. So, ultimately, doing an environmental scan, so document review, issue-based review. There was a questionnaire that went out to stakeholders, whether it be people that had been involved from the community at large with demonstrations, protests, or whether it was police officers, people that had been protesting in the past, and police leadership, just to come up with common tenants [sic] or themes that would be a priority to that group, recognizing that we all have to, you know, work together. We live in Canada. We have, you know, Charter of Rights and Freedoms allow people to peacefully demonstrate, right, and to assemble. And, ultimately, Section 1 has limitations to those, but it's something that the police are continually having to deal with in a regular basis; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, any sort of mass demonstration; right? Like, I think, you know, we looked at the way things were kind of growing when it came to demonstrations on a global scale internationally, and then, you know, within North America and now in Canada they're happening quite frequently; right? I think you look at the numbers associated to Provincial Liaison Team in 2012 compared to 2022, and they're tremendously higher as far as the OPP's area goes. And I, you know, only imagine that that would be reflective with other police services as well.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, the measured approach is probably the most important piece within here. The most important piece for liaison people is relationship building, I would say, in my professional opinion. But when it comes to the measured approach, we're talking about -- and I'll just read it for everyone just because I think it's pretty important; right? Is an, "...operational philosophy that guides the strategies and tactics of the police in the measures to employ and the prevention of disorder or to achieve timely restoration of order.” This policy emphasizes deliberate employment of proactive engagement, communication, mitigation and facilitation measures while preserving the option to employ a variety of tactical responses as necessary and seeking to respect the lawful exercise of personal rights and freedoms. And so to me, it means it’s almost like the use of force continuum for a major event, right. So we go, we have officer presence, we communicate, communicate, communicate. As things escalate and we’re no longer able to communicate, then obviously there’s tactical responses as necessary that would come in. And it’s kind of on a floating scale, right, like. So it’s not like, okay, negotiations are here, they stop and then Public Order is here and there’s no communication with them. They actually co-exist and there’s pretty quick ability to do both, right. And then -- so when it comes to relationship building, we talk about trust between police and citizens remains essential, ongoing communication, right. And so we look at a few things, so respect, right, rapport, reciprocity, trust. But we spoke just briefly at the beginning about trust. But at the end of the day, it’s a matter of ensuring -- so this is the only unit that really is out there making sure that we are open, transparent and we are -- we are trusted with what we are saying to be true, right. And so it’s so important for us to ensure that these -- you know, these relationships are made a priority, these relationships continue to happen. Like it’s not as if, you know -- so can I fast forward to like something that happened in the Rideau, or no? You just let me know.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure. And then facilitating lawful, peaceful and safe demonstration, so we recognize that obviously there’s limitations to protest, right, demonstrations, occupations.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I think because you’re managing it, right. So if you have a protest that’s coming to your area or if I’m -- if I know a protest is coming to my street, right, so I would say, okay, what is your intention, what are you trying to do, okay, you can achieve this by doing this, this and this. And if you deviate from that, then obviously there’s an issue. So we don’t facilitate protests. We don’t facilitate any protest. We facilitate lawful, peaceful and safe because it’s our responsibility to manage.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And impartiality is so big, right, because a lot of times, you know, especially in the past, police have been seen to be providing two-tiered policing so the big thing is -- for us, is to say, okay, regardless of what the protest is, it’s our job to ensure that we are impartial, that we’re treating all people with respect. It doesn’t mean neutrality. Neutrality is you don’t have any skin in the game. Obviously, police, our profession has tons of skin in the game and our job is to ensure that we are just doing what’s beset to ensure that the outcome is lawful, peaceful and safe.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, we did. And then -- so -- and then the next one is interoperability. So interoperability is really what we saw here, right. So we can go and we can -- ultimately, the Ottawa Police Service, RCMP, SQ, OPP, whoever can all work together, know that we’re on the same page, increase consistency of response and, ultimately, do it as seamless as possible.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So this one’s a -- this one was a big one when it came to the return on questionnaires for people that were involved in protests, wanting education, right, because quite often people will come to a protest and say, “Well, I’m here to protest and this seems to be going on good and I didn’t realize it was unlawful or unpeaceful or unsafe”. And so in the absence of communication, you know, you could have people that are stuck in there recognizing they’re -- you know, that they’re thinking they’re doing something that is okay because it’s been going on or whatever. So one, we do issue and incident based, right. And this is for our police education. So we’ll make sure that our officers are educated on all of that. And then we do -- sorry. Can you scroll it back the other way? And then framework, so just so that everyone knows about the framework itself, and how we work within it and how the measured approach fits, how we try and reduce the footprint, how we -- you know, what we’re trying to achieve and the strategies associated to it and then the culture based if it involves indigenous protests or a variety of different other protests that are out there. And then public education, obviously, to educate the public on lawful, peaceful, safe demonstrations and activity, you know, how injunctions basically work in enforcement activities that the police would be responsible for in that, and then messaging the difference and consequences of being arrested versus being charged because some people will say, “Well, if I got -- if I didn’t get arrested, I’m off, right. I’m good”. But the reality is, is that there might be charges that come as a result of your behaviour even though you -- we may not, as we -- I say we as the police, the police may not be able to deal with that at the time because it’s not safe to do so or there’s a variety of contributing factors as a result.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So like if I were to say to someone, “Okay” -- because these are questions that typically the team would ask, right. So what are you trying to achieve? What does success look like to you? And what can I say or do to get you to do something that’s lawful, peaceful, safe, right, whether it’s get off the road, get off the rail line, whatever that looks like? And so if someone says, you know, like this is what I’m really trying to achieve and it’s very attainable, then it makes it really easy, right. Like I’ve seen roadblocks where people say, “I want something” that’s very attainable and then it gets done and people leave and everyone’s happy. And it was very -- you know, nothing to it. But then I’ve seen some where people say, “I’m not leaving until something”, you know, unrealistic happens, like Marcel Beaudin has to leave the country and never come back. So if that’s the case, we have nowhere to go with that, right. So if that’s the case, then obviously it’s very easy to work through, right. And really, when there’s that negotiation piece and there’s opportunities, then they should probably be explored.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So the -- I think the big thing when it comes to liaison teams is really the socialization of them. And sorry, I’m talking with my hands. But you know, the socialization of them. So there’s always been people that try and talk and get things done in a non-structured format, right. Like that’s always been the case. Police have always tried to mediate or negotiate successful, safe outcomes, but this is really to structure them so that you have people that are trained, so people that have an idea of interest-based negotiation, mediation techniques, crowd psychology, so you have experts that can say, okay, if we do this, this and this, potentially, you can end up getting to a successful conclusion. And in the overall idea of the framework itself is really these officers are there to ensure that if there’s a - - a time where Public Order has to come in, there’s the least amount of people there that would potentially cause harm to people, the public, to officers and it becomes as safe as possible, really. So like their job is to -- and you know, if their job is done by saying, “Hey, guys, get off the road” and everyone goes home, that’s amazing. That’s a 10 out of 10, home run. But for the most part, some people want to stay there, exercise their rights to do different things, and so it may take a little bit of time or some people will say -- some people will just stay longer and some people are willing to leave. So it’s important to recognize that, you know, in a -- in a crowd, and I think this is Eli Sopow’s work out of the RCMP. He’s a doctor. And you know, he said in a basic crowd, he was -- you know, a crowd makes up 80 percent is law-abiding, right, and would probably, you know, listen to the police, be manageable, all that stuff. You have 15 percent that are on the fence, and five percent that potentially are criminal in nature, so -- and would be hard to deal with and dig their heels in. And so when you look at that, PLT’s work isn’t to make sure that everyone’s out of there. Like if that happens, that’s great. But our job is to make sure that the 95 percent or those 15 percent don’t swing over and turn into 20, right, because those people are on the fence and it makes the Public Order job much more dangerous and harder. And those 15 percent end up recognising that the police were reasonable, these were reasonable asks, and we end up leaving; right? And so that's really the -- the key function of the PLT is to reduce the footprint so when Public Order ends up going in, if they -- if and when they do, it's the least amount of people that are there, and it sets them up for success. The other thing that it does too, is -- so like when we're asking for a small concession and stuff like that, you're also recognising leadership within the group; right? So you're testing resolve, you're testing compliance, you're testing leadership. Because if someone says, "I'm the leader of this group", but they don't have the ability to move anyone, then it certainly -- you can see that right away. You wouldn't want to wait until the last minute to try and get someone to do something, recognising that they don't have any juice in the group to actually move people.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so PLT logs are created so that that way everyone has a general sentiment of what's going on on the ground, the conversations that are being had between PLT, protesters, protest organisers, the community at large; right? That's a huge component as well; right? So when I talk about the community at large, it's people that aren't directly involved with the protest. So the citizens of Ottawa, businessowners, restaurant owners, people that are around there. And that's such a priority to find out, you know, what's the whole story there, and what are the potential landmines that we'll have to navigate through this? What are potential -- you know, if you concentrate on the community at large and explain things to them and try and work within the community at large as well, then you're less likely to have counterprotests, we'll say, that would potentially, you know, put us back or bring violence to a group, and also put the police in harms way. So anyway, those logs are extremely important just for gathering information and making decisions when it comes to Command decision-making.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we would -- any partner that would be involved in a protest would be getting, you know, our OPP PLT logs so that way we're all kind of working on the same page, everyone kind of knows what's going on with the people that are involved in the protest, and then also, everyone's -- everyone just kind of has an understanding of what's happening. Like, so, in the PLT logs you may see, okay, there's still no exit strategy; right? So if you see that, then you know, okay, there's still no plan to leave; right? So what do we have to work on moving forward so that that way there is a plan; right? And so those are the things that basically would be essential to consider when it comes to interoperability as well as people working together, and when people end up going off, because we need rest as well, then when new people come in it's really easy to see what the sentiment on the ground is.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So to me, like -- so Public Order obviously has a job to do; right? And so they would be the people that come in, move slowly, methodically, push people back, gain ground, whatever, and our job would be to communicate, you know, I think day of like basically would be "Okay, guys, like obviously Public Order people are here. If you want to egress and leave, go this way, there's a bus waiting for you, it's warm, get on it, please we encourage you to do so. If you want to be arrested peacefully, please walk forward, and you know, if you don't want to do any of those just stay there and we'll get to you at some point."
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So -- yeah, PLT is definitely essential when it comes to negotiating, mediating, all of that stuff. It's a matter of not necessarily autonomy in a sense where, you know, we're working independently and PLT needs to be the people in charge of their own stuff, it's a matter of we need to see it at the decision-making table, and our -- what we're saying should probably be valued at some point. I think that's probably the whole autonomy thing.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So you would be like -- so it would be like no other, or every other program in an integrated response; right? So the Incident Commander is in charge; right? So ultimately, PLT would say, "These are seven things that I can do here today." Right? And "This is what I would like to do." "Cool. You can do this, this, and this", right, or whatever it may look like. And ultimately, the autonomy would just basically be, you know, "We are the ones doing the negotiations. I can never explain every single word, look, head nod, whatever to the Incident Commander, but this is a great idea to help reduce the footprint, get us closer to our successful outcome, and carry on with our day."
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So the OPP PLT team was ultimately responsible for gathering numbers, reaching out to contacts. I believe it was United We Roll in 2019 that came across with some of the same players; right? So there was already existing relationships from 2019, so it was really easy to just reach out from a PLT perspective or a liaison perspective and ultimately say, "Okay, I understand you're coming. What's the plan of attack? What do you plan on doing?", and then if -- and then looking at numbers as they come across. Because I think, you know, normally you can look at Facebook and see there's some numbers that are happening, but in this case, there was a lot more people that were, you know, jumping onto it than Facebook would normally say. So we just had PLT members, a couple of members, going in checking on hotels and different areas as they came across Northwestern Ontario, and then there was areas coming from the south as well, and just kind of giving an idea of what those numbers were, passing them over to Ottawa Police Service, PLT. I think there was a sheet of numbers that basically said "These are the leaders that we've been working with, talking to. This is what it looks like now." And I think there was -- I shouldn't say this, but I believe that there was a meeting even set up where people ended up going out to Russell parking lot and meeting with some of the leaders of the convoy from OPS as a result of the PLT work. So that was kind of it, like setting up the scene. And then in those -- like, as we were learning stuff in Northwest Region about how the convoy worked, as we were learning stuff from the West Region, we were sharing that with our policing partners as they were coming into their areas, as well as sharing it with OPS. And you know, I think on every one of Diana Hampson's, not every one but most of them of Diana Hampson emails they would say, "No, there's still not an exit strategy"; right
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so I don't really know the OPS PLT team intimately; right? Like I help facilitate a CACP policing with Indigenous peoples course for large scale protests, which is a liaison course; right? And I would say probably there was 20 members on there. I would say that the OPS PLT members were very driven, they had unbelievable characteristics when you look at what we're trying to look for when it comes to a PLT member. So in 2019, I sat as the Acting or Interim Commander for Emergency Response, so I oversaw a true ERT, canine, tactical, paramedics program and explosive disposal, and in there, like there's a lot of men. And I was asked by a doctor to say, "You know, what are some barriers impacting women and policing?" And I didn't make the connection, but they said, "Well, in here there's hardly any women and in PLT there's lots of women." And I said it's really a value system. And when I looked at the OPS members, they were really following the same value system. They were community- focussed, they were compassionate, they were empathetic, they were unbelievable communicators. They were everything that you would want in someone to represent an organisation in a time of crisis. I thought that they were really well-chosen.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I believe I arrived on the 3rd. On the 2nd I was engaged in a conversation with Superintendent Mark Patterson surrounding the PLT logs and their use for evidence for an injunction. And to me, I didn't think that that was a good use of PLT logs, and it would obviously, potentially damage relationships that are out there too, because there's always this thing where people, you know -- there's this thing where people think that potentially we're spying on them, and that's not the case. We're there to make things safer, and we have a long road to go. And I definitely didn't want it to look like we were spying on people, right, because that's not our job. And so I just -- I cautioned him as to the use of the PLT logs, and he said that he wouldn't use them. And then as I was talking to him, I recognized that they didn't necessarily have a good understanding of what PLT did. We went through what PLT does, how they do it, what are some strategies, whatever, and he was very thankful for the conversation, and he was an absolute gentleman at that time as well. And so but on that it just showed me that maybe we needed to assist with some leadership there for PLT, and I was also getting grumblings from our membership saying, you know, things just aren't going as well as they probably could. So on the third, I had said to our command, you know, is this something that would be beneficial having someone in leadership over there to help support that, and they agreed to that. The unfortunate part is I -- in my mind I thought just Gisselle Walker was going, who was the PLT Provincial Coordinator, but she had a province to take care of, and so I ended up coming. So inadvertently volunteered myself for that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, so -- yeah, so when I got to Ottawa, there was a couple key pieces of real estate that had been identified to get back. One of them was Confederation Park. The PLT in Ottawa as well as OPP had great relationships with the Algonquin leadership here as well as the Algonquin leadership in Kitigan Zibi. And, ultimately, they had reached out to try and mediate or negotiate a safe exit of that park. And I believe that was on the 4th of February that the leaders and leadership and elders and community members ended up coming down. And they ended up meeting for a long time. On the 5th of February was an unbelievable day for me. It was a day of great pride and the encampment actually cleared out as a result of those negotiations. It took a little bit of time, some nudging in the afternoon, but ultimately, the camp ended up clearing on the 5th as a result of that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So ultimately, in the morning, I believe, of the 6th, there was 2 priorities, I believe, for Superintendent Patterson who was the new Incident Commander as of the 5th evening, I believe. And so on the 6th, there was 2 priorities. One was Rideau and Sussex, the other one was Coventry Road. And so the idea was to do some sort of public order hit on Rideau and Sussex and then potentially Coventry Road afterwards. And then as the day unfolded, the messaging turned into we weren't doing Rideau and Sussex anymore, and it was a matter of go to Coventry Road, tell them that they have to leave without -- or get out of there, take all the gas with them or they're going to be arrested. And I know there was some concern when it talks to tough messaging. Like, I know my one sergeant reached out and said, "You know, it's going to be tough because we don't really have rapport there." Well, at the end of the day, it doesn't -- like, that doesn't matter if you have rapport for that. This is just messaging to get them out of there, so that that way, we establish the strategy of what's to go on. And then ultimately, if they don't, then they know we've educated them before the enforcement; right? And then so while that was going on, I ended up getting back, and someone had said to me in the Command -- not in the Command Post. It was, like, a tactical planning area for Public Order people. I think it was Mike Stoll, who was a Staff Sergeant at the time. And he had said to me, "You know that there they're going to do a Public Order hit on Rideau and Sussex", which I never did, and I think Diana Hampson called me at the exact same time and told me -- or around that time and said that they were going to do that and that would be problematic. And so, you know, I'd reached out to Mark Patterson and told him the consequences associated to that, because, again, when you look at PLT, there is one unit that's built for open, honest, transparent lines of communication; right? And so we have just told them if you don't leave, you're going to be arrested. And then what ended up happening was going to be they were going to be arrested anyway. And so to me, I thought, one, that would damage PLT in the City of Ottawa; right? Like, you would have -- because here's a place that I believe was supplying gasoline for a bunch of people or diesel for a bunch of people. So you're going to damage PLT or the efficiency of PLT as being trusting. And then also, you're going to damage relationships with all the other trucker convoy leadership, right, because they're probably connected with everyone. And the next time we say you better leave or you're going to get arrested, I would probably imagine there would be some doubt associated to that. So if someone heard PLT in the future say, hey, if you don't leave you're going to be arrested, like, my concern would be, okay, well, I'm staying because I know I'm getting arrested anyway; right? Like, that was my biggest concern there. The relationships were something different, but the big thing was to ensure that we remained with that trust and confidence in what our role was there. And, ultimately, I think he said to me that's not fair. And I thought that that was a really interesting response to something that when we're talking about tactics or strategy or an operation that that's not fair, because that seems to certainly personalize it. But anyway, they ended up doing it, and I had then sent him -- I had called him, said, "You know, I didn't realize that that was such a big thing as far as the gas." And I said, "You know, obviously, this was a miscommunication. My captain is going to come in and replace me," because he was replacing me that afternoon and I was going back home to Orillia. But because of this stuff, I ended up staying around. And ultimately, on my departure -- or in that conversation, I said I would send him an email that would probably help him out just with some structure with five points on it that you should consider and it's probably some pretty sage advice. And then I sent that email and went about my day just trying to clean up the emotion that was attached to it. There was some people that had some pretty hard feelings, they're emotionally invested. I ended up sending basically one person home, talked to another person, nothing was salvageable that night. So I said, "Go home, rest and get ready to work tomorrow morning."
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, like, right away, there was people calling -- or reaching out to Andrew Rozbicky (ph), some of our PLT members from the OPP, and saying, you know, this isn't great. This is you've escalated this. This is horrible and, you know, there's going to be potential consequences as a result ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so the -- like, obviously in any crowd, like, on the weekends crowds would become a lot bigger; right? People would come in, they'd have days off, they'd want to support. And then during the weekdays, things were a little bit -- you know, not as many people there as there would be on weekends. But, ultimately, you know, there was ebbs and flows with conversation. There was -- you know, certainly towards the end, there was a lot more, you know, heels digging in and people, you know, in a more defensible position. But leading into it, there was a lot of people that wanted to work with police in how to -- you know, how to -- how could we safely reduce the footprint, easing some tension from the City of Ottawa, while recognizing, you know, that we have to put the Public Order people in a successful position to potentially at some point take down an occupation within Ottawa.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And so I -- you know, the unfortunate part was, there wasn’t a pile of really strong testing of leadership and resolve and compliance. You know, I think you have two relatively large events that end up happening when it comes to Confederation Park, which you tested leadership and resolve there and compliance, to which people -- someone obviously had the leadership and compliance to move a crowd of people out of Confederation Park. You have Coventry Road where some people are leaving. I don’t know the exact details of all of the stuff that happened there outside of the emotion. But that day, like that afternoon, I walked into the PLT office to introduce Mike Acton to people because he would be replacing me and have a little meeting there. And you know, in that meeting with those guys, I was -- I walked in and I was shocked because there was all PLT people in there. And to me, PLT people in a time of crisis should never be sitting in a room together, right. Like there’s enough people to go and talk to, there’s enough opportunities for negotiation, there’s enough opportunities and, really, what I saw was a bunch of wasted opportunities in that room. So I said, “Like why are you guys here?”. And they said they hadn’t had any direction or any permission to go and do anything right outside the Coventry Road. And so I said, “Okay. So if you guys were let loose, like if you guys were unhandcuffed and able to go out and do your work, what could you do?”. And you know, I don’t know the exact numbers, but the one gentleman who’s an OPS member says, “I could probably clear Rideau and Sussex by Monday or Tuesday”. And then another guy says, “I can take care of this many people. I could probably get this many people to leave”. I could probably open up a roadway, but we’d have to move them to a curbway. I could probably do this. And so that was a common theme around that room, and so I ended up reaching -- and you know, like we’re in middle management, right. So there’s an Incident Commander. I reached over to John Ferguson and I say to John, “So like you’re the Staff Sergeant here”. And John’s, you know, been put into a really tough spot, right. Like John’s not a PLT trained member. He’s a crisis negotiator. And he’s an absolute gentleman, too. And so I said to John, “Like so you’re middle management. You’re in charge here. You’re hearing all this. What are your thoughts? Do you think that this can be done?”, whatever, because really, John’s in charge of that team, right. Like I’m there for guidance, advice, suggestions, learned experience over -- you know, since 2016 to current, and then 2005 I was dealing with protestor civil unrest, and so I had that to draw on. And so I was trying to get John to give me his opinion on it and he was saying, “Yeah. You know, I think this is really good”. So we tried to call Mark Patterson, tried to Mike Stoll because I thought they were together, and there was no answer. And so in the absence of any direction, I said, “How safe do you feel letting these people go?”. And he said, “I feel good about it”. And then we got into the other room and then he didn’t feel good about it. And you know, good on him, right, like, because, really, they needed to have -- ensure that it met with the strategic direction of OPS Command, but there was just so many opportunities that were there that were unexplored. So when you talk about, you know, testing compliance, resolve, whatever, you know, we had very minimal opportunity to do that, I would submit.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
This is the day of Coveny Roady. So we’d just cleared Confederation Park on the 5th. This is the 6th. I’m doing a handoff with Mike -- sorry, Mike Acton, and then just brought him down there. And then there’s this group of PLT members that are sitting around all together waiting for direction.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, Dr. Peter Collins is a psychologist that works with police forces across the province. He typically deals with crisis negotiation, is my understanding. He's a great guy and a tremendous asset for policing in a crisis negotiation setting. And there was one meeting that I happened to be in where he had said in the presence of Chief Sloly and some other senior level members in the -- for OPS, and I happened to be virtually just in the room, in this planning room, and he had said something about to the effects, and I think it -- you know, we had talked about it afterwards and he said it was a bit of a misunderstanding, but he said, "The PLT had taken it as far as it can go and really moving forward we need a negotiation aspect to this." And this was like February 4th, maybe, February 5th, like around that time; right? And to my understanding at that time, from the members on ground, was PLT hadn't been utilised appropriately to date and there wasn't any, you know, as far as an integrated command structure there was no integration to date. And the other thing that the other thing that was mentioned was PLT would gather intelligence for this negotiation team. And so when PLT isn't gathering intelligence, one, that's fundamentally against the role of PLT is; and two, it provides me a -- you know, an overview of a general lack of understanding of what the role of PLT actually does. And so for me, it wasn't necessarily -- like I liked the idea of having Peter Collins engaged and involved and all that stuff, for me it was a matter of kind of a scope of practice issue as well as a confusion issue when it comes to okay, who's dictating what a negotiation looks like with a crowd, because there's certain fundamental crowd psychology principles that you would typically manage, and I'm not saying that I know more than Peter Colins, but there's some proven methods in policing that work, and I just don't know if, you know, that's the right avenue when you haven't explored options yet.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Mike Acton is a West Region Police Liaison Team coordinator. So West Region for the OPP is typically, like, west of Toronto; right? And -- so he's the coordinator there. And this was a extremely large complicated event, I think, you know, people have said unprecedented; right? So we just wanted the right structure in place so that we would be able to achieve success from a liaison perspective. So I had asked Mike to come over. I believe in the work that he does and his capabilities. And I'd originally sent it to Mark Patterson on the top of this, and I ended up sending it to Diana Hampson, just because I wanted to assure her that, you know, it's not like I left Ottawa and didn't provide guidance or direction or some sort of support to get things on track for the Liaison Team Program so that that way we didn't lose confidence in OPP management on ground. Right? like I want to be in a position where I can support the people that are doing the work.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, Diana Hampson was there ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- and then Mike was there to support because Di had a pile of things going on. Right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So Mike came in and filled my role in just trying to give sage advice and guidance, direction. With his experience with West Region, there's obviously a lot of larger scale events that happen around Caledonia that he has been involved in.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. That's -- yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So Confederation Park, yes, and then no other otherwise. Coventry Road, obviously, is successful when it comes to looking at, you know, testing compliance, seeing that people are actually listening to police, stuff like that. So yes, they have reduced the footprint a little bit, but not to the extent that, you know, I would've liked to have seen at that time, and probably everyone in this room would have liked to have seen.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So there has been an increase in interest, in my experience, when it comes to political people, especially at federal level, becoming engaged in protest talks with people that are involved in a protest. And so if you look at the Wet'suwet'en solidarity demonstrations in 2020, we had two federal ministers that became involved. So in -- if you are looking at negotiation mediation techniques, obviously you would want to, you know, get ahead. Instead of ministers inserting themselves within a police setting, you would want to see, "Okay, if you are planning on doing this, please let us know so that way we can maybe leverage this so that that way we can end up having a win of sorts for the protesters, as well as an opportunity for them to be heard, and then hopefully carry on with, you know, their day." Right? And so to me, I just thought if there's an opportunity there where government is willing, wanting to come to the table, then we should probably capitalise on that opportunity.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, no. No. And so there was conversations I had had in the planning room, but nothing to -- of any concrete that I was aware of.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So I don't exactly know what date it was, it might have been the 10th of January, somewhere, or sorry, February, somewhere around there, but I had been called a Deputy Commissioner DiMarco, saying that the Deputy Minister of Public Safety Canada was looking to reach out to me, and then I don't know how that came to be, but ultimately that's how that came through. It's from Deputy DiMarco to msyself, a call at night, and just saying "This is going to happen. Is this something that you would be interested in assisting us?"
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Rob Stewart is the Deputy Minister of Public Safety.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that we were in a good area as far as, you know, what are some opportunities for us to achieve success? How can we capitalize on this opportunity if it comes to fruition? And what are some ways where we can have a win for everyone and, you know, basically, denounce criminal activity, and set up a meeting under certain conditions where people go home.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Leslie Jean was the Program Analyst for PLT for multiple years, and does incredible work on everything she's ever done, and someone that I consistently trust with work -- in this practice or scope.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'm not exactly sure the names that they had identified, and I think there's an email afterwards that I had asked Giselle Walker, the Provincial Coordinator, to determine what that list would be.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, like, I'm assuming, like, Tom Marazzo was one name that came forward, Tamara Lich was one name that came forward, so there was people that had stepped up as being leaders and had people following them.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So there's been one time -- excuse me -- there's been one time in my experience with protests where I've said the underlying issues that they are craving are police related and that was during the Defund Police, Police Reform Protest in 2020. And other than that, typically, the protests have grievances to do with government, the grievances have different -- anyway, it's out of the realm of police to solve those issues as to why people are protesting demonstration -- demonstrating and occupying places. So, yes, I agree with that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I can't stop vaccination -- you know, like, all the grievance and supports that were there is beyond my control as far as an inspector in the OPP. Right.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, I didn't speak directly to Commissioner Carrique about this email. I briefed him after our meeting.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
And, yeah, a couple times about different considerations around this.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I believe he was.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, we just kind of gave a lay of the land of, you know, what potentially could take place, how things work in there as far as negotiations stuff, and some of the considerations that he should be aware of coming into this conversation as a stakeholder.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Jeff Hutchinson ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- from Privy Council I believe.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Honestly, I don't - - I'm not sure what his role is.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think he was probably there to support Rob Stewart is kind of how I took it.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think Deputy Minister Stewart -- like, I don't know. I'm not in his head, but I honestly thought that he had great intentions of how he can try and help have some sort of safe resolution to a relatively -- I would say very chaotic event in Ottawa. I think he was there for the right reasons to try and support an exit of the protests to alleviate pressure on the residents of Ottawa.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I believe -- yeah, a hundred percent.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'm not exactly sure, to be -- like, I don't have that great of a memory on every bullet point, but I suggest that, you know, there was something probably in there about us delivering a letter, or saying to the protesters -- at some point we would have to tell people, you know, this is -- this could potentially be coming Is this something of interest to you? How can you see this working as an exit for everyone; right? And so I don't know exactly, but obviously, it was something around that communication piece with protesters, I'm assuming.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, and I -- you know, at the end of the day, this didn't get worked out; right? Like there was nothing that came to fruition from it. It was just a matter of trying to find resolutions where there weren't any. And so on this though, you know, like, we're basically trying to find how is the -- what is the best possible outcome and solution for a potential meeting with protesters, leaders, whatever, and how do we get that to go forward, recognizing that, you know, there's going to potentially be some people that stay around, there's going to be potentially, okay, how do we get people out of the city and get people to basically buy into this meeting.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I'd reached out to -- like, obviously, this is OPS; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I'm there to support my sister, and so I'd reached out to her. We'd had conversations in the past about PLT, how is it basically working, whatever, so I was trying to support her. I understood that she oversaw the portfolio that PLT ran within, and so I had reached out to her to talk to her about this, if she approved it, and if there was -- basically, you know, if there's anything else that I can do to support. And she just told me to run with it kind of. I think it's in an email, but basically, I just continued to go and on the understanding that I was supporting - - sorry, supporting OPS.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Like, at this point?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'm not exactly sure what it looked like, like, word for word, but it was the general idea would be -- there would be an opportunity for a meeting, if there could be an announcement of illegal activity, an exit from Ottawa and there would be a meeting with Ministers -- or sorry, Deputy Minister or someone of their choosing, ultimately.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Like the actual people hadn’t been worked out. I just want to clarify that. Sorry for interrupting.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I just had email conversations with her, right, so I -- so on this, I think she ends up sending me like a piece where it’s got red in it and there’s some different considerations. But I ultimately look at it, have my own opinions on that and then I ask the Commissioner if I’m good to go to respond back, kind of deal.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I believe so. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It’s in another email. I actually can’t recall what specifically it was, sir. And I’m not trying to be -- like I just can’t remember.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. I don’t know -- like I know this is kind of our discussion. I’m not sure if it came from me and my team or if it came from him based on our discussion, but this is representative of what our -- you know, our spit balling of ideas kind of looked like.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. So that was something from government where they said that they would not have the ability to have negotiation authority. So like they can’t go there and meet with people and come up with a -- you know, how -- to negotiate an agreement at that meeting, but they would go there, listen, be heard. Whatever the outcomes were, that was all up to them and the group, but ultimately, there was no negotiation authority for them.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was going to be the government’s ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- my understanding is the government’s meeting with protestors, would be that the government would have no negotiation authority, authority within that meeting.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t necessarily think so. I think there was people there that wanted to be heard, wanted an opportunity to have a meeting with people in power and I -- I don’t know. Like you would have to ask the protest group if that would have flown with them, but you know, putting ourselves in that position, we were trying to explore opportunities to ensure success, right.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Because during the weekends there would be large influxes of people and people would naturally be leaving the city on the Sundays, Sunday evenings, Monday mornings.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I want to just qualify that “yes” for a second ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- just because -- so when I met with my team -- or not my team. I met with the PLT team and we talked about, you know, what is the potential of this working, whatever. I think someone had said, you know, Tom Marazzo could potentially -- you know, have 60 percent of the people would potentially follow Tom Marazzo, right. And there’s -- you know, and this is just people that have been talking to people on the ground. There’s no analytical run-through of, okay, these are the numbers here, right. There’s no equation to this. This is social science and we’re best guessing, right, on this point. And ultimately, you know, Dinah Hampson had said to me that day, “Regardless of how this goes, there’s still probably going to be protests that we will have to deal with”. Like the police. When I say “we”, the police will have to deal with, right. So yes, it would work, I’m assuming, to reduce the footprint, get some people out of the city, which would then leave other people that would still potentially be there. Like I don’t think the -- you know, every single person in the city is leaving as a result of that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, hopefully.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. Like -- sorry, Deputy Chief Ferguson, obviously, and then John Brewer, who’s the Chief Superintendent in British Columbia. Him and I typically talk on a regular basis as a result of just mutual friendship as well as our portfolios. His is similar to mine in B.C. Much bigger, of course, as a Chief Super, and you know, I have the luxury of learning from his experiences in B.C.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. So in the recommendations, one of the big things is political interference or political direction to the police. And so that’s always a big issue when we look at protest demonstrations, occupations for obvious reasons and there needs to be a division between incident command and political direction, right. So that’s why, you know, for a variety of reasons, but when there’s an incident in OPP detachment areas, an Incident Commander or Major Critical Incident Commander will come from another area so that way the Detachment Commander can run his office and work with Police Service Boards and other people that potentially may influence something. So it’s just this layer of insulation, right, from political interference. And so that’s obviously that we wanted to make sure that that wasn’t the case. Rob Stewart never directed me, never gave me -- in fact, he went there asking for help. He was by no means in any way politically interfering and he was there to try and see and find ways to support.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And that wasn’t necessarily me that brought that up and caught that. That was the RCMP’s team for catching that, and great job by them.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That was something that was sent from Commissioner Lucki to me.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was just passing -- yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Just, “Please remove this portion,” is ultimately what I was ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That wasn’t a big concern for me.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So -- well, like, we never -- I think, you know, Insp. Morris -- or Supt. Morris spoke to it as far the violence and stuff in the group and so, to me, there wasn’t a pile of risk there. I personally wasn’t concerned but I know that there would be, obviously, some sort of assessment from someone before that would happen, right, as far as who’s identified from the protest group that would be in there. And I’m sure there’s people that the government probably wouldn’t want to be with as well, right.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, because I think the next day, he called me in the morning. Is this Saturday, do you know?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
This is Saturday. Yeah, so he called me in the morning the next morning and said that he was not able to make this happen, ultimately.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I definitely was not involved in the conversations that stopped that from happening so I don’t know.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, sorry about that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, and he just said that he was not successful, ultimately, to getting this going forward.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, I’m sure that there was emails. I know I talked to Patricia -- or Deputy Chief Ferguson and there were some emails. I know, in his response to me, it was a matter of if we still wanted this to go forward, there would have to be a letter from Brenda Lucki to the federal government requesting this, and that was on this day. So I explained that Deputy Chief Ferguson.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
As far as I’m aware, it wasn’t sent.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think it was just the conversations about Rob Stewart -- or Deputy Minister Rob Stewart and me working on behalf of OPS to come to this resolution.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I wasn’t there on the 11th in Ottawa. I’m not exactly sure what that posture looked like, what -- you know, basically, what it was like there.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I can’t recall. I’m not sure if there was an Integrated Response Team or Commanding -- like, I don’t know when Dave Springer kind of hopped in there because then, when Dave Springer hopped in with Rob Bernier -- or Supt. Bernier, there was -- so if you would help me with that day, I could tell you that, at that point, there was a change, when Rob Bernier came in as and incident commander. And ultimately -- you know, from my experience, when I first got there to Ottawa, I started calling people before 7:00. Like our PLT members, I just -- because I just assume the city is in chaos and, as a liaison person, if you’re awake, you should be talking to people, right? And so I started calling OPS members, Tyandaga Police Service liaison member, as well as OPP PLT members just to say, “How’s it going,” whatever, and I was told that, you know, people really didn’t start getting assignments until 10 o’clock or after. And so when Bernier and Springer, one of the considerations that I said to them is, “You have the” -- you know, I think I said “the world” but, “You have the Province of Ontario helping you here and we should be working longer hours and with purpose on an every-second basis, right, and so if we can increase those hours.” So, at that point, when Dave Springer came in, I know the hours increased in some of the identified issues decreased.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so I’d been sent back to Ottawa on the 15th of February to assist with that messaging and I know there was conversations about, “Well, is this messaging really too hard?” We’re telling people to leave. In my experience, I was, you know, telling members, you know, “We should be saying, ‘It’s time to leave. The time to leave was yesterday,’” right, because the posture had changed. We had a public order on the way and it was time to identify the people that it -- there’s going to be a movement coming; it’s coming soon; and we would be highly criticized, I think, if we didn’t allow people to get out of the city, right, to get -- to leave, to pick up their stuff and go and really reduce that footprint. So, for me, it was extremely important, as well as Gisele and the rest of the team, to ensure that we were providing the most clear, accurate information as possible to ensure that people were on their way out.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, like, there was some -- definitely some, you know, hostility towards the messaging and stuff like that. I know we had, you know, some people that were -- like some officers that were assigned to our PLT members to ensure that they were safe while delivering the message, right? And so it was extremely important to have those frank and very succinct messages for people to leave, ultimately, right? And if they wanted to stay, then there would be consequences associated to that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, so one was protests for senior command, and ours included. And there’s no criticism whatsoever on anyone in this. It was a unbelievable event but I’d found that, you know, there was a lack of understanding where we separated liaison work from public order work. When I was on the Hostage Rescue Team, we had negotiators on the Hostage Rescue Team because it’s vitally important to create opportunities where you can resolve stuff with communication. And so in this, it was ultimately an opportunity to say, “Okay, guys, we should probably take a look at streamlining the measured approach, socializing it, and policing as an actual something that we do, so that that way we can get to the bottom of stuff quicker." And like, so you look at some of the stuff that happened on February 6th, right? So there was a PLT request for Rideau and Sussex, right, so we were going to go and -- or we, the police, were going to go with public order unit potentially and go and remove people from Rideau and Sussex. I expedited an email to Mark Patterson to say, "If it was me and this was going to happen, this is how you should use PLT right now," right? So a communication strategy built in to stuff so that people are aware that they can leave and that we're not just running in there putting people in harm's way. And so for this, there's opportunities where we could do a better job as senior management or senior commanders in policing on a national level to better understand the measured approach and how it can impact outcomes for the better. And then the second one was, I look at the CACP policing with Indigenous People's Committee and you know, there's John Brewer, who's the Chief Superintendent that sits on that with tactical background. I'm not sure the tactical background of everyone that’s on there. We have an emergency management committee, which Mike Nelson, I think, co-chairs or chairs and sits on. And so you have all these merging CACP commands. And maybe it's time to look at okay, this is a relatively big event. I would say it's a huge event, right? It impacted this -- our Nation's Capital. And protests have just got bigger and bigger and bigger in the last few years, right? Like, I focus on 2012 with Idle No More, right, and some of the stuff there. I think there was, you know, roughly 200 peaceful protests in the Province of Ontario in 2012. And then in 2020 we had, you know, multiple, 200 type events in the province, and then we had the largest display of public order in the history of the nation in 2022, and there's no slowing down. So I just thought collectively, as a group, it might be a good idea.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe it was, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. Like, I want to agree with you. I want to clarify a couple of things. Like, obviously, there's been movements in the last five years. I think this is probably the most centred in a very publicized area that involves government and all that stuff. But there's been similar movements, but this one was definitely the biggest and had the most impact.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, it was scale and scope, and it was -- you know, it impacted a lot of people, right? And so like, when you look at some of the different things that are happening, I always think, okay, if this is going to impact people negatively, how many people are going to be impacted? And I can tell you, there's some stuff that I'm -- that’s coming up that I would be concerned about.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. Their -- like, their demeanour wasn’t really, to be -- so to be fair, like, there's certain things in crowd psychology or dynamics that you can do to prevent certain things, right, like, me looking at -- or like, human decision making processes, you look at risk, reward, effort, provocation, excuses. You know, you have the same outcomes when it comes to those five things, it's just a matter of I think, the scale and the scope, but as far as the dynamic and that, I don't think it was too far different than other instances. Is that clear?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay. So ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So there's typically divisions in protest groups. Like, that’s something that we actually teach on the course is, it's hard to -- because people in a hijacking protest -- I don't know if that’s the right word -- but people will come in and hijack. And sometimes when you ask people, "What are you protesting?" on Day 1, and then on Day 12, you're like, "Okay. What is -- " you know, if you ask, "What are you here for? What does success look like? What can I say or do to get you to leave?" sometimes that ends up morphing, right, because you have these -- you know, you have people that are dealing with each other. You're dealing with a human capacity, right, so things end up changing as a result as things evolve. But there is -- you know, there is division within protest groups on a regular basis. This one was just so -- like, I think the scale and the scope magnified that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, they were.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, it was the team. Like, I would have updates and obviously check in and be as engaged as I need to be, recognizing I have an unbelievable team.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not think the largest public order event in the nation's history was happening ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- at that time.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So like, in my experience, any time anyone says, "I don’t have an exit strategy," I would be concerned, right? So I would -- I talked about the five decision-making processes, right, so I would increase the effort, I would harden targets, I would do a bunch of stuff. If someone was coming to my house and they said, "I don’t know when I'm going to leave," I would buy an uncomfortable bed, right? So -- and I'm just saying that jokingly, but in all honesty, like, I would make sure that I knew when they were leaving and what would happen. And if I didn’t know, I would put something in place to harden the target or at least control or manage what was happening.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I would probably -- you know, if you were looking at it, I would probably find a location where large trucks with beds -- you know, those things that people live in -- are parking somewhere outside the downtown core. I would allow -- you know, like, this is all spit-balling, but I think when you have information or intelligence or whatever -- and everyone’s guilty of this, right? You want to trust the best interests of the people that are protesting to do something that’s right and not, you know -- how do I say that? Not inconvenience a city, and ultimately, you know, there’s rights that they have but then, you know, it’s balancing, which sometimes turns into a juggling act, as we saw here.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. Like, with them just not having an exit strategy I would be a bit concerned, as far as what that looks like. I think that there was conversations with PLT members with some of the protest people around the 21st of January’ish that said, you know, “I’m going to come there and paralyze the city,” and that was shared with OPS at that point for them to take into consideration.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
OPP PLT to their individual meetings because they have that group within Eastern Region that basically share information with each other.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Third night, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I never met with Chief Sloly, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I was -- I was in this planning room and so I was sitting off to the side and then there was meetings happening and I was off to the side.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I never once saw him on screen. Like, I’m ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- kind of like this.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Nothing that I saw.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I was told that Chief Sloly had talked to the OPS PLT sergeant, or sergeants, maybe, before I had arrived.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, I didn’t. No, I saw the one briefing, you know, where -- or I cited earlier where he said, “Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate” right? Like, that’s -- you know, I was one other call with him. I was on another call, I believe on the 12th of February, or the 13th, so ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not get down to Windsor.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s always something that I’m concerned about. I’m always concerned about -- like, so when they were doing the Windsor stuff, right? So I’m always concerned of creating a movement out of a movement, right? So, like, you look at certain settings. So say there’s a protest in Ottawa and then this protest goes up and they say, “We’re in support of Ottawa,” and then you get another group that says, “I’m supporting Windsor in support of Ottawa,” and then you have all these mini movements. But I’ll tell you, I had a conversation with C/Supt. John Brewer, and he was saying, you know, “With some of the restrictions ending in some of the other provinces, and ours aren’t ending in British Columbia,” he had some serious concerns as a result of protests in relation to this.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I guess that’s the importance of making sure that you have had that great relationship with people and outline, you know, this is the expectation and whatever, right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And another really important thing, too, is really that off-gassing, right? So as you have the ability, when people identify that they want to leave, to immediately provide that opportunity for them to leave so they’re leaving in groups of eight and not in a thousand.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I was aware of those conversations, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. And the Ottawa protest wasn’t impacting British Columbia, but the general grievances and support would have -- you know, like obviously, when this stuff starts happening, right, then people say, “Man, that’s something I can get behind”.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, for sure. I would say, you know, in the absence of the ability to do Public Order, right, so -- you know, there was so many plans to do Public Order intervention, right, and in the absence of doing it -- because we never had the ability to do it up until the 17th or 18th. So in the absence of that, you have to have an unbelievable negotiation and mediation strategy until that happens, right. Until you’re able to muster people to do something, I believe everyone has a responsibility to that safety to ensure that that gets completed.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. I was being - - I was -- I came here to support Giselle Walker, who’s the Provincial Coordinator, and was asked to come here to support her.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m not sure.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I’m not -- yeah. Sorry, I’m not -- I don’t ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, yes, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So on that, that came across to PLT at some point to say, “Does this make sense?” because basically we just wanted consistent messaging to go out, hand it out so people were aware and also go out on social media.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sorry. I don’t -- sorry.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, no, sorry.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I believe that’s in the messaging.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
There’s a bunch -- sorry. Go ahead.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Alakas, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No. Like reflecting on it, like looking back, maybe it’s Carson Pardy’s team that came -- went to assist or whatever.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went in and I think I spoke at two of them.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, or ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, or -- or -- like, to me, put people in a tactically advantageous position so that way if there is a police operation that there would be a better opportunity for success that would be safe for all the people that are there and for the police officers that have the responsibility to go and enforce that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, ma’am.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, for sure. Like what I was talking about, like obviously the risk, you want to increase risk, right, to remove people from doing so, right.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Typically.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, ma’am.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, probably. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sorry. Like is that something that would -- what are you saying? Sorry.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It did and it didn’t, and I’ll just qualify that for you. So when you look at it, really, you’re just -- like you have 35 Block Captains, I think, at one point, so you have a certain amount of leadership. You have the ability to manage that in individual pocket size groups, right. And so, you know, if you’re able to work through a process with mediation, whatever, and there’s a group of people that are willing to work with you, then, really, the size is -- the size is really bad and it looks overwhelming, but the -- you know, the tenets of negotiation, mediation, whatever don’t really necessarily change. And the work of PLT, if done appropriately and given the ability to do it properly, can still manage that regardless of the size, but it does add complications as far as you're not -- you know, you're not being aware of what exactly is in that crowd, and potential conflict as a result.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
If you're doing a hard -- like, so if you're doing hard tactics, right, like so if you're taking over streets, right, taking them -- and then you have to kind of own them a bit; right? And so when you're looking at hard tactics, cool. Yeah, for sure, people would have to potentially come back there, or whatever, but if people voluntarily leave on their own through mediation, negotiation, like, and that's my -- that's our world, right, so if they leave on their own the odds are they're not going to come back to that space.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Correct. Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. Yeah, they were fluid, for sure.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, like at the very end they were entrenched. I think at -- you know, throughout the protests themselves we didn't really actually test compliance or resolve a pile; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I didn't know that, but there was definitely some very strong ideologies within the group.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, for sure. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, very much so.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, absolutely. There's limitations to the Constitution for sure.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Like they were pretty organised in the sense that they got across the country to get to Ottawa. Like it's not like it was an unorganised group. I think there was a lot of different people in groups there; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I guess, yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sure.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. Yeah, I think there was one -- yeah, I saw one day where there was 10 for sure, so that's pretty consistent.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, and that's the importance of identifying leadership.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, ma'am.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That's correct. Yeah, it's happened before in the past, right, where we were surprised by government becoming involved in police operations. So if you can head that off that's probably the best way to do that; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I don't know the intricate details about what the plan was there, but...
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
The meeting?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Or? Okay. I am, yes, now.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I'm -- no, I'm -- like I'm aware of it now. I just -- yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. I believe on February 15th, for sure that would be the assessment. I think after February 13th, with the Mayor's stuff, and then it not happening, there would be obvious... You know, like that's the issue with not testing resolve, compliance, whatever at the beginning, right, because if, you know, if you go to a group and you say, "Hey, guys, just for the sake of it can you move to a bus lane?" And then you watch and you see how much juice people have within the group, what this looks like, whatever, you have that ability to actually see if there's leadership there, if they're a unified group. And then you have the ability to tactically deal with the people that are not in compliance, or, you know -- and it just kind of separates people. Right? And so what you're trying to do is have focussed, targeted, strategic enforcement as opposed to a blanket enforcement of everyone that's there.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, him and I have different backgrounds when it comes to negotiation, mediation, whatever. Like I would say there was opportunities beforehand. I think those opportunities weren't, you know, captured. But ultimately, yeah, at some point there needed to be some sort of intervention outside of mediation, negotiation.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, that's on, I believe, the 15th, 16th, something like that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I believe it was. I'm sure that it's -- like I don't have it in front of me, but it was -- tried to make it succinct, clear so that people understood it. It wasn't like this gives you this authority, this gives you this authority, it was a very broad I believe document.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I know it was in those dates but yeah, there was another convoy from west region coming to Ottawa.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I wanted to make sure that they weren’t coming. There’s obviously tactical considerations for members on ground. You know, one of the important ones is 360 defence and I didn’t want anyone coming in on the backend.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. Like, there was -- yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I don’t think that he approved it. I think he was taking it as, like, for consideration to the Minister. Like, that’s how -- like, he was looking for advice to forward.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
He never said that it was a bad idea.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
What’s that, sorry?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, he never directed anything. Like, he didn’t -- he did not direct anything.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, she had reached out to me.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
She had some issues with it.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, it was some verbiage. I think she talked about some people had some concerns, right.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe so.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think the proposal was kind of, like, dead in the water after the 13th when the mayor provided his letter ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- and then it allowed the ability to see the outcome of that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. I believe that the Aboriginal Relations Team was before the inquiry, like, the inquiry in 2007, but the premise of it came out and the recommendations to support the Aboriginal Relations Team was part of the recommendations.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s 1995, yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir. I believe we have 25 full-time members and 100 part-time members.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe so. Yeah, I believe the RCMP has an unbelievable program as well, especially in British Columbia.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, absolutely. Every event is different.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sorry, say that again?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I understand that, yeah. Someone had said that to me.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I’m not exactly sure of the intricate details, sir, but I had heard that.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I have no idea.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don’t know who she is, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Well, I see I will attempt to expedite the PLT package, so ultimately, I was just trying to provide -- I believe it turned out to be an eight-or- nine-page document. So that way, OPS had a better understanding of how to utilize PLT, recognizing that Dr. Collins will be putting together a negotiation plan, right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, basically how it would roll out for PLT. Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Thanks.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Diana Hampson is a retired PLT member probably watching at home, probably really happy with you right now. And this is from Dave Springer, actually, to myself, Giselle Walker, and I believe -- or Giselle might have forwarded it to me, but just talking about: "The email Diana sent earlier this afternoon serves as an example of her dedication and pride to ensure the right thing is getting done whenever possible. I shared this with our POU leads and Staff Sergeant Gauvin made a point to inform our POU commanding group (Ottawa, Durham -- whatever) of its contents, which proved to be pivotal in our discussions." So I'm just passing this on to Superintendent Maracle, who's our bureau commander ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- making sure he's aware of all the great stuff. And I'm not surprised, because Di's a dedicated officer.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
That’s Sergeant Hampson.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It's Diana Hampson.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Sounds good.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So when it comes to injunctions, sometimes there is issues when it comes to enforcement and all that stuff. I don't know the academic literature and what she's citing. I -- sometimes in more complex situations, I really like the idea of injunctions as it really takes the guesswork out of what's too far and what's not too far, ultimately, and then it allows us to do our job with clear direction.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Kyle Freissen's a great lawyer, and he's taught on our PLT course, and going to legal for legal advice is never a bad thing.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, that Di was expressing for sure.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, for sure. I'm going to give here one now. Thank you very much.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, ma'am.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I thought it was a mistake that could potentially impact down the road, yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I didn’t have an understanding of where the fuel was going. The information that was relayed to me was that they needed to remove the fuel from the area or they would be arrested.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Would it be consistent with what I thought the agreement was?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I wasn’t there for the agreement. My understanding of what the negotiated agreement was, was that they were going to -- they were asked to get them to remove the fuel, right ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- or they would be arrested.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I'm not against preventing the fuel from going downtown. I'm against breaking trust when it comes to a program that's there to build trust and has a very important role in keeping trust for the safety of communities. And so if it was a matter of, hey, guys, just to let you know, people are coming here to take the fuel and they will be charging you as a result of whatever they've decided to charge them with, then that would be a more amicable solution and we could have easily done that. What the issue was, is was a miscommunication of we're not going to arrest you if you leave with fuel, and then we're going to arrest you when you leave with the fuel. That was the concern for me. So if it was a matter of the communication being clear, but, hey, you're not allowed to have this here, it's also impacting positively on the unlawful, unpeaceful protest that's happening in the City of Ottawa, I would have 100 percent said, yeah, let's support that, for sure; right? But the issue was that the communication wasn't clear as to what the objective was and then it damaged potential trust with the group; does that make sense?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I think the flaw is the fact that there was a bunch of stuff happening quickly that day ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- that a unified command table where people could actually understand the assignment and all the stuff that happened, and in the event that, you know, there's miscommunication, it's because people aren't there for the conversations; right? And so if an Incident Commander who is in charge of it, and he says, "This is what I need you to do," and then you go and do it, and then it impacts a program area, then there's a problem.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, taking a measured approach, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I think I used flexibility and the word nimble very often in my ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- conversations.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don't understand. I didn't hear ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- Deputy Chief Steve Bell.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I'm not really too sure. Like, I'm -- I don't have an opinion on that actually.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Is it -- okay, so you're asking me if I think that the citizens of Ottawa would be disturbed by all the stuff that's going on by the protesters?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, a hundred precent. So the protest was unlawful, unpeaceful, unsafe. I've made that extremely clear.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
And this and, yeah, a hundred percent it would be horrible to be a citizen during that time.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don't know.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I don't -- like, I don't -- no, I can't speak on behalf of the protesters.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Absolutely. I think the issue here, right, so I think a lot of people probably would have been able to move in quicker had they had the means and the opportunity to do so. The issue was, is that in the absence of the ability to have Public Order intervention, we were left with options that would be miniscule in nature, whether it's charging people with jerry can offences ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- or trying to negotiate blocks of roads, negotiate different areas, so that way there could be a tactical intervention that we had the capacity to do.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
No, I'm saying in the grand scheme of things, I don't think charging someone with a jerry can offence is going to open roads or get people to leave.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
What's that ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It was and either or? No, no, no.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay. Go ahead, sir [sic].
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
M'hm.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, so ideally, obviously, the protest would be lawful, peaceful, safe; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
If I had a wish list, that would be one of my wishes for this; right? But that's not the case, and so at the end of the day, like, there was certain things that could be done by police, and obviously, there's an Incident Commander that definitely oversees a lot more than just PLT to take into consideration; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Okay. Thank you.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe in it, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, hopefully getting that compliance; right? Like obviously people want to be heard, right, I think we've heard that a lot throughout this incident, and ultimately if there is opportunities to have them heard, while ensuring lawful, peaceful, safe protests that's obviously what we're trying to achieve; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I do.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think so, yeah. I think people, like probably would have opt in there. Like I talked to -- like I said before, I talked to Mike Acton, who I believe and trust in his craft, and he had said with Tom Marazzo, he thought 60 percent of people would be following Tom Marazzo.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, the more people that end up leaving an unlawful, unpeaceful, unsafe event, the better off it is for a police intervention.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I thought there was missed opportunities there. When I walked into rooms and there was several PLT people sitting in a room, I felt they should -- I think I said this earlier, right, they should probably be out speaking to people and trying to find the sentiment of on ground conversations, what's going on, how do we manage people from moving, getting out of different areas.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Coventry Road we definitely had a miscommunication issue, and in my professional opinion I think, you know, had we have had some sort of structure in place that probably would've been avoided. With that being said, when I -- like so talk about Confederation Park, you know, that was a negotiation that went extremely well and people ended up leaving as a result of their respect for the Algonquin Nation.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, like hopefully; right? Like there's also the ability to ask for large concessions right away; right? Like, "Hey, time to move everyone here", or "time to for this to happen", or whatever. Like there's -- yeah, there's opportunities for wins along the way that are small for everyone, and then obviously it provides you an opportunity to look at the outcome and the leadership and the resolve of the group and who's willing to work and who's to not, right, and who's defiant or whatever. But ultimately, yeah, like the more opportunities for engagement and testing that trust and building it, the better off at the end.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think the -- like when you look at how professional the officers were that did Public Order, right, like no one was running in, I think that it wasn't heavy-handed in any way. It was an ability to respond to the numbers in front of them that actually were overwhelming, right, as a result of the scope, the scale, size of the protest. And when you look at it I don't think it was heavy-handed, I think it was very professionally done from a policing tactical perspective where you have very clear messaging before, very clear messaging during. And I was a little bit disappointed in a sense that that many people wanted to come out and intervene with police when they're trying to clear streets knowing that that was the outcome.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It could've been smaller, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
It could've been, yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, I can.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
So I didn't have specific concerns about church and state. I think in the document itself, Commissioner Lucki had concerns with the appearance of the government directing police; right? And my conversations with Deputy Minister Stewart, he did not direct me in any way, he was not ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, like, obviously it just shouldn't happen. Like it looks like -- for example, look at Ipperwash, right, and the issues that happened there as a result of comments made by government to that point.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think they were asked by OPS PLT I believe.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I believe. I think it was ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah, I think it was like, "Okay, like we aren't -- like we are in stuck position here or a stalemate and how do we get some traction with negotiation"; right?
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I did not have any conversations with anyone that would be a deputy minister or a minister. I had a conversation at one point, I believe it was a Friday night, around the Windsor Bridge, offering basically a letter. Not exactly sure how that came to me, but I was invited to a meeting. It was someone in the provincial government, and they had ultimately asked for a letter to go out to the protesters. And it was coordinated through Carrie Vanbeek, and so an inspector in the OPP ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
--- and ultimately what that letter may look like, and then it went to the protesters the day before or the night before the police action or intervention in Windsor.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Nothing that I was aware of in the City of Ottawa, no.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes, sir.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
I think during it, sir, like there was opportunities every day for people to take part in lawful and peaceful, safe demonstrations, and throughout there was not people saying, "Okay, let's go and we're going to go here." And so when people were leaving, right, so not everyone got arrested; right? "Like you can go anywhere, but you just can't be on the street here"; right? "So if you'd, like, walk that way, go over there, whatever." And if someone wanted to set up on a -- you know, wherever, I'm sure there would potentially be an intervention or whatever, or a conversation or whatever. But as long as it was lawful, peaceful, safe, I don't really know if anyone would've done anything about it. But that being said, I understand that it was such a dire need to clear and regain those streets that they needed to return it to a state of normalcy.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. So ---
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yeah. It was basically you had to leave the zone. So there were stronghold areas, right, like areas where they were indefensible positions where there was a variety of different trucks, cars, whatever parked; right? So the objective I believe for that day, and the Public Order guys will probably be able to tell you more, was to ensure that that was all cleared and take back that space and return the city to a state of normalcy. There was no -- like I don't know exactly where people were directed to go, but they just couldn't be in those areas that were being cleared; right? And so my concern for that day was minus 22, we we're in a windstorm, and you know, from a humanitarian perspective I was hoping that we had a warm bus for people to go on to so that that way no one's freezing to death if they slip around the corner; right? And so outside of that, I don't exactly know what considerations were put into place other than providing an egress route for people to leave.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Thank you.
-
Marcel Beaudin, Supt (ON-OPP)
Yes. And it’s also a part of a bit of a -- I guess an education piece to say that I am using the resources that are available to me from the RCMP and the OPP to integrate to use that planning cell to support me. And we have a bit of work to do. We can’t start establishing timelines just yet because we’re at the infancy sage of that. I understood the importance of proceeding quickly, but we had to make sure that we followed the proper processes.