Mathieu Fleury
Mathieu Fleury spoke 313 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
C'est correct si je reste assis?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Sur la bible.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Alors, mon nom est Mathieu Fleury — M-A-T-H-I-E-U —, dernier nom, Fleury — F-L-E-U- R-Y.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Oui.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
There are.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I can pull it up. I have it in here.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’s the area about - - keep going down. Keep going down. Going down. I thought maybe it was above that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That’s right.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So the paragraph that begins with: “Councillor Fleury’s home address was posted online without his consent. As a result, a group of protestors drove in a pick-up truck to Councillor Fleury’s home and attempted to intimidate him. He and his family had to relocate until the protest subsided. Councillor Fleury reported the situation to OPS, but he never heard back from them. Councillor Fleury’s wife is Chinese-Canadian and was subject to online threats and abuse.” (As read)
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
They’re really three separate components. I would define them as -- the first one is any public office holder, our information can unfortunately be found online in some instances, and I believe that that’s how protesters were able to find my home address and show up. The second section, as a result, all the way to “back from them” is accurate.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
And then the final piece relating to my wife is about the abuse that we received as elected officials through email, phone calls, online.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Thank you.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
And proud.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So my area is called Rideau-Vanier. It is the communities of Lower Town, some would say the ByWard Market, Sandy Hill, which includes the University of Ottawa, and the former City of Vanier. My western, or where Councillor McKenney and I share a boundary is the Rideau Canal. So the first property in my ward is the Château Laurier.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, the Rideau Canal.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I think the close -- the first location would be right beside the new Senate, former Union, which is 700 Sussex, at the corner of Sussex and Rideau.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Across -- right beside the Chateau Laurier.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, across the street. So everything behind it is mixed use. There’s a lot of ground-floor commercial but a lot of low-rise residences in the Byward Market. And then along Rideau Street, you have these high -- very high-density buildings that are 20-storey and above right -- starting at the Rideau Centre with 90 George, you have the Four Claridge Towers; you have the East Market Condos which are on Cumberland; and you have a lot of density along Rideau. One street up -- one street south, which would be on Besserer, and you have a lot of density along Cumberland as well.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, it started in front of Chateau Laurier ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- so what would be One Rideau.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. Went through the intersection of Sussex. There were a number of -- you know, further down towards the Shaw Centre, further up towards George Street, all the way down Rideau Street, up to Waller.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, they’re ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’s going east.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That’s right.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So towards King Edward ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- there were rigs along King Edward and there were rigs all the way to the Loblaws on Rideau, which is at Nelson and Rideau. So that was the furthest eastern segment. And then were sections of rigs beside the University of Ottawa, Desmarais Building on Nicholas.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’d like to add ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So just to recognize that everything my colleague said is very similar to the realities I face -- that our communities face. I would add that the number of closures -- we have, in my community, one of the largest commercial properties, which is the Rideau Centre located at the corner of Rideau and Colonel By. There’s 300 business in the Rideau Centre. I’m told by the general manager, close to 3000 employees, and they were forced to close on the first Saturday and it took them about four hours, with help from police, to properly close the facility. Many of the businesses in the Byward Market -- there’s around -- it’s hard to give you an official because there’s businesses along Rideau Street; there’s businesses in the Byward Market. Many of them closed for the weekend and never reopened. Those who stayed open, many closed after that first weekend because of incidents with staff. And many incidents were reported relating -- there were a number of restrictions in place at the time? Mask wearing -- restaurants were not open. There’s a number of elements like that which created many incidents with part-time restaurant staff in the Byward Market and on Rideau Street. And then the non-stop noise of that first weekend, we have, as you've seen this morning and as we’ve encountered through the realities of walking through the site and communication with businesses and residents, just a non- liveable area for folks who lived in the Byward Market, lived on Rideau Street, lived on the northern part of Sandy Hill. Non- stop noise, the intimidation when they went out, specifically if they followed regulations and wore masks. There were a number of incidents where bus detours had to be conducted and we have communications with residents who, for example, waited for a Para-Transpo -- Para- Transpo is the accessible bus of Ottawa -- and couldn’t get to their cancer treatment because the bus couldn’t get there and they were not mobile. There were a number of incidents, as you know, and both Councillor McKenney and I, we have the LRT, the tunnel section. So if you want to access transit you have to walk -- go through long escalators to the platform. And there were a lot of movements between St. Laurent Shopping Centre and the downtown core. And many incidents on those trains that went unreported. And you know, fortunately OC Transpo did adapt but those first few days to weekends it was quite challenging. And so much so that many of the transit routes downtown just didn’t operate.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Very different from weekends to week days. On week days it was more, let’s call them, permanent occupiers with the larger rigs. As the weekend approached, it was pickup trucks that would be parking anywhere and everywhere and kind of add to the existing weapons that were on the street and that tension that was existing.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Well, for us, you know, having the physical truck on the street created a big weapon in the spirit of the noise, the pollution of the fumes, the ability for folks to operate their businesses, to open, for us to offer services. There were a lot of rigs at the corner of Sussex and Rideau, and Rideau Centre is kind of that connection point on transit and for many of the access in and out of the market and on transit for routes that are coming from the western part of downtown and the eastern part of downtown. So not having access to that Rideau Sussex intersection created that congestion in that space. So I mean, I could go on and on but I think you get the picture that there were really really -- you couldn’t. You couldn’t live in that space. It was non-stop noise, non-stop pollution. You couldn’t get out because you’d hear yells. You’d get yelled at. There were a number of micro aggressions on the periphery of the red zone, particularly in residential communities which both Catherine and I lived firsthand and heard directly from residents. And then through the weekend it was this influx of pickup trucks who would not follow rules. Like, for example, in the market, you know, the Byward Market -- and just to locate you a little bit, at the corner of Byward and George Street there’s The Bay on one side. So there’s this big kind of sidewalk, if you will, that leads to Sussex. The road is pretty defined. It’s a one lane in each direction with parking bays on each side. Well, pickup trucks were just parked anywhere and everywhere in any direction, on the sidewalk, in vehicular lanes, so even if residents or businesses, for example like The Bay, Chapters, and so on -- their loading zone is right there. They couldn’t physically get garbage in and out or their equipment if they wanted to open. So you kind of -- I’m giving you an example. It was the same issues along Rideau. It was the same issues along Nicholas, and in different parts of the Byward Market.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Very similar, daily. Everything that Councillor McKenney is describing is what we were both hearing from any resident that was within the red zone or on the periphery of the red zone, plus a number of microaggressions that are described. People were scared to leave, even if they weren't in the red zone, and when they left there was a number of incidents near the red zone which created additional anxiety. The noise, the smells, the fumes non-stop. I mean, I think this email is actually pretty light compared to some of the emails we received, frankly. People were losing it and losing it on all -- you know, locally on us, as their councillor. We were trying to do our very best, on the City, on authorities, yeah, I think this email is actually pretty tame compared to some of the stuff we received.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. As you know, Rideau Street has very high buildings, so the noise did bounce off some of those buildings creating larger zones. Because it is the, kind of the winter period, so the noise travels much further into the -- this is mixed use zones along Rideau and the ByWard Market, but into the pure residential zones of Lower Town area, and in the northern part of Sandy Hill, particularly.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, that's on Rideau Street, on the north side of Rideau Street, right before you get to Sussex Avenue.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Many times.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Agree.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, agree.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, I would concur with the description and give additional additions to the matter. There were detour bus routes that were in effect that were on the periphery, if you will, of King Edward and Rideau and there was an elderly couple waiting for the bus with their mask, they were stripped off the mask waiting for the bus, just while they were waiting for the bus. In the ByWard Market, on the edge of the ByWard Market, we have an Andrew Fleck Childcare Centre, where there were a number of incidents, and I believe they had to -- I was communicated by the Executive Director that they had to close. They had reported a few days earlier, incidents that were happening. And ultimately, I believe on February 6th, they decided to close for kid’s and their own staff’s safety. There was media reports, and I had discussions with the Executive Director at Shepherds of Good Hope of the incident around one of the homeless residents who was assaulted and beaten up and where food was stolen at Shepherds of Good Hope. There were a number of incidents, too many to give you a full description, but there were a number of coffee shops that were remaining open, because coffee is sort of an easy pick up and go environment, and there were a number of incidents where crowds would come into these coffee shops and take over the space and threaten staff. And a number of encounters on Rideau Street and in the ByWard Market specifically.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Business owners, the staff, and we would take that information and ensure that it was appropriately reported to the authorities, and we’d ask for clarification. At some point through the process, we had a liaison officer who we hoped, you know, we were conveying that, and we hoped that was following up on these incidents, but they kept happening. They kept happening. I describe them as microaggression, because they -- you know, it wasn’t the punching in the face, but it was all these microaggressions in transit, walking to businesses, childcare, homeless shelters. A number of these incidents that created an unsafe environment for residents and business operators in the area.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It depends. It depends, but usually it was an official at the City of Ottawa, either someone in Emergency Services, or the City Manager. And the Ottawa Police. And that depends as well. Early days, they weren’t as coordinated, so a lot of information directly to the Chief, and then after that, they created an environment where we were -- all councillors, but obviously Catherine and I more so, because we were flooded with communication by residents, we were providing that to the police authorities.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I do not.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Sure. I was describing earlier the ByWard Market, where on weekends there were be the surge of folks. And obviously we have -- we’re used to protests in Ottawa, we’re used to events, we’re used to Canada Day, where 100,000 people come to downtown core and celebrate our country. There’s enough parking. There’s parking underground, there’s parking in the ByWard Market, paid parking. The rules of parking were not followed. People would park in any direction, would park on sidewalks. In a very pedestrian area, if you know the ByWard Market, it's small businesses, storefronts. It's really clear where you're supposed to park and where is the pedestrian route. So the surge of vehicles, pickups, is one of the aspects, and we saw that in different areas of my community. The Biker's Church in Vanier was one area. De La Salle High School was another one. Along Rideau Street and the ByWard Market were other areas. Nicholas were others. So there's that -- those incidents of people not following the rules of the road in pickup trucks, which is a different vehicle, which is a weapon in itself. But the weaponized description to me is really the rigs who take space on the street and make noise through the horns that you've shown in video. The fumes -- and I know reading through the evidence preparing for this, we weren't informed of Ottawa Public Health and the risk to the health, but we were getting a lot of complaints from business operators and residents in the area of the smells, the intoxication of those smells. So the compounding effect of noise, smells, the physical presence, the inability for folks to in some areas walk on the sidewalk, walk safely at a crosswalk. We have, like any community, folks with mobility needs, and getting on and off a curb anywhere and everywhere doesn't work safely. So that's the description of the weapon is that that truck took space on the road. The truck itself created an environment that was unsafe for the immediate neighbours and made it impossible for the -- what is our responsibility in terms of safety and wellbeing of residents and businesses in our community to safely live and be in the zone.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I do.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, absolutely. If you look at the date of this, I believe the red zone was smaller, and only encompassed sections west of the canal. And police were, at the time, describing their presence in the red zone. So they -- although we were sharing community concerns on the periphery of the red zone, the reports we were getting back from the Ottawa Police was few incidents in the red zone and presence in the red zone, which our focus was where we were hearing concerns, on the periphery. It's not a new issue in Ottawa. I want to be clear. Like, we have about 99 demonstrations a year. Every time there's a demonstration in Ottawa, local taxpayers of Ottawa lose their local police force to those demonstrations. That means neighbourhood officers that are in Centretown, in the ByWard Market, in Vanier are then focused on whatever is the demonstration. In this instance, that was the initial, but it grew into something much more significant because of no actions. There were incidents, vehicles driving on the sidewalk, police nearby not taking action. So it grew into a lot of questions from all of us, including residents and businesses on what -- are we in a state of chaos? Who's going to respond to elements that are happening that we wouldn't tolerate from just living in society or living in our city. And the -- not to lower the issues of the red zone, but the -- where we were pushing for more presence and support from community members was on the periphery of the red zone where folks were either living in the red zone, going to shop or getting out of the zone, and the number of incidents, or the opposite, coming into work, and there were incidents. I shared with you in one of our conversations the situation in the Rideau LRT. Rideau LRT is our biggest LRT station, largest volume in the city. Ottawa Police refused to go into the LRT Station. I had to get the head of OC Transpo to come and meet with us. She recognized the incidents; they see it on camera. There’s a bunch of CCTV cameras through our LRT network. They brought special constables in. She had to go herself and her leadership team in red vests to give a sense that there was safety in these stations because the Ottawa Police refused to go in.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
If you go back into official submission by the Ottawa Police, their Twitter accounts or their official communication in the City of Ottawa, they define the red zone. They basically took a map of both of our wards and would mark the red zone. It started off as being west of the canal and Albert -- north of Albert Slater towards Parliament. And it grew all the way to, I believe, Somerset in your area, and all the way to King Edward eastern part in mine.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
There is.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Colleagues.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It was certainly static in the Rideau Sussex node and along Rideau Street. I’d say east of King Edward towards the Loblaws, if you -- the Nelson and Rideau, it did change, I believe, on the third week. And the same thing along King Edward near the shelter when the incident happened. We saw that over time it was -- the parked rigs were getting closer to Rideau Street. So they had kind of doubled up on King Edward, instead of being on a long stretch along King Edward.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Rideau.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Along Nicholas, right beside the University of Ottawa; Sussex and Rideau; and, at times, on George Street.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe so. We had just received a city briefing. There was starting to be city communication and local media coverage of the risks. And as you can see, the BIA is both connected on what's happening at the city, but also with its own members and describing very early some of the incidents and concerns.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Until the convoy coverage started to come to our attention and until the city called a briefing, we received very little communication. But residents starting -- started to inform us. As you know, Ottawa does have the universities. We have active residents. We have informed businesses who were following it and were asking questions early. And if you -- I believe if you go back to the first briefing from the city and OPS, councillors and I, and Catherine certainly were asking very, you know, concerned questions around what will Ottawa Police, what will the City of Ottawa do to prevent risks for us residents and businesses in our area with few answers.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That's right.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don't recall. I don't recall, to be honest. The information I received from police at the time was certainly very limited.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It was often, you know, they would receive the information we were providing, saying we have this information, we're onto it, but we wouldn't get -- I wasn't able from there to say open or close, or here are measures that Ottawa Police will put in place so that your businesses can operate. Here's a liaison that's being put in place, so that we can structure that. So you're going to see a lot of these communications where police says, oh, it's a short call, as if it's a resolution. Like, the feeling -- if you're an outsider, if you're just reading this, the feeling is, like, oh, there's a resolved matter. The resolved matter is ultimately the BIA or the executive director, they report back in to 600 members. So they need something in writing from the City of Ottawa or OPS at that point to share what should members know about, and how can they prevent, and what are their contacts if there are concerns. You can see by this communication that there was nothing in writing provided to myself or to the executive director of the ByWard BIA to bring response, to bring closure.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Well, that's the Thursday. I believe that following Saturday, the Rideau Centre, Ottawa's largest commercial property, was closed at noon because it got out of control, and individual businesses were worried, and the mall security couldn't maintain safety of the operation. So they -- it took them four hours to close the Rideau Centre. That is a epicentre of a very large commercial property but a reflection of hundreds of businesses along Elgin, Bank Street, ByWard Market, Rideau Street and information that we were being asked by local business operators and their staff.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Twenty-four (24) days.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
If you've been in Ottawa, or if you live in Ottawa, the Rideau Centre is closed one day a year and that's barely, because they're connected to the LRT station. They play an important function in the transit routes, the connection between the residents, the commercial district, the University of Ottawa, some of the nearby amenities, like, City Hall, for example. So the Rideau Centre being closed is an anomaly. Being closed for one day a year is kind of their standard. So you could see the pressure. And, you know, the general manager of the Rideau Centre was in daily contact with myself. The owner of the Rideau Centre, Cadillac Fairview, did meet with us, did meet with authorities at the City, including the mayor's office, to share concerns and try to find solutions in that first week.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Microaggressions. I don't know that I'm describing the term appropriately, but, you know, people walking in stores with -- and stripping masks. People questioning why people were wearing masks, large gatherings in the food court. At the time, you could pick up food. You couldn't stay in the food court. The food court wasn't able to be cleared. The security had requested that those who were there to leave, and they weren't leaving. Kind of the closest, warmest spot with public washrooms and, you know, a great commercial offering, I can understand the attraction, but that was kind of the -- all of the microaggressions in one instance was that on that Saturday at noon.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
The first week. So Ottawa has unfortunately -- I’ve been on the council table for the last 12 years. We’ve had a lot of crises. I’ve had to live the Rideau sinkhole, which would have impacted a very similar range of businesses in my area. We’ve had to live, obviously, the covid impacts and how we were informing businesses. So we struck a business leader group, which included the Business Improvement Associations for Vanier, ByWard, Rideau, Ottawa Markets. Based on strong collaboration with my colleague, we included Spark Street, Bank Street, some of the association members, so the hotel association, you know there’s a number of large hotels in both of our wards, and the tourism partners. I might be forgetting a stakeholder or two, but that’s -- from the external point of view, that was that. And then we had, at those meetings, invited all elected members that were in I’ll call it the Federal Riding of Ottawa Center and Ottawa Vanier. So you have the local councillor invited, you had the provincial MP and MPP and their respective representatives. And at different times, we had provincial minister staff, from Minister MacLeod at the time and other Minister offices, as well as same thing federally for different -- I don’t recall the specifics. I’d have to go back to my note, but they were also attendees. And at the City, we had a broad range of representation from Traffic Operations, Emergency Services, Bylaw Services, we had OC Transpo, as I described earlier in the session, Ottawa Police, and at times, Communications and Economic Development.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe they were. They organized two early meetings and then I started to organize a daily meeting, which they were invited to and were not attending.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
You’ll have to ask them. I think they’re ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- coming in to these.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No. We were often repeated the same public information that was available earlier in the day. There were some very specific questions, “How can I make sure that food can enter the zone so that my deliveries can continue?” “Can I -- how can I accommodate that --” for example, we know during the covid period, the Uber pick ups and the food distributions were very important. They couldn’t -- those vehicles couldn’t access the zone. So there’s a number of business issues that came to that table, and ultimately it’s, “Hey, City AOPS, what’s the plan? Should we be worried? Are you, you know --” and then, “Oh, these amounts of businesses are closed. What can we do about them?” It became complex, right, because you had employees of those businesses, you had to pay rent, then couldn’t pay rent, so then another set of conversation was there, like the group that represents the BIA were at the table as well. Then we hit a period between, obviously, January and February, where you have to -- those landlords need their pay, so those commercial businesses had to negotiate with their landlords. So that was another set of conversations. So there wasn’t one conversation theme. It was all about how do we get back to operating? How can we get back to operate safely in the area? It is an important time for us at the city. I think that’s the other measure that’s maybe not understood, is those weekends, late January, early February, are the Winterlude, is when we celebrate the winter activities, and there’s thousands of residents who come to the downtown, and visitors who come to skate on the Canal, to enjoy what we have to offer as a winter capital city. And those businesses were at -- there was restriction loosening at that point. So they were also hoping -- they had prepared -- they had purchased food, they had prepared their staff for larger gatherings. None related to the convoy, just preparing to the period. And yet often had to return them home. So there’s a number of -- Rideau Centre shared with us, and that was covered in the news, there are 3,000 employees at the Rideau Centre. Most of them are part time staff. And, you know, like the Apple Store, it’s 200 staff at the Apple Store. You have food, food court, and chefs, and you have cleaners, you have security. So that -- you know, it’s not just closing a commercial property. It’s all the family ramification of can that employee who is not working, not making -- not able to pay rent, can they negotiate? And what’s the pressure on that? So its impact is not geographic -- not simply a geographic one. It’s all the ripple of having a massive impact on the local economy in the city’s core.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I’ve gone through a lot of crises, unfortunately, as I’ve described earlier. Usually very important information is provided at a white table from the City and other media authorities for what all residents need to know in terms of what would impact them, and then there are stakeholder information. “Can I get -- is transit going to operate? Can I get my distributers in? Is it safe to walk on the streets?” Those are the types of basic information that our business members were trying to get from the City. And we were creating that area, that daily space, with few interactions. And we kind of saw a number of situations where the City is there, the City is adapting, it’s closing streets, it’s removing, you know, some of the parking areas. It’s adapted. Do you remember in part of it, like, there’s a closure of bridges. So the City, from an operation point of view, is adapting. Bylaw, not so much so. Not because of their own doing, but because they fit into this command centre, you know, police operations, who call the shots on what can be enforced and not. And through that, there’s a number of concerns. How are we communicating to the members? How are we communicating the public? What’s the risk to residents? I know that one of the documents you have is around a pick-up truck with gas in the Rideau Centre parking lot. I can assure you today, if a pick-up truck showed up with gas, they would evacuate -- police would evacuate, police and fire, and all the authorities would show up, they’d evacuate the mall. In that situation, they’d remove the vehicle extremely quickly. They’d protect the public safety, and after that, they would remove the situation. No response to that. I mean, you have a pretty extensive thread by the General Manager at the Rideau Centre and what I’ll call confusion amongst authorities, and ultimately very fortunate that the Rideau Centre was able to support the -- find the operator and get them out of the situation. I mean, that’s the type of uncoordinated approach at a very microlevel that we weren’t able to get clarity to local businesses. And hence, I mean, you’d think about all of the residential properties and what it takes for people to go in and out of their properties, to access transit, to get their vehicles out. So it was chaos for both Catherine and I, not just on the business and the operations of that, but on the residents’ concerns. And we had little information or little hope of a plan that was going to be enacted to bring back safety and well being for residents in our city’s core.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No. And if you see there are a number of times following those meetings where I provide -- I respond to the authorities and ask for clear, “Please follow up on this. Please follow up on that.” And at times, there’s also the business membership who is writing in to get clarification or get action. I believe there’s one, for example, at the Château Laurier, where there was a sprinkler issue and Fire couldn’t get -- apparently Fire tried to go down Rideau Street, as if it didn’t know that there was rigs on Rideau Street. Like, that’s the -- you know, we’re very fortunate that no more serious kind of life incident in those particular situations happened, because having the manager of the Château Laurier share that with their member association and for the member association to say, “What’s going on in City operations? How come you can’t respond effectively to -- you know, if there’s a paramedic call, how does the paramedic get to some of those residential buildings or some of the commercial --” I -- you know, we were all very frightened on our ability to respond at the level that residents would expect.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I haven’t thought about that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’d have to think about it.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Une repose de cinq minutes, aller au toilette?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Thinking about the Byward Market, the Byward Market has a minimum access points, if you will, and crossing Rideau at either King Edward or Dalhousie and entering those corridors through that north to south movement is vital. I can’t speak, you know, particular situations where that wouldn’t have been possible but, based on the videos, based on what I saw when I was on the ground, you know, I’m not sure that emergency vehicles were being -- if other vehicles were moving out of the way for emergency vehicles. I did see videos of different emergency vehicles at times throughout the three weeks trying to get to different areas of our zones. I’m not familiar with what was -- why was the call or why was the vehicle in that space but we did see how -- there was some social media video about how challenging and delayed the operations were. I can’t speak to a particular incident or location, but by -- you could see how clogged the streets were and how that occupation took hold, how challenging it could be, but I don’t have an eye on -- in terms of, were all of the paramedics and fire aware of routes and corridors and how they could get to each property? I don’t know the specifics of that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Properties that were on Rideau, properties that were on George, properties that were on Sussex, McKenzie Avenue, the Nicholas/Daly area were extremely difficult to get into by motor vehicle.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I apologize. You were asking an earlier question and I just want wrap and idea that maybe ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- was not raised which is, in Ottawa, the proximity between Ottawa and Gatineau and the economic drivers of both sides do have an impact, and we do -- we were informed of a long-term care -- we were informed of some of the hospitals who were quite concerned around the ability for shift staff to get to the facility and provide operations. I think of Bruyère, for example, in the Byward Market. I think of some of the long-terms cares that are City operated or privately operated. I think of Montfort Hospital, particularly. So getting in and out of the area -- and unfortunately, many of our interprovincial bridges were in this red zone catchment. So, if you look at cameras of that time, there was massive backlogs because of either street closure or the rigs on King Edward, specifically. So fluidity and getting emergency -- it’s not just the emergency vehicle, it’s actually the workforce into those health contexts was raised by those institutions.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Bylaw is an automatic mechanism in the City and sometimes it kind of slings back at them. But you call 311 if there’s a violation, someone is parked on the street illegally or -- we have -- in the Byward Market, Bylaw goes proactively and tickets. If you didn’t pay for parking or if you’re not parked properly, they’ll tow you. So, in regular operations, Bylaw is on the ground on parking. It's respect -- ensuring that some of those rules -- and in more complex situations where, you know, if there is noise, if there is a fire, then different authorities in and around Bylaw, like Fire Services or others, will come and intervene. We, as councillors, don’t intervene in that. It’s an automatic process through 311 and when there are incidents, or if there’s lack of follow up, then often the resident would inform us and then we would convey that or connect with the police -- with the fire chief -- sorry, the Bylaw chief and their team and they would follow up accordingly with the resident without political influence. It’s important for us to inform, connect, but very -- you know, we know were are authorities are. They’re through motions of council, not influencing operations in that regard. And what was frustrating is the amount of parking in illegal lots, or even in the Byward Market, and vehicles that were abandoned, or vehicles that were improperly parked, and we’d convey that through to the authorities and it was this chain of command. Instead of going through a 311 and Bylaw goes out and responds, it was the 311 call is referred to police in the command centre and if the command centre judges that that is an applicable element, then they would share with Bylaw. But the problem is they didn’t. They were so focused on the red zone or the elements of the red zone that even basic Bylaw services that we would expect were not enforced, which compounded a lot of the tension point, and so much so that we came to realize that there was a trend. If you call 3-1-1 and there was an illegal parker, the operator would say, “Okay. Can you describe the vehicle?” Oh, there’s a flag. And then it was already Police Command. Even if we were outside of the red zone, like we’re talking, you know, blocks and blocks away. There wasn’t proper enforcement because of the way the system had shifted to Emergency Operation, and shifted under Police Command.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I never heard that. Yeah, I never heard that until the occupation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’s the feeling that it gives me.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
But it doesn't make the illegal parker legitimate from my perspective, and it creates this -- we’re here representing residents and businesses in our area. And if rules don’t apply -- like, rules don’t just apply. We’re often told, you know, by councillors, “There’s not a good business or a bad business. There is a licence, and if the licence allows them to operate it, they operate.” Well, it’s the same thing with our rules. They should apply to every resident, not because they’re -- the vehicle is a particular size or colour or there’s a particular element. So that compounded a lot of the issues that we were facing at regular enforcement on the parameter -- Cumberland Street being one, Wilbrod, in the Lowertown area -- were just not enforced.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
You probably refer to a number of interactions that I would have had with the Manager of Bylaw, Jen Therkleson, or the Chief Roger, or Kim Ayotte, where I was trying to get -- “Hey, what’s happening? Why aren’t we enforcing these?” And then eventually it came to be a description that, “No, this is under Police Command. We require that Police Command Centre to give us authority to go in and do it. “There are other considerations prior to our enforcement,” is the gist of what I was described.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I mean, they were pretty aligned and consistent in that this is a police operation. We rely on their comfort for us to enforce our bylaws.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t, but specifically for my ward, we have a Bikers Church which was sympathetic to the occupation, and there were a lot of illegal parking situations. We’re talking, like, on the other side of the Rideau River. So if you want to bring back the map, it’s quite -- it’s a number of blocks, probably maybe two kilometres away from the red zone. You're into the old City of Vanier. And there’s no enforcement for parking violations. That’s kind of the -- I don’t know how far that went into the city. I can only speak to the information I had from community associations and residents about this loop; this loop of I’m calling in, they’re asking me to describe the vehicle. Obviously the resident is emotional, saying, “Yeah, there’s ‘X Trudeau’ or there’s a flag or there’s a pickup truck or whatever.” And then oh, yeah, they took my complaint but there’s no actions. It’s been two days, three days, sometimes a week. And that really -- we recognized the -- as councillors we recognized kind of -- we don’t have authority over police enforcement. But on the City of Ottawa side we’re responsible for the safety and wellbeing of residents and we do have bylaws and other tools that in this situation I still don’t understand why they got caught in the Police Command outside of the red zone. I can respect the red zone. You know, there might be tactical reasons or safety reasons. But I really don’t understand that, and to this day I still don’t have a City explanation that I can convey to a resident about that situation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Combination.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We’re a married couple.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So there’s a number of information we were -- as you know, I represent the University of Ottawa. There’s a lot of to-be lawyers that are at the University of Ottawa, very very smart residents who have ideas who along the way we convey, you happen to pick, to choose one of them. We were trying to find a way to see a plan, an enforcement, so that we could get back to the safety and wellbeing for residents and businesses. For us there were a number of instances. You talk about the curfew. We have the Police Chief who tells us, “Well, there’s no more canister movement.” And then that continues. And then all of a sudden we get the pressure from residents in the city saying, “What’s happening? Like, why aren’t rules being followed?” So I know you want me to address that particular point. I guess my point is there was a number of these ideas that were shared with us that we passed along and either through formal motions of Council when I moved to asked the Chief Justice to change the bylaw fines for an increase, or the curfew examples are there as well. So I don’t recall the specific reason behind the curfew but it does fit the range of criterias that we were asking for information. And junction was another one that we asked the City's legal team to look at, and as you know, came really late and really slow.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I think it carried, yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Too slow. Too slow and obviously, we're ward based, we're elected ward base, and only a few -- we're a big territory in Ottawa. You have to understand we're the size of Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver in one city with one million in population. So our suburban colleagues or even within the greenbelt, they weren't directly impacted. And as you know, outside of this Commission, there's big divides on this current City Council. So it certainly -- it was -- in a crisis time, it was hard to bring us all together. I think eventually we got there, but it took way too long for Council to even get, okay, this is happening, this is serious. They're not moving. They're not going to get out. We have to be organized. We have to be intentional. And you could sort of see it by the frequency of the meetings, and also, the motions that were starting to pass. But if you go back to that first council after the beginning of what was at the time protest which became operation, our own colleagues refused to delay agenda items that were very significant, non-related to this on planning matters, on other matters, just to show you that we were living a crisis. We were getting flooded with the emails, and yet it took, like, a lot of time for our colleagues to wake up to the seriousness of the issue and the impact on us as a city, not just the -- a neighbourhood and not just the capital precinct components of it.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Usually we agree, but I do want to kind of share my piece, which is following all of this, I've submitted a number of inquiries to Council, to the Police Services Board. I believe this was shared to this inquiry as well.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
When was this illegal? And I keep getting a non-answer from different authorities. When was this declared illegal? When -- we are politicians. We're elected to represent our residents. You know, when did it go from a protest to an occupation to a siege? I've asked clearly those questions a number of time, and in a weird kind of way, it says, oh, well, it's when the mayor declared a state of emergency. Well, the same day the mayor declares a state of emergency tells everyone there's no impact of that. It's symbolic. But then everything unfolded around the declaration of a state of emergency. Well, if that's the case, then, yeah, council didn't wake up. He declared a state of emergency -- I don't have a date, but I think it's February 6th.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We were living that since January. Like, that's many days later. I mean, you wake up a Monday morning and there's no plan. We're told, oh, by Wednesday they'll be gone. Wednesday night or Thursday morning when they're not gone, what happens then? It's a lot of days later.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I understand.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I understand. But Council can move a motion to ask the mayor to declare a state of emergency. There's a number of pressure points that Council can enact. As you've seen, I described the by-law, for example, right, the increase in fines. Well, we can't increase fines, but we can ask the justice to increase fines. And, you know, if Council's behind it and we explain it, there's a number of areas like that that Council wasn't quick, it wasn't aligned on its intentions, which I think didn't do -- we didn't have the full tools to resolve this, but there's tools we could have used earlier that would have signalized the urgency of the situation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
The mayor declared it, but he knew that we had a council two days after and I had drafted that motion.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It was coming to the floor of council and it’s a good that he didn’t wait for two days, but it should have came earlier.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I go back to the by- law enforcement. It was by-law authorized to enforce and how many tickets were issued? We’re under the same mindset that we were not informed that there was a slew of fines and that that -- you know, that wasn’t a tool that was used by enforcement authorities to start to advance our -- the dismantling of the occupation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I think the context of that is very important. So we have a former military member who is a member of Council who’s fought in Afghanistan and the conversation relating to that in its period is two-prong. One is, we have Chief Sloly who is now at that point officially requesting additional resources from the OPP and the RCMP. And we have our City and OPS saying that tow trucks are refusing -- that tow trucks under contract are refusing to offer service and we can’t procure more; we’ve asked provincial partners, they’re not coming with solutions. So I know it’s controversial because of, you know, the use of the Emergencies Act and you going back a generation on the use of that Act, but the spirit of that conversation is relating to equipment to remove the trucks, so the towing equipment, not the military. It’s the equipment of the military to enable dismantling of the occupation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t believe it was ever brought because it got entangled into the federal politics of that and I believe the Prime Minister and others commented that there would be no use of that Act, but it lost sense of why the conversation was happening at the local level, I’d say.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I support the idea of an earlier injunction. It’s pretty obvious now. The state of emergency, although symbolic, was used by provincial and federal elected officials to advance dismantling or solutions to dismantle our by-laws. It took a while for us to raise the fines -- and not just raising the fines, but actually untangling the command of the by-laws and make -- you know, start eating away at the red zone and start limiting the impact in the residential and main streets of Ottawa. The way the city communicated with residents, I think there was also a lot of concerns around, you know, call 311, but then if 311 is not -- if it doesn’t work, then what happens? So, you know, I think there’s a lot of this. And I want to come back to one of the points, which was on the -- I believe it was the Wednesday or the Thursday prior to the convoy arrival -- it was the 26th of January; we were briefed by Chief Sloly at the time Kim Ayotte and a number of councillors, I believe, including Councillor McKenney, Councillor Brockington and Councillor Egli, who’s a lawyer by profession, we asked “Will our truck routes be respected?” and we were said -- we were told no because of a charter I won’t recite because I’m not a lawyer. But then, for us, from an outside perspective, hey, the following weekend, they’re at Queen’s Park, they’re in Quebec City, and wait a minute, the trucks are controlled. They’re not walking right into the front doors. And adding to that, we’re weeks into that, days into that, trucks are moving in and out of the zone, moving. It’s like, “Whoa.” It’s like a triple effect of this. Like, we didn’t -- there wasn’t a plan in place to limit truck movement. Then truck movement continued and there was no operational resolution to that like, “Okay, you can’t move in the red zone. You’re out of the red zone. We’re not letting you back in.” That took until basically the last days before that was taken seriously.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’s easy when you look back, you can judge. And I know he’ll be on so, you know, you can ask him the specifics. But I think I’m going to bring it up to kind of the conversation that it needs to have which is, you know, the mayor represents every resident of Ottawa. And when there is an area that is impacted, you want to work with closely with the mayor, and legal team, and so on so that everyone’s on board with the actions, right. So I bring you back to that period. You know, I’m the only councillor, basically, at City Hall. I can’t work from home; I’m at City Hall; I’m in my office. That entire building’s empty. Like, it’s empty. So, you know, there’s the factor of where councillors live, where the mayor lives, where City staff live. They’re seeing it on their screen. They’re seeing it on social media. They’re not living it. So I’m not casting a blame. I’m describing the period, right. There’s a period of time where people are behind their screen at home. We’re living the impacts in real time and it happen extremely quick. And then, you know, there’s the other piece, which is the period -- like, the crisis. At the City -- again, I go back -- I mean I’m young but getting old. Twelve years later, we’ve had a lot of crises 00 flooding, power outages, a recent derecho, the sinkhole on Rideau. It’s pretty standard what you see at the City. There’s a table -- a white table with nametags, a water bottle. You’ll have communication. You’ll have the service lead; that would be -- throughout Covid, it was Public Health. Through other crisis, it might have been Hydro Ottawa. It might have been a city official, the mayor, and maybe other jurisdiction. I didn’t see that white table during this situation, ever. And out of all the crises I’ve seen, it’s a bit unique that I didn’t see that and I’d love -- he’s never -- I’ve never asked; he’s never explained it; but that to me is, like -- as someone who’s lived the crisis at the City of Ottawa, it’s atypical of not seeing that confident, “We have a plan,” informing residents. It came through but it came through the police chief, through police communication, and some City information which was often criticized because of street closures and the tone that was used in City communications and police communications in the first few weeks.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Okay. On the -- after the first weekend and when we saw no movement, there -- us speaking to locals, I was one of the first ones to say, “Stop the funding. Block the funding.” And I went on social media and said that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That's right.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
And hours after there were two pickup trucks that -- I have a young family -- came to my home and just yelled absurdities with you know, typical pickup truck with the flags on. And at that point I knew, okay, this is out of control. I had to shut down my own social media and I had to move my family out for the duration.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I did report it to the council liaison at the time. And we’re walking two responsibilities. I'm responsible for my family’s safety and wellbeing. I'm in a crisis at work. Like, so I've got to protect the family and I think Catherine did the same with their child. And for us then it was back on the ground, back in terms of what could we do. So we had -- we didn’t ask for it. We didn’t want police protection. We wanted police on the ground to clear out the streets and protect our community. But the stuff we had on social media, the threats, the -- you know, my wife is Chinese Canadian. I have a mixed kid. What a beautiful country we’re in. And here I am being threatened like, you know, “This virus comes from China. This guy is linked to China.” Are we real? Like, I’m a local City councillor trying to help my community. I recognize I'm in the capital. Leave us alone.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Je peux parler en français, si vous voulez, on peut donner une pause aux interprètes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Ah, d’accord, d’accord. Je m’en excuse.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That’s a tough question. Probably not as ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, probably not as serious as early as it should have been. But when it was clear, you know, I didn’t feel resistance. I can put it that way.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Checking in throughout the weeks, I would say it took a while. And I was communicating with different members of his team throughout, so him maybe less so, but through his office in different instances for sure.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I mean you have to go back to the period. A lot of these were either through text or through Teams or Zoom meetings; right? So you turn on the Zoom, you turn off the Zoom. There’s not that sidebar conversation. There’d be a few texts throughout the last -- during that three weeks, but, you know, nothing that would -- nothing that comes to mind, I’d say.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I did not.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
He’s the General Manager of the Rideau Centre.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. Yes, he’s -- it’s an important property. He’s also the Chair of the Board of the Downtown Rideau BIA.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
In the Mayor’s -- he’s Mayor’s staff.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No. We -- both our offices were getting tons of emails, but the way we were -- the way I was connecting into the City was tactical here. As you can see, we have the largest commercial property asking very direct questions which would influence their ability to open or not.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah. I’m used to the environment where if you go to the top and you’re funneled through a liaison or someone, it’s of lesser importance, or else the management would take action and respond. I thought the email from Brian was very clear and deserved a clear response one way or the other. Two simple questions, not long. Pretty obvious they’d been closed. I mean, he -- Kim would have known that information.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
She’s the General Manager at the Château Laurier.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Mr. Ball is the Executive Director of the Hotel Association here in Ottawa.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, correct. This says a 9-1-1 call that went un-responded to.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes. And not removed by authorities.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’s not the type of relationship I’m accustomed to between an important stakeholder and the City of Ottawa.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That’s the same ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Police Services Board.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’m not known to give up on things that I think are incorrect. I mean I felt that the response not only was inadequate for the seriousness of the situation, but also raised a number of other risk factors that could go unanswered.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
All the -- so I am francophone and the francophone -- both the francophone boards did connect with me. There are schools in both of our areas and they were wondering what was police recommending, if they should operate or not, they had issues for their staff to get to work, parents were raising concerns and there were a number of incidents where their parking lot was used by a pick-up with flags in the context of the school; and there had been on social media a number of threats of “go attack the school; go around the schools” and, you know, that sort of drove a lot of the concerns from the school boards. And we heard it separately from parents on those same issues. And the Ottawa Police Liaison Team did connect with them in this case. They were -- in the two or three schools that I can think about that were most concerned, the OPS liaison did meet with the principal and I don’t know what ensued of that, but -- the rare communication I got back and forth with police on, in that specific instances, they did take it serious.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No, we were worried. That is one of the aspects around noise and fumes where Council was pretty supportive of our request saying what are the strategies, what are the risks? And the media and experts in that world sort of were speaking publicly to that matter, but we saw few actions to -- other than the injunction, to actually resolve that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’m not.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
The Public Health.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I was saying the only way we’re going to see an end to this, is to stop funding -- stop the funding.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’m a local City Councillor who represents the residents in my community and businesses and within our City. So it’s hard to control that within social media, I hear you, but my communication is to my residents and businesses.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I mean we had to shut down the platforms and as I said, a few hours later people showed up at my house -- again, I’m a local City Councillor finding myself on Fox News and gets to describe the situation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I described it the other way, but your assumptions align with what I’ve been describing. Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I did.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I just think, you know, we see it maybe a bit differently for different reasons, but you have to consider the day.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We have a council meeting that’s booked early afternoon with the Police Services Board in the morning. That Police Services Board pushes this into the evening. When we get out of that -- when they get out of that Police Services Board, we’re informed that the Chief is no longer the Chief.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
And then we walk into council and then everything -- we’re learning about this. We go in-camera, and then, you know, you could read through it. it’s like, “Oh, DC Bell will execute, but we have someone else aligned.” There’s a chaos within a chaos; right? So my perception is, to Councillor McKenney’s point, we need stability at this point. We need to get -- dismantle this. We need the operations; right? And there’s a number of things that led to the Sloly situation, but I just think just taking that -- those minutes without the context, ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- maybe misses some of the nuances.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
My view is this new hire is not coming in fast enough.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
DC Bell is in place. We need dismantling. People have been asking us for three weeks.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t remember.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I think it’s well scripted in that piece that you had -- you shared these documents. It was apparently a mutual agreement to resignation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Oh.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’m asking ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct. I’m asking that in the spirit of what was happening with Sloly, where initially he said this is not a police matter, there’s a political fix, then he said, “Well, we need additional resources.” Then all of us, under the pressure of the residents and community was saying, “What’s your plan?” And then all of that tangled over the days, the hours, and then eventually this resignation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
What day of the week is that? Could you ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Friday, okay.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It wasn’t sent to us.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
This was sent to senior management.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We weren’t informed.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
This was not from the Chief.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Can you scroll down so we see the extent of what this communication is? This is a note summary. Could you ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t know these people.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Throughout it.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe we saw this document earlier today.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe we saw this document.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct. As per the Chief’s requests publicly at that time.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I have no opinion.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t agree. I’ve stated that as a member of Council on numerous occasions that City of Ottawa paid police officers need to protect and serve residents of Ottawa, not demonstrators that come to our city.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t believe so; I believe the answer came from Steve K.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
All options are being looked at.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe so, multiple times.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Je suis francophone, donc, si vous voulez être spécifique sur les mots, il va falloir que vous me le demandiez en français parce que vous me demandez une théorie, une définition, puis malheureusement je ne suis pas assez… ma connaissance de la terminologie en anglais est peut- être inappropriée, Monsieur le commissaire.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I think -- you know, it is funny, but it’s not; I am doing my very best to answer clear questions in English. You asked me a very specific question on a definition; I’m saying ask me -- clarify in French, and I’m glad to specify if it is “yes” or “no”. The specificity of the nuance of a word, I’m uncomfortable in responding to your question.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
J’ai expliqué plusieurs fois que, pour moi, les micro-agressions, je sais pas si c'est la bonne terminologie, mais j’essaie de les exprimer, je l’ai exprimé au commissaire que, d’après moi, les éléments qui étaient en périphérie de la zone rouge, je les décrirais comme des micro-agressions. Je peux vous en décrire des micro- agressions. Arriver devant quelqu'un puis retirer son masque, je sais pas ce que vous voulez qu’on décrive comme définition, mais pour moi, ça, c'est un exemple de micro-agression. Rentrer dans un restaurant, être demandé de quitter, puis de t’asseoir sans avoir le droit de rester : une autre micro-agression. Battre un sans-abri : un autre type d’agression. Faire tellement de bruit, tellement de volume qu’on nécessite de fermer une garderie : un autre type d’agression. Puis c'est comme ça que je les ai décrites, Monsieur le commissaire. Moi, pour moi, si on veut, je ne suis pas un avocat, j’ai pas un background en les… spécifique, mais j’essaie de décrire dans la terminologie que je peux, le plus spécifique, ce que j’ai reçu comme informations puis ce que j’ai pu voir.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
And I will do my very best to answer in English, but it was – I don’t need it; thank you.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No, if you recall my intervention, the Shepherds of Good Hope is located at the corner of King Edward and Murray. There was an incident with a client. The Executive Director reached out to me to inform me of the incident.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I have no clue.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I have no clue.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I don’t believe I was.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Absolutely, I’m ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
My interventions relate to information I have from my community and reports that my community residents and businesses give to the Ottawa Police and making sure that it’s getting the attention and awareness from authorities.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’ve never met Zexi Li, except for when she was recognized as a community builder at City Hall by City Council.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
You’re asking me?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I did not.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Thank you. Councillor, I understand that you do know Ms. Li, is that right?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
A big rig, as you know, is quite a significant space and what we saw was very creative ways to live in those spaces, or in the cab, or -- so yeah, I mean I’m not sure what you’re ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Who are the individuals in this case?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Right,
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
You’re saying that, yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
The physical nature of the vehicle, which is quite large, and the combination of those are a form of a fortress, a form of a weapon.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Talking about the circumstances that created the occupation and created for businesses to not be able to operate safely, for transit services to be able to serve residents of Ottawa, for residents to be able to live in their own units, in their own properties, and walk safely on the streets of Ottawa.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I can’t speak to that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes, at Billings Bridge on Riverside, yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I do not recall seeing that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That is correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’d say neutral.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Could I clarify? When you’re saying about how I felt about Peter Sloly is about his presence as the Chief in Ottawa, not in the context of the occupation. I just want to clarify my yes there.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Absolutely.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Second, I believe.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Three times.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Generally, I’d say yes, yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
In a focused way, yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Define -- define it.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Of his employees.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
He’s the Chief of the Police of the entire city.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Of course.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
During the convoy, you're saying?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Or generally?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
M’hm.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’d like to clarify. I don’t believe so. We -- Council -- he briefed us on the Wednesday and the Thursday before the arrival of the convoy. We as council members had concerns. The truck route and the maintenance of the truck route was one. He informed us that he had legal backing of this information around the Charter. We referenced -- again, I’m asking for clarification on behalf of residents of Ottawa and I to this day still don’t have a legal document either from the Police Services Board or from OPS explaining where that decision came from, what legal environment was that in. So and then you have the Chief Sloly who’s saying, “I need 1800 new officers to resolve this,” at the same time saying, “This is not a policing matter; there’s a political way to fix this.” So that is the erosion of the support that I had for Peter Sloly because if you're sticking to “I need more resources to be able to action”, as the council members we should be aware and other levels of government should be aware. But these two nuances relating to a Charter right to bring the vehicle right to non-truck routes, and this floating of almost into political sphere around -- hey, this is not a policing matter -- is tricky.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Over the period.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We did.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Because they couldn’t speak to what opinion Sloly got.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That’s what I'm saying. David White, who’s City Legal -- we’ve asked him. I believe Councillor McKenney was in that meeting when we asked and said, “What was the OPS and Chief’s decision to allow truck movement into the area?” And our City Legal is saying, “We don’t know. We’ve not been informed by the Chief of the OPS as to what led to that operational action or inaction.”
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
The legal opinion we get is from David White.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
On what aspects?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Well, let’s put it this way. When truckers weren’t able to show up at Queen’s Park, when they weren’t able to show up at National Assembly, then we know that our Police Chief’s perception of the Charter was a little nuanced. I didn’t need to seek more. At the time we were living the impacts of the crisis. We’re not going to debate decisions that were already made and have impacts.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So did the Charter change during the period?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Well, you made an assumption, “participated in”, and I've never participated in one.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We have about 100 protests in Ottawa a year.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
You give us the assumption that the size and scale of the protest and the inability to respond is just based on that. I guess what we’re saying back to you is, if the trucks never made it to the zone then we would have had a very different protest.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’s just a little more nuanced to me. We were asking for actions from senior levels of government to get back our city and dismantle the occupation.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Thank you.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
We saw that document, but if I recall, it’s directly ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- to the Mayor, not to ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- council.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Now we did, but I ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- was not aware.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Just there’s a bit of nuance in what you’re describing. We don’t have the authority to change the fine levels. I believe as it reads there: “Consider making an application to set fine increases.” (As read) That’s to the provincial courts.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I believe it was ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
--- supported by the Courts ultimately.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
As per record, yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I’m not following.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Subsided?
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
No.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It didn’t change our ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Downtown streets? It’s more than the downtown streets. It depends what your downtown is. Officially for us, Catherine McKenney represents the downtown. I don’t represent the downtown.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
So “the occupation” refers to my area as well.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Sorry, I’m just ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Sure.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
That illegal -- that trucks were able to make their way on non-truck routes in downtown Ottawa, yes.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
If the City of Ottawa’s truck routes were followed, and if fluidity of movements on the roadway was respected, and if parking rules were followed, you’re correct.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Well prevent them in the first place.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
To dismantle.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Well it wasn’t just vehicles. There were structures.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
There were people. There were a number of elements. So when you’re defining vehicle or moving the vehicle off the roadway. It’s a little more complex than that.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’m not sure. The people were moved and we stopped to hear the honking. The vehicles were closed. The ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the police operations that moved folks off, the vehicles were still in place. Right away, we started to get less complaints and it took a number of hours and days, and yet right away, as soon as the people were moved out of the zone, then operations to remove vehicles and to stop the honking, and the fumes, and the structures was able to begin.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
When the people were moved out of the zone.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
A different ---
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
It’d be a different issue. A vehicle without people is not an issue. A turned off vehicle, in itself, can be easily moved by authorities. It’s the combination of what I call “the weapon”, their big rig, and the people in and around that activation, fortress of that that created the environment that we’ve been describing all throughout the afternoon.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah, and they’re well used in my area, generally.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
Yeah.
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Mathieu Fleury, Councillor (Ott)
I’ve repeated that the parking rules on the perimetry of the red zone, even when it was called to 3-1-1, were not effectively responded to in the nature that I’m accustomed to by the City of Ottawa.