Michael Keenan
Michael Keenan spoke 333 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
A religious document.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Bible, please.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Michael James Keenan. Last name is K-E-E-N-A-N.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I have.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, and yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, and yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
My name is Michael Keenan. I am the Deputy Minister of Transport Canada. So I am responsible for overseeing all aspects of the operations of Transport Canada, and I'm the head of the transport portfolio, which includes eight Crown corporations, four agencies, and fifty shared governance organisations, and I am responsible for providing advice to the Minister of Transport.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So Transport Canada is responsible for all aspects of the Canadian transportation system that is within federal jurisdiction. And we have three key priorities that we pursue across the organization of 6,400 people. The first is to ensure the safety and security of the part of the national transportation system that’s in federal jurisdiction, ensure the environmental safety, environmental green performance, and then -- and to ensure the system is efficient, both for moving people and goods and so that there is a strong trade and transportation network. In terms of jurisdiction -- and it varies by mode, so in aviation, it's essentially exclusively federal jurisdiction, so Transport Canada is responsible for all aspects of aviation, working with international partners like the International Civil Aviation Organization. It is responsible for the vast majority of marine transportation, although there is some provincial involvement; the majority of rail transportation. Road transportation is very much a shared jurisdiction. Transport Canada is responsible for some aspects, but provincial governments are responsible for significant aspects as well, and we have significant federal/provincial/territorial governance to coordinate our efforts in that respect.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So in the area of road transportation, Transport Canada has responsibilities under two pieces of -- principally under two pieces of legislation; there are some others. We administer 74 Acts and 400 sets of regulations, but the two principle Acts involved here, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, where we certify the importation and the use of motor vehicles as to their safety; and the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, where we have responsibilities and authorities with respect to international and interprovincial road transportation. Intra-provincial road transportation, i.e., within a province, is the -- is essentially the exclusive domain of the province except for the aspects that touch the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which is the safe -- the certifying that the equipment is safe. In practice, while we have, for example, international, interprovincial trucking, things like their safe practices, like, hours of service limits for truckers, in practice, that is federal. The interprovincial rules are federal jurisdiction, but for trucks that don’t travel interprovincially, they're provincial jurisdiction. We work together very closely at the two levels of government and there's a lot of coordination of all of the rules and the regulations and the policies with respect to commercial transport through the CCMTA, the Canadian Council for Motor Transport Administrators; and the Council of Deputy Ministers of Transport; and the Council of Ministers of Transport. Some of the federal rules, we delegate to provincial authorities to enforce, for example, the hours of service with respect to interprovincial trucking. And we work as much as possible to get an alignment between the provincial and the federal rules so there is as much as possible a consistent set of rules across Canada. Canada being a decentralized federation, there is some diversity in the rules across the country with respect to motor vehicle transport. The use, the licensing of the operators and the conduct and the operation of the vehicles on the roads is typically in provincial jurisdiction and most provinces have something like a Highways Act that where they set out the -- all of the rules and governs the regulations by which they oversee the use -- the transportation on the roads and highways, each province.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that’s exactly it. For the reasons you stated, the effective transportation policy in Canada requires extensive intergovernmental coordination. And so it starts at the top of it, there's a council of Ministers of Transport and Road Safety. And then there's a Council of Deputy Ministers of Transport and Road Safety that I coach here with a rotating provincial partner. There is the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators. There is a group of Assistant Deputy Ministers, people that report to Deputy Ministers; the PPSC, the Policy, Planning, and Support Committee; and there are, I would guess, at any moment in time under PPSC and CCMTA -- and I apologize for the acronyms -- there are probably a dozen working groups of various experts working on some aspect of coordinating federal and provincial transportation policy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
At Transport Canada, we began to -- we saw -- and sort of in the lead up to that weekend of the 22nd, 23rd, which was a full week before the trucks arrived in Ottawa, we began to see the reports of trucker convoys that was just beginning to show up on the screen. I think some folks in the department noticed something as far back as January 19th. I think that’s in our institutional report. It came to my attention around, I would say, the 22nd. And we were initially watching it because it was truckers, and so there was for two reasons. One is we have relationships with the commercial trucking industry. The second is that when you have convoys and the prospect of slow rolls, that has a potential to have an impact on the transportation and trade corridor system, a potentially negative one. So we began watching it about a bit more than a week before the trucks got to Ottawa. And then shortly after that, it began -- the interdepartmental monitoring and deliberations began through the deputy -- for example, the Deputy Minister's Operations Committee, DMOCC, of which I'm a standing member.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sure. The Deputy Ministers' Operating Committee is a standing committee of about eight Deputy Ministers who have responsibilities that are directly related to maintaining the safety and security of Canadians and protecting the national security of Canada. It's chaired by the National Security and Intelligence Advisor, the Prime Minister, and it has -- the security agencies are RCMP, CSEC, et cetera, as well as a number of departments that have responsibilities that connect directly to the safety and security of Canadians. Transport Canada is one of them. Our responsibilities in that respect are geared towards the transportation system, but we have significant responsibilities with both respect to safety and security. For example, a threat -- there’s -- there have been, unfortunately, in the past, terrorist and ideologically motivated extremists have targeted the transportation system. And so we have a mandate to ensure the system is safe from such attacks.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
A small correction, if you’ll permit me. I’m a member of DMOCC, the Deputy Minister’s Operating Committee.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
But my assistant -- my Assistant Deputy Minister for Safety and Security is a member of the ADMNSOPs.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So Transport, because of it was -- it started out with, I would say, the brand of a trucking -- of a truck convoy and a trucker protest, Transport was involved because we were monitoring early because of our relationships with the industry. The -- that started a few days before the DMOCC -- I think the first DMOCC meetings on this were early -- around the 24th or 25th. Around there. The one thing that came to our attention fairly early on is that the brand of a trucker convoy wasn’t really accurate. And in fact, when we talked to the professional trucking industry, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, the Private Motor Carriers Transport -- PMTC, I can’t remember, too many acronyms, focused on acronyms, -- they made it clear that this wasn’t them and this didn’t represent the professional trucking industry and pretty quickly started making public statements eventually -- initially distancing themselves from this activity, and then making it clear that they didn’t support it, and then finally, articulating how it was harming professional truckers.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The first step was trying to understand what was happening and what was brewing, because as I think you may have heard from other witnesses, it was quite hard to get a fix on, because there was -- it was rapidly changing, it was dynamic, and quite unpredictable. So it would have been some initial discussion with industry partners to get a sense of what was going on and finding that point I raised, that it really wasn’t the industry, per say. Second was working with the -- in the structure of DMOCC and ADMNSOPs, working with our partners in public safety to understand what was -- what the collective assessment was of what’s going on. So that was a key aspect of the -- I would say the early activities leading up to the arrival of the movement in Ottawa. As things progressed, our roles evolved into probably about four different types of activities.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sure. So the first, I just covered. The second is that as the -- as we started to see blockades and occupations, we started analyzing what the potential impact was on eh trade and transportation system. And then that accumulated in, I would say, peak impact, once the Ambassador Bridge was closed for several days. The third is that when you start -- in the event of major events, protests, incidents, whatever, that requires a large and complex police response and crowds, Transport Canada will provide a certain sort of technical expertise and authorities in support of local law enforcement. And in this crisis, we did that in two ways. The first is that we -- because of our responsibility for aviation, we will close air space at the request of local police as they try to manage large events, riots, whatever the activity. Over the course of this crisis, I think we issued air space restrictions, they’re called NOTAMs, Notice to Airmen. So -- and we issued about -- we issued them in about a dozen cities across Canada. And we do that as a matter of course when the police of jurisdiction are seeking that in order to help them manage some major event or crisis. The other aspect of operational support is that we make our sort of -- we essentially make our authorities and our expertise available in support of police of local jurisdiction as required. And that will vary. In this incident, one very relevant authority and expertise we have is the transportation of dangerous goods. We have a significant directorate and we have significant responsibilities to ensure the safe transportation of dangerous goods in Canada. And I think around the 9th of February, the Ottawa Police Service, who was -- they were growing quite alarmed at the extent of propane being stored in unorthodox manners and the extent of the transportation of diesel and gasoline, and they sought some expert advice and support from Transport Canada. We had the same assessment, just watching from a distance. There was a lot of dangerous conduct with respect to explosive and flammable material, like propane and diesel. We provided two inspectors who did ride alongs with the Ottawa Police Service to give them technical advice as they were seeking to monitor and ensure the safety of the occupation in Ottawa. And over -- they were on scene with the OPS, I think for about three days, and supported the OPS in writing up probably about 20 sort of administrative monetary penalties for violations of the safe handling of essentially a lot of propane and diesel. So I think the fourth, it would be the -- after coming out of a meeting organized by my colleague, Deputy Minister Stewart of Public Safety with the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service, we were absolutely struck by the overwhelming challenges the Ottawa Police Service was facing on several areas. And that generated -- that led to some thinking of how we could be of assistance to our front-line police of jurisdiction. And from that, so in thinking about that, we ended up developing two strategies that we worked with a lot of partners on through the course of this national crisis. They became known -- the first became known as the Strategic Enforcement Strategy, and the second became known as the Tow Truck Strategy. And that would be, in sum, the four areas of work by Transport Canada with respect to the crisis.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that’s correct.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sure. So the genesis of the strategy enforcement strategy came out of the February 3rd call between a few Deputy Ministers of Canada with the City of Ottawa, the Chief and a few senior officers of the Ottawa Police Service. And in -- it was an update on the situation in the NCR, was the purpose of it. When the Ottawa Police Service described the challenge they were facing, I think we were all struck -- I know I was personally struck by three things. The first is that the sheer scale of the -- and intensity of the unlawful activity was eclipsing their ability to manage, clearly. The second is that when they applied fines, they were issuing fines to the people blocking the street, and they were quite struck by they just ignored the fines, they threw them out, they laughed, whatever. So they were -- the deterrence effect from the fines that they were levying seemed to be very low. The third is that when they did try to -- when they did try to take -- when an officer tried to take an enforcement action, they would often be swarmed and then they would have to back down in what they described as in the interests of officer safety and public safety. And the fourth was that they were trying to build an operational plan to bring the occupation to an end, but one of the -- one of the impediments was they were unable to secure the heavy tow trucks they needed to move the commercial vehicles. And so we found that was a very sobering discussion. In coming back from that and reflecting on that, we had discussions inside Transport Canada, briefed Minister Alghabra, and he was obviously keen for us to do whatever we could do to help resolve the situation. And that because we’re a large organization with extensive regulatory responsibilities, we have a large oversight operation, compliance operation, enforcement operation, we have some expertise in compliance promotion and encouraging and strategies to encourage parties to comply with, well, usually transport regulations short of actual enforcement. And so we started developing two sets of things. One was a strategic enforcement strategy, and that’s the document you have here. The other’s a tow truck strategy. The idea here was to try and marshal every legal resources available and all of the best practices and strategies to try and convince people that, first of all, what they’re doing is illegal because there was some sense that a number of the people involved in the occupation did not have a clear understanding of how much illegal activity they were undertaking. Second, the consequences of it and how that is -- could be quite significant adverse consequences for them. Third, to -- thereby encouraging them, at least the ones that were open to any persuasion, to cease participating in the occupation and thereby so-called shrink the footprint. And so the -- given the fact that the initial attempt to levy fines, according to the Ottawa Police Service, had no effect, the thinking here was what if we looked at all available legal tools and had a comprehensive approach to deploying everything, municipal by-laws, Highway Traffic Act, Criminal Code, et cetera both in terms of as a communications exercise to encourage people to cease and desist the illegal activity and then, as necessary, using multi-pronged sort of options for enforcement. This product you see here, the February 13th final draft, was the -- was the ultimate product of that initial thinking on the part of Transport Canada, but it was refined through extensive discussions and consultations with our federal partners and with our provincial partners. It had -- it went to probably, I would say, call it 10 different federal-provincial discussions both with our provincial transport colleagues and with Public Safety’s provincial Solicitor-General Public Safety colleagues.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
And so that was the second stream of thinking and strategizing that came out of the stark realization from the February 3rd meeting with Ottawa, and the - - we began exploring through a series of discussions both through the meetings convened by Deputy Minister Stewart with Ottawa and with our police and procurement colleagues at the federal level and with provincial colleagues. We began exploring options for solving -- what I would say solving the tow truck problem. What could be done in order to prevent -- to address the fact that the tow truck industry was declining to provide service to police in Ottawa, Coutts and multiple -- and in Windsor, everywhere? And so that ended up -- we ended up developing a six-part tow truck strategy. The initial focus was to work around, if you will, the inability to secure tow trucks by having a strategy of using -- first of all, using this, the strategic enforcement strategy, to try and convince the commercial drivers that’s in their best interests to stop, cease and desist, and leave the occupation or the blockade because if they voluntarily drive their truck home, we don’t have to tow it. The second is that if -- in the event that you can’t secure the tow trucks, the services of the industry, but police are ready for operations to bring the occupations and blockades to an end, to have strategies like as you -- as they enforce to get the keys and if they detain the driver because they’re breaking the law, have somebody who knows how to drive a truck drive it away to some secure location. A lot of the trucks were purposely disabled, and so then you’d have to have -- the next stage was to have mechanics get the truck in working order so it could be driven away and then a key part of the strategy is that, having maximized what you can do without tow truck services because they were blanket refusal, looking at a whole range of strategies to try and overcome the reluctance of the -- of this part of the tow truck industry -- and I should emphasize that because of the commercial vehicles involved, some locations you needed not just your average, everyday CAA small tow truck that shows up for a Honda Civic. You needed a large wrecker that had the mechanical capacity with an operator with the skill to safely move like a semi truck. And so we worked through a series of ideas that we kicked around with different partners to try and overcome the reluctance of the -- of that specialized heavy wrecker or heavy tow industry to provide service. Through the course of that, it became clear how deep we -- when we started this out around the 5th or 6th, we were optimistic we could find a solution. As we worked it and worked it and worked it, we got to the 13th, we were still -- a solution was still illusive. And what we came to realize over this period was essentially how deeply rooted the reluctance is from the industry and they -- quite frankly, it was quite clear what -- the picture that emerged to us was quite clear that they felt quite threatened and that -- that if they showed up and -- in support of a police operation on a convoy, they were putting their future business at risk, their property at risk and, to a significant extent, their safety at risk. And so while we thought we could figure out a financial instrument that would get them to show up, we didn’t - - we weren’t able to figure out a financial instrument strong enough to overcome those threats.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- it was the product of a lot of discussions and, in some -- and was implemented in some different -- some marginal ways in some places. Its ultimate manifestation, I would say, was the -- was the fact that, having sort of worked through all of this, that the ultimate manifestation was that -- and I should make a point that, interestingly enough, on the 12th and 13th, I think between myself and the Assistant Deputy Minister of Safety and Security, I think we had about four meetings and discussions to try and find the solution to the -- to try and find a way where the tow truck strategy would actually work. We -- and there was some interesting back and forth with different provinces, police and procurement officials on that point. Ultimately, I would say the tow truck strategy found its -- was ultimately manifest in the Emergency Act Orders where there was a specific provision to request essential services, specifically tow trucks.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would say that we had -- by the time we got to the 13th, we had failed to find a viable solution.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No. And I should say that we’d had a lot of discussions with a lot of partners on the strategy and we -- and no partner had shared any information with us to that effect.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
To -- yes, they did.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The meeting was convened by Deputy Minister Stewart of Public Safety, and -- but in part upon the suggestion of myself.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
There was a number of purposes, but the -- it was to bring together the -- there was one overall purpose, which was to bring together at the federal and provincial level the deputy ministers of Public Safety and Transport to take stock of developments, and to talk about ways of working together to deal with this sort of rapidly evolving national crisis.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
There was probably three. At the federal level it was -- it would have been the Deputy, Rob Stewart and his -- some of his senior people from Public Safety, the -- myself and senor folks from Transport Canada. And I see here on the list, on the notes that we also had CBSA, which would have -- I'm sure was John Ossowski. And then from the provincial side, essentially my counterparts, the deputy ministers of Transport or Transport and Road Safety from all of the provinces and the territories. And then on the Public Safety side, the Public Safety Departments or Solicitor General, whatever they're called in each of those jurisdictions. So it would have been a fairly significant number of people in total.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. And sometimes when you have these calls, like sometimes when I'm called to a meeting, I'll be called to two or three meetings at the same time, I will delegate the less important ones. This was the most important discussion any of us were having. So if my memory serves correctly I think it was almost all of jurisdiction showed up with the -- what you call the deputy head, deputy minister, or deputy solicitor general, et cetera.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that's correct.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I presented the strategy. At that point we didn't have a written document, so I verbally outlined the concept and the idea of the strategic enforcement strategy, which at that time we were referring to as the maximum enforcement strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- as these notes that Aaron and Assistant Deputy Minister of Transport took were captured the next -- so you could see. In general, when we were having this discussion, there was a cool reserved response by provincial colleagues, good colleagues in collaboration, but there was a lot of anxiety about the rapidly escalating scale of unlawful behaviour. So everybody was nervous and being careful. The -- that said, there were -- there was different complexions in the response. Alberta had mixed feedback, as per these notes. And they made the point that they -- we were seeking both ideas and participation and engagement on the strategy, and they were making it clear they were prepared to be engaged. The appropriate and usual cautions about letting police make operational decisions. I think the -- as you go down, I think my recollection is B.C. was more positive. Quebec was positive. In fact, I think they were saying you can't -- that's the point I was remembering, that not only were they supportive, they said that the strategy that we were advocating aligned well to the strategy that they had executed the last weekend to, in their view, of some success.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- I think they were in the -- they were on the slightly cooler side. The government should issue a statement of support for police. They were one voice and there were -- to be fair to Ontario, there were other voices that was uncomfortable with the word "maximum". And so we -- in the spirit of building a consensus, we were happy to change the word "maximum" to "strategic", at the expense of making the title a little bit redundant.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I think you've done them more than justice and I apologise for the typos that came ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- from typing fast.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Certainly. So the -- in the follow-up from the -- on the call with the Ontario Police on the 3rd, so we started thinking about this on the 4th. And on the -- over the weekend of the 5th and 6th, had reached out to Ontario. I reached out to the Deputy Minister Leblanc by phone. My Assistant Deputy Minister of Safety and Security reached out to his counterpart, and so we had started the conversation. And we were getting good colleagues returning our calls, you know, constructive discussion about cool and reserved. And so that was notable. At the same time, at the Ministerial level, Minister Alghabra, because, well, obviously, briefing him day by day, reached out, saw the importance of this issue, and reached out to Minister Mulroney. And the normal course of events in the good relationships amongst the Minister of Transport when one Minister is keen to talk to another, they connect quite quickly. They can be busy, but they'll find time. And it was several days -- I guess here, it was -- at this point, it was at least 48 hours where Minister Mulroney was unavailable to talk to Minister Alghabra. And that then this letter arrived on February 8th from -- in that context, this letter arrived in February 8th from Deputy Minister Leblanc. And I believe that Minister Mulroney then got back to Minister Alghabra and said that my -- that we're providing a response -- my Deputy Minister is providing a response to your Deputy Minister. And that response was this letter. The -- not -- a slightly unorthodox way of having those communications, but it did close the -- it closed the loop.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The substance of the response was, I guess, first and foremost, the tone of the response was collaborative and collegial. The substance of the response was negative in the following sense. And as you go through down -- if you could scroll down just maybe a little further? You can stop there. Stop -- scroll up just slightly, please? Thank you. The -- there was an explanation for the -- this is based on us inquiring about the possibility of finding a way to leverage the potential sanction of a commercial truck driver losing their commercial operating certificate because of significant and repeated violations of the Highway Traffic Act as a result of blocking a highway with a truck, honking the horn, all of these violations of the Highway Traffic Act. And we were sort of exploring that and sort of asking a question to our provincial colleagues in charge of that, like, what could be done here? And this is a very sort of detailed sort of description of the various reasons why, and we -- what I concluded was a polite, detailed, substantive description of why and how nothing could be done in this respect. And there are very good points of procedure, et cetera, procedural fairness, et cetera, but I interpreted this that if the -- there -- because it ended saying, “We don’t think we can do anything here and we would ask that you redirect discussions to my colleague, the Solicitor General, this was a very polite but firm, “No, we’re not going to get involved here.”
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
If I could add in?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Christian, I think -- tell me if this is right that there's a number of real-world kind of challenges that some sectors had in diverting to other bridges that the model, for all its sophistication, couldn't fully capture. One of them is in the auto sector. It's a just in time system where sometimes a truck is really geared to make two round trips in a day. And then with this diversion, they can only make one round trip or half a round trip. And so that -- because it's so time sensitive and so synchronized, and that's one of many crossings, it's hard to have that in the model. The second is that one of the -- we came to this issue at Transport, which is the hours of service limit, because for safety reasons, truckers are limited on how many duty hours they can have before they have to stop and rest. And that their -- the trips under normal conditions are synchronized around the duty hour requirements. When they have a, like, a 4-hour diversion and a 10-hour wait, they kind of -- they time out and then they have to pull over for the safety rules. There was some discussion of a temporary waiver of those, which we do at occasion, so those kind of costs are material. And I don't know -- I assume the model in its sophistication can't fully capture all of that. Yeah.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Could I -- if it's helpful, could I add a point here because the -- first of all, in -- what you’re seeing is an exchange between Finance and the Department of Economic Analysis, which is very typical. I’ve been involved in that in three or four different departments. But there’s -- on this issue, I think there’s an important point around this issue of transient that I think is an important context. And this is a good discussion to put this impact in context. In one sense, there’s a transient and once the bridge opens, the shock wears off and the economy adjusts and gets back -- gets back going. There’s two aspects that are not transient. One is that there was some period -- and because the thing was closed for six days, it wasn’t that long, but there were a number of days and shifts where billion-dollar plants were idled and you don’t actually ever regain that. If you shut down a billion-dollar plant for a day, that’s a loss of production that you don’t actually ever truly get back. The -- but if you looked in paragraph 91 on the institutional report -- you don’t have to show it -- but it listed the impacts on the auto manufacturing plants in Ontario and it went through like Honda, GM in Oshawa and these different places in Ontario. What it was -- what it didn’t say because it wasn’t a Canadian economic impact, is the same thing was happening in the U.S. and there were auto plants as far south as Kentucky that were disrupted because they couldn’t get the parts across the Ambassador Bridge they needed for their production. And that created an economic impact that was -- could have been quite devastating and permanent, and that is the loss of confidence that Canada’s a reliable trade partner. And that -- a loss of confidence that a production -- in U.S. boardrooms and U.S. state and national capitals that a production system that cut -- that went across the border wasn’t reliable and you should consolidate in the U.S. And so there was an immediate extremely high level of anxiety out of the boardrooms of the automakers. Out of Michigan, the Governor of Michigan -- calls were coming in from Washington. I was getting calls from my counterpart immediately, “What’s up? Can we help?”. And because there had been a significant disruption two years ago with rail blockades, there was a growing -- we were seeing a growing sense of that, a question as to whether Canada was a reliable trade partner and whether its - - these trade corridors would stay open. That’s really important because that affects investment decisions. And there was -- there was a high level of concern at Transport, at Finance and at GAC that this was having an adverse effect on investment decisions in boardrooms of U.S. companies and, in particular at the worst possible time because there were a number of major decisions pending on production mandates and investments in auto plants in Ontario. And they typically weigh competing locations. And this bridge outage, particularly if it’s extended, could actually tip the balance in Canada’s disfavour, and so billion dollar investments that would have otherwise happened in Ontario were going to happen in Ohio or Kentucky or Michigan. That was a -- I would say an extremely high level of concern, and that if this had gone on longer -- if it had restarted, the risk of that happening was quite high. In the end, I think the consensus was it was a near miss. While it was a problem and there was a lot of anxiety, we were still -- Canada was still able to land a number of billion-dollar investment decisions by automakers like Stel Lantos, Honda, GM in the following months. All made billion- dollar investment decisions in Ontario. If this had gone on longer, if it had been repeated, then any one of those could have been easily unwound because a big decision like that is not final until it’s final and boardrooms are always assessing those kind of risks. So that is a major, I would say, strategic economic risk that -- and represents economic harm to the country that comes in the future that is quite material to the national interest, but by the -- but as sophisticated as these models are, either the Transport one or the Finance one, there’s no way to -- there’s no way to include them in the models. So my assessment would be the economic cost is, say, different versions of around $50 million a day and potentially much higher if this disruption undermines and reverses some future investment decisions in Canada.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think both were really important. The importation of critical goods is a here and now problem that puts the health and safety of Canadians at risk. And the investment confidence is a future economic prospects issue that puts future really good, high-paying jobs at risk. And both of them are important.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. I think you could see from the email chain I briefed that letter to key federal colleagues almost immediately, and I briefed that letter up to Minister Alghabra probably even before then.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- I think I characterized the letter as disappointing. Ontario’s pulling back and this narrows the -- this narrows the tools available for the strategic enforcement strategy, but we will continue working with them and others to try and flesh it out.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Our first role was working up the strategic enforcement strategy and the tow truck strategy, which we’ve discussed. Second key one was assessing the scope of the adverse economic impact that was unfolding starting February 7th because of the accumulation of the border blockades. And then -- so over that course of sort of 7th through to the 10th and into the weekend of the 12th and 13th, we were continuing to advance those strategies as -- essentially as the index Track 1 approach. Somewhere around the 10th to the -- and through into the 12th and 13th, we put our minds to options for increasing authorities under a Track 2 Emergencies Act approach and had produced a couple of background pieces where the experts in safety and security with the different -- and aviation, road, marine, et cetera, rail were explaining, well, what could we do with our existing authorities and where could there potentially be a new authority that might be helpful? And those were assembled into some tables of background analysis.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
First and foremost, the -- we got the news on the 10th that Ontario was contemplating or was about to issue an emergency declaration, and then I think on the 11th we saw the orders that -- and we understood that on the 11th that it would include things like an ability to suspend the CVOR, the commercial operating certificate, of a truck that's involved in an illegal activity. And so through that evening of the 10th and the 11th, we took that as a very welcomed development. It was clear that Ontario had executed a major pivot and had -- and that the February 8th letter to me saying, "there's nothing we can do" had been replaced with a decision to do something material and significant. And that was a welcome development that contributed to -- in a material way to the strategic enforcement strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. In fact, the -- there was a -- almost an evergreen draft of the strategic enforcement strategy that would evolve through discussions with provincial colleagues, it would evolve through developments, and we began explicitly citing the Ontario Emergencies and Civil Protection Act measures, and in particular, the -- some of the elements of that that were relevant to the transportation enforcement strategy, like the ability to suspend CVORs. And I remember making the comment that Ontario is stepping up and taking some action, and the extent to which other provinces can take similar action will strengthen this strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I do.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
And the context was -- of this was both the question from the deputy clerk as well as I think a public comment that the Ontario Minister of Transport had made I think the day before after the letter came that the problem at the Ambassador Bridge was a border crossing, it's federal jurisdiction, so were looking to the -- what -- for the federal government to solve it. And it was a combination of those two things that I think led to the deputy clerk's question. And so the four -- the key points are raised, because we had looked at this, and the first is that there is no in statute in law, as of today there is no trade corridor or federal authority. So that -- it's that simple. There is -- second of all, I think the second point is that there are -- there is legislation that governs and protects the point of the crossing, and the two of them are the Customs Act, the CBSA authorities under the Customs Act, and Transport administers the International Bridges and Tunnels Act. And so there was a lot -- there were suggestion we should go use this Act to solve that problem. And we looked at that, but the Act gives the Minister of Transport some very significant authorities, but the geographic scope of those authorities is the actual federal infrastructure itself. So if the protesters had set up in the middle of the bridge and were blockading from the middle of the bridge, then that Act would be of some potential use, but because they were on the... The third point is because they're on the city streets of Windsor, the -- these federal acts have no scope covering the city streets of Windsor. And that the remainder of it was making the point that Ontario sort of backed away, either on the basis that they think this can be left to the federal government and its jurisdiction. But we needed to make it clear that that doesn't work, and that if they -- the only feasible way that they have to do something and -- because the streets of Windsor are under the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities of Windsor and the provincial government. And if they really truly want us to solve this the only way to do that is to declare and emergency and ask us to intervene through our Emergencies Act. That would be a very provocative approach, and it may succeed in having Ontario come back to the table and start kind working using their authorities to solve the problem.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that was part of it, and the -- it was -- I would say in the main that was right.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think she was asking a question, and I think in the follow up discussions, both in email and in person, I think colleagues found this four-part analysis helpful in clarifying. And then actually it’s interesting, because as I was typing this, this was the 10th of February, and that day, perhaps at the same moment, unbeknownst to me, the Ontario Cabinet was deliberating on declaring an emergency and getting active and fully exercising its jurisdiction on the streets of Windsor. That became known to us later that evening and it became a reality the next day. So I would say that to a certain extent, on this particular issue, it was overtaken by events, the event being a pretty hard pivot on the part of Ontario.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
A welcome pivot.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I do.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It was the -- and it’s interesting, because on that weekend, I think there were up to 12 Deputy Minister and Cabinet meetings. So it was a bit of -- it was jammed in. But on that one, it was the core group of deputies working on this issue. So the National Security Intelligence Advisor, Deputy Minister of Public Safety, the President of CBSA, myself, RCMP, CSIS, and some of the normal members of DMOCC were not -- who didn’t have -- who weren’t actively involved may not have been there, like the Public Health Agency. But the core people working on the crisis were there.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, because it’s in the -- for “Rob and I”, and the I here is me.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sure. We’re in an environment -- we’re in the third weekend. Going across the country, the level of unlawful behaviour energy is really high in a lot of places and there was an assessment that there’s enough energy that things are really very close to some significant violence. And so managing the energy and trying to bring it down and downscale is obviously a key objective. There were -- we are -- on the 13th, we are well into the discussion of the Emergencies Act, and the options, and sort of how and whether to use it. And there was a discussion about the implications of what we would gain, in terms of necessary tools to resolve the blockades and occupations, and whether the invoking the Act itself would add energy to the blockades and the options. And both Rob and I, in different ways, but we both made the point we had to be very mindful of the Emergency Act causing a bigger blockade than it’s trying to solve. This is -- it’s like at night, it’s an intense weekend, but this reflects us working through and grappling to understand, as quickly and as best we can, all the intended and unintended consequences of something as serious as invoking the Emergencies Act in order to provide the most rigorous analysis we can. If we -- to add one more point, if we hadn’t been looking at this kind of issue of unintended consequences, it would have almost been irresponsible, given how serious the decision to invoke the Act is.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I certainly expressed view on implications, and I expressed a clear -- I brought into it a clear analysis of the impact of the -- that the -- I brought into it a clear analysis and on what the Emergency Act could do to solve the tow truck problem. I didn’t provide an overall comprehensive view on the Emergencies Act for the following reason. There was a number of potential powers that were being considered and authorities that were being considered, and I didn’t feel I had the expertise to assess the total sum of it. But on the tow truck issue, it was very clearly would solve the problem.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I’ve had the fortune or misfortune of encountering this kind of -- well, this situation was an unprecedented crisis in the country, but the two years before, there was also a series of fairly significant blockades of transportation infrastructure, the rail blockades in the winter of 2020. I would say that looking at those blockades and the much graver crisis the country faced in the winter of ’22, there is an issue related to the emails -- the email that was up on the screen about trade corridors. And that confusion, imputed it was purposeful, but there’s a -- I would say my assessment is that there’s a gap in the laws of the land with respect to the tools available to government to secure strategic trade corridors, because you -- once you get -- once you step one meter off of a bridge, you go from a federal -- a broad federal toolset to municipal bylaws. And that bears attention. I think there’s a solution to that. And if I would submit any suggestion to the Commission, it would be thoughts in terms of that problem and what governments in toto should do about it.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I apologize. Could you just clarify the question?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think I got it. Thank you for that ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- clarification. Thank you. That's very helpful. The core point or the core logic of that particular point in the email was a bit different. It was the - - and the purposeful -- and the earlier point relates to the fact that if you look at the letter that came from Deputy Minister Leblanc on the 8th, the public comments of Mr. Mulroney on the 9th, Ontario was really backing away, sort of washing its hands and saying this is a federal problem. The federal government has to solve it. And so the provocative point was to go back to Ontario and say, "No, it's in your jurisdiction. You have to use your authorities to solve this, or it can't get solved. If you're not going to use your authorities, we don't have any unless you hand it over to us, and the only way to do that is the Emergencies Act." So it was more of an attempt to get -- to be provocative and get Ontario back in the game of actually exercising its jurisdiction on the streets of Windsor.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, I don't think that that point was in my email, and then -- and I don't know if -- I know I did not communicate that, and I don't know if anybody else communicated that.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, I think if you scroll down, I'm not sure what the similar refers to, but my guess is it's covered further down in the document.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It's not. Okay.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, it's clearly ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, there's clearly a cut- off in the email chain because similar is referring to something that follows. I think that, in general -- I should clear that Doug Jones is the Deputy Minister of the -- of MTO, the Transportation Ministry in Ontario. Laurie Leblanc had -- was long scheduled to retire and ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- she delayed and delayed it, but she ultimately retired and transitioned to Doug. So Doug is my new colleague.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
And I can't -- without seeing the email that came before, I'm not a hundred percent certain what similar is referring to, but in general, this is an exchange between me and my new Ontario colleague, updating each other on developments. And this is the 15th, so this is I think the day that the federal regulations were issued under the Emergencies Act.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yeah.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think I did have a call with Doug around there.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, there's two things. The -- so the regulations, as I remember, the regulations under the Ontario Emergency Declaration came out on Saturday the 12th.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
And so this is the 15th. This is three days later. And so it's not that long since they started doing this. And with a lot of these things, they have to -- you have to figure out how you're going to operate the new authority. And the other thing that's interesting in the email, and it reveals our thinking at the time, the -- I think on the - - this is the 15th. I think on the 14th, traffic was restored to the Ambassador Bridge, but the briefing from the police is they were not 100 percent certain they could keep it open. And so there was a continued vigilance looking -- and a concern about what it would take to keep that bridge open, and hence, the point that the combination of the two authorities would make it easier to keep it open. If the bridge had closed again, our estimation because of the previous comment I made about investor confidence and reliable trade partner, a second closure right away would have been a -- would have been probably worse than the first closure.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I don't ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sorry. Sorry, I didn't meant to cut you off.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Go ahead.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It depends on the nature of the power. And interestingly enough in this context I would say because there was an acute national crisis, with significant risk to safety and the economic security of the country, there was a real urgency. And I'll give you -- I -- I'll talk about the federal orders because I'm a bit more familiar with their implementation than the Ontario orders. So on the 15th, the proclamation of the emergency by the Government of Canada was the 14th, the regulations were issued on the 15th. On the same day the regulations are issued, Transport Canada assembled all of the key transportation operators in the country, and with their -- and brief -- and with our partners at Public Safety briefed them on -- in detail on these authorities, and -- because we remained significantly concerned about, you know, slow rolls at airports, blockades at railways. And on the 16th, there was a -- Transport Canada joined Public Safety senior officials in a detailed briefing of all provincial transportation -- all provincial transport officials, all provincial sol gen's, the -- all provincial police forces and the major city police forces, police services, excuse me, running them through in detail all of these orders. And so within 24 hours there was an extensive promulgation to all operating partners on the orders, and they were -- and some of them were being used as early as the 16th, 17th. So it was -- I would characterise that, done a lot of implementation of regulations, this is the fastest I've ever seen anything implemented.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I have not.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
A couple of things, so sort of a hypothetical, we just have to be careful not be speculative, but I didn't have the -- the sense you're describing that Ontario was like slow walking their orders, I didn't have that sense.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
In fact, I thought that the Ontario declaration and the regulations were used almost instantly in communicating to the blockaders in Windsor. And so in that sense, they were put to use instantly. If you go back to our strategic enforcement strategy, that was textbook sort of how to do that, and in fact, we had incorporated that in real time. And the second is that -- so I didn't have a sense they were slow walking them, and I think in terms of all of the problems that tools that were deployed for under the Emergencies Act, I'll focus myself to tow trucks because that's the one where I sort of had developed over three weeks some instantaneous expertise, and on that one I didn't see how the Ontario orders were going to solve that problem, even if given lots of time.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
We -- I can tell you we looked at a whole range of options, including purchasing tow trucks, but we didn't. And the reason we didn't is because of the problem Alberta ran in to. They bought a couple of tow trucks and then -- but they -- but then they were stuck with a couple of big pieces of equipment that they didn't have trained operators for.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So we looked at it, but we didn't think it would solve the problem.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Documents.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I don’t think I know this person.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Which statement?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sorry, sir, there's just -- there's six statements here. I -- which one are you referring to?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- I have a hard time agreeing or disagreeing simply because there's a few stats on a very specific moment and a very specific crossing on a very specific day. So I don't track that in my head, so I couldn't agree or disagree with it.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
When you say the email, this is an email I've never seen and I've only read a quarter of it, so I have a hard time coming up with a proper judgment of this email.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It's not -- it's to a number of people. Like, I'm not on the chain; right?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So this would be a question that you would need to put to CBSA because it has to do with the details of the operations of a border point, which is their responsibility.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The characterization of border gridlock at this time is not consistent with my memory or our analysis of the transportation trends.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think it is certainly true that ArriveCan is not a binational program. It's a national program. It's a tool of CBSA, so it's a national program. And in fact, actually, ArriveCan is not a program. ArriveCan is a border facilitation tool.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sorry, read -- which ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Can you just point out because I'm ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
You have to give me a break because this is a document I've never seen before.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So which point?"
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
And that point relates to what?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
My general impression of vaccine mandates is the vaccinations protect the elderly.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I can't agree or disagree because I don't really get the context in which it's sort of asserted.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, I would agree they're his statements, but they're -- there's some generalities here that I don't -- that I have a hard time sort of agreeing with or disagreeing with because of the context is unclear to me.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I do.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I'd know Mr. Alghabra well.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
To my memory and knowledge, he did not pass this on to me.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think you have to understand the context. Transport Canada, the Minister of Transport gets a massive amount of correspondence. I get a massive amount of correspondence. On something like this on an exchange between an MP and the Minister, I may or may not see it, depending upon the nature and the context. So it's neither surprising nor -- it wouldn't be surprising for me to get it and it wouldn't be surprising for me not to get it. And this one -- this -- I do not recall this being forwarded to me.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Not of the protest at the border, of the blockage of the transportation aofnd commercial goods.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It wasn't hypothetical because the blockade was an actual thing.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
And the concerns, the impact was an actual impact. And the stress and the adverse sort of impact on the assessing Canada as a place to invest in, in sort of auto production was an actual impact. So they were actual impacts, not hypothetical ones.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The issues you're -- that list of issues you raised were ones that we were monitoring closely with our colleagues at CBSA and other departments. And, in fact, we were tracking over the course of -- excuse me -- we were tracking over the course of January the trends in truck traffic across the border.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Things like sort of congestion and gridlock I don't think we ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Until the border blockades caused by the Freedom Convoy, I don't think we were observing gridlock.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
What we did see was actually that the trucks were flowing at about the rate you would expect given this time of year.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So we --
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- analyzed it and ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- our conclusion was different ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- from the one that ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- suggests.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think to provide the best possible answer, if you permit, I’ll defer to the Chief Economist of Transport Canada, who is familiar with Statistics Canada’s reporting more so than I am.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think I may have seen this document in the course of my work, but I don’t have any familiarity with it and I have not done a detailed review of it.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- I think if the -- it was definitely not provided by Transport Canada. Whether it was provided by somebody else, I’m -- CSIS, for example, would be a question best put to CSIS.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Do I recall seeing this document during an IRG meeting? I don’t think I -- no, I do not recall seeing it.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sorry. Can you say that again?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The OODA Loop, it sounds like an acronym for something.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I’ve heard there’s -- yes, I’ve heard of that and many variations for analytical processes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I can’t answer that because the -- there was extensive deliberations in the IRG meeting protected by Cabinet confidence.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Okay.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. It would have been -- the details of the system underlying it would have been a conversation by Transport officials that report to me, not me.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
At the ADM level and the DG level.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I’m generally aware of that, yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
That’s right. We initially called it the maximum enforcement strategy, but based on feedback from some provincial partners we changed it to strategy enforcement strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Could you give me a bit more context for that question?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Is this -- are you talking under the normal course of events or the emergency orders of Ontario?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
We had both made inquiries as to what is possible and we had gathered information.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Again, and you’re talking in the absence of the Ontario Emergency rules?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I mean, that sounds like a bit of stretch to me for two reasons. One is that we were working collaboratively, so we were seeking their engagement to get their determination of what is possible, and I don’t think we would have arbitrarily overruled them. And the second is that we were trying to get to the kind of -- the kind of warning that you declare -- that you described. I wasn’t -- given the cool, and then sort of negative, response of Ontario, I didn’t get a sense we had gotten all the way there with Ontario until they made the pivot to the -- the Emergency Declaration.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yeah.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Exactly.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
If done properly we believed that this would help deter people from either joining, or induce them to end and leave.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Agreed.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- I would say this; not having seen -- not having seen both letters, I think in general, yes. And I characterize this as exactly the kind of strategies that we were aspiring to include in the strategic enforcement strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think the letter from Deputy Minister Leblanc to me on February the 8th had, in a certain fashion, an explanation.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- we were -- I would say that when we reached out to them on the 5th, the 6th, and the 7th, we were searching for their engagement and creative solutions to do something like sending a letter; “Did you know if you have three Highway Traffic Act infractions like this, you could lose...” And so we were hopeful of something like that. Their response on the 8th said that they had a -- I don’t want to put words in their mouth because the letter is on record, but they essentially said, “We have a process, it’s fixed, and we have to follow it, so there’s nothing to -- we see no opportunity to do anything there.”
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, it is.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, indeed.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The tactics -- I’m not sure if the tactics were unprecedented, but I would say the absolute sheer scale and intensity by which they were applying these tactics was, ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- by, I think, all accounts, unprecedented ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- in the history of the country.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would generally agree with that but I’m not an expert in the details of law enforcement and tactics, but I think in general.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think my sense is there were a lot of similarities, and there were some big ones in multiple places, but they did vary city by city, and they varied over time. It was a very dynamic and unpredictable series of blockades and occupations.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that’s fair, but I didn’t do any detailed analysis of footprints, but that seems quite reasonable.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think so. The -- could you repeat the question because I -- let me say this, and maybe this answers the question.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
If not, tell me it doesn't. That there was no attempt in my witness statement and the statement -- or in our enforcement strategy to say one city -- it was no attempt to actually grade the police responses, it was simply an attempt to take stock of the challenge and help police deal with unprecedented challenges that were overwhelming them.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would say to a degree, except that it -- and it was sparked out of that really stark assessment and SITREP that I participated in with the City of Ottawa, so the spark was from Ottawa. But the intent of the enforcement strategy and the tow truck strategy was national because we saw this as a rapidly evolving national problem that needed to be dealt with really from coast to coast, and it was just a matter of one day to another whether -- where a blockade or an occupation would hit.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think the illegality, which a number of people involved in illegal activity were -- seemed to confused about, but also the consequences and appealing to their self-interest to end.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I'm familiar with the term, and I'm generally familiar with the work, but I'm not an expert.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- when you -- the communication strategy, you're referring to the communication component of the strategic enforcement strategy?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It was based on a, I would say, a premise that part of the solution was having a much more comprehensive, much more robust communication with the blockaders and occupiers to pierce through the fog of the event so they understand what they're doing is illegal, has significant consequences that could affect them, their commercial viability, even their ability to go to the U.S. And that our estimation from a strategic level, we weren't on the street, was that there was a lot more to do to accomplish that goal than what had been done to date, quite frankly, in any city.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
That is fair, although it was indexed off of Ottawa ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- because of the acute scale of the crisis in Ottawa and the problem definition that came to us through the Ottawa situation.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would -- I think I can heartily agree with you because the purpose of the strategy was not to second-guess any operational decision of police or jurisdiction, it was to develop a strategic toolkit to give them tools that they didn't have and needed in order to have a more robust response to our -- to a crisis of unlawful behaviour that they were struggling to get their arms around.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think so.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. And I think everybody involved in the strategic enforcement strategy it was very clear in their mind that we are not making operational decisions here, we're building a strategic toolkit to allow police, in developing their operational plans, to have stronger operational plans. But it's up to the police in the development of their plans to do that, not the sol gen and certainly not the Transport officials.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that's one -- that's a, I would say, a very practical reason. There's also a very strong principled reason. And we -- we're very careful about this at Transport because we have a -- there are officials who I oversee who do investigations and enforcement, and we have a very clear system to ensure that those doing investigations and enforcement have -- are not -- have the ability and the freedom to make the judgements on the appropriate activities of investigation and enforcement without the sort of being directed by -- at the strategic level. And that principle we certainly applied in the development of the strategic enforcement strategy, and quite honestly there was a complete agreement on that amongst all officials.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
There were a lot of problems in Ottawa, and the hostility to law enforcement was clearly one of them based on the briefings we received from the City and the Ottawa Police Service.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, but I think it may be helpful to point out that the development of the strategic enforcement strategy was predicated on using -- initially on using existing authorities ---
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
--- and only -- and the early versions of it, for example, all talked about Highway Traffic Act, Criminal Code, et cetera, and then once Ontario made its emergency declaration we folded into it the additional penalties under the Ontario Emergencies Act.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I'm not sure I'd agree with that because my sense, our sense, and again, I would defer to law enforcement experts on this, but our sense is that there gradually was a deployment of the strategic enforcement strategy in the big sites in Windsor and in Ottawa, and that clear communication of the fact that they were illegal activities and that they had significant consequences, whether they were the suspension of the CVORs or the freezing of the bank accounts, successfully shrunk the footprint. And according to law enforcement, so a lot of discussions with law enforcement during this crisis, the shrinking of the footprint was essential to the safe operation to return law and order to the streets. So I think it actually did work and it did help and it was integral, that would be my assessment. I'm happy to defer to the law enforcement operational experts on that.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, I agree with that. It was clearly the biggest sort of security, national security crisis in history with, like, a scale of unlawful activity that I don’t recall ever seeing. And so even with a shrunken footprint, it was still an enormous challenge.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, what I meant to say, if I didn’t say it completely, was that you move from a federal authority over a trade infrastructure to local authority of municipal bylaws and provincial jurisdiction, the Highway Traffic Act, Ontario Police Services Act, et cetera.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I caught a bit of it. I didn’t catch the whole thing.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would have to defer to President -- former President Ossowski on the Customs Act. He’s an expert. I’m not.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would defer to him, but that sounds right to me.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
If it’s helpful, I can make a point that in exercising -- because this happens at Transport quite frequently, in enforcing a federal statute, for example, we have many -- 74 of them at Transport. The enforcement action may be taken by a Transport official, but it may involve something that requires a peace officer, and usually it’s the police of jurisdiction that carries out the police officer function. So it could be in enforcing a federal statute, but it's still police of local jurisdiction.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I would.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think it revealed an issue of resources, authorities, and practice.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
That was the -- yes, and that was the objective of the strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
We did not. We consulted with our provincial partners. We consulted a little bit, probably, with the City of Ottawa, because there was a particular tripartite process. But in general, we did not consult directly with municipal partners. And we didn’t -- and we consulted beyond the RCMP and the occasional discussion with the OPP. We didn’t consult directly with police either. We left both of those to our provincial colleagues.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I’m not.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It would not -- it was not shared by Transport Canada. We were relying on our provincial partners to share it as they saw fit, and I don’t know whether anybody from the Province of Ontario shared it with the City of Windsor.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
We asked them to share with appropriate partners, but I don’t recall specifying that they should share it with the City of Windsor.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- if you break that into three parts, Emergency Management in general is Public Safety.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
If you -- generally speaking, Critical Infrastructure, again, Public Safety. When you get into transport infrastructure like the Ambassador Bridge, Transport Canada. And that’s as specified in the Federal Emergency Response Plan.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
We have plans of a different level for different points of critical trade infrastructure like the Ambassador Bridge. The issue is that -- and we’ve dealt with a number of safety and security issues over the years with the Ambassador Bridge, and we’re very vigilant because of all the numbers that my colleague, Christian, outlined in terms of its importance. What we haven’t done is dealt with the kind of -- and worked through the kind of crisis you’ve seen here, which is the operation of the bridge is impaired not because of something that happens on it, but something that happens on the streets of Windsor. And I don’t want to guess your next question, but I would say yes, that represents a gap that needs some work.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I -- as I mentioned earlier today, I think there is an authorities gap here that bears some analysis, and ideally some resolution. And really, aligned to what you said.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think there is merit. I wouldn’t jump to that specificity, but I would agree with you that there is -- and we’ve seen this now in two or three different events, the crisis that this inquiry is on, the rail blockades of 2020, even the outage of the rail lines that cut Vancouver off to the rest of the country. I think there is a need for better plans that include all levels of government in those plans in advance. And so I think it’s an issue for the Ambassador Bridge, which is one of the most -- probably the most important trade crossing, but it’s a broader issue across the country. So in that sense, I would say yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I’d fully agree, and that’s very well put.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Not quite. I think this -- I recall this meeting and it was not so much checking in and setting something up for approvals. It was -- even though it may -- I mean, Talal may have said that somewhere, but in our minds, in the meetings -- in the mind of Kevin, who was reporting to me before and after this, it was advancing the discussions on the tow truck strategy, the six-part strategy that’s in evidence. And it was continuing to try and find a solution to the inability to secure the services of the heavy tow trucks.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So they -- we weren’t really looking for approval; we were looking for -- we were continuing to looking for a solution to operationalize the strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, the -- there was a strategy, a six-part strategy that had been in play right through the week, but it was trying to find a way through the obstacles to implementing the strategy. And the obstacle was the inability to secure service from the heavy tow truck operators.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. I think one iteration had six parts, but here it obviously has five.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that is correct.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The people at Transport Canada working on this, Kevin Brosseau, Aaron McCrorie, Melanie Vanstone, had done some -- had been -- had consulted with some colleagues and were scoping out to try to identify a pathway to building a roster of people with skills. They quickly -- I should say that some of this came because the day before there was a series of calls with Alberta, where Alberta officials that come to us, and that was a -- on the 12th, 11th or 12th; I think it was the 12th. And they had just bought, I think two, but I can’t remember how many heavy tow trucks. And they realized that they couldn’t do anything with them because they didn’t have the skilled operators, so they were coming to us to see if through the CAF or anywhere we could supply skilled operators. And so there was a whole conversation over the 12th and 13th trying to figure out can we find skilled operators for heavy tow trucks? And the conclusion, at some point on the 13th, was no, it wasn’t a viable -- you don’t -- it turns out that you don’t have, in the government, people who have that particular skillset.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I believe it did.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
But the exact scoping and who exactly was engaged in that was something that my team did.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that’s my understanding.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I can’t speak to Minister Alghabra’s understanding, but I think the email is relatively clear and speaks for itself.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, it is.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It -- the work happened in through both, I would -- bi-lateral meetings of calls at various levels with individual provinces and multilateral ones, and also small group ones, and they all mixed together. So I think the first couple of calls were bilaterals, but one of the first full engagement of all jurisdictions was the PPSC. And I think the first one was on the 6th of February.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, they would be -- those meetings were being -- the lead Transport Canada participant, was either Aaron McCrorie, the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of Safety and Security; or Kevin Brosseau, the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Safety and Security.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that was in -- that combined -- that combined use of all powers in a coordinated manner was the essence of the strategic enforcement strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that's correct.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
That's correct. It was not discussed.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I am.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, in addition, the tow truck strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that's right.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, in the sense that they were the provinces -- the places in Canada that were in most desperate need of heavy tow trucks showing up.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, I don't believe he did.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
For the purpose of this, yes, I would.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well, that forum did -- you used the word gaps. I would say that forum and that just -- the purpose of that forum and that discussion was to plum the -- define the limits of existing authorities and make the most use of them. So in that sense, they were useful in understanding where existing authorities ended with respect to the needed tools to deal with the national crisis.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It was not the purpose of the meetings, and it would be a little bit beyond our remit to lead a consultation on the Emergencies Act because that's the responsibility of the Minister of Public Safety.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think the meetings that -- there was a lot of meetings. Some of them combined the senior officials from Public Safety and Sol Gen's and Transport. Some of them were just Transport officials. I think the ones that were just Transport officials would have been less useful for that purpose.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I don't think the Emergencies Act came up one way or the other.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Thereabouts.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think well into the discussion of the Emergencies Act would be exactly the right characterization. That starting on the 10th, officials of Transport Canada went from focussing on just one thing, the track one, what can we do under existing authorities, and they started doing some thinking about potential options if there was additional authorities under the Emergencies Act. That is -- and so -- and that work continued. That's a little different than being full on into the development of the Emergencies Act. The locus of that activity was in Public Safety and Justice. And so we certainly did some work, but we were not the locus of activity on that.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, because it had -- it was part of what was beginning to be a track two set of options, and if the track one set was not going to work.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would agree with that statement.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
In -- it's -- for anything above a passing reference to the Emergencies Act, any substantive discussion with PTs happened from a Transport perspective. It happened in terms of on the 15th and 16th in terms of informing them on the details of the regulations. The consultations, we were not involved in the consultations on the Emergencies Act beforehand.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I think somebody in Transport Canada became aware around the 17th. I became aware closer to the 20th.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, and engaging with the trucking industry.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that the DMOC discussion started a little bit before January 28th, and they didn't start out on enforcement tools and methods, they started out understanding what this is and what -- and the scope of the potential threat to Canada.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Strategic enforcement strategy came out of our assessment of an acute problem in Ottawa that we became fully aware of in terms of how serious it was from that meeting chaired by Deputy Minister Stewart.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, I think -- that's not the reason why not. The reason why not is that until that briefing of the 3rd, we didn't understand that this was a problem that was beyond the capacity of the police service to address. And they needed help, and we tried to provide help.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, exactly.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yeah, there were two strategies at play, enforcement strategy and tow truck strategy, and in terms of the tow trucks, yes, you're right, after 10 days of trying to find a solution to the problem we had failed to find one.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. In fact, it's interesting because our assessment was from the 3rd, yes, they have a problem securing tow trucks. Surely if we think about this and kind of get smart and strategic and use the right incentives and strategy we'll be able to solve it. That was our view on the 4th. After having worked on it for almost 10 days, our conclusion was this was in essence an impossible problem to solve with the tools we had.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I would say this, that there was a national -- that was written with a -- Ottawa was a really big part of the problem, but it was a national problem and there was a national scale of blockades and occupations and unlawful behaviour that was going to require a coordinated -- it was unprecedented, was eclipsing the capacity of police, clearly in Ottawa, but not just in Ottawa, and was going to require a coordinated strategic approach to overcome.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
On the 13th, I -- the Ambassador Bridge opened the 14th, so I think it cleared sort of overnight between the 13th and 14th.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I know there were tow trucks that came across the bridge. I wasn't aware of the details of which tow trucks were used in the Windsor operation.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, we had been working on the tow truck strategy for 10 days and had engaged a lot of partners, and nobody had provided any information like that to us in the course of that work.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Options under the Emergencies Act began to be considered starting the 10th, yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Extraordinary power, yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I -- I'm not an expert on the Act, but my -- the working framework I have is exactly that. If you can -- it's not meant to be used if you can solve the crisis using any existing authorities.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Alternatives of what to what, sir?
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
So over the -- from the 4th to the 13th, sort of exhaustive steps of working with our federal partners, our federal policing partners, procurement partners, security partners, all provinces, small caucus groups of provincial officials, and working through trying to find a way to execute the five point plan and the tow truck strategy. So I would say in short summary there were probably 40 engagements by myself and my senior officials with partners trying to sort of unlock the tow truck strategy. So I would describe it as pretty exhaustive effort right up to and including meetings on the 13th.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
There had been multiple calls and multiple exchanges with a lot of partners right up to the 13th, and I think even perhaps after that DMOC meeting. Because we had had a meeting with -- the Transport Canada ADM had convened a meeting with the RCMP partners, I think Public Service and Procurement Canada, solicitor general and I think Transport officials in Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta continuing to work and find a solution to the tow truck strategy, and through all of that discussions, including in that meeting nobody informed us of this solution that was in play. And interestingly enough, even after the decision to invoke the Act and the promulgation of the regulations in all of the meetings we had to inform people of the new powers in terms of rendering essential services, the tow truck provision, even on the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, nobody mentioned or informed anybody at Transport Canada that there had been any solution found otherwise.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I can’t confirm that, because as I said, we’d been working exhaustively on the tow truck strategy. All of our work, all of our conversations, and all of our analysis had led us to the opposite conclusion.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The in terms of illegal and unlawful activity, there’s two things. The strategic enforcement strategy specifically lists a whole series of examples, including violations of different municipal bylaws, multiple violations of the Highway Traffic Act, and multiple violations of the Criminal Code as the key examples of the unlawful activity that was apparent on a wide scale through the protests -- sorry, through the -- not through the protests, through the blockades and the occupations.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think mischief and intimidation, and obstruction, and there was one other one that was on that list I think.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Well that was one of many. For example, the swarming a police officer I think would count as obstruction.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think that was the point of the Strategic Enforcement Strategy, is that we saw a scale and intensity of unlawful activity across Canada that police -- was eclipsing the ability of police to respond. And in the case of Ottawa, when they tried to respond, they were being obstructed. And so it was an attempt to communicate on a wide scale to everybody who was either participating in the illegal activity, or thinking about it, that it’s illegal, it has consequences, and to try and convince them to rethink their approach to, it’s a term I learned in the course of this crisis, to shrink the footprint of illegal activity to make it more feasible for the police to have a safe operation to return law and order.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The -- my assessment was that the -- there was a lack of enforcement because the scale of the unlawful activity eclipsed the ability of the police to enforce.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No. The -- because there remained a significant -- first of all, the Windsor Police needed massive assistance. It was a massive public order operation. And even as they struggled through clearing it that weekend, there was still a really significant gap in the ability of police to enforce the peace across the country. So no, the gap was not closed.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Thank you.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, exactly.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
The two key ones were the fact that there was a lot of movement and storage of a lot of propane, which if there's a -- it was done improperly without the appropriate safeguards, and that there was a lot of movement of, particularly diesel, gasoline and diesel in unorthodox, unsafe manner. Both of those created an elevated risk of having an accident with a dangerous good and which would be some combination of an explosion or sort of a firebomb that would do -- that would be -- that's a significant elevated safety risk to the people around the propane and the diesel.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think it's the latter. This is -- we were -- in building the strategic enforcement strategy, we were drawing on our knowledge and expertise as a regulatory and enforcement agency to -- of essentially, it's a compliance strategy. And so communication is always the first thing you do when you're trying to get somebody or any person or regulated entity to comply with the legal requirements.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, and in fact, the reach out to Ontario on the weekend of the 5th and 6th was scoping out what we could say to this effect under the existing law. We obviously couldn't go this far because this is an emergency authorization. But even the prospect of somebody with a commercial vehicle, who by blockading a street is committing multiple Highway Traffic Act violations, trying to craft a communication that this could lead to demerit points and the loss of your CVOR and the ability of you to earn an income from this asset. And so we were trying to get a milder version of this, if you will, into it in the -- before the Ontario Emergency Declaration.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I considered it to be a technically valid explanation in the sense that I think every sentence in that letter was technically sound and based in fact, but not a strategically valid explanation in the sense that the effect of it is they were saying they could do absolutely nothing and they didn't want to talk about it anymore with us and they asked us to go through Sol Gen. I'll add two points. We thought, and as regulatory experts we understand due process, legal requirements, absolutely fair, absolutely essential. But in our estimation, when -- and with the measures like there, there's always a way to be a bit creative, particularly both in the execution but particularly in the communication of these sanctions and they were declining to participate. So technically solid, technically sound, strategically not so much.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Not from reading that letter, but they -- after Windsor was -- after the kind of catastrophic economic impacts of Windsor had built up over two or three days, they did do a pivot.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. We were proposing it as a collective multi-jurisdictional effort. We weren't trying to take over their jurisdiction, but absolutely yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I did not -- I don't -- I did not see this document at the time.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, I did not.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Quite negatively. It's like taking a tool out of the toolbox and throwing it in the ditch. It's notable that I think the reason that that was in the strategic enforcement strategy was that we had picked it up as what we thought was a best practice from Quebec. They had used that at some point, I think on the second weekend, they had used that effectively to mitigate and manage trucks heading to downtown Quebec City.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I do.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Sure. I don't -- I recognise the idea. I'm not sure I recognise the words. I can't speak to the notetaking. But it was essentially that this large unlawful occupation in Ottawa was both -- was providing energy that was manifest elsewhere. So there was inspiration, solidarity, and there was occasionally like calls to -- there were calls back and forth from different cities, but there was clearly either a conscious strategic or even unconscious connection between what was going on in Ottawa and other sites. And the assessment that I was sharing was that if there's this massive occupation in Ottawa, it's -- you're going to continue to see problems across the country until Ottawa is resolved.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
I think so. Yeah, well -- there it is, February 4th.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, intense ongoing engagement and consultations every day.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
For the -- I personally was involved in consultations with the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service through the meetings that were organised and chaired by my colleague, the -- Rob Stewart. And the -- my officials were involved in extensive meetings, but I don't know if there were -- there were not very many meetings beyond the Ottawa ones where we were directly engaged with municipal officials.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
There were, yes, extensive consultations.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, I do.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Three things. And the three things evolved over time. The first thing they were making clear to us privately, and they were making clear very publicly, the professional trucking associations, the professional trucking industry said, “This is not us. This is not an activity of the trucking industry.” And they further -- the second thing that they -- they made that very clear repeatedly. The second thing is, as Ottawa got occupied, the -- I know specifically the Canadian Trucking Alliance and others said, A, “This is not us. If you’re a truck driver and you’re there, you’re not representing your industry.” And that they asked everybody to “Be peaceful and leave soon.” And then the third -- there was a third round that was very intense from the 8th to the 10th, and that was 12 trucking associations across the country, the cattlemen, the vehicle manufactures, the food manufacturers, a wide range of the tool and dye industry, with really strong appeal to the blockaders at Windsor to stop and to allow the bridge to open, and there was some fairly impassioned communication from the trucking industry saying, “You’re really hurting truckers. You’re killing their ability to earn a living. They’re stuck. You’re actually stopping truckers from doing what they want to do.” So it was sort of those three messages evolving over time.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It did. I would say that at the beginning, it was a little slow going because of that initial response that has been described by Ontario. And there was a general, I would say, reluctance of provincial colleagues to jump to the front on this, because it was such an awful crisis. The problems were so messy and the intensity and the anger coming from the blockades and the occupations was a cause for pause. Over time, I would say there was -- we saw more of a convergence of efforts over the course of the week, particularly after the Ontario pivot on the 10th.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
No, it was still a significant concern.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. In fact, we were -- unfortunately, we were seeing a well-established pattern because the 12th and the 13th was the third weekend of blockades and occupations. And so there was both the weekly cycle of it getting bad on the weekend and then receding a bit on the weekdays to get worse on the weekend again. In addition to that, I think you could see a bit of an upward trend in the size of the problem. It was growing both in terms of the entrenchment in Ottawa, where the occupation was getting more entrenched and attitudes were hardening on both sides. But as we went into the weekend of the 12th and 13th, you could see a growing pattern of activity disruptions and problems across the country. So there was both the weekend effect and then the problem was getting worse because of the accumulation of time.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
It would have been even worse.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. Once we started to see the slow rolls sort of transition to blockades and occupations, and as the crisis dragged on, we became more and more concerned that the next step -- or the next shoe was going to drop, which was the next blockade would be a rail one, and then we would have both the border blockades and the rail blockades at the same time, which would dramatically escalate the economic harm to the country.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, that’s right.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. And that was why that mechanic part of the strategy was in the strategy.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. I mean, there was a general tow truck industry problem, but the part that was absolutely insurmountable was getting the heavy wreckers and the skilled operators to move large commercial vehicles.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes. In fact, my understanding is they used tow trucks and they were able to deal with it with a few small tow trucks. They didn’t require large wreckers.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Yes, our understanding is that the tow trucks, the heavy wreckers that were secured by Ottawa or secured through the OPP going out to the industry and informing -- requesting the service, informing them of their legal obligation to provide it, and their indemnity, and that kind of cracked the problem.
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Michael Keenan, Deputy Minister (GC-TC)
Thank you very much.