Patricia Ferguson
Patricia Ferguson spoke 719 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I'd like to swear on the Bible, please.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Patricia Ferguson, P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A F-E-R-G-U-S-O-N.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good morning. It's actually Acting Deputy Chief.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I recall.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I have.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, none.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Deputy Chief Steven Bell.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he is.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We refer to it as the Three I's, Information, Intelligence, and Investigations.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's my understanding.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the initial sharing of that report went to our Intelligence Section, or our Intelligence Superintendent. And I should lay the groundwork in that in January of 2022, so January 3rd, a number of our senior officers changed portfolios. So the person who received that was Superintendent Rob Drummond; however, he had moved portfolios at that point in time. I do know it was shared with him, with our Special Events Section, and with former Chief Sloly.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe the first one that I was privy to and actually received was on the 27th of January ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- the 28th of January, in and around then, so after the convoy was well underway.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I would have received it on the 27th or 28th, but those were hectic times. So I can't say for sure that I actually saw the report at that point in time, I just know that's when it landed in my email inbox. So I -- my recollection was, as I mentioned when I spoke to you in the summertime, I had not been aware that this project was underway with the OPP.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't recall. I expect I probably would've seen it at some point in time in my inbox, but it was a chaotic time so many things were going on.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
The Special Events Planning Team, I can't say. I believe that our Intelligence -- some of our Intelligence officers would have seen it prior to the convoy arriving, but I don't know the exact date of that. And my role was really at the strategic level, so the plans were being developed, and I -- you know, they -- normally they're developed with Intelligence open source information, Police Liaison Team information.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It's generally fairly smooth. I would say that the bulk of the information for demonstrations prior to the convoy was not Intelligence-based, it was information, and so it was, you know, open source. Whether that is, you know, for an example, if we have a concert coming into town, the Special Events Unit will look at what kind of, you know, music it is, what kind of crowd it draws, they will speak to places where that band has played before, and they will develop a plan that is, you know, commensurate with what they've seen in other places. And so for the convoy, they did their usual where they looked to, you know determine as much as they could, reached out to other police services where the convoy was travelling through, getting information from them, trying to get an assessment or an idea of numbers that we were looking at and what kind of behaviour they were engaging in along the way in their cities. And up until point we were hearing that, you know, they were cooperative, they were providing lanes of traffic across the Prairies. And so our special events team was alive to those issues and continued to gather that right up until the day they came into town.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe what our planning team did was assessed all of the information that they had, and perhaps there was some information saying that some factions of it would be staying for longer. I think what they did was they developed a plan commensurate to the experience that we’ve had for over two and a half decades in this city, as far as I know, on what demonstrations generally look like, how long they last, and the type of behaviour we see. And so I believe they planned taking into account all of that information and developed the plan that we had.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe what was fluctuating for us was the numbers, the actual volume of trucks. And as -- and the money that they were collecting. I think towards the last few days, we were seeing that there was a big spike in the GoFundMe money being raised, so that was different than most of the demonstrations that we see. Did that tell us specifically that they were planning on staying for a long time and that when they got here, they would engage in the behaviour that they did? It did not. And I think what we’ve learnt is that there’s a lot of misinformation, disinformation and false information surrounding this group, and so they were trying to assess as best they could, but they relied general on the experience that that seasoned planning team had.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They reported to Superintendent Rehaume, and then to me, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think it suggested there was the potential for that. There were no guarantees, I don’t think, in the information that we had or the intelligence, even, to say that it was going to be here for the amount of time it was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do see that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it suggests that there’s -- there’s interest in this. A lot of times some of the information that we will look at are things like, you know, if there’s a Facebook live group and we’ll see that a whole lot of people “like” an event. And we’ve used that to sort of assess our level of staffing needed for an event, but it doesn’t always translate to actual numbers. And so when they say “getting on board”, that could be a number of different things. That could be that they are contributing it, that could be that they are supporting them. That could be that they’re standing on a highway overpass, you know, honking horns in regard to that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I think we’re trained to analyze a lot of information, and so that was part of the information that formed the planning that was going on. But as I said, with this campaign there was a lot of information coming at us from different sources. Some sources are more reliable than others, and I think even the Hendon reports were -- left it quite open that this could be, you know, a prolonged event but then, in another sentence, indicated that they were expecting they would be leaving town by the end of the weekend or by the middle of the following week. So when we addressed the community preparing them for this, we said a prolonged event and, for us, the experience in that was over the three days, you know, of the weekend. So did we err in our assessment of this? Clearly, we did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, we did work to track down some of those sources of information, and we were getting misinformation, I said, and disinformation. And I think that was one of those things that they weighed in assessment. We followed up with Steve Ball of the Hotel Association to determine just how many rooms had been booked, and over the course of the convoy, that piece of information came up on a number of occasions. And the reality was that our hotels were not able to be booked to capacity because they did not have the staff. We were still in the sixth wave of COVID and they were working at very limited capacity at that point in time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There was none.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
As I said, we weighed the information intelligence we had, and that was the plan that was developed based on what our best assessment of that was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it may well have been helpful.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I believe the components of the plan were the standard components that we employ, so, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe we had four areas where we ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- were going to be stacking vehicles, but, yes, that was one of them.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe we had officers in who were -- our Traffic Unit was leading the trucks to where they were supposed to be, so I believe that was -- you know, barriers and road closures impede our ability to get around, and so I think that was what they were doing, was that once the vehicles were in place. So we've had a number where people have stayed for two days on Wellington, and that is -- you know, it's obviously the place where they want to be. That's the whole point of their protesting the federal government. And so that was what happened in this case. And in terms of road closures and barriers, I'm not sure that that would have been helpful. If people were wanting to leave, the barriers would have impeded them from being able to do that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, there was, in fact, the area designated, I know it as Coventry Road. I can't remember the full name of the baseball park, but that was an area that was designated as somewhere they could go. And, in fact, some people did carpool from there and come downtown.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think realistically, a number of them really wanted to be in front of Parliament Hill. If we could have done that, if we had gotten cooperation, that certainly would have been our goal, but there was a -- we didn't know the size of, you know, of the convoy, how many trucks we were dealing at and how big an area we had to work with. So we did our best, I think, to keep them out of residential areas, and that was why, you know, parkways were chosen, Sir John A MacDonald Parkway, in order to make sure that -- you know, we could afford losing that road for the weekend and limit the disruption for Ottawa citizens. That was the intent.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I suppose we would have given more credibility to the information in Intelligence telling us that there was a faction that were planning on staying for a much longer period of time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the strategic really informs the goals of what it is we're trying to achieve. So in this case, you know, to safely, you know, manage this event, and ultimately, once they had arrived and, you know, not left, our goal became to encourage them to leave. And so that's the strategic level and that really is what -- you know, where I was sitting at. The event commander, who was Superintendent Rheaume ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely. That's the only way it works.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, because they're the ones who have, you know, much more connection with what is happening in the different areas. And so they are much more aware of, you know, from the ground what is going on and they're able to take in that information, measure it against what they know that's going on in another area and be able to make a decision in event. I'm not always privy to those.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay. So that would be the event commander, and that is somebody who takes in, as I alluded to a little bit already, the information that's coming at him. He's got a variety of different people who were reporting to him, and providing him with updates, and he is really sort of the quarterback, I guess, if you will, making sure that resources are being sent to the right places in order to assist achieving our goals here in this. And then we would move to the tactical level.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think he assigns that task to his team to do that, and ultimately he’s the final approver of the plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and he would work at his level. So with other superintendents. So let’s say the intelligence superintendent, or the investigation superintendent, to make sure that they are feeding into -- that their people are involved in the plan and the aftermath and carrying out whatever needs to be done at the time of the tasks.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Insp. Lucas was the incident commander and Supt. Bernier was the event commander.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, Supt. Bernier was at the -- yes, sorry, operational. And I believe that Insp. Lucas was more in the -- you’re right, sorry, he would be in that operational phase, and the tactical one is more the POU, PLT, Traffic.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that involves specific units and their tasks are very focused on -- as I said, the Traffic Unit, they came up with their plan to -- on how to -- and this one was very much a traffic related incident or event. But we also had our Public Order teams, our Police Liaison Teams, we had Intelligence Teams, we had Investigations, we had our Communications Team, we had Logistics, Staffing. And as the event grows, you build out the pieces that you need, Finance for example, HR was involved, we were swearing in other officers from other jurisdictions. So as that progressed and grew, so did our table.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that’s a group of specially trained officers who, when we have demonstrations, before, during, and after, they’re engaged in reaching out to organizers to build rapport with them, to find out what it is that the group is trying to achieve, to work with them to help facilitate what they are looking to achieve in town. And so, you know, part of that is if a group would like to, you know, have a march down Albert Street at 8:00 o’clock in the morning, we might try and speak with them and saying, “Maybe, how about we did it at 10:00 o’clock? That might be --” so those types of conversations happen. They look to, as I said, build rapport and relationships with the people who are involved so that when they get here, that relationship is already established and they can have conversations with them about what is acceptable behaviour by the people of their group, where, you know, their Charter of Rights end, and perhaps criminal charges could be -- or, you know, disobedience and civil disobedience type of things will occur. And in the event that something is going on during the event, where there might be an agitator or an antagonizer, then they would speak to that person that they already had the relationship with and let them know what the consequences are, or that this behaviour is problematic and we’d like for that cease, insomuch as it really is about negotiating and trying to change behaviours through conversation.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Public Order Unit, we refer to them, you might see in some of the documents, as ESU, Emergency Services Unit. They have a two- fold sort of -- when we have a missing person, they will go out and search an area. They’re trained in those types of things. Again, we have about 100 officers, both sworn and civilian, mostly sworn, who are trained in being able to -- whether it’s crowd control, crowd management, those types of things. So they are the ones who ultimately we saw take the streets on that weekend that moved forward with moving people out of the streets. So if you think of it in the way of a triangle, the incident commander is at the top of the triangle, and on both opposite corners, you have the ability to use force should you -- your PLT and negotiations break down.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, to a certain extent. I think we failed in certain areas regarding PLT, and I think they struggled as a result. But that was what we were hoping. And you saw one of those -- Louis Carvalho was on our PLT team. He was a sergeant there. And he was working also with going out to businesses and letting them know, and doing that engagement piece as well. So not just with the convoy organizers, but with the areas that they believe are going to be impacted and affected ahead of time ahead of time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So as they arrived into town, you know, we were monitoring numbers where it was -- you know, safety, obviously, is always our first priority. And so we were monitoring with that lens for sure. And we were starting to see, you know, they were pulling into the areas that they were sent to or steered to. And then we started to see, I would qualify it as a bit of a party atmosphere, sort of festival-like, people were very excited to be there. Myself and Deputy Bell walked around in the downtown core and saw some of the, you know, the people that were there. And it was, in those first few days, not as, I would say, as disruptive as it got to be. When the weekend came and went and Monday morning arrived and they were still on our streets, at that point in time, Ottawa Police was in a situation of, “Okay. We’ve got to pivot. We have to reassess what we’ve got here. We have to evolve our plan.” So began starting to, you know, strategize and brainstorm as to what actions could be taken, what did we have available to us. I know that, you know, at the command level, we had considered an injunction with the City, we had spoken to other police partners. A lot of those things were going on at all levels. So at the strategic, the operational, and the tactical level, I know our members were fully engaged in those types of behaviours, to try and come up with what our next plan -- we knew we needed to evolve and move into another stage, really. So it was reorienting ourselves to the situation that we had at hand.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think really as Sunday progressed. We expected that a number of people would be heading back to, you know, their home cities. And I knew that there were some people from out west, we were seeing the Alberta plates, we were seeing, you know, Saskatchewan, but we expected that, you know, the -- we had an influx of pedestrians that came over from Quebec side. I think we had some expectations that those folks who were in the surrounding areas, would retreat back to their homes. And I think, you know, really, Sunday -- as Sunday night carried on, we had been talking about a demobilization plan up until that point, and clearly that was not the plan that was going to be required.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Robin is my Executive Assistant.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct. We were briefing twice a day, and Robin was taking notes from those briefings.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
The state of the Ottawa Police at this stage was one of very poor staffing. We had been in that state for, I would say, a number of years. Prior to becoming the Deputy of Community Policing, my position was the Superintendent of Frontline, and so it was a challenge every day to make sure that we had all the shifts covered. The pandemic obviously, like any other workforce, had a large impact on our people; we had some high sick levels. At this point in time, we were in the sixth wave of COVID and so what we had done to try and mitigate that was -- and it had been quite successful in the early days of the pandemic, was to establish a reserve staffing. So a group of officers who would be healthy at home, should we have an outbreak where we have an entire platoon taken out, we are able to upstaff. Another measure that we took was to limit our -- we have six platoons, generally; we cut it down to four platoons. So if you think of 30 people per platoon, when we divided one in half, then we had 45 members on each platoon to up our numbers a little bit to try and mitigate that. And that was going into the convoy. We were already -- I would describe us as being on our knees and having run a marathon for the last two and a half years, and it felt like they’d moved the finish line 100 yards, or another mile, and given us 200 pounds to carry to get to the end. So staffing was, I would say, our number one Achilles heel in all of this. And so all of these people who had worked for the week leading up to the convoy, over the weekend -- and long hours; you know, our frontline members were working 12 hour shifts. When the convoy came and we were trying to manage staffing and clear posts, some of them were working up to 15 hours, and it was -- they were -- they were exhausted. So we needed to make sure that our people had time off. And so that, I believe, is what we’re thinking about, is it’s a risk for us to be able to staff all of this.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that’s part of it. You know, I think we had some extra resources for the weekend. We had some additional public order units from other services that had some into town, but they all had to get back as well. So our contingency plan really was for the weekend into Monday morning, and, you know, staffing -- I believe that really is what they’re referring to there.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think that’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Or evolving the plan that we have, depending on what the planners determine is the -- they’re saying it’s an entirely new, we’re starting from scratch with a new position now with the situation we have on hand.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I think ultimately we wanted to move the truckers out of the downtown core, and to limit the impact on our residents, and always to keep in mind public safety, and our officer safety as well.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe this is Chief Sloly.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think at this point because they weren’t leaving. They had, you know, expressed that they wanted to protest. Protesting, you know, generally is a limited window, in our experience. And so the fact that they were now no longer leaving. And the behaviour that they were engaging in, I think was what really upped that temperature to making it an occupation; that they were settling in, that they were starting to put up tents and, you know, really begin to entrench themselves.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think those are fair statements. We struggled because we didn’t have people who were strictly planners. Our planners were also people who were site commanders on the ground, who were trying to manage things at the very tactical level. And so I think to say we were struggling is fair and accurate. I think we did on that Monday morning -- you can see the conversation in this, we’re trying to get our heads wrapped around what we were looking at. And in terms of former Chief Sloly providing direction, and -- yeah, direction, he definitely was of what he wanted to see happen.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So at this point in time it remained Supt. Rheaume, and I was the Major Event Commander.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
In making sure that they were aware of what the strategic goals were, ultimately, to have, you know, this resolved as safely as possible, but for these trucks to be removed from our streets.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think you’d have to ask Chief Sloly, but I think, you know, from a human perspective, I would say that it was a -- this was not what he was expecting, and his reaction was one out of concern, out of stress, and out of pressure at this point in time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We did not have a new plan by the 4th. We had -- as I said, our planners, I think, were working on developing it but they were also dealing with a number of the live issues, putting out fires, as it were, within their area; and again, staffing, I think, for those folks was as limited as it was everywhere else in the organisation. So I'm not sure whose notes these are.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Scribe notes? Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, so I think it's fair to say that we did not have another plan developed by the 4th.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it was generally felt, and because of statements like this, that he was the final approver of plans, and that became the sentiment for everybody who was producing those plans, that they needed to have them approved by former Chief Sloly.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They are.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, he was directing a staff sergeant.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We did speak to him about not directing Operations, and reminded him of what role he played in it on a number of occasions throughout this time. Because there were a few incidents where he would engage with constables or he would, you know, engage with the Event Commander outside of the chain of command. I think you see in this email or notes to himself. I was working with Staff Sergeant Stoll and the group to try and get a plan, and indicated that we would like to see them, and he -- the former Chief wanted him to present to him, he wanted to see specifically a public order plan. And a public order plan, it just forms part of the larger plan, but he was fixated on this one.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I do.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It certainly seemed that way.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
This would be Chief -- former Chief Sloly.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, it isn't.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
We took portions of this. The surge, contain and enforce had been announced the day before, and that was something that he wanted us to be doing in the neighbourhoods that were most affected. And he talked about flooding the areas and having a cop on every corner, which in concept is a good idea to try and address some of that stuff, but in practical reality we did not have the, again, the staffing to do that. He had some good ideas, but to implement them was very difficult, given the numbers that we had. So some of these things did form what we call the Concept of Operation Plan, which I believe we had dated on the 9th of February, but ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
(Inaudible response)
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure: "Need to turn the corner...today, not changing the [operational] plan - need to implement the hell out of that plan for the next 72 hours. The plan we have is excellent. Nothing has changed with [C]ommander's intent - or mission."
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't think we had a plan at that point in time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So on the 6th -- I should maybe let you know that the incident commander, at this point in time, or sorry, the event commander was Superintendent Patterson.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There was a switch. He began on the 6th of February.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He served until the evening of the 4th, so the Friday evening.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, he was the de facto event commander because this took place in his specialized policing event, but he did not necessarily have the -- he had the skills and capacity to manage the initial event, but then as it got more protracted, first of all, I think he needed some time, some rest days, but Superintendent Dunlop was ultimately engaged and working with one of the groups, POU and PLT. He also had some, you know, I felt reasonable experience and skills to come in at this stage in our operation, and so I had approached him to take on that role.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the overnight from the 4th into the 5th, so the Friday into the Saturday morning.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Until the evening of the 5th.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Former Chief Sloly did not believe that he was the right person for the job. He gave us some -- myself and Deputy Bell, who both were part of the decision making into who would be the best person at this stage of the operation, but former Chief Sloly had, I would say it's fair to say, a past history with Superintendent Dunlop, and whether it was a trust factor or whether it was because Superintendent Dunlop had I think challenged him on a few issues that he didn't feel he was right for the position in that stage, and he made it very clear to me that he didn't approve of that decision and he was going to hold me accountable for whatever the results were of that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I wasn't happy with it, but I recognized it was an untenable situation for Superintendent Dunlop to be in. And so with further conversation with DC Bell, we determined that it would be fair - - more fair to have another person step in, and so that's when Superintendent Patterson was selected, and ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He stepped in on the morning of the 6th.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It was a conversation with former Chief Sloly, and I could tell he approved of him as an incident -- or as an event commander. And so it was a -- I would say a conciliatory conversation and that's ultimately it was my decision, that's where we went.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So as the event commander, he determined he was going to start getting some wins, I guess would be the -- showing some action and showing some, you know, movement on the part of the police. And so he determined with -- former Chief Sloly was very much about let's interdict fuel, let's do what we can to stop the supply going to them. And so we knew that Coventry Road was the site where the -- it was sort of a camp for them. They came back and they had a tent where they ate. They were pretty well established there. I believe there were saunas and things set up. And they had a fuel truck there. So we were aware and I believe our PLT team had been working with people on that site to engage, to establish a rapport and a relationship. And Superintendent Patterson set up to do what we would call an action, and engage the Public Order Team, and wanted them to go in and, you know, seize the fuel and stop the source of fuel. So that's what took place on the evening of the 6th.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I should have clarified that. The OPP PLT team was assisting our team throughout, both as being a backup, if you will, or an increase in numbers, but also as being sort of sounding boards and guidance. They had a lot of experience in dealing with longer-term protests.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think they were trying to reason with the organizers, and there's always a give and take with the PLT approach. So if we, you know, if we can agree with something that you get something, we get something, that was what they were trying to establish, I believe, without being in the leads of that, but that was the relationship they were working on.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
In concert with each other. I mean, I think what has to happen is that the PLT team needs to be given the time to actually effect some change and they need to be given the room to do so and the authority to make decisions. And that, I believe, was not happening. That's not in concert. That's the incident commander, the event commander. The Public Order Team understands that they have a role to play, and so oftentimes, they will be waiting in the wings until they're given the, you know, go ahead, we've done everything we can, we have cleared as much as we can, and now these people have been advised that they're no longer welcome, and if they don't leave that they will be arrested, that type of thing.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. I think in the Coventry example, you know, there were some things that were concerning in that there was fuel on site. You know, the fire department had a -- they have a house right across the street. They were seeing some things that they were worried about for safety reasons for the people involved there. So I think that's the approach that they took was that we're -- you know, we're concerned about some of these things, and we want to make sure that you're all safe, and it's upsetting the residents in the area.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So those types of conversations, but they take a while to happen, and it requires patience on the part of the event commander.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, it's very important.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I believe in this case, and I am not 100 percent, I think Inspector Lucas could probably provide you with more details, but Superintendent Patterson requested that the Public Order Team arrive at the location at Coventry, and I believe there was some back and forth that they did not feel that was -- that that should have happened when it did. They felt that PLT should have been given more time. And ultimately, Superintendent Patterson was very frustrated by that, that they were not engaging in -- when he wanted them there. I do believe that they did eventually attend, but the resulting action was that it really damaged the relationship with our PLT team, with the OPP PLT team and with the event commander. That was a fractured situation after that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, they were not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Entirely off guard.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think they had been experiencing frustration that whole week in terms of being able to negotiate with the convoy organizers. They had established fairly reasonable relationships and open lines of communication. And there was some back and forth leading up to this event. And they were not empowered to make decisions to be able to get those quick wins. One example was porta potties. You know, that the organizers had asked for those to be delivered into the red zone. And the direction from the event commander was we’re not giving them one inch. So, you know, they will have to try and come up -- it was basically a win-lose scenario. If you leave, we’ll let you go. That was sort of where they were given direction that there was nothing beyond that for a period of time. And I think they were really frustrated by that, and I think the OPP team were frustrated as well. And there was some, you know, I received emails saying that they were going to walk, they’d had enough, that type of thing.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Confederation Park is a location that happens to be right across the street from City Hall. And we were getting information, I can’t recall the exact date, but that people were setting up in Confederation Park and they had actually set up a food preparation area, like a little kitchen and a hut, and they had propane and they were really, you know, setting up for being there for a while. And so this caused, obviously, the Mayor and a number of people concern that this was going on. They were concerned for the safety of having, you know, fuel and those types of things. So our PLT team went in to speak to the people who had set up in there and they engaged them in conversation and started to try and get some movement there. It took several days, and much to the frustration, I think, of former Chief Sloly, as well as a number of city officials, but we were able to -- we brought in an Algonquin Elder, because they had indicated that that was -- that they were from the Algonquin Nation and that they -- you know, this was a means to try and engage in conversation and get to a middle ground we could. Ultimately, they were able to talk people into leaving that area on their own and cleared the park and were able to secure it.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I actually don’t have my hard copies in front of me. I left them with ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- a colleague, but ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Very good.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah: “set us back days or a week [on PL -- or a week] our PLT is demoralized and Marin is very upset Patterson was not there”
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Any ground that they had gained, any relationship that they had made at that point in time had been damaged significantly and it would take them days or weeks to re-establish that rapport.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That was Insp. Marin, who was working with S/Sgt. Stoll on the Public Order Team.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That he was not at the scene, I don’t believe.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
At the time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s exactly my view on that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
M’hm.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I don’t think that the chief -- I know he had some former public order experience, but I don’t think he had used PLT as much as we were, you know, experienced here in Ottawa. We, you know, have had people trained on this for a number of years and it has served us incredibly well in a lot of demonstrations and really taken the temperature down and been able to get us, you know, longer term wins, but wins where people walk away safely, where they feel like they were heard, and that their goal was met. And that is part of it, because we want to make sure that we’re, you know, we’re not creating a situation that they will be coming back again. So our PLT, I knew, had that capacity. I was familiar with the program. I was involved. I was a superintendent when we had a previous demonstration that shut down a major intersection not long before this, and we used the PLT quite successfully in that. but after that event, they came to me and said, “We need more people. We need a little bit more importance placed on this, because it really is an amazing tool.” And so they convinced me and they said they were, you know, would like to get more people trained, and I approved that, and that did happen. And I’m glad we did have a number for this protracted event so we were able to rely on them. It also creates good will with other police services. And so in this case, the OPP stepping in to assist us in this bolstered our numbers that we were definitely needing. And it means that you have to be able to work in an integrated manner. I don’t believe Chief Sloly was familiar with the framework. There is a national framework that has been developed on police response to demonstrations, and this was borne out of a lot of Indigenous -- protracted Indigenous demonstrations. And the OPP, obviously, have had a number of experiences with that. So what they brought to the table was very valuable to our team. And I believe, as you cited Insp. Lucas’ assessment of Chief Sloly, and I think Supt. Patterson as well was on that page, was that we were needing to demonstrate to the community that we were actually -- we were taking actions. And I understand the pressure and stress that they were -- they both felt. I felt it as well. But I also felt that we were going to be judged on this, here we are all these months later, on our coming out of this with as few people hurt as possible, as, you know, much good will as possible, that we haven’t burnt any bridges with our community, with other policing agencies, and with anyone, really. So I felt that taking a longer-term approach and potentially getting a, you know, a bigger win at the end was the way to go. And I, you know, was receiving information that crowds, generally 80 percent of people are law-abiding and they want to follow laws, and if you give them an opportunity to have a win they will often go on their own. And so those were some of the things that I felt we needed to give that a really good try, and I don't believe Chief Sloly, at this stage in it, was feeling the same way about it.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So at the time, it was actually only in reviewing and preparing for this that I realised how they came about at the time. I was not sure what the genesis of them arriving was, but my understanding is it was some non-OPS leaders, police leaders, who determined that Ottawa needed help, and assessed that they could come in and assist us in providing a plan. We had been asking for resources, Chief Sloly had been going to a variety of services, mostly with the RCMP and the OPP, requesting assistance in the way of police resources. And I think what they were trying to -- this group was trying to determine how many people we needed and what was, you know, what was the ultimate goal and what was the plan, and we struggled a little bit with coming up with a plan per se. So like I mentioned earlier, the concept of Operations, that was part of what we were working on there to provide them those services to say, "This is what we are hoping to do and this is how we would like to do it in broad strokes", not without, like a full, full plan. And so this team, I was made aware of them. I was spoken to -- Carson Pardy reached out to me by phone and said he was coming into town, and that they were here to assist, and in helping us to, you know, work out the details of our plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, along with some of the points that you saw the Chief ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- you know, suggest on the 5th, and so this was, yeah, a loose, I would say, framework that we had come up with.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m not sure if it was this document per se, but I believe we had the same points established.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Can you refresh my memory as the time of this?
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Then I do remember that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the Chief wanted sort of -- it was a meeting after the meeting to determine what my perception of what was taking place here. And as I was the only one who actually was physically at the location with the other partners, everyone else called in on the phone. I believe I had a scribe with me who took notes for me. So the Chief was -- he was late to join the call for a very good reason, but was unable to hear the initial part of it. And I think he was disappointed that we weren’t able to be on Teams. It was an RCMP facility. So there were a few things about it I think he was frustrated about it, and he wanted to know what my perception of, you know, their position and more of sort of a strategic what do you think they’re looking for from us in order to give us resources.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
My sense is that they were here to help, and I shared that with him. I knew some of the -- Carson Pardy, for one, was somebody who I’d worked on a committee with before. I knew him to be a very genuine, good man, and I felt that they were here in response to the fact that we needed some help, and that’s what they were doing with -- without reservation.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He seemed to be suspicious of what the -- why they were here, you know, why couldn’t they just give us the resources that we were asking for. I think he was feeling tested, and we all were being tested, I think, to a certain degree, where is our plan, what is -- -- you know, what is our goal, what do we -- what’s the impact we’re trying to achieve. So they were asking some pointed questions.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it does.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was unfamiliar with what Hydra was. I guess it’s a mythological Greek figure. But he spoke about it -- you know, this thing having many heads and so, you know, we needed to, as I wrote here, “cut off and cauterize the heads”. So as we were able to take control of a situation, then we held that position. I think that’s what he was referring to as cauterizing. It was a term that I’ve not used in event planning before.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I think this was his seven points strategy, and I think each of them was one of the means that we would be able to use to bring this to an end.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay. So he had called us all in there, I think, in response to the meeting of the night before and my assessment of things that I don’t know that he necessary agreed with or I might not have instilled the confidence that he was hoping to hear, so he set out to -- all of us to meet and then to actually put this plan into some form of a visual documentation which you saw. That was one of our very adept planners who was -- or project manager who was able to come up with that visual that you saw that we shared with them with the -- each of the different points and how we were going to go about affecting those actions.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
“Asked if anyone needed clarifications”.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So he was very much at this point in time, I would say, frustrated by where we were at so many days into it, and I think he was, I would say, having challenges not allowing that to show. And so he had us all in a room, made sure that everybody came in at 7 o’clock and that we were all going to be part of this meeting and all hands on deck. We were going to get this written up and here’s what it’s going to look like.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it does.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Generally what happens is plans develop and you have versions of them and for everybody’s sake these, when you are sending a plan around for people to see, you put the most recent version of it, so I think that’s what the 3.0. And I think we dropped the “Hydra”. I don’t think that was necessarily a plan name we wanted to go with, so I think this is what replaced that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so. If we could just scroll up beyond maybe the first page or two. Yes, that looks to be correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So coming from the world that I had before my experience as an Incident Commander, when we are engaging in any event, we will give our if you say commander’s intent or mission of what we are trying to achieve and it always begins with -- my training has indicated it always begins with to safely negotiate the unlawful elements of the -- you know, and carry on. And you start with that really focus on negotiation as a starting point. I think my recollection of that meeting was he and I had some arguments, I will say -- we had a discussion, we had a disagreement on that and, ultimately, he said it was understood that we were going to be negotiating and he did not want it to be in the mission statement, so this mission statement is what was put in in the end.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure. "Then said it's implicit. I advised our CIC mission statement always have explicitly stated in the mission statement if it doesn’t reduce the size of the footprint, that is not a good negotiation."
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sure. Anyone who undermines the operational plan, he will crush them. And I wrote in my -- in brackets that he said it twice, and I noticed that his chin was twitching. I was kind of aghast at the comment, and that anyone who executes the plan will be supported. The takeaway was, don’t bother arguing with anything that Patterson offers. Chief and he are in communication and whoever gets in their way will be crushed.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That this was the plan we were going ahead with, and that he didn’t want to hear any further dissenting positions on it. This was where we were going.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Talked about the plan for briefing the embedded cell. I think those are planners and commanders, and he spoke of a type of conspiracy that is happening at provincial and federal levels, that this team is being handled by their political masters and promoted to the idea that they're not really here to help.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and that we were planning to meet with that same day around noon with this plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Very well.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe he thought that was all very politically influenced, and I will, you know, say at the outset, I was five or six weeks into being an Acting Deputy Chief at this point in time, and did not have the same view, but I have not lived the -- you know, the same number of years that Chief Sloly had in that realm. And so I felt they were simply cops coming to help cops, and he had a different view from, I guess, his experience in the conversations that he was having at that point in time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I believe that’s who he is.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s "forcing them".
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. So that morning, the chief had said, you know, when we were sitting in that briefing room, that they will be coming down to 474 Elgin, and we will be presenting our plan there. There was probably five or six of them, and we had a full team ourself. And I suggested that perhaps a better option was to go out to where they were set up. They had come in from out of town. Some of them didn’t know Ottawa, but they were already out at the -- one of the RCMP stations, and that we could go out there and present. There was plenty of room. I had just been there the night before. It was set up. And the chief said something to the effect of, "This is the strategy. This is a -- you know, I don’t expect you to understand, but this is our house and we're going to do this in our house." So I felt that was a bit of a power move that I didn’t think was necessarily was necessary in the circumstances, because I really did feel that they were here to help and why are we inconveniencing them? The chief referred to it as, you know, having -- we shouldn't have to drive out to the boonies to go and -- he called it "Farrhaven" to go for this meeting. So that was what that conversation was. And then when he talks about last night being amateur hour, that’s what I was alluding to in that we couldn't get the computer set up, we couldn't get Teams going. It was, you know, different agencies, different key fobs, and that type of thing. So that’s where his frustration was in that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it sounds right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That was the plan for an actions on -- at Rideau and Sussex that Supt. Patterson had proposed and was working towards executing.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So Rideau and Sussex, from the start of the arrival on the convoy was a contentious and volatile, I would describe it, intersection. The people who were there, the protesters or the -- the people who were there were -- they seemed to be operating on their own. They were known to us as the Farfadaas. I believe they were a group that was originally mostly from Quebec, from the Quebec area -- I’m not sure exactly where -- and they were -- I would say the ones that were, they were antagonistic. Over the course of the convoy, you know, when people were trying to leave, they were the ones, I would say, intimidating people saying, “Hold the line. You’re not going anywhere,” those types of things. And because of the location where they were, that was a major intersection that we were trying to gain back and their presence there certainly contributed to the Rideau Centre being closed, which was obviously one of our major businesses in the city and was suffering as a result, and we were trying to open that intersection up to be able to get -- you know, there’s obviously access to Quebec that comes with that, and the Byward Market.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So they were planning on -- and it wasn’t so much -- actually, I think it was discussed at this meeting. Supt. Patterson presented his plan after we -- I gave the presentation on our concept of operations and he described how he planned on taking that intersection, and it was involving Public Order Units, a number of troops, or a number or “sections’ as they’re called, were going to be employed in taking the areas, making arrests, and then holding that area, consequently.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree with that. I believe he told the team, or the people at that meeting, that they were engaged when Supt. Abrams specifically asked him, “Are they aware? Have they been engaged to this point? And have they exhausted all other measures?” And I believe Supt. Patterson’s response was yes, they had.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Vaguely.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they were.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m actually not sure that I was at this meeting. These are, I believe, our Legal Services notes so I don’t know that I was there and heard that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it may not be fair for me to comment on what it is that he was saying if, on the face of it, it looks to me like he’s talking that action that we were planning.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So this was in relation to the actions on at Rideau and Sussex and this was out daily briefing so there was a number of people on that call and this was -- Supt. Patterson had not got the plan approved and it had not been carried out in the overnight hours as they were hoping, and so he was updating the team as to what happened and his perception of what the OPP’s, I guess, ultimate goals were. And at the same time, there were things happening across the province.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So this meeting -- this was -- you know, as you were showing here, this is a series of discussions that I’m having with both the Event Commander who’s reporting to me and Former Chief Sloly about the approach that I felt we needed to be taking. And as the Major Event Commander, I was trying to drive in that direction and was continually getting pushback, some of it very public and some of it, you know, behind closed doors. And this was a meeting, when we got to this point, Supt. Patterson was also very frustrated and he was, you know, presenting his point to the group. And so there was a comment made during this meeting where he, in my estimation, maligned one of our most seasoned Critical Incident Commanders on a decision that he made not to approve this plan and he chalked it up to him not being involved and not knowing enough and that’s why he didn’t approve it. And so at the end of the call, once we did all the checks that we did on these briefings -- go through communications, through, you know, “What’s the update? How many people on the Hill?” those types of things -- once that was completed, I had asked for a number of people to stay on the call. So, you know, our corporate communication folks would have dropped off, and some of the other players, but the Chief was one, Supt. Patterson was on. I don’t know all of the people who remained on the call but our legal -- Christiane Huneault was on that call as well and I started by saying, “I want to clarify the role of the Incident Commander.” In this case, it was Supt. Burnett who had not approved the plan that Patterson put forward for actions on at Rideau and Sussex, and he had his reasons for it and a lot of them related to safety of our members and it was involving POU teams from other police services who had also expressed their concern about the safety of this action to Supt. Burnett. And so I wanted to clarify that and to say that I didn’t believe that these types of actions were going to -- that they were a good move at this point in time. If we had said we were going to negotiate, which is what we agreed to with the OPP just yesterday when we presented our -- it was yesterday -- when we presented that plan, then that’s what we had to commit to, and I didn’t feel we were doing that and I felt we were doing a disservice to everybody involved, and not to mention, you know, putting pressure on -- and putting our members at risk. They had been swarmed by protestors at this location before. We knew that they had that potential and so this of all of them was probably the most dangerous of all the intersections that we would take on. So I expressed that, and then you probably see conversation back and forth between myself and Superintendent Patterson, and the Chief weighed in. And then at one point in the meeting, Superintendent Patterson asked here, and you see in my notes, if Christiane Huneault, who was our legal -- our lawyer, was on the call, and she said, "I'm here." And he said, "I want this for the notes." And then he made, you know, I would say an attack on my integrity on behaviour that he felt that I was engaging in that was unethical. And at that point in time, I, you know, indicated that I didn't think -- that no one said anything, so I said, "I don't -- you know, I think this is going to really be difficult for me to move forward in this position. I feel like I'm a fly in the ointment that's going on right now and that I'm fighting on two fronts, and that I wasn't willing to do that anymore." So I said to the Chief at that point, "If you need to remove me in order to be able to go ahead and carry out your plans, you're going to have to do that, but I cannot -- I fundamentally disagree with the way we were going, and that I couldn't put our members at risk in that way." So that was pretty much the end of the conversation. And the meeting ended at that point.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He came to see me, and we discussed the situation. And I -- you know, in his defence, he didn't know me very well. He didn't know my history. He's come to the organization as an outsider, but I assured him that the behaviour I was being accused of was not, in fact, what was happening, and it involved, you know, myself and my husband colluding. My husband at the point was working with the PLT team, and that I was getting, you know, information that I shouldn't have been having at that point was really the accusation. And so I suggested to the Chief that if he really believes in the direction that he is suggesting, then I'm not the person to be the commander of this event. And so he said he would think about it, and at the end of our conversation, he ultimately said, "I will keep you as the event commander, but you must promise me that you are going to take some days off, that you need a couple of days rest."
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sorry, strategic commander, yes. That -- and at that point in time, you know, I had been working a number of days in a row. It felt a little bit like I had gotten emotional, and he walked into my office right at the tail end of that meeting, and I was frustrated, and I was angry, so it felt a little bit like he was saying, you know, you need to go home and get some rest. He was probably right, but I was a little bit frustrated by that, and I'm frustrated in hearing that it sounds like I was sent home because I was on the wrong side of things. As Chair Deans said yesterday that that was not the case. I think it was out of concern for, you know, for where I was at. Certainly, I was angry, frustrated and upset. And he said, "Deputy Bell will take over for a couple of days. Go home, get some rest because I need you healthy for the long run."
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So at that point in time, it was Superintendent Bernier who was requested to come in.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was. The Chief and I discussed it as to what options we had, and Superintendent Bernier was ultimately the decision at that stage.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He has lots of experience in the Public Order world, but also in planning and in specialized events, that type of thing. He has been, you know, incident commander, event commander, and has worked in that world quite a bit.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
York Region.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Peel Regional Police.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
SMEC is a term that's used in both military and policing and it's basically Situation, Mission, Execution and the C can stand for Command or Communication but ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So "Not Intelligence Led." I think that's fairly accurate. We were not really relying on the intelligence to formulate the actions and the things that we were doing.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I'm thinking just of the state that we were in the 9th, 10th when I'm assuming this was drafted up.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
"Participants have the initiative." This was, in fact, something that was becoming -- we were becoming aware of this. There were retired police and military members in the protest, and they knew a number of our, you know, police tactics, and they had a chief of security, and they were really, you know, keeping themselves in those types of, I guess, command. So I think that is true. "Reactive, tactical, aggressive, [and taking] risks." I would agree with that. Some of the actions that they were seeing us doing, whether that was the interdiction of fuel, those types of things that the Chief was hoping for us to make some headway there ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it would. "Poor communications, no communication strategy," I think that's fair. There was some good communications and I shouldn't paint everybody with that brush, but certainly at -- I know that our Intelligence folks who were working with OPP members and that, there was communication going on there, and some people were more effective at it than others, but I think it's a fair step. "Unclear and vague Command and control." I think we had a system in place, but we had players who were, you know, jumping up or jumping down the -- our Incident Command structure. "Unqualified trained leadership." We had lost a lot of our subject matter experts in the four, five years leading up to this. We used to be really, really strong and, you know, our response to -- when I think of what happened here in 2014, the shooting on Parliament Hill, we were subject matter experts and we had leaders in that area, and a lot of that had gone with retirement. And because we hadn't had any big events, you know, with COVID, with a no presidential visits, none of those things, we hadn't flexed those muscles. And so this was obviously unprecedented in terms of its size and the type of thing we were dealing with. So I don't know whether unqualified is fair. I would think that there's some people in that chain who would say that they very much are qualified, but I think from an OPP or somebody looking in maybe would see that. No poor -- "no or poor partner collaboration." I would agree.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I believe at the strategic level. The relationship was strained. And whether that was Chief to Chief or Chief with some of the City partners, some of the, you know, political people who needed to be involved. We did have, I would say, good collaboration. Kim Ayotte and I spoke fairly regularly in terms of, you know, “What are your people seeing and what are you experiencing” How can we support? How can help?” Those types of conversations were going on fairly regularly, but at certain levels we were not seeing that same level of collaboration. “Focused on local issues only.” I believe that statement that Supt. Patterson made was right, and I also recall former Chief Sloly saying, “I’m not -- I don’t care about what’s going on elsewhere. Ottawa is where I need to, you know, have my focus.” And, you know, from his perspective I can understand that. But we did know that when we took actions here it had ripple effects across the country; these were very connected, reactive people. “...only maintenance and not resolution.” And I believe that OPS focus -- that was our focus, and a lot of that had to with simply the realities of our staffing situation. The “Boots on the ground” are officers who were at posts and who were taking on those roles, and I think fairly accurate to say low morale. They were frustrated. Some of them were left out for hours in the cold without the ability for them to be freed up or provided meals. “Lack of leadership/confidence in command - no clear direction.” I think that’s -- we did hear some of that, especially from the PLT folks. “Physical &” I’m assuming that’s mental, mentally “exhausted. Poor decision making.” I’m not sure what the “Longer” is referring to but I think the -- you know, obviously we were not our best selves at that moment and maybe weren’t making the best decisions, and the, “Information sharing [was] - incomplete and unknown command structure.” And the operational plan not being signed off. That’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, there’s -- we use different command structures than the OPP and the RCMP, and so I think they were looking to see us following true models. They vary slightly but I do think at points we were not following the command structure ,and I believe that, you know, as I alluded to before, we had people who were jumping -- jumping chains and maybe getting down into areas they didn’t need to be to try and speed things up, I think that was probably the ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t think I experienced that myself, that there was lack of information sharing internally. But I’m assuming if they are -- no, I can’t make that assumption. I don’t know what ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- they are referring to, specifically.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So our Intelligence unit gets all sorts of information, obviously, and they go through it and there is an analysis piece that takes place with the information, the intelligence that they get. And they will determine, often, who that is -- relates to. And sometimes it’s one of those things that is a “Nice to know” and we will hang onto that and do up a report, and sometimes it’s something that needs to be actioned by somebody. And I think we were still relying -- at this point in time, we have since evolved, but we were relying on them being the keepers of that information and it being shared on a need-to-know basis. And you know, up until this point the major things that they were looking into were organized crime and were, you know, national security threats, not so -- I mean, that was obviously the purview of the RCMP, but those types of things. And so they would share information like, you know, the latest ITAC threat and some of those pieces of information as needed. But it was really a hierarchy and if you were not in that level, then you didn’t necessarily receive that information.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think it’s fair to say it may have had an impact on it. I think what we were missing was that bridge between Intelligence and Special Events to operationalize the information that they had, and we were lacking there.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s a good question. I think to convey to the people who reported to me that we are -- this is -- you know, we are moving forward in this direction; to express my trust in them maybe a little bit more vocally; to let them know, you know, they were the subject matter experts, they had all the -- you know, the information that they needed, and we needed to come up with a plan. I think, again, a lot of the issues were staffing, and so try to rotate people to provide them with a rest, provide them with the -- you know, the ability to breathe and focus on what they needed to, and maybe I needed to be more task-driven in terms of, you know, “We need this plan and I need it by such-and-such a time.” Those types of things. Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. I think policing in gen4eral attracts a certain type of a person to it and I think there’s a lot of very strong characters, and one of the things that I felt we maybe could have done better was listening to each other and communicating better and being a little more cohesive as a command team. And I think in moments of stress and crisis, people are not their best selves and maybe rely on behaviours that are not helpful in the moment, and you know, just show kind of the cracks that are coming through. And it was an incredibly long, exhausting, period of time for the Ottawa Police and I think many of our members are bruised as a result, if I can say that, and are still, you know, in that state. So it had a big toll, and obviously what took place, you know, in the top job and with the Council -- City Council showed just how difficult it was for everyone, not just OPS but for, you know, the community as well.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Right, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Superintendent Bernier’s very intense, as you will likely get to know him. And he got right in, dug in and started to work on developing his plans. One of the parts of the conversation I do recall was he said, “I will accept this role,” because he needed some time to think about it; I think he understood this was a very big job. And he said, “With the understanding that I have a liaison between myself and strategic command. And so he identified somebody who, you know, he trusted who would be able to feed information to us and the strategic sort of command level, and he wanted to be unfettered; he wanted to be able to execute the command as -- or execute the plan as he saw fit, and that it was in his hands, it was very much a, “I got this.”
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Supt. Rob Drummond.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think you’ll have to ask him that but my sense is that he wanted -- he didn’t want to be sucked into lots of meetings; he wanted to be able to work on the plan, and traditionally, up until this point, we had had a lot of meetings where the Event Commander is actually being taken away from the tasks of doing the job to talking about plans and this type of thing, and I think that he felt that was not a good use of his time. And I think he just wanted that flow of information to go through one person.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did. In my first conversation with Superintendent Bernier, I said, “What do you need? What do you think you need to accomplish this?”. And he said, “I’m going to need sort of a back- up, I guess, if you will”. And I said, “Who do you want? Build your team. Tell me who you want and I will do what I can to make sure that those resources are afforded to you”. So he identified Dave Springer, who I knew as well, and said, “Can you see if he will do it?”. And in speaking with, at the time, Inspector Springer, he agreed. I had a phone conversation with him. He just said, “Can you please, you know, give my boss a call to make sure that they’re okay with it?”, which I did. And he joined the team at that point in time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So by that point in time, people had their sleeves rolled up. They were all working at one location, all at, you know, sort of that level of the Superintendent Bernier, Chief Superintendent Carson Pardy. Chief Superintendent Phil Lew was also on the team. There was a room full of planners who they had brought in. There were experts in our traffic, in public order. Everybody was working at the same location. And I believe at that point in time -- I might be wrong on the date exactly -- but Superintendent Bernier was beginning to set up what he called his integrated table, and so each of the units that needed to be involved that were in an incident command structure had a spot at the table and that that could have been an OPP officer, it could have been an RCMP officer, it could have been Ottawa Police.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe this was the 3.0.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I’m not sure if this was at the Chief’s level, whether it was Commissioner Lucki or where that -- the concerns were coming from within the RCMP, but we did have Chief Superintendent -- or Superintendent Bill Lew from the RCMP involved in our plan at that point in time. I do know that in Ottawa there’s the national policing side and then there is the operational policing side for the RCMP, and so I don’t know if there was a disconnect there in terms of that communication, but Superintendent Lew had been working on the plan, the plan was moving forward and had been built out from what we had supplied, the 3.0. That’s what they had been working on from that date forward, from the 9th of February to the 13th, on these plans. And Superintendent Bernier was receiving these plans, reviewing them and then approving them.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t recall.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It would appear I’m talking about two different plans, and I don’t believe I had seen these -- the integrated plan. Not before Superintendent Bernier had signed off on that. So I think what I’m saying is, he’s had a chance to review the plans. It’s a large document, lots of pages involved in details, and Superintendent Bernier wanted to go over all of them. And he’s obviously done a first review and sent it back with his comments to the people who were developing the plan and he’s saying he would prefer that he’s -- he’s had a chance to really make sure that it is tight and he’s happy with it before sharing the plan, and -- as he is the final approver. And I was making that point to say that it is up to him to approve the plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Up to Superintendent Bernier to approve the plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. So I suspect I had a conversation with him probably over the phone about where things were at and what was going on.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That he was simply building out the 3.0 plan. I think that’s what the Chief was assuming.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think the Chief was looking for what the plan was and that it was based on that plan that we had presented to the integrated ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. When -- what, I think, Superintendent Bernier was doing was tasking the planners with “Give me a full, robust plan”, which we eventually see as the demobilization plan that we worked off of.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe that’s what’s going on here, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe it was the Integrated Work Plan, the one that Superintendent Bernier was working on, and that, as I had alluded to, Superintendent Bernier wanted to -- he’d made some comments, he’d sent it back and when it came back to him the way he wanted it, he would sign off on and approve that plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t believe so. I think the chief was under the impression that 3l0 was being worked on, but it was not. It was concluded, and I believe that’s what I sent him, was the final document with his signature on it that was from the Wednesday prior. And what I knew was that Superintendent Bernier was working very hard, tasking his people to come up with plans, traffic plan, you know, public order plan, PLT plan, all of the plans that form his ultimate demobilization plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I have not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think he wanted the final plan to be sent to the RCMP and the OPP, and to make sure that he and Christiane were copied when that was done. And I'm not sure if that was because he wanted to, you know, take a look at it as well and have Christiane over -- look it over, because that had been his practice before. We had -- he had asked for legal services to look over plans to make sure that they were meeting -- you know, that they were legally sound, I think was -- would have been his thought process on that. So I think he wanted me to make sure that our OPP and RCMP partners were provided the plan as soon as it was signed off on, and that he also wanted to have a look at it, but I don't know -- he said once the plan has been approved, so I think he understood at this point in time he was not the approver of the plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It did for former Chief Sloly. It doesn’t in the ICS model. It's not part of the ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I'm not quite sure. As I said, I think maybe because he wanted to make sure from her perspective it was legally sound, but these were operations, and so I think she would be the first one to tell you that she has no place in that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That at the operational level, it had been signed off and this was simply a notification to the strategic level, that this was the plan we were going forward with.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think there might have been some further conversation about it, but I don’t have any independent recollection or exactly what that was right now.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Hard to say. I have not been part one such as this before, so this was my first foray into this world, but it -- I think what you see are the dotted lines are, you know, the sort of even level of command and control, and then the straight lines are the -- who is reporting to who in that. So you see the event -- the strategic command that report to OPS command team, which would have been Superintendent -- or rather, former Chief Sloly. And then when we get down to the operational level -- and I think it's making pains to show the -- where one ends and the other begins, the clear lines in between strategical operational and tactical. And so then you see, you know, Superintendent Bernier as the event commander with support from both the OPP and the RCMP, but ultimately, that the Ottawa Police event commander is the lead on the command. So you see, he's got a straight line down to everybody else, and Deputy -- or Inspector Springer has a dotted line.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It's the level of detail that’s involved in this plan that makes it different. This is a true plan, and it encompasses all of the boxes that you see in there. It's got plans, sub-plans from each of those categories, and this is the superior plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I would agree, and I can understand from their perspective. They were sending resources, they were providing us with bodies, and they wanted to know what's the impact that we're looking to achieve? What is our goal? And I don't think 3.0 maybe necessarily laid out as clearly as they needed to be able to invest the resources that we were asking for.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
These plans take a long time to draft up and what we benefitted from was an influx of members from -- like, people who are true planners, that that’s their one and only job, to come in and assist us and do this over a 24/7 basis. Our planners had been trying to -- you know, they came up with the plan and they had to go and execute it as well. So staffing, I think a -- some leadership and some subject-matter experts, Chief Supt. Carson Pardy is a guru as it pertains to these things and has done numerous protracted events and plans and demonstrations and so those key players to be able to have around the table and tap into lessons learned that they’ve already had before was key in crucial, and we did not that have that capacity before this time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think we had period after that first weekend where I say we were orienting ourselves. I think we were floundering a little bit in terms of our staffing, in terms of our ability to really take stock of what was going on and then move forward and come up with a plan to get out it, and I think we lost some time there. We lost some time with some of the, you know, actions-on that were being taken that were setting us back. We didn’t have a pathway, a clear pathway that we were working off of and there was a number of different views, obviously, on what we should be doing, so I think that set us back.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I do and I believe it’s common that the plan drives the numbers.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, because you are identifying what the outcome’s that you want to achieve and then you work back from that, how do we then build a team that’s going to assist us in achieving that? And I think when you start with just a number, then there’s no strategy involved in that. And this does really need to be laid out in saying that we need, you know, 10 Public Order Sections to achieve this goal, so how many is that? That’s 50. But it’s more about, what is the outcome that we’re looking -- what are our goals and objectives and how do we staff to that?
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It’s not uncommon for us to manage protests. This was an uncommon event.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s true.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s true.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I would say intelligence and information.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was no, no.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No. I believe it was -- was it Chief Bell who was the deputy -- who was involved in intelligence at the time?
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
And he was head of the Bureau?
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That sounds right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so, yes, to the best of my recollection.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think in my position as a strategic, you know, kind of advisor in this role, I was not reading those reports, per se.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe it had been mentioned in some of our meetings in terms of what Deputy Bell was doing with his team, that he was -- they were chasing down as much of the information and intelligence as they could. But beyond -- as a senior command, did we sit down and talk about it? I don’t recall that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t remember.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am now. I was not then.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe it would have formed part of how we evaluated our plan, for sure.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I knew about some fundraising and I don’t know where that was sourced from but I do recall Insp. Lucas keeping me up to date saying, “This money has grown exponentially,” in the day or two before they arrived.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I don’t know that you can necessarily the conclusion that it means they’re going to stay longer. I don’t know what that money was laid out to do. It might have been to be funding initiatives. So one could, you know, make an assumption out of that but it may not be accurate.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I know that now but I don’t believe I knew that then.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
This is difficult. I’m not sure when I was aware of that information. I do know at some point in time, you know, there were reports on the convoys, and whether that was shared to us through PLT Team or through reports, I don’t know how I came to know that or when I came to know that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I would that you’ve ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They provided a lot of information, some was consistent with what we saw, some was not consistent with what we saw. There were some statements that, you know, said they would do this and they absolutely didn't. So -- yeah, to answer your question, I -- we have had a number of events here since, and I have since moved over from Community Policing to what former Deputy Bell was working on. So I'm very much alive to Hendon reports, and anytime they show up in my inbox I read them right away now.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. I think there was also, though, a lot -- what we found is a lot of misinformation/disinformation, huge volumes of information, and I think Hendon has done a great job of sifting through that as much as possible, but there's still a variety of information that is presented on those, and some has come to fruition in past events, and some has not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, there was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know if that's fair to say because I don't know what our Intelligence folks had in the way of information and how of that fed into the plan. I think, you know, traditionally, 25 years of planning here, with fairly similar types of protests, experience was definitely something that our team was likely relying on.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know that any services across the country would have anticipated what we saw arriving at our doorstep. So I -- you know, do we have plans and do we use, you know, some of the same ones and change dates and names and, you know, build upon them? Yes, we do. And the case, I don't know that that's exactly what happened.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think there was definitely a failure to appreciate.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I would have seen it but not approved it.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Not from the portion you're showing me. I don't know if it goes on.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would. I do note here that they say that they, you know: "...investigate existing intelligence pieces and to liaise with its federal and provincial partners for any indicators of possible disruptions to the Convoy." And: "Should this...change...[with] new information...[it] will be updated accordingly and disseminated." So I gather they didn't have any additional information.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would agree with that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sound right, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
And I was very grateful for them; yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that's fair to say.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right. They were until this point.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They would be freed up for that, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would say that depends on the Incident Commander. I think the current cadre we have and had at that time were very aware of what PLT was capable of, and engaged with using them.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Indeed, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would agree.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Definitely.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, we were.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, it was ours.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Agreed.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that's how it works, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would have been surprised if it was. I don't know though for sure.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know if it was made or not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would have been surprised if the request was made.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Because I don't think that that's what former Chief Sloly was -- wanted.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think you'd have to ask him. It was clear to me that he was pushing back on that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't believe he wanted to give up control. I think he felt that this -- he was the Chief in the police of jurisdiction, and he wanted that to be maintained.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Thank you.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
As of the 28th of January when I think I was forwarded one.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think my team was, yes. I wasn't writing the plans, but, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I don't think that would be realistic.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Not at this point, no.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's possible, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's fair, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. A pivot in our response anyway, but, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, that's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
What he was looking for here was specifically a Public Order Unit plan, not the wider plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There would be Public Order plan. There would be a PLT plan. There would be a Traffic plan. There would be Investigations plan. All of those things form the plan, but he was fixated solely on this one.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sorry.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
In fact, he met with them in person.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he just didn't meet with any of those other groups. I think he might have met with the PLT when there was some discord that he'd heard about, that they were unhappy, but this was the only group that he met with.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, not at all.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
For sure, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I can understand that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he was, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
He’s directing the plan but yes, that’s what he set out here are his priorities for that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
“Fuel, fun,” those are much more in the weeds.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There are portions of it that certainly look tactical to me ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- that he’s wanting us to interdict in the fuel, specifically, and that was one of his things that he returned to on a number of occasions.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was. Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
But without the resources to do so. That was the impediment to us at that point in time. For those seven days, that’s exactly what we were struggling with.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Agreed.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Depending on the circumstance.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it’s always a balance.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That was the impression I had, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It is, oh, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
M’hm.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t think that’s what his -- and maybe I’ll ask you to rephrase -- or to repeat it ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- if that’s what I felt or if that’s what he was thinking.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know that that’s what he was insinuating but I can tell you that that was not the -- that was not why I was favouring PLT. I favoured PLT because I had seen it in action before, and my husband was actually not normally with PLT, but was a crisis negotiator, so was placed in the position.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I am -- I don't know that that’s what he was trying to say, Superintendent Patterson. I don’t want to put words into his mouth. I didn’t take it to be that angle that you're suggesting, so I don’t want to agree to that, because I don't know that that’s what he was ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think he was insinuating that I had communicated with my spouse about this particular operation and that that had undermined his ability to proceed with the operation.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, it was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
After some discussion and my request, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I wanted the word "negotiation", not necessarily mentioned in the PLT, but that we were doing this through negotiated methods.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
But he said no first, sorry. Sorry for my interruption. He said no first, and then he said it's implied.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I had seen it before when I spoke with the group that asked to have more members trained post-the recent demonstration at Nicholas and Laurier, and they came back and provided me feedback, and they shared the framework with me at that point in time. I looked at it, you know, supported what they were trying to do, and then put it on the corner of my desk so I was refreshed of its existence, certainly, during the convoy.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know which motion you're referring to, specifically, so ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I'm aware of that one.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Oh, there was lots of politics.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No doubt.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think they were building it out.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
They're two very different plans in their final states, to say what was happening at this stage in the game would be unfair. I think Superintendent Bernier could probably tell you that piece in greater detail.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, I think, further up, we sent him the plan that he's talking about, and then the conversation carries on about this integrated plan that is being developed waiting for signatories in that piece. So it would appear to me that there are two plans at this stage, but one may be the predecessor of the second.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I had not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It was the one that he'd signed off on on the 9th.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s correct.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I did.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think it actually took more than that, but yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think it assisted. I would say greased the wheels of the plan that we had in place.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah. And Superintendent Bernier may have more details on this. I understand that we did -- we had secured some tow trucks, but I would say, you know, in terms of the plan that we had in place, it allowed us to move with further confidence than we would have had, say, without it. We may have seen more challenges later on in court, but we were going ahead with that plan anyway.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I absolutely agree with you.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think what he would be passing on is the products of what that unit worked on to share up. I don’t think it was his job to pass it up to the Chief, but the information would be assessed, analyzed and then passed up the chain.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I couldn’t comment on that. My understanding is that the Chief was receiving them as part of an All Chiefs. Sometimes that’s how the initial -- there’s two separate levels, so he might have been receiving it in that. That’s generally one of the ways that the -- that information is disseminated across the province, but whether Chief Bell was getting them and when he got them, I don’t know. I couldn’t speak to that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, that’s fair.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t remember reading that, no.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t think I can agree with you on that. I do believe we saw an increase in violence. I don’t have the exact measures or the stats, but I do know that we did see some increase in violence and acts of violence as a result of the protests in town.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Can you repeat the dates please? Sorry.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that charges were laid during that time? Charges may have been latent in terms of once the information was all gathered, then charges were laid after, and my understanding is there were upwards of 400 charges that were laid in relation to the convoy.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I think they were acts that took place during that time period when the convoy was in town but that the information was only able to be solidified into a state where we were able to lay charges.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m sure he could if he knows the question now.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I wouldn’t say that. I think we were struggling to be able to do that.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, in many cases.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I was part of the conversation with Commissioner Lucki and Commissioner Carrique, I believe, at the time. I don’t remember those facts specifically, but I do remember Commissioner Lucki saying that it was -- it was a bit of a double-edged sword, getting an injunction, because, you know, then you would need to be enforcing and if you don’t have the resources right now to enforce all the Criminal Codes and other offences that were being broken here, then to get an injunction sort of sets the expectation for the community that we were then going to be able to actually come down and enforce it, and we didn’t have the resources there. So there was conversation for sure about it, but I don’t know what her specifics -- what you’re saying, whether that was attributed to her or not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I had heard anecdotally through the media some of those stories, but I am not aware of any specifics.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I can't actually agree because I don't know those figures. I'm sorry.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, what it did do was, there was some legislative things that it was able to -- we were able to get RCMP members here without swearing them all in, which was a bit of an administrative hurdle for us. We were, you know, struggling with that throughout the convoy. With the Emergencies Act, they were able to come and just be police officers here without that step.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they could have. I think I said that of most officers across Canada here.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I am.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
His was the one I missed because I was intensely prepping for today so.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't actually know that. I believe that, but I don't know that that's a hundred percent.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know how to answer that. I mean, I think that's speculative, but he's a very learned colleague in this regard for sure.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
For referral, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am aware of that, yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That is correct, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, those were reports we received.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There were. I think probably after the first weekend we struggled with that, keeping them open.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, it didn't.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Absolutely, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that is fair, yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and an occupation.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Right.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That is correct.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it is.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I know he made the ask. I'm not sure of the date, so if you're saying the 6th ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It does, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe in the end it was somewhere near 2200.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes ---
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- I think there was that impact.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do think that was -- yeah.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, they are.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would categorise it as that, yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Were working on it.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Were working on it.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't think that's an understatement.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
-
Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think we were looking for a win in terms of movement of the trucks. I don't know if we were positioning it as a win for PLT per se.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
(Inaudible response)
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, he did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, for logistics.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
For the - --
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I believe so.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Thank you.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't remember if we obtained a legal opinion on that. I believe this was based on decades of past, you know, experience in managing events, and that we have allowed it in the past, and that we were going to again in this case.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I think we have had trucks, and as previously alluded to, tractors in that area of the downtown. It's obviously the sought after spot when people come to protest.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Not to my knowledge. I know that it's possible. I know there is a whole network of officers who, you know, go to conferences on public order things, and I have been to one of those. So there may be a network and that might have happened already.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's possible, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So there were indicators. Was I aware of them at that time on the 26th when I made that statement? I don't believe I was, but prolonged in my experience, being, you know, a police officer in the Capital for 27 years, prolonged was a weekend for a protest.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, and we'd had a similar one I believe in 2019.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Well, the numbers were something that was fluctuating as they travelled across the country. And even right up until the, you know, the three days prior to them arriving in Ottawa, my understanding is the Hendon reports had three different numbers, somewhere in the high four hundreds, then five-and-a-half, and then ultimately 1,300 I think was the last number that we had prior to them arriving here.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It did. Without knowing what that money was going to be used for, whether it was going to support truckers who could no longer work because they couldn't cross the border or whether -- you know, we could speculate as to what that was for, we didn't automatically attribute it to being to support the people who arrived in Ottawa.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Sorry, I didn't know that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, not at the beginning and, you know, to be fair, I think there were comments saying that they were planning leaving after the weekend and then other ones had said the fourth I think was given as a date, and then there was also information that there was no exit strategy for some of them who were planning to stay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would agree, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, we did not.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I heard that, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s my understanding.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’ve heard that, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There were.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, sometimes to identify the subject or the accused and the subject and the event, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t if it’s the vast majority but I would suspect there’s a large number, that that is in fact the case.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know that we weren’t taking them -- not everybody was calling was and we were -- by the second weekend, we were imploring people in the press conference that was done to please call us, “We would like to know about this.” I know we had an influx of calls around the protest time but not all of them were reporting. Some of them were threatening our staff. Some of them were, you know, espousing their views on the convoy in the positive or negative. So our lines were pretty jammed and it might have been difficult for some people to actually makes those reports.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Correct.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, as much as we could.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, we actually engaged our police association and got some tools that were measuring the noise that our officers were being exposed to along with air-quality things. Some of the officers were wearing them on their uniforms so that we could assess just what sort of impact it was having on their health.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Very fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it was.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
McKenna and Ford rotated back and forth over several months a time for a period of, I think, probably about 18 months, and then, yes, Supt. Dunlop was there. I think he was the only -- those were the only three.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Corporate knowledge and subject-matter experts, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
There was definitely some dissention and I don’t know what all the reasons for leaving were but it was a time where I would say we were pretty divided, exhausted, and -- I don’t know. There was, as I said, a number of people who left but they were able to because they had their years in and it was a good time. With the pandemic restrictions lifting, I think a lot of them went on to do -- whether it was travel or do other things, so.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do. I think it was convoy-related, though. Like, it was from incidents that occurred during the convoy and prior.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don’t know what their motives were but I think it had that impact.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I did.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I think that’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I remember Deputy Chief Bell saying, “Make sure that you keep the Chief informed. That’s going to be the best way to make sure that he is satisfied with what is going on so make sure that that communication goes to him as often as possible,” and that was more a sort of, “You’ve stepped into the Deputy role; here’s what’s expected.” I don’t know that we had much conversation about the Chief, per se. I mean we were both up to our necks in operations and things so ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I don’t think so.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, I guess if that’s where we were -- if we’d had that conversation, them or OCPC, I think, would be ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I’m not sure what their reluctance was but when we did start to work, you know, collaboratively with the other services, the flow of information and the requests were much quicker.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s fair.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I think my -- at the time of my statement, I was under the impression that things like tow trucks, that was the only way we were going to be able to get them. I may be corrected by Superintendent Bernier, I think they did have some lined up and they were on their way just prior to us beginning our actions. But I think, as I stated before, that I think the Emergencies Act made us more confident in the approach we were taking and enabled us to, you know, get past the issues of -- it was the seizing of assets I think that was helpful in terms of setting a tone for some of the people who may be deterred by that, and the tow trucks specifically was the piece that I remember being very helpful, and, you know, the red zone. We were moving in there regardless, but the Emergencies Act was helpful.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That is, yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's correct. We were -- our PLT team was engaged in a notification, I guess, campaign you would say, where they were advising people that you are now breaking the law. You will be arrested if you stay. You are being, you know, provided the opportunity to leave. And I think we did that over a series of, you know, 12- hour periods.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Increments, and then eventually moved in. And it did -- it was somewhat successful in shrinking the footprint.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's quite possible.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. For many of them it was their livelihood, their truck.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That's right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That might be true. I don't remember the exact details ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- but, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I would.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Of my testimony, yes. I do believe though the seizing of assets was also helpful.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So the threat of seizing assets of ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- bank accounts and rigs and things like that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah, useful but not necessary.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Probably hours. And I don't know how many of them we had already done at that point in time, but ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- a number of hours, administrative probably, you know, people being involved in that and filing paperwork.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't have all the details of that. I think probably Inspector Lucas would be able to assist in that, potentially Superintendent Bernier. The information that I had at the early stages, we didn't think the tow trucks were going to be an issue until we looked to try and procure some. And we have contracts obviously with some companies in town, and when push came to shove, they refused to engage. And so, at that point in time, I don't know at what stage we were in the convoy, if this was after the weekend or leading up to the weekend. And so when we looked at what our options were for heavy tow, I do recall a number of conversations about that, and that we believed OC Transpo might have had a couple of heavy tow trucks that we could potentially use, but I think that was it.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know what offers were made.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I don't know what offers were made.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Oh, I don't know about that. I'm not sure.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Okay.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I do.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Good afternoon.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I am.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I am.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So that looks like the number of vehicles that rolled into town and the dates and the people and where they -- sorry, I think it's just the vehicles and the areas that they were -- whether they were at Parliament, whether they were on Wellington, and Elgin and Rideau.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So yeah. I think the individual protestors are the ones that are under "Parliament", and then the vehicles, yeah. So the vehicles are listed in the thousands and the people are estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 on January 29th.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It starts to dwindle from thousands to over 500, 600s and down to as low as 481, and then builds back up.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I would, yeah.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So this is our -- the total charges that were laid and the types of offences that were charged during the convoy or that occurred during the convoy.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
It does.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, it does. So the assaults, the -- yeah, the assaults, the carrying weapons. It's a variety of different offences, obviously, in the list here.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes. I can see that, for example, the weekend of the 17th, 18th, 19th, which I believe was when we were doing most of the clearing of the streets, 11 peace or public officers were assaulted during that time.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Ultimately, it did not from the people who he was initially tasked with.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That’s right.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So it's one component. Obviously, if we get to a position where we are no longer able to -- we shrunk the footprint as much as we can through negotiations or just through whether it's threats of charges once people have decided that they've had enough and they're leaving, then POU would be -- they would have a plan to the approach that they were going to take. You know, in this case, they had six or seven intersections, some large ground to cover, so how they would go about doing that, and it was, you know, the plan ultimately that they had was down to line-by-line as to what time they would move in, which direction of travel they would be going in, how they would contain it. The 1st of February, the chief, two of the PLT sergeants, and myself met with these POU commanders who had been in Ottawa. And I'm not sure if some of them were left over from the weekend because they had their teams here, but these were commanders who had some expertise in executing POU actions, but not necessarily in creating plans. And so when they were tasked with, at that point in time, what was a colossal area to cover, I got the sense from the group that they were -- and I certainly know that I communicated back and forth with our staff sergeant, but it was mind boggling, I think, would be a good term. They just couldn't -- you know, this was -- would have been the largest public order movement in Canada, and that’s actually what it turned out to be. And they said when we initially spoke with them, "How do you think we could execute this?" And they said we would need every public order unit or section in the country to be able to clear the streets the way they are now. And that was on the 1st of February. So I think -- my sense is that they struggled with trying to come up with a plan on its own, you know, just six of them sitting around a table at a hotel in Kanata, I think was thrilling for them.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, it would be in concert with the rest of the plan.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So he was tasked with, I think, the liaison with the POU and PLT teams, and I had been asking at the behest of the chief for this plan and were they willing to come and present to him what they -- how they foresaw this occurring. And so this, I think, was in response to another one of my asks saying where are we with the plan? Are we -- you know, is -- any issues? And so his response here was saying that he met with them all afternoon and this would have been the following day, and I’m not sure what the recalibration he’s referring to but he’s recommending that we meet again and discuss the approach. And when he talks about neighborhood issues, I think he was talking about the things that are our communities were facing and whether that was, you know, noise pollution. There was -- you know, people were defecating on lawns, those types of things, and he was -- I think his approach here was, “If we can focus on those and improve that situation for those people, that would probably go a long way to reduce, you know, the impact on the communities.”
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I believe it was. He -- the -- one of the commanders had asked for a mission statement. They really wanted to be able to understand what he was he asking because again I think it was that mind-boggling, enormous task that he was expecting of them. And I don’t want to speak for them but I don’t know if they knew where to start with that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
No, I think it would be in conjunction with people who are excellent at planning and writing plans ---
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
--- with being fed the subject-matter experts.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that he valued this plan and anticipated this plan more than any other; this is what I would say to that.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
So I was contacted on a number of occasions by Councillor Fleury. He had my phone number. He texted me fairly regularly. He sought for the opportunity to meet. He requested I attend his BIA meeting almost every evening during the thick of the convoy and many times I -- in fact, I don’t think I ever made one of the meetings. We did communicate back and forth but we did have a superintendent and inspector who were designated to be liaisons with the councillors. They also had their community police officers who were very present and very engaged with all of that. So, on a one-on-on basis, Councillor Fleury was somebody who I communicated with a fair bit. And then just through the Council meetings, we were obviously all present for those and some of them lasted for hours and many questions posed of us. And some things we were able to answer and some things we weren’t, and so of it was just a venting session, I think, explaining that they were very frustrated with the situation and the City.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think we were doing them to try and show the community that we were present and we were in the communities. I think it was very difficult for us because it sent us in a variety of different directions where, if we had been able to really come that straight path to get to the plan and get those things -- so our frontline officers, we were policing the rest of the city and we were trying to figure out how to position people here so that there was a presence and people felt somewhat safe but there was lots of things that our members were being tasked with and responding to, you know, fire barrels and things within the zone of -- you know, the red zone. So I think, you know, things like interdiction of jerrycans, of gasoline, that was very troubling for -- you know, in terms of the reaction of the people and their -- and it was difficult for our members because in order to be able to do that effectively, you needed a number of officers because they were getting swarmed. They were getting, you know, intimidated. They were, you know, sometimes hundreds of people and I watched it happen on street to see it happening and it was frightening. And so our members were not comfortable doing that and I respected that they had they the discretion and on occasions they said, “This puts our people at risk and we are -- you know, there’s not enough of us out there to be able to do this effectively.”
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
That could be one of them. When I talked about places where there’s antagonizes and agitators, we would go to the PLT to say, you know, “This person is causing your cause -- it’s creating issues for your cause.” In this case, we were hoping that they would be able to do that and prevent people from honking and all of those actions that they were taking but also to leave, so two- fold.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
Yes, I do understand and I’m not sure if there was any conversation from our -- some of our site managers and PLT Team. So Insp. Lucas in a position to be able to tell you what was going on there. I know from a command and strategic level it was that they’re here and now they’re entrenched and they’re not leaving, so that’s where it switched from a protest to occupation.
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Patricia Ferguson, Acting Deputy Chief (Ott-OPS)
I think that would be fair, yeah. I don’t want to speculate. I don’t know whether those conversations were happening and the PLT may have been engaging in those and saying like, “If we bring it from, you know, Metcalfe to wherever on Wellington, is that sufficient?” I do know there were a number of trucks who were - - in other parts of the city who very much wanted to get to Parliament Hill. They wanted to be on Wellington and they were upset because they tended to be some of the trucks that came from far west and they were the last ones to get here and the good spots were taken. And so I know there was conversations with some of those folks, convoy organizers who said, “You know, we’ve been cooperating with you this whole time and then all of the great spots were taken,” but we weren’t, you know, taking names and reservations for spots on Wellington, so.