Serge Arpin
Serge Arpin spoke 492 times across 1 day of testimony.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Prêter serment.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
La bible, s’il vous plait.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Serge Arpin — S-E-R-G-E A-R-P-I- N.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Oui, je le jure.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'm Mayor Watson's Chief of Staff.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I have.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'm sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That's correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
On or around February 8th, the City Manager approached myself and Mayor Watson to inform us that he had been approached by the PLT team as they posited that the City's relationship with the truck convoy representatives had broken down and the PLT team sought the City Manager's support to engage with representatives from the truck convoy protest. The City Manager approached the mayor and myself. We had a brief discussion in the foyer of the mayor's office. I think it was around 5:30 p.m. that day, asking us for our views on this proposal. My initial reaction and my advice to the mayor is that it was extraordinary -- it was an extraordinary request. We would normally not take part in such a meeting. We were not aware of the individuals. We had no dealings with those individuals. We had no history of reliability. And hence, we - - I made the recommendation. The major accepted the recommendation that we would not take part in the meeting, but the City Manager was free to proceed with the meeting if he felt it would be beneficial to better understand the concerns, issues and demands of the truck convoy protest. And my understanding is he proceeded to grant that meeting on the 8th. And he informed us thereafter that he felt it had been a constructive meeting. He felt that the parties were speaking reliably. We had no knowledge of whether or not they represented a large cross-section of truckers, but they appeared to be dealing in good faith with the City Manager and the PLT team. It's also our understanding from the City Manager that the PLT team had suggested that we engage with the truck convoy representatives on their willingness to initially move some trucks out of the residential district as a sign of good will. My understanding is that the City Manager did explore that concept with the representatives early on. That was shared with us post facto. On or around February 10th, the mayor received a called from Dean French, saying that he was willing to play a good will role as an ambassador between the two parties. He appeared to be seeking no gain or personal benefit. We knew him from his time of Chief of Staff to Premier Ford, had had what I could call a professional, courteous and friendly relationship with him. We felt he was a straight shooter in our dealings with him in the past. And so the mayor asked me to call him back and see whether or not a -- there was any potential for any kind of an agreement that would help relieve the extraordinary stress that our residents were under in the residential districts.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The context of the moment -- and just to back up a bit, we have never in 11 years and 11 months since the mayor's election in 2010, been involved in negotiations with any group in the context of a demonstration. That's extraordinary. And we would not have involved ourselves had the PLT team not approached the City Manager and sought the City and the mayor's involvement in such a dialogue, it's extraordinary, you would normally not do it. The context was the -- you know, we're into about Day 9 or 10 of the -- what has -- was initially going to be a demonstration has become an occupation of our residential districts. Residents, shut-ins, you know, residents from all walks of life were feeling threatened in their personal safety and security, and the Mayor was living that every single day, he took it home very single day. He was working 15 to 18 hours a day. Yes, he was looking for any solution that might help us alleviate the pressure on our residents, and what they were going through. And for us, it appeared that there was no downside for us to undertake this dialogue, as there was no end in sight. There appeared to be no, you know, cogent, you know, multi-jurisdictional plan to bring this thing to an end. And so if we were able to get one truck out of the residential district it would be a, you know, a small victory. That wasn't our goal, of course, but the intent was to alleviate the pressure short- term. And we were told by various parties, including the City Manager, including Steve Bell, including Kim Ayotte that the short-term goal was to bring the temperature down with the demonstrators, since the relationship broke -- had broken down with the PLT team, and bringing them into a small perimeter would also help the OPS and the combined forces potentially when they bring the demonstration under greater control, if not to a halt.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Generally-speaking, we did not have a clear sense of how the groups were organised into his dialogue that he offered to lead. We only understood that he would only speak on behalf of moderate groups, he had no interest whatsoever in representing the fringes. He told us "I'm a plane ride away. I can leave as quickly as I have arrived. I want to help." And obviously, we had no interest whatsoever in engaging in a dialogue that might include some of the, you know, the factions that were hurting Ottawa residents on a day-to-day basis.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Quite possibly, and it was something that Dean had said to me in the course of the three or four days during which we dialogued, you know, on a number of occasions, and he restated his desire to do something that would help. That's how it started. That was his message to the Mayor, it was no more specific than that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
As you know, we're already 10 days into the crisis, with horns blaring and, you know, heavy trucks spewing diesel into a number of residential streets in the core, at Rideau and Sussex, at Coventry, and Overbrook- Forbes. Our goal from the get-go was to get a sense of their willingness to recognise through Mr. French that they were hurting local communities, and if there was no agreement on that notion then there was nothing to discuss. We wanted to, you know, get a point very, very quickly of understanding of whether or not he could get the key organisers to recognise that they never intended to hurt, you know, ordinary people in residential districts. And that became apparent quite quickly in our first few discussions, and we -- you know, we laid out a couple of ideas. Some of them had come directly from the PLT team. Because again, as you would know, and as I mentioned to you earlier, I cannot recall us ever being involved in a discussion with a group of demonstrators directly, it would not happen. And so we -- you know, we sought to establish some perimeters, and they included, you know, a sense from them of their willingness to remove a large number of trucks from the residential district, and we set out a number, 75 percent, below which we felt we would not be providing any relief to the residents who were under, essentially, you know, what they viewed as siege and what we concurred with as being a siege of their day-to-day. So it had to be a big number. We wanted to see rapid progress on the removal of trucks because we would find out very, very quickly if this was a stunt or if it was a bluff to try to, you know, gain more time, or -- and we found out that it wasn't a stunt. We believed that -- sorry. We set out those perimeters of roughly 75 percent, rapid movement towards, you know, moving the trucks from the residential district, and we rapidly came to a -- you know, an understanding in principle. I wrote something up, I sent it to Dean, which was going to be the Mayor's opening position around this is what we need for us to have a dialogue, and to commit to a potential meeting, a listening meeting with Mayor Watson. If they could meet those conditions, then we would consider granting the meeting.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Well, it was very, very -- I mean, it was very, very succinct, this is what we believe we can, you know, bring forward that would lead to a dramatic improvement in the day-to-day lives of our residents. And they agreed with us that they thought that that would be an appropriate starting point and they brought it back to the other party.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, it was a rather fluid situation, and I am wondering if we can bring back the Mayor's letter if at all possible.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Because you'll notice that we describe a broad perimeter, that's an aspiration, but in the two or three days in which we were dialoguing about the potential of removing trucks, it appeared -- we were told that some were heading to Vankleek Hill, some were heading potentially west to Arnprior, some -- apparently some demonstrators wanted to go home with their kids and family, et cetera. And so it -- we started getting bogged down in who would go where, and when realised that that was futile because we had no clear understanding of what proportion of trucks would end up going where. The general dialogue, after I consulted with the City Manager's Office and with Kim Ayotte, had a discussion with because this was, again, at the urging of the PLT team, they asked that we engage in this dialogue, and they recommended that we talk about reducing the number of trucks in the residential district. We set forth a framework that would have them go into a smaller perimeter. I consulted with Mr. Ayotte. I think I remember him saying that there was room for, you know, a significant number of large trucks as long as they parked in a more compact fashion in that broad, broad perimeter of Elgin, Wellington, and west of that. And obviously we're in the middle of the pandemic. Most of those buildings were empty at that point in time. We expected that if there were significant operational concerns the City would have raised that with us in the last stretch of those discussions, in the last 48 hours, as the City was liaising with OPS and other police forces. And so, no, there was no explicit -- it wasn't like a -- the handshake was not predicated on every single truck will go to Wellington because then if they had moved trucks to Vankleek Hill or Arnprior, then it would have been seen as being outside of the agreement. We tried to not get too bogged down in that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, because we had no direct dealings with OPS on the scope and the nature of this goodwill arrangement to try to get more trucks outside of the residential precincts. Our liaison, as it is normally, well, normally, sorry. Our liaison on almost every single city matter is through the City Manager's Office, and the City Manager liaises with, you know, various groups, they -- that they have a role in on which we don't sit.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It wasn't.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We had no illusions around that. It was a temporary solution aimed at taking down the temperature and re-establishing a contact between the City and the truck convoy representatives and members.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely not. I recall raising with Dean the fact that he had to be fully cognizant in his discussions with truck convoy representatives that we were having no discussions whatsoever with any agency about, you know, enforcement, anything that could happen inside or outside the zone, if we had no capacity to direct any of these activities, and to either anticipate them or constrain them. And so they had to be cognizant of the fact that they could subject themselves to action at any moment. It could happen five minutes after they start moving trucks. They had no control over that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Not through us. No, not through us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Not through us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My understanding is that the -- that once OPS had been briefed on the matter, it was their responsibility to brief their partners.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes. And I just want to draw your attention to the fact that paragraph 4 says that they will restrict their presence to a perimeter. He did not say that they would move all of their trucks into the Wellington perimeter, and that’s an important point. They had no ability to anticipate which trucks would be going where.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Mayor gave me a broad mandate to engage with Mr. French to see if they were serious, if Mr. French could reliably and credibly speak for, you know, a significant number of truckers, and if we could come to kind of a framework within 24/48 hours. I picked up the phone within, I think, an hour of him bringing us the message, given the state of urgency that was being felt throughout the city, especially the impacted zones. And that day, I briefed the Mayor verbally on the fact that I believed that we could get Mr. French to bring a credible proposal to the other side that included moving a significant number of trucks outside of the residential district, and if they did that in, you know, a short period of time, that it would likely lead to the Mayor granting a listening meeting, which typically it’s extremely rare that the Mayor doesn’t grant a meeting to a group that’s requesting it, and that includes people we don’t agree with.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
There is going to be an extraordinary level of scrutiny and criticism of this effort to remove trucks from the residential district. Obviously we could not, you know, put the Mayor in a position where, you know, they move 25 percent of trucks and they claimed that we promised to grant them a victory -- we promised to grant them a meeting with the Mayor. And so a bar was set that was, you know, extremely high. They knew what the bar was. And that was the basis of the, you know, the good faith arrangement, and we expected them to live up to it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was the number that was given to us by Mr. Ayotte and it combined all of the trucks that they knew about throughout the city, including Coventry, the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Stadium.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was. And up until that point, we had not seen any relief. You know, there was no relief in sight for residents in terms of what they were -- the turmoil they were being subjected to.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We had no -- we knew -- we believed, from what we read, what we saw on social media, that there were various factions, and we believed that Dean was dealing with the broad moderate center of those factions.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, it was. And we felt, given the fact that we were into Day 10 of the demonstration with collapse for -- in public collapse in our city and in our police service being witnessed across the city, our council’s confidence was collapsing, the public’s confidence was collapsing, we felt we had nothing to lose in trying to remove the trucks from the residential district in a cooperative fashion.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I have no knowledge of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I was not privy to that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Not aware of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Mr. French was a credible individual we dealt with in the past, and when we’d had dealings with him on the floods, et cetera, on other issues, if he sought a meeting with the Mayor on Item X and the Premier was going to discuss Item Y, it usually happened in a sequence. And with the content that he’d committed to, again, we felt he was reliable, trustworthy, and excluding the politics and the ideology, it was our best chance at that moment to try to see some progress, which again we would not have initiated without the PLTs engagement with the City Manager.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was clear to us that some of them would be going on to Wellington Street, yes, and that the City had provided us with the opinion that it was feasible, and that it was a lesser harm to remove these trucks from the residential district and bring them into a large thoroughfare, which was, except for Parliament, largely vacant at that point in time. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the status quo for our residents.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It is not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That they would, you know, start showing good will towards a very, very significant shift of vehicles.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can’t really opine on that because that’s what they felt they needed to put in the letter to get buy-in from the truckers. That’s my understanding of it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Part of their PR campaign.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We saw their letter and we thought that it met most of our aspirations around the removal of trucks from the residential district.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Right.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yeah.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I would say primary. I can’t remember if there were other sources ,but it would have been through the senior management.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, as a courtesy.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I have no knowledge of that. They should have been. They would have been through the -- once that information, we assumed PLT had shared it with OPS. PLT were not acting on their own. They had to engage with the decision-making structure, and hence they would have had some kind of mechanism to inform other forces of that potential agreement, as they approached us to engage with the truck representatives.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They had to be because the OPS had -- was involved in the Sunday night meeting where they went through the details of how this thing could unfold, and hence, you know, OPS had delegated individuals to take part in that meeting to help decide how it was going to unfold.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I am not ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Can you scroll back to a date, please? My apologies.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, they are.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
You would have o back up to the call from -- the text message on the afternoon of Friday. You’d have to back up some more, where that first -- I first raised my reaction. We’d would have to find it, sorry; you’ll have to back up.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
There’s another -- no, at the end of the day on Friday where it includes the word, “Nauseating” I think. (SHORT PAUSE)
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I think that’s it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The final -- the penultimate bullet.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
In the 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. timeframe, I sent that to Mike, responding to a call that we had about, you know, 30, 45 minutes before the six change where I had reflected on what I believe he had shared with me, which sounded something along the lines of, “Why don’t you guys meet with them and it would take the pressure down,” et cetera. And, you know, we had a number of things we were discussing, and within a few minutes of hanging up I sent this note saying, “You know, sometimes you’ve got 100 things on the go, you’re not always thinking on your feet.” And I sent that note with a crystal clear recollection of that call 15 minutes ago, saying, “I hope you know that it is distressing for us to hear the suggestion that we should be meeting with them when you will not.” Basically, that my intervention, and he, on one or two occasions, came back saying, “I never said that. I don’t remember saying that”; and that’s his recollection. You’ll have to ask him.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t recall. I don’t know if I did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t know.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I mean, we were -- we had been engaged in a rather feisty exchange around what we were -- the City was being told, in terms of the number of RCMP officers that were being made available to OPS, and we felt that there was a dramatic disconnect between what we were being told and what OPS was relaying to myself and the Mayor, through the Chair, through the City Manager, et cetera, around the number of officers that we were seeing on the ground. And, you know, Twitter, social media, media outlets, et cetera, were saying, “We’re not seeing anything. We’re not seeing additional officers. We’re not seeing additional mobilization.” And so our data, what was being provided to us, was completely inconsistent with what OPS was relaying to us. And you’ll note that in a very, very lengthy and detailed exchange with the Chair of OPSB, you know, we’re having an exchange about the numbers, asking them if it’s taking too long to swear people in, which was a suggestion coming from Mike, that there could be, you know, various delays; we understood that. But we would go back to OPS and say, “Well, you know, what are you seeing? How many officers are you getting? Are you seeing this surge of, you know, 250 officers?” And the answer was, “No.” It was a -- and it wasn’t 10 shy of 250; it was 200 shy, it was 180 shy. It was a very, very large discrepancy, which, as you can see in our exchange, even Mr. Jones says, “I can’t reconcile it. I’ll go back to my people and ask them why those people are not on the ground yet.”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, I don’t believe they were related but I can’t remember.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It must be.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I have no knowledge of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
What had been relayed to them by the team I cannot imagine that OPS would not have been aware of the broad outline of the -- of this agreement because they had liaison people in at least two of the meetings with the City staff where movement of trucks outside of the residential precincts had been discussed. At their suggestion and at their behest, they proposed that we undertake this dialogue. I don't -- I can't see how they would not be aware of it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
May I -- backing up, may I -- in relation to the letter, the Chief was briefed on this agreement by the mayor directly at this meeting.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And then in the letter, he raised a concern around language on one paragraph.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Had been issued.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My recollection of that is that we raised that issue in -- I raised that issue in discussions with Dean French that we could not be in a position where if trucks were moved out of the precinct, technically, out of the residential districts, technically, honouring their commitment, then they would be backfilled by other trucks, or you would see some of those trucks move into other residential districts, thereby, technically, honouring the agreement, but, you know, violating the intent. Those were issues that the mayor wanted to make sure were covered, that we wouldn't be, you know, tricked into an agreement that would end up hurting residents elsewhere in the city. And that's why those, you know, rather explicit conditions were in the letter exchange.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely, in which we had no involvement in either planning or attending.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
You'll have to ask him. I have no idea what his intelligence from his PLT and other troops was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, and the letter was explicit in terms of the intent. The mayor mentioned it verbally as well. And so -- and he raised no significant concerns around the redistribution of trucks.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
One hundred ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely, 100 percent. It was crystal clear in that meeting.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't. I think it was the mayor trying to, you know, reflect to residents that we had other tools.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That refers to what I mentioned earlier on, there was significant fluidity around the smaller footprint into which vehicles could be moved, and it was our understanding that the City did not want to see more trucks on the Sir John A MacDonald Parkway west of, let's say, Bay, where you would start to bleed into the residential district, and it was intended in the letter as a broad parameter. It was intended to be fluid in nature. And we immediately, you know, within an hour or two of issuing the letter, we got a call from the local councillor saying, "Does this mean we'll see a lot more trucks on the parkway?" And the answer was no. In the letter, if you read it, again, I think literally it shows from Elgin to the Sir John A MacDonald Parkway. Obviously, it wasn't intended to bring parks out to -- trucks out to the Chaudière Falls. That's how far you could go. You could go very, very far. You could go to Champlain Bridge on the Sir John. So the intent was to create a parameter where SJAM started. That's where we would see -- you know, trucks would go there, but not much further, and that again was on the recommendation of City staff.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We didn't want to promote that because we -- there was confusion around that aspect. It was fluid. We didn't know how many trucks were leaving the precinct to go somewhere else, but the mayor had been quite firm that he didn't want to see more trucks back in residential districts. It was to honour the broad framework of the good will arrangement with the truckers.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Nothing.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I mean, I know some of them went onto Wellington. We know that for a fact, and they were accommodated.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We don't know if others chose to go home, et cetera. And when I engage with Mr. Ayotte to have a sense of whether or not we had a handle on it, he informed me that it was an extremely fluid count, that at one point in time, his understanding is that we were only counting big rigs. You know, small delivery trucks, et cetera, were either leaving the precinct being removed and not being counted because they were not, you know, the worst offenders in terms of noise and fumes, et cetera. So it’s my understanding that we did not have a tight count on the number of trucks being moved.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe it would be the city manager or Kim Ayotte, or both.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We were told that OPS had stopped the movement of trucks, and in fairness, we had understood at the start of the day that, you know, there were significant communications challenges on the ground and that there’s a point in time at which many trucks were ready to move and they were not being allowed to move, et cetera. It was very fluid.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not know why.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They wanted to share their concerns around the fact that they did not like the idea of seeing more trucks move into the Wellington precinct, and they further shared the information that there could be, theoretically, a bomb in one of the trucks.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
If an agency had to be -- had to consult them, it would have been OPS.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Through the mechanisms that they had.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I overruled the staff recommendation to organize that call because it is extraordinary for the Mayor to deal directly with any other head of a security agency other than the Chief of Police of the City of Ottawa. It is not within our historical practices to have the head of the RCMP, the head of the OPP, call the Mayor and berate them about an agreement with a civilian. It’s never happened in our history and hopefully would not happen under our history. We understand that he was unhappy. We referred him to the City manager. It is my understanding that he was eventually put in touch with someone within the command structure to have a dialogue about his concerns.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, can you restate the timeframe?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not, but it is my understanding that the PLT team would have a responsibility to report up within its structure and then someone would make the decision on which police forces need to be informed of the OPS’ actions in relation to negotiating movement of trucks.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, we’re not talking about the same meeting then. My point was on either of the meetings where PLT agents were present with the City manager and/or City staff, they would, I assume, exit that meeting and brief up on what they had agreed to, what they were working on, because that agreement was a result of their engagement with the City manager and the Mayor’s Office to try to get us to engage with the protestors. And if I may restate, if I have not clearly, that when the City manager was first approached, we were told that PLT was looking for either the City manager and/or the Mayor to engage with the demonstrators to try to take the pressure down and the temperature down, and we declined because we had no -- we just didn’t feel comfortable enough to engage. That’s why we, you know, supported the City manager in his decision to have an exploratory meeting.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, who is “them”?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Because we typically do not send other police agencies to other police agencies. It’s not our job. Our liaison is typically with the City Manager’s Office, who is serving on at least two critical taskforces where police forces were present, including the long-acronym organization that represents -- that had the OPP on it, the RCMP. My understanding is that PPS was represented on that group as well, with the City manager.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, but I had heard from City staff that there was enough, you know, paraphernalia and hot tubs and things that could be moved and displaced, that there was enough room to move a large number of trucks into the precinct. That was their analysis, and maybe if they made a mistake, I don’t know. We trusted their judgment that there was significant room.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We read about it. We speculated, like others, that that might have been a significant driver of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sometime on the weekend of the 12th. He told me he was getting on a plane, going back home. He was available. He was reachable. If he needed to come back, he’d come back quickly.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And I don’t remember if it was the Saturday or the Sunday. We were working 18-hour days and fielding tonnes of meeting requests and calls, et cetera.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Broadly speaking, Mr. French suggested to me that they had a legal representative. I had never spoken to him before. I didn’t know who he was. He asked me to deal with him if we needed to exchange any emails, and Mr. Wilson, I would -- my recollection of it is that he engaged sometime over the course of the weekend of the 12-13th, when the broad brushout line of an agreement was in place.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, I did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Broadly-speaking, I think it was, again, getting a sense of if they believed they would honour the deal. Would we be providing relief to the people of Ottawa who were under a state of siege?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They had the organisational ability to get the trucks to collaborate.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My best recollection is that he said it was a door-to-door effort. They would knock on every door, they would speak to every trucker, they would let them know that they believed that this is a good thing, that it would take the temperature down, and we would see the results in the morning if they were successful or not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't know.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry. If I may back up, respectfully. We already understood it to be a huge organisational and logistical challenge because as you know some of the streets had vehicles backed up four, five blocks deep with the cabs facing forward. If you can't get the first cab to move, then you can't get the second cab to move, et cetera, et cetera. So it required a level of collaboration and logistical coordination that we could not begin to fathom, but obviously it required a very high level of collaboration. I think we have provided photos that show four or five city streets that were cleared at least three or four blocks deep. So they appeared to have some ability to deliver at least partially on their commitment.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I know my mom's not happy about that photo. (LAUGHTER)
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I liaised -- well, initially, again, as Mr. French was kind of like out of the picture on a day-to-day basis, he shared this notion that the City was surprising them with an injunction. And I went back to the City Manager and verified with him whether or not that issue had been raised in any of the meetings with the truck convoy representatives, and Mr. Kanellakos told me that that was not a surprise, that the representatives for the truck convoy, including legal reps, were at least one of the meetings where the City had warned that this initiative was underway and that it would continue. And I shared that information back with Mr. Wilson. He did not appear to challenge it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct. And I mean, I think the remainder of the exchange, well, show that I relayed to him, you know, what the City Manager had relayed to me about that meeting, and he appeared to accept that that's how the meeting had unfolded. Because we -- the City Manager named specific individuals who were briefed at the meeting on the prospect of an injunction.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And also, because I did -- I was not present at the meeting, I asked him to have an exchange directly with the City Manager so that they could compare notes on what had been said about the injunction. I was just an intermediary.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe they did, but I'm not 100 percent certain.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We had not been told that there wasn't enough room for that movement.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Chair of OPSB conveyed to me in a very, very direct insistent manner that the OPS was unsuccessful in its attempts to secure additional resources from either the OPP or the RCMP, and she implored us to engage and to write to both the Prime Minister and the Premier asking for additional resources. As I have mentioned earlier, I have served Mayor Watson for 11 years, and 11 months, through the totality of his current mandate as post amalgamation mayor. He has never made request to a politician, an elected official, a minister, a solicitor general for police officers. We've made requests for funding, which are within Council's mandate, but the Mayor has never been engaged in seeking support from another level of government for a specific number of additional bodies. I shared that with the Chair. They provided me with a draft of what -- a letter they thought should go to the Premier and -- the Prime Minister and the Premier. We redrafted it. I recommended to the Mayor that it not be sent. We had a good discussion around it, and after I shared with the Mayor the fact that the Chair had said that the OPS would not be securing these resources without her involvement, that they were unsuccessful, in other words, I have to presume that they were being told, "No, you're not getting these additional bodies", and then she sent us a draft. We rewrote it. I sent it to her. Sorry, she sent us a draft I think at 9:00 a.m. on February 7th, that should be in record, I think I've seen it. At 12 o'clock, we sent her a new draft that identified both I think Minister Mendicino and Com Blair, and the Premier of Ontario and the Solicitor General as the people we'd be writing too providing a broader context for the scope and scale of the crisis that residents were being subjected to, seeking, you know, an additional number of bodies, which that number was provided to us by the OPS, and the Mayor relented and agreed to sign those two letters. We sent them out that day.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That what was conveyed to me, and I think you can see that in some of the exchanges between myself and Chair Deans, but I can't remember where exactly in those exchanges.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
She did not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
She did not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I have no -- we cannot ascertain that the requests were made -- was made police- to-police. We were only told that the OPS was unsuccessful in getting additional, you know, people and bodies provided to the tripartite effort by the other two agencies. And the numbers that we were seeing that were referred to in previous exchanges seemed to corroborate the fact that no significant additional resources were coming to the effort in the first 10 days of the crisis.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Two things were happening. The discrepancy in the numbers being provided to OPS, relative to the numbers that OPS was seeing on the ground, and what we felt to be friendly fire coming from, you know, various political voices federally saying, “It’s up to the City to step up and do their job,” roughly, which we can find that text if you want. But, you know, I wanted to convey to the Prime Minister’s Office that we needed their help, the numbers were inconsistent. We wanted them to know that, that what we were being told about the numbers was inconsistent. And I conveyed that and I believe that there was a change in tone, you know, roughly the next day, I think maybe someone realized, “This will have to be a team effort. We need them. It’s clear that we need them to help in the insurgency and the demonstration.” And I guess everyone came around to the conclusion it would be better to try to take a collaborative approach and maybe try to reduce some of the finger pointing, “You have this many. We have this many. We think you have this many. We think you’re only giving us this many.” And then people being out there saying, “We think the City’s going to be able to end it by themselves. They have the authority and the capacity to do it.”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Chief of Staff to Minister Blair.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Because the Mayor was being reassured that we would be getting additional support from the RCMP and when the information was being provided to us by OPS that there were no significant additional bodies being provided, it was maybe in the 60 to 80 range, and the number that we were being given was 250. I mean, we were really happy to hear that number. It sounded like a very significant increase and we wanted to make sure that it was not just being relayed to us politically, as we have no role whatsoever in the, you know, onboarding of these police officers, and swearing in, et cetera, et cetera that had to be conveyed directly to the Chief of Police to be -- you know, for them to be able to use that information and operationalize it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’d have to go back to the timing of when we we’re being told that we’re getting 250, because I was in a concurrent discussion with Mike, having a debate around the numbers, which there’s clearly a discrepancy in -- not a disagreement, it’s simply their number was inconsistent with what OPS was telling us, and that ask was simply, “If you have a clear number, can you give it to OPS?”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It would have been given to the Mayor as part of his regular briefings with OPS and the City Manager. And those were scheduled. They’re in the agenda. We see documentation from those meetings.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And sometimes it was the Chair of the Board, sometimes it was, you know, a lower-ranked individual within the OPS would provide us with a briefing that they believed the resources were not forthcoming. But typically it was the Chief telling us those numbers are not being provided, without getting into a lot of detail. And again, you’ll see in my exchange with Chair Deans that she’s answering questions and saying, “We’re not seeing those additional bodies at this point in time.”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Right.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
February 11th. We’re now four days out from the issuance of a letter to the Prime Minister, and the Federal Minister, and to the Premier of Ontario, and Solicitor Jones, and we still have no line of sight on additional bodies. And so that’s in continuity with that broad effort to try to get a sense of are we getting reinforcements? Are we getting additional support to put an end to the daily, you know, suffering that our residents are being subjected to? It was our daily -- you know, we get up in the morning, “Do we have more people to help with this crisis?” The Chief was telling us, “I don’t have the resources,” but the Chair of the Board was telling us, “We’re not able to secure additional resources.”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Not that I recall. My recollection is we had a discussion with the Chair of the Board, who was saying, you know, “Anything you can give us to help?” “Are we seeing any progress?” She was asking us about whether or not there would be any motions that would be detrimental to herself or the Chief, and sharing with us how, you know, urgent the situation was of getting more resources to help with the management of the truck convoy.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
A big number for sure.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My understanding is that we were told by OPS that 50 had been assigned to the Governor General’s residence for additional protection, 50 had been assigned to the Prime Minister’s cottage, roughly 50 had been assigned to additional protection of the Parliamentary precinct within the East/West Block, Langevin, et cetera, that area, but not available to OPS. And again, it perpetrated that discrepancy in the numbers. And those numbers were being shared with the public. The public was being told we had 250 additional RCMP officers on the ground managing the truck convoy.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, I’m saying there’s a discrepancy between the global number that was being told to the public and the specific number that OPS was telling us was available to them, and it was in the 25 to 30 per shift range.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Can we back up the date, please? Sorry. It’s my assessment based on what the OPS was providing us, the City manager, Kim Ayotte, et cetera, is that there was no meaningful increase in the number of RCMP being deployed, and there might have been a lot of reasons for that lag, and we weren’t aware of those.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can’t recall that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
An additional 250 over the course of the next few days.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It is correct to say that we were told that that could be one of the concerns, one of the lags.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Chair of OPSB told me that they were swearing them in as quickly as they were being filed, but I can’t corroborate that independently.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It appears to be, yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t know. I haven’t dealt with him.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was never brought to my attention.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
“You and I”, sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was meant to say “you and I thought”.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It would have to come from OPS. We have no line of sight on that, unless it’s provided by OPS or senior management.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, but it’s a very, very specific number. Hence, it had to be provided to us by a knowledgeable source.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Extraordinary frustration of having to tell the Mayor that our residents who are now onto day 14 or 13 of the demonstration and we’re not seeing any meaningful progress in terms of additional bodies on the ground assisting OPS with the operation. And that was our daily reality of not being able to report any progress back to the people of Ottawa in a time where they were under extraordinary duress.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Right. I think the intention there was to say -- you know, there’s always been this happening in political offices some of the time, and if he doesn’t believe what I’m hearing, maybe he should speak directly to the City manager who’s getting these daily reports from OPS in terms of, you know, is our number right? Was their number right? Maybe the Commission will shed light on that, but we were being told by a combination of OPS, City manager, Kim Ayotte, et cetera, that we were not seeing those additional bodies on the ground available to us. And it is possible that there were lags. Steve was a former Chief of Police. He explained to us that, you know, people coming from other jurisdictions might need two, three days to travel, et cetera, et cetera. There were reasons for lags. But in between the time that we were told, “You’re getting an additional 250,” you know, four or five days had elapsed and we were seeing no additional people, and obviously the frustration of residents was also boiling into, you know -- the Mayor was wearing it. He was feeling it. He was hurt by it personally, seeing our residents suffer greatly, hearing from shut-in seniors, people trying to get to their homes, et cetera. He was extremely unhappy, and obviously we were under tremendous pressure to try to get additional police officers to come and help the OPS.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can only assume that that’s what I meant.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, because we had broad reports from, you know, miscellaneous stakeholders, media et cetera, our people on the ground, and OPS, which, you know, is a pretty good proxy for how many additional officers are coming into a shift. If they're not coming into a shift, I think OPS would know that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We were not. But he also acknowledges that he felt that there was a discrepancy and he felt that it was frustrating as well. We were both extremely frustrated.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That's correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My perception at the time was, and I had noted it in words that I would like to change today if I could, but I can't, that I believed that it may have played a role in holding up the release of officers. It sounded like to a layperson that the absence of that agreement might have been holding things up. Had we known earlier, you know, we would have sat down with the City Manager, with Kim, with the Chief of Police to get an understanding of what we were told for the first time 13, 14 days into the crisis that there was no agreement on an Integrated Planning Structure. That was extraordinarily frustrating for us to hear that. Because we're there -- normally, we try to help. We're there to try to fix things and get things resolved, and obviously, we don't have all the inputs if we're -- you know, we don't have the entire picture of that command structure not coming together until almost two weeks after the start of the demonstration.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
In my opinion, I was responding to his text with a -- with my loose understanding of it, because with no sign-off on a plan, I assume we're in quicksand.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe we did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can't recall.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'd have to go back to the dates. I mean, there's no world in which we would not have shared that concern. I recall sharing it with the City Manager. I assume that he took it up with Kim, with OPS, et cetera, because without that alignment, it would be hard to see the teams collaborating on the ground.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And in -- sorry, in that period of time, the chair of the OPS was sending me text messages about am I seeing motions about me, am I seeing motions about Peter. I would say that we were at the height of the implosion of confidence in our city and in the OPS. We're close to that -- I would guess you could call it a crescendo of, you know, collapsing confidence ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- in all of us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
But he's stating that there's been -- in a previous conversation I've asked them to make sure that OPS knows directly what the Minister's office was telling us in terms of numbers. It would give the OPS an opportunity to, you know, validate those numbers. And this seems to suggest that they established a more direct line of communication to share that information, as that is what Mike is reporting and I had no reason to challenge it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I am not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My reaction is if Peter Sloly has confirmed that they're getting additional resources, that sounds very positive. We were in the midst of finalizing, you know, securing support for the movement of the trucks outside of the residential district. That was our main focus at that point in time and there was no significant buildup of additional resources from either level of government at that point in time. Maybe the OPS will contradict that with numbers and that would be great that we see those numbers.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
If it had a role in it, we were not privy to that. We did see, after an interim chief had been named, we started seeing a pickup in pace of organization, daily briefings to residents. Chief -- Interim Chief Bell made a statement saying this will be the last weekend that our residents do not have control over their city. We started to see obviously you wouldn't be making those types of statements if you didn't -- you know, you weren't starting to feel an influx of resources to support those, you know, the tripartite effort. But we saw -- I can say -- I can't say that it's causal, but we saw a definitive increase in the perceived level of organization after there was a change of leadership.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can't say that it did not contribute to it. I have no knowledge of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t. And don’t -- can you back up a bit, please, to see what date that’s on? I don’t know if there’s a time on that, because normally on that date I don’t think he was still Chief of Police, so I don’t know how that makes sense.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The intent was to be seen as doing something that reflected the feeling that residents felt we were failing them on so many fronts and we had, you know, members of Council, the advice from the City Manager to enact the state of emergency even though we knew it gave exceptionally limited powers to the City in terms of fast-tracking procurement et cetera. It was largely symbolic but the Mayor felt it was his call. He felt that we should be making that statement. I personally do not recall him telling me that the intent was to put pressure on the province to exercise powers to resolve this. I don’t recall that simply. It doesn’t mean he did not receive that advice; I might not have been in the room when he received it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, can you back up on the date, please?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Right. The next day we agreed to send the letter to the Premier and I had robust exchanges with the Premier’s Chief of Staff on that which we, you know, can talk about later, but we were intending to continue to let them know that we needed additional help, and the letter was extremely useful. They took note of the declaration of local state of emergency and it may or may not have played a role in their decision-making, I don’t know; I have no way of gauging that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was simply stated matter-of- factly, “We’re managing a lot of stuff”; it was not a rank ordering; it was simply, “We have to manage this, we have to manage Ottawa”. And at the outset I believe that until we issued that letter, I think that did play a key role in helping them understand the severity of the Ottawa situation. It was not a small localized demonstration against the Government of Canada. It was having a huge impact on the quality of life of tens of thousands of residents.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
He did not. He simply said he would relay -- he had relayed the Mayor’s ask for additional OPP officers to the head of the OPP and that the Premier was favourable and supportive.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can’t recall. We had more than one call and they were not all documented.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
In the February -- you know, within 24 to 48 hours of sending that letter he did say to me that the province was concerned about giving addition resources to the City under the current leadership structure.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t know what was meant by that; he left it vague and, you know, he did refer to leadership at the top were concerned; we don’t know if we’ll get the results; we don’t know if we can trust the organization; it was a broad-based expression of lack of confidence.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe that the Premier’s office conveyed a more general concern of the Chief’s leadership, which we did not share at that point in time.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Mayor had said on a number of occasions that he had full confidence in the Chief of Police and our dealings with him up until that point had been, you know, forthright and professional and constructive and the only thing that changed that is the ongoing response led the Mayor to, you know, also lose confidence in the responses as it evolved.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, he did not
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Mayor pointed out to me that both the Solicitor-General and the Premier had told him that they felt that this was a political table and that it would not be a constructive use of their time. So they agreed to disagree on that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I was aware of something along those lines but this is the first time I see this text message with this level of specificity, but he had mentioned to me he was working on a motion. I mentioned it to the Mayor, so I was aware.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The way it was framed to us at the time, it appeared to be framed as a call to the Canadian Military to engage to help end the conflict. It might have been a mis-communication. We had a back and forth over it, but it ended up not being debated before invocation of the Emergencies Act.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believed that there was a significant risk that such a motion would be coming forward, and it could include calls for the Chair's resignation and calls for the Chief to step down, et cetera. Can you scroll down a bit more, please? I'm looking for a comment from a member of Council that I relayed to the Board Chair that said something along the lines of, "You know, if we don't start seeing better briefings on the numbers out there..."
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'm looking for ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Above.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Okay. Thank you.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That's it. Sorry. I'm sorry, it's that quote.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
A member of Council had forwarded that to me.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Because the Mayor felt that it would be -- sorry. The Mayor felt that it would go against our efforts to end the demonstration to have a change of leadership midway through the demonstration.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, I believe it was delayed because OPS was planning a special meeting and we wanted to be able to hold the Council meeting after we had a better -- Council members had a better and more comprehensive briefing from the OPS on what was unfolding.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yeah, sorry. There is another reason as well. On that day, we had not one additional iota of hope or information that we could give to the people of Ottawa in terms of efforts to end the demonstration in a collaborative fashion, and we hoped that waiting for the OPS meeting would provide us with more information on the plans that the OPS had to end the truck convoy demonstration as they had charge of the operation.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I would have to say vaguely.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My recollection of the motion, which I cannot refer to, is that Councillor Fleury was under a huge amount of personal and emotional stress in terms of the attacks, verbal, and perceived risks against himself, his wife, and his family members, and he had put together a -- you know, a long list of things that he was hoping the City would do. An example of that is that we would ban certain posters and signs that demonstrators were using. I gave that practical example of I think that was an illustration of why I felt the motion was a hot mess and there was very little in it that the City could use. James gave his own advice, having been involved in the pandemic responses early as on to Ottawa Public Health. He gave his own advice on a -- you know, a separate time. I don't recall if it was in Councillor Fleury's motion or not. But we ended working with Clerk and consulting them on what, if any, aspects of this motion could be salvaged, as we were trying to work collaboratively with him on his concerns.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't think it was instead, I think it was one of the measures that was ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- being contemplated. It wasn't an either/or, a choice.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't know.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't know.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'm -- I have no recollection of the Mayor taking a call from a protestor at all.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No. I have no recollection of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I would say desperation of context, that we were seeing no progress at that point in time. It was not an informed opinion, it was a statement of if all things remain equal, the lack of collaboration, the numbers of police officers not increasing significantly on the ground, I wrote there's a very significant chance it was just my opinion.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Primarily, it would have been me.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Myself.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Its purpose was as the mayor was no longer running, he'd announced on December 10th that he was not going to be a candidate for mayor in 2022, and we were concerned that the complexity of the governance issues that were facing the City of Ottawa and council around the leadership of the OPSB would be lost in a barrage of election style or electorally motivated accusations and counter accusations, et cetera, et cetera. We wanted to prepare a more comprehensive overview of why the mayor supported this decision and the motion to change the leadership of the board. And at the end of the day, the mayor decided against issuing this open letter.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
He felt that the narrative was too meandering.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was too long. It was too complicated. You know, it would just simply add fuel to the fire instead of, you know, help us move on with tackling the demonstration itself.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, it captures our -- my office's and my team's perception of our liaison with council members in the hours after they had been informed that the OPSB had hired a third Chief of Police in 24 hours without informing council, which was a standard practice at the City. Never had a Chief of Police had been selected by the OPSB since pre- amalgamation Ottawa without council being advised that a selection process was underway. And so this reflects the dialogue that we had with members of council over the course of, you know, 24, 48 hours both from the time that they found out that a Chief of Police was being named, to the time that, you know, four, five days later when it was a huge public debate around, you know, why the person was removed. It's very controversial. And this was an attempt to provide the governance perspective from a high level.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
In individual discussions with Board members who wanted to share their views on what was unfolding as they were being, you know, called by media outlets, criticized, et cetera.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That's right.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Did not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That's correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Thank you, Commissioner.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, it is not. The broad intent was to have vehicles leave the residential districts, and hence the priority was those districts south of Wellington, at the corner of Sussex and Rideau, and to a lesser extent, Coventry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It doesn’t, because I mentioned that there was great fluidity in our discussions with Mr. French around the notion that some could be relocating outside of Ottawa to separate areas, a farmer’s field in Vankleek Hill off the 417, et cetera, so we had no idea where they were going, but we expected the vast majority to relocate north of Wellington, where we were told it would be an easier perimeter to manage.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We were told that that was an option, and we don’t know if we had -- we had no insight into whether or not the organizers were able to pull that off.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My opinion is that it is a broader context of circumstances and that the invocation of the Act created new, you know, a new legal framework around Parliament Hill in that red zone and that the authorities decided to take a step back and see what was the impact of the invocation of the Act.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Thank you.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I think that’s a fair assessment.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Text messages, sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It had been portrayed to us in briefings by OPS and the City as a very challenging group.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It is possible, yes. I have said that, yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It would make it easier for the combined police forces to address issues at other locations with a smaller perimeter and a smaller drain on resources in the Wellington perimeter.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t know that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It had a significant bearing on the Rideau Centre, but there were multiple other access points to the Rideau Centre.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, I don’t recall that from your correspondence. We would have to pull it up, or else I’ll have to say I don’t remember that she said that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It’s my consistent with my recollection of my discussions with Dean French, who, on numerous occasions, told me, “I don’t speak for Pat King. I don’t speak for X, Y, Z. I’m here to try to get a broad majority of individuals to take part in this good will effort to remove trucks from the residential district and provide relief to residents.”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct. I believe she cleared up the misunderstanding, but yes, that’s correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t have the information to corroborate that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I know 100 percent certainty that they were OPS because the City Manager debriefed with the Mayor and myself that they were ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- OPS.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
He specifically pointed out that they were PLT from OPS.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not have a line of sight on the reason for the breakdown between -- in communications between the truck convoy representatives and the OPS. I believe that will come out in due course.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, my understanding is that there had been a breakdown in communications and the PLT was reaching out with a certain degree of urgency to have the mayor and/or the City manager engage with the demonstrators with a view to helping them re-establish a rapport of some kind.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They sought a meeting as the City manager told me, to help them re-establish a rapport between the City and the demonstrators which had broken down. We were told the relationship had broken down completely and communication was non-existent.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe it did. I'd have to see it again.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did outline the perceived complexity that was being written about by various media outlets, and I agreed with that analysis. It was extremely complex.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes. You raised the previous text without giving me an opportunity to comment on it. On the highly simplistic and shocking suggestion that we would simply arrest everyone and take their keys, that’s why I responded with a slightly more nuanced advice to the Chair.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, which is why an agreement was necessary to secure that collaboration.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I recall the context being one of the meetings were appeared to be improvised, and they were contributing to a sense of demoralization within the general public. That was the context of that comment.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, and they shared that with us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't know that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t have the information to comment on that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Thank you.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, he was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I was not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
In a nutshell, I worked for Carleton University for 10 years in a Community Relations Advancement Fundraising Function.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And I served on various provincial political committees and organizations.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I agree.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can’t put myself in people’s imagination, but I would concur with the depiction.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Mayor did not endorse the idea. He took it at face value because it came from the OPSB and the Chief of Police, and they are in charge of the operation. They had the best knowledge on the resources required, and hence the Mayor took the number, and we inserted it in the letter. It was an action of trust.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t have the answer to that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was a large number. I do not. It was not provided to us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
There’s an ongoing discrepancy in the numbers.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I had no way to independently corroborate those numbers, but those are the numbers that were given to us by the people who were managing the operation. Hence, we had to trust those numbers.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’ve lost the original proposition. I apologize.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
If the contention is that there was an ongoing discrepancy in what OPS was telling us, what the feds were telling us and what the Province was telling us, yes, that’s my assessment.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It felt closer to reality given the fact that we were walking the streets of Ottawa ourselves. We live here. You know, we’re going down O’Connor, Bank, Metcalfe, et cetera. We’re seeing no significant social media reporting on it. Media outlets are reporting on it. Community associations are hailing in, saying, “I see not an additional officer in the last 24 hours.” We had anecdotal evidence coming in that suggested that the OPS assessment was closer to the fact at that point in time.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The only thing I will say is that there is one point in time in which Minister Mendicino’s office tells us that they are informing OPS of a sizeable increase without providing specificity, and I conveyed to them I thought that was good news, if it was factual, and we asked them to convey it to OPS. My recollection is that there had been a small step up in resources.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
To potentially, I recall, 250 to 300.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t have the expertise to answer that, but it felt like a small number. It felt like they needed a bigger number ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- to contain and manage it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I agree with that given the magnitude of the demonstration.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’m not sure what you want me to agree to, but the situation on the ground appeared extremely fluid.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We understood completely that it was their aspiration to move into the parliamentary precinct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was completely clear.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I concur that we had no certainty until the trucks actually moved and landed somewhere.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Right.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I wasn’t. The group was talking about having access to farmland ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- a private -- some kind of a private parking lot somewhere outside of Ottawa.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The only thing I would disagree with is that it was said quite plainly in the meeting of February 13th at noon that we understood that the goodwill construct was that they would be primarily moving from the residential district south of Wellington to north of Wellington.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, that is what -- that was the result of our ongoing discussion with Dean French.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Not the PLT meeting, if that’s what you mean.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
All of our dealings with him were professional, constructive, and the Mayor had full confidence in him until -- I would say until the Chief decided to leave his position.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was one of the stated goals of the Board.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Miscellaneous items that the Board wanted to focus on, including, you know, loss of confidence in certain communities.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
For example.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s a fair depiction.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t think I was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’m sorry, I don’t recall the specifics of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Abdirahman Abdi.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’m familiar with the case in its entirety.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, for the City.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Organizational challenges that they had to overcome.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
A fair assessment.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Was I present at this specific dialogue? I’m aware that she said this.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, I do.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My understanding, my limited understanding of that exchange is that he indicated that he would not -- in a nutshell, he would not undermine his Chief. In other words, they’re asking while he is under someone’s command if he would do something differently?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
From our exchange with Chair Deans when she described it to us. It is her version of events, that she claimed that this individual would not turn on his Chief when given the opportunity to do so.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I have to say I’m sorry, I wasn’t in that conversation so I don’t know; it’s just hearsay now.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Because she raised it with us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It is possible but she did not make that inference to us.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
To lay the totality of the blame on one individual I think would be completely unfair.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do,
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
You know that as well as everyone else.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, I was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t have enough information to comment on Councillor McKenney’s allegation that the Chief was scapegoated.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It’s a very personal and deeply held opinion.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Council; I don’t think it made its way to Council; there was a discussion around the possibility and I think it was pre-empted by the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’d have to see it; I apologize.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Mayor and his team were briefed on it within, I would say, 24 hours.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, I was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, the Mayor supported the invocation of the Act because he thought it might continue for days and weeks as well.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’m sorry, that’s too general, “on matters such as that”.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did not have to; we were informed of it after it was invoked and the Mayor expressed his immediate support for the invocation of the Act. So there was no debate, there was no opportunity to provide guidance and, hence, the Mayor had made -- you know, had decided to support it and we supported him.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We did not. The decision of Council was not supported by an argument of lack of authority, it was supported by an argument of lack of moral authority. So can you restate the other point, please?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It is because the Chair told the Mayor in a 1:1 conversation, with people present, that if he did not support the hiring of an external police chief, in the midst of the occupation, that she would not sign the contract and that led to the loss of confidence.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Broadly speaking, we were working collaboratively to ensure, you know, effective competent liaison between the Mayor’s office and the Board. As you can tell by the almost, you know, every five, ten minutes there’s something being exchanged, conveyed, advice being given, even if it’s not taken, but there was a -- yes, the Mayor still had confidence up until that point. Yes, the Mayor still had confidence up until that point.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They were faced with the extraordinary outpouring of public anger and fear over the ongoing protracted demonstration and, hence, they were responding by saying we’re not seeing progress; something has to change. That’s how I interpret that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
When discussing it internally, we would talk about removing the Chief of, you know, Fire Services during a major -- you know, if there’s a fire, the house is burning, we’re taking out people, and all of a sudden we take out the police -- the Chief of Fire Services during the emergency. The Mayor felt it would not assist in the attainment of the goal of ending the demonstration to remove the Chief during the truck convoy demonstration.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s a fair statement.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s fair.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s fair.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
In our first briefing with the Chief, as we were heading into -- and City Management, Steve K, et cetera, when the Mayor challenged the assertion that the City had the authority to stop trucks from coming into the downtown core, the Chief provided a very, very strong opinion that he had reviewed the matter internally and he told the Mayor that the OPS had determined that the Charter would prevent -- Charter Rights would prevent the City from allowing the trucks to come in for this demonstration, hence the assumption was they had the right to come in.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can’t say that I know that that’s why they were delayed. It’s ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They were telling us ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- that -- well, you’ve conflated the Feds, the province, Jamie, et cetera. The Province of Ontario, as I mentioned, expressed a lack of confidence in the leadership of the OPS. I was not present in any exchanges where the Government of Canada expressed a lack of confidence in the OPS leadership.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They did express to the Mayor lack of confidence in the plan.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes. She was aware of that and we were in constant contact, almost an hour -- probably once an hour during the crisis.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don’t recall. It was an ongoing banter, “This is what we’re hearing.” And she would say, “I’m aware of that. I’ve heard that too.”
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was February 8th, sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It was February 8th, sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Backing up. The City Manager - - we bumped into the City Manager at the end of the business day on the 8th in the foyer. And it’s a big word to use “a meeting”. It was an impromptu, ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- you know, gathering, whether the City Manager informed us that he had been approached by the PLT team, who had informed him that their communications had broken down with the truck convoy and that they were seeking the City’s help to try to re-establish that relationship. And the City Manager consulted with myself and the Mayor and I voiced the opinion that I -- we knew none of the players, we knew none of the organizations. I did not feel comfortable including the Mayor in such a meeting. I recommended he not attend it until Mr. Kanellakos had had an opportunity to meet with the organizers and to see if the dialogue gave us hope, you know, some intelligence that there were groups within the broader truck convoy that we could have a respectful and intelligent discussion with.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, and that he would report back, because the -- my understanding is that the PLT he met opened the door to either the City Manager, or the Mayor, or both, playing some kind of a role to try to re-establish this rapport.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, my understanding is that the City Manager met with the group on February 8th for the first time. We were given feedback about that meeting the next day. Probably, you know, 7:00/8:00 a.m. And after that point, the next day, which would be February 10th, the Mayor got a call from Mr. French saying, “Hey, I’m here to help. I’d like to help.” And we believed that that was a credible call, and the Mayor asked me to call him back, and the rest I’ve testified on.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That’s right.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’m sorry, those are two separate tracks. I’m not aware of another meeting between the City Manager and other parties until I had wrapped up the, you know, the broad strokes of the agreement with Mr. French.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And then, again, I was told by the City Manager that the PLT team had made the suggestion that we would approach them -- as an opening proposition, we would approach them to see if they were prepared to remove trucks from the residential district as a show of good faith. We would never make that suggestion. If you can imagine the fraught -- the risk with which that was fraught ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- for an elected official to insert themselves when, you know, the police operation was being directed by OPS. So we did not engage until we had a clear guidance from the City Manager that he had had his own meeting, and he thought that the representatives he met with were straight shooting and reliable to the best of his knowledge.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
A green light's a very, very big word, because in our understanding of municipal governance, the police authority is still downstream from the civilian authority.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
So a suggestion was made to us that the communications had broken down. And sorry, and I meant and not the other way around. Civilian authority does not -- is not downstream from the police authority in our country. And I think you know that. So we were asked to engage in a discussion with these groups, which normally we would never have engaged in, had the PLT team not made that suggestion to the City Manager. After that point, we were not constrained or shackled in any way by someone sending us a memo saying you can talk about, you know, if they're willing to remove trucks from the residential district but you can't talk about whether or not they're going to backfill it. There was not that level of detail, as you remember, because we were in a time of great crisis.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Neither before, during nor after.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is correct. My ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- input and guidance ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- was from the City Manager and his senior management team.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, I shared it with him, so that they could understand what the basis -- what the ground rules would be for a potential agreement.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The City Manager was kept informed on a daily basis with our conduit to the PLT team, who was kept informed of the ongoing discussion.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I disagree with that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I shared it with the City Manager, who served on the two coordinating committees that worked with PLT and all other police forces.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, I did not. It's not my job to direct him to share it. I shared it with the City Manager. The City Manager was in discussions with the PLT team based on their initial approach to him.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
And that's why they met a second time on ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
All.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Every area where residents were being impacted by the truck convoy and that includes Sussex and Rideau, the residential districts north of the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Baseball Stadium and all of the residential districts impacted in the downtown core from Elgin to Wellington to -- past to Bronson to almost Gladstone.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We had no involvement in that whatsoever.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No line of sight.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The number that was given to us by Mr. Ayotte and the City Manager's office was 400 trucks city- wide in the residential districts.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We wanted the 400 trucks removed from the residential districts.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I think that we have evidence that will corroborate that a number of trucks did leave the residential district. And ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- now in fairness to her, she has other evidence, I'm sure she'll be supplying it or has supplied it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, but if you're an observer of politics, you would know that it would be a huge vote of non confidence in him that in any jurisdiction might lead to his resignation.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, can you repeat the question?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, not all City Councillors were removed. Two chose to resign and one was removed.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, it started the day before when the Chair of OPSB made three different public statements announcing that a -- that the OPS was in the process of hiring a new Police Chief, which is I believe in the record. And within two hours of those statements, I contacted the Chair, asking her if a Chief of Police was being hired, which could not be gleaned from the documents. It was not transparent. I asked if she felt it would be beneficial to give the mayor a heads up about that hiring and she agreed to it. She asked us to call her office in the morning of the 16th, which we did, and we set up that call at our suggestion.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
She said that if the mayor did not support it, she would not sign it.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is correct. I was informed by a member of senior management.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Two people by the way.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Firstly, I started liaising with members of Council on what they knew about the announcement that had been made the day before, and I found out that the Chair had started lobbying members of Council on the hiring of the new Chief. So that information was being shared with members of Council before a decision was made on a motion respecting the Chair. Secondly, too, I believe that either the City solicitor, or the City clerk, or both told me that a contract had been signed in early afternoon of the 16th.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, we had ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That is not what happened.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
You're not giving ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- any opportunity to respond to it?
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Please.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
No, I did not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I assembled a group of senior civil servants to prepare a motion that might be required, as we do at almost every Council meeting where there's a controversial or challenging issue being discussed that morning on the basis of the announcement the Chair had made the previous day. The mayor was highly, highly skeptical that the Board of the OPSB might have hired, vetted, negotiated with, interviewed a new Chief of Police in a one-hour meeting on February 15th. The mayor was so skeptical that he said, you know, let's set up a call for the 16th, which I did. In the meantime, it is my job to anticipate any required motions that the mayor and members of Council might meet as the situation is emerging from a governance or any other perspective that creates risks for Ottawa residents, Ottawa taxpayers, that might have influence on public confidence in our city and in our institutions. And the Mayor felt, after having been -- having had the confirmation from Chair Deans that he was very, very skeptical that this was proceeding, that this hiring was proceeding, the third Chief in 24 hours, he was so skeptical that he said, "Do what you want. Prepare for a motion, if you need to. I don't believe it, I need to hear it from my own -- on my own." The call was set up, but in the morning, a pre-emptive meeting was set up for the purpose of preparing a motion should the confirmation come forward that a new Chief had been hired at the height of the truck convoy insurrection, which the Mayor disagreed with. He felt it would demoralise our troops significantly, he thought it was a very bad error in judgement. He shared that with the Chair, and the Chair said, "If you do not support this I will not sign it."
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Sorry, not with City Council staff, with senior staff who are normally involved in the writing of complex motions from the Clerk, et cetera, et cetera. It happens all the time.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Entirely irrelevant.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Which is the case for 99 percent of interactions between chairs and leaders in the Mayor's Office. That's how it works on almost every file.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't know the answer to that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I don't know the answer to that. I have seen them exchange notes at various times.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I did not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
My understanding is that they did speak during the demonstration. You're saying they don't -- they didn't.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That's a fact of life in politics for sure ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- that some people have disagreements.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Not on the same team.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I can't corroborate that because Chair Deans was Chair of Transit in the Mayor's first term, Chair of Community of Protective Services on the second term, invited by the Mayor to Chair the OPSB, which is an extremely complex, demanding file. She was given high profile leadership roles in many governments. The leader and ministers disagreed, but they still ended up on the same team and worked together, and they did so extremely well for many years.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Yes, absolutely, and Councillor -- the Chair and the Mayor took part in numerous phone calls together, and the record will show that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
She has to because she was on the first ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely, 100 percent. The fact that they weren't on the same team politically, you know, provincially, et cetera, in past history had no bearing on how the Mayor managed his involvement in the truck convoy, which is 24/7 caring, 24/7 bringing the hurt home of residents from across the city, and specifically in the affected zones. He did care about our city very, very much, and we saw it, we witnessed it in our office every single day.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I didn't say that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I was.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The Mayor's Office was involved in liaising with the City Manager to get a better understanding of why, you know, multiple providers would not engage in this conflict.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Well, what we were told by the City Manager, by Kim Ayotte, et cetera is that some feared for their equipment, some feared for their safety, some feared for the future long term impact on their business with a very, very important segement of their income.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That has been reported.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
That has been reported.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I am not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I know that they tried, that's my understanding, that the City Manager briefed the Mayor on the attempts to try to get them to honour their contract.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'm not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I'm not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
They are. Actually, you can't imagine how many details we get to manage, but not this one.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The City Manager ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
--- had complete command of this issue and was working through this issue with his staff. My own involvement in that issue, I did raise it with the Premier's Office that we were having difficulty securing tow trucks. He told me he would relay it to MTO to try to see if they would be in a position to supply us with some tow trucks. Came back 24 hours later, the answer was no. It was a collaborative effort. People were making calls to different contacts.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I am not.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Thank you.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Hi there.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Thank you.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
After the agreement had been concluded over the weekend of February 12th we sought from the City manager's office through Kim Ayotte, could he help us get an understanding of whether or not any trucks were being moved out of the residential precinct because people who were not in the precinct were reporting on the issue. We had no way of finding out whether or not trucks were moving. And I asked him if there was a way to get that information in the morning. Obviously, there was a huge amount of pressure on the Mayor, on all members of Council, on the City at large to get some progress. And by around 10, 11 o’clock, as we were having no success in getting any basic intel, I would ask Mr. Ayotte, “Can you tell me how many trucks are moving?” And he would say, “Well, 12 trucks have moved.” And I said, “Only 12 trucks?” Well, he said, “I’m not sure, people are sending me text messages from the field.” Okay, great. But we sent an employee of our office to take pictures that morning because there was just so much politics going around in relation to the removal of trucks, and these pictures will show that there are large swots of the downtown core that were being cleared, and notwithstanding the Rubik’s cube that had been described. Well, clearly they got Truck A to move, and Truck B, and C, D, E, F, G, and from what we could tell from photos from the media from before, there were 25-30 trucks in the precinct. Mr. Ayotte contacted me, I think maybe around noon, saying, “Well, unfortunately we only moved 40 trucks.” And I said, “Well, from the photographic evidence, there seems to have been a lot, lot more that were removed.” And then he came back to me, saying, “I’m sorry, apparently the people doing the count were only counting big rigs.” So, you know, the mid-size, delivery vans, the CANPAR type vehicle, the small Duravan type vehicle was not being counted. That’s all I can say. We had poor intel. He had poor intel. The Mayor was being asked, being bombarded on media, “This is failing.” From what we could tell, from the amount of time that they had to move trucks, if someone was stopping it, it could not be discerned from what we were provided in terms of intel. There are other streets where we see -- is this O’Connor? I think that’s ---
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
We do have a record of that.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe that that was provided to counsel when the pictures were provided on a street- by-street basis, time and location.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Commissioner, is that acceptable.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I do.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Absolutely. They were taken the morning of -- the Monday, roughly an hour and a half into -- I would say around 10:45 to 11:15, the morning that the truck convoy representatives were expected to start honouring their commitment to start moving trucks. And we sent someone physically to take photos because we could not get a corroboration of how many trucks were being moved on a street- by-street basis. So if we can see another one, I think I’ll recognize the street. And my impression is that -- I mean, we provided the street names, Commissioner.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe that that’s O’Connor, looking north to Parliament. We can see the parliamentary precinct, and my recollection is that that is Albert Street. Everyone knows where the National Bank is located. So we could see that there was some progress. We can’t see south of Albert. We were seeing there were no trucks left between Albert and Parliament, when the day before, there were trucks side by side, blocking that entire street. And so the contention that it failed, I just think is premature. We don’t know. We can’t say it failed because it unfolded over too short a period of time.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It’s my understanding that that is Bank north to -- you can see the corner of the Confederation block on the left, upper left, and that is Bank completely cleared of vehicles and we can see a police vehicle now that is at the pilon, and that is showing no trucks from the corner of Meridian to Wellington. There are no trucks. There are no convoy trucks on that strait on the morning of February 15th.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I believe that’s the right date.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Metcalfe at Queen and Albert, looking north, there’s not a single truck from the truck convoy between that street and Parliament.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I’m sorry, I cannot, but I’m sure that we -- that OPS can corroborate what street that is.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Our understanding is that there were 400 between the various locations. The initial expectation and hope is that they would leave the most affected district, which is Sommerset.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
The GM Kim Ayotte had shared that view that they could be.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
There was not. We were completely realistic about the fact that this accomplished what PLT asked us to engage about, which was taking the temperature down, re-establishing a connection and getting our residents some relief, not a permanent solution, because obviously there would still be trucks in the core, but at least they would be outside of the residential district.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
There was because concurrently, Commissioner, we were working with all levels of government to try to get more police officers to reinforce the OPS, and that was -- that had already started. On February 7th, we had sent a letter to both the Premier and the Prime Minister, asking for more resources. The next weekend, we worked in an interim fashion to try to provide some relief to residents, but the long-term plan was the truck convoy had to be -- had to end.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
I saw the three levels of government having to agree to partner together slightly more quickly. That was the solution we needed, a very, very strong influx of additional bodies. The perimeter to be managed was extraordinary, and you may recall that when OPS, in conjunction with OPP and the RCMP in the week of February 16th, I believe, when we started to see the mobilization and the erection of a new perimeter that went all the way from Elgin, Wellington, all the way down to Catherine Street, all the way down to Bronson and North, back up to Parliament, you know, I think that’s when we started to get a greater sense of the magnitude of the perimeter that would have to be controlled and defended to remove them, and then ensure that they don’t come back and forth. And I believe that once the cooperation started, which the Mayor sought, and was thankful to both the Province and the Feds for engaging when they did, belatedly; everyone engaged belatedly and imperfectly. But the Mayor does believe that bringing these resources together in massive numbers was required to end this very, very, very large demonstration that was now unruly.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
A lot of time for the parties to -- you know, I pointed out in my evidence that, you know, we found out 10 days into the crisis that there was no alignment on the plan. You know, maybe this is a lesson to all parties, that we are now -- are we prepared for the next emergency that we would be day one ready to go and work collaboratively? That’s the Mayor’s only aspiration, that the people of Ottawa would not be put through this again, and it would take less time next time.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
Correct.
-
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff (Ott)
It’s a very, very fair summary. And may I respectfully add that I believe that, you know, there’s a lot of armchair quarterbacking, and in hindsight -- I’ll give one example, a member of Council was tweeting, “No mass arrests”. That was at the start. The Chief of Police was telling us, the Charter rights, he told the Mayor -- the Mayor has no authority to overrule the Chief of Police on police operations. He told the Mayor, the Charter dictates that we allow this demonstration. Clearly we have learned, all -- everyone, the City, OPS, our partners have learned that the world of policing has changed, and this ended up being almost an immovable armada. It wasn’t just individual trucks coming to Ottawa; it was the collective potential impact of all of those trucks, you know, in the Parliamentary precinct, bleeding into the residential district that, you know, made it so complex and unprecedented.