Ottawa police chief faces tough questions on taxi drivers blocking Airport Parkway

Ottawa's police chief faced tough, pointed questions from the force's oversight board on Monday night over the force's decision to allow protesting taxi drivers to shut down the Airport Parkway on three separate occasions.

The Ottawa Police Services Board's vice-chair, former Ottawa mayor Jim Durrell, said he was "personally highly offended" by the decision "to allow a bunch of thugs to sit on that parkway" in a G8 capital city, that his friends were also offended, and that the decision has created "a crisis of confidence" in the force.

Coun. Tim Tierney told Bordeleau peaceful residents have to request permission and wade through bureaucratic red tape just to hold street parties in residential areas, and that if he himself sat down on any street he'd be arrested.

Coun. Jan Harder said it's not a level playing field, and that other protesters would not have been allowed to continue such demonstrations for more than five weeks without being shut down.

Bordeleau said he fully supports the decision of his officers to allow protesters to block the parkway and prevent violence from escalating.

He also said it's important for the force to stay neutral in labour disputes.

For more of the exchange between the board members and Bordeleau, see below.

City got injunction to prevent parkway protests last week

The city's airport taxi drivers have been in a labour dispute with their dispatch company, Coventry Connections, for more than six weeks over an increase in fees for the right to make pick-ups at the airport.

Three of the protests saw drivers shutting down the Airport Parkway in both directions.

During one such protest, protesters used metal poles to smash the rear window of a competing cab with a passenger in the back seat. Three of the protesters were arrested and charged by police in the days following the dispute.

Last week the city won a court order to stop protesting taxi drivers from blocking the Airport Parkway in the future.

Transcript

The following transcript of Monday night's Ottawa Police Services Board meeting has been edited for length and clarity.

Coun. Tierney: "Are people allowed to block roadways in general? I'll tell you, when somebody in my ward wants to have a street party, we make them jump through 50 hoops and 50 sheets of paper to put out a couple of barricades to block what is about 10 households worth of street. So I'd like to know, maybe you can educate me on this, are people allowed to block streets like this?"

Bordeleau: "... Individuals have the right to demonstrate, and in this case it's a labour dispute and the taxi drivers are voicing their concerns from a labour perspective. ... And I get that question a lot: If I were to lie in the street I'd be arrested, absolutely. But I think the dynamic we have to add here is this is an organized labour dispute, and we have to monitor and manage a very fluid situation. 

"... Every action has a reaction, and when the police service moves in with force and disrupts some maybe technically illegal activity, that may resolve the situation for the time being but other things may take place and usually other things do take place and the situation often escalates in violence. And that is certainly something that we don't want to see. ... I support fully the decisions that they have made over the duration of this labour disruption, and the executive supports their decisions."

Tierney: "Thank you for that, chief, I do appreciate that. But again, we do hear from quite a few constituents on this. Is there anything from [the Ministry of Transportation] that is stopping us from arresting people that are blocking highways?"

Bordeleau: "It is illegal to block a highway and the police service has, technically, the authority to arrest an individual. But police also have the discretion to affect that arrest, and in labour disruptions or major demonstrations, we do employ that discretion, which is critical to ensure that everybody stays safe. ... I'm not going to say that we're never going to arrest them if they do block the road. I think that's something where the decisions are made on the ground at the time, considering all the factors they have to consider given the dynamics of the situation."

Tierney: "And thank you for that, I do appreciate that. I guess the other worry is, if we had to get an injunction on this specific roadway, what if they move to another roadway? Have we been working to make sure that they don't look at another roadway? ... What's stopping them from saying we're going to block Elgin Street next?"

Bordeleau: "... There is nothing preventing them from moving to another location, and I think that's where the work of our police liaison team officers has been very successful in negotiating and managing and allowing them to exercise their rights to demonstrate and to voice their concerns and issues in that area and doing it in a safe manner. But there is nothing preventing them from moving to another location, which could actually be even more problematic, in the downtown core for example, than it is on the Airport Parkway. And so that's why our PLT officers work very closely in trying to manage and negotiate where they're going to hold their demonstrations."

Vice-chair Durrell: "Not to belabour the subject ... but the police's greatest strength is the confidence that the public has in it. You know it, I know it. ... And I think that our decision to allow a bunch of thugs to sit on that parkway that day created, in my humble opinion, a crisis of confidence in our ability, and it showed that the tail, for a brief period of time, was wagging the dog. I was personally highly offended by it. I know a lot of my friends were. I've defended this service and I'm very proud to do it up and down. I'm respectful of your comments on the decisions that were made by the officers on that day, but as you said, if I sat on the road you'd arrest me. You just said it here in this meeting, and yet we allowed a couple of people who in the end, weren't satisfied that we let them sit in the road and disrupt the lives of hundreds, probably several thousand people in a G8 capital ... and their next course of action was they became true thugs and started smashing cars and finally we arrested them. ... I think that was not a banner day for us."

Bordeleau: "It's not for us to judge the value or the merits of a labour disruption. I take it back a couple of years ago when we had the OC Transpo strike ... and they were blocking the sidewalks and blocking access to the parking garage and blocking some of the roads because of the sheer number of people, and we were out there doing the same job that we did on the Airport Parkway, and I don't recall being criticized or my officers being criticized for their actions back then. I support the work that they did and continue to do for this labour disruption. We are fulfilling our role ... dealing with a very fluid, emotional situation and I stand by their decisions. They've made the right decisions given the circumstances and they've actually prevented a lot of incidents and other more serious demonstrations that the public will never know about because of the negotiations and discussions that they've had with all those stakeholders involved."

Coun. Harder: "For me, it hasn't been a level playing field. As the nation's capital we do have a lot of people that parade for their causes and that, but we never would let that go on for five weeks. You control that very much. This is, in my opinion, not a level playing field and we're not treating them the same way as we would treat others. ... And so that's the part that we object to. I think that — reflecting the public and the people that have talked to me repeatedly, who are just so incensed by it — because they are potentially more volatile than other people, does that mean their bad behaviour gets rewarded and it's allowed to continue? The public acceptance of it is gone, it's been gone for a long time."