Ottawa, police were warned of plans to jam up the capital before convoy protesters arrived, email shows
The Public Order Emergency Commission is meeting for its 3rd day Monday
Both the City of Ottawa and local police were warned that some protesters planned to stay in the city for weeks and gridlock streets, according to evidence presented Monday to the inquiry looking into the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act to disperse the protests last winter.
Both the city and police went ahead on an assumption that the protesters would pack up after the first weekend, the inquiry heard.
In an email entered into evidence on Monday, Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa-Gatineau Hotel Association, told the mayor's office on Jan. 25 — a few days before trucks began rolling into the capital — that someone from the Canada United Truckers Convoy had reached out looking to book hotel rooms for at least 30 days.
WATCH | Lead counsel goes through email correspondence detailing convoy plans
"He basically laid out the plan, which is basically that they will leave their trucks in place, chain them together and attempt to block all accesses to the city," reads an email from a staffer in Mayor Jim Watson's office summarizing Ball's message. The email was entered into evidence Monday.
"What is our level of preparedness to respond to this should it go on for many weeks or months? Who is our lead in responding and presumably liaising with the federal authorities?"
That message made its way to Steve Kanellakos — the City of Ottawa manager who is testifying under oath Monday as part of the Public Order Emergency Commission — and to city police.
At the time, the Ottawa Police Service was signalling that the protest would disperse after the first weekend.
On Monday, Kanellakos testified that he felt "confident" Ottawa police were able to handle the protest.
"I was confident that we were prepared for that first weekend with the assumption that they were leaving after the weekend," he said.
"Police are responsible to keep public order and … they are very experienced at doing it. The first weekend we had no reason to question the intelligence, the strategy and the tactics they were employing."
Instead, protesters used their vehicles to block main arteries in downtown Ottawa for nearly a month — and what started as a demonstration against COVID-19 vaccine mandates took an anti-government character. The protest was marked by incessant honking that let up only after a private citizen sought an injunction.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Kanellakos, who serves as city hall's top bureaucrat.
Online posts also indicated that at least some of the protesters intended to stay and disrupt the city in a bid to force the government to agree to their demands. City Councillor Riley Brockington also told city hall that he felt the protesters would stay on after the first weekend.
"The OPS today estimated 1,000-2,000 to protest. No way. Expect many more," he wrote on Jan. 26.
Kanellakos said city hall didn't have the intelligence-gathering capacity to estimate how many people were coming into the city and had to rely on the advice of Ottawa police.
"The only information we could rely on was from Ottawa police, in terms of reliable information at that time," he said. "Ottawa police has extensive experience dealing with demonstrations in the national capital."
Kanellakos testified that the city's lawyers felt Ottawa police were not providing them with sufficient information.
But after the first weekend, Kanellakos said, it became clear that the protest was becoming entrenched and police didn't have enough resources to cope.
Documents entered into evidence Monday showed that, as the protesters dug in, city police felt there was "a potential for violence and weapons" in certain "dangerous and volatile" areas along Rideau Street — where protesters known to police were taking part in demonstrations.
Kanellakos said Ottawa police reported they also feared that any attempt to clear the encampment set up near a baseball field near Coventry Road — which acted as a supply hub for the protest — would lead to violence.
Mayor Watson declared a state of emergency on Feb. 6, about a week after protesters rolled into the city.
Confusion over resources
Kanellakos said the provincial government made it clear that it thought the Ottawa crisis was a matter for law enforcement, not politicians.
He said that on Feb. 9, the city placed a call to Sylvia Jones, the provincial solicitor general at the time, to ask for more police resources.
"I recall the minister saying that this was something the chiefs should be dealing [with] the OPP commission on and that elected officials shouldn't be involved in this," he said.
On the day the city declared an emergency, Jones said that 1,500 officers from the Ontario Provincial Police, other municipal services and the RCMP were on the ground.
"That was inaccurate," Kanellakos said during cross examination by former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly's lawyer Tom Curry.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is not on the list of witnesses appearing before the inquiry.
Questioned by reporters Monday, he said he supported Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the convoy.
"If you disrupt the lives of the people of Ottawa every single day, disrupt the lives and economic flow across our borders, I have zero tolerance for it," he said.
RCMP 'are lying to you,' mayor's staffer says
The confusion over how many police officers were available to respond to the protest made problems for Ottawa police, Kanellakos said.
Serge Arpin, chief of staff to Mayor Watson, expanded on the resources issue during his testimony Monday afternoon.
Arpin said while 250 RCMP officers were pledged, 50 were assigned to the Governor General's home, 50 were assigned to protect the prime minister at his cottage and another 50 were tasked with protecting the parliamentary precinct; those officers were not available to Ottawa police.
In a text exchange presented to the inquiry, Mike Jones, the chief of staff to the federal Public Safety minister, told Arpin that the RCMP said they "sent over three shifts of 70 each."
"They are lying to you flat out," Arpin responds.
Arpin said that text reflects the "extraordinary frustration" he felt while having to tell the mayor that, two weeks into the siege, there was no real movement on securing additional police resources.
Deal to move protesters was about 'relief'
Both Arpin and Kanellakos gave new details Monday about deal between the city and some protesters to move trucks out of residential areas and onto Wellington Street, the street in front of Parliament Hill.
Kanellakos said officials knew the plan was not going to end the protest.
"They planned to stay. This was about relief. It was about relieving those neighbourhoods of trucks and all that came with it," he said.
However, the deal didn't play out as planned.
First — due to what what Kanellakos called "communications issues" — some police officers refused to let more trucks enter Wellington Street. Eventually, about 40 vehicles were allowed onto Parliament Hill.
Second, many of the protesters in pickup trucks and other lighter vehicles refused to move and even blocked the effort to concentrate the protest on Wellington Street, Kanellakos said.
The plan did not sit well with Larry Brookson, acting director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, who sent a message to Kanellakos.
"Quite honestly Steve, I'm at a loss at how this sort of agreement could have been worked out with a clear disregard to security, especially considering we just finished a bomb blast assessment which included a threat of explosives being transferred via large vehicles," Brookson wrote.
WATCH | 'Police are responsible for keeping public order,' says Ottawa's city manager
During his appearance Monday, Kanellakos said the Parliamentary Protective Service should have been well aware of the plan. He pointed out that by that time, "hundreds" of heavy vehicles already had been occupying Parliament Hill.
"The deal had fallen apart in terms of moving the trucks anyways up onto Wellington Street by Tuesday," Kanellakos said.
The day before, Monday Feb. 14, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in the act's 34-year history.
More questions about what the city knew, what police knew and how they communicated with each other will dominate the coming week of hearings. Mayor Watson and officials from the city's police and the Ontario Provincial Police are expected to testify in the coming days; Watson appears before the commission Tuesday.
The Public Order Emergency Commission is reviewing the circumstances that led up to the government's decision on Feb. 14 to invoke the Emergencies Act. The legislation requires that a public inquiry be held after it is invoked.
The Public Order Emergency Commission is holding hearings for six weeks, sitting every day from 9:30 a.m. ET until 6 p.m. or later, as required.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from the Canadian Press