The memorandum to the prime minister suggesting the government invoke the Emergency Act for the first time in Canadian history acknowledged that its interpretation of a threat to national security could be questioned, the inquiry reviewing that decision heard Friday.
The Privy Council Office document, which was presented to the Public Order Emergency Committee on Friday, was sent on the afternoon of February 14 as the protest in Ottawa against the COVID-19 restrictions entered the its third full week. The government announced its decision to invoke the act just after 4:30 pm ET that same day.
“The PCO notes that the disruption and public unease is being felt across the country and beyond Canadian borders, which may give further momentum to the movement and cause irreparable damage, including social coercion, national unity and Canada’s international reputation,” he said. reads.
“In the PCO’s view, this fits the statutory parameters that define threats to the security of Canada, although this conclusion may be vulnerable to challenge.”
Eight months later, the memo’s author, Privy Council Secretary Janice Charette, defended her advice.
“My view was that he met the tests. Others may not share my view,” he told the commission’s inquiry on Friday.
The question of whether the federal government met the legal threshold for invoking the Emergency Act is one of the most important on the commission’s plate. He dominated the inquest’s testimony this week and is expected to testify at next week’s hearings as well.
Under the Act, Cabinet must have reasonable grounds to believe that a public order emergency exists, which the Act defines as one that “arises from threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to constitute a national emergency” .
LOOK | The Privy Council Secretary discusses his advice to the Prime Minister on the Emergency Act
The Privy Council Secretary discusses his advice to the Prime Minister on the Emergency Act
Janice Charette told the Emergencies Act inquiry that there is a broader definition of threat of violence than that identified by CSIS, and it was this broader definition that led her to recommend that the Prime Minister invoke the Law of Emergencies.
The act defers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) definition of such an emergency, which includes serious violence against persons or property, espionage, foreign interference or intent to overthrow the government through violence .
The commission has seen evidence showing that the director of CSIS did not believe in the self-styled Freedom Convoy they constituted a threat to national security as defined in the CSIS Enabling Act.
Charette said he valued CSIS’s assessment, but said it was the combination of the economic and public safety impacts of the protests that, in his view, constituted a public order emergency.
Top Mountie might have shared concerns: secretary
Assistant Secretary Nathalie Drouin, who, before coming to PCO, was the deputy minister of the Department of Justice, told the commission that she believed the situation was reaching a threshold.
“The threat had grown beyond the ability to end the blockades in a sustainable and lasting way; it took extraordinary resources to clear Windsor, which diverted the blockade to Bluewater, and raised concerns about the number of available resources,” said a document summarizing Drouin’s interview. with the commission in September.
“These were factors in the assessment of the existence of a national emergency.”
Privy Council Clerk Janice Charette, left, and Assistant Clerk Nathalie Drouin testify at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
The document also showed that the PCO was becoming increasingly frustrated with the police response.
Drouin “recalled losing hope that local police forces in Ottawa and Windsor would be able to execute their operational plans as time passed and no concrete police action materialized,” the summary said interview.
The commission has seen an email RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki sent to public safety Marco Mendicino the night before the government invoked the Emergency Act last February.
Lucki wrote that he did not think police had exhausted all the tools available to them to end the ongoing occupation of downtown Ottawa by protesters demanding an end to the COVID-19 restrictions.
Charette testified Friday that if the RCMP chief believed the Emergency Act should not have been invoked, he could have told him.
“I think it’s part of my responsibility to make sure the RCMP commissioner knows that if there’s anything he thinks I need to know, he has an open door for me, and also that if he thought the prime minister needed information that would provide him. that,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s been any instance where the RCMP commissioner has contacted me to provide me with information that I haven’t had the opportunity to have that engagement with.”
LOOK | The PCO secretary had not seen any concrete steps to end the convoy protest on the third weekend
Privy Council secretary says Prime Minister and Cabinet have not seen concrete steps to end third-weekend convoy protest
In her testimony to the Emergency Act inquiry, Privy Council Secretary Janice Charette says that on the night of February 13, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet had seen “nothing about the plan” to resolve the convoy protest in Ottawa. .
Charette said the federal cabinet was aware that the tools and authorities had not been fully deployed, given that municipal bylaws and Penal Code violations were being broken, but had no idea how practical the operational plan was. of the police
“We often heard about a plan. What we hadn’t seen by the end of the third weekend was anything that happened in the plan,” he said.
Charette added that the existence of a credible police operational plan was not the only factor the government was weighing when deciding whether to invoke the act.
“It was a factor … a moment in a complex situation,” Charette said.
PCO considered closing cell towers, gas stations
The commission heard on Friday about the options the Privy Council Office considered before advising the government to invoke the Emergency Act.
Charette said he asked the deputy ministers to come up with ideas to stop the protests.
“We have to leave no stone unturned. We have to make sure that we’re looking at every power, duty, every authority that we have, every resource that we have to make sure that we’re bringing the full power of the federal government to bear,” he said Charette. .
According to Drouin’s summary of the interview, PCO considered options as varied as shutting down cell towers, shutting down gas stations and even deploying federal employees with commercial licenses to remove entrenched trucks in Ottawa.”
“I would have been saying, ‘All hands on deck, no idea too crazy, let’s look at absolutely everything,'” Charette testified Friday.
Charette said not all options were exhausted, given that municipal bylaws and criminal laws are being broken on a daily basis.
“Yes, there were tools and authorities that had not been fully deployed. The question was whether they would be adequate to deal with the totality of the situation,” he said.
WATCH What did the Emergency Act inquiry learn this week?
What did the Emergency Act inquiry learn this week?
National security expert Stephanie Carvin and national security law expert Leah West offer their thoughts on what the commission heard from senior officials as it investigates the federal government’s use of the Emergency Act.