The night before Justin Trudeau took the historic step of invoking the Emergency Act during the occupation of Ottawa’s Freedom Convoy last February, the prime minister’s national security and intelligence adviser told cabinet that there was “potential for advancement,” court documents reveal.
Canada’s public safety minister’s office says the adviser was referring to negotiations led “primarily” by the City of Ottawa that were “ultimately unsuccessful” after being “dismissed” by many associated with the convoy .
The revelation about the potential breakthrough, contained in the summary of a cabinet meeting that took place on the night of February 13, 2022, comes in one of several highly redacted documents recently filed in federal court. Civil liberties groups are legally challenging the government’s use of the act, saying it went too far.
The Toronto Star first reported on the documents.
According to the minutes of the cabinet meeting, which is not a verbatim transcript, Jody Thomas, the former deputy minister of national defense and one of Trudeau’s top advisers, told Trudeau and his assembled ministers that “the gains of the “law enforcement have been important and that there was potential. for a breakthrough in Ottawa, Ontario.”
Emergency law invoked for the first time in Canadian history
Demonstrators were rallying against pandemic restrictions and blocked access to the neighborhood and major arteries around Parliament Hill by clogging the streets with trucks and other vehicles.
The next day, on February 14, Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act for the first time in Canadian history.
Doing so gave authorities broad temporary powers, including the ability to freeze protesters’ bank accounts and credit cards. Attending any event deemed an unlawful assembly, such as the Ottawa convoy protest, also became illegal.
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The act also allowed officers from outside Ontario to take part in the operation to end the protest.
The act went into effect immediately, but debate over its merits in the House of Commons and Senate continued even as police quelled the last remnants of the demonstration on 19 February. Trudeau revoked the act five days later.
The sections of the document available in court documents do not include any details about the potential breakthrough cited by Thomas on February 13.
But according to a statement from the office of Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, the adviser was referring to negotiations led by the City of Ottawa.
The office of Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino says the failed negotiation with protesters was a factor in the decision to invoke the Emergency Law. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)
On February 13, the city announced it had reached an agreement with one of the leaders of the demonstration that would see hundreds of protest trucks leaving residential areas.
The city’s talks were ultimately unsuccessful, Mendicino’s office said.
“The government considered this as a factor in the decision to invoke the Emergency Law,” according to the statement.
“The situation remained volatile and the threat of further lockdowns remained. In Ottawa, there was a significant escalation in the boldness of the protesters and highlighted that the city’s 911 system was overloaded due to hoax calls “.
Weeks after the occupation ended, Thomas defended the decision to use the act, saying the protesters were “buried” and “there’s no question [they] came to overthrow the government.”
Considered the “lead federal negotiator.”
The documents also shed light on other behind-the-scenes discussions between the cabinet and other members of the government’s Incident Response Group (IRG) during the Freedom Convoy.
At a meeting earlier in the day on February 13, the group learned that the blockades risked “ongoing economic losses of between 0.1% and 0.2% of gross domestic product” for each week they continued .
That same day, police broke up a blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario, a key supply link between Canada and the U.S.
During the February 10 meeting, it was noted that “there is a broader challenge with law enforcement, some of whom may be sympathetic to the cause of the protesters, resulting in reluctance to enforce.”
Minutes of the meeting also show Ottawa was considering appointing a “lead federal negotiator” during the crisis. In public, Trudeau had spoken out against the idea of meeting personally with members of the convoy.
Also on February 10, Public Safety Canada reported that only a small minority, five percent of participants, had a “strong devotion” to the protest in Ottawa, while 80% had “a weak connection to the cause” and the rest 15 percent were “a change factor.”
“The negotiator suggested that the protest leaders could be encouraged to leave and denounce the blockade in exchange for a commitment to register their message with the government,” according to the minutes of the IRG meeting that day.
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As members of the Official Opposition continue to call for his resignation, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino defended his decision to invoke the Emergency Act, saying it was necessary to protect Canadians.
The NDP denounces the concern for transparency
The New Democrats said the revelations of the documents reveal “a clear failure by the Liberals to be transparent with Canadians and parliamentarians.”
In a joint statement, NDP public safety critic Alistair MacGregor MP and ethics critic Matthew Green MP said the parliamentary committee looking into the use of the Emergency Act must have access complete in the documents.
“We are concerned that this government will provide documents to the federal court that it refused to hand over [committee],” they said.
The Conservative Party of Canada also criticized the federal government in light of the revelations.
“Minister Mendicino has already misled Canadians to justify the Liberal government granting itself unprecedented emergency powers,” House Opposition Leader John Brassard said in a statement.
“This is further evidence that the Liberal government’s use of the Emergency Act was to solve the Prime Minister’s political problem rather than find a peaceful and respectful solution to the Ottawa protests.”