A top officer with the Ottawa Police Service says the force should have paid more attention to information suggesting Freedom Convoy protesters planned to stay beyond two days, and the city’s police it was “failed” after the first weekend.
“There was a failure to appreciate,” Ottawa Police Service (OPS) acting deputy chief Patricia Ferguson told the Public Order Emergency Commission on Thursday.
The commission is looking into whether the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergency Act to relocate the protesters was justified.
One of the questions the public inquiry has been looking into is whether Ottawa police ignored signs that protesters were planning to barricade themselves.
On Wednesday, the inquiry heard that the Ontario Provincial Police’s intelligence office had warned that a mass protest against the government could be headed for Ottawa in early January.
Sup. Pat Morris, who heads the OPP’s Provincial Office of Operations Intelligence, stated that on January 20, more than a week before the Freedom Convoy protests began, the OPP believed that the protest would be “a long-term event.”
Evidence presented to the commission also showed that police and city officials had received a tip from the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association that someone from Canada’s United Truckers Convoy had contacted them to reserve rooms in hotel for at least 30 days.
LOOK | Ottawa police should have “given more credence” to information about convoy protest plans
Ottawa police’s acting deputy chief says Ottawa police should have ‘given more credence’ to information about convoy protest plans
Patricia Ferguson says Ottawa police should have taken the information they had about how long protesters planned to stay in the city more seriously.
An email entered into evidence Thursday showed that even some members of the Ottawa police felt the convoy heading to Ottawa was different from other protests.
“The objective of the convoy is to remain in Ottawa until the restrictions are lifted,” said an email, dated Jan. 21, from the force’s event planning unit.
That email also said the protesters were raising large amounts of money through their GoFundMe page.
But Ferguson said Ottawa police acted under the assumption that the crowds would die down after the first weekend.
Patricia Ferguson of the Ottawa Police Service arrives to appear as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
“We weighed the information and intelligence that we had and this was the plan that was developed based on our best assessment,” he said.
No new plans after the first weekend
Commission lawyer Frank Au asked Ferguson what he would have done differently before the first weekend “in hindsight”.
“I suppose we would have given more credence to the information and intelligence that told us that there was a faction [they] they were planning to stay for a much longer period of time,” Ferguson replied.
Under cross-examination, Chris Diana, an OPP lawyer, asked Ferguson about the so-called “Hendon Project” reports that had gone to Ottawa police and then-OPP chief Peter Sloly.
Morris said Project Hendon was the name given by the OPP to its ongoing investigation of protests that presented reasonable grounds to suspect illegal activity or threats to public safety.
Police continue to push back protesters in Ottawa on Saturday, February 19, 2022, towing trucks and arresting dozens of protesters to regain control of the streets in front of the country’s Parliament buildings. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Ferguson said that although he received a report in late January, he did not become aware of the Hendon project until early February.
“In my position as a strategic advisor in that role, I wasn’t reading those reports, per se,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson, who was in charge of community policing at the time of the protests, said PAHO’s original contingency plan only extended until noon on Monday, January 31.
It was then clear to the force that the protesters would not move of their own volition.
“We had been talking about the demobilization plan up to this point, and clearly that was not the plan that was going to be required,” Ferguson said Thursday.
We’ve wasted time, says Ferguson
They still didn’t have a new plan as of Feb. 4, a week after protesters and their vehicles first entered the city, because the force was “putting out fires” and dealing with staff, Ferguson said.
“We had a period after that first weekend where I say we were getting our bearings, I think we were faltering a little bit in terms of our roster, in terms of our ability to take stock of what was happening and then move on. come up with a plan to get out of it,” Ferguson said.
“We lost a while there.”
LOOK | Ottawa’s acting deputy police chief was questioned about the response to the truck convoy
Ottawa’s acting deputy police chief was questioned about the response to the truck convoy
Patricia Ferguson says Ottawa police should have alerted the public and businesses that truck convoy demonstrations could last beyond a weekend.
Ferguson said a plan wasn’t released until Feb. 9, more than a week after the protesters arrived.
By that time, the atmosphere at the police headquarters had become tense.
According to Ferguson’s handwritten notes, Sloly said during a meeting that if anyone undermined the plan, he would “smash it.”
“I was horrified,” she testified.
OPS saw ‘increase in violence’
Ferguson said that before the first weekend of the protest, PAHO staff were hampered by illness and it was already difficult to fill shifts.
“I would describe us as knee-jerk,” Ferguson said. “Staff was, I would say, our number one Achilles heel in all of this.”
Sup. Pat Morris of the OPP waits to appear as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on October 19, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
On Wednesday, the OPP’s Morris stated that, prior to the start of the Ottawa protests, there were no credible reports of threats associated with the convoy.
“Everyone was asking about extremism. We weren’t seeing a lot of evidence of that,” he told the inquiry.
But once the protest reached Ottawa, Ferguson said, the city’s police witnessed an increase in violence.
“We saw some increase in violence and acts of violence as a result of the protest in the city,” she said under questioning by Brendan Miller, the lawyer for the convoy organizers.
An Ottawa police operational report from Feb. 9 said a tow truck company reported receiving hundreds of calls, including death threats.
“City employees in particular have been subjected to intimidation and stone-throwing when left alone in vehicles,” the report said.