The size alone of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests wasn’t what rendered them unmanageable for local authorities, according to Ottawa’s interim police chief — it was the “unlawful” activities and “trauma” that resulted for the community.
Speaking to the Public Order Emergency Commission during a hearing on Monday, Steve Bell said Ottawa’s police service is used to handling “prolonged” and “protracted” protests.
“We’ve had examples of occupations of parks, of occupations, of intersections that have gone on for a longer period of time. But those didn’t engage in the unlawful activity that we saw here,” he said, referring to the convoy protests.
“That is what I believe makes this circumstance different. The scope of people, the size of the area that they overtook and the activity and the trauma they put our community through. There was nothing to identify that that would occur within the intelligence reports.”
The inquiry, which is tasked with digging into whether the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act in February to clear out the convoy protests was justified, has heard testimony for the last two weeks about the toll the demonstration took on the city of Ottawa.
Residents in Ottawa were dealing with deafening honking of horns, defecation and urine in the street, and harassment when they’d leave their homes, according to locals who testified before the inquiry.
According to resident Zexi Li, who is the lead plaintiff in a class action against the protestors, downtown residents were forced to sleep in their cars in her underground parking garage to escape the incessant noise.
Thirteen families with children fighting cancer had their chemotherapy appointments either delayed or rescheduled as a direct result of the protests, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) confirmed last week.
“A large protest that was lawful could have been managed, would have been managed. It was what was anticipated,” Bell told the inquiry on Monday, adding that while police did ultimately see the expected large numbers, the “community impact” was never included in intelligence he received.
“There’s nothing around the information that identifies the activities of the protesters when they actually arrive in the city. There’s nothing that indicates that the protesters are going to use the citizens of our community as a leverage point to have their voices heard in Ottawa.”
The activities the protesters ultimately engaged in, Bell said, “were never cleared identified” ahead of the convoy’s arrival
“And from my perspective, that is exactly what made this unprecedented.”
Bell is a veteran of the force, and was deputy chief when the “Freedom Convoy” protests swept Ottawa in late January. He has been the city’s interim chief ever since Peter Sloly resigned in mid-February.
As law enforcement received warnings about the “size and scope” of the protest on Jan. 27, Bell said the activities the convoy had been engaging in as they drove across the country suggested the group “overall” had been “extremely lawful and extremely law abiding.”
“That isn’t what materialized and that isn’t what caused the consequence to our city,” Bell said.
“People protesting in an area lawfully is something we can manage and handle, people creating an occupation, that traumatizes our community was something that no community had ever seen.”
Police did not adequately consider community impact: interim chief
Law enforcement did not put enough emphasis on the impact the convoy protest would have on downtown Ottawa residents as they planned for its arrival, the interim police chief said.
This was one of the key lessons the Ottawa Police Service learned from the protests, he said.
“The anticipation of the community trauma and violence to our community that did occur wasn’t anticipated, because nobody saw that coming,” he said.
He said the service takes that into account “more than ever now.”
“The reason I highlight that is the one thing that I hear consistently, after the removal of the occupation — and very rightfully — is that we didn’t put enough emphasis, as a police service, on our community and the impact that it caused to them in the very early days,” Bell said.
Ottawa residents told Bell “they felt that we didn’t focus on the harm that was being done to them,” he told the inquiry.
“While we have always had that in planning, I think we need to be overt in it and say ‘community, this is your city, these are your streets, we will conduct ourselves in order to protect you within the community and protect you within those streets,'” he said.
“A truck isn’t a protected entity under the charter of rights and freedoms … People are.”
Bell previously said he did not ask the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act.
Sloly is also expected to testify this week before the commission, which is looking into whether Ottawa was justified in invoking the act.
Last week, Ottawa’s police services board announced they had selected a new chief of police who will start Nov. 17, despite the city council election taking place today.
— With files from The Canadian Press