The “Freedom Convoy” protest was “overwhelming” for the Ottawa Police Service as it descended on the nation’s capital earlier this year, the force’s former chief during the demonstration said on Friday.
Peter Sloly, who resigned as Ottawa’s police chief amid intense criticism over the response to the convoy and the decision to allow them to encamp on residential streets, described the first weekend of the demonstrations as “fast and furious.”
The former Ottawa Police Chief was testifying as the latest witness to appear before the Public Order Emergencies Commission, which is tasked with studying the government’s justification for invoking the Emergencies Act.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the controversial decision to invoke the Emergencies Act just one day before Sloly resigned in mid-February, more than two weeks into what officials have widely acknowledged as an “occupation.”
According to Sloly, the demonstration became “unlawful” the day most of the convoy arrived in late January.
“My view is it was unlawful the moment a law was broken in relation to the events,” he said.
“And so for me, that was clearly the Saturday morning.”
The former police chief described one night during the demonstrations when he received an emailed situation report at 3:00 a.m. ET. The report described the sour turn negotiations had taken with protesters at a downtown Ottawa park — where Indigenous elders had been brought in to support the conversation.
“The Confederation (park) negotiations ended badly. The Indigenous elders that had come in were treated badly. There was an attack on one of our sergeants at one of the sites. Other city workers are being attacked,” Sloly said.
“This, for me, was an alarming situation report, in the middle of the night, that no one else was likely reading.”
Growing emotional as he answered commission counsel’s questions, Sloly described the demonstration as “too much” for the service.
The Ottawa police “were doing their very best under inhuman circumstances, like the city was, like the community was.”
“It was too cold and it was too much. But they did their very best and I’m grateful to them,” he said.
Sloly pointed to gaps in intelligence as the main issue ahead of the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa.
Despite receiving regular briefings on the anticipated demonstration from the Ontario Provincial Police, the former Ottawa police chief said there was a “structural deficit” in Canada’s national intelligence threat assessments and risk assessment process.
“I’m grateful for the Ontario Provincial Police for filling that gap and doing so to the very best of their ability,” he said.
“But it was not optimal for us.”
Evidence released to the Public Order Emergencies Commission last week, however, suggested that the provincial force had accurate intelligence about the potential scale of the convoy protests well before trucks started rolling into downtown Ottawa.
“Online indicators of attendance at a given event are usually inflated … The noted convoys may be an exception,” read a Jan. 20 HENDON report, which, according to OPP testimony, was shared with the Ottawa police.
The assessment was made more than a week before the trucks arrived in Ottawa.
The commission has spent the past week hearing from other senior police members, including the head of the Ontario Provincial Police, who says it was clear police in Ottawa were struggling with a plan to clear protesters.
Throughout his testimony, Sloly described serious communications issues among the senior ranks of the Ottawa Police Service.
The former police chief said he lost trust in his deputies when they replaced a major incident commander without consulting him. He also said he had been falsely accused of prioritizing “quick wins” using enforcement methods over negotiations with the protesters.
Acting deputy Ottawa police chief Patricia Ferguson, who led the city’s law enforcement operation during the demonstration, said in her own testimony before the inquiry last week that Sloly did not seem to support giving Police Liaison Teams (PLT) and their negotiation tactics “a really good try.”
Without naming Ferguson, who he would have worked closely with during the convoy protests, Sloly called out anyone who suggested he didn’t support PLT tactics.
“What unfortunately has happened (is) that has been tied by someone — or some people — for some reason unknown to me, to mean that PLT could not or should not be used or could not and should not be used properly — or worse — that somehow I had to approve every single PLT action, otherwise it could not occur,” Sloly said.
“And that is a complete fabrication and a lie.”
— With files from Global News’ Alex Boutilier, The Canadian Press
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