Blocking convoy’s access to Ottawa’s downtown wasn’t ‘realistic,’ commission told | 24CA News

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and its former chief had no selection however to permit hundreds of vans to flood town’s downtown in the course of the preliminary phases of final winter’s convoy protest within the capital, and feared stopping them risked making a foul state of affairs worse.

That’s based on closing submissions printed Tuesday by the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is probing the federal authorities’s determination on Feb. 14 to invoke the Emergencies Act to finish the occupation of Ottawa and related blockades elsewhere.

Twenty events with standing on the fee have submitted their last arguments. They embody submissions ready by legal professionals for the OPS, former chief Peter Sloly and the City of Ottawa.

During the general public inquiry, a number of witnesses characterised the preliminary determination by OPS and Sloly to ask protesters to park their vans on Wellington Street as a significant blunder that paved the best way for the three-week standoff that adopted.

Policing consultants interviewed by CBC, together with Sloly’s predecessor Charles Bordeleau, have echoed that opinion.

According to Sloly’s submission, nevertheless, there was by no means a possibility to halt the convoys that converged on the capital on the final weekend of January, a few of which had travelled from so far as British Columbia and the Maritimes.

“The view now expressed with hindsight — that the OPS should have prevented all convoy trucks and vehicles from entering the downtown core of the city — was not realistic in light of the available intelligence, the protestors’ Charter rights and the logistics involved in barricading a city,” based on Sloly’s submission.

A ‘risky tinderbox’

While a few of the intelligence gathered by the OPS and its associate police businesses prompt just a few of the protesters may attempt to linger previous the primary weekend, the “dangerous and volatile tinderbox” that developed was “unforeseen and unprecedented,” based on the submission.

“There was no intelligence available to the OPS that predicted the demonstrations, occupations, fortifications, and unlawful actions on the scope and scale that occurred during and after the first weekend.”

In truth, based on testimony from Deputy Chief Steve Bell, who briefly took over command of the OPS after Sloly resigned on Feb. 15, blocking entry to town centre would have required the identical variety of officers that was ultimately required to finish the occupation — about 1,800, excess of the OPS had at its disposal.

Furthermore, denying the protesters vehicular entry to Wellington Street risked creating new and doubtlessly extra critical issues, based on Sloly’s submission.

“Failing to provide protestors with meaningful protest sites would inevitably have resulted in similar or greater public safety risks in the downtown core — risks such as vehicles blocking Provincial highways and bridges, or hospitals and healthcare facilities; or a dispersal of trucks throughout the city’s neighbourhoods.”

Plan allowed 3,000 vans

The preliminary OPS plan allowed for as much as 3,000 vans to enter town’s core that first weekend, however based on its closing submission, “no one anticipated that the volume of vehicles would reach the level that it did.”

Based on their very own intelligence, in addition to that gathered by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and different businesses, Ottawa police additionally believed the protesters can be “law abiding and cooperative with police,” so there was no sound cause to disclaim them entry to the Parliamentary precinct.

Other protest teams had been allowed direct entry to Wellington Street, although none with something close to the quantity of enormous autos that arrived on the finish of January.

Despite the intelligence experiences suggesting the convoy individuals had been peaceable, nevertheless, some senior OPS officers nervous about how they’d react to being denied entry to town’s downtown.

“Stopping the truckers and blocking them from entering the city had the potential to incite the protesters and create a volatile situation, especially given the distance that some truckers had travelled in order to exercise their right to protest,” based on the OPS submission.

In a Jan. 27 textual content message alternate with a subordinate, OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique additionally expressed concern over “the congestion that would be experienced in the City of Ottawa if trucks were prevented from entering the downtown core.”

By the next day, “the sheer number of vehicles made it impossible to stop them from coming downtown. The amount of resources required to block all access would have been massive,” based on the OPS submission.

City relied on OPS

In its closing submission, the City of Ottawa famous some senior metropolis managers grew to become conscious of the convoys in mid-January, and on Jan. 21 obtained assurances from an OPS-led intelligence sharing group that a lot of the protesters would arrive, keep for the weekend and depart peacefully.

“Practically speaking, the City had no choice but to rely on OPS’ risk assessment,” based on town’s submission.

Meanwhile, sure metropolis councillors had been selecting up alerts on social media that the protesters deliberate to occupy the capital, and the pinnacle of a neighborhood lodge affiliation warned he’d been requested about the potential of reserving hundreds of rooms for so long as 90 days — data that was handed on to each town and OPS, based on testimony on the fee.

“Leading up to the first weekend … OPS believed that the Freedom Convoy would be a traffic event,” based on town’s submission.

“Contrary to the approach that the Toronto Police Service … and others would later take, OPS did not proactively lock down Wellington and the downtown core before the first trucks arrived.”

Witnesses advised the fee that police in Toronto and different cities adopted that more durable technique primarily based on what they’d seen occur in Ottawa.

In truth, the choice to dam vehicular entry to Queen’s Park and the encircling space “would not have been an acceptable tactic but for the events in Ottawa,” based on a abstract of an alternate between Toronto’s police chief and an OPS deputy chief.

Double commonplace?

In its closing submission, the Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses famous a number of police witnesses testified that “in hindsight, it was a critical mistake to allow heavy trucks and vehicles to enter the downtown core.”

The coalition additionally famous inconsistencies in a few of the earlier testimony, together with “conflicting evidence around why Convoy vehicles were allowed downtown,” in addition to confusion over who made the ultimate determination to permit them.

“To the extent that OPS believed — and publicly communicated — that they could not block truck access to downtown because of the Charter, the Ottawa Coalition submits that this appeared to convey a double standard for how different protests are treated by police,” based on the coalition’s submission.

“Many Ottawa residents and businesses perceived that police were giving significant latitude to Convoy demonstrators to engage in disruptive activities, where such latitude would not normally be afforded to other types of protesters.”

Justice Paul Rouleau is scheduled to ship the fee’s findings and proposals by Feb. 20, 2023.