The Privy Council Office document — entered into evidence at the Public Order Emergency Committee on Friday — was sent on the afternoon of February 14 as the protest in Ottawa against the COVID-19 restrictions entered its third full week. The government announced its decision to invoke the act shortly after 4:30 p.m. ET on the same day. “The PCO notes that the unrest and public unrest is being felt across the country and beyond Canadian borders, which may further fuel the movement and lead to irreparable damage — including social coercion, national unity and of Canada’s international reputation,” it reads. “In the PCO’s view, this fits the statutory parameters that define threats to Canada’s security, although this conclusion may be vulnerable to challenge.” Eight months later, the memo’s author, Privy Council official Janice Charette, defended her advice. “My view was that it met the tests. Others may not share my view,” he told the Commission’s inquiry on Friday. The question of whether the federal government met the legal threshold to invoke the Emergency Act is one of the most important on the committee’s plate. It dominated inquest testimony this week and is expected to spill over into next week’s hearings. Under the law, the cabinet must have reasonable grounds to believe there is a public order emergency – which the law defines as a threat to the security of Canada that is serious enough to constitute a national emergency. WATCHES | The Privy Council clerk discusses her advice to the Prime Minister on the Emergency Act
The Privy Council clerk discusses her advice to the Prime Minister on the Emergency Act
Janice Charette told the Emergency Act inquiry that there is a broader definition of threat of violence than CSIS identified and it was that broader definition that led her to recommend the Prime Minister invoke the Emergency Act. The act cites the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) definition of such an emergency — which includes serious violence against people or property, espionage, foreign interference or intent to overthrow the government by force. The committee saw evidence showing that the CSIS director did not believe the self-proclaimed Freedom Escort was a threat to national security as defined in the CSIS Enabling Act. Charette said she weighed CSIS’s assessment, but said it was the combination of the economic and public safety impacts of the protests that, in her view, constituted a public order emergency.
Top Mountie could have common concerns: employee
Deputy Clerk Nathalie Drouin – who, before joining the PCO, was a deputy minister at the Department of Justice – told the committee she believed the situation met the threshold. “The threat had outstripped the ability to end the blockades in a sustainable and sustained manner; emergency resources were required to clear Windsor, which led to the blockade at Bluewater, raising concerns about the number of resources available,” said a document summarizing the Drouin interview. with the committee in September. “These were factors in the assessment that there was a national emergency.” Anti-vaccine protesters and their trucks have demonstrated in downtown Ottawa for more than three weeks. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press) The document also showed that the PCO was becoming increasingly frustrated with the police response. Drouin “recalled losing hope that the local police forces in Ottawa and Windsor were capable of executing their operational plans as time passed and no specific police actions took place,” the summary of the interview said. The Commission saw an email RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki sent to Public Safety Marco Medicino the night before the government invoked the Emergency Act last February. Lucki wrote that she did not believe police had exhausted all the tools available to end the ongoing occupation of downtown Ottawa by protesters demanding an end to COVID-19 restrictions. Charette testified Friday that if the RCMP chief thought the Emergency Act should not have been invoked, he could have told her. “I think it’s part of my responsibility to make sure the RCMP commissioner knows that if there’s anything she thinks I need to know, she has an open door to me, and also that if she thought the prime minister needed information I would facilitate that,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any instance where the RCMP commissioner has contacted me to provide information that I didn’t have the opportunity to have that engagement with her.” WATCHES | The PCO official had not seen concrete steps to end the convoy protest until the third weekend
Privy Council official says Prime Minister and Cabinet had not seen concrete steps to end convoy protest until third weekend
In her testimony before the emergency law inquiry, Privy Council official Janice Charette says that as of the evening of February 13, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet had seen “nothing happen in the plan” for the resolution of the convoy demonstration in Ottawa. . Charette said the federal cabinet knew the tools and authorities were not fully developed given municipal bylaws and Criminal Code violations, but had no idea how practical the police’s operational plan was. “We heard often about a plan. What we hadn’t seen at the end of the third weekend was anything happening in the plan,” he said. Charette added that having a credible police operational plan was not the only factor the government weighed in deciding whether to invoke the act. “It was a factor … a moment in a complicated situation,” Charette said.
PCO considered closing cell towers, gas stations
The committee heard on Friday about the options the Privy Council Office considered before advising the government to invoke the Emergency Act. Saret said she asked deputy ministers to come up with ideas to stop the protests. “We have to leave no stone unturned. We have to make sure that we look at every authority, duty, every authority that we have, every resource that we have to make sure that we bring the full authority of the federal government,” Charette said. . According to Drouin’s summary of the interview, the PCO considered options such as shutting down cell towers, shutting down gas stations and even deploying federal officers with commercial licenses to remove the trucks that have taken root in Ottawa.” Privy Council clerk Janice Charette, left, and deputy secretary Nathalie Drouin testify at the Public Order Emergency Committee, in Ottawa, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) “I’d be like, ‘All hands on deck, I have no idea too crazy, let’s see everything,’” Charette testified Friday. Charette said not all options were exhausted, given that municipal ordinances and criminal laws were being violated daily. “Yes, there were tools and principles that were not fully developed. The question was whether they would be sufficient to deal with the totality of the situation,” he said.
