‘Ottawa is looking for a way out’: City declared emergency to push province, feds to act in convoy protest
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OTTAWA – The City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency during the trucker convoy to spur the provincial and federal governments into action, according to evidence presented at the Emergencies Act commission.
The commission’s mandate is to consider why the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, which gave it sweeping powers to freeze financial assets, block protests and led to a massive police operation in downtown Ottawa last February.
Ottawa’s city manager Steve Kanellakos testified on Monday that the city initially held off on its own declaration of emergency, but after the second weekend of the protest felt it had to.
Kanellakos said the main goal was to get other levels of government to act.
Meeting minutes from a call with provincial and federal officials on Feb. 6, just before Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the state of emergency, made it clear it was about getting the province in particular to act.
“The expressed intent of this declaration is to put pressure on the premier to exercise powers to resolve this,” reads the minutes that were presented at the commission.
The memo goes onto say that city council would be looking to have Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau intervene directly.
“City of Ottawa is looking for a way out.”
Kanellakos said the city wanted the province to use regulations and legislative tools they had to get the truckers out of the core.
“We were hoping that they would exercise powers through the Ministry of Transportation and other legislation they had.”
Kanellakos said it wasn’t that the province wasn’t involved, but they didn’t seem interested in doing more.
“The province, clearly through the Solicitor General, felt that this was a law enforcement matter that could be dealt with through existing authorities that law enforcement have.”
Kanellakos said the province was willing to talk about more police resources, but didn’t want to talk about taking away truckers’ insurance or registration through provincial law to help end the protest against Covid vaccine mandates and public health restrictions.
He said the Ontario Provincial Police were consistent partners, but other provincial departments had no interest.
“The other ministries were not participating, and I think that was obviously a direction from their political masters.”
The province eventually declared a state of emergency on Feb. 11 after the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., was blockaded. The federal government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14.
The commission also presented minutes and transcripts from meetings that were supposed to include provincial, federal and municipal politicians.
The province didn’t attend the meetings. In the minutes, Watson said he was disappointed in the premier.
“I can say that I’m disappointed that the province has not come to the table. Premier is telling me ‘anything you want,’ but then there is silence.”
Watson, who will testify later this week, said in the transcript that the issue had much broader implications than for just his city.
“This is a national crisis that has strong overtones in the national capital.”
While several members of the OPP are expected to testify, no provincial politicians are scheduled to appear.
Speaking at an event in Ottawa on Monday morning, Premier Doug Ford told reporters he was not asked to testify at the commission on the use of the Emergencies Act, but said that he “stood shoulder to shoulder” with Trudeau in doing so.
Ford said that protesters were “disrupting” the lives of Ottawa citizens living in the downtown core and were holding up “a billion dollars in trade every single day” by blocking the Ambassador Bridge at the Canada-U.S. border. “We were getting phone calls from governors. It’s unacceptable,” he said.
The premier added that he believes in free speech, as does the prime minister, but the events last winter went too far.
“If you want to protest, protest. If you want to come down to Queen’s Park and do cartwheels… but when you disrupt the lives of the people of Ottawa every single day, disrupt economic flow across our borders, I have zero tolerance for,” he said.
Ford praised the work of the Ontario Provincial Police, which did “an incredible job” in ending the occupation.
With additional reporting by Catherine Levesque