Deachman: Reading the Emergencies Act report was such a relief

© Provided by Ottawa Citizen Truckers occupation and protesting entered its 23rd day in downtown Ottawa, Feb. 19, 2022. Protesters and police clashed and people were arrested on Wellington Street.

The first reaction I had was relief.

It was by no means a guarantee as I opened Justice Paul Rouleau’s voluminous report on the convoy occupation and subsequent enactment of the Emergencies Act by the federal government.

It was possible, after all, that Rouleau could have found that the federal government, police and other officials were the ones who went too far. Absent a mandate to find criminal or civil wrongdoing, he might still have cited misconduct on their part. Rouleau could equally have said that the convoy was, as many of its participants claimed, a peaceful and loving protest minding its own business.

But he didn’t. Although Rouleau certainly noted numerous instances in which officials’ actions were problematic, and that the “regrettable” use of the Emergencies Act likely could have been avoided, it was the convoy and its organizers that he blamed for what he described as “a breakdown of order and social norms.”

“I do not accept the organizers’ descriptions of the protests in Ottawa as lawful, calm, peaceful or something resembling a celebration,” he wrote. And later: “The bigger picture reveals that the situation in Ottawa was unsafe and chaotic.”

Many convoy participants took advantage of the listless police response in order to “disrupt and intimidate” residents, he continued. “There was a disregard for both the law and the well-being of the people of Ottawa.”

So the report largely vindicates residents, like myself, who were angry at protestors. For over a year, many locals felt the acceptable limits of a civic protest were not just stretched, but broken, and those who reported real harms were the ones subjected to the protest and its participants. And now the nearly 2,100-page document gives us licence to say “We were right.”

Admittedly, much of what Rouleau says of the effects on Ottawa residents were things we were already pretty sure we knew: the effects of the noxious diesel fumes, the harassment of mask-wearers, the disruption of businesses and municipal services, and the noise, noise, noise, noise. We understandably blamed those in the convoy who were up in everyone’s grills about freedoms and rights without, it seemed, much of a thought or concern for the rights of others. The Ottawa People’s Commission’s recently released first report went some way to confirm that we weren’t alone in our thinking, but Rouleau’s inquiry and report on the Public Order Emergency, which was mandated by the invocation of the Emergencies Act, seals the deal.

Smugness, though, is not a good look on anyone. It’s worth remembering that, as Rouleau noted in a brief statement following the tabling of his report in Parliament on Friday, “the majority of protestors were exercising their fundamental democratic right.”

I had similar thoughts when I spoke with some of the occupation’s participants a year ago. Many seemed to be regular folks simply beaten down by the pandemic and its (justified, in my opinion) public health restrictions.

Indeed, the report notes that many who took part in the convoy wanted to engage in a legitimate protest, and hoped to maintain a peaceful one, recognizing that their movement would be discredited if there was violence or threats of it.

“Those efforts, however, were not successful,” Rouleau wrote.

Rouleau was also critical of the alligator tears (my expression, not his) that some convoy organizers shed in their testimony, where, for example, they said they were unaware of the harassment and intimidation by protestors, or that, as organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber testified, they were themselves opposed to the constant honking of horns. “But they took no meaningful steps to stop it,” wrote Rouleau, and in fact opposed an injunction to stop the honking.

The convoy protest consumed a lot of energy from Ottawans. At this point, my hope is Rouleau’s report means the entirety of this ordeal can finally be viewed solely in the rearview mirror.

MORE ON THE EMERGENCIES ACT REPORT

Justice Rouleau calls for more time, transparency in future Emergencies Act inquiries

Emergencies Act report finds Ontario abandoned Ottawa in ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests

‘Measures were deficient’: From Freeland to Ford, Emergencies Act report criticizes players

Rouleau report addresses six questions raised during Emergencies Act hearings