Sloly’s side of the story: Former Ottawa police chief says he couldn’t predict convoy crisis
Sloly #Sloly
Former Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly says he was given no intelligence reports that would lead him to believe the “Freedom Convoy” protest in Ottawa last winter would turn into a three-week occupation of downtown.
Sloly testified Friday at the federal inquiry examining whether emergency powers were needed to end the “Freedom Convoy” protests in Ottawa as well border crossings in Windsor, Ont. and Coutts, Alta.
A witness statement from Sloly filed with the Public Order Emergency Commission also provides the former police chief’s view of how his force handled the convoy crisis.
Sloly resigned on Feb. 15. Days later, more than 2,000 police officers from across Canada arrived to help clear Ottawa’s streets of trucks and protesters.
In his testimony Friday morning, Sloly at one point had to take a break to compose himself as he described how difficult the crisis was for police officers on the ground for weeks in severe cold. “They were doing their very best under inhuman circumstances.”
The misinformation and disinformation about the protest was “off the charts,” he said, and the actions of police were misunderstood and mischaracterized as the protest hit the global news. “None of it was portraying in any way accurately the hard work of the men and women of the Ottawa Police Service and the partner agencies that stood with us. To this day it hasn’t.”
Sloly said that crushed the force’s morale and eroded public trust in the police.
One of the key questions emerging as witnesses appear before the commission is why trucks were ever allowed downtown, paralyzing the city core. Businesses closed and some residents said they felt terrified by the protesters.
Sloly’s reading of intelligence from various sources indicated the convoys heading to Ottawa on Jan. 29 would be similar to other large protests, he said in his testimony and the witness statement.
The Ottawa Police Service plan for the protest centred on traffic control. Parking lots were set aside, including at the baseball stadium, for trucks to park.
Sloly said he expected the protest would last a weekend, although a small contingent of protesters might remain.
“He was not aware of any intelligence report nor does he recall receiving any intelligence briefing that said that, on balance, the convoys would occupy and blockade Ottawa, that the occupation would last for months, would involve thousands of trucks and protestors, and would be able to defeat OPS’s capabilities,” said his witness statement.
Sloly said he relied on reports from Deputy Chief Steve Bell, who was in charge of intelligence.
“Deputy Chief Bell advised that the (Ottawa Police Service) could expect that smaller groups might linger and occupy parts of Ottawa’s downtown core, as had occurred during other major demonstrations in Ottawa. (Sloly) was advised that OPS would be able to successfully negotiate a safe end to any occupations by smaller groups of convoy participants by using the measured approach principle.”
But there were conflicting intelligence assessments, said Sloly’s statement. And his summary of various reports suggests the language used in them left room for interpretation.
On Jan. 26, an assessment from INTERSECT, a body set up to improve co-ordination between police and other agencies in the National Capital Region, said the freedom convoy would go on for “a prolonged period.”
Sloly’s interpretation: “He understood prolonged to mean multiple days,” said his statement.
That same day a bulletin from Project Hendon, an intelligence network led by the OPP, stated that while convoy organizers said they planned a peaceful protest, elements within them “could engage in actions that pose a public safety threat.”
That report said there was a “potential presence” of people with fringe ideologies who could have access to weapons and could increase the threat to public figures, property, the public and police officers. “However, Project Hendon had not identified any concrete, specific, or credible threat with regard to the Freedom Convoy protest.”
Sloly’s interpretation: Threats could materialize, but that could happen at most major events.
On Jan. 28, a Hendon bulletin said:
“The available information indicates that the protesters plan to remain in Ottawa at least until (Feb. 4, 2022).”
“We continue to identify indicators to support at least some protesters remaining beyond the weekend of (Jan. 29, 2022).”
Those two sentences appear to contradict each other. Were most of the protesters expected to remain in Ottawa or just some of them?
Sloly’s interpretation: The protest would primarily take place over one weekend, with a small group remaining after the weekend.
In his testimony, Sloly said the Hendon reports were valuable but had to be assessed in their totality, not any one line.
Most of the intelligence came from the OPP, he explained, but the lack of federal intelligence about the risk was a problem. The convoy was a national crisis. Convoy organizing began in B.C. and truck convoys arrived from Windsor and elsewhere. Many of the protesters in Ottawa, Sloly said, arrived from Quebec.
The presence of heavy equipment with trucks among the convoy was not necessarily out of the ordinary for a protest either, said Sloly’s statement.
“Chief Sloly had not received any intelligence from Deputy Chief Bell or other reports suggesting that convoy trucks would be weaponized and used as explosive devices.” That concern was only raised two weeks later, said Sloly in his statement, in a phone call with an official from the Parliamentary Protective Service and the RCMP.
Sloly said he knew the Ottawa-Gatineau hotel association had warned that convoy protesters had inquired about booking hundreds of hotel rooms for an extended period, but assumed that Deputy Chief Bell would have reviewed this information and converted it into intelligence reports.
The Canadian Charter of Rights allows for peaceful protests, even on public property. “OPS did not have the legal authority to deny the Freedom Convoy access to downtown Ottawa simply because some people disagreed with the views of some participants.” said Sloly’s statement. “OPS did have authority to close roads and restrict traffic if there were public safety
concerns, but closures and restrictions had to be commensurate to actual threats or reasonably predictable threats.”
A legal opinion given to OPS on Jan. 28 said there must be a balance between Charter rights and the impact of the demonstration on “public enjoyment,” the rights of people to move about, and the risk of obstructing emergency vehicles or harming public safety.
The legal opinion was helpful, Sloly said, but at this point trucks and protesters were already in the city.
Even if the police had tried to close downtown on Jan. 28 or cut off road and bridge access to the city, an assessment from Deputy Chief Bell explained the force would require 2,000 officers, said Sloly. “On the 28th of January we were not going to get 2,000 extra officers into this city.”
And when the convoy trucks arrived downtown on Jan. 29, Sloly testified, the police traffic plan collapsed. Trucks from the Windsor convoy quickly occupied the spaces around Wellington Street and there was a “chaotic scramble” by other vehicles to claim prized spaces near Parliament Hill.
The OPS had estimated on Jan. 27 that up to 3,000 trucks would arrive.
But on Jan. 29, the first day of the protest, Sloly said police estimated there were 5,000 vehicles downtown, mostly trucks, plus as many as 15,000 participants creating a “hyper volatile, hyper complex” protest.
jmiller@postmedia.com