(OTTAWA) The acting deputy chief of the Ottawa Police Service admits the size of the “freedom convoy” was misjudged before the first trucks arrived, despite reports that they would remain. Patricia Ferguson’s testimony before the Emergencies Commission Thursday sheds new light on the planning, tensions between police forces and the Farfadaas’ role in the demonstration.
Posted 10:56am Updated 12:26pm
Mylene Crete La Presse
“Have we made a mistake in our assessment? Yes, obviously,” she admitted when questioned by prosecutor Frank Au.
He asked her how city police could believe the truck convoy en route to Ottawa would leave the city after a weekend, despite multiple reports from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and an email from the hotels association suggesting otherwise.
Ms Ferguson, who at the time headed the community police force, claimed there was a lot of misinformation surrounding the “freedom convoy”. She added that OPP intelligence pointed out that both protesters are staying late, but could also leave after a weekend. And hotel reservations did not show that they would reach the maximum of their already reduced capacity due to the pandemic.
During his testimony the previous day, OPP Intelligence Officer Pat Morris pointed to the meteoric “Freedom Convoy” fundraiser as a good sign that the trucks were embedding themselves in Ottawa because they could afford to stay.
Three days before the arrival of the first trucks, the organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” were able to collect 4.5 million through a crowdfunding campaign, and donations continued to flow until the 10 million mark was reached two weeks later. .
Assuming the protesters would stay for a few days and leave, Ottawa Police used the plan they normally put into practice for major events in the federal capital, such as parades. When asked by the Commission’s lawyer what she would have done differently during the planning phase, Ms Ferguson replied that she would have given the OPP information more credibility.
After the “Freedom Convoy” was deployed downtown, she described clashes within the upper echelons of the Ottawa Police Department and tensions with the OPP, which was trying to help. The city’s chief of police, Peter Sloly, went so far as to say he would “smash up” anyone “undermining the operational plan.” He was suspicious of the outstretched hand of the OPP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which he perceived as a provincial and federal political “conspiracy,” according to records from the acting deputy chief.
The Farfadaas alarmed the police
The presence of the opposition group against the Farfadaas sanitation measures worried the police forces as they prepared their intervention plan to put an end to the “freedom convoy”. The group had set up their headquarters in a parking lot in downtown Gatineau, a few miles from Parliament Hill. According to several testimonies heard so far, he was also present at the corner of Rideau and Sussex streets in downtown Ottawa.
Ms Ferguson claimed they helped close Rideau Mall during the first weekend of the protest. She also said they were intimidating other protesters by telling them to stand up to the police.
For this reason, the police operation to clear the trucks was carried out in this area of the city center. The idea was to first neutralize the radical actors who took part in the demonstration. Bandleader Steeve Charland, known as “L’Artiss,” was arrested by the OPP on February 26, a week after police broke up the truck convoy. He was then in Vankleek Hill, a town about an hour’s drive east of Ottawa, in a parking lot where several members of the convoy of truckers who had been driven from near Parliament over the past week were said to have gathered.
Mr. Charland is charged with mischief and advising others to mischief. He was released on March 21.