An Ottawa Police officer who took over as event commander during last winter’s convoy protests said it’s hard for him to know whether invoking the Emergencies Act was justified because he never got a chance to execute his own plan to clear protesters from Ottawa’s downtown.
Supt. Robert Bernier continued his testimony Wednesday morning before the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry, which is investigating the circumstances that led up to the federal government triggering the never-before-used legislation on Feb. 14 to end the protest that had gridlocked Ottawa for weeks.
Bernier called the Emergencies Act measures helpful but said he was already planning to carry out a police operation before the law was invoked.
Commission lawyer Frank Au asked Bernier whether he thought the federal act was necessary to remove protesters.
“Hard for me to say. I did not get to do the operation without it,” Bernier said Wednesday.
“I don’t know what complications I would have had had it not been in place and utilized the common law.”
Bernier, who took over as event commander on Feb. 10, said his team, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the RCMP began crafting a plan to end the demonstrations.
The event commander is responsible for strategic level operational planning.
On Feb. 13, Bernier signed off on a plan to restore public order and tow vehicles that were blocking streets.
By that point, the Ontario government had declared a state of emergency. Bernier testified that his plan did not rely on powers granted by the provincial government.
Bernier was frustrated with Sloly
Bernier said he attempted to distance himself at this time from Ottawa’s police chief, Peter Sloly, so that he would have space to come up with an operational plan and make decisions. He said Sloly was acting behind the scenes to direct operations, including attempts to close interprovincial bridges.
Bernier said Sloly wanted Ottawa police lawyer Christine Huneault to review his plan before he approved it.
The superintendent suggested Sloly felt challenged by the new plan since it threw another plan Sloly had helped to craft out the window.
In documents tabled at the inquiry, Sloly denied asking Huneault to approve the operational plan and holding the process up.
“[Sloly] never intended that there be any delay with the implementation of the operational plan,” said a summary of interviews the former chief gave the commission over the summer.
According to a summary of an interview he gave to the commission this summer, Bernier was “frustrated by Chief Sloly’s direction, which he viewed as an inappropriate interference with his role as event commander.”
On Feb. 14, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act. Sloly resigned the next day.
Bernier said he did not know at the time that the Act was going to be invoked or that Sloly would step down.
One of the problems the Emergencies Act was meant to address had to do with securing tow trucks. At least one Ottawa tow truck operator reported receiving hundreds of calls — including death threats — from protest supporters.
Bernier said that by Feb. 13, the OPP had assembled 34 tow trucks with willing drivers and had granted anonymity.
Police had promised to place police crests on the trucks and to cover other company markings to keep the drivers and their employers anonymous, he said.
Bernier told the commission that the federal emergency declaration did not significantly affect his planning process.
Bernier said Ottawa police have used existing laws before and since the convoy protests to good effect, without resorting to the Emergencies Act.
He did tell the commission this summer that the powers granted under the Emergencies Act helped police adopt “a much stronger posture at exclusion zone checkpoints,” according to his witness interview.
“He noted that the federal emergency declaration likely helped police complete the operation with less pressure from [protesters],” said his interview summary.
Bernier and representatives of the other police forces moved ahead with what they called the February 17 Plan. It outlined four operational phases: securing resources, slow, methodical action to end the occupation, keeping the city core free of illegal activity and returning the city to normalcy.
Bernier told the commission that, by that point, he had received all the officers that he needed to implement the plan, including multiple tactical units and SWAT teams.
“Had I not had [the Emergencies Act] in that fashion what would it have looked like? Hard for me to say,” he said.