Vehicles block a road during a protest by truck drivers against pandemic health rules and the Trudeau government, outside Parliament in Ottawa on February 15. ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images
The night before the federal government was to invoke the Federal Emergency Act for the first time in Canadian history, the prime minister’s national security and intelligence adviser, Jody Thomas, told Justin Trudeau and the rest of the federal cabinet that there was potential for a breakthrough with the protesters in Ottawa.
The startling revelation is contained in a package of cabinet-level documents previously classified as classified, detailing discussions that took place in February as the cabinet weighed how to deal with a wave of highly disruptive protests across the country that were mainly focused on opposition to the COVID vaccine mandates.
The documents are heavily redacted and there is no detailed explanation in the unredacted sections related to the reference to a potential breach.
The Liberal government will release cabinet documents to investigate the Emergency Act
The records were released as part of two lawsuits challenging the use of the Emergency Law. The Canadian Constitution Foundation, a not-for-profit legal organization, filed an application in late February for a judicial review of the government’s decision to invoke the act.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) also filed for judicial review of the act’s invocation.
On Monday, February 14, the day the law was implemented, Mr. Trudeau told a news conference that “It is now clear that there are serious challenges to the ability of law enforcement to effectively enforce the law.”
Cabinet papers include minutes of a late Sunday evening meeting of the full federal cabinet, which was held from 8:30 to 10 p.m.
The February 13 meeting was chaired by Mr. Trudeau. RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey, Canadian Security and Intelligence Service director David Vigneault and other senior government officials and political aides also attended.
The minutes described a “situation update” provided to the Cabinet by Ms Thomas.
The national security adviser noted that there are multiple border crossings that continue to experience blockades, “despite the success of law enforcement in Windsor in paying off the blockade from the Ambassador Bridge.”
Ms Thomas told the group that social media continued to play an active role in the communication and organization of protesters across the country. She also said CSIS “continues to monitor persons of interest.”
The minutes then refer to the situation in Ottawa, where protesters and their parked vehicles – including multiple large transport trucks – effectively shut down the city center for weeks by blocking streets in the area near Parliament Hill.
“Regarding recent actions, the National Security and Intelligence Adviser indicated that law enforcement achievements have been significant and that there is potential for a breach in Ottawa, Ontario and that the RCMP is taking enforcement action in Coates, Alberta,” the document states.
Virtually all other minutes describing the meeting have been redacted.
The Globe and Mail asked the Prime Minister’s Office for comment on the release of the documents and the mention of a potential breach. The government responded with a statement from Alexander Cohen, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.
“The potential for a breakthrough relates to negotiations led mainly by the City of Ottawa with illegal roadblocks in the days before the Emergency Act was invoked. The government was closely monitoring the status of the talks, which were disavowed by many associated with the so-called freedom convoy and ultimately failed,” he said.
Ms. Thomas’ mention of a potential breakthrough was made on the evening of February 13. Earlier in the day, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told reporters that the city had engaged in “backdoor negotiations” with the demonstrators.
The Liberal government invoked the Emergency Act after more than two weeks of protests in Ottawa. Nine days later, on February 23, it was lifted, with Mr. Trudeau saying the situation was “no longer” an emergency. Police had carried out a massive sweep of downtown Ottawa to clear the self-proclaimed free convoy days before.
It is extremely unusual for cabinet meeting minutes to be published in any form. Cabinet records are exempt from disclosure under the Access to Information Act and are usually made public as historical records only decades later.
Conservative and NDP MPs said Thursday that the revelation of new details in court, combined with major redactions, showed the government was not transparent in defending its use of the law.
“The revelation that there was a potential breakdown in negotiations the day before the Trudeau government used the Emergency Act raises serious questions about the Liberals’ claim that the Emergency Act was used as a last resort,” said Conservative House Leader John Brassard , adding that it provided “further evidence” that the government’s focus was on solving a political problem.
NDP MPs Alastair McGregor and Matthew Green issued a joint statement saying that while the NDP supports the use of the Emergency Act, the revelations of a potential breach show “a clear failure by the Liberals to be transparent with Canadians and parliamentarians.”
The NDP also questioned why the documents were released to the Federal Court but not to the parliamentarians hearing the matter.
The emergency law allowed police to arrest protesters in designated no-go areas and gave banks the power to freeze protesters’ accounts without a court order. The move to invoke the act was supported by the federal NDP but opposed by the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois. Related protests at several US-Canada border crossings also led to costly trade disruptions.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation said in a statement to The Globe that “the evidence provided by the government on whether it meets the legal requirements of the Emergency Act is grossly inadequate.”
The documents include minutes from a Feb. 12 meeting of the Incident Response Group, which is also chaired by Mr. Trudeau but which is limited to a few ministers, as opposed to the full cabinet. Minutes of the group’s meetings show that they were also attended by a large number of security chiefs, senior government officials and political aides.
Mr. Trudeau said the protests were attracting worldwide attention.
“The Prime Minister confirmed that he has spoken with a number of international partners and they all express concerns about Canada and our ability to cope,” the minutes said.
During this meeting, the edited minutes summarizing a discussion describing two different movements involved in the blockades.
“The former is relatively harmless and happy with a strong connection to religious communities. The second is more disturbing and consists of more hardened extremists who seek to undermine state institutions and law enforcement,” the February 12 minutes said.
Those minutes also show that the public safety minister briefed his colleagues on an “engagement strategy” with blockade leaders, particularly those in Ottawa. The minister indicated that “a document has been shared that outlines an early framework that includes the objective of de-escalating the situation and encouraging protesters to leave.”
The minutes then noted that there was a discussion of “how an engagement was attempted by the Ontario Government at Windsor last night, by letter, and how the protestors rejected the offer of engagement, which led to the enforcement action commenced this morning.”
The redacted document package also includes minutes from a Feb. 10 meeting of the federal incident response group.
These minutes include summaries of the various protests taking place across the country, mostly near border crossings.
“The RCMP Commissioner has indicated that Windsor remains the number one priority,” the Feb. 10 minutes state.
The documents later said: “The Prime Minister organized the call to discuss two possible avenues: 1) actions that can be taken under existing authorities and 2) the process of invoking the Emergency Act.”
The following sentence has been edited. The minutes then read: “Public Safety reported on a conversation with the lead negotiator (OPP) who noted that in Ottawa approximately 80% of protesters had a weak connection to the cause, 5% had a strong commitment to it and 15% were a factor in hesitation. The negotiator suggested that protest leaders could potentially be encouraged to leave and denounce the blockade in exchange for a commitment to register their message with the government.
Virtually all of the remaining text for the minutes of this meeting has been redacted.
After the act was repealed, a parliamentary committee was formed to review its use under an accountability provision in the Emergency Act. Between March and June, the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency held a series of meetings where it heard testimony from senior RCMP and law enforcement officials, as well as Mr. Mendicino.
Ms. Luckey, the RCMP commissioner, told the commission that the service did not request a direct invocation of the act, but said it helped reduce the size of the protest — and clean it up. Steve Bell, Ottawa’s interim police chief, and Peter Slowley, who stepped down as chief amid the protests, also said they did not request the act.
In the wake of these revelations, Mr. Mendicino has come under scrutiny for his previous comments about invoking the act. At a committee hearing on April 26, Mr. Mendicino said, “We invoked the act because that was the advice of nonpartisan professional law enforcement agencies.”
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