Just hours before the federal authorities invoked the never-before-used Emergencies Act to cope with the convoy protest in Ottawa, the head of the RCMP told a senior public security official that she felt police had not but exhausted “all available instruments,” the general public inquiry inspecting the federal government’s response to the protests heard Monday.
In the early hours of Feb. 14, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki wrote to Mike Jones, chief of workers to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, in regards to the measures the nationwide police power would discover helpful if the act was invoked.
“That stated, I’m of the view that we’ve not but exhausted all available instruments which might be already available by way of the prevailing laws,” she wrote simply before 1 a.m.
“There are cases the place fees might be laid beneath current authorities for numerous Criminal Code offences occurring proper now within the context of the protest.”
Her e-mail stated the lately introduced Ontario state of emergency additionally supplied police with useful deterrent measures.
“These current instruments are thought-about in our current plans and can be used sooner or later as obligatory,” Lucki wrote.
Later that day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced that the federal government was invoking the act.
The e-mail was raised as Brendan Miller, a lawyer for the convoy organizers, questioned interim Ottawa police chief Steve Bell.
“I do imagine there might have been different alternatives,” stated Bell.
The Public Order Emergency Commission is holding an inquiry into the federal authorities’s use of the Emergencies Act to quell the protests that gridlocked elements of downtown Ottawa for weeks.
‘We had a plan’: Bell
On Feb. 12, the Ottawa Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police arrange an Integrated Command Centre to coordinate enforcement.
“We had a plan, we had been going to execute a plan” stated Bell.
By that time, protesters had gridlocked elements of downtown Ottawa for 3 weeks
Bell additionally has told the inquiry the Emergencies Act was “considerably helpful” as his officers leveraged the emergency powers to clear the streets over the weekend of Feb. 20.
Lucki’s e-mail to Jones features a listing of measures the power would discover helpful if the act had been to be invoked, together with banning journey to prohibited areas and and blocking protesters from carrying fuel and diesel to the protest zone.
Lucki has repeatedly acknowledged her help for invoking the act.
“We used it as an enormous deterrent for individuals to return into the world,” Lucki told MPs on a parliamentary committee in February.
“We did use the measures that had been put within the Emergencies Act, together with different authorities that we had.”