State of Emergency Commission | “It was anarchy”

(OTTAWA) Two residents of downtown Ottawa described how the “freedom convoy” disrupted their lives on Friday during the second day of the Emergency Commission hearing. They described the lawlessness in their neighborhood and the lack of response from police and bylaw enforcement officers.

Mylene Crete
The Press

“I still jump when I hear a loud horn and when I smell gasoline. I have a physical reaction. It is very distressing, ”described Victoria De La Ronde.

This retired civil servant explained how the constant honking day and night, which could at times reach a hundred decibels, and the sound of the engine of the trucks kept her awake during the three weeks of the demonstration , in January and February. This caused her permanent partial hearing loss and balance problems, and she still experiences dizziness triggered by any sound of the horn.

She explained that she rarely went out during the three weeks of the truck convoy, because she feared for her safety. She walks with a white cane due to visual impairment. She no longer had access to public transportation, taxis or Uber service, and she could no longer get her groceries and medicine deliveries.

“Wearing a mask made you a target,” said Zexi Li, a young federal civil servant who became the figurehead of exasperated citizens by winning an injunction to stop the honking.

She described how exasperated residents of her apartment building began throwing eggs at protesters below. “The police came to ask questions,” she said. Officers had received a complaint and were investigating the incident as they let protesters blockade downtown, make campfires near gas cans in the middle of the street, use fireworks, urinate and defecate on public roads.

“We felt really abandoned at that time,” she said.

Nathalie Carrier, director of the Vanier Neighborhood Business Improvement Area, where another camp had been set up by protesters, emotionally described the comments made by then Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly , during a meeting with traders.

She said she had not witnessed any violent events in a business frequented by the demonstrators, but had seen a lot of disturbances. Zexi Li also claimed not to have witnessed any violent events, except for a truck that tried to run over her when she tried to document the events with her phone.

Rideau-Vanier ward councilor Mathieu Fleury went so far as to describe the trucks as “weapons” used to intimidate the population by making noise, with their carbon dioxide fumes and blocking access to businesses. .

He recounted how the Rideau Centre, the city’s largest mall with 300 businesses and nearly 3,000 employees, had to be closed on the first Saturday of the truck convoy due to the influx of protesters inside. This closure cost 2 million per day, according to Nathalie Carrier.

Somerset Ward Councilor Catherine McKenney^⁠1 reported citizens being assaulted on residential streets inside the protest as police concentrated their forces near Parliament Hill.

“So sorry. I wish we had the power to do more than watch,” said Councilor Carol Ann Meehan, who sat on the Ottawa Police Services Board, responsible for overseeing her work.

Councilors Fleur and McKenney recounted on Friday afternoon how the police left citizens to their fate during the “freedom convoy”. Complaints from citizens and businesses in their neighborhoods have gone unheeded despite their attempts to relay them to the police. They received messages from citizens who were beaten up, had their masks ripped off by protesters, or even others who missed cancer treatment because transportation for the disabled was inaccessible.

When he asked why the municipal by-laws were no longer enforced, Councilor Fleury was told by the officials that everything “was under the command of the police” and that they needed his green light to go in the demonstration area.

The Commission on the state of emergency must determine whether the government was right to resort to the Emergency Measures Act for the first time in its history to end the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa and the blockades of border crossings elsewhere in the country. This is one of the safeguards provided for in this legislation.

1. Catherine McKenney identifies as transgender and non-binary. She uses pronouns they and them in English that are neither masculine nor feminine. In French, the equivalents could be iel and iels.