(OTTAWA) The former Ottawa police chief, who resigned amid heavy criticism over the force’s handling of the truck convoy protest in February, said institutions and police departments across the Canada were unprepared for the scale of the protest.
Updated yesterday at 7:58 p.m.
Peter Sloly says the protest represents a ‘paradigm shift’ in the types of security events Ottawa faces and calls for the street in front of Parliament Hill to be closed to vehicles to prevent another massive threat to national security .
Sloly spoke out for the first time since stepping down on February 15, after streets in downtown Ottawa were filled with hundreds of large trucks and thousands of demonstrators protesting the restrictions related to COVID-19 and the Liberal government.
“Institutionally and nationally, we were not prepared for it. Locally, we weren’t prepared for it,” Mr. Sloly told a parliamentary committee, referring to an unprecedented level for protesters of planning, logistics, counterintelligence, organization, financial resources and commitment.
Photo LARS HAGBERG, archives REUTERS
According to Peter Sloly, the easiest way to prevent another national security threat from approaching Parliament Hill would be to close Wellington Street to traffic and install barriers and bollards
Police intelligence was unaware of the scale of the upcoming protest, and Mr Sloly said the information they had at the time did not suggest the need to cordon off any particular area .
He said there was no way police would have the perfect response to the perfect storm that hit Ottawa and various Canadian border crossings earlier this year.
He also suggests putting Wellington Street under the jurisdiction of Parliamentary Protective Services instead of the Ottawa Police, but he warned it would be a costly solution and would not solve communication problems between the various services. police who operate on and around Parliament Hill.
Chaos in residential neighborhoods
Earlier this week, Downtown Ottawa Councilor Catherine McKenney described to the committee the state of anarchy that has taken hold in residential neighborhoods.
“Where were our police? Well, they were protecting Parliament Hill,” Ms.me McKenney to the committee.
“The City of Ottawa simply does not have the capacity to protect federal properties during major national events and to patrol our neighborhoods,” she added.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino did not say whether the federal government was prepared to meet the additional cost of policing Wellington Street, but said something had to change.
“There is no doubt in my mind that we need to, I think, find new ways to better collaborate and coordinate jurisdictional policing with different levels of law enforcement – whether provincial police services or the RCMP — and I look forward to having that discussion,” he told reporters Thursday.
“I think there is a need, in general, to control the movement of people and things within the parliamentary precincts given the security required for such an important area for Canadians,” Sloly said.
Mr. Sloly did not discuss the circumstances of his departure from the Ottawa Police Service and did not stop to speak to reporters as he left the committee. He said he spoke to the committee as part of his “ongoing commitment to this city.”
Monitor pedestrian traffic near parliament
Senator Vernon White, who served as Ottawa’s police chief from 2007 to 2012, told the committee he has been advocating the closure of Wellington and Elgin streets near the National War Memorial since a terrorist took stormed the Hill in 2014.
“Just 72 hours after that shooting, people wanted things to go back to how they were, making parliament accessible to everyone,” he said.
As well as blocking traffic from Wellington, Mr White said it was important to watch for pedestrian traffic near Parliament Hill. With so many access points, it is possible to access the Parliament Buildings undetected, he argued.
Wellington Street has remained closed since the massive police operation over the weekend of February 18, when police cleared encampments of protesters and removed large trucks from the area. The traffic lights have since been temporarily removed from the street until the City of Ottawa completes its review of whether the street should reopen later this year.