Ottawa’s ousted police chief Peter Sloly hadn’t read all the intelligence reports on the Freedom Convoy before the trucks arrived in his city, but said he was sorry the federal government didn’t tell him. would not have provided others.
“To this day, I have one question left. Why I was not receiving information for a risk assessment, of the quality of what I had from the PPO [police provinciale de l’Ontario], of our federal partners? asked the ex-chief of police during his appearance before the Commission on the state of emergency on Friday.
According to him, it was very clear that from the beginning, “it was a national problem, a national event”. Most of the demonstrators would have arrived in Ottawa from Quebec. Peter Sloly says there is “a national deficit in our threat assessment intelligence processes”.
Mr. Sloly, like all of the Ottawa police, had not expected that the Freedom Convoy protesters would not leave the federal capital after their first weekend of protest, January 28, 29 and 30. last. And certainly not that the event would provoke the invocation of the Emergencies Act before being dislodged, three weeks later.
The long-awaited testimony of the main conductor of the police reaction on Thursday began by examining the question of the initial intelligence held by the police.
Ignored reports
Provincial police intelligence reports included passages that effectively warned of some protesters’ intentions to stay in the federal capital beyond the first weekend.
Former Chief Peter Sloly confirmed Thursday that he received the reports, titled “Project Hendon,” in his inbox as early as January 13. He says he transferred them to his deputy chief Patricia Ferguson. In her own testimony, she said she first heard of the reports on January 27, the day before the trucks arrived.
Mr. Sloly admitted that he does not read OPP reports every day. “If I had time, I would scan the document with my eyes,” he explained. He trusted his service, which had an “excellent record” of handling previous protests. Moreover, he denied that the reports clearly warned him of the expected duration of the Freedom Convoy.
“I saw the Hendon reports, and there were indications of the two [possibilités : que le Convoi resterait un week-end ou qu’il resterait plus longtemps]. To quote a line in a report, without taking into account all of its content, can be misleading,” he said before Judge Rouleau.
The chief had also never seen the intelligence report prepared by his own organization, dated January 25, before it appeared on the screens of the Rouleau commission on Thursday. This document sounded the alarm on the expected presence of a very large number of demonstrators, which could even compromise the cellular service. However, he cited loose sources, such as opinion pieces from the media National Post.
Global movement
Peter Sloly explained his remarks, made during the crisis, according to which there might not be “a police solution” to the convoy. According to him, the three levels of government had a role to play in resolving the crisis, given that it is a national, even global, protest movement.
The ex-chief shed a few tears when the Rouleau commission lawyer, Frank Au, asked him how the police officers under his command were doing after the first weekend of the Freedom Convoy demonstration. He praised their work, and criticized the media for not adequately reporting their efforts. He listed the significant challenges faced by his officers, such as the extreme cold and the belligerent attitude of the demonstrators.
Mr. Sloly began his testimony by explaining that he had wanted to make changes to the Ottawa police to make the organization more “inclusive”, but had encountered a lot of resistance. The pandemic would have contributed to his difficult integration at the head of this police service. Peter Sloly was continuing his testimony on Thursday as these lines were written.
More details will follow.