(Ottawa) A Sûreté du Québec officer testified Monday at the trial of organizers of last year’s “freedom convoy” demonstration in Ottawa that participants were reluctant to leave Wellington Street along the Parliament Hill during the major police dispersal operation on February 18.
Captain Étienne Martel of the SQ testified Monday through an interpreter at the trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who face charges related to their role in the winter 2022 protest.
The two co-accused were among the main organizers of the protest which blocked streets and intersections in downtown Ottawa for three weeks. The demonstrators wanted to challenge health restrictions linked to COVID-19 and the compulsory vaccination of truckers – but also, more broadly, the liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Chris Barber
Captain Martel commanded a squad of around fifty SQ police officers who came to lend a hand to the Ottawa Police to try to disperse the crowd during the last days of the three-week demonstration.
His squad was on the front line on February 18, as the police slowly advanced on Wellington Street, towards Parliament Hill, in close ranks facing demonstrators outnumbering the police.
Although Mr. Barber and Mr.me Lich were both arrested already before the start of this police operation on February 18, the Crown hopes to prove that the co-defendants had encouraged the crowd to resist the police, who had ordered the demonstrators to leave the area around the hill. Parliament.
Both the Crown and defense presented several videos to the court last week of the police operation which spanned two days. On some videos, we saw the SQ squad on the front line, while a crowd of demonstrators refused to move and shouted “Hold the line” and “liberty”.
The famous “Hold the line”
In another video, a voice which appears to come from a police radio shouts to the police officers the same slogan, “Hold the line”.
Mr. Barber’s lawyer, Diane Magas, had Captain Martel confirm that it was he who gave this order to his police officers, twice, during the operation.
“You told the police to hold the line, not to advance,” M asked in Englishe Store to the witness.
“Exactly,” he replied through an interpreter.
Me Magas has already indicated that she intends to argue at trial that the phrase “hold the line” can mean different things to different people. Thus, the defense wants to convince the court that when Mme Lich and Mr. Barber told their supporters, the co-defendants were not necessarily encouraging illegal behavior — ignoring police officers’ commands to leave the scene.
When the Crown asked him to clarify what he meant, Captain Martel replied in court: “in the context of this event, it meant not moving.”
Slow progress
Mr. Martel explained in his testimony that attempts to dislodge the demonstrators were slow, as they refused to leave. The demonstrators sometimes shouted and pushed the police back, Captain Martel explained, but they did not throw projectiles.
Mr. Martel maintained Monday that over a period of several hours, the police only managed to cover barely 150 meters until late in the evening of the first day of the operation.
Me Magas pointed out that it would have been difficult for him to see what the crowd was doing on the other side of the police lines, from where he was standing, several meters behind his squad. She also released a five-minute video showing the approximate point of view of the squad commander during the operation, showing him far from the action.
The lawyer also asked him if he remembered video scenes showing demonstrators singing the national anthem or holding up signs in favor of peace.
The SQ captain responded that there was so much going on on the ground that he didn’t take these specific details into account.