A lawyer who advised the main leaders of the Freedom Convoy told the prosecutors of the Rouleau Commission that demonstrators received information directly from police sources.
“Several of these ex-agents [qui manifestaient dans le convoi] were well connected and receiving information. [Keith] Wilson is unaware of the sources, but Freedom Convoy was receiving leaked information from law enforcement,” reads the summary of Mr. Wilson’s pre-interview, published Wednesday at the Rouleau Commission.
Keith Wilson is an Alberta lawyer who represented lead Convoy organizer Tamara Lich and her closest entourage of regional Freedom Convoy “captains” during major protests that disrupted Ottawa last winter. He testified Wednesday before Judge Paul Rouleau.
In his first meeting with commission lawyers, he described the circle of protest organizers as highly organized, including ex-police officers, ex-soldiers and ex-Canadian Service agents. intelligence and security (CSIS). Equipped with radios, maps, and aerial photos of the City of Ottawa, the latter would have helped in particular to manage the problematic demonstrators, to carry out logistical tasks, in addition to gathering intelligence.
Documents filed in this commission show that several police officers described the Freedom Convoy in glowing terms at different times during this crisis. The Ottawa police, for example, relied on an intelligence report that blithely quoted English-Canadian polemicist Rex Murphy, and another officer allegedly said in a meeting that the convoy leaders were “pro-police” on the eve of their arrival. .
Internal emails from the Ontario Provincial Police also circulated the idea that it was possible to announce the end of sanitary measures against COVID-19 to offer a “victory” to the Freedom Convoy in exchange for its collaboration.
Details of the breakdown of negotiations
Keith Wilson notably gave more details on Wednesday about the failed attempts to negotiate with a group of demonstrators who blocked the strategic corner of Rideau and Sussex streets. This grouping was presented as French-speaking and more radical during various testimonies by convoy leaders and police officers.
Ottawa police liaison officers reportedly initially agreed to lift police barriers to regroup them with the main protest outside parliament, only to change their minds on the eve of the drafting of a disputed police plan aimed at to dislodge them by force.
Once the plan was deemed “too risky” discarded, due to an internal revolt in the Ottawa police, negotiations resumed with this small group. This time, a misunderstanding in the crowd of demonstrators would have turned them against the initiative to move the trucks, which had been negotiated. They gathered behind the trucks to block them in place.
Controversial influencer and Freedom Convoy organizer Patrick King is also due to testify at the Emergency Commission on Wednesday afternoon.
More details will follow.