Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson’s office reportedly did not respond to a call from the Parliamentary Protective Service at the height of the “freedom convoy,” its acting director told a committee Thursday night.
Larry Brookson, the service’s acting director, told MPs and senators at a joint committee hearing that he tried to contact Mr Watson and Ottawa’s city manager during the protests that occupied the center -city of Ottawa for three weeks in February.
But he said he received responses from both of their offices saying they were unavailable to speak.
Mr. Brookson added that the mayor’s office had not contacted the protection service, which is responsible for security on Parliament Hill, about a failed agreement between the city and the convoy organizers to put end to the manifestation negotiated at its peak.
The city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Brookson told the committee that he supports the expansion of the Parliamentary Precinct to include Wellington Street, a change that is currently under consideration, and added that things would have happened differently if the road were under his skill.
Despite his concerns, he testified that the city and Ottawa police allowed protesters to drive and park on the street, which faces Parliament, but is not governed by parliamentary security.
“The streets would have been blocked” if he had been in charge, he said. “No vehicles would have been allowed to enter Wellington Street.”
While the police department provided updates on their operations which Mr. Brookson said were satisfactory, he indicated that because the security department is not a law enforcement agency and does not not part of joint operations between police forces, he sometimes lacked situational awareness of what was going on outside the hill — and he was not briefed on the “daily position” of the police .
He said he was disappointed not to have more of a say in decisions concerning Wellington Street.
“I think part of my disappointment is that I thought I had more influence than I actually had with the police partners. I’ll have to talk to them about it. I mean, it saddened me all along, he reported. To suggest that people have to come to work and suffer this kind of torment, no matter where it comes from, just doesn’t sit well with me.”
Brookson said “tabletop exercises” are now being conducted with police partners and “I’m very pleased and pleased with the changes that seem to be happening at the Ottawa Police Service.”
Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell, who is the House of Commons Security Officer, and his Senate counterpart Julie Lacroix also testified before the committee.
Parliamentary hearings are underway as part of a study into the federal government’s declaration of emergency under the Emergencies Act.
Parliament security actors testified that they had not been given any new powers under the state of emergency, and Mr Brookson added that he did not believe such powers would be necessary for protection service can govern a jurisdiction that includes Wellington Street.
Peter Sloly, who resigned as Ottawa Police Chief in mid-February, had previously testified before the committee that bringing Wellington Street under the jurisdiction of the Protective Service would make sense, but could be costly, because the service is less equipped to respond to the day-to-day problems of policing on the street.