POEC Act 4

Everything else was prelude

The Public Order Emergency Commission is set to enter its final two weeks of public hearings, starting November 14. This will be Act 4 in a hectic drama, with many characters and a revolving set that moved from Ottawa to Windsor, Ontario to Coutts Alberta, and back.

Act 1 was Ottawa and the view from residents, local politicians, law enforcement agencies. We learned much about police planning, or non-planning, and much about the highs (Ontario Provincial Police) and lows (Ottawa Police Service) of intelligence reporting on the “Freedom Convoy.”

Act 2 was a long and dreary week of self-exculpatory testimony from so-called “Freedom Convoy”/”Operation Bear Hug” organizers, who presided over disorder and appeared to possess wardrobes of rose-tinted spectacles.

Act 3 took us to the Ambassador Bridge blockade and to the scene in the small town of Coutts, Alberta, population 250, which sits adjacent to a major border crossing between Alberta and the United States. Coutts also suffered a blockade, which ended in arrests of a group that possessed weapons, body armour, right wing insignia, and an alleged intent to commit murder against police officers. Its mayor was a study in rural stoicism who denounced the protesters as “domestic terrorists.” In another life I would be tempted to make a Netflix series about him—could be better than “Yellowstone.”

Now we have finally arrived at Act 4, and there will be little time left for the parade of key witnesses that are lined up.

Testimony the week of November 14 will come from a variety of senior government officials. What advice they provided to the Prime Minister and Cabinet about the unfolding threat posed by the Freedom Convoy will be the key reveal. Watch out for testimony, especially, from the National Security and Intelligence Adviser to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, who is likely to be pugnacious, and from the lesser known Jacquie Bogden, the Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet responsible for Emergency Preparedness (a.k.a Bill Blair’s right hand person). Both arrived in their positions in January, 2022, one day apart. They had a little over two weeks to prepare before the trucker convoys blared their way into downtown Ottawa.

The CSIS contingent was meant to testify the week of November 14 but appear to have been shuffled down the batting order to the final week. Curious that.

The final week, November 21, will, be a hum-dinger. Every relevant Cabinet Minister is scheduled to appear, from the Prime Minister, to the Deputy PM and Finance Minister, to the core Ministerial team that constituted the Incident Response Group, the emergency committee of Cabinet, that made the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act over three meetings from February 10 to 13.

For a preliminary account of the Incident Response Group, based on heavily redacted records, see the relevant section my research report for the Commission:

https://publicorderemergencycommission.ca/files/documents/Policy-Papers/The-Role-of-Intelligence-in-Public-Order-Emergencies-Wark.pdf

It is highly unusual for Cabinet Ministers, much less the Prime Minister, to appear before a judicial inquiry. What the protocol will be around their testimony is unclear. Will the Prime Minister appear for two days of testimony, as did the former Ottawa Police, Peter Sloly? Highly unlikely. Will he and other Cabinet Ministers be subject to lengthy cross-examination by odds and sods counsel for all the parties with standing, including lawyers for the protest organizers? Highly unlikely.

But whatever the protocol, the finale to Act 4 will be a doozy. How much blood will be spilled, what bodies will fall, who will emerge from the wings as the hero, all remains to be seen.