Project Hendon Revealed. OPP Intelligence on the "Freedom Convoy" protests
October 24, 2022
Column 1
Dear Readers,
I had planned to start this column only once Federal government officials and Ministers began their testimony, sometime next month, before the Public Order Emergency Commission on the circumstances that led the government to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time in its history.
But some startling testimony has altered my plans.
Superintendent Patrick Morris, a veteran intelligence officer with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and current head of its intelligence bureau, opened up a fascinating vein of information on the OPP‘s reporting on the so-called “Freedom Convoy.” None of the OPP’s intelligence work had been in the public eye until Morris’ testimony on October 19. What Morris unveiled was the fascinating and hitherto unknown story of “Project Hendon.”
Hendon was an OPP-led, ambitious project to bring together law enforcement agencies from across Canada to study the rise of mass civil dissent and protests. The initial focus of Hendon, starting in January 2020, was on understanding public safety threats prompted by a series of protests with a nexus to Indigenous issues, including the Wet’suwet’en pipeline protests in B.C. and related solidarity protests and actions in Ontario. Hendon began producing strategic intelligence assessments and hosting teleconferences with its partners. From 2021, the Hendon focus shifted in response to the rise of anti-authoritarian, anti-government activity centred on dissent opposing public health measures in response to COVID-19. Hendon began to identify extremist elements, including conspiracy theories associated with QAnon ideas, circulating in this protest milieu. By the autumn of 2021, Hendon intelligence work was focused on the rise of something called the Patriot, or Freedom, movement. Out of this would come the seeds of the “Freedom Convoy” in early 2022.
The Hendon project would be engaged early, and throughout, the “Freedom Convoy” action in producing intelligence reports and holding daily teleconferences with key law enforcement and security officials. Between January 21 (one week before the “Freedom Convoy” descended in full force in downtown Ottawa) Hendon held its first teleconference on the protest. Its last related to the convoy took place on February 28, five days after the Emergencies Act was revoked by the Government. The very first, and tentative, Hendon strategic intelligence assessment, was produced on January 13. Between January 13 and February 28, the OPP’s intelligence bureau produced some 44 reports on the events surrounding the “Freedom Convoy”, its occupation of Ottawa and its border blockades. This reporting was focused on events in Ontario.
The very first thing that this series of intelligence reports punctures is the complacent notion that the “Freedom Convoy” simply took law enforcement, especially the Ottawa police, and other agencies, by surprise. There were certainly unprecedented aspects of the “Freedom Convoy,” and many unknowns, as Superintendent Morris noted for the Commission, but the idea that it arrived out of the blue, was sheer nonsense.
The second thing the Hendon reports skewer is the notion, embraced by Ottawa authorities, that the Freedom Convoy would arrive from across the country in Ottawa on the weekend of January 29/30 and then promptly pack up and go home. This was a true head-shaker and one that can only have been prompted by a naïve and comfortable desire to embrace a “best-case” intelligence scenario and leave other more alarming prospects out in the cold, along with any planning to go with them. Instead, the Ottawa authorities welcomed the occupiers and directed them, with their big-rigs, to the downtown core and adjacent to Parliament and many government buildings. That will go down in the history books as one of the dumbest moves ever, and downtown residents paid a terrible price. Hendon intelligence reports told a different story, even before the Freedom Convoy assembled in Ottawa.
The span of events that comprised the Freedom Convoy from its outset to the invocation of the Emergencies Act on February 14 caused Pat Morris to reflect on the tough question of whether there had been an intelligence failure in his bureau’s own work. He set out a memo on February 14, the day that the Emergencies Act was invoked, for the OPP Commissioner, Thomas Carrique and Deputy Commissioner, Chuck Cox.
The memo from Superintendent Pat Morris is a brief, but significant stock-taking of the intelligence reporting done by the OPP from the outset of the “Freedom Convoy.” Morris reflected on the question of intelligence failure and said his purpose was to “review what we knew, when we knew it, what we did with it and to whom it was provided.” He recognized that intelligence failure can come at any point in the intelligence cycle—including collection and dissemination, and well as in actions taken on the basis of intelligence. This was a professional officer musing on the challenges of intelligence reporting and clearly wanting to set the record straight for his superiors, from his perspective. He thought his analysts had performed well.
As Superintendent Morris later summarized in a memo from March 21, as the smoke was clearing, OPP intelligence reporting did not demonstrate a failure of intelligence. From his perspective, “this was a failure to utilize intelligence in operational preparation, decision-making and pro-active planning.” Pat Morris concluded his self-assessment of Intelligence Bureau reporting by stating “POIB clearly believes that it established relevant stakeholders early, created a responsible reporting cycle, acquired the appropriate information, produced accurate intelligence and shared those products with clients and consumers on a timely basis.” Whether this is fully borne out or not by the full Commission record remains to be seen. At the very least, this itemisation provides a good template for measuring intelligence success and failure.
The full story of OPP intelligence reporting cannot yet be told. But there is enough to advance some tentative analysis and conclusions, which may set the stage for further study.
Four things stand out about OPP intelligence work during the “Freedom Convoy.”
The first is that OPP intelligence was alert to the potential threats posed by the Convoy very early on. Its first two intelligence reports were dated January 13 and January 20. As Superintended Morris summarized things, “By the 20th we recognized that this event had the potential to raise significant public safety concerns—in Ottawa especially.” January 20, it is important to remember, was over a week before the Freedom Convoy trucks descended on downtown Ottawa.
The January 20 strategic intelligence overview, part of a reporting series from Project Hendon, was prescient about the objectives of the “Freedom Convoy,” which it defined as: “to impede the movement of traffic and goods in Canada and, possibly, to disrupt the business of government at the provincial and federal levels, in order to compel the Canadian government to lift all COVID-19 related mandates and restrictions.” The intelligence report raised the possibility of border blockades, mentioned divided approaches among convoy organizers advocating peaceful protest and more aggressive tactics, and the prospect of a lengthy occupation of Ottawa, although this was felt to be an “unrealistic” objective in the long term.
This was good warning intelligence, not a definitive reading of what was to come. What really gave the OPP pause at this stage was the extraordinary fund-raising success of the Freedom Convoy, which it believed might translate into what it called “real-life” support for and participation in the Freedom Convoy.
A second important indicator from the available documents concerns the high tempo and volume of OPP intelligence reporting. OPP produced 26 strategic intelligence reports between January 21 and February 14. That is over one per day. All of these reports were shared with the Ottawa Police Service and other provincial law enforcement partners. In addition, the OPP intelligence bureau initiated a series of teleconferences with its law enforcement partners in the province, which began on January 21. As Superintended Morris stated, the purpose of the January 21 initial teleconference was “to raise awareness and stimulate more collection.” The read-out of the message to subscribers (“ Hendon Partners”) on January 21 inviting them to join the call, stated:
“Please call in Friday, January 21, 2022, at 11:00 hours for information and roundtable discussion concerning an ideologically motivated social protest with impacts for public safety province-wide. The evolving nationwide movement may begin mobilizing 22 January 2022. Your participation in this call would be greatly appreciated toward ensuring all stakeholders are situationally aware and prepared.”
These one-hour teleconferences occurred daily from January 24 to February 14, and continued on after the invocation, and subsequent cancellation, of the Emergencies Act.
A third revealing fact concerns OPP sources and methods of intelligence collection. Its reporting has heavily reliant on open source intelligence based on social media scanning and that was a rich source; it produced target profiles of individuals and groups associated with the “Freedom Convoy;” and, starting on the very first weekend of the Ottawa occupation, the OPP deployed what it called “operational assets” on the ground, a reference to informants and human sources.
Reflecting on this activity, Superintendent Morris did not hesitate to address the sensitive issue of engaging in pro-active intelligence collection, especially in the context of what he regarded as the fact that most individuals involved in the Freedom Convoy were not engaged in criminal activity, so, as he put it, “the balance of civil liberties and public safety/crime prevention…is a sensitive one. Especially in these politicized times.” Such introspection is very welcome. It also needs to be addressed seriously in government national security policy and in public discourse
Fourth, the OPP intelligence bureau had no prior warning of the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act on February 14. Awareness of the possibility came only through media reporting. On the afternoon of February 14, just prior to the government’s announcement of the Emergencies Act, a Project Hendon situation report was pessimistic about the implications of any invocation of the Act stating that:
“Protesters are likely to frame a potential invocation of the Emergencies Act as a sign of government weakness, proof of government ‘tyranny,’ an escalation to violence and an acknowledgement that the blockades have been successful. Protestors at the ongoing blockade are likely to remain defiant, and solidarity protests are likely to continue elsewhere.”
The report concluded that the situation in Ontario remained volatile. The OPP assessment was that potential for conflict or an act of violence was likely increasing as the Ottawa blockade continued. It also warned that an act of [criminal] mischief against “strategic targets” could not be discounted.
The extent to which such warnings about the negative effects of an invocation of the Emergencies Act were made available to the Federal government, as part of its decision-making, is unknown. A retrospective memo by Pat Morris dated March 21 repeats this lack of knowledge about federal government decision-making. Some RCMP intelligence reports shared a similar view about the potential negative impacts of any kinetic action against the “Freedom Convoy.”
A second question concerns the nature of intelligence sources and analytical thinking and conceptions that may have underpinned this negative view. This begs a larger question, that has already begun to be aired in testimony before the Commission about the appropriate balance of kinetic law enforcement, always with Charter rights in mind, and the use of engagement and negotiations tactics (conducted by “Police Liaison teams” or PLTs) to de-escalate protest conflicts and try to resolve them peacefully. It seems safe to predict that this issue will form a major part of the Public Order Emergencies Commission’s report and recommendations.
One area that the Public Order Emergency Commission will be challenged to confront, because of its high political sensitivity, concerns overt support for the “Freedom Convoy” from politicians and members of the police and military. In the OPP Intelligence Bureau’s February 14 situation report there is a blunt assessment that:
“Individuals in positions of authority, such as elected officials, police and members of the military, voicing or demonstrating support for the ongoing blockade are highly likely to energize the protestors and lend credibility to both their cause and their tactics. This support could also erode public trust in government, the democratic process, and the institutions responsible for ensuring public safety and national security.”
To end this initial reflection, it is important to ask what don’t we know about OPP intelligence work at this stage? It is important to underline that we do not yet have full access to the complete set of OPP intelligence reports to allow for a fuller analysis of the evolution of its threat assessments. Documents available to the Commission are only posted on its website if directly referenced in testimony. Even then, the Commission clearly faces challenges in ensuring that all such records are actually posted. We may, unfortunately, never have full access to the Hendon reports and related material. The Commission records may ultimately end up at Library and Archives Canada, like its predecessors, with some records closed and many subject to a broken Access to Information process.
Still, here are the questions that occur to me, and hopefully may be answered in future testimony and in the Commission’s report in February next year:
a) How well resourced the OPP Intelligence bureau (POIB) was, given its central and unique role?
b) The technological capabilities of the POIB, including with regard to management and use of open source intelligence?
c) The analytical acuity of the POIB
d) The reputation of the POIB as an intelligence producer [it would appear that the then- OPS Chief, Peter Sloly, had some doubts]
e) The receptivity to POIB reports by other provincial law enforcement agencies
f) POIB reports were available to the federal government’s national security and intelligence agencies, including CSIS and the RCMP. What we don’t know is where and how they landed in those agencies and the extent to which they had an impact.
Finally, at the conclusion of Superintendent Morris’ testimony, Commissioner Rouleau asked an important question—which was whether there was anything similar at the Federal government to Project Hendon—that is an integrated effort to link different agencies and departments together to produce consolidated intelligence. Pat Morris’s response was that he wasn’t aware of any such federal initiative. When asked why it didn’t exist, the best that Superintendent Morris could come up with was that Project Hendon had the idea first and took the initiative. That’s not really an answer to a question that no doubt the Commission will pursue when the time comes to hear from federal government officials and Ministers.
Without an integrated intelligence picture, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Acting Chief Steve Bell is testifying to the Commission on October 24. He was the Deputy Chief in charge of intelligence for the Ottawa Police Service. No doubt his testimony will be revealing about the OPS approach to intelligence and threat reporting on the Freedom Convoy, as will the testimony of former Chief Sloly. It already seems clear that the OPS view was disconnected from that of the Project Hendon reporting--and that is very disturbing.
That will be the subject of my next column. Please stay tuned.