The Freedom Convoy Insider Threat
Only the Shadow knows
Its a sensational story, true cat nip. The Freedom Convoy, dysfunctional in its organization, riven by factions, with no one at the steering wheel, as testimony to the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) has repeatedly revealed, may have had a secret weapon despite all that. The secret weapon was support from inside law enforcement, the military, the security agencies. Support that allegedly involved providing the Convoy organizers with advance knowledge of police actions against them. In pro circles its called an “insider threat.”
There may be more to come on this, but let’s pause, take a deep breath, and survey the evidence from this past week of testimony (October 31 to November 4), which was dominated by a series of Convoy organizers taking the stage.
But before we get there, let’s have a look at an RCMP intelligence report, that was released through an Access to Information request prior to the start of the Commission hearings. It indicates that elements of the federal national security and intelligence community were alert during the events of the Freedom Convoy to a possible insider threat.
The RCMP had its own intelligence unit monitoring the Freedom Convoy and producing “threat advisories.” The unit was called the “Ideologically Motivated Criminal Intelligence Team” (IMCIT). I discuss its known reporting in my commissioned research paper for POEC, available on its website:
In a February 10 advisory, IMCIT noted that:
“In addition to the former law enforcement and military participants possibly providing logistical and security advice, the potential exists for serious insider threats. Those who have not lost their jobs, but are sympathetic to the movement and their former colleagues, may be in a position to share law enforcement or military information to the convoy protesters.”
So this was a speculative warning, but the author could see the danger of networked connections between former officers and those currently serving, based on shared pro-Convoy sympathies.
Let’s turn to the testimony and see what was offered up by Convoy organizers. Keep in mind this is compelled testimony, under oath. Any evidence provided cannot be used in any criminal or civil proceeding against any of the witnesses. Convoy organizers could, in theory, self-incriminate their heads off—but they didn't, at least not deliberately.
The ball was set rolling in testimony provided by the Freedom Convoy’s lead lawyer, a man named Keith Wilson. The transcript for his testimony can be found here:
During examination in chief by counsel for the Commission on Wednesday, November 2, Wilson was asked whether the Freedom Convoy had specific advance warning about a law enforcement action to remove people from the “red zone” (the area in the downtown core occupied by different groups of protesters). Wilson answered:
“I didn’t know for sure. What I did know is that there was [sic] numerous times where information would come into the Operations Centre [the convoy’s centre based in one of the Ottawa hotels] from various police sources that a raid was imminent.”
Note that “police sources” was not further defined or detailed and the line of questioning was not pursued by Commission counsel. This testimony aligned with the summary of the statement that Wilson provided to the Commission prior to his testimony in which he stated he “is unaware of the sources, but the Freedom Convoy was receiving leaked information from law enforcement.”
The issue was a pursued later the same day in cross-examination by Paul Champ, a lawyer representing the coalition of Ottawa businesses and residents, which was granted standing at the Commission. Mr. Champ asked Wilson whether the Freedom Convoy was “getting information from sympathetic police.” Wilson answered yes. Champ asked whether this information was coming to them throughout the protest. Wilson replied “That is correct” and then went off on a tangent about the beauty of what he called a “mission statement” for the Freedom Convoy and how the protesters united around a view that their country was “badly off track.” Wilson, as part of this meandering, elaborated that “we had former police officers, military, navy, CSIS, airline pilots, doctors, nurses, teachers, carpenters, chiropractors…” Note former.
Didn’t know for sure…former personnel. Clear as mud. Following his testimony, Wilson took part in a media scrum. According to Globe and Mail reporters present, Wilson described the leaks as “constant and extensive” and said they came from the Ottawa police, OPP, RCMP and CSIS, but not the military. According to the Globe’s account, Wilson claimed that these leaks allowed the convoy to know what the police were going to do day to day and included operational details: “who was going to do what, when and where.” https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-convoy-protesters-received-leaked-information-from-police-lawyer-tells/
This revelation was a considerable elaboration on his testimony. The question—what do we make of its truth quotient?
The same insider threat issue also came up in testimony at the end of the week from two individuals. The testimony transcript for November 4 is here:
One of the witnesses was Jeremy MacKenzie, a founder of the far-right Diagolon movement, who was giving testimony via video link from a jail cell in Saskatchewan. Mackenzie and some of his Diagolon “fans” attended the Freedom Convoy protest. The second witness was Daniel Bulford, a former Mountie, who took on the task of volunteer security coordinator for the Freedom Convoy and apparently spent all his time worrying about threats of violence against the Freedom Convoy, rather than any concerns about violence emanating from within the Convoy protest ranks.
Let’s start with Mackenzie. He told Commission counsel that he had been contacted by someone who claimed to be an RCMP member who enjoyed his podcast (a.k.a “raging dissident”) in the summer of 2021. According to Mackenzie this same person, name unknown, email address unknown, reached out to him during the Freedom Convoy occupation in Ottawa to tell him about the activation of public order units (or POUs), for possible enforcement use against the protesters. He added a story about this same unknown entity sending him screenshots depicting a group of Mounties joking about the violence they would inflict on protesters after the Emergencies Act was declared. Mackenzie did what passed for him as due diligence and asked his unknown contact whether the screenshots were real, and then posted them to the internet. He did not share the information with other Convoy organizers. This was allegedly his sole source-- but hold on.
Under cross-examination by Paul Champ, Mackenzie contradicted himself by stating that he had not had any communications during the Freedom Convoy events from individuals who were current law enforcement members and had previously interacted with him. He also stated that he had never been in communication with anyone from CSIS and seemed puzzled as to why they did not want to talk to him. Mackenzie also confirmed that his group of fans/supporters/whatever that joined him at his base camp in Ottawa did not include any current or former members of the military.
Do you hear the sound of a story fizzling?
Let’s turn to Daniel Bulford, the former Mountie and member of the RCMP’s Emergency Response team, whose job it was to provide protective security for VIPs, including the Prime Minister. Bulford resigned from the Mounties in response to the requirement to be vaccinated against COVID-19. When Bulford was asked by Commission counsel about the leaks, he stated:
“I never had any active duty officers leaking me any sensitive information. I did have a number of …former police officers, former military that were helping me with some of the different security tasks...”
Under cross-examination by various counsel, including for the Ottawa Police, the coalition of businesses and residents, and the former Ottawa Chief of Police, Bulford kept his story straight. He never received confidential information from Ottawa Police either directly or through his team, and was never aware of the leaked information allegedly received by the Freedom Convoy lawyer, Wilson, who operated out of a different hotel from the one he had set up shop in (just for the record, Wilson and his legal team stayed at the Arc hotel while Bulford was at the Swiss hotel).
So that is the sum total of what we heard.
For now, it behooves us to treat testimony about the Freedom Convoy having access to insider knowledge with a considerable degree of skepticism. This is not to dismiss the possibility, or downplay its seriousness. It is to say we just don’t know where the truth lies. The testimony does, after all, have all the makings of another Freedom Convoy information operation, designed to spin a story about the enormous popular support it garnered, including from within the ranks of law enforcement. Popular support that one of these poor souls, Daniel Bulford, believed would lead the various police detachments engaged in removing the protesters from the occupied zone after the Emergencies Act was declared to drop their batons, cross over to the Freedom Convoy side and get a big hug.
Can it be that only the shadow knows?
Sorry if this reference, to an uber-popular radio show that ran from 1930 to 1954 (and still lurks on the internet), doesn’t resonate. The radio program’s dramatic aural lead-in was: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The Shadow knows.”
Worth keeping in mind.