My impression, worth testing against the available evidence, is that government officials across all levels had been hypnotized by the same assumptions that led to the PM's early talking points about the protest representing an irrelevant fringe minority. At risk of tautology, an irrelevant fringe minority is not something that is capable of sustaining a multi-week occupation. That would have made it, at the very least, a relevant fringe minority. You can't get more relevant to the government's concerns than forcing them to consider the Emergencies Act.
My impression, worth testing against the available evidence, is that government officials across all levels had been hypnotized by the same assumptions that led to the PM's early talking points about the protest representing an irrelevant fringe minority. At risk of tautology, an irrelevant fringe minority is not something that is capable of sustaining a multi-week occupation. That would have made it, at the very least, a relevant fringe minority. You can't get more relevant to the government's concerns than forcing them to consider the Emergencies Act.