It took just several hours on that cold Saturday in January for Peter Sloly to see his previous understanding of the “Freedom Convoy” crumble and realize he had an occupation of the capital city on his hands, the former Ottawa police chief told a public inquiry on Friday.
The scramble by police over the next few days to come up with a plan to get the crowds, and heavy trucks, that gridlocked downtown Ottawa to leave at one point prompted a senior officer to suggest they might want to call in the military, the inquiry also learned.
The Emergencies Act is meant to be used when an urgent, critical and temporary situation threatens the lives, health or safety of Canadians, the provinces are thought to lack the capacity or authority to respond and the crisis cannot be handled effectively with existing laws. Those reports showed officers flagging that those headed to Ottawa did not have a date in mind for leaving and pointed to how their plans to bring heavy equipment suggested they intended to dig-in and had the financial means to do so.
A couple of hours later, Sloly testified, he realized he was dealing with something completely different. He said police were overwhelmed as thousands of trucks, other vehicles and protesters poured into the city and converged near Parliament Hill.Tears welled up in the former chief's eyes and he paused when the commission lawyer asked him how his officers managed that first weekend.“It was too cold and it was too much.
Minutes taken during a Feb. 1 meeting between Sloly and other senior officers show that while they discussed different enforcement options, deputy chief Patricia Ferguson asked about “the possibility of military being called in or a state of emergency being declared.”On Friday, Sloly was also asked a public comment he made the day after the meeting, when he shared that he was “increasingly concerned there is no policing solution to this.” The remark caused much confusion at the time.