Speaking previously to inquiry lawyers, Sloly blamed the \u0027occupation\u0027 on serious \u0027structural deficits that have existed in public institutions ... for years\u0027
Ferguson also agreed with an OPP assessment that the Ottawa police response was not “intelligence-led.” Bell disagreed.
The summary also shows he was extremely critical of Canada’s intelligence agencies, which he felt had an “excessive focus on Islamist extremism at the expense of other threats in Canada’s national security” and thus did not properly assess the convoy, which was protesting COVID health restrictions. Sloly said he was “not aware” of any intelligence suggesting “the convoys would occupy and blockade Ottawa, that the occupation would last for months, would involve thousands of trucks and protesters, and would be able to defeat OPS’s capabilities,” according to the summary.
Sloly’s assessment of the convoy shifted dramatically on day one. Walking amidst the protesters on Jan. 29, Sloly “started to think that the Freedom Convoy could rise to a national-level threat,” though he had no proof of it, the summary says. On the night of Feb. 4 to 5, Sloly received an email detailing how “protesters were expanding the zone they occupied and piling up propane. City workers were being attacked for installing barriers. Algonquin elders had failed to negotiate with protesters to leave Confederation Park and had to be rescued before they were attacked, and an OPS sergeant was swarmed at the intersection of Kent Street and Queen Street.
Sloly said he was “surprised” by the statement on Feb. 15 by OPP Chief Supt. Carson Pardy, who told his boss, Commissioner Thomas Carrique, that the “elephant in the room is everything we have been done so far — been blocked by OPS Chief.”