A top bureaucrat with the Ontario government is defending former solicitor general Sylvia Jones’s claim that the province sent more than 1,500 officers to Ottawa to deal with the “Freedom Convoy.”
On Wednesday, Mario Di Tommaso, the deputy solicitor general, was scheduled to testify at the Public Order Emergency Commission but his appearance was cut short after a commission lawyer collapsed while asking him questions.
The commission is not sharing any more details about the lawyer’s health, but he did receive care from paramedics, according to media reports. It’s not clear when Di Tommaso will return.
While Di Tommaso wasn’t able to speak at the commission, he did provide a witness interview that was submitted as evidence to the commission.
According to the interview, Di Tommaso went to bat for his superior, Jones, over her claim that the province did send more than 1,500 OPP officers in response to the convoy.
“The statement was not intended to reflect the number of officers deployed daily, as that fluctuated from day to day,” the document said. “There was a deployment of over 1,500 officers over a 10-day period. Mr. Di Tommaso can confirm that from Jan. 25, 2022, to Feb. 7, 2022, 1,704 officers were deployed to Ottawa.”
This appears to contradict previous testimony by former Ottawa Police Service chief Peter Sloly and outgoing Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.
Sloly said there was a “miscommunication” from Jones that left the “impression that 1,500 officers from the OPP or from across the province were here in Ottawa on a daily basis.”
Watson said Jones’s statement “was not true at all.”
“I checked with our police officials,” he said. “I said, ‘How many OPP today?’ and they said 50 to 55. The solicitor general kept repeating that there were 1,500 police officers. You’d know if there were 1,500 OPP officers.”
There has been mounting pressure for Jones and Premier Doug Ford to testify at the commission, however, a federal judge recently ruled that they can’t be forced to appear.
Di Tommaso also highlighted a Feb. 3 call between himself and Rob Stewart, the federal deputy minister of public safety. The call was to focus on how to address the demonstration in Ottawa, which at that point had lasted longer than originally assumed by police.
According to notes he made about the call, Stewart had said, “political are very exposed,” which Di Tommaso interpreted to mean that federal politicians were politically vulnerable, according to the interview.
“Mr. Stewart also noted that there was a ‘stalemate’ as the occupiers had become entrenched and no significant steps were being put forward to remove them,” the document said. “Mr. Stewart further noted that there was no identifiable leader to this protest movement. Mr. Di Tommaso and Mr. Stewart had a general discussion on how to create incentives for protesters to leave Ottawa.”
Earlier in the day, the commission also heard from Jim Willett, the mayor of Coutts, Alta., a small village near the U.S. border that was impacted by anti-mandate blockades.
Willett described the protesters as being “chaotic and without clear leadership” when he first met with them in early February.
The RCMP provides policing services to Coutts's few hundred residents and was the law enforcement that handled the blockade. Willett said the RCMP’s actions appeared more impactful to end the blockades than government involvement. For instance, a raid by the RCMP on Feb. 14 was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and showed protesters that there were serious consequences for their actions, according to Willett’s interview summary.
However, Willett did wonder why the Alberta government didn’t make use of its Critical Infrastructure Defence Act.
Introduced in 2020 in response to rail blockades, the act protects "essential infrastructure" like highways from damage or interference caused by blockades or protests.
Willett said he wasn’t informed of police operations so he doesn’t know why it wasn’t used. He also did not ask for any assistance from the province.
A lawyer with the Alberta government pointed out that former justice minister and solicitor general Sonya Savage issued a statement on Feb. 8 that threatened charges under the act.
"Those participating in this illegal blockade could potentially face charges or actions under any number of laws, including the federal Criminal Code, the provincial Traffic Safety Act and the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act,” the statement said.
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