Sloli, who resigned on Feb. 15, also told the Public Order Emergency Committee that he did not believe a different approach by the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) would have prevented protests from shutting down the capital last winter. Slowley is giving more of his side of the story in his much-anticipated appearance before the commission on Friday morning. Sloli has participated in four interviews with the commission’s lawyers since late August. His most recent interview was on October 5. A summary of what he said in those interviews was filed as evidence at the inquest earlier this week. Former Ottawa Police Chief Peter Slowley is testifying today before the Public Order Emergency Commission. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) “Slowly doesn’t believe that [the Ottawa Police Service] could have done anything materially differently at a big-picture level given the unprecedented national security crisis facing OPS,” Sloly’s witness interview summary says. “There were structural problems in national security, policing and justice that predate the events of the Escort and were badly exposed during this paradigm shift and unprecedented event.”
Intelligence reports went to Sloly
One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Sloli and other members of the Ottawa Police Service was that they ignored warnings that the protesters were going to remain in the city until their demands for a new government and the repeal of all vaccine mandates were met. The Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry heard that Ottawa police expected most of the protesters to leave after the first weekend and had no contingency plan after Monday, January 31. Sloly told the commission he first learned a crowd of protesters was traveling to Ottawa on Jan. 13 when he received a report about the “Freedom Convoy” from Project Hendon, an intelligence-sharing network led by the Ontario Provincial Police. WATCHES | “You could feel the tension”: Retired OPP chief inspector in Sloly
‘You could feel the tension’: Retired OPP Chief Carson Pardy to former Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly
Pardee was questioned by the commission’s lawyer about how Slowley dealt with police forces during the escort. He describes a very tense environment and people sitting with “heads hanging” during meetings. The OPP will continue to send Project Hendon reports to Ottawa police. During one of Sloly’s interviews, the commission’s lawyers showed him a January 26 Project Hendon report that warned elements of the protests could pose a danger and some supporters espoused “fringe ideologies”. Sloly replied that such risks could be realized in most major events. “This passage therefore did not assist Chief Slowey in determining whether Freedom Talk was a significant problem,” his testimony says. A Jan. 28 OPP intelligence report shared with Sloli says “available information indicates that the protesters plan to remain in Ottawa at least” until Feb. 4. Sloli told the commission’s lawyers that he understood that meant the protest would mostly take place over a weekend, with a small group remaining afterward. While the updates noted that supporters were receiving donations of cash, food and water, Sloli said that did not suggest this event would be any different from other large protests. Sloly also received an email on Jan. 21 from the Ottawa police. Sean Kay said the goal of the convoy was to remain in Ottawa until the restrictions were lifted. Slowley said that if Kay had those concerns, he would have expected to inform his superiors, who should have made changes to the business plan.
An internal memo to officers said the protesters were “likely” to remain
While OPS signaled to the city and the public that the protests would last a weekend, a memo was sent to officers on January 24 limiting their discretionary leave to prepare for the arrival of the Freedom Parade. He said that while “the event is scheduled for one day, it is very likely that many participants will not leave the city for an indefinite period of time.” Asked about the wording of that note, Slowley “suggested that the language of the quote was not intended to be precise,” the summary says. Protesters wave flags as the convoy of trucks descends Parliament Hill in Ottawa on January 29, 2022. (Joe Tunney/CBC) Sloli told the Commission he believed the situation in Ottawa revealed structural and resource shortfalls related to national security, including an “excessive focus on Islamic extremism at the expense of other threats to Canada’s national security.” “A national security agency should have taken on that intelligence role. But the OPP had to fill that void as a provincial police agency because apparently no national security agency did,” Slowley said, according to the witness summary.
Business plan questions
On Thursday, the committee heard from the head of the Ontario Provincial Police, who said he believes OPS’s operational plan would ban trucks from the parliamentary section and provide for buses and shuttles to allow protesters access to its center city. Sloli told the commission in interviews that he never received any written or oral communications from his superiors, the OPP, the RCMP or other partner agencies suggesting that the OPS plan to allow Freedom Talk into downtown Ottawa it was incorrect. Shortly after the crowd and vehicles arrived, Slowley said, his team became aware of increasing levels of “threatening and anti-social behaviour” by the convoy participants. Slowley said that by Feb. 1, a Canadian Armed Forces officer had told him the Freedom Escort “had elements of insurgency.” The committee also heard from witnesses who criticized OPS’s lack of a plan to deal with protesters if they refused to leave. A line of protesters with an anti-vaccine mandate stand face to face with a line of police officers in downtown Ottawa on Saturday, February 19, 2022. (Michael Charles Cole/CBC) Last week, OPS deputy chief Trish Ferguson said Ottawa police still didn’t have a new plan until Feb. 4 — a week after protesters and their vehicles first entered the city — because the force he was “putting out fires” and facing staffing. “I think we faltered a little bit in terms of our personnel, in terms of our ability to really take stock of what was going on and then go ahead and come up with a plan to get out of it,” he said. “We lost some time there.” As part of its mandate, the commission also examines police actions before and after the invocation of the Emergency Act. He has heard testimony describing a tense and sometimes distrustful relationship between Sloly and the OPP during the protest. “Overall the tone, I would say, was very competitive, it was disrespectful,” retired OPP Superintendent Carson Pardee said last week. Pardee said while Slowley was asking for backup, the OPP were frustrated by the lack of a concrete plan. “You have to know what these people are going to do when they get there, to where they’re going to stay and who’s feeding them,” Pardee told the committee. “You need these basics. None of them were in place.”
Sloly says OPS had resource and morale problems
Sloli told the committee that one of his regrets is that a comment he made during the demonstration — that “there may not be a police solution to this demonstration” — was taken by many as a sign that OPS had given up. He said he meant that Ottawa police could not end this situation alone. On Feb. 2, he said, he met with Mayor Jim Watson to do that. The notes of that meeting, cited in the interview, said Sloli “discussed all the options on the table [need] to examine ‘political choice”. “It is not my legal responsibility to end a demonstration – it is my legal responsibility to provide adequate and effective policing to serve and protect the city/citizens,” the meeting states. Sloli said that before the protest landed, OPS was struggling with low morale and a lack of public trust, especially in racial and marginalized communities in Ottawa. “OPS was not operating optimally, was under-resourced, and its leadership was stretched thin at the time the Freedom Convoy arrived,” Sloly’s witness summary says.
