RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki could not explain text messages from last winter in which she suggested the federal government ask police to retroactively support the Emergency Act and advocated using a messaging app that allows users to delete messages. The country’s top Mountie spoke to reporters outside a House of Commons committee Monday in Ottawa, but gave few answers to questions. He will testify at the Emergency Act inquiry on November 15. Already text messages, emails and meeting minutes presented to the Public Order Emergency Committee reveal differences between its public and private comments on the federal government’s decision to use sweeping powers. The documents were released last week, but at the time the RCMP told The Globe and Mail they would not answer any questions until Commissioner Lucki testified at the inquiry. Led by Judge Paul Rouleau, the inquiry is tasked with determining whether the federal government erred in invoking the Emergency Act in response to anti-government protests over the vaccine mandate. These protests began with a blockade of the capital on January 28 and then spread to several border crossings in January and February. Under the Emergencies Act, a public order emergency can only be declared when threats to the security of Canada are so serious that they constitute a national crisis that cannot be effectively addressed under any other existing law. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the act on February 14. Public hearings on the use of emergency law: What you need to know about the commission and what’s happened so far The police operation to clear the protests in Ottawa began on February 18 and ended on February 20. Texts provided to the inquiry show that on February 19, Commissioner Lucki told her OPP counterpart, Thomas Carrique, that the federal government could ask them for a letter supporting the retroactive use of the Emergency Act. “Has Secretary Blair hit you up for a letter in support of EA?” asked Commissioner Carrique. He replied that he had not and asked if he should wait to hear from emergency preparedness minister Bill Blair. Commissioner Lucki did not respond via text and instead said she was calling Commissioner Carrique. On Monday, Commissioner Lucki told reporters that she was “never” asked to write a letter. But he could not explain why he sent the text to Commissioner Carrique. “It was a text conversation, I’m not sure,” she told reporters. Commissioner Lucki has held the position of top Mountie since she was appointed by Mr. Trudeau in April 2018. The documents presented to the inquiry also reveal that Ottawa was considering the Emergency Act early in the protests and that Commissioner Lucki did not want the RCMP or the Ontario Provincial Police to take over from Ottawa’s beleaguered police service. The Government of Canada is “losing/losing confidence” in the Ottawa police, he told Commissioner Carrique in texts on February 5. “If they go to the Emergency Measures Act, [I] can be driven’. This is “not something I want,” he said on February 5. Asked about her opposition to either police force taking over, Commissioner Lucki said “That’s a misunderstanding.” But he did not elaborate further. Commissioner Lucki also told reporters Monday that she has not lost confidence in then-Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly. However, minutes from a February 15 meeting with the OPP attribute comments to Commissioner Lucki in which she said she “doesn’t trust his leadership.” Mr Slowley resigned on the same day. Commissioner Lucki’s texts also show that she twice asked Commissioner Carrique about using a different messaging app that she said “doesn’t store deleted messages.” She walked away from reporters when asked if she ever deleted text messages. In her text conversation with Commissioner Carrique, the top Mountie also floated the idea of outfitting Canadian Armed Forces members in RCMP uniforms and then integrating them into the police response to the convoy. The Emergency Act inquiry was also presented with evidence that the day before the act was invoked, Commissioner Lucki told the government that the police “had not yet exhausted all available tools”. Despite this February 13 advice, Commissioner Lucki told a House of Commons committee on February 25 that the act gave the police “the tools we needed to get the job done quickly”.
