Thread by @aballinga

Starting the day with an emailed death threat for our coverage of the #EmergenciesActInquiry.

We have Keith Wilson on the stand this morning. He's a lawyer who works with some of the convoy organizers and appeared with Lich and others at press conferences during the occupation.

Private plane was a twin prop, Wilson says. “It was not a luxury experience,” he says. They went private because some passengers were unvaccinated and couldn’t get on commercial public planes because of federal pandemic regulations.

Wilson says there was “confusion” about who paid for the plane. Wilson says he believes the plane was paid for with funds from the Adopt-a-Trucker fundraiser (one of the fundraising efforts from convoy organizers)

He’s there with a waiver from “Freedom Corp” which is the short name of the not-for-profit. Includes Lich, Marazzo, Bulford, Barber and others.

Wilson says he arrived in Ottawa on evening of Feb. 2.
He went to the Arc hotel and met with Lich and other convoy organizers.

Wilson says he could “feel the tension” when he walked into the lobby. Truckers everywhere, supplies stacked everywhere.

Wilson talking about a Feb. 3 press conference, and how they decided to stage it with Lich as the main speaker. He says he was reluctant to take a prominent role.

A group called Take Back Our Freedoms had an external communications firm that prepared a speech for Lich. They didn’t like it so others rewrote it, and then Wilson helped revise it.

Inquiry lawyer shows video from the press conference that shows Wilson saying Lich was “the spark that lit this fire.” Belton, yesterday, took issue with that characterization.

Wilson says he came up with the phrase himself, based on his own observations and that Lich had “the personality of a natural leader.”

This is from Wilson's witness statement, showing he says Belton didn't have a major leadership role. Belton described herself as one of the core organizers and spoke of a rift with Lich.

Apparently Wilson did not like Pat King...

Wilson also thought the Canada Unity MOU to unseat the Trudeau government was “nonsense.”

Wilson's witness statement also expresses concern that Randy Hillier and Chris Sky would try to speak and "hijack things".

Wilson talking about Canada Unity, and that it was “not a creation of the convoy, it was one of these hanger-ons.”

He says he’s had to litigate against “sovereign citizen” people, and regarding the Canada Unity MOU to unseat the government, Wilson says he thought “here’s another one.”

Wilson says he wanted to find was to de-escalate the situation after he perceived a change in tone from the cops around Feb. 4. He reached out to former Nfld. Premier Brian Peckford to ask for contacts, and then Dean French contacted him.

He says Marazzo at this point was working with police liaisons but felt it was getting nowhere. “he needed somebody that was more of an inspector level, somebody who had some actual decision making capability and greater authority.”

Wilson says convoy organizers wanted to help police clear the Rideau Sussex intersection. He says he understands why cops wanted that, given proximity to Senate, US embassy down the road.

“This was an intense group, there was no doubt about it,” he says. Marazzo gathered 80 of them in the middle of the intersection, got them to pick two representatives. Marazzo was concerned about police liaison with “aggressive personality” dealing with the truckers.

Wilson says the officer then got on the phone and told them they can’t move barricades to let them move closer to the Hill. “They felt that the police had double crossed them,” Wilson says. This was Feb. 8.

Wilson talking about how the convoy leaders went back the next day to try and convince them to move again. After first vehicle started to back up, a bunch of people started approaching and rushed behind the tow truck that was going to move barricades, Wilson says.

“The people just swarmed in,” Wilson says. Inquiry playing a video now to show what happened.

The video shows a bunch of protesters filming with their phones and singing the national anthem. WIlson can also be seen trying to talk to cops, and then the cops walk off and everyone cheers. "Hold the line!" someone yells.

Wilson claims “more dominant theme” of Deal with the city was to move trucks from residential areas to outside the city, rather than just up to Wellington.

Truckers needed a way to leave “gracefully and respectfully,” Wilson says. He says some would use the deal to leave the protests respectfully, and this was an exit strategy for some.

To get truckers on board with the Deal, Wilson says they decided to draft a Freedom manifest, to declare focus on Wellington near seat of government, and to get trucks out of residential areas.

Feb. 12 email shows Wilson writing that the deal could keep Trudeau from using the Emergencies Act and allow truckers to stay in the city for “as long as it takes.”

Wilson says 850 copies of the manifest were printed to hand out among the truckers. This was on Feb. 12 (third occupation Saturday).

Wilson says the deal would focus the protest on the federal government, show the protesters are “honest brokers” and spark a meeting with a federal minister or somebody like that.

Wilson says there were also discussions that if most people left residential areas, stragglers would no longer get fuel and other supports from the main convoy protest group.

Here's the manifest they drafted on the 12th, regarding the Deal:

Asked about the Emergencies Act invocation, Wilson says he believed it didn't outlaw people from peacefully protesting. (By this time, the cops had declared the occupation "unlawful" and were warning people to leave now)

“The labeling by the police chief and others, that any Canadian citizen was no longer allowed to walk in downtown Ottawa, or hold a sign in front of their parliament was not legally accurate and against the charter,” Wilson says.

By Feb. 17, the organizers were still demanding the government meet their demands.

They also wanted this:

Inquiry lawyer pulls up Feb. 17 press release denouncing Pat King. “We expressly condemn any talk of violence from him or others,” the release said.

-Wilson says when he found out King was in Ottawa, he told organizers he wasn’t prepared to be in the same room as him. He had heard of his “innuendo of violence,” which he found unacceptable.

Though Wilson also adds he may have been “duped” by the media. But they had concerns about how often King’s comments were repeated in the media

Morning break. I'll start a new thread for cross examination of Wilson. 15 minutes.