Thread by @TondaMacC

New thread for afternoon cross-examinations of Lucki and Duheme by convoy lawyer Brendan Miller.

Miller asks RCMP commish to confirm this assessment that, contrary to suggestions yesterday, that there weren't grave threats or incidents w/ diplomats under protection in Ottawa during convoy. Lucki doesn't know what was said y'day, she'd have to look at RCMP threat assessment.

Miller asks, and Lucki agrees, she's a cabinet appointment, serves at pleasure, and she's aware of the JWR "scandal".
Miller says it was over public servants- dir pub prosecutions- being directed by political executive to act in a certain way.

Miller: any direction of prosecutions director has to be via a legislative process, which RCMP doesn't have
Lucki: correct
Miller: political exec should not place undue pressure, direct you, other than administrative part?
Lucki: correct

Miller is asking about ministerial "pressure" on her to release the NS firearms shooting info.
Lucki disputes his characterization of it, says there was no pressure.

Miller suggests the politicians pressured Lucki over Ottawa convoy: they wanted you to take it over?
Lucki: No
Duheme: Saying it and doing it is two different things.

Miller references Duheme's handwritten notes (which we don't yet have but should shortly) of Feb 3, a ministers call at 12:30.
Mendicino "Non policing response...not seeing a plan, must start w/ enforcement."
Blair: "PM increasingly concerned" how city will deal w/ it

Duheme confirms he was noting what ministers said. (per below)

Now onto a Feb. 9 mtg w/ clerk PCO Janice Charette. Duheme disputes Miller suggestion that at that point the RCMP thought OPS was doing a good job. There were "incremental gains"..OPS needed 48-72 hrs.

Miller says on Feb 9, the PCO clerk "Is telling you you have to take over?" Duheme seems a bit baffled about the suggestion but responds correct.

Miller: is it not fair to say that the fed executive was asking you for operational plans?
Duheme: my recollection is they never once did.
Lucki: we were never asked for an operational plan. We briefed there was a plan, but they never asked for the plan.

Duheme says he doesn't know why he wrote OPS was priority for OPP "for political reasons" - Duheme says he's not to speed on Ipperwash.
Miller says it's all about political direction of operations. Duheme says he only believed OPP offered assistance bc they had that experience.

#updated Lucki says she made clear to fed govt police had drafted an operational plan “using existing authorities” that didn’t require federal emergency powers to end the so-called “Freedom Convoy” blockade in Ottawa. Our latest here:

thestar.com/politics/feder…

Duheme cannot remember why he wrote "measures putting out draconian". (but hey, it's a catchy word).

OPP lawyer cross-exam now. Lucki says she worked w/ commish Carrique daily throughout the protests, agrees the cooperation led to creation of integrated planning team.
Agrees at no point did she ask govt to invoke the federal EA.

But Lucki says, as she did earlier, that she agrees the EA tools were useful.

Lucki says "I'm never up past 10 o'clock" so she doesn't recognize the timing of emails between her and Mendicino chief of staff.

Mendicino staffer Mike Jones had asked Lucki what tools would be useful.
Q- Had they already decided to invoke EA or they were asking your advice?
Lucki suggests that if she turned around the email so quickly, "I think that info was already in the queue somewhere else."

(Hers is not a clear answer. But the suggestion by Lucki seems to be they already had discussed various existing tools.)
"In my mind I thought there was consultation with the OPP - not at my level."

OPP Lawyer Diana says it's odd that Lucki didn't tell Carrique EA was afoot, ask what tools OPP needed.
Lucki doesn't have an explanation. She agrees she would have had a conversation except if there was cabinet confidence involved.

Diana points out she mentioned the EA days earlier in the text exchange, and "you could have" mentioned it now.
Lucki: Yeah I could have, except if there was cab confidence.
She notes back then she called it the Emerg Measures Act "I didn't even know what it is."

Lucki has no info contradicting this summary by an OPP officer that the "EO" wasn't used to compel Ottawa tow trucks but to compensate them.

OPS lawyer Migicovsky asks Lucki about a past statement that she doesn't view the Ottawa convoy as "a failure of policing."
She doesn't remember saying that, but agrees that's her view if that's what she said.
Says it was unique.

Duheme: the OPP and the RCMP had similar intelligence about the coming convoy.
Re social media messaging that the convoy would stay, Migicovsky asks about an RCMP view that you couldn't necessarily know what would happen based on social media posting.
Lucki doesn't disagree.

Some other bits and bobs from evidence the RCMP brass here gave in prior interviews.
Duheme thought OPS planned to stop trucks from coming downtown.

Lucki told Sloly that it wasn't helpful to have Watson make the resource requests.

In contrast to other evidence that the need to swear in RCMP officers to work in Ottawa slowed things down, Duheme says it did not, but notes the EA was used to swear them quickly.

Lucki in her pre-interview said she was not sure the RCMP briefed the ministers on the lack of an OPS operational plan (fwiw, not sure of the timing of that, since she testified they briefed on the existence of an integrated plan on Feb. 13)

Here are more interesting details on Lucki's experience dealing w/ Sloly, who she said was under "tremendous pressure" which affected his behaviour in meetings and led people to question his credibility.

Lucki and Duheme seemed to be pretty keenly aware of the internal OPS struggles. RCMP was "frustrated" by the change-ups in incident commanders, knew there were frustrations w' Sloly's leadership in Ottawa police ranks.

More details here on how Lucki disapproved during the week of Feb 7 of any talk of feds negotiating w/ protesters bc it was "too early."

When Lucki learned Sloly hadn't signed off on what she called an amazing plan, she called him. This is her version of that call. (Sloly testified earlier that he felt people were misrepresenting him, and he never felt he had to approve the plan.)

Questioned by Sloly's lawyer Tom Curry, Lucki testifies that she could well imagine the pressure Sloly was under.

Despite her testimony that she never considered it an option for the RCMP to take over command from the Ottawa police, by Feb 15th she and Carrique talked about whether it was time for the OPP to do so.
But suddenly, Sloly resigned.

Once the operational plan was given a green-light after Sloly was gone, Lucki says the integrated team decided it would be a 2-day operation, not a 4-day one.

In testimony, questioned by Sloly's lawyer about this being a national security event, Lucki says it was "an event, not a national security event."

A bit more detail on what exactly Lucki said to cabinet on the need for the EA, or whether the thresholds were met. She defers to cabinet on that call, but says her role was to say whether it was necessary for RCMP (which is a slight variation on what she said in oral testimony).

An important point. That now-infamous Lucki email to Mendicino's chief of staff was understood to be sent after midnight on Feb. 14 (coordinated universal time) but evidence summary & comm counsel clarifies it was sent 7:56 p.m. EST on February 13, so before cabinet mtg on 13th.

(That's the email where Lucki said "I am of the view that we have not yet exhausted all available tools that
are already available through the existing legislation," and "These existing tools are considered in our existing plans and will be used in due course as necessary.”)

Lucki's statement here is more emphatic than she was in testimony: her talking points sent to Mendicino &Jody Thomas were to show "that RCMP did not need the Emergencies Act to manage many of the
protests it was facing in provinces where it was the police of jurisdiction."

The saga of the tow trucks. Covered decals. Disguised drivers.

Duheme just testified about the scramble to organize around using the EA's financial measures.
There's also this in the summary about using the EA powers to limit access to a controlled zone in Ottawa.

City of Ottawa lawyer is highlighting this BC RCMP officer's email to Lucki about BC situation, and the need for govt's to talk, to allow "a win of sorts" to this kind of protest.
Lucki thanked him, said she used some of those points. But now doesn't know which exactly.

Lucki is asked about this RCMP email about Lucki's talking points that Mendicino and Jody Thomas were going to take to cabinet, it references the "strategic plan." Lucki confirms that talking point was handed over to be taken to cabinet.

Rouleau sides w/ fed lawyer's objection, tells SK govt lawyer - who wants to know whether anyone said at fed cabinet mtg on Feb 13 if all options weren't yet exhausted -- that he cannot ask what was said at cabinet, due to cab confidentiality. Docs is all.

Duheme says he did not brief the natsec advisor to PM on details of the police plan, Lucki says the only brief was the existence of a plan.

SK lawyer asks if Lucki told Sloly on a Feb 14 10 a.m. call with him and Carrique that the EA was going to be invoked?
Lucki: it's very likely. It could in fact be true. I can't refute it.

Duheme confirms RCMP gave names to financial institutions of those who could see assets frozen, but it was up to the banks "if they're not comfortable w/ info we provide"--eg if someone was elsewhere in the country -- the choice was theirs "to freeze or not."

(Rouleau has let almost all the cross-exams go long today, and we haven't yet started the third RCMP dep commish from AB yet.)

Neither Lucki nor Duheme says they were aware there was a short course and test to pass before RCMP officers could be sworn in to work in ON.
They didn't know in Windsor, Mounties had to be deployed in a buddy system, paired w/ another force's officer.

Duheme confirms, at summits, RCMP has set aside areas where protesters can park in order to come protest, in some cases bused them in - Lucki says at big ones like G20.
Duheme disagrees that RCMP shd've been involved in this demo planning, OPS managed large protests before.

Duheme: PPS director is RCMP member, who reports up to the Speakers; changes came after Speakers' decision that the Hill was no longer a law enforcement job, it's a security job. (the rest of the PPS are not Mounties.) RCMP needs permission to enter bldgs, he says.

Amen. 15-minute break.

Lucki disagrees that Indigenous protesters defending their rights might be considered as ideologically motivated and be targeted, says as long as protest is peaceful, it's lawful.

Lucki says she's read "bits and pieces" of the Ipperwash report but not cover to cover, Duheme hadn't read it. (which, again, !)

Here's that tow bill for the feds: $661K. Feds have told RCMP to "cash manage it," Lucki says. Basically she says they're still trying to figure it all out.

Lucki says it wasn't her who was assessing whether there was a national security threat, "it'd be people a lot smarter than myself."

Duheme describes the clearance operation as a success, ppl given chance to leave Thurs Feb 17 before enforcement began Fri morning, Feb 18.
What would it have been like without the tow trucks?
A -"We'd have had to explore other options....There weren't many other options."

On re-exam, Duheme sticks to his contention that the banks retained discretion to freeze accounts once the RCMP sent over the names.

Rouleau asks why the OPP rather than the RCMP leads the intel (Hendon) reports, shouldn't that be a national initiative?
Duheme: there's national info that comes in fr all provinces, but my understanding is Hendon is a view of what was going on in province of Ontario.

Lucki says all provinces produce intelligence and it's shared.
Duheme says there's a team that looks at national picture monthly, and provides a report.

Rouleau asks what was the status of regular police resources during this time?
Lucki doesn't know overall, but says that's why RCMP only draws 10% out of any given province at a time.
Duheme: that's why we used federal policing officers, not frontline policing officers, first.

Lucki: a big majority of the RCMP's public order units were here in Ottawa.
But then she says that some of them were part-time POU officers, who were also frontline.

Rouleau asks if Lucki made any recommendation on the invocation of the EA?
Lucki says no. It's for cabinet to decide.
Q-did you have a view?
A-obvs I have a view now.

Lucki: there are now discussions among police about the tools that were useful, but "we don't want to be forced to use those type of" interventions.
Lucki recommends a mechanism to ease swearing-in of officers, but then says it's not like anyone's going to go into another provnce

(Honestly, her thoughts and answers are discursive and go off on tangents.)

Duheme says he thought the swearing-in process was smooth, but obvs there were bumps on the road, so he welcomes anything that eases that.

Lucki tells us in scrum that Mendicino was one of the cabinet ministers who asked if the RCMP could take over from Ottawa, and Blair was the other minister in those discussions. She repeats that she told them why it couldn’t.

Lucki insists she did convey to the minister her view that existing tools could be used via that Feb 13 email to Jones, Mendicino’s staffer; & disputes that she had reservations about use of the act.

Asked about RCMP leaks to protesters, says RCMP investigated, reviews are ongoing, but no charges or disciplinary offence laid.

Lucki says in hindsight she cannot remember certain details about mtgs virtually or in person, but briefings were same to deputies, mins or PM. On her memory gaps:
I don’t think there is anyone questioning my ability, she says.

Lucki says she was clear on the need for the EA then and now. “I thought it was useful I thought it was needed.”
“We knew what some of the authorities would be…I said they would be useful but I also said there would be other authorities.”

To her critics, Lucki says “I’m absolutely staying on as commissioner of the RCMP.”

RCMP d/c Curtis Zablocki tells Cameron it was the work of covert RCMP operatives that revealed the weapons cache in Coutts, not other protesters.

Zablocki says there were 6 incidents where trucks tried to go around RCMP checkpoint, driving across medians and through ditches, "that really concerned us" for officer safety at those sites.

Yahoo. Testimony for today is done.

Here is our final story for today. Do us a favour and read it. 11 hours in and we just wanna know it matters! thestar.com/politics/feder…