A Jan. 26 briefing from Sloly to the Ottawa police board acknowledged the protests could last for an extended period of time. OPS was concerned about "counter-protests," which did not really manifest until well into the occupation. From the same briefing: on Jan. 26 OPS was anticipating 1,000 to 2,000 participants. Ottawa would see a lot more than that over the following three weeks.

James Topp, a figure in the "freedom" crowd who walked from B.C. to Ottawa, says of the people he met along the road: “Their issue is not so much with mandates anymore, it’s ... with the federal government. They see it as intractable, inflexible and unresponsive to their needs.” It was always about more than mandates.

Conservative interim leader Candice Bergen: We found out last night that the NDP and Liberals cooked up a "backroom deal" that would see Trudeau get the majority power he failed to get in the last election. Bergen: This is an NDP-Liberal majority government.

(It's not, but this is likely the line the Conservatives will hammer home.)

Jody Thomas, national security advisor to PM Trudeau, just said some remarkable things about domestic extremism in Canada.

Thomas: It's here, and it's here to stay. We've lived in splendid isolation, pretending it's not a Canadian issue -- it is. Thomas, on the Ottawa occupation minus bridge blockades would have been enough to warrant Emergencies Act: Yes. We tend to apply a middle-class values lens to this stuff. If there were religiously-motivated extremists in that group? Reaction would have been different.

Responding to NDP's Daniel Blaikie, Jacques said there is no requirement under the EA for financial institutions to notify their clients that their bank accounts were frozen. CPC's Adam Chambers: Can you provide updated nubers?

Jacques: It would be ~206 accounts. An individual could have more than one account (savings, chequing, etc.) so can't say how many individuals, exactly.

After saying that there's a great deal of misinformation out there about the Emergencies Act, Conservative MP Philip Lawrence suggests an attendant at a convenience store could have their bank account frozen for selling items to the convoy. (This does not appear to be possible, and it is certainly not likely.)

CPC Interim Leader Candice Bergen just announced her shadow cabinet changes. Biggest shock: Michelle Rempel Garner, one of the party's most prominent MPs, no longer has a critic role. #cpcldr #cdnpoli Rempel Garner has been nominated to sit on NSICOP, the national security committee of Parliament, which the Conservatives under former leader Erin O'Toole were boycotting.

BREAKING: Ottawa mayor Jim Watson just released a letter -- which he says has been agreed to by convoy protest organizer Tamara Lich -- for the demonstrators to leave "residential" areas by tomorrow. WATSON: "I am writing to ask that you remove your convoy and its trucks from all of our residential neighbourhoods and that you restrict your presence to a limited perimeter
from Wellington Street where it meets Elgin Street and to the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway."

Already a significant PPC protest crowd outside the Gatineau location of tonight’s debate. The PPC called for a 6:30 start. I expect lots of stragglers to show up before the 9 p.m. start. There’s a band.

Our Quebec cabin rental has some interesting ideas about Canadian life. Weird that I have those same shorts though

After giving it some thought, the calls to defund Paw Patrol are misguided. The Paw Patrol is not the police. They’re a terrorist cell. 1/n How does Ryder recruit members of his patrol? The limited evidence we have suggests he preys on vulnerable pups. Both Rubble and Everest were abandoned, searching for purpose. 2/n

We’re still awaiting the actual report, but the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has released some high-level findings about foreign interference in Canada. 1. Foreign interference pose a “significant and growing threat to the rights and freedoms of Canadians and to Canada’s sovereignty.”

The B.C. and federal privacy commissioners have released their report into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions… #cdnpoli The top level findings are not surprising: Facebook failed to get meaningful consent from users, from users' friends who unknowingly had their data harvested, the company had inadequate privacy safeguards and failed to be accountable for user information in its control.