‘No Serious Violence in Ottawa’: RCMP Internal Email on Freedom Convoy Protest

A protester waves a Canadian flag in front of parked vehicles on Rideau Street on the 15th day of the Freedom Convoy protest against federal COVID-19 mandates and restrictions in Ottawa on Feb. 11, 2022. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

An internal email from a senior RCMP officer acknowledged that there was “no serious violence in Ottawa” related to the Freedom Convoy protest—an assessment that differs from that of Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.

The email by Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan to Commissioner Brenda Lucki on Feb. 21 noted that the Emergencies Act (EA) was invoked primarily due to claims of “serious violence” displayed by convoy protesters, but which he did not identify.

“[T]here was no serious violence in Ottawa (the main reason for the EA) but there was such a threat in Coutts but was handled with already existing authorities even though we could have used the Emergencies Act in Coutts to support the operation,” said Brennan in the email, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

Brennan was responding to Lucki, who requested his thoughts when she was asked by Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser to the prime minister, on the same day, “what conditions need to be in place to determine that the emergency no longer exists, while acknowledging enforcement and intelligence action must still continue.”

Thomas’s email stemmed from an email thread “V2 criteria for EA” that originated from senior adviser to the Privy Council Office Jeffrey Hutchinson on Feb. 20, who asked for feedback from Thomas and several other colleagues on the “criteria the government could use to assess when and to what extent to revoke orders made under the Emergency Act.”

Rob Stewart, then-deputy minister of public safety, responded the next day, saying that “we need to assess the threat in terms of serious violence, not in terms of whether truckers are hanging around.”

“Rob Stewart talks about ‘assessing the threat in terms of serious violence’ vs ‘truckers hanging around’ … not sure this is the best point of view given there was no serious violence in Ottawa,” Brennan told Lucki in his email.

Mendicino’s Claims

Mendicino repeatedly claimed that Convoy protesters in downtown Ottawa were violent and lawless.

“There have been numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment, violence, and hate,” he said at a virtual press conference on Feb. 7. “Many residents have been effectively held hostage in their own city, blockaded by an angry, loud, intolerant, and violent crowd.”

On Feb. 14 after the invocation of the EA, Mendicino told reporters that the convoy protest had posed “many challenges” to law enforcement.

“As we’ve seen without question there have been many, many challenges on the ground to restoring public order on the streets,” the minister said. “It’s difficult to overstate the impact of those scenes, the conduct that has unfolded by those who are participating in illegal blockades.”

“At times, the scenes on the streets of Wellington have seemed completely lawless,” he added.

Brennan’s assessment echoed similar conclusions by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).

According to a summary of his interview with the Public Order Emergency Commission, CSIS director David Vigneault said the convoy and its supporters across the country never “constituted a threat to the security of Canada.”

“At no point did the Service assess that the protests in Ottawa or elsewhere [those referred to as the ‘Freedom Convoy’ and related protests and blockades in January-February 2022] constituted a threat to the security of Canada as defined by section 2 of the CSIS Act, and that CSIS cannot investigate activity constituting lawful protest,” the interview summary said.

‘Deeply Politicized’

Though some protestors were charged with alleged violent crimes, OPP Intelligence Bureau chief Pat Morris told the commission on Oct. 19 that the lack of violence during the demonstration was surprising.

“The lack of violent crime was shocking. … Even the arrests and charges, considering the whole thing in totality—I think there were 10 charges for violent crimes, six of which were against police officers,” said Morris.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Morris wrote in a Feb. 22 report that he found no evidence that the convoy was extremist, violent, or armed.

“It is not an ‘extremist’ movement,” wrote Morris. “It is not comprised of ideologically motivated violent extremists. The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts.”

“The issue has become deeply politicized and political figures and polarized media cite sources of extremism as the prime catalyst but there are significant differences between seeing political dissent or opponents as ‘extreme,’ a highly subjective measure, and the legal connotations of ideologically motivated violent extremism or terrorism,” he added.

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.