Former Ottawa Police Chief Peter Slowly said in a public inquiry on Oct. 28 that motorcade protests began to take shape in Ottawa earlier this year, so a separate police force is needed to control the demonstrations. He said he did not feel
Slowly stepped down on February 15, a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the state of emergency law to clear up the motorcade protests.
A Public Order Emergency Committee was established to assess whether the invocation of the act was justified, as required by law, after the act had been used. Sloly is one of many witnesses testifying at the hearing until late November, after which the hearing will enter the policy debate stage before submitting its final report to Congress in February.
“The literal challenge to the last day in office was not additional legislation or an injunction,” Mr. Slowly said at the committee’s Oct. 28 meeting.
“It was a resource”
In testimony, Sloly was asked about public comments he made in February while still a police chief, and said he was “increasingly concerned that there is no police solution to this.”
The comments came a day after a February 1 meeting between Slory and other senior officers, when Deputy Chief of Staff Patricia Ferguson asked about “the possibility that the army would be called up or a state of emergency declared.” , and a meeting memo submitted to the Commission Shaw.
Slowly told the committee that the protest was a “national event,” referring to the size and scale of the protest beyond what a single police force could handle.
On October 27, the Commission was shown a text message from the February 5 conversation between RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lackey and OPP Commissioner Thomas Karike.
Mr Slowley said on October 28 that he felt the level of support for his leader was low in interactions with officials at three levels of government, but the final decision to resign was his own. said to be of
Slowly also quoted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, telling the committee he didn’t think he could have prevented protesters from parking their cars downtown.
“I’m a police officer, not a lawyer,” he said.
Canadian Press contributed to this report.
follow