The Public Order Emergency Commission is meeting for its second day in Ottawa

Two Ottawa city councillors have told the public inquiry probing the federal government’s use of emergency powers to end last winter’s protest convoy occupation of downtown Ottawa that they struggled to convince city police to deploy resources to residential neighbourhoods.

“It was a general sense of fear, terror and dismay, that they felt abandoned by their city and by their police,” Catherine McKenney, a councillor for a core downtown ward, told the inquiry on Friday.

The Public Order Emergency Commission is reviewing the circumstances that led up to the government’s decision on Feb. 14 to invoke the Emergencies Act to end an anti-vaccine mandate protest that had taken over the downtown. The legislation — which the Trudeau government deployed for the first time in the act’s 34-year history — requires that a public inquiry be held after it is invoked.

McKenney appeared alongside Mathieu Fleury, who represents a ward just east of the parliamentary precinct. They testified to what they heard from residents about the impact of the protests and their experiences with city hall and the police service.

Both councillors said they felt that police officers weren’t properly serving the residential neighbourhoods just outside of what police called the “red zone” around Parliament Hill.

“There were incidents — vehicles on sidewalks, police nearby not taking action,” Fleury said.

“It grew into a lot of questions from all of us, including residents and business…. ‘Are we in a state of chaos?'”

Fleury is not running for re-election in the upcoming Oct. 24 municipal election, while McKenney is running to be the city’s new mayor.

The second day of the inquiry saw a number of email messages between McKenney, Fleury, their residents, other city councillors and Ottawa police read into evidence.

Emails show safety concerns were raised

In one email presented to the inquiry, the Château Laurier, a historic hotel downtown, said that a sprinkler failure had triggered a fire alarm. Hotel staff said in the email that no fire truck could get to the hotel, and they worried about what would happen if someone at the hotel called for an ambulance.

Fleury flipped the email to then-Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly, calling it an “extremely dangerous” challenge.

“Did you ever get a substantive response to that?” asked Paul Champ, a lawyer for a coalition of businesses at the commission.

“No,” Fleury said.

In another email, the head of the Rideau Centre, a major mall in the city’s downtown, wrote that it took more than 24 hours to remove a fuel truck from the mall’s underground parking lot.

Fleury called that situation unacceptable as well.

On Feb. 8, McKenney wrote to Sloly and other councillors regarding concerns about vehicles blocking Metcalfe Street, according to an email entered as evidence.

Questioned by commission counsel Natalia Rodriguez, McKenney said they doesn’t recall receiving a response from Sloly.

Both councillors expressed frustration with Mayor Jim Watson, their fellow city councillors and city hall, saying they failed to heed their calls for a plan to handle the protests.

Under cross-examination, a lawyer for the Ottawa Police Service, David Migicovsky, questioned the councillors on the force’s resources.

“I don’t know if you’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in a hospital in recent years, but just as in a hospital, patients get triaged in emergency,” he said.

“That was going to happen with the police as well.”

Migicovsky also said moving officers to other zones could have posed an operational risk.

Residents describe feeling trapped

Their testimony capped a day that focused on how the protests affected local residents and businesses last winter. Several witnesses described a sense of helpless anxiety.

“I found myself trapped,” said Victoria De La Ronde, one of the first people to testify before the Public Order Emergency Commission.

De La Ronde, who testified that she has trouble with her eyesight, said the protesters who blocked streets and filled the air with fumes and the sound of honking horns last winter left her feeling “trapped and helpless.”

She said she takes pride in her independence and relies on sounds, like crosswalk signals, to get around in her daily life. She also said she uses food delivery services and taxis.

That changed when the Freedom Convoy rolled into town, she testified Friday morning.

“It was such an experience of helplessness, especially during the event where the horn blowing was so loud and continuous. There was absolutely no place for me to go in my own unit, there was no place that had any less sound,”  De La Ronde said.

“There was no escape to that.”

De La Ronde told the inquiry that eight months after police moved in to disperse the crowd, she is still dealing with the protest’s lingering impact on her hearing.

Zexi Li, an Ottawa resident who helped secure an injunction against protesters to silence their incessant honking, said the noise made her anxious.

“It didn’t feel safe. My guard was up all the time,” Li said of the experience of walking in Ottawa’s downtown at the time.

“It was incredibly difficult to get anything done because of the noise…. Sleep deprivation was one of the things that affected me personally.”

Call with Sloly left BIAs ‘shaken’

The commission also heard from local business associations about how the protests affected stores and restaurants.

Nathalie Carrier, executive director of the Vanier Business Improvement Area (BIA), which covers a part of the city east of Parliament Hill, said many businesses felt it wasn’t safe to open

“Unlike what happened to businesses during COVID, businesses were completely crippled, and that has to be understood by this commission because there were no deliveries,” Carrier said.

Carrier said one of the moments that shook her during last winter’s convoy protest came during a call with Sloly.

“I remember the chief saying at one point, ‘You guys are scared. I get it. I’m scared, too,'” Carrier said, her voice trembling during her testimony.

“I thought if the chief of police is scared, something much bigger is happening here than a protest, and that personally scared me. And I think a lot of us on that call were shaken.”

Sloly resigned on Feb. 15 after being roundly criticized over his handling of the truck convoy protest.

Carrier, who appeared alongside Kevin McHale, executive director of the Sparks Street BIA, said she couldn’t remember the exact date of the call but believes it was after the first weekend of the protest.

Tom Curry, one of Sloly’s lawyers, pushed back on that statement during cross-examination, claiming that his client was merely saying that he understood people were frightened.

“At no time did Chief Sloly say he was scared or frightened personally. Would that be fair to him?” Curry asked.

“No,” Carrier responded.

“He was very candid with us…. I think he was relating that he, too, was scared.”

Carrier said the manager of a Canadian Tire told her on the third weekend of the protest that the store’s stocks of “knives and bear spray” had sold out.

“That is something I reported immediately to [the Ottawa Police Service],” she said.

Mayor Jim Watson appearing next week

During cross-examination, Brendan Miller, a lawyer for the convoy organizers, asked Carrier if she saw anyone waving a knife and if she could be certain it was protesters who were buying bear spray and knives.

“Most people I know that hunt with knives don’t wave them around,” Carrier responded.

Next week, the inquiry will hear from a number of city officials, including Mayor Watson and Patricia Ferguson, the acting deputy chief of Ottawa police, along with members of the Ontario Provincial Police.

Hearings are scheduled to wrap up in late November.

The final report of the commission, headed by Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Paul Rouleau, is due in February.