A senior public safety department official says the minister has been “misunderstood” when he said police asked the federal government to use the Emergency Act in February.
Deputy Prime Minister Rob Stewart appeared before the special joint committee that is examining the Liberals’ decision to call the event on Tuesday evening.
In April, Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino told the same committee that after weeks of blockades in central Ottawa and several border crossings, the government was regularly consulting with law enforcement, including the ‘RCMP.
“The advice we received was to invoke the Emergency Act,” Mendicino said at the time.
But Stewart said Mendicino did not mean that police were directly calling for the law to be used.
“I think the intent I was trying to express was that law enforcement was asking for the tools contained in the Emergency Act,” Stewart said.
The deputies and senators of the commission have tried to get answers about who, if anyone, asked the police to grant them these extraordinary powers.
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki and Acting Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell said they did not call for the Emergency Act to be used.
Lucki told the committee that there were discussions with the government about the potential of using the Emergency Act. But he said the RCMP did not ask that the act be invoked, only the federal police agency was consulted.
On April 27, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons that “the police were clear that they needed tools that had no federal, provincial or territorial law.”
Francois Daigle, the Deputy Minister of Justice, also appeared before the commission on Tuesday.
He said the test for determining whether the Emergency Act could be invoked is not whether existing laws, such as the Penal Code, provincial highway legislation or bylaws, could be used to end the emergency. but “whether these laws were being used effectively.” ”
“Our view is that they were not.”
But when asked if this was a police failure, Daigle said no.
Deputy ministers said the emergency statement allowed police to deal with children in protest and that tow truck operators were unwilling to remove vehicles blocking the streets of Ottawa.
Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Fortin asked Stewart if that meant another federal emergency would be declared if there was a similar protest in the future.
He said it would not be necessary, adding in French that “in the first place we would prevent the demonstration” and described the February protests as unforeseen events.
The Emergency Act requires a special parliamentary committee and a federal investigation to examine the government’s use of the law.
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