OPP Intel Superintendent Says “The lack of violent crime was shocking” During Freedom Convoy Protest

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party are having a supremely bad week based on the testimony coming out of the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC). 

Last week was bad enough with anti-Freedom Convoy activists and municipal politicians from Ottawa making fools of themselves by whining about “Uber Eats” and “microaggressions” in their evidence submissions and testimony, but this week the anti-convoy narrative is being absolutely shredded by Ottawa Police and OPP representatives. 

The worst for the Liberals came from the Superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Intelligence Bureau, Pat Morris, who confirmed through his testimony that there was no violent threat from the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, and no weapons present.

It has to be said that Morris was a very steady and respectful witness while testifying at the POEC and firmly yet carefully explained that the messaging against the Freedom Convoy from members of the government and the media did not line up with the evidence the police had gathered on the ground and online. 

Morris stated that:

When I read that the state of Russia had something to do with [the Freedom Convoy], this was a result of American influence, either financially or ideologically, or that Donald Trump was behind it, or that it was un-Canadian, or that the people participating were un-Canadian, and that [they did not have] Canadian views, that they were extremists, I found it to be problematic. 

What I ascertained from my role, which is not all-knowing, certainly there may be information presented to this committee that illustrates the error of my ways, but I did not see validation for those assertions.

Morris even clearly states that there always could be information out there showing the Freedom Convoy is full of violent extremists funded by the Kremlin, but that nobody in the media or government making those sorts of assertions have provided evidence to back them up.

When questioned further about the things those in the media and Liberal/NDP government were saying about the Freedom Convoy Morris reiterated that he was concerned by anti-convoy comments made by public figures which he believes were not grounded in facts and evidence. 

Later Morris then confirmed what many Freedom Convoy supporters had been claiming that the presence of the protest in the downtown core of Ottawa severely reduced crime in the area. 

Morris said that the complete lack of violent crime was “shocking” to him personally. 

This week Acting Deputy Chief of Ottawa police Patricia Ferguson also spoke about her experience dealing with the Freedom Convoy, and her testimony seems to paint a picture of Justin Trudeau and the federal government causing many of the problems on the ground.

Ferguson said that the Ottawa Police negotiation team was “caught off guard” when the RCMP was ordered to start cracking down on protestors, abruptly ending any chance of allowing the convoy to move out of the city peacefully.

She also said that former Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly had wanted to “shut down the fun” at the Freedom Convoy protest by targeting the removal of bouncy castles, DJ booths, and portable hot tubs, which gives the lie to the idea the police were having to deal with a threatening force. 

Peter Sloly has yet to testify at the POEC, and no doubt his testimony will not be able to factually contradict what Pat Morris and Patricia Ferguson have already said. 

Sloly, despite being criticized for some of the anti-convoy decisions he made on the ground in Ottawa as the police chief, is still expected to take a negative view of the political pressure placed on him to get rid of the Freedom Convoy, once again putting more of the blame for the violent crackdown on the protesters after the invocation of the Emergencies Act onto Justin Trudeau.

No doubt Justin Trudeau, Chyrstia Freeland, and other Liberal Party cabinet ministers set to testify in front of the POEC were probably hoping the witnesses speaking before them would have helped to set the narrative that the Freedom Convoy was out of control, justifying the use of the Emergencies Act. Instead, so far, the Liberals’ anti-convoy narrative has only been disproven by the witnesses, or at least not helped by poor quality testimony from anti-convoy activists.