The Government of Alberta in 48 hours bought $826,000 worth of towing equipment at Kijiji and the Truck Trader to clear a border blockade, records show. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino had claimed “no tow trucks were available” at the time, forcing the federal cabinet to invoke the Emergencies Act..“This was the exact equipment we were told by the RCMP that they required if they were to execute an enforcement plan and tow all the vehicles at the border crossing,” said Marlin Legrand, assistant deputy public safety minister in Alberta. Testifying at the Public Order Emergency Commission, Legrand said the province bought all the used equipment it needed within 48 hours..“It was procured over a couple of days,” testified Legrand. The equipment was bought to clear a Freedom Convoy blockade at Coutts, Alta. but was never used. The Coutts protest ended peacefully on Feb. 14 before the federal cabinet invoked the Emergencies Act..According to Blacklock's Reporter, the Government of Alberta in an Institutional Report to the judicial inquiry said it bought second-hand tow trucks after the federal cabinet refused to answer its request for military equipment at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton. “Alberta identified a number of vehicles that could satisfy RCMP requirements,” said the report. “These were found by conducting online searches of websites like Kijiji and Truck Trader.”.The $826,000 purchases included $26,500 for a 1996 GMC 3500 tow truck, another $85,000 for a 1998 Freightliner Classic tow truck and $109,500 for a 2010 Komatsu bulldozer with winch. “The RCMP ultimately did not require all of this equipment in its operation that disbanded the Coutts border blockade, although it did make limited use of it in seizing large vehicles in the course of that operation including a farm tractor, semi-trailer and gravel truck,” said the Institutional Report..The federal cabinet has said it was forced to invoke the Emergencies Act in part due to an inability to find tow trucks to clear a Freedom Convoy blockade outside Parliament. “No tow trucks were available,” Public Safety Minister Mendicino testified April 26 at the Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency. “The police wouldn’t do it. That’s why we decided to invoke the Emergencies Act.”.Committee members challenged Mendicino’s claim. “I found two trucks for sale in Auto Hebdo magazine,” said Senator Claude Carignan (Que.). “You could have bought some.”.“Why was it necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act in order to remove the vehicles?” asked Senator Carignan. “That situation still leaves me speechless.”.Records filed with the judicial inquiry include minutes of a Feb. 9 phone call in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeated claims of a tow truck shortage. “We’ll all have to figure out what to do with these tow trucks,” the prime minister told Ontario Premier Doug Ford..“If you need tow trucks, we’ll get the U.S. to help and it will be embarrassing for us but if the U.S. is offering, we need to take it,” said Trudeau, adding: “Prevent Ontario from becoming a laughing stock.”.The governor of Michigan had offered to supply tow trucks to end a blockade in Windsor, Ont. The Ambassador Bridge protest also ended without incident prior to invocation of the Emergencies Act.
