RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki wrote to a cabinet aide that emergency powers could be used to jam Freedom Convoy cellphones. Lucki did not advocate use of the Emergencies Act, but checked off numerous applications including outlawing protests outside RCMP detachments..“Here are a few examples of additional tools that would be useful to have on the enforcement front should the Emergencies Act be triggered,” Commissioner Lucki wrote in a February 14 email to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s chief of staff. The email was prompted by a February 13 request for information from Mendicino’s office..Examples of emergency measures included “cell phone disruption,” wrote Lucki. “But more work to be done.”.“Consideration could also be given to extending the current bubble zone around health care facilities to include other critical infrastructure such as government facilities and police detachments,” wrote Lucki. The Emergencies Act could be used in “securing of protected places to prevent protests in these areas, e.g. BC Ferry terminals, airports, ports, rail and rapid transit stations,” she added..According to Blacklock's Reporter, Commissioner Lucki said she did not think the Emergencies Act was necessary. “I am of the view that we have not yet exhausted all available tools that are already available through the existing legislation,” she wrote. “There are instances where charges could be laid under existing authorities for various Criminal Code offences occurring right now in the context of the protest.”.Mendicino repeatedly said cabinet invoked the Emergencies Act on the recommendation of police. “It was only after we got advice from law enforcement that we invoked the Emergencies Act,” Mendicino told the House of Commons on April 28..Yet neither the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police nor Ottawa Police Service, asked for it. “We’re not in the position to provide influence on the government as to when and where they invoke a certain Act,” Lucki testified May 11 at the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency..“We’ve heard multiple times from ministers and others that the Emergencies Act and the tools provided were specifically requested by police leadership,” said then-Senator Vernon White (Ont.), former Ottawa police chief. “As a law enforcement agency with primacy for national security did you ask the government or representatives for invocation of the Emergencies Act?.“No there was never question of requesting the Emergencies Act,” replied Lucki..“So you never asked for it,” said White. “Do you know of any other police leadership that specifically asked the government for the invocation?”.“No,” replied Lucki.
