RCMP in an internal email acknowledged there was “no serious violence in Ottawa” with the Freedom Convoy, despite claims by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. One police commander had said allegations of violence were “the main reason for the Emergencies Act.”.“There was no serious violence in Ottawa (the main reason for the Emergencies Act), but there was such a threat in Coutts, but was handled with already existing authorities even though we could have used the Emergencies Act in Coutts to support the operation,” Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan wrote in a Feb. 21 email..According to Blacklock's Reporter, the message to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is dated one week after cabinet invoked the Act to end a blockade outside Parliament. A similar protest at Coutts, AB. ended peacefully on Feb. 14 just before the Act was invoked..Deputy Commissioner Brennan’s email was in response to questions from the Privy Council Office on justification for the Emergencies Act. “We need to assess the threat in terms of serious violence, not in terms of whether truckers are hanging around,” wrote Rob Stewart, then-Deputy Minister of Public Safety..Minister Mendicino repeatedly claimed the convoy outside Parliament was violent and lawless. “Many residents have been effectively held hostage in their own city, blockaded by an angry, loud, intolerant and violent crowd,” Mendicino said Feb. 7..“We’ve seen without question there have been many challenges on the ground to restoring public order on the streets,” Mendicino said Feb. 14. Ottawa was “completely lawless,” he added. “It’s difficult to overstate the impact of those scenes, the conduct that has unfolded by those participating in illegal blockades.”.The contradictory RCMP assessment echoed similar conclusions by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Ontario Provincial Police. CSIS director David Vigneault in a Feb. 13 report to cabinet said the Freedom Convoy never “constituted a threat to the security of Canada.”.OPP Superintendent Patrick Morris, commander of the Provincial Police Intelligence Bureau, in a Feb. 22 report said he found no evidence the convoy was extremist, violent or armed. “It is not an ‘extremist’ movement,” wrote Morris. “It is not comprised of ideologically motivated violent extremists. The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts.”.“The issue has become deeply politicized and political figures and polarized media cite sources of extremism as the prime catalyst but there are significant differences between seeing political dissent or opponents as ‘extreme,’ a highly subjective measure, and the legal connotations of ideologically motivated violent extremism or terrorism,” wrote Morris..Testifying Oct. 19 at the Public Order Emergency Commission, Superintendent Morris repeated he found no evidence the Freedom Convoy was armed or violent. “The lack of violent crime was shocking,” said Morris. “I mean, even in the arrest and charges considering the whole thing in totality.”.“I want to be clear on this,” said Morris. “We produced no intelligence to indicate these individuals would be armed. There has been a lot of hyperbole around that.”
