Documents submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission show RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki did not believe officials had employed 'all available tools' to dismantle the anti-mandate protests in Ottawa, prior to the Emergencies Act being invoked.
Documents submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission show RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki did not believe officials had employed "all available tools" to dismantle the anti-mandate protests in Ottawa, prior to the Emergencies Act being invoked.
In the email, Lucki listed the "useful" powers the Act would give law enforcement, including prohibiting public assembly in a wider range of designated spaces, outlawing protesters from bringing gas and diesel into the protest zone, cellphone disruption, and giving police the power to get tow trucks into the demonstration.
She said some charges could still be laid under the Criminal Code, and Ontario declaring a state of emergency just days prior also helped law enforcement "in providing additional deterrent tools to our existing toolbox." "None of that, of course changes her testimony before the Standing Committee of Public Safety last spring, where she said very clearly that the Emergencies Act was needed to resolve the situation on the ground, not only in Ottawa, but across the country, both peacefully and swiftly," Mendicino told reporters Tuesday.
Bell had also previously said he did not request use of the Act, but that the tools it gave law enforcement were useful to clear Ottawa's downtown core of trucks.