The Biggest Problem With The Occupation

The were lots of problems behind the occupation of Ottawa a year ago. But the biggest problem, Les Whittington writes, was Doug Ford:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was missing in action when the convoy thugs took over the nation’s capital and prompted a national political crisis, Justice Paul Rouleau has made clear in his Feb. 17 report on the incident.

Rouleau doesn’t mince words when it comes to Ford’s hands-off approach to the blockade of streets and the lawlessness around Parliament Hill in February 2022. He puts the whole mess down to a failure of the local police and the refusal of Ford’s government to accept responsibility for controlling the situation.

He reminds everyone that, under Canada’s federal system, restoring order in an Ontario city in the midst of near-riotous conditions is the remit of the Ontario government. In a section entitled “Ontario’s absence,” he says many witnesses at the inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act “saw the province as trying to avoid responsibility for responding to a crisis within its borders.”

It was Ontario's deputy solicitor general who stated the situation plainly:

As proof of Ford’s indifferent attitude toward the Ottawa blockade, Rouleau’s final report quotes Ontario deputy solicitor general Mario Di Tommaso’s testimony that “when the concern was such that the protest was spreading to other parts of the province … that’s when the premier decided to act.”

The report also notes that the Ford government refused to engage at the political level in federal-provincial-municipal talks intended to co-ordinate an integrated response to the situation in Ottawa.

“Premier Ford told [Ottawa] Mayor Watson that he did not believe these meetings would be productive. Solicitor General [Sylvia] Jones was of the view that responding to the protests was a law enforcement issue” to be dealt with between the Ottawa police and OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique, Rouleau points out.

Further, the report says that in a discussion with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Feb. 9 of last year, Ford expressed frustration about the way Ottawa officials were dealing with the protests there. But “Premier Ford indicated, however, that the bigger issue was the Ambassador Bridge” blockade in Windsor.

The gist of the commission’s findings is that, had the Ford government lived up to its responsibilities after the Ottawa police bungled the job, the federal government would not have been forced to use the Emergencies Act to regain control of the trucker-occupied capital.

That's our Doug.

Image: Andrew Meade