‘Show me the Mounties:’ Ottawa mayor pleaded for more resources as protesters dug in, inquiry hears

Outgoing Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson says the city did not have the police resources it needed to handle last winter’s anti-COVID-19 restriction protests — and it wanted swifter help from other levels of government.

Watson was testifying before the Public Order Emergency Commission on Tuesday. The inquiry is looking into whether the federal government’s use of emergency powers to end the protests was justified.

“We needed help,” he told the commission.

The mayor said he began pressing the federal government for more police resources after the first weekend of the Freedom Convoy protest.

In a call between Watson and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Jan. 31 — a transcript of which was tabled before the commission — Watson is quoted as saying that “these people have had their time and need to move on. We have been trying to get this across to the chief of police.”

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Jim Watson answered questions at the public inquiry into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in response to last winter’s convoy protest. He said that the City of Ottawa needed help from the province and federal government to manage the growing protest.

“They are just doing themselves a disservice,” Watson goes on to say in the transcript of the call. “Chief of police [Sloly] spoke to [RCMP Commissioner] Lucki and we need a few more sources.”

“That’s for sure,” Trudeau replied. “The reminders will have no choice but to incite as a counterbalance, so we all have to be careful.”

Watson, who is not re-offering in the upcoming municipal election, declared a state of emergency in the city on Feb. 6, about a week after protesters rolled into the city and used their vehicles to block main arteries in downtown Ottawa.

What started as a demonstration against COVID-19 vaccine mandates quickly took on an anti-government character. The protest was marked by incessant honking that let up only after a private citizen sought an injunction.

The commission has heard that Peter Sloly, the chief of Ottawa police at the time, was looking for an additional 1,800 bodies to help police the crowds: 1,000 regular officers, 600 public order officers, 100 investigative officers, 100 civilian staff and other support officers in cyber investigative services and digital forensics.

Watson told the commission that Sloly mused about asking gas stations to restrict sales of gasoline to fill jerry cans.

While at one point the RCMP promised to send 250 officers, both Watson and his chief of staff Serge Arpin, who testified on Monday, said many of those officers had been assigned to protective services for Trudeau and the Governor General and were not available to Ottawa police.

“Show me the Mounties,” Watson said on a call with Sloly and federal cabinet ministers on Feb. 8. A transcript of the call was presented to the commission.

“We need to come out of the meeting with a down payment on resources. If we don’t have more officers, this will go on for a long time.”

‘Nasty people out there’ — Watson 

The mayor also said he sought more help from the province.

In a Feb. 7 letter to Sylvia Jones, the provincial solicitor general at the time, Watson asked Queen’s Park to help fill Ottawa’s request for 1,800 officers and called the situation in Ottawa “tantamount to psychological warfare.”

Watson said it was frustrating that the province, including Premier Doug Ford, wouldn’t participate in a tripartite meeting to discuss the situation in his city.

“He felt it would be a waste of time. When he said that I was quite frustrated with him. He said, ‘Look, what’s it going to accomplish, a bunch of people sitting around a table talking and making decisions?'” Watson told the commission.

“I said, ‘that sounds like a cabinet meeting.’ He didn’t like that.”

During a Feb. 8 call with Trudeau, Watson suggested Ford was staying away “because of politics” and called Jones’s claim that Ontario was providing 1,500 officers “disingenuous.”

“Nasty people out there that just don’t represent Canada,” said Watson, according to a transcript of the call.

“We are fighting a losing battle, it’s like whack-a-mole.”

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Jim Watson answered questions at the public inquiry into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in response to last winter’s convoy protest. He said police and every level of government should take stock of their failure to act swiftly enough to end the protest.

On the call, Trudeau commiserates about Ontario’s response.

“Doug Ford has been hiding from his responsibility on it for political reasons,” Trudeau said, according to the transcript.

“And [it’s] important that we don’t let them get away from that.”

On Feb. 12, two days before the act was invoked, Ottawa police launched an integrated command centre with the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP.

“We appreciate federal and provincial government support. We wanted it sooner because this thing should not have lasted three weeks,” Watson told the commission.

Before his appearance before the commission, Watson — like other witnesses — sat down for an interview with the commission’s lawyers.

“In Mayor Watson’s view, the City and police had the tools to deal with the situation but not the required law enforcement resources,” says a summary of that interview, entered into evidence Tuesday.

“In hindsight, removing the protesters early, before they got entrenched, might have ended the protests earlier.”

On Monday the inquiry also heard that the city and police were operating on an assumption that the protesters would pack up after the first weekend — despite having received an early warning that they planned to stay.

In an email presented to the commission on Monday, Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa-Gatineau Hotel Association, told the mayor’s office on Jan. 25 — a few days before trucks began rolling into the capital — that someone from the Canada United Truckers Convoy had reached out looking to book hotel rooms for at least 30 days.

Watson said that while he was aware of that email, he wasn’t that concerned about it.

“I don’t think most took it seriously for the simple reason there was no followup. It was simply asking about rooms,” he said. “It didn’t really go anywhere.”

The Public Order Emergency Commission is holding hearings for six weeks, sitting every day from 9:30 a.m. ET until 6 p.m. or later, as required.

Officials from the Ottawa police and the Ontario Provincial Police are expected to testify later this week.