Windsor mayor asked Mendicino about Emergencies Act use after Ambassador Bridge blockade cleared, inquiry told
Act would send 'a signal that this was a serious manner and would not be allowed to happen again': Dilkens
The Emergencies Act was "extremely helpful" in protecting the Ambassador Bridge following the blockade that shut down North America's busiest international crossing in February, the mayor of Windsor, Ont., has testified at a public inquiry.
Dilkens was the first witness to appear Monday before the Public Order Emergency Commission, which has been looking into the circumstances surrounding the federal government's use of the act during the Freedom Convoy protests against pandemic mandates last February.
Also on Monday, Day 18 of the inquiry, text exchanges between Dilkens and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino were submitted as evidence. In them, Dilkens warns the minister about a potential blockade days before it started, asks him if the government would use the Emergencies Act hours after the bridge reopened on Feb. 14, and raises concerns about children at the blockade that delayed the police response.
Windsor's acting deputy chief of police testified there was open source reports that children would be used as human shields at the protest.
The act was invoked the day after the bridge protest was cleared following a court's approval of an injunction.
Hundreds of Ontario Provincial Police, RCMP and Windsor police, along with members from services in other parts of the province, eventually cleared the blockade.
Dilkens described the mood of the protest "as if folks wanted some kind of brawl on the streets" between police and protesters.
Intelligence warned of potential blockade
Dilkens told the commission that the city did not immediately act on intelligence reports received on Feb. 4 about a potential blockade at the bridge by protesters.
"Not right away," said Dilkens, who also chairs the Windsor Police Services Board. "I just passed that up to the minister [Mendicino] for his attention."
According to the texts, Dilkens told Mendicino ahead of the protest that "it sounds like they may be attempting to block traffic to the Ambassador Bridge." Mendicino replied to the mayor, saying they should connect, but Dilkens testified he did not recall talking to the minister that weekend.
Dilkens did exchange texts with Mendicino after what the mayor described as a "quick" phone call with Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Feb. 9 about the blockade. He told the minister Ford was "going to follow Alberta and Saskatchewan."
"The premier, appropriately, was feeling the temperature across the province," Dilkens testified.
Both Alberta and Saskatchewan moved to lift pandemic restrictions during the Freedom Convoy protests.
Dilkens said his sense of the conversation was that Ford "had his finger on the pulse of the people in Ontario," and was "feeling some of the frustration we were all feeling with respect to the lockdowns."
"The premier, sensibly, was echoing some of the sentiments and was looking at this as a percentage of the population who was protesting because they felt most aggrieved by this.
"He was stressing to me the importance of the Ambassador Bridge and that we have to find a way to get this open," said Dilkens.
They also spoke about the request for additional officers, who started to arrive on Feb. 10. Dilkens said he never discussed the Emergencies Act with the premier.
'This was a serious matter'
Mendicino replied to a text from Dilkens asking about the act, saying to the mayor: "To the extent you can be supportive of any additional authorities that gets Windsor the resources you need to keep the bridge open, people safe, that would be great."
Mendicino said he would call Dilkens to discuss the act, but Dilkens testified that call did not happen.
The mayor testified the police and the city were in "a heightened state of alert" that protests would return to the bridge.
From an Emergencies Act perspective, anything that would send a signal to people contemplating coming to Windsor to start this over again I thought from my chair was extremely helpful. That ought to have sent a signal that this was a serious matter and would not be allowed to happen again.- Drew Dilkens, Windsor mayor
"From an Emergencies Act perspective, anything that would send a signal to people contemplating coming to Windsor to start this over again I thought from my chair was extremely helpful," said Dilkens. "That ought to have sent a signal that this was a serious matter and would not be allowed to happen again."
Dilkens said he was not aware if the act prevented any other attempts to block the bridge.
A document prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for federal cabinet ministers was brought into evidence when Dilkens was questioned by lawyer Brendan Miller, who represents convoy leaders.
The assessment report says CSIS warned cabinet on Feb. 13 that invoking the Emergencies Act likely would end the convoy in Ottawa, but would increase the number of people with anti-government views "and push some towards the belief that violence is the only solution to what they perceive as a broken system and government."
The report said CSIS reiterated those concerns to cabinet members after the act was invoked.
Protecting bridge 'practically impossible'
When asked about the city or police making any preparations to protect the bridge ahead of the blockade, Dilkens said it couldn't be done.
"It would be for all intents and purposes practically impossible to guarantee with any certainty that you could provide a route for trucks without having huge disruption to the community."
That kind of route was created during the reopening of the Ambassador Bridge on Feb. 14, with concrete jersey barriers placed along a three-kilometre stretch the length of Huron Church Road from the E.C. Row Expressway to the bridge entrance.
Dilkens was also asked about his conversations with Ontario's solicitor general, Sylvia Jones, and Mendicino on Feb. 7, when the mayor said he reiterated the police chiefs request for additional resources. At that time, the WPS had already requested assistance from Chatham-Kent and LaSalle police.
Dilkens told the commission that Pam Mizuno, who was police chief at the time of the protest, told him they did not have enough officers to clear the bridge.
"I will help amplify that at a political level," Dilkens recalls telling Mizuno, which he said was met with a "desire and willingness to help."
Dilkens told the commission that he was not sure how the Windsor police arrived at their initial request for 100 officers each from the OPP and RCMP.
The mayor also said the board did not see or ask for an operational plan, which was normal for the police board. He said he was was told on Feb. 8 the request for officers needed to be made in writing, which was sent the next day, two days into the blockade.
Dilkens felt that at that moment, the board believed the WPS either had or was working on getting what was needed to end the blockade. He said the board did not direct the police to act in anyway during the protest.
WATCH | Windsor mayor says after injunction, protesters brought kids to bridge, delaying police response
On Monday afternoon, Acting Deputy Police Chief Jason Crowley was questioned by lawyers about the WPS stance on slow-roll protests that had snarled traffic for multiple weekends in a row ahead of the demonstrations.
At one point, a lawyer for the federal government questioned Crowley about children being brought to the protest in a move to limit police options.
"We had to make plans with Children's Aid Society on arrest plans," said Crowley. "There was all kinds of considerations for us to keep the welfare of children very safe."
A lawyer for the commission questioned Crowley about the police service's initial response to slow rolls after he testified police worked with protesters to co-ordinate routes.
"We felt it was better to work with the protesters to facilitate their slow rolls; it maintained public safety," said Crowley, the officer in charge of creating an operational plan to police the slow rolls in February.
Crowley said protesters became more aggressive on the night before the blockade.
"That was the first time officers had to actually disengage from the protesters because of the aggression that they showed."
In an interview with the commission ahead of his appearance at the public inquiry, Crowley said RCMP told the WPS the local police service would need to police the slow rolls.
"They communicated to Deputy Chief Crowley that policing the slow roll was not their responsibility because the slow roll was expected to occur down the road from the Ambassador Bridge, rather than on the Ambassador Bridge itself," reads the witness statement presented as evidence Monday.
OPP, WPS join in unified command
Crowley testified the OPP were in charge of the Public Order Unit (POU) and the Public Liaison Team (PLT), which WPS had not had experience with previously.
POU teams are officers who respond to large crowds, while the PLT is part of the OPP roster that has built trust with people who are a part of protests in hopes of negotiating peaceful resolutions.
"Windsor police was always the police of jurisdiction," said Crowley, who added that OPP Super. Dana Early sought advice and input from the WPS when she took over as critical incident commander.
Crowley said the OPP arrived on Feb. 10 and integrated seamlessly with the emergency operations centre.
"They hit the ground running with us."
Crowley said the WPS did not use the Emergencies Act. He said that it may have prevented protesters from gathering at the Ambassador Bridge again, something the police service was worried about.
"We were very paranoid about it happening again ... on all the social media we had heard numerous pleas and numerous threats that it was going to happen again," he said.
Threats made by protesters
Dilkens told the commission he was not aware if a towing company contracted by the Windsor police refused to take vehicles away, but he did describe threats the company faced.
"There was all sorts of things going on to attack the company and it's reputation online," said Dilkens.
He said it wouldn't have been possible for them to remove the vehicles that blocked the bridge.
"They wouldn't have had the resources required."
Meanwhile, at the bridge, officers were attempting to negotiate an end to the protest with people who were part of the blockade, according to police and Dilkens.
Dilkens told the commission it was difficult because it was a "leaderless movement."
"There was no one speaking for the group who could guarantee the behaviour of the other members."
Dilkens said he didn't have any communications with the protesters and that the negotiations did not work. "It just ultimately didn't change much."
At the time, he said protesters "were willing to die for it," a phrase he told the commission he read in a report from the Windsor Star.
That kind of rhetoric and tension, he said, is what led to a decision to not send bylaw officers out to ticket parked vehicles.
One bylaw officer described having their vehicle spit on and needing a police escort back to their vehicle because of how the protesters were acting.
Mayor pushed for court injunction
Dilkens said public pressure to end the blockade hit a point where he had asked Mizuno if filing a court injunction would help end the blockade.
He said Mizuno approved of the plan, which he had started thinking about on the second day of the blockade.
"It was another arrow in their quiver," said Dilkens. But he said he wasn't sure it worked to get people out of the area.
"It just gave the protesters another thing to rally behind, [who were] saying, 'Nothing's going to make us leave.'"
When asked about the lessons the city and the WPS took away from the ongoing protests in Ottawa, he said the key part was to not allow the Windsor protest to grow.
He said police used jersey barriers to control access to the protest zone by blocking roads that branch off of Huron Church.
Dilkens said the blockade also jeopardized a multibillion-dollar investment by automaker Stellantis, which employs more than 5,000 people at the Windsor Assembly Plant where mini-vans are built.
The mayor said the chief executive officer of Stellantis met with senior officials in Canada during the protest to talk about the blockade, which was preventing trucks from crossing into Windsor from Michigan.
A single auto part can cross the bridge multiple times to be worked on in manufacturing plants in the Windsor and Detroit area.
"We're in the very early part of rolling out all the pieces back in February for this major, major investment. I wanted to make sure they knew very clearly we were taking this very seriously,' said Dilkens.
"We were at a very fragile point in the process that this could have derailed."