New evidence shows the Parliamentary Protective Service took issue with the City of Ottawa’s plan to move “Freedom Convoy” protesters’ semi trucks out of residential neighbourhoods and onto the street in front of Parliament Hill.
The security service feared that Wellington Street would become a “parking lot,” the city’s top bureaucrat said in a written summary of a statement given to legal counsel ahead of a public inquiry.
The document provided to a commission investigating the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act to clear protesters sheds more light on a deal Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said the city had struck with convoy organizers.
City manager Steve Kanellakos said in the statement that he wasn’t sure if the protective service was consulted on the plan.
Kanellakos said he believed that a superintendent of the Parliamentary Protective Service reached out to Ottawa police, and that the security force “expressed concern” with the street being “turned into a parking lot of 200-plus trucks.”
The proposed deal came as anger mounted from residents who were fed up with the around-the-clock noise brought by the February protests.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2022.
The Canadian Press
