Canada’s spy agency was concerned extremists might commit violence and recruit members when the Freedom Convoy rolled into Ottawa earlier this year, its director told lawmakers on Tuesday night.
But David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), said he could not provide specific examples, citing classified intelligence.
“The concern we had with the convoy, at the outset and throughout, was the fact that we have seen in Canada, in other jurisdictions, violent extremists using these protests and demonstrations to engage in acts of violence, to recruit members, to be able to spread their ideology further,” Vigneault said while testifying before a special joint committee investigating the invocation of the Emergencies Act in February, in response to the protests that occupied blocks of downtown Ottawa for weeks.
“We looked at those elements, we looked at the targets that we were aware of at CSIS — the people [who] were engaged in these violent activities —and see how they would try to use and manipulate those demonstrations.”
CSIS was also concerned about the risk of lone actors, who would “be engaged in violence spontaneously,” Vigneault said.
“This is what we were focusing our activities during the convoy and providing information to law enforcement.”
The never-before-used law gave temporary powers to deal with the blockades and protests against pandemic restrictions. It defines a qualifying emergency as something that “arises from threats to the security of Canada.”
Vigneault said every day the agency is uncovering and investigating threats to the security of Canada, including “a rise in anti-authority, violent rhetoric, particularly as it relates to public health measures.”
He said CSIS was aware of the “opportunities that large gatherings and protest” offer for violence and recruitment to ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE), a broad term used by the agency to cover various grievances including those from far-right, anti-authority and anti-government, and racist groups.
Not a policing failure: RCMP commissioner
The Emergencies Act authorized a ban on travel to protest zones, prohibited people from bringing minors to unlawful assemblies and allowed banks to freeze the accounts of some of those involved in the protests. It also enabled the RCMP to enforce municipal bylaws and provincial offences where required.
At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argued its use was necessary to address “serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce the law.”
But that reasoning has been questioned by the opposition and other critics who have asked whether other measures, including policing tactics, could have been used.
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told the same committee Tuesday she was involved in conversations about triggering the act a week before it was invoked on Feb. 14, but that she never asked for it.
Pressed repeatedly about why police couldn’t act sooner, Lucki said the act gave her officers, and those of the Ottawa police, different enforcement abilities — like compelling tow trucks to help move vehicles.
“This was a different type of protest where people weren’t leaving,” she said.
She said she didn’t think the event was a failure in policing, despite several senators and MPs on the committee suggesting the opposite.
Tuesday’s committee is separate from an inquiry, lead by former Ontario Superior Court justice Paul Rouleau, that will look into into the events that led to the Emergencies Act being invoked and make recommendations.
Reference-www.cbc.ca