A staggering 87% of federal records pertaining to the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa were withheld by the Public Order Emergency Commission, discloses a Privy Council report. Canadians will wait decades to see the confidential memos and emails concealed by federal agents. The report to the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency made it clear the secret documents will not be released for years, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. A report from the Privy Council to MPs and senators said it gave a total 31,844 documents to a judicial inquiry investigating the Trudeau administration’s use of the historic War Measures Act (Emergencies Act) against peaceful protestors. Of those, a total of 27,815 were kept confidential by the 2023 inquiry. Concealed records included 16,632 classified as “secret” and 372 as “top secret.” Only commission counsel and Justice Paul Rouleau, the judge leading the inquiry, had complete access to all 31,844 documents, the report shows. “The commissioner and counsel had access to all information produced to the commission,” said the report.“Given that the commission was an independent commission of inquiry the Privy Council Office cannot comment on how specific documents were used by the commission. These questions would need to be posed to former Commissioner Justice Rouleau.”All 31,844 documents were deposited in the national archives.“Will Canadians have access to the documents which were not published or otherwise referred to publicly and if so, how, when and where?” asked the report. “Following an archival assessment of the commission holdings by Library and Archives Canada the Commission records of historical value will be transferred to the Archives for long term access and preservation.”“Library and Archives Canada is responsible for enabling public access to the historical records of commissions of inquiry. Once the Archives has processed the collection, members of the public can submit requests to order archival material.”Library and Archives Canada has a known history of waiting decades to release even routine documents. For example, records of the 1989 Mulroney cabinet remain concealed, archivists have yet to release 1950 documents regarding Nazi fugitives in Canada, and in 2018 archivists went to Federal Court to block disclosure of files on the 1963 Kennedy assassination.The few thousand Freedom Convoy documents that were released persuaded the Federal Court on January 23 to rule the Trudeau Liberals acted unlawfully in using emergency powers against protestors. “The decision to issue the proclamation was unreasonable and led to infringement of Charter rights,” wrote Justice Richard Mosley.Documents showed cabinet members lied in claiming police asked for declaration of the War Measures Act and made false claims protestors were violent to justify emergency powers. “There was no serious violence in Ottawa, the main reason for the Emergencies Act,” RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan wrote in a February 21, 2022 email.“It is not an ‘extremist’ movement,” wrote Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Patrick Morris in a February 22, 2022 memo. “It is not comprised of ideologically motivated violent extremists. The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts.”
A staggering 87% of federal records pertaining to the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa were withheld by the Public Order Emergency Commission, discloses a Privy Council report. Canadians will wait decades to see the confidential memos and emails concealed by federal agents. The report to the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency made it clear the secret documents will not be released for years, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. A report from the Privy Council to MPs and senators said it gave a total 31,844 documents to a judicial inquiry investigating the Trudeau administration’s use of the historic War Measures Act (Emergencies Act) against peaceful protestors. Of those, a total of 27,815 were kept confidential by the 2023 inquiry. Concealed records included 16,632 classified as “secret” and 372 as “top secret.” Only commission counsel and Justice Paul Rouleau, the judge leading the inquiry, had complete access to all 31,844 documents, the report shows. “The commissioner and counsel had access to all information produced to the commission,” said the report.“Given that the commission was an independent commission of inquiry the Privy Council Office cannot comment on how specific documents were used by the commission. These questions would need to be posed to former Commissioner Justice Rouleau.”All 31,844 documents were deposited in the national archives.“Will Canadians have access to the documents which were not published or otherwise referred to publicly and if so, how, when and where?” asked the report. “Following an archival assessment of the commission holdings by Library and Archives Canada the Commission records of historical value will be transferred to the Archives for long term access and preservation.”“Library and Archives Canada is responsible for enabling public access to the historical records of commissions of inquiry. Once the Archives has processed the collection, members of the public can submit requests to order archival material.”Library and Archives Canada has a known history of waiting decades to release even routine documents. For example, records of the 1989 Mulroney cabinet remain concealed, archivists have yet to release 1950 documents regarding Nazi fugitives in Canada, and in 2018 archivists went to Federal Court to block disclosure of files on the 1963 Kennedy assassination.The few thousand Freedom Convoy documents that were released persuaded the Federal Court on January 23 to rule the Trudeau Liberals acted unlawfully in using emergency powers against protestors. “The decision to issue the proclamation was unreasonable and led to infringement of Charter rights,” wrote Justice Richard Mosley.Documents showed cabinet members lied in claiming police asked for declaration of the War Measures Act and made false claims protestors were violent to justify emergency powers. “There was no serious violence in Ottawa, the main reason for the Emergencies Act,” RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan wrote in a February 21, 2022 email.“It is not an ‘extremist’ movement,” wrote Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Patrick Morris in a February 22, 2022 memo. “It is not comprised of ideologically motivated violent extremists. The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts.”
