FREELAND?

COUNSEL: Today in your evidence, you talked about the economic and financial consequences of the protests. And you talked about the reputational damage to Canada as an investment destination. And at the end of Commission Counsel's examination, she asked you to explain how you understood this, you know, economic harm was linked to national security. Do you recall that?

MINISTER FREELAND: Yes, I do.

COUNSEL: All right. And your answer to that was you believe our security as a country is built on economic security, and if our economic security is threatened, all of our security is threatened. And now I'm not asking you to elaborate on this. I just want you to confirm that this was your evidence.

MINISTER FREELAND: Obviously, I don't have word by word recall of what I said, but that's what I believe and sounds like you're reading the transcript, so--

COUNSEL: All right. Thank you very much. And now I take it you know that in order to declare a Public Order Emergency pursuant to the Emergencies Act, there must be what's called threats to the security of Canada. You're aware of that?

MINISTER FREELAND: Yes, I am.

COUNSEL: And the Emergencies Act says that threats to the security of Canada has the meaning assigned by section two of the CSIS Act. You're aware of that?

MINISTER FREELAND: Yes, I am.

COUNSEL: All right. So I just want to take you to section two of the CSIS Act… If I can take to page eight, please? Perfect. If you can just pause there. So the CSIS Act defines threats to the security of Canada, and we've heard evidence in this Commission that, for the purposes of invoking the Emergencies Act here, the focus was on section (C). That's where they were focussed in terms of the threats to the security of Canada.

So what (C) says is:

activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state…

So you see that?

MINISTER FREELAND: I do.

COUNSEL: All right. And so in terms of the economic harm that you've described today, the reputational damage to Canada as, you know, an investment country, you'll agree that it doesn't fall within (C); right? The activities relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence. Would you agree with that?

MINISTER FREELAND: Not precisely. You know, if the direction of these questions is to ask me, did I believe we were acting within legal authorities granted by the Emergencies Act, if that's where this question is leading, then my answer is, yes, I believed we had the authority to do what we did. And I hope no one is surprised by my saying that. Had I not believed it, I would not have done it, and I wouldn't be here speaking, you know, with sadness but confidence that we did the right thing.

[Much back-and-forth ensued, all of which went nowhere and served only to run down the clock. The Minister circled around that she felt the government was justified while carefully avoiding acknowledgement with any of the wording of the law.]

COUNSEL: (PARAPHRASE) The report to Parliament for the justification for invocation of the Emergencies Act, much of that focusses on economic security. Given there’s no such link obvious in the legislation, from your perspective what is the link between the threat to economic security and the threat to national security?

MINISTER FREELAND:

[She runs out the clock for several minutes once again. She talks about manufacturing and trade and random hypotheticals while ignoring six weeks worth of evidence including every manner of source, all of which resoundingly contradicts everything she offers, such as: a Statistics Canada analysis suggesting border blockades had little negative impact, with imports and crossings at other locations increasing; or the Canadian Trucking Alliance warning about significant damage to the economy through massive job losses in an essential sector and further impacts to critical supply chains that are already hurting… And then we get the following:]

MINISTER FREELAND: …But I do remember one morning I was walking from my hotel to my office, I walked past a parked truck and there was a young woman walking there too. And the truck honked really loudly, and she shouted something not very nice and made an obscene hand gesture, and the truck honked again really loudly. And I was really glad that I was there, and more importantly, that the RCMP was there, because I thought this is exactly the kind of thing - like, imagine no-one had been there, it was just this small, young woman, and this big truck, and a person in it. And she was mad, and I just thought, you know, there are dozens and dozens of these things happening every day, and you know, God forbid that one of them should actually flare into violence and physical harm.

[Which does not appear to have happened and not so much as a witness of anything of the sort, never mind an actual victim, was brought forward to the Commission.]

So I was worried about that too, and that does speak to the economic challenge because many, many Canadians, while this was happening, understood that this threat to Canada’s economic security, for many, many Canadians, it was a personal threat to them and they felt that their government was not protecting them. And they were right, we weren’t, for a while.

[To follow up, the Minister should have been asked: "By your own analysis then, what activities could not meet the threshold of a threat to national security and thus be worthy of invoking the Emergencies Act?"]

+ + +

COUNSEL: …On occasion, the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression includes actions that are of civil disobedience?… And civil disobedience will, on occasion, also involve serious economic disruption… A general strike, blockades by Indigenous peoples, or occupations like Occupy Wall Street may cause economic harm?

MINISTER FREELAND: Certainly, but the economic harm, you know, to take those specific instances, are very, very limited actually compared to the damage being done to Canada [by the Trucker Convoy]…

COUNSEL: When [the Polish Trade Union] had a general strike and blocked ports, Western democracies applauded that economic disruption and viewed it as legitimate political protest.

MINISTER FREELAND: …That was a protest against an illegitimate government. That was people rising up against an authoritarian and colonial regime.

COUNSEL: I'm assuming you're not saying that democracy only operates in the ballot booth. And that even after you were democratically elected, people can protest your government's policies, correct?

MINISTER FREELAND: 100%…

COUNSEL: …[And we know of authoritarian] countries of the world that have said ‘you should invest in us because we are politically stable: we do not have general strikes, we do not tolerate dissent.’ Surely you agree that in Canada, which is a democracy, the right to protest, the right to demonstration must be sedulously protected and that economic security does not trump those rights?

MINISTER FREELAND: …I believed we needed to act, and it was the right thing to do. Our trade was being stopped.

[Which, as the evidence shows, had an irrelevant impact and, in effect, did not happen.]

COMMISSION: But you agree that public assembly and the right to protest goes beyond simply me standing on a green lawn in front of a government building and that Canada should protect that to be a vibrant democracy?

MINISTER FREELAND: …I do agree with you that in a democracy the right to protest is important and has to be protected.

+ + +

COUNSEL: Okay. I want to refer you to an article from Farmer's Forum, which is self described as the largest circulation farm newspaper in Ontario. So I'm going to ask the Clerk to pull up a document. It's POE.SAS00000003. And just while we're pulling this up, it's the May 3rd, 2022 article entitled "Read the Documents: Farm Credit complied list of 9 names for possible blacklisting."

So we can see that on the screen there now. And I'm just going to read from the first three paragraphs of the article:

Farm Credit Canada [a federal government Crown corporation] compiled a list of nine people to be potentially blacklisted because of possible participation in the Freedom Convoy protest in February, according to internal FCC emails acquired by Farmer Forum through an access to information Request.

The access to information documents revealed that FCC employees were instructed to report the names of customers who were involved in the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa after the Emergencies Act was enacted on February 14th.

The federal lending agency compiled a list of nine people by viewing Twitter accounts and online media posts, as well as drawing from conversations with customers…

Now I expect we can agree that it's not surprising that FCC instructed its employees to report in this manner because FCC was required to do so under the terms of the Order. Is that fair?

MINISTER FREELAND: …that is a misunderstanding of how the Order worked. We were always very conscious that it wasn't the job of the federal government or the Ministry of Finance to name specific names or to even know which names were involved. …The way the Order worked was that it was to be a communication between law enforcement and the financial institutions…

COUNSEL: I think we should look at the documents referred to from that Access to Information Request. So I'm going to ask the Clerk to bring up POE.SAS00000004. And these are the documents which were obtained by Farmer's Forum and that are referred to in this article.

So we can see this is an email with the subject line, “How the Emergencies Act Affects FCC,” and it’s to Operations Field Staff, dated February 23rd , 2022. So I’d just like us to scroll down to the third paragraph, please? Stop there.

The third paragraph begins:

If you become aware of potential customer involvement in blockades, occupations and other support of activity related to the "Freedom Convoy," you must submit a tip to the Customer Diligence Centre (CDC) … Include the customer’s name, stated involvement, date and any other pertinent detail. Please do not complete any investigative work yourself or communicate any information about FCC’s approach to customers who voluntarily disclose their involvement…

So this is the morning of February 23rd, and we know that the Emergency Declaration was revoked on February 23rd… I’d just like us to scroll down to page five of the PDF now, please.

So we see this is an email dated February 25th, with the subject, “Emergencies Act - Customers Identified” and the content of the email indicates that the Centre is telling the recipient that they’d like to follow-up regarding customers that have been, “identified as possibly participating in the 2022 Freedom Convoy.”

MINISTER FREELAND: So let me say a couple of things. First of all, I’m seeing this email now for the first time, and as far as I know, it had nothing to do with me.

COUNSEL: Understood.

MINISTER FREELAND: Second of all, it’s certainly the case that the Order was– ceased to apply after February 23rd. And maybe the third thing, for people who are listening, that it’s worth pointing out, is all the accounts were unfrozen around that time.

[Except that they were not, as the evidence and testimony of participants shows.]

COUNSEL: Okay, well, I just want to continue to page six. I appreciate you’re seeing this for the first time, Minister, and I understand that’s difficult. But this appears to be a spreadsheet entitled, “2022 Freedom Convoy - Tips” And it has a column for “Tip”, “Date”, “Customer Name”, and “Preliminary Findings”. And I would just like us to slowly scroll to the very end of all of these, looking at the dates as they go by… We see entries for February 23rd, 24th, 25th. So you know, it appears – and I appreciate you’re viewing this for the first time – that FCC was still investigating tips relating to the Freedom Convoy 2022 as of February 25th. And I don’t know when it stopped investigating tips, and I expect you may not know either. Is that fair, Minister?

MINISTER FREELAND: With respect, I have to say I think these are questions for FCC and not for me.

COUNSEL: I expected you might answer that, and that’s fair. Aside from FCC, can you identify any other federal financial institutions which were subject to the Order for us?

MINISTER FREELAND: The Order applied to all financial institutions across the country.

+ + +

COUNSEL: Is Tamara Lich a terrorist?

MINISTER FREELAND: In terms of designating who is a terrorist and who isn’t, that is not my job as Minister of Finance or Deputy Prime Minister. We have authorities whose job it is to do that.

COUNSEL: Right. And so it’s not in your authority to designate Tamara Lich, Chris Barber, Tom Marazzo, or Danny Bulford terrorists; somebody else has to do that?

MINISTER FREELAND: Yes. We have intelligence services, we have law enforcement agency whose job it is to determine who is a terrorist. And that’s entirely appropriate.

COUNSEL: Okay, can I bring up document SSM.CAN.00008764_REL_001, please. Page 12, please.

COUNSEL: And this is a note that I understand you took while in conversation with “Dave”. And there you say “you need to designate the group as terrorists.” So, it’s no your job, but you wanted to have them designated as terrorists, is that right?

MINISTER FREELAND: So that handwritten note in my notebook, I can assure you that was not a meeting with the Director of CSIS. I didn’t have a meeting.

COUNSEL: It’s with David Vigneault from CSIS.

MINISTER FREELAND: It doesn’t say that. It says it’s with a gentleman called Dave.

COUNSEL: Which Dave?

MINISTER FREELAND: That meeting is not an account of a meeting with Dave Vigneault, because I didn’t have a meeting–

COUNSEL: Then which Dave is in these notes?

MINISTER FREELAND: –with the CSIS Director.

COUNSEL: Which Dave is in those notes? What’s Dave’s last name?

MINISTER FREELAND: I need to see my whole notebook that you’re referring to, but I can tell you for certain that I did not have a meeting during this time with the CSIS Director.

COUNSEL: It only says “Dave”.

[They moved on and we never got to learn to whom – during an unprecedented national emergency, as she put it – the Deputy Prime Minister could possibly have been saying these words: "YOU need to designate the group as terrorists." It wasn't her husband. Was it her secretary? Canadian acolyte and dialogician Dave Thomas? Maybe it was a US counterpart? Regardless, I think we can all agree, it would have been good for us to learn who the most senior officials in government are dictating to in such terms.]