People’s commission report on 2022 convoy cites ‘human rights’ failure

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Dealing with an occupation of their neighbourhoods in January and February 2022, the individuals of downtown Ottawa have been deserted by police and all three ranges of presidency, an abdication of accountability that was nothing lower than a human rights failure.

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That evaluation is on the coronary heart of a report back to be launched Monday by the Ottawa Folks’s Fee on the Convoy Occupation (OPC), which, over the course of 14 hearings and eight group conferences final fall, in addition to on-line and mailed submissions, heard from greater than 200 individuals about how final 12 months’s weeks-long convoy occupation impacted their lives. Two of these hearings have been dedicated to supporters of the convoy.

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The fee, working as a program of the Centretown Group Well being Centre, was itself impartial on the convoy, and its mandate didn’t embody debate about vaccine or masks mandates, public well being protocols or the invocation by the federal authorities of the Emergencies Act.

Monday’s report is the primary of two releases from the fee with a second report offering extra evaluation and making suggestions to keep away from or decrease dangerous impacts in future anticipated to be made public on the finish of March.

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In noting the significance of the appropriate to peaceable protest, commissioners Leilani Farha, Monia Mazigh, Alex Neve and Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah underlined the “wholesale failure” and “colossal abdication” of municipal, provincial and federal governments to reply to the convoy in a method that acknowledged the human rights of these residing and dealing in downtown communities.

“It’s starkly evident that none of these governments have developed an overarching human rights framework to information selections about packages and companies for residents of downtown Ottawa, nor do they conduct an everyday evaluation to establish and perceive the human rights wants of the various communities who name central Ottawa house.”

Absent that framework, the report continues, it’s not stunning that, when confronted with a disaster such because the convoy occupation, “human rights issues didn’t determine prominently, if in any respect, within the response from governments or police.”

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The report refutes oft-made claims by convoy individuals and others that it was a peaceable occasion, with testimony making clear that, for residents, it was neither peaceable nor even a legitimately disruptive demonstration.

“Folks,” it notes, “felt occupied in that their communities have been taken over by drive and with out their settlement, each bodily by the use of blocking streets with massive vehicles and different automobiles, and by accosting individuals for carrying masks, in addition to psychologically by way of such strategies as blaring horns and displaying symbols and messages of hate, racism and discrimination.”

The report additionally takes a swipe at convoy organizers’ claims that there was variety amongst individuals and supporters, suggesting that, whereas “true to a restricted extent, it’s clear that the overwhelming majority of individuals concerned within the protests have been white males.”

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The majority of the 43-page doc, titled “What we heard,” summarizes the testimony of experiences that residents, enterprise house owners, employees, convoy individuals and others shared with the fee.

The abstract is damaged into 5 components that in the end represent the report’s important findings: that it was an occupation versus a traditional protest; that it was violent; that folks have been deserted; that, absent assist from officers, the group mobilized to assist these in want; and that the convoy additionally had supporters who, after two years of feeling ostracized due to their opposition to sure public well being protocols, welcomed the convoy’s arrival and message.

Every part, in the meantime, contains quite a few statements from individuals who testified, both in particular person, on-line or by written submissions, with sentiments various from: “It was a horrific expertise. I’ve utterly misplaced religion with our elected and paid officers to maintain me secure,” to “The ‘Freedom Convoy’ was the proudest I’ve ever been to be Canadian. Peaceable individuals coming collectively, supporting one another, to talk in opposition to a authorities that has performed such fallacious and felony acts in opposition to its individuals.”

bdeachman@postmedia.com