Review of convoy response by police may not be over, auditor says

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Anybody not glad by the audit printed this week of the Ottawa police response to the convoy protest would have that in widespread with its creator.

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“There are some very massive questions that (nonetheless) have to be answered,” metropolis auditor common Nathalie Gougeon informed the Ottawa Police Providers Board on Thursday after formally presenting them along with her audit report. “Why did this occur? How can we forestall it from occurring once more?”

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It was one in all three convoy-themed audits Gougeon had launched Wednesday, inspecting the best way town, the police service, and its governance board reacted to the protest-turned-occupation that rocked downtown Ottawa.

Within the case of the OPS audit, the scope included solely the police pressure’s collaboration with town. What led to the slim focus — “a really tough resolution,” Gougeon mentioned Thursday — was that her workplace’s audit work, undertaken on the request of the police providers board, was enjoying out alongside different convoy post-mortems and so they didn’t need to duplicate efforts at taxpayers’ expense.

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However Gougeon might resume some model of the “deep dive” into the police response that her workplace initially deliberate. It depends upon what questions are left unanswered by different experiences, together with a serious one due later this month.

The Public Order Emergency Fee has carried out a sweeping overview into the federal authorities’s response to the three-week vehicular demonstration, together with use of the Emergencies Act to result in its breakup.

Chatting with reporters Thursday, Gougeon mentioned her workplace would overview the ultimate POEC report, to be tabled by Feb. 20. Additionally on her radar is the conclusion of work by the citizen-centric Ottawa Folks’s Fee on the Convoy Occupation, with a report scheduled for publication on the finish of March.

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After that, she’ll test in in regards to the standing of a request to the Ontario Civilian Police Fee, additionally by the Ottawa Police Providers Board, to research the convoy response by the cops. Gougeon mentioned she was not conscious Thursday whether or not that request, made in February simply after the protest was cleared, truly led Ontario’s police watchdog to begin any investigation.

As soon as she has a agency evaluation of the land coated by different reviewing entities, Gougeon desires to test again in with the present membership of the police board about remaining areas of concern. There was turnover for the reason that board requested her to audit the OPS convoy response final March, together with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s addition to the seven-member governance physique.

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Whereas it was as much as Gougeon to find out the scope of her audit, among the many board’s recommendations almost a yr in the past had been sources and their administration by the police service, operational readiness, “whether or not systemic points throughout the OPS akin to racism or anti-vaccination sentiment compromised the OPS response,” and the way their response to this protest in comparison with others in recent times.

Gougeon mentioned Thursday that her top-of-mind questions included the adequacy of OPS planning for the protest and the pressure’s gathering and use of intelligence.

“If we’re not seeing any solutions as regards to that degree of element, I can guarantee you that it will be very tough (for) me to not transfer ahead,” Gougeon mentioned. She added that the sources accessible inside her workplace and the timing had been additionally issues for any further audit work.

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“We’ve already hit the one-year anniversary and I wouldn’t need to delay the work by an excessive amount of longer.”

What her abridged OPS audit did discover was that, though town and its police service labored successfully collectively general, the pressure might have improved its intelligence sharing and engagement with town on visitors administration, earlier than and through the protest.

Police Chief Eric Stubbs informed reporters at a media availability Thursday that the police service had taken Gougeon’s audit work so far as a possibility to study and enhance.

“These audits, these suggestions make us higher. And we’re higher,” mentioned Stubbs, who was employed final fall, changing convoy-era chief Peter Sloly.