This is just one more reason to hate January. Waiting for February seems longer this year. We are expecting to hear from Ontario Justice Paul Rouleau in February. He is going to bring down his judgement on whether he thinks the government was justified to mobilize the emergency measures act to rid Ottawa of its New Year’s visitors last February. The Rouleau Inquiry, as it became known, provided us with a packed November of hearings and now a highly anticipated report in February.
Just how many countries do you think have a law—that if it is used—requires an official inquiry into whether it should or should not have been used?
We do some strange things in this country.
And those yahoos who drive the big rigs in this country were not well represented in this fiasco. I had always respected them as people doing a tough job under tough circumstances. They came out looking dumb. That was not a good method of bringing Canadians to your side.
And why piss off people in Ottawa? You want them on-side, not annoyed.
It was obvious that prime minister Trudeau was the best prepared witness at the hearing. He had to be. And yet, what did we learn from him?
What was appalling about the testimony, was the political positioning of the police forces involved.
Justice Rouleau told us that what was at stake is “public confidence in Canadian institutions.” Thinking back over the snippets and sessions over the month of hearings, I believe that horse has left the barn. I hardly think this Canadian will ever again trust the Mounties or the Ontario Provincial Police. I have worked with both those of those organizations at different times over the years and what I saw in the inquiry was deeply disappointing.
I must admit I have always been puzzled by how the Canadian Intelligence Security Service did its job. What was laid bare before the inquiry was a useless bunch of paper pushers. We will see Justice Rouleau’s take on it next month.
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