Front Burner - Inside the Ottawa convoy protest as police move in

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

In this special edition of Front Burner, we take you to the heart of the convoy protest that has been choking our national capital. Jayme Poisson goes inside a key supply camp in Ottawa and accompanies Steve Day, former head of the Canadian Armed Forces’ JTF-2 special-operations task force, to other protest sites to examine the challenges law enforcement could face. We also talk to protesters about why they’re digging in.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, Jamie here. So as I record this, things are getting really tense in Ottawa. Arrests are starting to happen. There's a lot more cops in the streets. One of the convoy organizers, Chris Barber, has been arrested. Ottawa police are saying action to clear the downtown of protesters is imminent.

So we're releasing this episode early. We think it's important because we spent all of yesterday at satellite locations, in fact, right inside, and also at the street protest. We went with a former Canadian military commander. We wanted to get a real sense of what the authorities are up against here, and he helped us understand that. One thing you need to know, the one camp that we got inside, we were led on what I would call a managed tour. We couldn't move around freely and we were directed to certain people to talk to. All right, here we go. All right, so we are just approaching the Embrun site, and there's these homemade signs marking the way.

Parking route 200B, 5 kilometers. So they've made their own markers. We're going to meet with Steve Day hey Steve let's meet at Ultramar gas station ok alright so here we are this is him right here in the jeep how you doing

I'm awesome good alright so let's roll We're on Calypso Street for three kilometers. How are you doing? I'm awesome. How are you doing? Good. Good. All right. So let's roll. Pass Embram. So we've heard that this site is sort of the most hostile. Which?

This one that we're about to go to. Okay. I just drove by it. Seemed fine? There's not a lot going on there. Hey, Steve, can you just introduce yourself for me? Yes. So my name is Steve Day. I'm the founder and president of Radical Ventures Canada, retired Canadian military. I was an army engineer for over a decade, and then I spent the second half of my career

in the special operations community. So both while in uniform and as Radical, I've been in Afghanistan and Asia, clearly the Middle East, Africa, Central South America, the Caribbean, and of late, Europe, and specifically a number of Eastern European countries. I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit about why your experience helps inform what we're going to be doing today. helps inform what we're going to be doing today? While in uniform, I was on over 16 named military operations over a 20-year career. That included everything from disaster assistance, humanitarian support,

through clearly counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, war fighting, peacekeeping, and then on the very far right of that spectrum would be counterterrorism. peacekeeping and then on the very far right of that spectrum would be counterterrorism and so i've done multiple missions and various locations looking at national security and national defense problems from various vantage points i was a special operations commander so i look at it from a command and control lens but if i fall back earlier in my career as a combat engineer officer i can look at a a situation and say okay how would I want to advance on that potential adversary and make sure that our forces can get there as quickly as possible with a with the minimum amount of collateral damage as we would call it or you

know unintended consequences we're in Embr Ontario, which is about 30 minutes southeast of Ottawa, and there's a site that seems to be like a bit of a way station for the protesters. How would you describe it, Steve? Yeah, what I would describe it as is a bit of an administrative logistics staging area. Do you actually know what's going on inside this location right now? I don't personally have any access to intelligence per se from a Government of Canada perspective, but based on what I'm seeing and what I've heard through other channels, it would appear to be very much a staging area. Okay, so we've got, these are drone shots.

They are drone shots. Okay. All right. So we've got here drone shots of of the area and and just what do you see here can you just tell people what it looks like yeah so as we're looking at these pictures here you can see again there's a there's numerous entrances into this the staging location it's quite well organized you got a number of vehicles backed in um where did they go where they need to go there's some tents i. I can see some porta-potties.

And what else are we looking at here? Anything close up? So it looks like, again, it's quite well organized to be able to manage the inflow and exit of large vehicles, specifically tractor trailers. Not only that, as I mentioned earlier, you can see there's nothing around it. So you can see for hundreds of meters

vehicles that could be approaching or anything to be approaching the location. And so I wonder if you could just help me understand why would an area like this be beneficial for the protest? Well, again, if they're going to, what we would say, harden that occupation zone zone you need to be able to sustain yourself so you need fuel you need food you need to deal with human waste and porta potties and you need to generally do that away from where where you're trying to send your message because doing that in downtown Ottawa a congested built-up area it's very hard to get that logistics footprint there not only that from what i'm looking at it allows them potentially to stage additional vehicles into the core under a bit of a deliberate plan like you can hold them outside the area and then bring them in as you need to

so as i look at that it would indicate to me a little bit higher level of sophistication on the planning end of this and potentially the control end of this than what I might have initially expected a month ago. All right, so now we're gonna get in the car. We're gonna drive a bit closer to this area just to try and get a better look. Maybe see if anyone there will talk to us. Sure. here we go we're coming up to the ember and site turn left here yes big sign makeshift sign that says parking on the road passing a little farmhouse and now again two fields on each side so we're just gonna pull up on the side of the road here so we've got trucks coming up to the entrance another truck

someone seems to be signaling hey how's it going how are you good thank you good good good we're just uh we're just for the podcast and we're just here to check it, check the space out. We want to see what's going on here. Beautiful. Yeah. Can we come in? No.

Okay. How come? You're on private property. Please go. Okay. We just want to come and check this out. See what you guys are up to here. I just want you to leave.

Okay. Can we ask you a few questions before we leave? No. No? Okay. How come? One, you guys like twisting the truth. You guys like to edit things. So please leave.

Okay. We don't want to twist the truth here. Good. We just want to get a sense of what's going on here because it looks like maybe it's a bit of a staging room. Please leave. That's good going there. Okay. Please leave.

Thank you, guys. Thanks. Thanks. You too. Have a good day. I didn't mean to bother you. Peace and love. Okay.

Every day. Yeah, I mean, it was pretty hostile because the guy that was telling us the truth was pretty hostile i mean a bunch of people came out of a trailer uh probably about five six people came out of a trailer there's somebody coming up now so Okay, so we are back up online now. Things got a little bit hot for a minute, but we actually ended up having a pretty long conversation with one of the guys at the site. And we'll talk about that conversation with Kevin in a minute. But first, Steve.

So now we are at a nearby parking lot. And just talk to me about what you saw there. I would like to maybe backtrack a little bit on my earlier comment around sophistication. Not saying there isn't another aspect. Because we're only seeing one one part of the puzzle right now but what was interesting is they've got a small little command center set up there with their radios an antenna coming out of that little command post they've got almost 20 or 30 porta johns porta potties around the place so again they're prepared for that they got a

number of generators they got the big light stand they got insulation in that tent. And then as I was walking around, it's clear to me, and this is why I make the comment about wanting to walk back a little bit my degree of sophistication. They, A, never should have allowed me to walk down the road, which is why I did it. And they absolutely shouldn't have let me go to the Port-A-John. Right. And I'll just say for our listeners, so while we were having, they didn't let us go anywhere, but while we were talking with the guys and particularly this one guy, Kevin, Steve took a walk down the road and then we were told to call him back. And then he asked them if he could go use the porta potty to go to the bathroom.

And they actually let him in and let him do that. So now, sorry, please pick up. I did notice one vehicle pull in that had a veteran's plate. I'm not sure if you noticed that when they pulled in. So again, and clearly we're looking at one piece of the puzzle here. But there's some aspects that talk about a degree of sophistication, but then at the other side of that, it's complete amateur hour. Yeah, I didn't see that veteran's plate, but that sign that we couldn't make out when we went in, it actually said veterans for freedom. that veterans plate but that sign that we couldn't make out when we went in it actually said veterans for freedom um and then now i want to talk about the conversation that we have with kevin he said he was from new brunswick and then he came here at the beginning of the convoy he made us turn

off our equipment but as we continue to talk uh he talked about how this was sort of like a staging ground for the truckers he saw the truckers as being on the front line and so they would come here and they would give them food and they would give them clothes, wash their clothes, give them new clothes, give them hats, let them rest. They would be able to sort of talk to people. So much like how you described it before, like a logistics point. Was there anything that stood out to you? Not from an organizational perspective, but other than listening to Kevin speak. Clearly, he's one of our citizens.

I would strongly suggest not really understanding what's going on around him, a bit frustrated with the COVID on the pandemic, et cetera, et cetera. And he's one of those people that's hard to reach out to. Yeah, I should say a large part of the rest of the conversation with Kevin pandemic, et cetera, et cetera. And he's one of those people it's hard to reach out to. Yeah, I should say a large part of the rest of the conversation with Kevin included him sort of talking to us about how the media is twisting the truth and how COVID is not a big deal and how, you know, he talked about the great reset theory for a period of time, you know. Interesting, an interesting thing he said that I think is worth noting here. I asked him if he was worried

now that the police are stepping up, they're handing out posters or pieces of paper in downtown Ottawa, telling people that they need to leave or they'll be subject to arrest. I asked him if he was worried that the police may come and raid this staging ground. And he said, said no why would

they they can't it's private property another thing that uh kevin talked about was how they really had to step up security there he said that a car came in and tried to run over some of the truckers the other day was not super clear to me what happened there, but he said after that they really need to step up security. He said that he was running security here and that this was like a military operation. Yeah, I wouldn't suggest it would be a military operation from a perspective of a professional military, but maybe the illusion of a military operation from some of those folks that are the weekend warriors, so to speak, that think maybe they're in the military.

So as I mentioned, yes, they have some handheld radios. They do. Are they trying to do a number of the things? Yes. But I would characterize it as amateur hour. okay so so now we're at the the second uh site uh it's it's like another staging ground um and this is on coventry road. It's three, four kilometers away from Parliament Hill. It's basically on the eastern edge of Ottawa. And Steve and I just took a drive around the site.

It's in a parking lot of a baseball stadium, and it's surrounded by the Hampton Inn, the Marriott. And so, Steve, talk to me about what you just saw when we took that drive. Right. So I think what I would say is, again, it is another staging area. It's clearly a lot closer to the main event downtown. It would appear to have all the same capabilities here that we saw outside of Ottawa. It's clearly far busier. And I think as you and I saw, they're actually actively filling up jerry cans. Those, those five gallon or 20 liter jerry cans are, are being filled right now.

Um, and they are diesel ones, whether they're putting diesel or gas in, it's clearly a diesel, uh, jerry can. Um, yeah, they, they've got all the same things though. Like they've got porta potties, they got food. Um, they've got a bit of a control point where you can access and get stopped and get checked. But again, it looks a lot to me like we've seen before, except for this is far closer and it's busier. You mentioned when we were driving around that this was an easier site to surveil. And tell me about that.

It would be only because it's in a built-up area. So built-up area being a city, being an urban space. So it just gives folks that either want to look out, i.e. from the site out, or folks looking from outside the site in, you've got a bit more opportunity to see what's going on. Buildings. Buildings, the roads, again, there's a number of high-speed routes in and around here. So it's an interesting location. You also mentioned that you were surprised that there was no overt police presence. Like, we haven't seen any police car, marked police cars here.

As far as I can tell right now, there is zero overt police presence here. Yeah. And that could be a de-escalation attempt to keep things somewhat calm. It's very calm here right now. We're going to take a walk up to that reception area, to that entrance. But what we're going to do this time is leave the gear in the car. We're going to leave the microphones in the car just to see if we can have a dialogue with these guys that doesn't start off quite so hot and uh to see if we can maybe get inside and take a little bit more of of a looker tour around so uh that's what we're gonna do right now

and well that approach worked and uh a woman named Angel gave us a tour. I have a riding stable with 20 horses there right now. And my daughter's looking after the farm while I am here fighting for our freedom. And so right now, we are just entering the, what would you call this? This is Base Camp 302 Coventry Road. Okay, and what would you describe the function of this is? We support the truckers and supply them with whatever they might need and we're running breakfasts down every morning. People are coming in from all over the country. You can see

this huge parking lot here full of people from all over the country i don't know what would you estimate how many cars are here right now uh i don't know i would say maybe uh 150 guys i'm not very good at that i i would say more but they're they're in and out all day long we're feeding over five last week we were feeding 500 people a day i'm gonna guess it's over seven this week they're coming from the hill they're coming from all over the country. We've got a bugle play. That guy's awesome. There's a bugle, yeah, the bugle play go Canada. Yeah. And why did you want, like, tell me more about why you wanted to come here. I wanted to come here because I want to represent, I want to be represented. So the best way to be represented is to be present. So that's why I came and I brought my daughter. This is a fantastic movement that's going to put things back in order of the government that's not doing their job.

They need to come down and talk. What do you want them to do? What do you want the government to do? We're not leaving until the mandates are lifted first of all and we want them to step back and not have the government overreach that they are inflicting on the people you mentioned you're here with your daughter can you tell me a little bit more about about your daughter she's nine years old her name is briar rose and um you can probably talk to her yourself if we run into her. She's having a great time. There's all kinds of kids in and out here. We have a kid's corner in the dining room with games and activities. She's having a really good time here. There's an atmosphere of love and unity, and it's a family event.

You talked to me about your other daughter. Oh, my daughter Heather. So my daughter Heather is 26. She's at home looking after the farm because she lost her job that she had at our local nursing home. She had been working there and loved her job, was doing great at her job, and they told her to leave in the middle of a, is this a health crisis going on? Yeah. So she's at home looking after the farm while I'm here. Angel, I wonder if what we could do now is just a bit of a tour, right?

Sure. So we're coming. From the SOS Quebec, their cafe. All right, come and meet Patrick from SOS Quebec. Yeah, it's really amazing how people are coming from all over the country, sleeping in their cars they're they're getting accommodation actually through people in Ottawa we have a database of residents Ottawa residents willing to open their homes to perfect strangers to come and support this movement.

So is that happening right now? Are people sleeping in people's homes? I got hooked up that way with a retired nurse. She had come out of retirement to help with COVID. And again, she was told to go home in the middle of a health crisis. So now she's taking in laundry for the truckers and she took myself and my daughter in and she's also helping in the administration. She's just a powerhouse. She's my Florence Nightingale. And I just want to be clear here, you know, when you

say that they were told to go home, it's because they did not want to take the job and they were told that they could not work anymore in the health industry. So here we are at SOS Cafe. This is like a wooden structure that has been erected. It's like a little house. People get here. They've had a long drive. And these guys meet them. Say hi.

And people can get like hot chocolate or soup. It looks like even some basic supplies. There's a little table out front with a heater underneath it. We've got four small children that are sitting at it right now. Hey, guys. Hi, how are you? Good, thanks. How are you? Good.

All right, so now we're coming back up to... Oh, well, there's a sign that says reception, right? And so I guess this is like the entrance to the staging area. So you come in, we have a little information booth. So if you want to know where to go or you're looking for someone or something in specific, if you're bringing in a donation, to take it they'll tell you at the information booth and we have security guards there's no alcohol allowed and you have people posted here at the entrance uh there's two two these two entrances you have people posted here

24 7 uh all yes 24 7. We have our own security force. Okay. We just saw Jodi, who's one of the security guards. She's a dental hygienist assistant. Okay, so here are the two saunas. You can see the fires going. So people can come in here and just kind of warm up, right? Yep.

Oh, I'll show you the massage tent. So now we're heading to the massage tent. There a sign that says healing massage free donation we have a little issue with the heating in the massage tent today so the massages and haircuts are being done in the administration office there's some right there yeah donations here so is this where people are making so people are leaving food um toiletries anything they think that people might need those tents are filled every day and distributed and so now we're going into the office it's like a big uh tent it's well heated in here i'll say that this is my florence nightingale Rosalyn she took my daughter and myself into her home she's taking in laundry from the truckers she's a nurse she's a wonderful

person and they love her well I retired from nursing for two years and then when I heard about COVID and shortage of nurses I came back to to work. And I worked for two years. It was very short. It was worse than I expected. I was working 75 to 120 hours per two weeks. And then because I'm not providing a proof of vaccination, I have been put on non-paid leave since October. No unemployment insurance, which I paid all my life. And yeah. And I'm so thankful for the convoy that is here.

It has brought so much hope. Can I ask you, though? Can I ask you, are you worried about the Emergencies Act? Are you worried about the police coming in here and things getting dangerous? I don't, I will stand for Canada. I don't care of going to jail. I will stand for Canada. We cannot listen to rumors. We cannot listen to rumors. We are in our rights. I am standing legally, no violence, nothing. If they come, I will just kneel down and sing O Canada or start to pray.

Yeah, God will intervene. I really believe God will save our nation because God says in his word that if we humble ourselves and pray that he will heal our land. So you tell me, what are you doing here? My name is Wynton Marchant. I'm a retired district chief from Windsor Fire and Rescue Services after 31 years. I'm here to help the Canadians. I'm here to help my neighbours and my loved ones and my children.

Being retired, I have everything I need, but I could not sit back in good conscience and watch people's businesses being closed, not being allowed to go to school, children afraid to hug their grandparents, and I just had enough. So early in the game, I rose up and just joined people, bringing information forward, tired of information being suppressed, and we would like to stand up for a free Canada. Could I ask you, the government, they could go after financial assets that people have. Does that worry you?

There are some things that are far more important than money, and my father taught me that. I'd just like to tell you, my dad lied about his age when he was 16, stormed the beaches to Dieppe. 147 men in his little division. He was one of six who came back. Broke my grandmother's heart, her only son. Why would you do this? And my dad said, how can I sit by while these evil things are taking place? And a little bit of that was maybe rubbed off on his family.

It sounds like nothing would dissuade you from being here right now. Lord willing, nothing, you know. Do you worry? I mean, you know, you have experience as a firefighter. You're around law enforcement a lot. I'm sure you know that there's a lot of pressure to clear this. Yes, there is. Are you worried about police coming in here?

No, I am not worried at all. Let the chips fall where they may. I wonder if I could ask that same question to Angel. I haven't asked you that yet. Do you worry about the police coming in here? Yeah. Are you afraid? No, I'm not afraid. I know that we're within our legal rights to uphold our constitution, and that's what we're doing. And if the police are acting against us, then they're in the wrong, and that's between them and God and their consciences. Let's go in the dining tent. Oh, do you want to talk to briar hi briar is that okay why don't you show us the dining tent okay so there's a breezeway coming into

the dining tent there's a bunch of hay bales surrounding it okay so now we're in the dining tent which is also very well heated i will say uh. There's literally a duct coming through with air. There's a gas heater. To the left of me, there's a bunch of tables with food supplies, lots of water, cookies, cake, fruit, soup. To the right of me, there's a bunch of tables set up. A lot of people are sitting here. They're eating.

Yeah, thanks guys. Thanks guys. There's sort of like a bit of an open fire. There's a guy making hot dogs over here on a grill. There's a barbecue. There are speakers.

And this corner over here looks like a kids' corner. There's books and toys. Yeah, talk to me about this. I just like to go there and I just grab stuff and bring it back to the office because my mom doesn't like me being gone for too long. And Briar, what do you think about all of this, being here? I'm glad that we're here, but the reason that we are here isn't good. It is nice here but I'm excited to go home too. How long have you been here for? We've been here since last Monday, 10 days. Have you met a lot of people? Yeah. Are there a lot of other kids here? Not like a lot, but there are a few.

Are you in school back home? My mom took me out to be here, so I'm actually kind of excited about that. Yeah, fair. Yeah. Here I see diapers. I see Clorox wipes, I see... What's the... What are all these plastic chickens that I see everywhere?

Somebody thought it was funny. Like these rubber chickens that seem to be everywhere? You told them Justin. Okay, okay. No, wait, no, I didn't say that, I'm sorry. It's all good. There's shampoo and conditioner on this table as well. Toilet paper.

Multi-vitamins. There's recycling. There's a recycling bin. So here. They keep the water? Right. They keep the water here. There's a bunch of water jugs.

Maybe like 20 large water jugs. And then here, there's a bunch of water jugs maybe like 20 large water jugs uh and then here there's a dishwashing station this is uh so we had the grill over on the other side we had steaks last night there's usually hamburgers hot dogs uh chops all kinds of great stuff on the grill and oh poutine really good poutine eh briar the gravy is best. And then over here we have more healthy choices. We have salads and soups and stews. We have another grill here that we do eggs and bacon on in the morning. There was pancakes this morning with real maple syrup. You know, I know, Angel, that we talked about how you feel about law enforcement coming in here.

But what about the idea that people could come after your financial assets? We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I actually, I have thought of it, and I left my farm to come here. I have a 130-acre farm, but I don't want to live on 130 acres owned by tyrants. With these new powers, do you feel like people are being swayed here by that? Not at all. We're holding the line. No, no, no. If anything, the Trudeau government is digging themselves a bigger hole by the more they clamp down, the stronger the people rise up. So you're not hearing people say, I can't lose my business i gotta go home no that's not happening anything

hi guys oh cbc that's unusual how'd they get in here they're with me they're on our side now no they are the media they are reporting the fact i'm jamie i'm jeff what brings you here right here well a number of things i was in the trucking business, so I had a connection there too. So I came here for the same reasons that most of the people are here. We started off with the mandates, and yes, as everyone knows, it evolved to a little bit more than that. However, if the Liberal government had just made even one move forward to speak to us in the early days, as we expected in the first two or three days that we were here, we wouldn't be here right now.

So they would say that they didn't want to talk to you, they didn't want to negotiate because there were hate symbols in the crowd. So how would you respond to that? We may have had one or two, and I did see them in the first couple of days, hate symbols, if you determined it that way. But even themselves, I don't think I understand what the meaningful part of that was. And they really didn't amount to anything, and they were removed immediately. They're not part of our thought process here.

But that's what the media, particularly your media, seemed to dwell on. I think a lot of people in Ottawa, they feel like these trucks have caused a lot of heartache for them. Businesses have had to be closed. It's loud down there. There's a lot of diesel. A lot of people describe it as being intimidating. There are women that don't want to walk down the streets. Have you been doing that?

Yes. I'm just saying that this is what... And so, can you understand where they're down there? Yes. I'm just saying that this is what, and so, and so, can you understand where they're coming from? No. Well, I do, actually. I can understand that. If I lived down there, I maybe would feel the same way, but it was never meant to be like that. It was meant to be an amicable, short-term process, and it could have been rectified had somebody from the Liberal government came to the table to make some sort of resolution for the issues that we were here to protest. I think in the end there's sometimes there's short-term loss for a long-term gain and

unfortunately not everyone wins on the short term so the feelings they have i can understand hey look i'll tell you i'm a woman you're you're we're both kind of small it's intimidating a bit to go downtown there's a lot of big trucks they're loud there's a lot of men down there i don't i can see how someone would find it. Yeah, I totally understand that. Jeff, how... We're going to have to wrap this up soon, okay? Yeah, yeah. One more question, if you don't mind.

How do you think this ends? Because the Prime Minister and law enforcement are saying that it has to end. How will it end? I just can't answer that. I think the people will win. We'll get our way. It's just going to be a long, arduous process. Guys, we're going to have to wrap it up.

All right. So, Steve, we're back in the car. We just did a bit of a tour with Angel. You were kind of off around this site. Now that you've had a chance to be in the site, you know, any new observations? What did you see? Well, I guess what jumps out at me again is it's what we would term a very, very loose to non-existent perimeter. So there's no security at this site per se. Like you can get in there relatively easy, notwithstanding there's a checkpoint or two. But that's, I think, more for show. So there's no perimeter per se. I'm very uncomfortable with the number of children I see

around here. There's not a lot. I've probably seen a half a dozen. I would say I saw five. Yeah, I've seen about a half a dozen. I'd say they're largely under the age of seven you know probably the vast majority under the age of five i don't know if you saw because you're in different spots but there was a baby definitely under six months oh yeah i did see that that that infant um and then the other issue that i see problematic here is the number of propane cylinders open open fuel, fuel tanks, all in quite close proximity to flammable objects. And so none of that is good if there's any type of challenge as you try to work through this.

Because it's just, if we look across there at the plywood structure and the folks that are in there cooking the hot dogs and the chili and everything else, that thing will go up like a Roman candle. Right, this is the cafe. everything else, that thing will go up like a Roman candle. Right. This is the cafe. The cafe, whatever that might be. Now, the other thing I've come across as I walk through the parking lot is, again, license plates from a lot of different places.

First Nations flags, the Quebec flags, the Canadian flags, the Ontario flags, the U.S. flags. So it's just interesting. That's what I noticed on this latest walkabout. So one thing that did surprise me as we were walking through is that there were a lot of women here. So when we were at Embram, there were a lot of men. And even when I was in downtown last night, there were a lot of men. And I would say that it's about 50-50 here. There are a lot of women in the mix. And does that say anything to you, I guess?

Not necessarily. I think we could draw a couple of conclusions, but without looking at the problem in a bit more detail, you'd hate to draw a false negative or a false positive as you work through this, because the intelligence picture still is not really clear here. So I don't know what that means just yet in the Dragons Den a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection watch

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At this point, we ditched the car and hit the main protest route on foot. This is a long stretch directly in front of the parliament buildings. You've no doubt seen video of this. I had too, but it really does not capture what is going on. You really have to see it to believe the scope of it. Freedom, freedom, freedom. The stone and iron wall in front of Parliament has become an anti-vaccine, anti-mandate, anti-government mood board. There are handmade signs posted everywhere.

And on the streets, huge trucks parked side by side, creating long, narrow corridors. Barbecues, we saw someone roasting what looked like a pig, music, lots of people live streaming. We walked the length as well as a couple of the other smaller sites on connecting roads. Then we went back to the hotel room for a final debrief with Steve. Okay, Steve, so we just walked through the protest at Parliament Hill and then in downtown Ottawa, and we're back at the hotel. What did you see? I guess, how would I characterize it, what I saw? So to a certain degree, I'm at a bit of a loss for words as we were talking about.

clearly a very very large dense um demonstration with all those vehicles and people and children and and booze and and everything else is going on so what did i see though to contrast it against the other two sites is it's um it's got a different vibe it's it's calm there's a little bit of a party atmosphere as we would have saw at the one intersection. But it also strikes me that there's certainly an undercurrent where this could turn really fast. And why do you say that? Just based on, as I walk around, listen to the people that are talking, see some of the engagements they're having with their friends or colleagues or whoever that might be. or colleagues or whoever that might be. It's fascinating to watch people, groups, mobs, for lack of a better term, and how quickly they can turn on something that might be misconstrued, whether that be a vehicle being moved or someone having a conversation.

Something can very rapidly escalate because people didn't understand what was going on around them. Right. I mean, we missed it. We were down the street, but there was a bit of an altercation between the protesters and the cops because the vehicle was moving that we heard about. And another journalist was there from one of the other papers, and he described it as the most tense that he had seen in a couple of days.

Yeah, I think what we will see as this continues to move towards resolution is those small little flashpoints, if not managed correctly, could very quickly tip over where we don't want this to go, especially as people get more tired, more wet, hungry, whatever that might be. And I don't want to say folks are itching for a fight

because I don't know that's true, but I certainly get a sense there's people there that have zero intention of backing down. You have been watching this on television and yet you said to me multiple times today that you were just trying to wrap your head around what you had just seen. dimensional flat screen look at it is very different than being down there amongst the noise the smell the children and there's far too many children right involved in this right now i am very much struck by downtown how many males and older caucasian males are a part of this this movement um when we contrast again against the second site, they're out at Coventry, much more of a 50-50 split, men and women. And then the first site, very much men, but very few people out there. So again, the sense is these people are on a mission, for lack of a better term.

I would think it's somewhat misguided. I've never seen anything like this in Canada. And I would suggest having looked back at various protests, I can think back as far as the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2000. The G8, G20 in Toronto in 2010, while I was in uniform, looking at how we were managing those situations but those groups were different from what I see here in Ottawa this is a very homogeneous group yeah so I was in the mix in the G20 and I see what you're saying there I don. I don't see a January 6th style mob with what I see here today. But I think because I would characterize January 6th as them going a bit more on the offensive. They moved towards contact, literally breached the Capitol.

This group is a bit more sitting back, but they are fortified. So now you've got the dynamic where the january 6 mob is for lack of a better term attacking the capital here we're going to have law enforcement or those interagency partners trying to clear canadians largely canadians that are static in location in a fortified location they're dug in or as we saw in some of the streets, there's no room to maneuver. You get in these areas which it's very, very difficult to move your tactical elements when you're on city streets. One more question, and then I want to talk to you about how this could end. Can you just give people a scope of this, right? Like the size of it? I am surprised, this, right? Like the size of it. I am surprised, again, and though I've been following it,

walking the ground, and it's got to be 15 to 20 blocks wide, and in places six to 10 blocks deep. Now, it's not obviously a square just like that or a rectangle, but it's truck or car or tent or trailer or whatever next to each other. And that makes it very hard to move between that. Now, it's not that it cannot be resolved, because it will be resolved. But yeah, this is this is you're probably talking even today, I don't know, 1000 folks down there, maybe 1500 folks in that in that group. That is a lot of people that law enforcement will need to deal with. And without a doubt, within that group, there's going to be a hard nut to crack. Of that 1,500, it might be 15, it might be 150, but there's going to be a hardcore element in there that's going to take a little bit of extra force to deal with.

How could this end? It could potentially end quickly, but quickly is all relative. So it'll depend on whether people want to go peacefully, which is still going to take a couple of days to clean everything up, or whether it is actually going to have to be a forceful clearing of those streets. And even that can happen quickly. But really, what do we need to do? The first thing we need to do really is contain it and stop allowing it to be sustained. So cut off the food, cut off the water, cut off the fuel, and start to create some challenge there.

I just want to pop in there because we did see fuel coming through. Walking straight down the street. The guy pulling that wagon was, and you were explaining to me what he was wearing, at least. Yeah. And again, he had a military beret, an army beret on. Whether he's actually a former member of the military or not, I don't know, but we saw a number of folks that were wearing their medals. I wouldn't say a significant amount, but certainly enough folks there that had their medals on quite proudly. And again, I'm thinking maybe they're backing the wrong horse

here. Let's say this doesn't end peacefully and they have to start clearing, like what's the consideration with the children? Because we did, we saw many children there today. We saw children in Coventry Road. And then here in the core, I saw, I think, at least 20, if not 30 kids, at least. And we're talking 1,500 people, I would guess, somewhere around there, 1,000 certainly to 1,500. So the risks as we look to try and resolve this is we need to take care of those kids. try and resolve this is we need to take care of those kids and that means it needs to be a very deliberate well thought out well orchestrated synchronized and well timed clearing operation so we got to manage the children and then we need to start dealing with with a lot of people and it's a general order of magnitude and from a military perspective if you have a force of X, you generally want three times X to resolve it on your terms. saturate that if this is going to be a tougher nut to crack so that we can mitigate the risk against the children, the risk against the officers, and the risk against these Canadians

who are our brothers and sisters. When you say deal with the children, what does that even mean? Is the idea that they go in and grab the kids as soon as they possibly can? What does that mean? You need to be able to keep those children safe. And I don't think anybody wants to see a child pulled away from their parent. Like, that's not going to be good for anybody. And the worst of it, it'll be the worst for the children because it's going to leave a mark on that child.

So we need to figure out, with the right Children's Aid Society, with the right social workers and everybody else, we need to figure out, and this is the law enforcement problem, how are we going to solve the children issue? Do we know where they are? The Children's Aid Society today sent out a notice encouraging adults who are protesting with children to find alternative child care arrangements. Right, because if they get incarcerated, who's taking care of the children? So I think we've got a pretty good sense of how you would deal with the people,

move in on the people, but then you've got all these trucks, and in some cases now they've chained pickup trucks behind the trucks, and a lot of these people seem very clear that they're not handing over keys. So how do we deal with the trucks? So the trucks are actually the easiest part of this problem to solve. Same with the Jersey barriers, same with the tents and the rest of it. Because it's a mechanical piece, we just need to lift it up and move it. Some of them, you can start them.

Clearly the air brakes need to be disengaged. But you're talking hundreds of trucks there so it's more of a time problem than a tactical problem or a a clearance problem the issue is we got to get the people out of the trucks so now if you can just picture this scenario let's say we have one two ten a hundred whatever it is people that don't want to come out of their truck. As a law enforcement officer, you're now going into that confined space. And there's only two doors. There's only a couple of ways to get into that, including the windows. You're putting that officer at risk to get into that confined space with somebody who doesn't want to come out.

What's in that confined space? Could there be a child hidden in there? Could there be a dog? space? Could there be a child hidden in there? Could there be a dog? And I saw a number of dogs today, which is a whole other piece that can create challenges when you've got animals. And now we've got a dog on officer situation. It just, it can get really ugly, really fast. It does strike me walking through it that the trucks also, they really mess up your sightline, right? It's hard to kind of figure out what's going on beside you or behind you because you're in this maze of trucks. And so would that be another big?

Yeah, this comes back to the mass saturation, which is why you need so many officers. Doing any type of security or military or law enforcement operation in a built-up area, a city, presents so many challenges because you've got blind spots all the way around you. The other challenge is your average law enforcement officer doesn't do enough riot control training, doesn't do a lot of crowd control training. doesn't do a lot of crowd control training. So you're putting in some cases officers that may not be as current as we would hope them to be in a very, very volatile situation. Okay, great. All right, that is all for today, or should I say tonight. You can check CBC News for all the breaking news, and we will see you on Monday.