Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly hesitant with ‘Freedom Convoy’ because of G20 experience in Toronto, documents show
Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly reluctant to endorse plan to gather in ‘Freedom Convoy’ because of G20 experience in Toronto, documents show
OTTAWA – The decision by the police chief and a handful of top brass not to endorse the plan by the city of Toronto to launch an “Freedom Convoy” of anti-drunk driving vehicles Sunday morning was made even though they had been briefed by top city officials and police sources with experience in Toronto’s anti-drunk driving crackdown.
Toronto’s new police chief Mark Saunders was scheduled to meet with all the major police unions Monday morning ahead of Monday’s “drunk-driving” blitz.
“We don’t really want to do it on Sunday because of the police experience from other jurisdictions,” Sloly wrote in a memo to other top Ottawa police brass on Aug. 31. “If we did it on Sunday we might run into the same issues.”
Ottawa is one of seven cities or provinces that, over the past year, have launched similar anti-drunk driving “convolutions” around the same time of Sunday morning (2 a.m.) after the new year.
The plan by Toronto was similar to that of Vancouver, which launched its anti-drunk driving “convention” on Dec. 31, two days before Christmas, on the same day it also launched its massive crackdown on drivers over the same period.
The “convention” in Vancouver drew a total of 1,500 police cruisers onto the streets to monitor and ticket drivers while Ottawa police said it was taking about a dozen officers out on the streets to “do some extra patrol.”
While police sources told C