Senator Carignan: Thank you for your question, senator. We would have to look at where the inability and unwillingness were coming from. Were they coming from the towing companies? Both before the Emergencies Act was invoked and after, the police had all the powers necessary to force the companies to tow the vehicles and to go after or arrest anyone who refused to do so. Those people would have been charged with obstruction.

As I said when I quoted a provision of the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, the police could have simply taken the keys and moved the vehicles themselves. All they had to do was take the keys. They didn’t need an emergency measure for that.

If we are talking about the police being unwilling to move them, then that is much more worrisome, because peace officers have obligations. If we consider the occupation in Ottawa to be a riot, then the police’s failure to take action could even be considered an offence under section 69 of the Criminal Code, which states that a peace officer cannot refuse to intervene when there is a riot. Either way, both the police and the tow truck companies had an obligation to intervene.

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