'Could have done things better': justice minister on feds' engagement with protesters

Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti says while he doesn’t want to “point fingers,” in hindsight the federal government could have “done things better” and “cooperated better” when it came to engaging with protesters and other levels of government during the “Freedom Convoy” last year.

The final report by Justice Paul Rouleau — the conclusion of a nearly year-long inquiry into the government’s historic invocation of the Emergencies Act last February — determines that the federal government was justified in applying the never-before-used legislation to dismantle the protests. But in his report Rouleau also states his conclusion comes "with reluctance," and that use of the Emergencies Act could have been avoided if it weren’t for a host of "policing failures" and a "failure of federalism."

Lametti told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday, “all of these things are things for hindsight,” when it comes to reflecting on where officials fell short, and he hopes neither his government nor any future government ever has to use the Emergencies Act again.

“I don't want to point fingers at any government or our government,” Lametti said. “We could have done things better. I think the point here is we might have cooperated better. The prime minister himself admitted that he had made certain comments at the outset.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last January called members of the "Freedom Convoy" protest a "small fringe minority of people" with "unacceptable views," which sparked further outrage on behalf of the demonstrators and their supporters.

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In his five-volume, 2,000-page report, Rouleau writes that Trudeau’s comments “served to energize the protesters, hardening their resolve and further embittering them toward government authorities,” especially because they “were interpreted by many as referring to all ‘Freedom Convoy’ participants,” and not just a small minority.

Trudeau later expressed regret for his comments, saying Friday: “I wish I had said that differently. As I look back on that, and as I've reflected on it over the past months, not just freshly from this commissioner’s report, I wish I had phrased it differently.”

He added while there is a small group of people deliberately spreading misinformation and disinformation, during the protests there were also “a small subset of people who were just hurting and worried, and wanting to be heard.”

Lametti, meanwhile, said Trudeau “qualified that well” this week when he said he regretted the comments.

“He was targeting a very small group of people,” Lametti said. “And in the manner in which he framed his comments, he caught a larger group of people who really wanted to legitimately protest their opposition to certain of our government's policies, particularly on vaccine mandates.”

“But even Justice Rouleau pointed out himself that all of that converged in one place and got out of hand,” he also said. “So I think there are certainly better ways to communicate.”

The Trudeau government faced pressure last February to engage with the protesters — as some politicians from the Conservative Party did — but Lametti wouldn’t say whether he thinks that outreach would have helped deescalate the demonstrations.

“Look, it was difficult to identify who the leaders were, and there were a number of different challenges there,” Lametti said, referencing the power struggles between some of the protesters.

“I think the better answer is to move forward and to say, next time around, if this ever happened again, we'll take the lessons from Justice Rouleau, and we'll look for other ways or other opportunities to achieve those levels of communication or cooperation,” Lametti also said.

The Rouleau report lays out 56 recommendations, to which Trudeau responded Friday, committing to issuing a comprehensive public response to the commissioner's recommendations "within the next year."

With files from CTVNews.ca’ Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello and CTVNews.ca’s Megan DeLaire