'At all times, there was a high degree of situational awareness of what the operational plans were for the police': Keith Wilson

OTTAWA – Freedom Convoy organizers received “constant and extensive” intelligence leaks from “sympathetic” agents from a variety of police forces as well as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, according to one of their lawyers.

The bombshell statement was shared by convoy lawyer Keith Wilson during testimony at the Public Order Emergency Commission as well as a subsequent scrum with reporters. For example, he described seeing an internal Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) email describing tensions with the Ottawa Police Service (OPS).

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His statement comes after evidence provided in previous testimony to the inquiry by top OPP and OPS officials revealed that both organizations had evidence, and in the OPS’ case even investigated, internal intelligence leaks.

Testifying under oath, Wilson confirmed organizers were receiving information from “sympathetic” police agents throughout the protests in Ottawa last winter. That information was then collated by protesters in Ottawa who were “former law enforcement officers, ex-military, and ex-CSIS personnel”, according to a written summary of an interview with commission lawyers.

Speaking to reporters after his testimony, he described the police leaks as “constant and extensive” and confirmed organizers knew how police were going to act on a day-to-day basis. He said they received leaks from within the OPS, OPP, RCMP, even the secretive Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Wilson said leaks came from police and government insiders who opposed COVID-19 public health measures such as vaccine mandates. “As a result, when information was known to them, it was regularly filtered down through various protesters and within the leadership group of the Freedom Convoy,” Wilson said.

“So at all times, there was a high degree of situational awareness of what the operational plans were for the police,” he added. “There was a steady stream of information and leaks coming from all the different police forces and intelligence agencies.”

CSIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

National security expert and former CSIS analyst Stephanie Carvin said in an interview that Wilson’s testimony is very concerning, and police and intelligence agencies need to come clean if there were internal leaks and what they have done to address them.

“This is what we call an insider threat. These are sympathizers, these are people who are passing on operational information to hurt their own organizations to further another cause. This is a textbook insider threat,” Carvin said.

For these agencies “to just kind of sweep it under the rug undermines confidence in these organizations themselves,” she added.

Wilson told the inquiry that he first learned of the group of former police, military and CSIS employees working with convoy organizers on Feb. 4.

But it was only five days later, on Feb. 9, that the OPP’s intelligence unit, the Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau (POIB), began suspecting that confidential information was being leaked.

POIB was the main provider of police intelligence to the Ottawa police throughout the Freedom Convoy protests.

At that point, POIB head superintendent Pat Morris ordered that a new distribution list for intelligence reports be created that included “only 45 people,” according to a summary of an interview he gave to commission lawyers this summer.

“POIB had evidence of accidental or intentional leakage of information and wanted to batten down the hatches,” reads the document tabled at the inquiry.

In a Feb. 14 report, POIB warned that information was “circulating” among convoy supporters regarding “law enforcement planning.”

It notes that an individual (whose name is redacted in the public document) “appears to have gained specific information in relation to law enforcement extraction timelines, which suggests he has access to law enforcement” individuals and information.

“Active duty law enforcement personnel cannot be excluded,” it warns.

Last week, OPS superintendent Robert Drummond confirmed to the inquiry that the force opened at least one internal investigation into possible leaks to the convoy and even cut off one member’s access to his work accounts.

“There were concerns about information flowing out of the organisation,” Drummond said.

He said there were concerns that some “operational” police details were being leaked to protesters by active OPS members, but could not say if they ended up being founded.

No RCMP officials have spoken to the commission yet, but commissioner Brenda Lucki is slated to testify in the upcoming weeks.

During the winter protests, some Freedom Convoy participants shared what they claimed were internal memos from the RCMP to their followers on social media.

Carvin says it’s crucial that all police and intelligence agencies suspected of having internal leaks come clean to the public about what they have done to investigate and address them if necessary.

“What concerns me the most is the silence around this. I think the police owe it to the citizens of Ottawa and to themselves to make it public. This is pretty serious to know that you have this kind of mole,” she said.

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