Convoy organizers had extreme aims, says PM's national security adviser

Extremism was at play amid the trucker convoy protests and blockades, and there is “no doubt” that some of the organizers who came to Ottawa did so with the intention of overthrowing the government, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top security adviser.

Jody Thomas says in unpacking what went down during the convoy protests, the clearing of them, and the divisions the whole ordeal exposed, Canada needs to take seriously the rise of domestic ideologically-motivated violent extremism.

Two months ago, Thomas took on the key job as Trudeau’s national security and intelligence adviser after a long career in the federal public service.

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“The people who organized that protest—and there were several factions there, there's no doubt— came to overthrow the government. Whether their ability to do that was there, whether their intent and understanding of how to do that was realistic, is actually irrelevant to what they wanted to do. And I think we have to think about it from that lens,” Thomas said Wednesday during a panel discussion on the state of national security in Canada, as part of the Ottawa Conference on Security and Defence.

Over the weeks that the convoy was encamped in Ottawa, some organizers cycled through a range of proposals that lacked a basic understanding of Canada’s democratic system, from a later-revoked memorandum involving the Senate, to suggesting they’d be willing to form a coalition with opposition parties and the involvement of the governor general to overthrow Trudeau.

Other organizers spoke against these aims, insisting their focus was on peacefully pushing for the eradication of COVID-19 policies and vaccine mandates. Though near the tail end of an affiliated convoy blockade in Coutts, Alta., police charged four participants with conspiracy to commit murder after authorities seized a number of weapons and ammunition.

At the time, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino indicated that participants in the Alberta blockade had “strong ties to a far-right extreme organization with leaders who are in Ottawa.”

While the minister did not offer specifics, there has been reporting and work by The Canadian Anti-Hate Network that has identified participants seen in Ottawa who have espoused rhetoric, worn insignias, or otherwise indicated connections to extremist groups.

Asked whether the Ottawa “Freedom Convoy” occupation was cause enough to prompt the unprecedented invoking of the Emergencies Act, given the blockades at border crossings were largely being cleared by the time the powers were in effect, Thomas said yes.

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“The occupation of Ottawa was dug in. They had supply chains, they had organization, they had funding coming in from across Canada, but also other countries. And I think that to characterize it as a protest—peaceful or otherwise—is an oversimplification of the reality of what was going on, on the ground.”

Thomas’ comments echoed some of the justification given from the government in the days following the invocation of the Act, including that it was done out of concern for “serious violence against persons or property… for the purpose of achieving a political or ideological objective.”

It’s Thomas’ job to provide intelligence briefings to Trudeau and his cabinet as well as offer policy and operational advice.

She said that going forward—including as the Emergencies Act Parliamentary Review Committee and coming inquiry begin—Canada has “a lot to unpack” when it comes to understanding what’s going on and its impacts.

“I think that domestic ideologically-motivated extremism is here, and it's here to stay. We have lived in the splendid naive sort of superiority that this was not our problem in Canada, that this was a south of the border problem, that it existed in other countries, but not in Canada. And that's simply not true,” she said, suggesting that if there had been a religiously-motivated extremist in the convoy, the country’s reaction would have been different.

“It will require significant rebuilding, to understand and to try to resolve.”

During the panel before being asked about the convoy, Thomas said that ideologically-motivated violent extremism poses “serious and deadly challenges” for Canada’s national security community.

“We are increasingly seeing domestic actors—radicalized online in spaces filled with hate and misinformation—threaten to use violence to reach their ideological objectives,” she said.