Different versions of the report, originally dated Jan. 25 and written by Sgt. Chris Kiez of the Ottawa Police Service’s (OPS) security intelligence section has been included in evidence to the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is investigating the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergency Act to help end the occupation . On Tuesday, OPS confirmed that its professional standards division has launched an investigation into previous LinkedIn posts by Kiez. Last week, OPS told CBC that the branch was “screening” the posts. PressProgress first reported on the document on Oct. 25 and followed up on Oct. 31 with a separate story about the social media posts. According to the left-leaning nonprofit news site, Kiez’s LinkedIn account disappeared soon after the first story was published, but screenshots of some of his posts continued to circulate online.
LinkedIn posts
According to one message, which PressProgress said was “allegedly posted in October 2022,” Kiez appears to call the teachers “the worst of the left-wing Marxist set, who admit they’re trying to indoctrinate as many people as possible… They’re making a future generation of screamers, totally dependent on the government for everything.” In another post, Kiez appears to complain about federal funding for “all kinds of absurd social programs to use pronouns and violate laws and ethics left right and center. Don’t ask me how I know.” The publications, and the internal police investigation, could potentially cast the intelligence report prepared by Kiez in a new light. Former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly told the Public Order Emergency Committee that he had not seen the report, but called its author “one of our best intelligence operators.” (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) The document, which grew from seven to nine pages during several revisions and would eventually be dated January 28, was drafted to inform OPS commanders about the convoys, which at the time were converging on the capital from every direction. The first trucks began arriving in Ottawa on January 28, and senior officers testifying at the inquiry said it was generally believed the protesters would have left the city by the following Monday.
“Huge number of vehicles”
The report describes the movement as “a spontaneous popular protest” aimed at ending all orders and restrictions related to COVID-19. “At the time of this writing, there is no critical information indicating any kind of violent action or concerns of violence,” the report begins, though it notes that due to the “large number of vehicles” involved, protesters “will be able to effectively stop and shut down traffic if they so desire.’ He also warns that the influx of cell phones in the city center could overload cellular networks and hinder communication. The report notes that “the federal government is persistently ignoring the fact” and warns that the approach could fail. “Historically, a leader’s refusal to meet or face the reality of a popular uprising has historically led to unmanageable situations.”
Contempt for “professional” activists
Drawing comparisons between the protesters who were to descend on the city and other protest movements, the report is extremely dismissive of the “professional” activists whose tactics Kiez mocks, and even mentions a local activist by name. “This event is … less of a ‘professional protest’ with the usual sorry players, but rather a truly organic event that gathers momentum largely from the widespread population,” Kiez wrote. “THE [anti-mandate] Protests worldwide are almost entirely made up of middle class members of society,” he continued. “The so-called ‘silent majority’ is numerically much larger than professional activists like local Sam Hersch can command.” Horizon Ottawa board member Sam Hersh said he was initially “disturbed” to learn he had been named in the OPS intelligence assessment. (CBC) Sam Hersh, whose name is misspelled on the OPS document, is a board member of Horizon Ottawa. “Obviously I was shocked, I was shocked to some degree to see it, but I think a lot of us who are involved in this kind of activism — police accountability and other kinds of left-wing activism in the city — expect that sort of sense of defiance that was reflected in the report,” Hers told the CBC on Tuesday. “I think this speaks to a wider issue within the police force. I don’t think this was an isolated incident.”
The Superintendent requested amendments
According to an internal email chain also entered into evidence at the committee, Supt. Mark Patterson asked Kiez on January 28 to remove the reference to Hersh and rephrase the reference to “regular sad players”. Hersh’s name has been removed from the fourth and possibly final edition, but the “sad players” remain. (The email chain also refers to a fifth version of the report.) Large sections of the report borrow directly from National Post columnist Rex Murphy, although one such quote is incorrectly attributed to one of the paper’s reporters. “A real protest, a protest based on real conditions, resulting from long-term government overreach […] What emerges from long-ignored resentment built around the core idea of pursuing a legitimate livelihood, well, that’s rare. That’s what we’re seeing with the truckers,” reads an excerpt citing a Jan. 24 column by Murphy. In a later section, the report quotes from the same newspaper column: “Resentment at the hypocrisy of officials and politicians may be daily worn away by the patience of citizens.”
‘One of our best’: Sloly
At times, Kiez seems to cloud the borrowed passages with his own reflections on the origins and growing size of the protest movement. In one section, the report cites the number of members of a pro-escort Facebook page as 397,000, representing “more than one-tenth of the Canadian population,” an obvious mistake of fact. Ultimately, the report concludes that “no adverse information or any information regarding a specific threat has been identified for this event at this time.” Given the intelligence report when he appeared before the commission on Oct. 28, former Ottawa police chief Peter Slowley testified that it was the first time he had seen the document, but praised its author. “Sergeant Chris Keyes is one of our best intelligence operators. I had the opportunity to interact with him quite a bit when I was in the police service,” Slowley told the committee.
