No Apology

What do white collar government employees think of blue collar truckers?

The Connaught building is the headquarters of the Canada Revenue Agency - equivalent to the Internal Revenue Service in the US. Photo by Simon P, via Wikipedia.

Yesterday, I discussed a security bulletin circulated by the federal government that falsely accused Freedom Convoy protesters of invading downtown office buildings well before most of the truckers had even reached Ottawa in late January 2022.

That allegation is a telling one. It exudes snobbery. It radiates disrespect. What do white collar government employees think of blue collar truckers? They think they’re uncouth. Undisciplined. Violent.

Rebel News has since made public five additional pages of documents related to this matter. Formally disclosed by the government, much has been redacted and the timeline is jumbled. But between this info and the bulletin made public by Blacklock’s, we can piece together a series of events:

Thursday, January 27th is the day before the first wave of protesters arrive. At 1:30 that afternoon, an email titled “DEMONSTRATION - NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION” is sent to dozens of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) personnel. A similar message appears to have been sent two hours later to even more CRA personnel.

We don’t know what those emails said, but it’s clear government employees were talking about the truckers ahead of time. Which is a bit odd when you remember that the vast majority of those employees were still working from home, that downtown office towers were practically empty.

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If you scroll down on this web page, you’ll find the CRA org chart. It tells us Harry Gill is the Agency’s Security Officer. The last page of the Rebel News documents contains part of an email. There’s no date, no time, or subject line. But the email uses the exact words Blacklock’s found in the defamatory security bulletin issued by Public Safety Canada on Friday, January 28th just before 4 pm:

We have received confirmation that protesters have started to enter office buildings in the Ottawa downtown core and are allegedly causing damage. As a result, Minto Place is going into weekend lockdown mode… [bold added]

Harry Gill’s name is beneath those words. They are not attributed to anyone else. They appear to have been written by him.

In this email, Harry Gill says “We have received confirmation” of something that didn’t actually happen.

Several emails circulate amongst CRA personnel during the hours that follow. One - sent at 6:46 pm - says “all downtown landlords were contacted” and “buildings are on weekend mode or locked.” It’s only as an afterthought, apparently, that the same email’s recipients are advised:

Also indicated the information about vandalism at Minto is not factual. [bold added]

Talk about downplaying a vital datapoint. Wouldn’t something along these lines have been more appropriate: Sorry to have alarmed you. Our intel was faulty. No buildings have been invaded, no vandalism has occurred.

In any case, within hours senior officials at the CRA were quietly backpeddling.

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The next day, Saturday the 29th, it’s reported that someone

checked with guards at Connaught: a lot of people and noise but all good for Connaught.

That historic office building, five minutes from Parliament Hill, houses the CRA’s headquarters.

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On Monday, January 31st, a reporter from Blacklock’s starts asking questions. Did CRA management claim “to have confirmation that protesters were looting office buildings”?

Internally, Christopher Doody, a CRA spokesperson, circulates the following in an email

Proposed response

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has no knowledge of any looting in CRA-owned, or CRA-occupied, buildings located in Ottawa this past weekend.

What isn’t included, of course, is any acknowledgement that a mistake was made. Nor is there any apology. Apparently senior government officials can say defamatory things about their fellow Canadians and then shrug and walk away as if it never happened.

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The bottom line:

1. The false allegations in that security bulletin appear to have originated with Harry Gill, Revenue Canada’s security officer.

2. Public Safety Canada appears to have taken the word of Harry Gill that certain facts had been confirmed, rather than verifying them independently.

3. Senior CRA personnel knew, within hours, that the allegations were false.

4. When given an opportunity three days later to take responsibility for this fake news, to apologize for spreading misinformation, CRA did nothing of the sort.