EMERGENCIES ACT NOT REQUIRED

   Officers “did not need the Emergencies Act”, according to a prominent Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer, who testified Friday on day 7 of the hearings into the controversial use of the Act.
   Chief Superintendent Carson Pardy, who was one of the most senior law enforcement officers involved in the effort during the Freedom Convoy, told Commission lawyers that the Emergencies Act invocation wasn’t required to tow vehicles and that existing police strategies in place prior to invoking the act would have been sufficient to clear the protests within the same time period.
   Commission lawyer Frank Au asked Pardy, “In your view, was there a police solution to the demonstration?”
   “There was a solution, and we reached that solution,” Pardy said. “We had some help with the Emergencies Act but in my humble opinion we would have reached the same conclusion with the plan that we had without (the Act).”