LIBERALS BROKE THEIR OWN LAW FOR CONVENIENCE

   OTTAWA — Marco Mendicino came across as one of those assured characters who fluffs his
putts under pressure.
   The public safety minister was testifying before the Public Order Emergency Commission about the events leading up to the invocation of the Emergencies Act last February.
   Maybe it was the flaws in the early intelligence he received that persuaded him to discount future advice, but there is no evidence that he paid heed to the intelligence he received from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or from the RCMP, which was that there was no serious threat to Canada from a badly organized protest that offered no tangible plots of violence or had any ideologically motivated violent extremist groups in attendance.
   At one point, commission counsel asked what prompted his concerns that the protest could spiral and overwhelm police services across the country. “It came from observation,” he said, a classic example of marshalling evidence to confirm predetermined convictions and dismissing evidence that contradicts them.