'The plan needs to be urgent': Windsor council wants feds to act on emergency commission recommendations
It’s been a little more than a year since the week-long protests that blocked the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont.
What followed was a public order emergency commission into the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, and the resulting 2,000 page report with dozens of recommendations.
A special report was presented to council Monday night by Jennifer King, the lawyer who represented the city at the commission.
“The commissioner took the time to comprehensively analyze a huge volume of evidence and testimony of a number of witnesses to make findings of fact about what happened last year during the protests,” said King, whose most recent task was to look at those recommendations and give council some takeaways.
The big ones, she said is the recommendation for improved inter-jurisdictional communication, as well as clearer guidelines with respect to requests for policing resources.
She said Windsor was heralded at the commission for their communication with the public during the blockade, coordinating responses between the city and police to ensure policing operations were not compromised.
“Windsor was seen as an example of a response that went well, and so was used in the report to show how to communicate during an emergency,” King said.
She also points out some short-comings in the public order report, such as the absence of municipalities in federal-provincial emergency management coordination and the downloading of policing and emergency response costs to municipalities.
“You have to have everybody at the table, all levels of government at the table to make sure that there's a coordinated response,” she told council.
It’s been more than a month now since the report was published and according to the city, there has been no correspondence from the federal government on next steps.
As King articulated to council Windsor’s border crossing is somewhat unique in that a provincial road and an international, federally regulated bridge are connected by local roads that served as the epicentre of the week-long blockade.
Council agreed it would like to hear from the federal government to develop a clear framework to be prepared for any potential future crisis.
”As I understand it, there hasn't been any clear indication of what steps the other levels of government are taking to ensure that that everybody sits down at the table, and certainly not in the last month,” she said.
She added, “There needs to be a plan and the plan needs to be urgent.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Decoy bear used to catch man who illegally killed a grizzly, B.C. conservation officers say
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
OPP responds to apparent video of officer supporting anti-Trudeau government protestors
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Loud boom in Hamilton caused by propane tank, police say
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.