Ottawa Police Chief Resigns Raising Questions About Trudeau’s Leadership

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is threatening increasingly hostile measures to quell anti-mandate protests.

At the same time, Ottawa’s downtown core remains paralyzed by big rigs and truck drivers who refuse to move them. (RELATED: Trucker Blockade Halts Some Car Assembly)

The Freedom Convoy and their supporters received a potentially devastating blow yesterday when Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act. The Canadian Parliament has six more days to approve the Act. Should they choose to do so, Trudeau will have the power to prohibit travel and public assembly. (RELATED: Trudeau Declares National Emergency in Attempt to Temporarily Suspend Civil Liberties)

While headlines predominately focus on that development, reports have partially overlooked another development.

One that could signal more trouble for Trudeau.

Late last night, Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly resigned. The move came amid criticism that Sloly’s so-called hands-off approach to the demonstrations had emboldened those protesting Canada’s COVID restrictions.

Interestingly, it came one day after Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act and during his increasing calls for a police crackdown without giving the authorities the necessary resources to take action.

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Whether Sloly resigned because of the Emergencies Act or because Trudeau never gave him the 2,000 additional officers he said he needed to peacefully end the protest, it’s clear the relationship between the men has soured.

Responding to Sloly’s request for reinforcements, Trudeau reportedly said that he didn’t “accept the contention that the city of Ottawa has exhausted its tools and resources.”

According to those with firsthand knowledge, Sloly wanted to do everything possible to avoid the loss of life witnessed at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For Sloly, no violence was a victory in it of itself. He was acutely aware that if the situation escalated, both police and protesters could lose their lives. (RELATED: Freedom Convoy Car-ramming Suspect Identified as Antifa Member)

Not everyone, including his colleagues on the force, agreed.

As recently as a few days ago, Sloly said that he had no plans to resign. “I came here to do a job and I’m going to get that job done all the way through,” he declared at one point.

However, as Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey notes, things change:

Trudeau invoked the rarely-used act yesterday, and within hours Sloly had resigned. That timing does not seem coincidental, and if not, its meaning could go either way. Sloly apparently wanted to get a more cooperative engagement with the protesters to scale down the rancor and perhaps allow for traffic to flow. That didn’t appear to be working, however, even if Sloly considered a lack of violence a measure of success in and of itself. With that in mind, Sloly may have decided that Trudeau’s escalation was a bridge too far for him, pun fully intended, and that he wanted no part of a full assault on what had been peaceful-if-obstructive protesters.

It could be that Sloly was willing to go along with Trudeau, as long as the PM provided Sloly enough resources. It does seem odd that not only was Trudeau willing to escalate the situation rhetorically with his invocation of the Emergencies Act, but that at the same time Trudeau balked at providing resources to perhaps avoid that with more robust police pressure behind Sloly’s diplomatic efforts. It left Sloly in the worst of all worlds — shorthanded as a confrontation escalated into a potential violent clash.

Trudeau’s government is already spinning it as an admission of failure from Sloly, according to the New York Post:

A Canadian federal government official told the Associated Press anonymously that the Police Chief Peter Sloly’s resignation is due to his terrible handling of the protests against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which left many in the city and country wondering why police hadn’t done more to intervene.