Jody Thomas reached out to the RCMP for a threat assessment of the protests in Ottawa and at several border crossings.
The ‘Freedom Convoy’ blockades at major border crossings across the country had to be removed quickly in order to avoid serious, long-term damage to Canada’s economy, finance department officials said Thursday.
The demonstration against COVID-19 public health measures in February saw major ports of entry in Ontario and Alberta blockaded, resulting in a daily trade loss of “around $56 million per day,” finance officials told the Public Order Emergency Commission in an interview, according to a summary.
Read more: Canada border officials warned of threat to ‘attack 2 schools’ amid convoy: memo
Every day the protests continued, the financial hit Canada’s economy took compounded, warned Michael Sabia, deputy minister of the department of finance.
“Whatever we could do, we wanted to do quickly because doing it quickly meant shortening duration — and shortening duration meant avoiding the worst economic consequences that we were concerned about,” Sabia said as he testified before the Emergencies Act inquiry.