Anti-mandate demonstrators gather as a truck convoy blocks the highway the busy U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alta., Monday, Jan. 31, 2022.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
OTTAWA – Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver last winter accused federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair of lying about whether the Emergencies Act helped clear a convoy blockade at an Alberta border crossing.
The accusation is contained in a terse text exchange between the two men from last February that was tabled as evidence at the public inquiry investigating whether the Emergencies Act was invoked appropriately.
McIver asked Ottawa for help obtaining tow trucks to clear the blockade at the international border crossing in the small Alberta town of Coutts.
He says that help never came.
On Feb. 21, Blair texted McIver to tell him that the Emergencies Act was effective at addressing “the tow truck issue.”
McIver told Blair that was not true and that by the time the Act was invoked the Coutts blockade was already over.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2022.
