Laura Osman and David Fraser, The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Ontario Premier Doug Ford last winter that police shouldn't need more legal tools to clear protesters from the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, according to evidence released through a public inquiry Tuesday.

A readout of their conversation on Feb. 9 was submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is investigating the government's decision to use emergency powers in an effort to clear protest blockades in downtown Ottawa and at several border crossings.

"Freedom Convoy" organizer Tamara Lich insists she was never directly told to leave Ottawa last winter when protesters in hundreds of vehicles blocked streets around Parliament Hill as they called for an end to COVID-19 mandates, even after the Emergencies Act was invoked.

During cross-examination Friday, Lich told the Public Order Emergency Commission that when police told protesters in a mid-February meeting to depart, she took it as a suggestion.

She and other organizers had testified on Thursday that police did not tell them to leave the city.

During dramatic testimony on Monday, former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly called out his former boss Bill Blair, who now serves as a federal minister, over his assertions that local police didn't follow proper procedure to get help they needed during the "Freedom Convoy" protest last winter. 

A summary of Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair's interview with Public Order Emergency Commission lawyers was read aloud during a hearing of the public inquiry into the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act on Monday. 

A former senior officer for the Ontario Provincial Police says the "Freedom Convoy" protests in Ottawa could have been ended without the federal Emergencies Act.

Former Chief Supt. Carson Pardy told the public inquiry examining the invocation of the act Friday that plans to clear the demonstrations were consistently delayed because of confusion and disorganization within the ranks of Ottawa police, and that the chief of police didn't trust his OPP team.

Pardy said emergency powers proved "critical," giving police power to tow and hold vehicles without laying charges. 

The "Freedom Convoy" had gridlocked Canada's capital city for more than two weeks before the "floundering" Ottawa police force approved a detailed plan to handle it, senior police officers have told the public inquiry into the Liberal government's use of the Emergencies Act.

Patricia Ferguson, the acting deputy chief of the Ottawa police, said Thursday that the force assumed protesters would not stay longer than a weekend and relied at first on a boilerplate plan that had been used for other downtown events involving big crowds, such as Canada Day celebrations.

Bad political blood appears to have been running hot through the crisis response to the "Freedom Convoy" that gridlocked Canada's capital city, the testimony of the city's former police board chair revealed Wednesday. 

And new evidence suggests that police forces were planning ahead for a weeks-long event even as Ottawa's then-chief of police privately speculated that they'd be gone after a couple of days.