When the Freedom Convoy approached Ottawa, Ottawa Police apparently used Rex Murphy's broadcast to guess the goals and motives of the protest. In an intelligence assessment on January 25 issued before the inquiry into the Emergencies Act, Ottawa Police cited Murphy's column that day in an attempt to explain why hundreds of truck drivers headed to the capital.

"Discontent with the hypocrisy of officials and politicians can run out of citizens' patience daily," reads the Murphy quote mentioned in the document, which warned Ottawa police leaders that the Freedom Convoy appeared to be characterized by "deep discontent" with the federal government.

Although Murphy was sympathetic to the Freedom Convoy, it is worth noting that he was not among them and was not in contact with any of its key participants. And it’s not as if the police lacked primary sources regarding the truck drivers' motives.

The protest had a strong presence on social media, and its organizers regularly held live broadcasts detailing their resolve to besiege Ottawa until their demands were met. Strangely, Ottawa Police intelligence's assessment is full of misquotes. Murphy was incorrectly quoted as saying, "There might be larger crowds and longer disruptions than planned." Internal police reports also note that the assessment is written in an unusually lyrical style.

For example, "Most protests are repetitive, same players, same chants. And what they happily call tactics, the same thing there. Ask two or three people to stick their stickers on walls, waiting for the same old dinner hour newscasts and writings scribbled on left-hand bills, blogs, malnourished Twitter feeds."

The strange document is merely the latest evidence highlighting the Ottawa Police intelligence's abject failure throughout the events of the Freedom Convoy. One of the most notable findings from the first week of the Emergencies Act inquiry was testimony revealing that then Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly rejected any idea that truck drivers would stay in the city longer than the weekend. "What are you worried about now?"

Sloly reportedly told Ottawa City Councillor Diane Deans when she urged him to have an emergency plan in case the truckers did not leave on their own. By February 10, as the occupation neared its second week in the capital, an angry internal report from Ontario Provincial Police denounced Ottawa Police's response as reactionary, unplanned, and not based on intelligence. Ontario Provincial Police told the House of Commons committee in March that the Freedom Convoy was full of extreme national security threats.

Now, with the Emergencies Act inquiry underway, a chief of intelligence at the OPP said they had received no "reliable" information about extremism inside the protest. The clear contradiction between these two statements caused a rare moment of unity in the House of Commons this week, where MPs from all political spectrums unanimously demanded the OPP provide some explanation for their "vastly different" accounts.

Editing: Yusra Bamtafar