Trudeau, cabinet ministers making highly anticipated appearances at Emergencies Act inquiry this week

The Emergencies Act inquiry enters its final week today, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and key cabinet ministers set to answer questions about their decision to invoke the never-before-used law last winter to deal with massive protests against pandemic measures.

Today, the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry is expected to hear from David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, and other CSIS officials. Trudeau is expected to appear before the inquiry on Friday.

Documents already entered into evidence show Vigneault didn't believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security according to the definition in CSIS's enabling law.

As the week goes on, the commission is also expected to hear from:

Trudeau has defended the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, calling it a "measure of last resort."

Here is what the commission has heard so far.

The first two weeks of the commission focused on the police response to the protest. Multiple officers from the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) described chaos and confusion in Ottawa after protesters arrived the first weekend and parked big rigs and other vehicles on downtown streets.

Despite receiving several early warnings, Peter Sloly — OPS chief during the protests — told the commission that even in "hindsight," he doesn't think the intelligence he was getting before the protest convoy rolled into town suggested that protesters would dig in and remain.

The commission has heard how OPP sent the Ottawa police intelligence reports warning of "fringe ideologies" active within the protest movement and noting that organizers did not have an exit strategy to end the protest.

Still, the Ottawa police planned for the protesters to stay for only one weekend. Instead, they stayed for nearly a month.

"I think we were floundering a little bit in terms of our staffing, in terms of our ability to really take stock of what was going on and then move forward and come up with a plan to get out of it," Patricia Ferguson, acting deputy chief of the OPS, told the commission inquiry. (Sloly resigned as Ottawa's police chief in mid-February.)

Both OPP and RCMP officials have testified that they had no idea how OPS planned to end the demonstrations.

"We couldn't read their minds as to what their plan was because there was no plan," said Supt. Craig Abrams of the OPP.

Trudeau's national security adviser Jody Thomas also testified about the actions of the country's top Mountie.