Award-winning author Paul Wells was a regular visitor to the inquiry. Witnesses described layer on layer of dysfunction and acrimony in every organization that converged on Parliament Hill -- three levels of government, three police forces, and the protesters themselves. How does a society make crucial decisions when everyone is exhausted, nothing works, and the noise from the truck horns and the shouting is deafening? And how do the protagonists regroup to make their case in the sterile, weird environment of a public inquiry? That's the story-inside-a-story of the Emergency in Ottawa.
Paul Wells is one of Canada's most experienced political journalists.
After many years at Maclean's, National Post and The Gazette, he
now publishes a subscription newsletter at paulwells.substack.com.
He is a frequent commentator on French-language and English-
language radio and television.