Surely there were options like appointing a new police chief which they could have gone to first rather than going straight to emergency powers and suspension of rights?

They did replace the police chief, but we'd have also needed to replace the mayor and premier, both of which take more time.

Still sounds saner than what they actually did.

So, because the provincial government didn't think that the situation justified a harder crackdown, the federal government used exceptional powers, usually used in states of wars, overstepped the locally elected governments and used an exceptional law?

A law that strips people of all of their rights, and suspends the charter? Is that supposed to make it better? Like you realize the provincial and municipal governments were also elected democratically? All of this for a local protest, with no deaths, little physical violence, etc.

I mean, it does give credence that the entire thing happened because poor federal workers were affected, but it's still not a good reason.

> So, because the provincial government didn't think that the situation justified a harder crackdown

Because the provincial government loves it when anything bad happens to Ottawa or when the Federal government gets blamed for something that's their own fault.

If it was Toronto that was occupied, the province would have stepped in early, quickly and decisively.