Government Operations Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay. As that process took place in Huntsville, of course, it took place in Toronto. Are any of you aware of what the number of anticipated arrests in Toronto would have been?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I think it's important to say that it's not that we're anticipating a certain number of arrests. We're planning for the likelihood of the necessity for people to be incarcerated for a period of time. It might be only an hour, a day, or two days. I don't know the exact number in Toronto. I can't--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Was there ever any discussion about it that any of you were aware of?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I'm sure there was some discussion, but I can't recall it right now. I know that the Toronto Police Service would have had that in their planning.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If you know that there were discussions, can you get back to us? Can you check your notes or any information and let us know how many people may have been anticipated to be detained?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I would tell you that the Toronto Police Service will be able to tell you that exactly.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Do any of you have the cost for the detention centre, and in fact, what the estimated cost of the entire detention process would be, for constructing the detention centre and all of the costs associated with that?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Again, it's the Toronto Police Service.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Toronto would know that...? Okay. Thanks.

I'll go back to the Olympics. I'm from Vancouver. As the public safety critic, I was involved in some of the security briefings leading up to that. I think it's fair to say that all of the considerations are identical. I understand that with the G-8/G-20 it was three days of meetings, but of course there was preparatory work before that.

It's the same thing for the Olympics: preparatory work happened for months and months. There were bomb squad dogs checking and securing sites, and of course we had an ocean, two sites, mountains, the U.S. border, and thousands of participants. Of course, there were heads of state there. The Vice-President of the United States came. The wife of the President of Taiwan was at the Olympics. There were heads of state who came.

I would put it to you that I think Canadians have a legitimate question. The billion dollars for the Vancouver Olympics was for establishing security over periods of months for an event that took not just 12 days, because there were the Paralympics that went on after that as well. I'm just wondering if you can give us some explanation for why we spent a billion dollars for an event in Toronto that I think everybody agrees was much smaller and of much shorter duration. There really aren't any significant distinguishing factors for the two events, both being major international events that could not tolerate any kind of security breach.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Superintendent, you have less than 20 seconds.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I would apologize, but I would have to go back to my previous answer on the concentration of the internationally protected persons in a known area, in known hotels, in known sites. The vulnerability on that is very high.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Go ahead, Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I'm certainly glad to hear that the wife of the President of Taiwan was at the Olympics. He didn't mention that to me when I met with him, but I'm not sure she would have had the same level of protection that the 35 leaders representing 95% of the world's population did when they came to the Greater Toronto Area during that time.

Who made the actual policing decisions on the ground in the city of Toronto on the days of the actual G-20? Did they come from you or did they come from the Toronto Police Service?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

It's not an easy question to answer. I have to explain the structure of the command and the structure of how the city was set up in quadrants in order to explain that.

I'll start with the way the city was set up. As you heard earlier, the RCMP had responsibility for the internationally protected persons and the venues. That's the simplest way I can explain it.

If you think about the MTCC and draw a circle around it, inside that circle was RCMP responsibility. If you draw another circle all the way around the hotels in downtown Toronto, that was RCMP responsibility, so even though it was within the city of Toronto, the RCMP had jurisdiction for that period of time, and Toronto had given us the authority to go ahead and look after it. Everything outside that circle--the interdiction zones and everything else in the city of Toronto--was Toronto Police Service jurisdiction, and they were responsible for command decisions on the ground at that level.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I asked you this earlier, and you weren't able to answer, and I apologize. If the glow sticks that were purchased were not used, what happens to them or to any other things that were purchased and not used? Are they just thrown into the garbage or are they put back into an inventory of some sort? What happens to them?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

The glow sticks themselves were purchased by the Canadian armed forces.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

So presumably the Canadian armed forces will put them back into their inventory.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

They will have them to use at a later date. In the case of equipment that we purchased, we will put the equipment that has a longer shelf life into storage for future major events. We will get anything with a short shelf life out to people who need it, on a cost recovery basis, so we will recover some of those costs for purchases we've made.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Could you explain a bit more about the international convention you have with respect to protecting VIPs? What is the international convention that you work under?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

There are several conventions, but there's a Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act as well. Basically that act vests responsibility in the RCMP to ensure the safety of the IPPs who are coming to these conferences and also to ensure that the meetings can proceed. That's our focus, in addition to the focus on protecting the community during the course of the event. We're also concerned about the people in the community in and around those events as well.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have a little under two minutes.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

With respect to the marshalling of the resources from the other police forces across the country, I think we've also started looking at lessons learned in this area. This was an unqualified security success. I think nobody could suggest otherwise. For the OPP, CSIS, Border Services, and the RCMP, our first G-20 was an absolute unqualified success. I've talked to my own police chief, and they have nothing but positive things to say.

How was the cooperation? Is there something we could learn for future events of this size?

Because I'll probably run out of time, I'm also wondering if the OPP could answer this next question first. I was told that in Toronto about $140,000 of infrastructure investment was put into the Toronto Police Service. Is that true and does it stay with them?

Again, to the superintendent, with respect to the marshalling of the forces, is there anything we can learn so that we can maybe do better in the future?

[Supt Tim Charlebois]

Unfortunately, I can't speak for the Toronto Police Service about their negotiations with Public Safety Canada on their infrastructure. I could only speak to infrastructure and processes in regard to the G-8 and the OPP, unfortunately.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

We really have to get the chief of police in.