Government Operations Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

I will give you an example, Mr. MacNeil. A fence was purchased at a cost of $4 million, but when the summit was held in Montebello, the fence cost $800,000. So it cost nearly four times more this time around. Who authorized the purchase of a $4 million fence?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

In the case of the fence, that was a situation where we did our assessment of.... We'll take Huntsville, for example. we did an assessment of what was required in fencing. Once we made that determination of what was required, we sent it to our fencing experts and they contracted that out. Just as an example, though, we used the fence from Montebello, the two kilometres--

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Forgive me for interrupting, but who are the fencing experts? You said you assessed what the needs were and then sent that assessment to the fencing experts, who took care of it. Who are they?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

The RCMP has technical experts in fencing.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Oh, okay. So, if I understand correctly, it was the RCMP that purchased the $4 million fence. Very well.

Was there an integrated plan in terms of your respective expenditures? Did you do an analysis prior to the summits to determine what the costs would be? Did you have a budget?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

My concentration was on the RCMP budget; however, I was aware of the budgets of the other integrated partners, to a degree, but I didn't have input into their purchasing or their procurement.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That means that no one was coordinating all the expenditures related to the two summits. There was no cost estimate and no coordination of expenditures. That means that the Ontario Provincial Police had, I guess, set out a budget, as mentioned. CSIS had a budget, you had a budget, and no one was coordinating the four budgets to get an overall picture of expenditures.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I don't want to leave the impression there was no coordination, in the sense that we had joint procurement groups to determine that whatever we purchased, we didn't duplicate. So we did know what we were purchasing, but our RCMP finance people handled RCMP purchases, OPP people handled OPP purchases, CBSA people...and on and on.

We were integrated in determining what we were going to get, but I couldn't buy something for the OPP, and they couldn't buy it for me. We had our own procurement processes in place.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

No, no, but what I am understanding is that there was no financial planning. No one said that x million or billion dollars would be spent on the summits, first of all. So, without such a plan, we, as a committee, cannot say whether you stuck to the budget or not. You spent money as needed at the time. That is what I am understanding. So far—

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Perhaps I could just mention.... I was not mistaken, but it's just come to my attention that it is correct that Mr. Elcock, in his role, would have been overseeing all of the budgets. I apologize, because I'm thinking strictly from a security standpoint and our level at the integrated security unit, but if I'm going to speak at a higher level, Mr. Elcock would have been aware of the budgets for all units.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Earlier, you said that holding the G8 and G20 summits at the same time gave rise to additional security challenges. Who decided to hold both summits at the same time? Did you, as the people responsible for security in Canada—because that is what you all are—have the opportunity to say that such an event would create additional security challenges? Did you have an opportunity to voice your opinion on the additional challenges related to holding two summits in Canada?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

The role of the police and my role as the commander of the integrated security unit is to provide the security wherever the summit is. If they had told us it was Kananaskis or Vancouver or wherever, we would provide security for it.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

So you had no say.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

It's not our role to choose a site.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Very well.

My next question is for the officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Mr. Boisvert and Ms. Danagher, what was your assessment of the threat level? Earlier, you said it was a medium threat assessment. What does that mean exactly?

[Ray Boisvert]

Mr. Chair, to answer the honourable member's question, I would say the service's role was twofold. First of all, it was to provide information and analysis for the accreditation process.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

We know that. I simply want you to answer the question specifically. I do not have much time.

[Ray Boisvert]

Fine. In terms of threat assessment, CSIS's role was to support the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, or ITAC, which would look at information provided by CSIS, as well as a number of other partner agencies in the country and around the world. We also provided a series of assessments based on the circumstances and the nature of the threat. As for assessing the threat level—low, medium or very high—the overall risk for potential terrorism was low.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

The risk for terrorism was low, but what did the medium threat assessment refer to?

[Ray Boisvert]

It refers to terrorist groups that are here, in Canada, but who are different from a typical group like Al Qaeda.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Bourgeois, your time is up. Thank you.

Mr. Warkentin, for eight minutes.

Just before Mr. Warkentin begins, I'll remind witnesses that we have people here to turn the microphones on and off.

[A voice]

It's magic.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

And usually they work.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!