Government Operations Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

Go ahead, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's our responsibility as parliamentarians to examine the spending decisions made by government on behalf of the taxpayers, to try to protect the taxpayers, and to do so in a timely way. In view of the fact that we're four months after the summits and we have very little detail in terms of the various expenses, it's difficult to do that, and it's somewhat frustrating.

Could we ask each of the four organizations here to provide us with a detailed budget breakdown? You must have given breakdowns in advance of the summits to government and to PCO. Could you provide them to the committee? I'd ask each of you to do that. I think everyone is nodding. Does everyone agree or is there a problem with that request?

[Supt Tim Charlebois]

Again, I'll speak for the OPP and the Province of Ontario. Based on all of our assessments, we put a budget proposal in at approximately $84 million for the OPP and the Province of Ontario. Quite frankly, our anticipated projections are that we will come in under budget--

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I'm sorry to interrupt. I appreciate that, but all I'm asking for is.... Obviously your budget didn't just say “$84 million”; it had cost assumptions. Mainly, what were the costs in advance that you foresaw? You must have submitted it saying “here is the total and here is what that total is made up of”. That's all I'm asking for, so if you can provide us with that, I'd appreciate it.

Let me ask you this, sir. You've indicated that you're processing 5,000 invoices, but all the invoices are not in. You would think that the subcontractors you've dealt with would have their invoices in,four months after the fact. How many invoices are you waiting for? Do you know?

[Supt Tim Charlebois]

Actually, I'll ask Ms. Davis to provide more accurate information on that.

[Janet Davis, Financial and Administration Lead, 2010 G8/G20 Summits, Field Support Bureau, Ontario Provincial Police]

Thank you.

In fact, most of our private subcontractors have submitted their invoices to us. I have to say that we received the majority of the outstanding claims just in the past two weeks. We've issued a deadline for the end of this week to have all of our invoices and claims submitted. The outstanding claims primarily relate to our security partners. We had partners in other ministries and the provincial government and we're just finalizing our claims with them at this time.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

Have you submitted any bill to the Government of Canada in relation to all those invoices and your costs?

[Supt Tim Charlebois]

Again, I'll defer that to Ms. Davis. She'll have more accurate information than I have.

[Janet Davis]

Given the length of time for planning for this event, we actually had an opportunity to submit claims in advance of the operation. We have, to date, submitted three claims to the Government of Canada, to Public Safety Canada. As has been stated in previous committee hearings, our final claim is due on December 1, and we are on target to meet that timeline.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Can you provide us, perhaps later, with the details of when those three claims were submitted?

[Janet Davis]

I can provide that, yes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much.

Can you tell me approximately how much your force spent on equipment for this event? What are you doing with that equipment now--if you still have it?

[Supt Tim Charlebois]

On a broad scope, again, the biggest majority of it went to communications infrastructure for the Huntsville area. Again, we're speaking of an OPP detachment with one operational tower and 22 officers. We had to put communications infrastructure in place for 3,000 people. There were significant costs associated with that. Wherever possible, we leased the equipment.

Because of the outstanding agreements that the province already had with vendors for our communications infrastructure, we worked in partnership with them to provide that. We also worked with the RCMP, because they also had to develop infrastructure. We worked jointly wherever possible. We put joint infrastructure in place to meet some of those needs and communications was our largest single infrastructure cost.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

I think that you weren't really active in Toronto, as I understand it, as much as the RCMP and the Toronto Police Service, so I had better turn my next question to you, Superintendent MacNeil.

Did it cost more to operate around Deerhurst or Toronto?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I'm not sure we have that broken down. I'm just going to ask Mr. Séguin.

[Alain Séguin]

Yes, we do have some distinction on the budget cycle, but many of our costs were blended, so we had a blended cost structure for both G-8 and G-20. I don't have that breakdown. I can supply it, though.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

What I can tell you is that the RCMP alone invested 1,852 resources in Huntsville and over 3,000 in Toronto, so I guess that answers the question.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Were you ever asked what the additional costs--

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

My time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Calkins, please.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you , Mr. Chair.

I have several questions. Probably the best thing I can do is just ask everyone and then have each of you, respectively, answer them. Hopefully there will be enough time.

When it comes to the Canada Border Services Agency—and maybe CSIS was involved in this as well—was there any budget allocated? Obviously a budget was allocated for dealing with dignitaries who were coming in, as we knew that there was going to be a surge there.

Was there any budget allocated for a surge in international protestors, international organizations that were coming in, or known protestors coming to Canada to participate in any of the protests that would have been seen as a potential security threat? Were there any budget allocations given to CBSA to deal with that, or through CSIS to deal with that, or was that just part of normal procedures?

My question for the chief superintendent is, were any non-Canadians or internationals arrested or detained in any part of the proceedings or during any of the disruptions?

Finally, we have heard that the police officers who were assigned to tasks at the G-8, in Muskoka or Huntsville or wherever it was, were housed in a temporary facility. After the G-8 concluded, were those police officers then moved to provide security detail for the G-20? If you were a security officer assigned to just one element, did you just stay and work at that particular element?

[Ray Boisvert]

If you like, I could perhaps begin and simply describe our role, going back to your first set of questions.

The service's role was in two parts. There was the validation issue with respect to accreditation: preventing persons from either entering the country or accessing sites. The second part, which dealt with threat assessments, reflects perfectly our mandate, which is to collect information, do some analysis, and provide advice to government, in this case, at all levels, but more particularly for the summits, to police and first responders, for them then to take whatever action they felt was necessary to deal with the threat.

Perhaps I could just delineate our role in terms of investigating and perhaps taking any action. The service's role is to bring to the table what it knows about issues, about persons, or about groups and tell law enforcement perhaps what's at issue, why it's happening, and perhaps even where and when, with some specificity, which would allow them to make tactical decisions. That's where our role finishes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Was that was all just part of normal budgeting for CSIS? Was there no additional budget required for it?

[Ray Boisvert]

Well, there was a $2 million budget placemat—