Public Safety Committee on Oct. 25th, 2010

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I'm not aware of anything specific, but I don't want to say that I'm absolutely not aware. I'm just not aware, but I don't know if there is anything.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I know it may not be a complete answer, but to your knowledge, are you aware of any? I'm not aware of any.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

To the best of my knowledge, I'm not aware of any.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

On the operations themselves, I saw visions on TV that disturbed me, of police cars being overturned and windows being vandalized and broken. Can you explain to me the concept that I understand is sometimes employed by protestors at these events? I think the term is “black bloc”. Are you familiar with that term? Can you tell me what that means?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

“Black bloc” is a tactic that is utilized by groups who normally dress in black. Their faces are covered. They blend in with the crowd, and then at some point they dress in their black outfits, break away, and do what we saw at the G-20. The type of damage we saw at the G-20 is not unusual for black bloc tactics. Once they're finished doing that, they blend back into the crowd, take off the black outfits, and go back to the clothes they were wearing before. They're very difficult to find because of that.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

So I take it from that answer that black bloc was employed by protesters at the G-20 in Toronto.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

That's correct.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

From an operations perspective, how do you handle that situation? Realistically, how can you handle individuals who essentially camouflage themselves so that they're unidentifiable either by vision or by camera, who engage in illegal acts, and then camouflage themselves back to something inconspicuous? How do you handle that from an operations perspective?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Fortunately, in the city of Toronto many thousands of people who witnessed these acts came forward with photographs and videotapes to assist the police. I can't talk about the specifics right now because much of this is still before the courts. But a lot of the information we gained was from the general public who were appalled by the actions they saw and felt they should assist the police. And we appreciate that.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Are you telling me that peaceful protesters and other individuals who just happened to be on the streets were assisting law enforcement in outing these black bloc protesters?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I don't know what their purpose was on the streets, if they were protesters or not. But members of the public did assist the police in identifying people, not only people using black bloc tactics but also people who were committing offences during that period of time.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

You might not know this, but if you do, were these individuals local? Do you know if they were imported from other parts of Canada or perhaps other parts of the world to come here to protest? Or were the black bloc operators Ontarians?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I don't really want to comment on that right now. A lot of the people involved may still be before the courts and there are charges.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I appreciate that answer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have another minute.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Elcock, I thought I heard you say a minute ago that they anticipate Seoul having upwards of 50,000 security people.

[Ward Elcock]

I think it's actually 50,000 public order troops. In fact, they are the people who would actually deal with demonstrations. The number of broad security folks would in fact be higher. But public order troops would be somewhere in the region of 50,000.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

My friends are focused on the cost. I've looked at some numbers, at the costs of other summits--and I'm sure you have. How would you compare the costs for two summits that in fact involved a group led by John Manley, another group, and some youth business people? There were a lot of people involved in all of these things. But how would those costs compare with the international summits that have been held in other countries?

[Ward Elcock]

Mr. Chairman, a good way to think about it is perhaps not only in terms of cost, because as I said earlier, different situations lead to different costings and also different governments have different ways of accounting for specific expenditures.

The reality is our security practices are not substantially different from other countries where summits have been held in the past. We're policing to essentially the same kinds of standards. It costs what it costs.

Frankly, in response to the first part of your question, I have never been able to find a fully accounted picture of the costs for any summit. Indeed, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General have made the same kinds of comments, that it's very hard to find another example that is equally transparent and equally fully accounting for all of the expenditures. I simply haven't found it.

But the reality is it does cost a fair amount when you cost in all the items.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Elcock.

To round out the day, we will conclude with Ms. Mourani.

Vous disposez de cinq minutes.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to continue with Mr. MacNeil. Earlier you talked about a tactic that you called "the black bloc". You said that this was a tactic used by demonstrators. Can you state that the 900 people arrested used the so-called black bloc tactic?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

No, I'm not suggesting that the 900 people were all using black bloc tactics--definitely not.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Can you tell us approximately how many people used that tactic?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I would say the number would be in the hundreds. But again, I'm not suggesting that the 900 who were detained were all using black bloc tactics.