Public Safety committee  Having said that, Mr. Chairman, just to add a small point there, I think one of the key parts of black bloc tactics that is important to remember is crowd dynamics. What the black bloc folks want to do is draw wider numbers of the peaceful demonstrators into the protest.

Public Safety committee  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.

Public Safety committee  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 pr

Public Safety committee  As I said, where the summit would be held was a Government of Canada decision. Advice was provided from a number of streams, one of which was security. The security advice in some cases was positive or negative on a specific site. But at the end of the day, the decision on what s

Public Safety committee  I think, Mr. Chairman, Chief Superintendent MacNeil may be able to give you a better answer than I can. The reality is that it is a huge challenge. I believe in the case of Seoul, for example, they expect to have over 50,000 security folks. I think they're going to put them in te

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, the minister is the Minister for Public Safety and he was referring to the kinds of advice I gave him, which was in respect to security matters. As I've already said, the decision on whether it would be one site, two sites, or which site it would be is a decision f

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, that's a generalization that I'm not sure I'm quite ready to go to. The reality is usually that one site is better, but it can depend upon what you're confronted with--the nature of the site and so on. Reality has a way of intruding, Mr. Chairman.

Public Safety committee  Chief Superintendent MacNeil spoke earlier about the command structure. That was how the police were tied together and how they cooperated. At the end of the day, I think it's important for members to understand that each police force, within its jurisdiction, retained responsibi

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, the choice of a summit site is not security's choice, as I said earlier. There may be security implications that would cause a specific site to be a less good site or a better site. At the end of the day, the government makes the choice of what the site is.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, there are a number of groups and organizations that have a view on where a summit should be held.

Public Safety committee  At the end of the day, it's a choice made by government on the basis of the advice given to them by security, but also by the Senate management office, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and other departments and agencies within government.

Public Safety committee  Our advice, with respect to security issues, was part of that framework upon which the government made the decision, but not—

Public Safety committee  At the end of the day, where to put the summit was a government decision. There was a stream of advice—

Public Safety committee  There was a stream of security advice. There was also advice coming from the Senate management office, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and others, regarding the best site, because there are a number of issues that cross departmental and agency lines.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, at the end of the day, the minister is the Minister of Public Safety, and the advice that he would have received from me was on the issue of security. I wasn't advising the minister which was the best site to choose from a foreign affairs point of view or which spec