Evidence of meeting #13 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Did you find that not having the information available impacted your work?
Sergeant-at-Arms and Corporate Security Officer, House of Commons
Well, at times I knew what was happening on Wellington Street if it was imminent, but it wasn't contained in a report per se. It would be like a phone call: You may want a heads-up; your employees are going to put barriers—
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Merci.
We will now proceed with the Senate round, starting with Ms. Boniface for five minutes.
Senator Boniface, the floor is yours.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Thank you very much.
Welcome to all three of you. I appreciate your being here.
I think the public and this committee need to understand how the workings on a day-to-day basis are with the local police service. You know my background.
Police agencies work very closely together, so I'm curious when we start kind of separating out: If we're standing on one side of the pavement, we're in one jurisdiction, and when we're on the other side of the pavement, it's somebody else's issue.
What would be the normal day-to-day—that would be my first question—in your work with the Ottawa Police Service, the municipal police service? Then, secondly, how did it work out through that process in terms of ongoing dialogue and conversation for the protection of everybody?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Today, there has been much advancement on the relationship between the service and the Ottawa Police Service, mainly due to the demobilization of the RCMP from Parliament Hill.
I stand here today with the utmost confidence in that relationship with the Ottawa Police Service. As an example, we have civil authority under the Criminal Code to make an arrest, which means we don't have the authority to release. The relationship we have today with the Ottawa Police Service is that they respond when the call is made, which is greatly appreciated.
We're in the works right now, trying to ensure that these relationships are removed from just the people who are currently in place. The MOUs have started. Right now the Ottawa police have the MOU with respect to critical incident command. Our service moved quickly in 2020 to establish our own critical incident command program, and nobody really knew about us because everybody just looked at us as the RCMP. It took some time and some effort to get everybody on board, and surprisingly enough it has been welcomed. Rest assured the service has been built to hold the first 90 minutes of any incident, and we'll continue to make the necessary changes moving forward.
Again, the service takes this protective mandate of Parliament, parliamentarians, staffers and others very seriously.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
I appreciate that and I respect that as well.
The important piece as well is to have reassurance that working together through an MOU.... You indicated that you've been working on an MOU. I think you've testified to that at a different committee. Where are we in terms of that discussion, and how close are you to the finish line?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Through you, Mr. Chair, to Senator Boniface, the last update I had from the Ottawa Police Service is that it's coming in the next few weeks.
That said, there's another series of MOUs. The service does a great job at also setting in its tabletop exercise framework, and we're committed to continuing those tabletop exercises with the Ottawa Police Service and with the RCMP's PMPD, our friends at both security directorates. This is something that we'll continue to pursue to ensure that our operational readiness and response is where it needs to be.
I'm prepared to report back on the advancement of those MOUs, but I'm starting to become a pain in their rear end at the Ottawa Police Service, because we need to advance on these things.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Your sense of it is that if the MOUs are in place it will help divide out this work in a meaningful way, so that in the day-to-day work and in a major incident like you experienced in January and February, it would help facilitate how the working relationships are.
The difficulty is that people vest it in people they know, but standing it in the long term is the hard part, agency to agency.
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Through you, Mr. Chair, to Senator Boniface, my objective here is not just through the demobilization of the RCMP. It was to ensure absolute sustainability of this service, and that's a priority that I'm not going to waver from.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Can you tell me, again, through the chair, whether or not you conducted an internal review as a result of the incident overall, the role that PPS played and how they responded?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Through you, Mr. Chair, to Senator Boniface, yes, an after action review was conducted by the service. We're just finalizing the report on that, and we'll certainly be in a position to share those findings.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
I think that would be very helpful.
In terms of the attack on Parliament Hill and where you came from, those recommendations, to where we are today, could you elaborate on that as well? That, as you know, speaks to the preparedness for an incident like this.
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Through you, Mr. Chair, thank you, Senator Boniface.
Yes, the recommendations from the OPP review have all been addressed, and I think we're at 90% or thereabouts with implementation. We're trying to decouple.... A lot of those recommendations were steered towards the RCMP, but from a service perspective our objective has been to transfer all of that from yellow to blue, which are the colours of the service, and that work continues as well.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Thank you.
That concludes the five-minute round.
Mr. Carignan, you have the floor for five minutes.
Claude Carignan Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Brookson.
Did you have any discussions with the Ottawa Police Service and the RCMP before and after the convoy arrived?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Yes. I had several conversations with the RCMP and two or three with the Ottawa Police Service. Two were directly with Chief Sloly during the occupation.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
What was the nature of these discussions before and after the convoy arrived?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Prior to the arrival of the convoy, it was just a matter of coordinating the security measures that we had in place to ensure the safe arrival of the parliamentarians on the first Monday after the arrival...
With Chief Sloly, they were conversations on where we might be with rectifying the issue that I witnessed every day on Wellington Street. Those were my conversations with him.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
Were you part of the integrated command centre?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
We had representation at the NCRCC. To be clear, the NCRCC was more for coordination and not the critical incident command. That was a piece that was created, I think, in the third week or two and a half weeks in, and that was with the OPP, the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service.
Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
All right.
On February 12, the Ottawa Police Service reported on its website that it had a plan to clear the streets of Ottawa. Were you aware of this plan?
