Government Operations Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

We do appreciate each one of you coming in this morning. Your testimony is helpful for us to understand the full scope of what you were asked to do.

We do appreciate the work you undertook. It should be said that while we scrutinize these things, we do appreciate what you do. We do thank you for your service and your continued efforts to provide security and safety to Canadians in general and to every person who attended the G-8 and G-20 summits. Thank you.

Chief Superintendent, I'm wondering if you could just give some additional clarification to a number of things. We've been working to try to get the facts as far as the expenditures are concerned for the G-8 and G-20, with limited help from the opposition. The Liberals have continued to put out press releases that call into question pretty much every aspect of the spending.

There was an interesting press release that I'm looking for some additional clarification on. A press release left the Liberal headquarters with the assertion that the integrated security effort had drained the quarry in order to do some type of thing or to build a structure. I wonder if you are aware of that press release or if you can provide us with some additional clarification as to what exactly went on there and maybe what the facts are with regard to that allegation.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Yes. I think the reference is to where we built what we referred to the TAF, the temporary accommodation facility for the police officers who were policing the Huntsville area. What happened in Huntsville is that there wasn't enough commercial accommodation available to house all of the security people who were coming to secure the G-8.

It required that we had to build an accommodation facility, and this was basically, for lack of a better way of describing it, a very large trailer park that would house up to 4,500 security officers. Finding a piece of property in the Huntsville area is not that easy, because you're going to have to flatten the land and make it appropriate for this type of construction.

We did find what I guess you would consider a gravel pit. We were able to flatten the gravel pit. It was not draining a lake or a pond; that's not what we did. As we were doing the construction to build the trailer park, we hit an underground spring when we were digging to level the ground. The underground spring of course would have flooded our area that we had under construction, so we had to divert the water through the use of culverts into a small pond that was nearby. That construction cost us about $144,000 to do.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So it's not the $2 million that the press release claimed was needed to drain a quarry?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

It was $144,000.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Okay.

Well, that's not the first thing.... I mean, in another meeting we had a discussion about a fake lake that the opposition had some consternation about. We found out that the cost was only about 10% of what the opposition claimed it to be, so we appreciate additional clarification on this.

On the scope of the project that you undertook and the responsibilities that you had, it's important for Canadians and members of Parliament to fully understand the timeframe of the work that you undertook. My understanding--and I thank the different witnesses for their testimony--is that preparatory meetings were happening. People were coming for months beforehand, and 90 different preparatory meetings were undertaken.

Could you first explain to us the scope in terms of the timeframe of your planning process and your accommodation of guests?

Second, could you tell us about the integration of the different security forces? Could you give us some idea of how many different local police forces or private security firms were integrated to undertake the responsibility on the security side and tell us as well about the integration of some of the military personnel?

On those two points, could you give us an understanding of the scope and the breadth of your project?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Thank you.

With reference to how long the planning process took, in the fall of 2008, Superintendent Charlebois and I, along with the Canadian Forces, started planning the G-8. Almost two years of planning went into the G-8--and of course the G-20 at the same time, once we found out about it. As I'm sure you've already heard from many people, it was the largest deployment of security personnel in Canadian history. The actual number was 20,974, so close to 21,000 security personnel were deployed.

The biggest challenge we have in this country, even as opposed to other countries, is the size of our country. We have a massive country from which to draw security forces, which creates logistical challenges. As you can imagine, we all--the OPP, the RCMP, the Toronto Police Service--needed assistance. None of us is big enough to take care of this with the people we have stationed here in Ontario, so we had to draw on people from all over the country. That means airplanes, buses, accommodations, and meals.

Even though the summits themselves took place only over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, in some cases we had people on the ground a month in advance to start the clearing processes and the sweeping processes. A lot of our people, the majority of them, were there at least 10 days in advance. We had to house and feed and take care of those people for all that period of time.

Those were just some of the challenges. We've never been faced with anything like this before. Two summits at the same time generated a security force that was unprecedented. I could get into specific numbers about specific agencies and those kinds of things. I have all of that, but it's safe to say that we put forward an operation of a size that we may never see again.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

This is important, because some of the claims of the opposition or of skeptics about the spending have been that a lot of it happened in just 72 hours. My understanding is that the headquarters in Barrie was rented space that was retrofitted for the purpose of the integrated security efforts. There is an allegation that the headquarters building was only operational for 72 hours. Could you give us the timeframe that the headquarters was operational?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Yes. That headquarters actually started to be operational in February 2009, so it was open for a year and several months before the actual summits.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So the costs allocated to that headquarters were for the duration and not just for 72 hours.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

That headquarters was for planning, for our unified command centre, and for our joint intelligence group. It's a 55,000-square-foot building that had to be retrofitted to allow for the security requirements of all the agencies that came in. You can't, for example, have an agency such as CSIS or CSE, or any other agency, just come in and work in an environment that is not properly outfitted for them. It was the same for all the other partners, and we had many partners. That had a lot to do with the cost of that building.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Superintendent MacNeil.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies, for eight minutes, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'd also like to thank all the witnesses for appearing and taking time out of your busy lives.

From a security point of view, I think we all can agree that the G-8/G-20 meetings can fairly be described as and considered a successful event. All attendees were protected. The meetings were conducted without disruption. There were no acts of violence against any of the attendees. I think all of us want to congratulate you for accomplishing that.

What I do think that Canadians are concerned about, though, are the costs of achieving that security, and those costs I think are measured in two aspects. One is in monetary terms and the second is in terms of what I think is pretty much established now as widespread violations of many Canadians' constitutional rights, civil liberties, and democratic expectations.

I think that's what we have to measure this against: we had great success, but there were costs. I think that it's naive and that people are playing politics if they claim there were no costs that were sacrificed to achieve that security. I'd like to delve into some of those costs.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a study before the summits. I want to quote from the report he published. He said, “In an attempt to assess the reasonableness of security costs, the PBO identified unit costs of security personnel deployed as a unit of comparability.” What he did was that he compared, and I'll go on quoting him. He said, “Our analysis compared the unit costs of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as the Canadian Forces, for the 2010 G-8 and G-20 Summits and the 2002 G-8 Summit”. I think the reason was that he tried to get two Canadian comparators.

He found that, in his estimate, the unit cost for the RCMP in 2010 was $101,000 per RCMP officer. That compared to $25,000 for the RCMP unit cost in 2002 in Kananaskis. That's an increase of four times. The same thing happened for the armed forces, but I don't think there's anybody here from there, so I won't ask about it. Those numbers are inflation adjusted. So what he ended up saying in his conclusion was, “The unit cost allocation for the RCMP for Huntsville has increased by a factor of 4”--

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Excuse me, Mr. Davies. There is a general din to my right.

Could we dim the din, please? I know that you're all interested in Mr. Davies' questions. If there is conversation, could it be taken outside?

Thank you.

Mr. Davies, please proceed.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To continue the quote, he said: “...while the same unit cost...for the Canadian Forces has increased by a factor of 3”.

His conclusion was, “These are significant unexplained variances, and a more detailed breakdown of how the allocated funds are to be spent might help explain these variances”.

I'd ask for your explanation for that unit cost escalation.

[Alain Séguin]

I'll attempt that.

I won't comment on the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, on their analysis. I can't comment on how they derived the information and on looking back to Kananaskis.

But I can tell you a few things about the cost. As Chief Superintendent MacNeil pointed out, there is a cost of doing these events in this country: deploying large numbers of people, housing them, feeding them, etc. Those are costs that are attached to the salary costs. In our case, the salary costs were only the additional overtime costs and additional incremental costs that were incurred. We weren't charging members who would normally be in a normal operational situation to the summits. I can't comment on how he derived those, but I can--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I can tell you, Mr. Séguin, because he explains it. He says, “Unit costs are estimates due to the fact that total spending of the department was attributed to units...”. So when he contacted the units to ask how spending was attributed, he was told that it was broken down by unit.

What I would ask is, do you dispute the PBO's conclusion that unit costs went up four times or do you just not know?

[Alain Séguin]

Well, I guess I see a couple of factors. One, I assume he was basing his information on the budget numbers, and I think the report came out this summer, in June, and we now have more accurate information on the actual costs, which are considerably less than the $507 million. So the budget information is one piece of information, which includes contingency amounts. Our current estimates are in the $330 million from the $507 million.... So then, I guess, we'd have to compare the actual costs to his analysis.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

All right.

A lot has focused on the fact two sites were chosen for this. From a security point of view, am I correct in assuming that security costs would have been lower if you had held both meetings on one site?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I didn't do a study on the final assessment of holding the summit at the MTCC, the costs surrounding that, and then what it would be like to hold everything there. But I think it's safe and logical to say that if you do an event in one place as opposed to two places the cost would be less.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer also points out in his report this summer that.... Again, I'll quote him so that I don't put words in his mouth. About community disruption, he said:

Security operations can cause considerable disruptions to the community and surrounding businesses. The opportunity loss in some cases deserves compensation, which in turns drives up the cost.

He talks about road closures, traffic obstructions, etc., and we've heard that a number of businesses were disrupted. Is there anything in any of the budgets you've seen that would be allocated to compensate any businesses or communities for any disruption as a result of the summits? Has that been budgeted for?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Séguin, for less than a minute, please.

[Alain Séguin]

In some instances.... For the fencing, we negotiated some lease arrangements with businesses or proprietors where the fence would be located, so we compensated basically on a lease arrangement for--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Do you know how much that was, sir?

[Alain Séguin]

I'd have to get that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Can you get that, please?