Evidence of meeting #33 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was costs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
You are always eloquent, Mr. Holder, and more frequently than not, lengthy.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
It is very, very difficult, I appreciate, to keep to only the five minutes that we have in these rounds.
I want to go back. I have three main questions that I want to go to, and some of them I've seeded in the first round. I want to go to something Superintendent MacNeil just said. I think I have the quote right: that if you do an event in one place instead of two, costs would be lower
That raises a question, because we did see dramatic increases in costs due to the two locations. Did you have an opportunity to advise the Privy Council Office, Mr. Elcock, or the minister of the concerns about the costs of these two locations? Was there any role played by the RCMP in an advisory capacity about the locations?
C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil
One of the opportunities I had related to where the summit site was in Toronto: between the Allstream Centre and the MTCC. I did advise the PCO and the government that if we tried to secure both the downtown area, where the hotels were, and the Allstream Centre and the roads in between the two, it was going to be so resource intensive that I didn't think we could do it, and that we would have to collapse one of the summits.
That was my recommendation, because I didn't think it was possible to handle them both, if that was the plan. But eventually the plan came back to just doing it in the downtown and because of that we were able to handle both.
I've heard a lot of discussion over to why was it downtown and not at the Allstream Centre. Well, that was partly to do with me, because I made that recommendation in terms of security that it was so resource intensive that we wouldn't be able to handle it.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Did you have any role in discussing whether this should be in Muskoka or in Toronto or whether you should coordinate both in another location? Did you have any input into that besides what you've just alluded to?
C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil
No. The original site, as you know, was Muskoka. We planned our security for Muskoka. Once we were advised that the G-20 would be held in Toronto, we started trying to seek a location as quickly as we could.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
So you didn't know that the G-20 was going to be in Toronto until...?
C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil
Not until December, actually. In September we found out it would be in Canada and in December we found out it would be in Toronto--where in Toronto, actually.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Yes. Did you indicate at that point what the additional cost would be to have these two different sites? If you were only told in December, obviously you had to plan again for additional costs. Did you advise the PCO of these additional costs so that more resources or different resources could be allocated?
C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil
At that time we did not, but in October of 2009 we were asked to provide an analysis of the three options, and we provided it at that time.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Could you give us a little more detail on what that analysis showed?
C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil
Certainly. What I can say is that in the analysis, having the G-8 in Huntsville and the G-20 in Toronto was one option. Both the G-8 and the G-20 in Huntsville was an option, and both G-8 and G-20 in Toronto was an option. Those were the three options that we referred to.
It's not really valid now, because at the time that we put those options together, we were doing options in Toronto for the Allstream Centre, not the MTCC. The numbers wouldn't be accurate or in concurrence with what actually occurred at the end of the day, but we did put those options forward in October of 2009.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Can you provide that analysis to the committee, please, so that we can get an understanding of those costs? Thank you very much.
I'm running out of time, but I have a question for the superintendent from the Ontario Provincial Police. You talked about a budget of $84 million and I can appreciate that. If we could get more details on what was included in that budget, that would be great. More importantly, was there a separate budget for the Toronto police force, or was that part of your budget?
Supt Tim Charlebois
No. The Toronto Police Service was responsible for entering their own budget with Public Safety Canada.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Do you happen to know what that was? We're trying to get a total cost.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Okay. We will have to ask the Toronto Police Service, but what you're telling me clearly is that it was a separate cost.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
When we add all this up now, we're way above the total amount that we've been advised.
Could you talk a little bit about what was included in your $84 million? I know you don't have the final bills as yet, but we established up front that from a planning perspective you would have had budget assumptions. Could you at least elaborate on those?
