Government Operations Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'd like to call to order the 33rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We have with us representatives of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the OPP.

Each of you has been briefed on the allotted time you have for your opening statements. I assume that each and every one of you, being sophisticated police officers and security representatives, knows how this operation works.

Without further ado, I'll ask Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Alphonse MacNeil to lead off with his opening statement, please.

Thank you.

[Chief Superintendent Alphonse MacNeil, Division Operations Commander 2010 of the G8 and G20, Integrated Security Unit, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you very much.

Good morning.

My name is Chief Superintendent Alphonse MacNeil. Since the fall of 2008, I have been the division operations commander for the G-8 and G-20 integrated security unit. With me today is Alain Séguin. Mr. Séguin is the RCMP's chief financial and administrative officer.

We would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss matters surrounding the security budget for the G-8 and G-20 summits.

The RCMP was the lead agency responsible for security for the G-8 and G-20. Guided by a number of acts and regulations, the RCMP was mandated to ensure the safety and security of all internationally protected persons during the summits. Additionally, we had primary responsibility to ensure the security for the proper functioning of the meetings.

Our security planners were faced with numerous challenges. Once we received confirmation that the G-20 would be held on the same weekend as the G-8, we had to drastically change our scope and budget. This was the first time that a G-8 and a G-20 occurred in the same country and at the same time.

The result was the largest domestic deployment of security personnel in Canadian history. More than 20,000 security personnel were required to secure two separate events with two separate footprints--in Huntsville and Toronto. In addition, we were responsible for 24-hour personal protection of 92 internationally protected persons and assisting with delegations in the thousands, securing a site for thousands of media personnel, and clearing them to enter the secure sites, securing sites outside of the restricted zones, and handling air, land, marine, and subterranean security.

As I said, the RCMP and its security partners were responsible for securing a meeting of virtually all senior government leaders from around the world. As you can imagine, gathering that many influential people in one area creates vulnerabilities. It was essential that an appropriate level of security be provided for an event of this magnitude.

Based on a medium threat assessment, the RCMP and its partners created security plans that were scalable to ensure our clients were kept safe and that security was in place for the proper functioning of the meetings. The RCMP security budget for the summits was $507.5 million.

The RCMP worked closely with key public safety and security partners to ensure that the security plans were comprehensive, integrated, and took into account the exceptional needs of hosting two separate major events over the same weekend with such a large number of world leaders and delegates.

The security plans for these two events were derived from a fiscally responsible vulnerability-based planning model. All security costs incurred were spent as per government policies and guidelines and in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.

Where possible, the RCMP entered into joint procurement with other police services for shared assets. In addition, the RCMP used equipment from other major events, like the Olympics, and will be placing back into inventory any assets that we purchased. These assets will be used for future major events. Any equipment with a shorter shelf life is being distributed to areas where it can be used immediately on a cost-recovery basis.

Securing the G-8 and G-20 summits came with a price tag, but at the end of the day, the RCMP and its security partners delivered on our mandate of keeping everyone safe and secure and ensuring the world leaders were able to conduct their meetings. We were faced with incredible challenges and we were successful in meeting all of them.

I remain proud and confident in the role that the RCMP and the ISU played in this successful security operation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Chief Superintendent.

From the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Mr. Boisvert.

[Ray Boisvert, Assistant Director Intelligence, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)]

Good morning.

My name is Ray Boisvert. I'm the assistant director intelligence for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. I'm joined by the service's chief financial officer, Laura Danagher. We're pleased to join our colleagues from partner agencies here today to speak to the costs related to security for the G-8 and G-20 summits.

The mandate of CSIS, as spelled out in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, is to collect and analyze threats to the security of Canada and to report on them to our various government partners so they may take appropriate action in accordance with their mandates and responsibilities.

In the context of the summits, the primary responsibility of the service was to assist the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency to provide accreditation to those requiring access to secure sites linked to the summits. The service's main focus in this process was to ensure that only those with legitimate requirements to access these sites were accredited. This was done in adherence to the service's continued efforts to circumvent terrorists or foreign agents from entering Canada, or sensitive areas, under false pretenses. It is estimated that CSIS conducted security checks on up to 20,000 accreditation requests received in relation to the two summits.

CSIS was also called upon to support its partners, including the RCMP, in evaluating and monitoring threats before and during the event. CSIS contributed to summit updates prepared by the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) in the months and weeks leading up to the event, and to daily updates issued during the summits.

CSIS was also active on the ground as part of the Joint Intelligence Group (JIG), the multi-agency intelligence fusion centre that worked to ensure the safety of summit sites and participants.

As the CSIS director stated prior to the summits, the service's primary concern at the time was the threat posed by multi-issue extremists and violent anarchist organizations. Much of the intelligence that we provided to our government partners in the context of the summits related to our knowledge of possible violence being planned or contemplated by individuals associated with these groups.

In total, as of September 30, 2010, CSIS expenses related to our work in support of security at the two summits totalled just over $2 million—$2,009,000, to be exact.

We thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and, of course, we look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Boisvert.

From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Sylvain St-Laurent.

[Sylvain St-Laurent, Vice-President, Comptrollership Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Good morning. My name is Sylvain St-Laurent, and I am Vice-President of the Comptrollership Branch and Senior Financial Officer at the Canada Border Services Agency.

I would first like to thank the committee for inviting the Canada Border Services Agency to participate in this important discussion regarding our role and expenditures related to the G-8 and G-20 summits.

Over the four-day period leading up to the summits, the CBSA processed over 604 heads of state, foreign ministers, royalty, and heads of world organizations, as well as approximately 2,000 people in their immediate entourages. In addition, the CBSA also processed over 250 individuals via ministerial level courtesy clearances for the over 90 preparatory visits in the six months preceding the summits. The agency is proud of its employees for their professional handling of such an unprecedented volume of diplomatic entourages without incident.

As this is of key interest to the committee, I would like to spend a moment discussing the expenses of the agency with regard to the summits.

The CBSA's expenses for the summits, both for the planning stages and their execution, were essentially associated with salary expenditures. The agency received $1.13 million and spent $1.26 million, a difference of about $126,000, to support these summits for the following main activities: project coordination and planning; risk management; operational delivery; and post-event review.

The incremental salary costs were mainly a result of CBSA's participation in the joint intelligence group in Barrie, and mostly for border services officers processing delegates and media, both at the infield terminal and at airports across the country, as well as for officers assisting the RCMP with baggage screening and special clearance requests. Officers were brought in from nearby locations and regions for operational delivery, and these resources were then backfilled in their home organizations using overtime expenditures.

The summit management office determined that the summit participants' primary airport of arrival would be the infield terminal at Lester B. Pearson International Airport, which is not, for CBSA, a port of entry that is normally operational. The site was refurbished by Public Works and included CBSA satellite office space, equipment, and personnel necessary to receive and clear the delegations.

Resources were also invested to support marine operations officers, who provided assistance to Toronto Police Services with mandatory verifications of all pleasure craft during the summit period and a joint presence on the waterways to ensure security.

Money also went to the accreditation and risk assessment processes. Investments were made in the Emergency Preparedness Regional Operations Centre, as well as a 24/7 Joint Intelligence Group in Barrie. Lastly, money was spent on telecommunications equipment for our officers.

To support all of these activities, the CBSA received $1.13 million dollars. Our final expenditures came to $1.26 million, for a difference of $126,000.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation, and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. St-Laurent.

We now have Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Tim Charlebois.

[Superintendent Tim Charlebois, Planning and Operations Lead, 2010 G8/G20 Summits, Field Support Bureau, Ontario Provincial Police]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Commissioner Lewis, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

By way of background, I was the OPP operations and planning lead for the G-8 and G-20 summits. It was my responsibility to develop and implement all aspects of security planning, along with related financial and budgetary expenditures. Ms. Davis, who is with me here today, was responsible for overseeing all aspects of summit-related finances and administration and reported to me within the OPP G-8 structure.

The 2010 G-8 and G-20 summits were extraordinary events in the history of Ontario and, in particular, the Ontario Provincial Police. This was the largest security operation ever undertaken in the 100-year history of the OPP. Having said that, the OPP has a great deal of experience in multi-agency operations and security events.

Events of the magnitude of the G-8 and G-20 summits occur infrequently in Canada and therefore create unique and challenging issues for security planners, as well as affording the opportunity to solidify best practices, develop new strategies, and build on existing relationships amongst our security partners. As well, the physical location of any summit will inherently create new challenges for planners that are unique to that event and need to be overcome. In each of the above areas, I believe we were successful.

In events of this nature, there are existing legislative responsibilities, both federally and provincially, as to the roles and responsibilities of security partners. For the G-8/G-20 summits, the RCMP had specific responsibilities for internationally protected persons under the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act. The OPP, as the police of jurisdiction for the G-8, were required to provide policing services consistent with the Police Services Act of Ontario. During the G-20 summit, the OPP provided additional resources to the Toronto Police Service as the police of jurisdiction and to the RCMP to support the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act.

During the G-8 planning process, the OPP were provided planning assumptions by the RCMP on which to base objectives and strategies to meet the security needs of the summit. As well, the OPP were required to work within financial guidelines and policies provided by Public Safety Canada. A cost contribution agreement was successfully negotiated between Ontario and Canada.

Consistent with the assumptions provided, the OPP developed a concept of operations for the OPP planning team to begin to develop strategies and financial projections. The concepts and financial projections were reviewed by the OPP planning leads, and refined planning direction was given. All planning for the G-8 summit was conducted within a joint operational planning group comprised of the OPP, RCMP, and Canadian Forces. This ensured consistency in planning and operational objectives and within mandates.

With the addition of the G-20 summit, the OPP continually reviewed the related security impacts on the G-8 and, in consultation with security partners, refined strategies, objectives, and our financial projections. Where possible, joint procurement procedures were established to reduce costs.

On behalf of my organization, and as the OPP lead for the 2010 G-8/G-20 summits, I would like to extend to the committee and Canadians that OPP security planning and operations were prepared and implemented to meet the extensive security requirements of the G-8/G-20 summits and within established OPP and provincial policy, oversight, and close scrutiny.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. I'd be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Superintendent Charlebois.

Thank you to all the witnesses. We'll now open it up to questioning by members.

The first person is Madam Coady for eight minutes, please.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to each of you for taking the time from your very hectic schedules to be here today. We certainly appreciate it.

This is all about the budget and all about the financial requirements for the G-8/G-20. As you can appreciate, it was such a large number. We have questions we need to ask you so that we can be assured of the correct spending procedures we have within the government.

I also want to thank you for all that you do for our country. Thank you very much for that.

My first question, I guess, is a general one and really only requires a yes or a no to begin with. If I see nodding heads, we'll move on to the next question.

Mr. Elcock, when he was here at the last meeting, said that there was a detailed plan, and I'm assured that there was a detailed plan. I think I heard it from a number of you. I'm seeing a general yes on that.

I want to go to that detailed plan, because when Mr. Elcock was here he said that you need to have your plan, and once you have your plan, you know precisely what the costs will be. That's what he said when he was here last week: once you have your plan, you know precisely what your costs will be.

I want to go to precisely what the costs will be. I think I'll start first, if I may, with Superintendent MacNeil.

I appreciate all you have done for this. Could you please elaborate on the $507 million you were allocated for the G-8/G-20? Specifically, I was wondering about a breakdown of these expenditures. As you know, we only have a breakdown of about $200 million. The other billion dollars, as we understand it—or close on a billion dollars—was allocated for security.

Knowing that you had a plan, knowing that you had a budget, and knowing that you had budget assumptions, could you please give us some detail on that?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Yes. Thank you.

Perhaps what I will do is explain how the plan worked, and then I would ask Mr. Séguin to touch on any of the actual budgetary issues you may have questions about.

I think it's very important for the committee and for everyone to understand how we come up with a number like $507.5 million. I appreciate the question.

Basically, in the G-8/G-20, there were 40 different sites that had to have some form of security. To do that, what we would do is take every single site and do a vulnerability risk assessment, a VRA. We would send a group of subject-matter experts out to the site to assess the site for all aspects of potential vulnerability. They would come back to us with a plan.

Let's say it was for this room. I'll use this as an example. They might come back and say that they are going to need a guard on each door and people on the rooftop of these buildings. They'll need to cover these windows. They may have to cover the windows with bulletproof glass.

Whatever the case may be, they put all of that together and come back with a plan. We take that plan, we assess it, and then we scrutinize it: do they really need five people over there or can we do it with one or two...? Then they justify that.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I think that's where I'm going. As you can appreciate, I only have eight minutes, so I'm going to need to hear from more than you on this.

Specifically, I want to get to some of the questions. When we looked at the $200 million, we saw things like money to rent a building in Barrie and retrofit it. I know that you've covered that in other committees. We look at a tremendous amount of money for bug spray and hand sanitizers. We know that you had to build some complex housing. We know that there were a lot of hotels and a lot of car rentals. I want to get to specifically how you budgeted for those.

There are concerns about the astronomical amount of money spent on those miscellaneous issues.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

All of the things that you've referred to, such as bug spray and the temporary accommodation facilities and everything, were done in a fashion where we planned.... We looked at the number of police officers coming, and we knew that we had to provide bug spray because they were working in the Huntsville area in a wooded area in June when there were bug problems. We would just basically determine how much we needed and then would contract for the supplies required.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

It seems like an astronomical amount. I don't want to get into too many of the details until I hear from your finance person, but $334,000 seems like an awful lot. As you can appreciate, when we're going through these numbers, we're looking at the overall value. We have a number of police forces and others here today and we're trying to get some of the details on these numbers and how you put your assumptions through.

If we only know of this $200 million at this point, and we still don't know about the $1 billion, we're concerned that of course there was a lot of money spent that we don't know about at this point.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

I think Mr. Séguin can cover off some more of the numbers, but I believe it's very, very important to understand that when I talked about that plan earlier, about how we go about determining how many people, then we go to the next phase of that plan, which is, how do we support those people? That's all of the equipment they need--cars and everything.

When you talk about vehicles, that's how we come up with the number. We look at all of the operations we have going on and assess how many vehicles we'll need for each operation. We don't say that “it looks like we're going to need 1,200 cars”; it's done by site, and when we add all those sites together, the number comes out to 1,200. Because of the massive operation, that's the number. Then we determine how we're going to find those cars. Some of them would have to be leased. Some of them we would already have in inventory. Those are the kinds of things....

If you have a specific question about something, we may be able to go right to that.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

We'll certainly be getting to that during the two hours we have here this morning.

I'd like to turn to your financial person, but before I do, I want to go to the issue of subcontracting. I believe that a security firm was hired by the RCMP. As you know, there have been a lot of concerns around this bid and the fact that this agency didn't have a licence to operate in Ontario. After the bid was awarded, they did get a licence to operate in Ontario.

Could you talk a bit about that? I'll come back to that in a future question, but I want you to first elaborate on how the bid process for the Contemporary Security firm was conducted and how they would have been able to get on the short list if they weren't registered in Ontario.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Séguin, you have about a minute to answer that question, please.

[Alain Séguin, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

That's a good question. Because of the timelines we had, we went out to a request for proposal.

Part of the request required that any firm, before they could begin the process, would be required to obtain the necessary licences in Ontario. We went Canada-wide to allow for all companies across the country to bid on the process. Basically our requirement was that they meet the Ontario licensing requirements before they set up. That was the process.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

So it was okay to get in on the pre-qualification as long as they had the licence after they were awarded the bid. That bidding process was only within seven days, right? I understood that the tenders for the bids were open for seven days.

[Alain Séguin]

I'll get the exact timelines. It was actually open for a little longer than that. The RFP was issued on April 9, and the closing was April 30, so it was a little less than a month. The contract was awarded on May 19.

In between, we had to get Treasury Board's authority to sign the contact, so we were doing things in parallel. We received that on April 20 as we were going out on the RFP. Those are the timelines.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Séguin.

Ms. Bourgeois, you have eight minutes.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for being here.

You each contributed, in your own way, in your respective fields, to security during the two summits. I would like to know who ensured the horizontal coordination of all those activities.

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

My role as the commander of the integrated security unit was to be responsible for coordinating all activities among the security partners. That was my role in the security operation.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Very well. So you coordinated the activities; you were in charge of that? Were you the one responsible for authorizing purchase orders, expenditures? Was that your responsibility?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

No, I'm strictly responsible for the security side, not expenditures. For example, if Superintendent Charlebois were purchasing something on behalf of the OPP, we would have discussions to ensure that it was not something we were both purchasing. If one of us could do it, or we could do it jointly, then yes....

There would be some decisions on purchasing by the OPP that they would do on their own in terms of procurement, but it would be done in consultation with us to ensure that we weren't purchasing the same item.