Public Safety Committee on Oct. 25th, 2010

[Ward Elcock]

There are very few places, when you actually look at the numbers involved, where the G-20 could have been held. The reality is that it needed to be held somewhere where there was enough infrastructure to manage it. Unfortunately, most of those venues would be too small for a G-20.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

How is it that the rest of the world can organize such events at a lower cost and without resorting to so many changes, such as the fake lake, to name but one example!

[Ward Elcock]

I think the so-called “fake lake”—and that's not the appropriate description—was not a part of the security budget, in any case.

I have yet to see a complete budget for any other G-8 or G-20 that's been held anywhere else in the world. The reality is, as far as countries reporting the full costs, we are probably the most transparent jurisdiction in the world.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

A country like Britain has this audited publicly by their auditor. They can't hide it.

[Ward Elcock]

It's not a case of other countries hiding costs; in many cases costs are accounted for in very different ways.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Okay, so why say that we're the most transparent? We may account for it differently, but it's not necessarily because we're more transparent.

[Ward Elcock]

On what that accounting ultimately means, if the U.K. were to host it--as they did host the G-20 in London—they have a large number of police within the London area and would not need to call for additional forces from across the country, as we would have to do in any G-8 or G-20. So the reality is that their accounts would show that the police were drawn from within the London area, but there would be no accounts for the accommodation of the police or all the care and feeding of the police because they would simply go home for tea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Elcock.

We'll move to Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I thank you for being here as well and for getting into some of the details, now that the minister is gone.

As we watched the G-20 unfold, the one thing Canadians did realize is that free speech is a principle of our democracy, and I think when the violent mob that was made up of the thugs, hooligans, and anarchists who set fire to the police cars and damaged property during the G-20...in no way, shape or form does it represent the democracy or our way of life.

I'm interested in delving into how the police, under some extremely difficult situations, were tasked and how they conducted themselves. Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair was quoted as saying that the police were there to facilitate peaceful protests. He even went as far as saying the police responsibility in a democracy is the right to protect peaceful protests.

My question, really, is for Chief Superintendent MacNeil. During an interview last week on TV Ontario, Toronto Chief of Police, Bill Blair, said there was excellent communication among the security partners and a very clear command structure. First, do you agree with Chief Blair's assessment? Second, in order to give Canadians an idea of the kind of preplanning, the amount of planning that goes into these things--because I'd like to know a little more in-depth about how far in advance security arrangements were being worked on--how much effort went into that, as well as the costs associated with that?

Could you comment on that?

[C/Supt Alphonse MacNeil]

Yes, thank you.

First, I agree with the chief that there was excellent cooperation between all of the security forces involved in the operation. As an example of the length of time of planning, I took my role to start planning the G-8 in August of 2008, so it was two years in advance of the G-8 and G-20.

We started our team in the Barrie area. We had set up in Huntsville originally but couldn't find a place large enough to set up a command centre and everything for the G-8, so we moved to the first location we could find that had the facilities and had places for the people to stay. That was Barrie, so we built our command centre in Barrie.

I should probably explain the structure of the command so it's very clear to everyone, because I hear the question asked, who was in charge? The command structure is such that if we start at the ground level first, every site, whether it be a hotel or a conference centre where the leaders were staying, was called a site, and in that site there was a person in charge. So we have a site command to start with, and that's the lowest level of command. It's the ground level. It's where people, we hope, will take most of the decisions and deal with the issues at that level.

The next level of command above that is called an area command, and we had an area command in Huntsville and an area command in Toronto. The Toronto area command oversaw all the sites in Toronto and the area command in Huntsville all the sites in Huntsville. If a site commander had an issue that he was uncomfortable with, he would raise that to the area command level and they would help him in that decision. He also briefed up constantly to the area command.

On the top of that, there was the strategic command that was based in Barrie, and that's what we called the unified command centre that we referred to earlier. That unified command centre had representatives from all of the police agencies that were involved on the ground, so they were monitoring all of the activity. The UCC was also responsible for the movement of the internationally protected persons, the air support that you saw, and things of that nature. But the UCC's control over the ground or the site would not be hands-on. It would be at more of a strategic level. For example, if they needed assistance, if a site commander called to the area command and said there were not enough police officers at the Royal York Hotel and there were not enough in all of Toronto to support that, they would call us at the UCC and the UCC commander would move some people from Huntsville. It had that oversight strategic ability to move people.

That's the command layer. So when you talk about a particular arrest on the street in Toronto, it wouldn't be someone in Barrie making that decision. It wouldn't even be someone at the area command level making that decision. It would be someone on the street in Toronto making that decision.

As I said earlier, the best method for policing is to have the decision at the lowest level, and that's what would happen. It would be impossible for someone in Barrie to make a decision on a particular arrest.

If that explains the command structure to you, I think it's something that may clear up any misconceptions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. McColeman.

We will move to Mr. Holland and then to Madam Mourani and Monsieur Gaudet.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

In the minister's words, he didn't have the competence to answer many of the questions that I posed to him, so I'm going to turn back to some of the questions I was going at before.

Just today, Korea, which will be hosting the G-20, announced what their security price tag is going to be. They peg it at $24.9 million Canadian. Now, that's not a little off our figure; that's a world off our figure. If you look at Kananaskis, in Canada, if you want to take a domestic example—now admittedly that was the G-8—we're talking about a security tab that was around $200 million, which was significantly cheaper again.

I'm just trying to understand. What I heard in the statement earlier was that for the G-20 there was nowhere but downtown Toronto. Nowhere else could host. This was the only option. It was the best option, the most secure option, the cheapest option. Frankly, what I'm hearing is that you'd do it all over again. That's what really worries me about all of this.

So let me pose this to Madam Morin and to Mr. Elcock: looking at the rest of the world and best practices out there, is downtown Toronto the best place to put the G-20, and would you do it again?

[Marie-Lucie Morin, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office]

First of all, let me thank the committee for inviting me to appear this afternoon.

Mr. Holland, I wanted to complement Mr. Elcock's earlier answer by saying that G-20 summits, by definition, have all been held in urban environments because of the number of participants and because of the infrastructure exigencies associated with holding such multi-faceted summits as the G-20. We've had London. We have had Pittsburgh. We will have Seoul. So it is the case, in fact, that the cities that can actually receive such summits are, by definition, highly urban environments.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

No, I understand. And I don't mean to interject, but let's be specific, because my time is limited. We spent more than any other jurisdiction has. This was an enormous amount of money. So the question is simple—and maybe both of you can just answer it yes or no. Would you do it again? Do you feel mistakes were made or do you feel that if we found out we were hosting the G-20 again, we'd say lock and load and let's do it the same way?

[Ward Elcock]

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.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

No, but this is critical, and I have only five minutes.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I have to interrupt because the minister told me that he couldn't answer about where it was placed because, he said, he didn't have the competence to make the decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No, Mr. Holland, that's not what he said.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Well, who gave the advice? You say you're not responsible for the selection of the site, and the minister said that he relied on your advice, so who's responsible for selecting the site?

[Ward Elcock]

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.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But who chose it?

[Ward Elcock]

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.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But on what advice was it made? He said it was your advice to put it there. That's what he said.

[Ward Elcock]

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

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But was it specifically to do what they did? Was that your advice? He said that he did what you said, and that you told him to put it there, and he put it there. Is that the case?

[Ward Elcock]

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