Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much. That's an excellent question. Mr. Chair, although my people are courageous and have done a lot during the last three weeks to support the City of Ottawa and Parliament, they are not police officers. They don't carry guns. However, they do continue, with police escorts, to do their maintenance and to do the work they need to do.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, sir. Chair, it's the desecration and graffiti and things of that nature. It would be 12 over the last five years if we do not include the five that just happened in the last three weeks.

Veterans Affairs committee  These barriers were bolted together and were eight feet tall and each panel was 10 feet in length. They were all bolted together. They were not bolted to the pavement of the monument, but they were bolted together around the monument. Somebody would have had to have had tools to dismantle them.

Veterans Affairs committee  Ms. Chair, I don't have information here on all of the incidents that have happened over the last five years, but what I can say as an example is those two persons who were seen at night, at five o'clock in the morning, were using the monument as a public washroom. To my knowledge, in the last five years there's been minor graffiti put on some portions of the monument.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, Chair. To my knowledge, that's the one we had to act on. There was a little graffiti that we also had to erase, but that would be the most expensive damage that we've seen in these incidents. I'm speaking about this from memory, sir. I could look into providing further accounting on this for the committee, if you wish.

Veterans Affairs committee  Since there's no gate at the National War Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier we're making estimates based on people visiting Parliament. Approximately one million people a year visit Parliament, and since Canadians pay so much respect to their veterans we assume that you don't come to Ottawa to visit Parliament without paying respect to the veterans who have put forward their lives for this country.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Samson. There should be better coordination between all stakeholders. We should learn from such events and see them coming, so that we are better prepared. There have been various events in the country that we could see coming and preparations were made as a result.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, if you will allow me, I will answer really quickly on the custodianship of the land. We used to be three custodians before 2020. We are resolving that. We are now owners. Parks Canada is not an owner of ground there anymore. It's owned by PSPC with the NCC.

Veterans Affairs committee  I believe the question is addressed to me. Mr. Chair, if you will allow me, I will answer. All that video footage is passed on to the police services for prosecution, so they can find out who has committed the outrageous lack of respect. I have one in front of me. On January 29 at 5:26 in the morning, two individuals who appeared to be males, wearing black coats, arrived at the southeast area of the monument and they did what they had to do.

Veterans Affairs committee  This is a complicated question. It doesn't seem like it, but, Mr. Chair, let me explain. In 2020, at some point there were two tents on the west side of the monument, behind, and the east side of the monument. The nuisance regulation under the Public Works nuisances regulations could only apply to the west side of the monument, because this ground was owned by PSPC at the time.

Veterans Affairs committee  We also have a patrol that goes to the monument twice at night and twice after dinner, at nine o'clock, eleven o'clock, and one o'clock and three o'clock in the morning. We have the patrol of a commissionaire who goes around the site to make sure that everything is okay in addition to the camera monitoring 24-7.

Veterans Affairs committee  Are you asking from January 28 or 29 to now, or are we talking—

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not aware of the across Canada perspective. I'm aware that the helmet of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was damaged in 2020. It was not necessarily related to the protest that was happening there at the time, but it was damaged at that time in 2020, and it was repaired by us within hours of finding out that it had been damaged.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a difficult balance, balancing the right to protest, the Charter of Rights in Canada, and protecting national monuments like these. Honestly, as a custodian of the site, I will rely on the police force to help us to keep that balance. Sometimes there would be a tent. There's a tent right now that's set up on part of the lawn and the police have been advised.

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, that is a really good question. As the custodian of the site and the person responsible for maintaining the site, restoring or repairing the site when it needs to be repaired and working with the NCC to maintain the lawn around the site, I note that the monument has never been fenced in, other than, as my colleague Mr.