National Defence committee  I talked earlier about the facilities in Whistler. The facilities in Vancouver are somewhat different. As well as hotels, we're also on the accommodation vessels. There will be three accommodation vessels shared by us, the police officers from the RCMP, 118 other police forces, a

National Defence committee  In the RCMP, there hasn't been any special linguistic training, but what we've done is identify people with two, three, or four or more languages from our services and other police services. What the mobilization coordinators will do, or are attempting to do, is place them in a p

National Defence committee  For us, the major challenge has been mobilization—moving 6,000 police officers out into B.C., identifying them, and getting them accredited. Mind you, some of them are already there. But they all have to have accreditation, so we're working with the various police forces. We have

National Defence committee  I can answer that from the RCMP perspective. Accommodations were a great challenge for us both in the greater Vancouver area and in Whistler. In Whistler accommodations were a combination: a lot were private and there were some hotels. Placing the workforce in Whistler was a big

National Defence committee  We'll be exercising Shiprider. That's an exercise that we've done here on the Great Lakes. Shiprider is with the RCMP on a U.S. Coast Guard vessel and American law enforcement on our marine craft. That way, if we interdict or attempt to interdict a vessel that crosses that line o

National Defence committee  We have 22 police forces from Quebec contributing officers to the security efforts. And then in the central region of Quebec of course most of our members speak French and English, and then from New Brunswick and here in headquarters. So as far as RCMP, I believe we're furnishing

National Defence committee  When we look at major events we always try to do better in placing bilingual officers in the front lines at venues, where they'll interact with the public. The mobilization coordinator in this instance is looking at the language profile of the officers coming in and trying to put

National Defence committee  I can define some of our command and control structure. We'll have commands throughout the field and in various spots throughout it. We have two footprints, one in Whistler and one in Vancouver, because you have the events up in Whistler and down in Vancouver. Those footprints

National Defence committee  A criminal protest is as you said: it will be defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as causing a disturbance or damaging property. That would be an example of a criminal protest, and we have measures and resources in place to deal with a protest that gets out of hand.

National Defence committee  That pretty well covers it. I visited Beijing prior to the commencement of their games. There were a few things we learned from Beijing—but very few. The laws are different there. The make-up of the venues, the footprint of the games, was much different from what we have in Van

National Defence committee  Thank you. I agree with the comments of Mr. Elcock that we're not harassing people. We're just trying to find out as much information as possible and create a dialogue with demonstrators and protestors, and move forward to ensure the safety and security of the games. I don't be

National Defence committee  Not that I'm aware of. I'm not aware that we passed information to the metropolitan or the United Kingdom services. I'm not aware of that.

National Defence committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, before offering my comments on RCMP Olympic security preparations, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the exceptional support and valued strategic guidance we have received from the office of the coordinator. Deputy Mini