"Fortress British Columbia..."
by Jeff Lee & Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun, Aug. 4, 2007

With just over 900 days to go before the 2010 Winter Olympics, recent events involving security raise the question of whether the province will be turned into Fortress British Columbia to protect the Games.

The bomb scare last week at BC Ferries forced the cancellation of 21 sailings and raised the spectre of airport-style security checks.
The RCMP-led Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit acknowledged it can't protect the Games for the $175 million it has been given.
And protests this spring by the Anti-Poverty Coalition forced the repeated call-out of the Vancouver police crowd control unit and mounted squad, and the erection of fences around public spaces.

Into this mix add a host of world events: the rapid rise of militant extremism, Millennium Bomber Ahmed Ressam, the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the four London bombings, all of which had the impact of driving up threat levels.

Vancouver also has a long history as a protest city. Remember the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit a decade ago, which led to the pepper-spraying of protesters by the RCMP, and the arrest of law student Craig Jones for having a cardboard protest placard? Or the "Riot at the Hyatt" a year later during then-prime minister Jean Chretien's Liberal fundraiser? Or the involvement of Vancouverites in the riot at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle?

Long before any of the above happened, the Olympics was already a target of its own. No one will forget the 1972 Munich Summer Games massacre of 11 Israeli team members by Palestinian gunmen, forever altering the image of the Olympics as a place solely for peace and sport.

Anti-abortionist Eric Rudolph's pipe-bomb attack on the Atlanta Summer Games 24 years later just reinforced the fact that the Games will always be a target for terrorists and political message-makers.
So with all this in mind, what will the Lower Mainland look like in 2010 when the world comes calling?

Will we be a city, a region, a province feeling like we're under siege? Will it be like the recent International Olympic Committee conference in Guatemala City, one of Central America's most dangerous cities, where an entire neighborhood was cordoned off and secured by 6,000 machinegun-toting soldiers and police? Even International Olympic Committee members who are accustomed to security complained about being subjected to bomb-sniffing dogs and regular pat-downs, and to the sight of heavily-armed soldiers posted at hotel driveways.

"That's not our way of doing things," said Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, spokesman for the RCMP's Olympic security unit. "Our approach is very Canadian, subtle, but very prepared. The Canadian way is not to have a vision of barbed wire and a Stalag compound. We don't want that."

The IOC doesn't want a heavy military presence
overshadowing its Games, which are supposed to celebrate sport, excellence of the human spirit through achievement, and peace.

A city geared for trouble from terrorists and domestic strife is an incongruous image, said Kevin Wamsley, the former director of Olympic studies at the University of Western Ontario.

But ever since the Munich massacre, organizers have understood they reduce security at the public's peril, Wamsley said. One only has to look at what happened in Salt Lake City, five months after 9/11.
"Salt Lake was clearly understood as a military fortress," Wamsley said. "I think the sentiment among athletes was that there was no way any [terrorist] was getting through there."

The problem is simple: the protectors try to keep the bad guys out without turning the event into a police state. The image of barbed wire, armed roadblocks and military personnel carriers in the streets can be as damaging to the spirit of the Olympics as a backpack bomber in a celebration plaza.

The RCMP figured that out early on. It adopted the following "strategic communications" message several years ago, obtained by The Vancouver Sun under access to information legislation: "Reduce the external focus on security measures so that Vanoc [Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games] and the governments of Canada and B.C. may have more opportunity to highlight and promote their initiatives and plans."

The official 2010 Olympic venues are spread out over Vancouver, Richmond, West Vancouver and Whistler. But there are many more places and facilities that need to be protected, from Vancouver International Airport to the city's harbour to the Vancouver Integrated Security Unit (VISU) and Vanoc offices in Richmond and east Vancouver.

John Thompson, president of the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute, a think-tank concerned with organized violence and political instability, said by its nature, security can't be completely effective.

"You can't secure a whole city. You can secure an Olympic village or a venue, but you can't secure a whole city.

"Nobody has that much in the way of resources," Thompson said. "There's never a guarantee. No protection, no defence, no barrier is 100 per cent effective, under any circumstances."

He said history has shown that the Vancouver Olympics will be a potential target for trouble.
"You will get the domestic disruption right up until the Games begin. It's just the nightmare again of someone managing to stage a repeat of 1972. There are groups that would love to do that," he said.

Officials, however, say that it would be wrong to focus simply on the terror threats surrounding the Olympics. Wes Shoemaker, associate deputy minister for Emergency Management B.C., said complex plans are being developed to deal with everything from a fire to a hazardous material spill. There are even evacuation plans in the unlikely event something falls from outer space.
"One of the 57 hazards is space debris," said Shoemaker. "It's an all-hazards approach."

B.C. officials say that during the Games, people can expect disruptions to their lives, everything from bridges being closed for the parades of dignitaries and athletes to Olympic traffic lanes and closed streets near the Olympic village.
"There are going to be impacts, there's going to be disruption and its going to cost money," said Shoemaker.

But Kevin Begg, assistant deputy minister and director of B.C. police services -- and one of six bureaucrats on a VISU financial watchdog committee -- said Vancouver is no stranger to international events. Many of the Olympic security measures will be similar to those for past events, such as APEC.
Those attending the Olympic venues, Begg said, can expect far tighter security than they are used to.

He did not specify precisely what measures would be taken, but said the level of security will also be determined by intelligence reports at the time. If needed, the venues could use biometric systems that identify people using methods such as facial recognition or even analysing how they are moving.
"Yes, people going out to a sporting scene will go through a screening process," he said.

But Begg also said the Olympics won't be turned into a police blockade. "This is Canada. We try to mount an appropriate level of security that is not in your face but is there to draw on."
The RCMP won't talk specifically about what they have planned or what they consider is their worst-case scenario.

"We're actually not going to answer that because if somebody out there who wants to bring harm and mayhem to the Games has any clue that 'this' is what we are prepared to do in a worst-case scenario, they could up the ante," Lemaitre said.
Lemaitre said surveillance is already being used to keep tabs on potential troublemakers. "Even today, in preparation for the Games, we have intelligence units who are working and keeping a pulse on anybody who may have reasons to bring mayhem and harm to our Canadian society."

The demand on security forces is staggering. According to the bid book used to win the Games -- which the RCMP now say underestimated the cost of security -- more than 12,350 RCMP, police, private security and other guards were expected to be used to protect 5,000 athletes and officials, 10,000 media, 25,000 volunteers and hundreds of thousands of spectators and visitors.

The draft plan included everything from the restriction of airspace and waterways to the use of intelligence services and the military. Lemaitre says VISU is also drawing on all of the specialist teams, such as the Emergency Response Team, hostage negotiators, crowd control units, bomb-detection units and others.

The official cost-sharing agreement the federal and provincial governments signed last December lays out more clearly the scope of what's available to the VISU: the RCMP across the country, West Vancouver and Vancouver police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canadian Armed Forces, bylaw enforcement officers from every Olympic municipality, the E-Comm emergency communications centre, and "any federal or provincial public servant and any other federal, provincial or municipal agency."
It's hard to imagine how all of that security could be provided for the original estimate of $175 million.

The RCMP has repeatedly told the public the budget was adequate. But privately, VISU's officers have been raising alarm bells. The bid was so poorly constructed, they said, that it did not include a range of services VISU says it now has to provide, from security checks for upwards of 100,000 volunteers, to security on more than 100 venues -- five times what was originally envisioned.

B.C. Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen says he was told verbally only three weeks ago that the RCMP are now saying the budget is inadequate. But he also says he's not going to approve any budget increase that includes costs assigned to border security, the protection of internationally-protected persons, or as a result of an increased threat level. All three of those areas are specifically the responsibility of the federal government, and not included in the cost-sharing agreement, he said.

Nobody in any official capacity is saying how much larger the bill will be. But security experts guarantee that Vancouver can expect a major presence of the Canadian forces in 2010. And the cost of that alone -- just the military, not the expenses associated with the RCMP and other security measures -- will far exceed the original estimate.

"I'd be looking more in the half-billion dollar range ... just for the military," said Scott Taylor, a former soldier who runs the respected magazine Esprit de Corps out of Ottawa. "A lot of the costs will be incremental and they'll try to hide them. They'll say, 'We were flying those helicopters anyway.'"

The Canadian Forces, said Taylor, are already starting to train for 2010 and searching out the highly specialized -- and expensive -- personnel and hard assets: explosives experts, trainers for bomb-sniffing dogs and more. Even Games-time accommodations will be at a premium. This all comes as Canada's military is strained because of deployments in Afghanistan and other trouble spots.

Canadian soldiers are no strangers to the Olympics. Thousands of soldiers were a major presence at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, a necessary mission just four years after the Munich Massacre. Seeing soldiers on the streets is always a sobering fact about staging international events -- and Taylor says many military personnel will be very low-profile. But in the post-9/11 world, the most important security tasks and disaster scenarios now being dealt with by Canadian officials are downright chilling.

One of the key elements of the military's role in Olympic security will be Canada's secretive JPF2 special forces task team. They are Canada's top commandos, as many as 350 of the armed forces' best soldiers; ace snipers, elite body guards and masters at dissolving into a crowd for counter-terrorism operations. Taylor expects the JPF2 forces to be positioned inside the Olympic Village and at key spots around the city.
Canadian Forces divers from Esquimalt will patrol Vancouver's harbour.

There's also a new, post-9/11 contingent of the military: CSOR, the Canadian Special Operations Regiment, created in 2006 as part of an integrated national approach by the federal government to carry out counter-terrorism after the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

In Vancouver, says Taylor, the unit will be guarding against the threat of nuclear, chemical or biological attacks that might be aimed at the Games. While the likelihood of such an attack is probably remote, the unit has recently trained in B.C., he said.

David Hahn, who runs BC Ferries, said the recent bomb threat won't change the corporation's security plans. But as 2010 approaches, British Columbians can expect to see tighter security around transportation infrastructure, including ferries.

"They should expect that all aspects of transportation in B.C. will be subject to greater security oversight," said Hahn. "I think [people] will understand that, they expect it and they'll certainly see it."

BC Ferries has already received $3.9 million from the federal government to upgrade security and is applying for another $20 million.
One avenue of support VISU doesn't plan to rely on is outside help from the United States. In both 2004 in Athens and 2006 in Turin, the U.S. provided significant support, from intelligence to assets such as radar-equipped airborne traffic controllers and surveillance aircraft.

"The answer I can give you today on August 2 is that there is no indication at this point in time that we're going to require that," Lemaitre said. "We're not thinking assets or resources. There will be no U.S. military here. These are Canadian Games, and Canadian security."

Similarly, the RCMP says it won't use the Olympics as a shopping run for more police assets.
"The RCMP wanted to make it clear to the security committee that we are not getting goodies or capital assets out of this Olympic committee," Lemaitre said. "The VISU is not out here to gouge the Canadian public."
Any left-over assets will be sold after the Games under a "buyback" that counts against its security budget, he said.
For all that, Wamsley believes the biggest threat during the Olympics will come from domestic protests.

"I don't think there is a general feeling we are going to be under an international attack situation. Certainly the possibility of domestic disruption is more significant," he said.
"I think if there is a mishandling of domestic problems, I think that is a far bigger headache than they would want. Because that could be a pretty big black eye for Canada on the world stage if our police act in an overly aggressive manner to have the downhill ski event start at 12:15 pm sharp."

For a glimpse of security taken to Olympic heights, you need travel no further than Beijing, which will be holding the 2008 Summer Games. China's capital is already under so much surveillance that some Chinese have complained that they are living in a real-life version of Enemy of the State, the Hollywood techno-thriller in which Will Smith dodges bad guys who watch his every move using a vast network of computers and surveillance cameras.
With a year to go, Beijingers now endure 265,000 security cameras, most of them in the city's downtown. Tiananmen Square, always one of China's most-watched spots, has cameras on every light post and is assumed to also contain listening devices monitoring conversations.

mcernetig@png.canwest.com
jefflee@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007