Thwarting Parliament Hill attack all bravery and luck, not security
If October shooter had been better organized, carnage could have been immense, OPP finds
It took one, poorly prepared gunman to burst through the front doors of Parliament's Centre Block last October to finally change the way this country's political leaders are protected — changes that had been recommended before but mostly ignored.
The findings of the Ontario Provincial Police review of how Michael Zehaf-Bibeau made it onto Parliament Hill, and from there into the main hallway of the Centre Block scant metres from where the prime minister and other MPs were meeting, adds up to a litany of security gaps.
Even more disconcerting, the OPP concludes the outcome could have been so much worse if the gunman had planned his attack more thoroughly.
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As it was, the Hall of Honour became a shooting gallery.
Only individual acts of courage by security staff prevented far greater carnage inside the stone hallway of the Centre Block, where bullets fired in the gun battle embedded in doors separating New Democrat MPs from the hall, into chairs where people had been sitting only moments before and into the walls.
Officials confirmed Zehaf-Bibeau wasn't wearing body armour, and as CBC News has already reported, it still took 31 shots to bring him down in front of the Library of Parliament, where staff and tour groups huddled inside.
These are the cold facts. The cold reality is that few, if any of the findings in the OPP's report released Wednesday are new.
Previous reviews of Parliament's security also identified problems with having responsibilities on the Hill split among separate Commons and Senate protective services and the RCMP.
Each force used radios that operated on different frequencies. They trained separately, and members of the different forces rarely interacted.
The few joint meetings that were held tended to focus on complaints rather than a healthy exchange of information.
In Wednesday's report, other issues and recommendations, such as those arising from the 2009 security breach when 20 Greenpeace activists climbed the West Block to unfurl banners protesting against climate change, are blacked out.
But the OPP's overall conclusion is not.
"The approach to the security and protection of Parliament Hill is highly inadequate," the report said.
The only thing that prevented the attack from being more deadly is that Zehaf-Bibeau was even less prepared than the security arrangements.
Potentially 'devastating results'
"Fortunately the attacker was unorganized," the report concluded. "The end results could have been much worse with the likelihood of many more casualties.
"If we consider the organized attack in France that occurred in January 2015, anything similar at Parliament Hill with the present security in place would have devastating results."
The Conservative government has already taken steps to rectify some of the problems.
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The RCMP now protects the prime minister around the clock, taking over that responsibility when Stephen Harper is on the Hill from Commons security staff.
Mounties are also equipped with submachine guns.
The Commons and Senate security services now work more closely with the RCMP, sharing intelligence updates.
As well, the government is moving to create a new Parliamentary Protective Service to be led by the RCMP. It will take over sole responsibility for security in and around Parliament Hill.
But there are other factors the government hasn't fully addressed, including concerns about whether the RCMP has, and will have, the necessary resources to meet the task of improved security while keeping Parliament Hill open to the public.
The OPP report noted that the RCMP currently relies on reservists and overtime to meet proper staffing levels on the Hill.
In addition, "being assigned to Parliament Hill is not looked upon as a favourable position by most officers due to the perception of this being a 'security guard' position."
Just how the RCMP intends to recruit experienced officers to the detail is unclear.
Mounties criticized
Perhaps most critically, the RCMP's own actions on Oct. 22, 2014 are found lacking. In particular, that members of the force were in a position to stop Zehaf-Bibeau before he entered the Centre Block, but didn't.
Among the problems: officers are allowed to communicate over the radio in French or English, which in this incident caused confusion. As well, almost all of RCMP officers are assigned to static rather than mobile positions.
The OPP report says it's not criticizing how RCMP officers' responded, but noted — shockingly — they "are not subject to any mandated training to address threats such as this" on the Hill.
- RCMP hiring 30 new officers for Parliament Hill security
- Ottawa shooting confusion caused by scale of police response, report says
- Kevin Vickers calls day after shooting 'loneliest moment of my life'
- Ottawa shooting: Federal nerve centre relied on dubious reports
Given the OPP critique, assistant commissioner Gilles Michaud was asked why Canadians should now trust the RCMP to take over policing on the Hill.
"I'm not the one who made the decision to promote the RCMP to take care of the Hill,'' Michaud started off. "What I can tell you is that we are looking forward to working with House of Commons security and Senate protective security in a unified force to ensure that threats and incidents like the one of Oct. 22 do not happen again.''
The RCMP conducted its own "after action review" of the attack, coming up with 33 recommendations on how to improve security on the Hill. But, in Wednesday's report, each one of them is blacked out.
Other questions remain unanswered as well. In particular, did the RCMP conduct a threat assessment in the days before the attack?
As CBC News reported in November, a top-level federal memo warning of a potential violent act of terrorism in Canada was distributed on Oct. 17, 2014. Five days later Zehaf-Bibeau carried out his attack.
The OPP calls it is the most serious breach in Parliament's history. It's now up to the RCMP to ensure it's the last.
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