RCMP To Review Parliamentary Security After Rooftop Protest

Red-faced Mounties are reviewing their practices after an embarrassing security breach in which 19 Greenpeace protesters managed to climb two of the Parliament buildings and unfurl huge banners in broad daylight.

The activists, dressed in blue coveralls and white hard hats, scaled the West Block and the entrance to the Senate in the Centre Block – below the iconic Peace Tower – at about 7:30 a.m. Monday.

Some of them then rappelled off the steep roof of the West Block and hung massive banners in English and French reading: Harper/Ignatieff Climate Inaction Costs Lives.

It was a message to the prime minister and the Liberal leader to support tougher greenhouse-gas emission cuts, timed to coincide with the start of the big UN climate-change conference in Copenhagen.

Mounties, parliamentary security, Ottawa police, firefighters, ambulances – and even a helicopter and airplane – watched the scene unfold, but didn’t intervene immediately, apparently for safety reasons.

Officers eventually escorted the activists from the roof and used an aerial ladder to remove others dangling on the side of the West Block.

The 19 protesters and an organizer were arrested without incident and turned over to Ottawa police. They will likely face charges of mischief, a police spokesman said.

No one was hurt, but the protest immediately provoked tough questions about how secure the parliamentary precinct is.

“How did they get in?” asked security expert Bertram Cowan of Competitive Insights Inc.

“There was definitely a lapse, no doubt about it. It may be even as embarrassing as the people who crashed the president’s dinner party. That’s supposed to be a pretty secure area.”

Cowan, a former officer with the RCMP and CSIS, was referring to a Virginia couple who slipped past security to attend U.S. President Barack Obama’s first state dinner last month, even though they weren’t on the guest list.

“Somebody is probably right now on the carpet, trying to explain what happened,” Cowan said.

Security on Parliament Hill has been beefed up since the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

RCMP cars guard the entrances to Parliament Hill and patrol the grounds. Anyone entering the Parliament buildings must go through at least one metal detector. Surveillance cameras cover most areas. Only authorized vehicles are allowed on the Hill, and parking in the nearby lots is restricted.

And senior officials from an array of government bodies related to security have put together a long-term security plan for the parliamentary precinct.

Even tougher security is the likely outcome of Monday’s protest. Every time Parliament Hill security is threatened, the RCMP take steps to make sure such breaches don’t occur again, said RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Caroline Poulin.

“It’s an incident the RCMP is taking very seriously,” she said. “The whole event is going to be reviewed to ensure the proper security is put in place… We do need to improve (security) with every situation.”

Some MPs have long urged that authorities respect the access the public has always enjoyed to Parliament Hill, and not impose security measures that are too extreme.

The RCMP said that concern is top of mind.

“It’s important for the citizens of this country to have access to Parliament,” Poulin told reporters.

She said she did not know when the review will be concluded or when changes would be made.

Still, no one was hurt or even threatened by the protest, noted Cowan, adding he wouldn’t lose sleep over the incident.

The protest is the latest in a series of Greenpeace demonstrations targeting seats of government.

Most recently, climbers scaled the National Assembly in France on Dec. 2. They used a fire truck ladder to reach the roof, but were stopped by police before they revealed their banner.

Protesters managed an overnight stay atop Westminster Hall, one of the British Houses of Parliament, on Oct. 11.

In an earlier instance, Greenpeace climbers set up solar panels on the roof of the New Zealand parliament ahead of the climate summit in Kyoto, Japan in 1997.

In Canada, the Ottawa protest comes on the heels of four other major Greenpeace campaigns in Alberta against the oil sands. There, too, the protesters were arrested and charged with mischief, in part because they chained themselves to equipment.

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