By Rebecca Roberts
Community members want city hall to rethink its proposal to install video surveillance cameras to monitor the grounds outside the building because they say the cameras are intrusive.
Fifteen cameras will be installed. Two are controversial, including the camera at the Human Rights Monument on Elgin Street and the camera that will record Festival Plaza, the grassy strip near the Laurier Street entrance at city hall.
Bay Ward city Coun. Alex Cullen says he understands there are security concerns and that’s why he isn’t against security cameras inside the building.
But Cullen says it’s absurd to have security cameras on a monument that celebrates freedom. “It makes a mockery of our democratic rights,” he says.
Bob Gauvreau, manager of corporate security at city hall, explains the camera being installed near the Human Rights Monument will hardly see it, adding the camera will allow security personnel to view the front of the building.
He says the camera that will record Festival Plaza is there to protect the public assets of city hall.
“The whole thing is getting blown out of proportion,” he says.
Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon was involved in some of the fundraising and initial planning for the Human Rights Monument.
He says groups gathering at the monument and Festival Plaza are often human rights activists or members of minority and ethnic groups.
For example, the monument was the site of a media conference as a part of the G-20 protest. The fear is these cameras will be used to monitor so-called radicals.
“When there’s an intrusion on human rights, that’s where people go to demonstrate against that,” he says. “It’s that kind of a special place in the city and to have it subject to surveillance cameras . . . is just outrageous.”
Greenspon says he wants to get the groups that visit the Human Rights Monument and Festival Plaza together to organize public objection to the cameras.
Faith Partners is a group of about 100 people in Ottawa from different faith backgrounds who come together to bring public attention to the plight of the poor. They meet every Thursday night to attend a peace vigil from Macleod Stewarton United Church to the Human Rights Monument.
The group wants to spread the message that cuts to social spending are detrimental. Gathering in front of the monument, they offer reflective thoughts and some sing. If the city goes through with the plan, all this will soon be recorded and broadcast to the security operation centre at city hall.
United Church Rev. Bill Jay, a committee member with Faith Partners, says he doesn’t understand why his group has to be watched.
He recognizes thatthe cameras are part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks, but says the city should draw the line somewhere.
“Sure everybody’s scared since Sept. 11, but this is going too far,” Jay says.
Lisgar Collegiate is a school near city hall. Students often gather near the Human Rights Monument. Students and administration are unconcerned about the cameras, saying that if the cameras are there for security, they don’t pose a problem.
Gauvreau says one of the reasons the cameras are going up is because there are not enough people to watch the grounds all the time.
Gauvreau says that although the city has never had problems with vandalism, officials want the cameras up as a precautionary measure. “Our role is prevention.”
Greenspon is skeptical about the city’s security operation centre.
“Presumably it will have the facility to run a tape,” he says. “What’s to stop the police from walking over to regional headquarters and saying we want the tapes because we want to see who you have on the tape at that last protest?”
Gauvreau says people have no reason to worry.
“We don’t distribute them (the tapes),” he says.