As a city that plays host to presidential visits, massive Canada Day celebrations and G8 summit meetings, Ottawa routinely calls on the RCMP for backup. Now, it’s time for the city’s police force to return the favour.
Ottawa recently committed 61 police officers to assist in the large-scale security operation at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.
A report detailing the deployment of the officers was presented at the most recent Ottawa Police Services Board meeting, where it was approved unanimously.
“We are the capital city so we depend on the RCMP for national security reasons, and we call on them for a lot of support,” says the chair of the board, Coun. Eli El-Chantiry.
Ottawa’s chief of police, Vern White, has been working in cooperation with the RCMP to arrange the deployment.
“The RCMP put in the request for officers,” says White. “But even if they hadn’t of asked, I would have offered our support.”
The Ottawa Police Service will be one of 118 Canadian law enforcement agencies asked by the RCMP to provide assistance. The officers from Ottawa will join approximately 7,000 additional officers assigned to the security workforce.
Roughly 1,000 officers from local services will attend; the rest will be RCMP officials, says Pat Teolis, chief superintendent of major events and protective services.
“The majority of police will be general protective officers,” says Teolis. “However an event of this magnitude does require a lot of specialized people.”
Those specialized officers will include bomb technicians and emergency personnel, all of which will have to undergo orientation training prior to the actual Olympic Games.
Montreal and Toronto are also offering up officers.
Even though many cities are contributing to the security efforts, the Ottawa Police Service is particularly valuable, says El-Chantiry.
“Ottawa police officers bring a good understanding of the situation since they have extensive experience with crowd control.”
Despite the significant number of officers to be deployed, the safety of Ottawa’s streets will not suffer, insists White.
“February is a particularly quiet time of the year for us, and we will be re-scheduling training and limiting some of the discretionary time remaining officers will be allowed to take off.”
The staggered deployment of personnel will begin on Jan. 15, and the average officer will be gone for roughly 30 days.
Ottawa’s police service will be reimbursed for transportation and accommodation costs, so local taxpayers don’t need to worry about who is going to foot the bill of this arrangement, says Teolis.
Despite the few inconveniences the deployment may mean for Ottawa’s police, the contribution is well worth it, says White.
“It 's not the RCMP’s Olympics, it’s Canada’s Olympics and it just so happens they're in Vancouver,” says White. “If it’s good for Canada, then it's good for us."