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Canadian Politics

Ontario -- can't even secure their own buildings

By arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
Thursday, august 18, 2005

On the last page of a recent edition of the Toronto Sun,, a page when not used for advertising is reserved for offbeat news or the occasional Joe Warmington Night Scrawler column, was the locale for a column by Winnipeg Sun columnist, Tom Brodbeck. Brodbeck wrote about how he and his father, while visiting Toronto, decided to visit the Ontario Legislature early one morning. The front doors were locked but they walked around the building and found an unlocked side door. The two men entered and then wandered the halls of the building for approximately 20 minutes seeing no one. It wasn’t until they were leaving by another side door that they saw and were seen by a security guard sitting at a desk. The guard seemed surprised to see the pair in the building. according to him, the door that Brodbeck and his father used to get access to the building should have been locked.

as Brodbeck pointed out in his column, the Ontario Legislature was cited as one of the ten most likely targets in Toronto where a terrorist attack might occur. But that fact shouldn’t really matter. Nor should the fact that the legislature is not sitting and few, if any, MPPs are around. There is something wrong when it appears that security in Ontario Legislature has less security than the corner convenience store.

The Legislature is not just bricks and mortar; it is the seat of the government of Ontario and has a symbolic value beyond its utilitarian function. If the government of Ontario cannot, or more properly, will not secure its own building, can we trust them to provide security for the rest of the province?

The short answer is no.

Ontario, like the federal government, can mouth the appropriate words about how the security of its citizens is the most important function of government, but it isn’t. Dalton McGuinty and the current government aren’t interested in the physical security of the population. If they were, Premier Dalton McGuinty would not be explaining away Toronto’s current gun violence by quoting the fact that the crime rate is down. Even David Miller, Toronto’s criminal coddling mayor, has given that one up, albeit that just happened a couple of weeks ago. McGuinty’s answer to violent crime is to keep things in perspective. Perspective apparently also means leaving the Ontario Legislature doors unlocked and playing the odds that anyone who enters is more likely to be a tourist from Winnipeg than a terrorist from Saudi arabia.

To much fanfare, former popular Toronto police chief, Julian Fantino, was appointed last March to be Ontario’s Commissioner of Emergency Management. But since then Fantino has practically become invisible. This is strange in light of the fact that when he was Toronto’s top cop, he had never met a microphone or a camera that he didn’t like. But Fantino’s current low profile is consistent with security in Ontario being low on the list of the current government’s priorities.

Dalton McGuinty has made it clear that he is interested in those things that interest him and unconcerned with those that don’t--violent crime and security falling into the latter category. McGuinty, who bills himself as "the education premier", is more concerned with whether or not elementary school children have small classes than whether or not they could get blown up on the subway. Securing adults from terrorist attacks is seemingly less important than who owns the MRI machines that they access. The lack of security at Queen’s Park is illustrative of priorities, not only in the province but in the country as a whole.

The column by Tom Brodbeck received no attention. It remains what it appeared to be, a back page column about "how I spent my summer vacation in Toronto". Had a window been left open in the Legislative building and a bird possibly carrying the West Nile virus had entered, all hell would have broken loose. But allowing people to wander the halls of Queen’s Park is no big deal.

This incident was proof positive that a terrorist attack will have to happen in Canada before the 21st century and its realities sinks in.