Alayne McGregor
A House of Commons committee has recommended that the Parliament Hill precinct be expanded to include Wellington and Sparks Streets, and that Wellington remain closed to car and truck traffic.
If accepted, this change could affect transit, transportation, businesses, and residents near the Hill.
On December 14, the house Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs released a 78-page report, Protecting the Parliamentary Precinct: Responding to Evolving Risks. The report’s eight recommendations were clearly in response to the convoy occupation of Ottawa last winter.
They include:
- continuing consultation and discussions “with relevant stakeholders” regarding the potential expansion of Parliament Hill onto Wellington and Sparks Streets, along with the potential redevelopment of these streets;
- expanding the federal jurisdiction for the operational security of Parliament Hill to include sections of Wellington and Sparks and, if necessary, that the city transfer land to the federal government to allow for Wellington and Sparks to become part of Parliament Hill;
- closing off Wellington Street to vehicular traffic from the War Memorial to Kent Street. The street would remain open to “traffic related to parliamentary business, public tramways, pedestrian and other forms of active transportation.” The street has been closed to vehicular traffic since the convoy occupation was removed last February;
- increasing the sophistication of how the parliamentary precinct is protected;
- increasing the collaboration between the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) and the Ottawa Police, OPP, and RCMP in order to streamline response to incidents and to establish an “effective and consistent plan in the event of incidents on Parliament Hill”, as well as clarifying the mandate of each force according to type of incident.
The report emphasized that “the Parliament of Canada must be a safe and secure institution which remains open and accessible to the public, including those seeking to express peaceful disagreement and discontent with decision makers. An important objective is to highlight and promote Parliament Hill and the entire parliamentary precinct as the seat of Canadian democracy which is open to all.”
Security and policing professionals should be responsible for striking the balance between those interests, it said, subject to parliamentary oversight and accountability.
The committee began work on the report this spring in response to a letter from Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi and Hull-Aylmer MP Greg Fergus, asking the committee to re-evaluate the boundaries of the parliamentary precinct to “allow for more robust safety protocols to be put in place,” including expanding to include Wellington and Sparks.
The report noted that the parliamentary precinct includes wherever the House of Commons and its committees meet or where MPs have offices – not just on Parliament Hill. When the Block 2 development is complete (expected by 2030), this will include the city blocks south of Wellington.
The committee held hearings last year to discuss the possible expansion. They heard from retired Senator Vern White, a former Ottawa police chief, who strongly urged that Wellington stay closed to traffic.
He warned that, as long as direct vehicular access was permitted to the section of the street by Parliament Hill or the Prime Minister’s Office, the risk existed for a car bombing like the one in Oklahoma City in 1995. In that attack, 168 people were killed with a single truck bomb.
PPS Acting Director Larry Brookson said he was “extremely comfortable” with the fact that Wellington Street was still shut down to traffic, but he was not satisfied with the current barriers on the street. Some did not meet his “standards of protection”. He was also concerned about sidewalks and the prospect of a truck finding its way through.
He argued that the current setup of Wellington Street will only prevent entry to law-abiding citizens; it is “wide open to anybody with a nefarious intent.”
Brookson favoured an expanded precinct to better optimize parliamentarians’ security, noting that it was hard to imagine “somebody being responsible for a protective mandate when the largest artery that runs through their precinct is outside their control.”
Then-Somerset Ward councillor Catherine McKenney also supported the expansion of the parliamentary precinct, saying that city police do not have the capacity to protect federal property and patrol residential areas simultaneously during major events. They noted that Ottawa City Council supported transferring responsibility for security in the precinct to federal forces, including part of Wellington.
They argued that the downtown area has ample capacity to absorb vehicular traffic routed away from Wellington Street, and supported converting it into a pedestrian zone with a tramway.
The City of Ottawa and the federal government are currently discussing the future of Wellington and whether to transfer its ownership.
Then-city manager Steve Kanellakos told the committee that issues needing to be resolved include “the impact on traffic circulation through the downtown; access to the city’s existing underground infrastructure for maintenance; securing Wellington Street as a key corridor in the city’s wider cycling network; and the assessment of the real estate value of Wellington Street.”
The Sparks Street BIA is opposed to closing Wellington. BIA Executive Director Kevin McHale said it was “definitely overkill” and wasn’t being currently fully enforced: “My office is at the corner of Sparks and Metcalfe, and I’ve seen three or four cars just drive up through and turn on to Wellington. So they’re not supposed to but they’re still doing it.”
He said the closure was diverting traffic onto other streets, with 53-foot semitrailer trucks now regularly seen on Bank and Elgin Streets.
The BIA would be glad to work with the government on a plan, he said, but “putting up a giant wall around downtown Ottawa, making it only useful for the federal government and what it perceives its security needs are, does not make downtown Ottawa liveable.”