Extra Mounties guarding Parliament Hill ring up hotel bills

OTTAWA—The RCMP has earmarked $275,000 a month to cover hotel bills for officers brought in from across the country to bolster security on Parliament Hill, the Star has learned.

Extra Mounties have been reassigned in the wake of the Oct. 22 attack on Parliament to deal with what the RCMP has called a “critical shortage” of manpower.

The RCMP has been tapping its new recruits to help fill the gaps. As new officers graduate from “Depot” — the RCMP’s training academy in Regina — they’ve been getting short-term assignments to Ottawa to patrol Parliament Hill.

One or two “troops” of RCMP cadets at a time — 30 to 60 officers — are being rotated through the capital on two-month assignments before being sent to their first permanent postings, one source familiar with the arrangements told the Star.

But that influx of officers has meant a big hotel bill for the national police force. In a projection done last November, the RCMP budgeted $1.2 million for hotel accommodation up to March, 2015 and another $2 million for the period April to December 2015, according to documents obtained by the Star under access to information legislation. With tax, the RCMP earmarked a total of $3.6 million, or about $275,000 a month for hotel bills.

Asked about the hotel bills, a spokesperson for the force said the figure was only a projected expense.

“This is not the actual cost spent, but was part of an initial purchase requisition prior to negotiations,” Brigitte Mineault said in an email.

However, the RCMP refused to say how much it was actually spending on hotel costs, telling the Star to file another access to information request to get that information.

The police force also refused to say how many officers it has brought in from out of town, citing security concerns.

However, the documents suggest that manpower woes were felt by most of the RCMP units responsible for securing sensitive sites — and people — in the capital as security was ramped after the attack.

On Oct. 22, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau gunned down Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, who was on sentry duty at the National War Memorial, and then ran into Centre Block on Parliament Hill, where he wounded a guard before being fatally shot.

The attack by Zehaf-Bibeau came just days after another soldier was killed in Quebec, putting police on high alert.

But RCMP units were stretched thin by the new demands, according to an internal Nov. 14 email addressed to James Malizia, the RCMP assistant commissioner who heads federal policing, with the subject line “HR resources/shortage.”

The biggest gap appears to have been the need to bolster security on Parliament Hill. It noted that while the first batch of cadets were to arrive Nov. 26 to assist the Parliament Hill security unit, there would still be “14 days of critical shortage.” It predicted the unit would be at full strength by Dec. 17.

Additional resources were also added to the VIP detail “to service new daily needs” and it suggested that new requests for protection for so-called “Tier 2” VIPs were put on hold.

The emergency response team — the tactical officers who swung into action on Oct. 22 to help secure locations such as the prime minister’s office building — was also seeking extra help and looked at drawing in officers from Ontario, Nunavut and Yellowknife.

The prime minister’s personal detail was also flagged as needing extra staffing, though any new staff to the unit required special training to protect VIPs, the email stated.

“To fill needs . . . (national division) will have to reach out to all divisions,” it said.

But dispatching cadets to Ottawa created its own headaches, the documents show. The temporary postings generated a raft of questions from new recruits about reimbursement of relocation costs, shipping of goods and cars, payment to put items in storage and airfare for family members to join the cadets in Ottawa.

One Nov. 14 email said that such questions would be looked after on a “case-by-case basis using common sense.”

“We are committed to find solutions that are reasonable, align to policies and address any unavoidable financial implications for the new members,” said another email.