Security for the 2010 Olympic Games could be compromised because the cost to police the event has been underestimated, according to RCMP documents obtained by CBC News.
The RCMP, which is co-ordinating the national effort to police the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, is acknowledging for the first time that it will cost more than the original budget of $175 million.
The admission comes after CBC News obtained internal RCMP documents that reveal the force has been struggling for years with that dollar figure.One internal RCMP document from 2005 says financial gaps pose “risks to Games security operations.”
The Olympic bid, it says, failed to consider true costs for items such as security checks for thousands of service people, computer software, metal detectors and labour.
The number of venues the RCMP is expected to protect jumped from 21 in the bid to more than 100 after Vancouver won.
“At first blush, numerous financial funding gaps and risks have been identified which will negatively impact security operations,” one of the documents states.
A group from the Vancouver Police Department and a senior RCMP officer who is now retired made the initial calculation of how much Olympic security would cost, according to the RCMP.
The RCMP’s security specialists only looked at the costs after Vancouver won the bid in 2003.
In the years that followed, despite the private concerns, the RCMP said publicly that they could work with a budget of $175 million.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre LeMaitre now says they need more money.
“We feel there was a lot more that needed to be done and as of this date, it is going to be more than the [$175 million], as far as costs go,” LeMaitre said.
But LeMaitre insisted that “security will not be compromised” and that the omissions in the Olympic security budget will be fixed.
Colin Hansen, the provincial minister responsible for the Olympics, said he only learned the RCMP would be asking for more money two weeks ago.
“When we get the details and we go through that, we will be asking some hard questions.
“If the RCMP can demonstrate that the [$175 million] is not adequate, then there may in fact have to be a request put in to the contingency fund that still exists.”
Even at the height of the Chretien/Martin era cutbacks, B.C. had more federal RCMP resources than other provinces. Vancouver is Canada’s major port on the West Coast and is one of the major ports on the West Coast of North America and a key city in the Asia/Pacific region. And a conduit for drug smuggling into North America.
But the auditor general has been complaining about federal resources being used to shore up provincial contracts in B.C. and elsewhere for years. What would happen if the Feds finally gave the RCMP an edict that the federal resources couldn’t be used to shore up the provincial contracts?
A lot of the funding problems with the RCMP are ignored by our federal, municipal, and federal politicians. As long as it seems to work, and a patrol car arrives, and a competant officer files a report, who cares if the report gets buried somewhere? Let someone else handle it. Sheesh.
We elected these clowns, we are the ones to blame.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
0 
0
The RCMP have a sizable presence in Federal Policing in the Province of BC. The financial line between Federal and Contract policing had been for years quite blurry, as the RCMP tends to fill shortfalls in Contract policing with Federal dollars. The shortest on resources has become the Federal side. People tend to complain when they cannot obtain service when they call the police. In the Federal arena, if the various units such as Drug Enforcement, Customs, Immigration, Commercial Crime, etc., go wanting for proper resources, nobody notices.
The first area to be stripped for any extraneous duties such as VIP protection always come from federal positions. Organized crime can pretty well run amok while the federal side is attending to visits of the President of the United States, or as in the case in point, the Olympics.
The last positions to be stripped are the municipal contract spots because the municipalities do not like to run shorter than they usually are. John and Jane Doe like to have a police car show up when they call. When they don’t, somebody hears about it. Not so for the ongoing organized crime investigations. Who notices if the surveillance teams are not available or that the investigative team is 15 short? Nobody but the officers themselves trying to do everything with nothing.
MS makes a good point in that ‘do more with less’ has been a managerial mantra taken as holy writ by the upper management of the RCMP for too many years. Perhaps it is time for the RCMP to be revealing its real position.
The government and municipalities pay dollars out per position in Contract Policing. If detachment A is fully manned, all the dollars are used. If as most do, run a vacancy rate of 11% (recently mandated by BC management) the extra dollars per man saved helps pay other bills in the budget. Billed quarterly, the municipalities enjoy a bonus at the last billing with a smaller than the previous three quarters that they can count on and work into their municipal budgets to fill their shortfalls.
So who gains by all of this chicanery? It certainly is not John or Jane Doe. They may see that police car show up to their complaint, however they do not see the lack of investigations undertaken, ie: to quell the gang violence, due to that underfunding and manpower shortages. All they can do when they read the paper is tsk about the deteriorating state of their community.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
0 
0
Though a lot of this mess can be blamed on the Harper government and Elliot’s lacklustre leadership, the federal RCMP have never really recovered from the short-sighted spending cuts inflicted on them by the Chretien government back in the 1990s. The RCMP have way less to play with than they did in 1988 during the Calgary olympics and way less than they did back in the 1976 Montreal olympics. Not only is the olympics straining RCMP federal investigations, some of the other contract policing provinces are complaining that they are going to be under-policed during the olympics while the RCMP temporarily transfer Mounties to serve in B.C.
Granted, police officers from many municipal and regional forces throughout the country are coming to help out along with members of the three provincial forces (OPP, SQ, RNC) but I believe that those officers are taking their vacations in February 2010 so they can help out in Vancouver.
The Army is going to end up playing a bigger role in 2010 security than originally intended; but we are in Afghanistan until 2011 so there is only so much the Canadian Forces can do.
I have said it before, we ask the RCMP to do more-and-more (& more & more) with less-and-less (& less & less).
Wonder what straw will break this poor camel’s back?
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
0 
0
I’m not sure what the bill for security is expected to be right now but most people are not aware that ALL major investigations across Canada have been shut down by the RCMP until after the Olympics.
Vancouver Drug Section appearsto be shut down completely until after the Olympics and all other Federal units across Canada have their budgets reduced, some more than 50% to pay for the Olympics. Doesn’t sound too bad I guess knowing the Government won’t even give the RCMP enough money to cover even the salary dollars. Lets see, the RCMP say it can provide security with the money given BUT then reduces all budgets, not even enough to pay salaries. So it appears if all Federal investigators such as Customs who investigate smuggling, including humans and drugs are not out there, that Drug Setions across Canada who investigate drugs are scaled back, no money for salaries then I would say its’ “wide open” across Canada wouldn’t you.
Glad this government is “tough on crime” Wouldn’t want the drug smugglers and human smugglers bringing in terrorists to get a bad reception during the Olympics. Just shut down units, don’t pay salaries and lets’ have a free for all.
I don’t know why the media is not jumping all over this? Oh yes I do, Harper has a Senate seat for reporters who only do what he wants and Commissioner Elliott isn’t standing up for the rank and file which is obvious.
Someone help protect us from ourselves.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
0 
0