City staff recommend bag screening at city hall, metal detectors in council chamber

Thestar.com
June 13, 2018
Jennifer Pagliaro

City staff are proposing bag searches at the public doors of city hall and metal detectors in the council chamber as part of revised recommendations for enhanced security measures.

The suggested changes, which staff say are in line with other Canadian cities, come after council postponed making a controversial decision on stepping up security and directed staff to consult the public.

“The safety of all those who work, visit, or do business at city facilities is the top priority of the City of Toronto,” the new report headed to executive committee on June 19 says. “These proposed security enhancements will help maintain an accessible, safe, and secure city hall for staff and the public.”

The measures would mean a one-time cost of $85,000, largely to install metal detectors, and $365,000 in annual costs for four new full-time security guard positions. Anyone with city access cards will be able to bypass the screening.

The report also recommends creating or modifying barriers between the public galleries and restricted areas where councillors and staff sit in two committee rooms and the council chamber.

In the two main committee rooms, retractable belts between stanchions should be placed when there is “significant public attendance” or “where there exists the reasonable expectation of disruption,” staff say.

In the council chamber, there is a waist-high glass barrier between the public and the councillors’ area, and staff say the wall should be extended and swinging doors installed to replace decorative ropes at either side of the chamber.

Democracy activist Dave Meslin questioned the need for the new measures and said city hall should remain open and welcoming.

“If adopted, the proposed changes would further reduce public participation,” Meslin said. “This is just another step in the ongoing erosion of local democracy. And it’s being justified by imaginary security threats.”

A 1,000-person online poll conducted by The Strategic Counsel found 79 per cent supported security screening at public entrances. (The poll is said to be accurate within 3.46 percentage points, 95 times out of 100.) An online survey, which is not as reliable and could have allowed many responses from the same person, found that, of 1,602 responses, there was just 18.7 per cent support for screening.

Only half of the 286 city staff members who work permanently out of city hall and answered an internal survey supported the use of metal detectors to screen visitors.

A group of visible minorities consulted as part of the process raised concerns about the city’s intentions in installing enhanced security measures.

“City hall is our house,” wrote one respondent, highlighted in a separate report on that consultation. “It’s the taxpayers abode. It is not a privilege that politicians are giving us. We pay for this. We are your employers.”

Another said: “This doesn’t look like a proposal; it’s more like informing the community of (a) decision already being made.”

Last year, staff recommended more extreme measures, including metal detectors at the front doors of city hall. While some on council worried they were “sitting ducks” with their backs to the public in the council chamber, others decried the measures as infringing on the open, democratic environment at city hall.