City Should Come Clean On Security: GRAY

Published 05/31/2025 · Updated 05/31/2025

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The City of Ottawa won’t release the operational costs of its new and controversial security system.

That’s very Mickey Mouse with apologies to right-thinking rodents everywhere.

You see, the operational costs, over time or immediately, usually dwarf the capital costs of many projects, particularly small ones.

And security at Ottawa City Hall should be a relatively small cost given that most council meetings can’t draw flies. As spectator sport, snail racing would attract more afficionados than council debates on sewer replacement. And those wipe-outs on the turns in snail racing are something to see.

In other words, most people don’t care about obscure meetings of city council. To paraphrase the 20th century’s greatest philosopher, baseball’s Yogi Berra, if people don’t want to come to city council, there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

Your agent spent seven years at city hall covering it for the Citizen and, in all that time, there was one serious security problem. And worth noting, it was a threat to a senior staff member and no x-ray system would have saved that personal. But a bodyguard did.

For what it’s worth, this reporter never felt the need for a security system at city hall … not even when an irate politician or staffer wanted a frank exchange of views about something I’d written. I was more in danger from angry councilors and staffers than any member of the public or loud protester. Worth noting is that, nothing serious came from those encounters.

So notwithstanding the lack of need for security, let’s look at costs. The scanning machines at the council chambers, the bottom of the Lisgar Street steps and the two main north-south entrances cost about a half-million dollars by the city’s own statements.

But then there is staffing of the machines, which the city doesn’t want to discuss. To cover three machine seven days a week, the city probably needs at least seven people at, say, $60,000 a person. That’s $420,000 in salaries and that doesn’t cover benefits and related costs. So what with equipment costs, salaries and benefits, the new city security system costs about $1-million. That’s a ridiculous amount of money to spend on something unnecessary and, in fact, destroys city hall as a people place. The cost of doing the wrong thing certainly has escalated.

The city says it will operate the machines “incrementally,” whatever than means. If it means the municipality will use current security personnel to man the machines, perhaps the city has too much security. Furthermore, if the city doesn’t know how much its operational costs are, perhaps their planning is a tad faulty.

Now if the city hall administration thinks this $1-million figure is inaccurate, your agent would be happy to receive the accurate figures. The Bulldog email inbox is open 24 hours a day.

Now will your agent trust those figures? From people who don’t want to release the full cost of unnecessary security? Well, no. But it might be entertaining to receive them, whatever they say.

But if they do send the figures, try to make them more believable than the “on-time and on-budget” claims associated with light rail. That pesky trust thing again.

You see what happens when city hall lies, covers-up, spins and misleads on a regular basis, then credibility is lost. And it’s a nasty thing when the people of this community can’t trust their own government.

Ken Gray is an award-winning journalist who worked at five major Canadian newspapers. He is an educator, broadcaster and at present is the editor and founder of the 16-year-old pioneering internet publication, The Bulldog.