PMO 'directly involved' in APEC security RCMP documents: Legitimate protesters removed for political reasons: Mounties Mark Hume National Post October 22, 1999 PHOTO: Colleen Kidd, the Province Students at the University of British Columbia set up a make-shift campground to protest the APEC summit, being held on the campus. Police and protesters clashed violently at the end of the summit. VANCOUVER - The Prime Minister's Office played a direct role in security efforts at the 1997 APEC summit here, according to confidential police documents that have been obtained by the RCMP Public Complaints Commission. The commission, chaired by Ted Hughes, British Columbia's former conflict-of-interest commissioner, is conducting an inquiry into police actions at the international economic conference, which was marred by violence when RCMP riot squads clashed with protesters at the University of British Columbia. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, have long denied being involved in security issues at the summit. Questioned in the House of Commons on Sept. 23, 1998, Mr. Chretien said allegations of his involvement [in security operations] were "based on no facts at all." But the newly revealed documents show the PMO was so deeply involved that senior police officers in Vancouver were routinely calling Ottawa. RCMP telephone and radio transcripts for Nov. 21, the day the prime minister was due to arrive, show the police removed demonstrators from a conference site at the University of British Columbia, not for security reasons, but because Mr. Chretien's office would have ordered them "outta there." In a conference call, the RCMP security experts fret over the legal ramifications of moving in on a group of youths -- who had pitched a single tent near the UBC Museum of Anthropology -- who were doing nothing illegal. Legally they could not justify it, says the transcripts, but politically they knew Ottawa would demand they act. "From a police point of view we're caught between a rock and a hard place," Superintendent Wayne May, chief of APEC security, says in the transcript. At one point Supt. May says in a conference call with other RCMP officers that the usual rules of conduct don't apply, because of the level of intense Ottawa involvement. "We know how we normally ... treat these things ... but ah then the ah, prime minister's not directly involved, when we're, ya know, in, in dealing with ah, tree huggers and that sort of thing. But ah, right now the prime minister of our country is directly involved and he's gonna start giving orders, and it might be something that ah, we can't live with or er, that's gonna create us a lot of, a lot of backlash in the final analysis so, we've got to try to develop a strategy," he said, referring to the problem of protesters. One officer described them as "naive kids," who merely wanted to make a point, and who would probably move if they were asked to. But with the prime minister and his aides due to visit the site on a pre-conference inspection tour, police felt they were under enormous pressure to take action. Supt. May looked for legal ways to get the protesters off the site, while at the same time trying to fend off demands from the PMO, which wanted them evicted. Speaking with other officers on Nov. 21, Supt. May said the prime minister would not be pleased when he heard there were protesters camping at the UBC site. "Even they [the prime minister's staff] say they're not concerned with the security aspect of the prime minister's visit there, but it's the perception, it's, it's, the ah, um, it's the ah politics of it if you come right down to it, an, an, their concerned that ah, ah, ya know when the prime minister's told of this he's just gonna tell 'em, whatever it takes get 'em outta there." In another call police officers say "we've got pressure from the PMO" and "Wayne May is obviously just getting pummelled by the PMO people." The transcripts also imply that the RCMP was in turn put under pressure by Ottawa to tell UBC officials to evict the students. The university administration at first resisted the Mounties' attempts, saying the students had a democratic right to protest as long as they obeyed the law. But eventually, officials agreed to a police suggestion that the UBC site be temporarily leased to the federal government, who could then evict the students for trespassing. Speaking on the telephone from the command centre, Brian McGuinness, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, tells a lawyer that UBC has agreed to the deal and the site will be turned over the next day. "We are getting a great deal, well the prime minister's office has said, I want them removed so we're trying to dance around that because we're saying, 'Hey, there's laws of the land here that the prime minister's in charge of and we're trying to find a way that we can legally remove them.' " Deputy Chief McGuinness said that in the meantime, UBC had agreed the police could move in if the demonstration at the museum escalated. "We're trying to take that back to the prime minister to see if he'll live with that," he said. "That's just a proposal, like I said we're trying to get that past the prime minister." Later Bill Ard, an RCMP Inspector, tells another officer that, "the prime minister wanted everybody removed ... OK, well that was the deal, he wanted everybody removed, and we're feeling that there's no legal way to do that at this point, so there's been a compromise at UBC." The tension that was building at the RCMP command centre is obvious when Supt. May and a fellow Superintendent, Vince Casey, talk about how the number of protesters at the museum site has grown from four people to a dozen. The next day Jean Pelletier, the prime minister's chief of staff and Jean Carle, his chief of operations, were due to visit the site -- and they were sure to see the protest camp. When Mr. Carle testified at the inquiry last August, he denied giving orders to the RCMP on security issues -- saying he merely expressed his opinion. "I did not give instructions [to the RCMP]," said Mr. Carle. He conceded he may have been "forceful" in his recommendations to police, but insisted it was still "the RCMP [that] makes the decision." Mr. Chretien had also been due to go along on that visit, but had cancelled at the last minute. "And, that's gonna put Carle in a bad spot," says Supt. Casey. Supt. May agrees and worries that the PM's staff "may overreact." Replies Supt. Casey: "Do you want me to call Trevor, and if there's any excuse to remove these people at all, to remove them?" Supt. May: "Ya ... The slightest bit of excuse they give us, let's get 'em 'outta there." Supt. Casey then calls Trevor Thompsett, another superintendent at the RCMP command centre: "Ya Trevor, I was just talking to Wayne, and he's got a little bit of a political problem developing tomorrow morning or has developed. He's taking the number two and number three man for the prime minister out there tomorrow ... they may react if these protesters are there, he may have a little bit of a problem on his hands ... Now he's indicating we should almost have these guys out of there even before they get out there tomorrow morning." Supt. Thompsett: "Holy shit ... like according to the agreement we had [with UBC] they're gonna have to do something, either multiply or do something wrong eh. I mean don't get me wrong, I'd like to get the suckers out of there too." Supt. Casey: "They're just causing us one damn headache." Supt. Thompsett: "Wouldn't you believe it eh, I mean a handful of kids they can disrupt a whole incident like this." Supt. Casey: "This is unreal." In another conversation, Supt. Thompsett tells Supt. Casey: "I mean these are peaceable, I mean they're more of a nuisance than anything, they're kids like, but they're just nuisance that's all." Supt. Casey agrees, saying, "They're not a threat in any way ... they're not a concern security-wise ya know." Supt. Thompsett says Supt. May had tried "to coach" the prime minister's office out of demanding action on the protesters, hoping that police could talk the students into leaving voluntarily. In the end, police arrested four protesters at the museum site and removed the tent. Four days later, at the close of the APEC conference, police clashed violently with hundreds of protesters blocking a nearby road.