9/11 brought lasting changes to Ottawa security

Moments after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, security measures were put in place at several prominent buildings in the city of Ottawa. Ten years later, many of those security features have become permanent.

On Parliament Hill, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers cordoned off the area to the public within minutes of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center in New York City.

Since then, the RCMP has put in place a number of major changes.

The most obvious change was for vehicles, as now only authorized vehicles are permitted on Parliament Hill. And all visitors to the Parliament buildings are required to go through security scanning stations.

Pierre Soumis, the inspector in charge of the RCMP attachment on Parliament Hill, said security cameras on the Hill have also doubled in number.

Soumis said after 9/11 the potential for attack made the changes necessary.

"September 11 was an eye opener in America and in general," said Soumis. "Those things can happen... especially in Canada."

Embassy barriers 'necessary'

Over at the U.S. embassy, the changes were more extreme, as concrete barriers were put in place in front of the building, to be replaced nine years later by a series of solid posts.

Former U.S. ambassador Paul Celucci said the barriers were controversial but said he believed people accepted the embassy's need to secure the building.

"It was a necessary step to protect the Americans and the Canadians over at the embassy and to deter someone from even thinking about trying to drive a truck with explosives, because that would not only hurt people in the embassy that would hurt people in the community as well," said Celucci.

The U.S. Embassy also prohibited people from entering the building with backpacks or luggage, oil or chemical-based sprays or tools - including sharp bladed objects.

Airport security around the world was similarly heightened to limit items that security officials said could be used as weapons or explosives, and in Canada in 2002 the Air Transport Security Authority took over the business of screening at airports.

Terminal needed to accommodate security needs

The Ottawa International Airport had also broken ground on a new terminal in 2001 and had to quickly redesign the site to fit the new security needs, according to Paul Benoit, the president of the Ottawa International Airport Authority.

"We had built a bag room downstairs according to the standards of pre-September 11th," said Benoit. "After September 11th, let's just say that there is a lot more security equipment down there that we had suddenly had to accommodate in an area where the concrete foundations had already been poured.

"Our world changed in that safety and security had always been a priority, but the focus on security had changed," said Benoit.

"There were people out there who wanted to hurt us and we have to, as an industry, get it right 100 per cent of the time," he said. Terrorists, he said just "have to get it right once."

As new measures such as body scanners and behavioural analysis of passengers at airports are introduced,privacy advocateshave voiced complaints about how they will be implemented.

But Benoit says the security changes are part of the new reality.

"I think we are safer today than we were on Sept. 10, 2001," said Benoit. "And we're probably less secure than we will be tomorrow."