Security at G7 summit aims to keep delegates safe and protests far

Globe and Mail

18 hours ago

The world's most powerful leaders are scheduled to converge in Kananaskis, a tiny Alberta tourist village in the Canadian Rockies, for a three-day summit starting Sunday, testing security services tasked with keeping everyone safe.
Airspace restrictions kick in Saturday. Royal Canadian Air Force helicopters have been flying low-level nighttime missions in the area for a week now. And this spring, more than 200 local kids picked buffaloberry bushes around Kananaskis, to keep the bears away.
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The RCMP is leading the security effort at the G7 Leaders' Summit, working with the Calgary Police Service, provincial sheriffs and conservation officers, the Canadian military, and foreign governments, which will bring their own demands - and security details, to the global gathering.
Thousands of participants are expected to descend on Kananaskis, Banff and Calgary. While Prime Minister Mark Carney hosts his global counterparts in Kananaskis Country, better known as K-Country in Alberta, the world's media will be working out of Banff. Organizers hope demonstrators will contain themselves to four designated spots – one in Banff and three in Calgary – far from leaders cloistered in the mountains.
And security is about more than keeping delegates and demonstrators safe. It is about dazzling foreigners. While the helicopters and motorcades will be obvious, the public will likely be unaware of most of the measures.
'You are putting on a show for world leaders,' said Shiv Raj, a tour coordinator who previously worked for former prime minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Doug Ford. 'Good security – you never see. Great logistics – you never hear about.'
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The Group of Seven is comprised of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Union also participates in the G7. Mr. Carney has invited leaders from Brazil, South Africa, India, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Mexico, Ukraine and Australia, the presidents of the European Commission and World Bank and the NATO secretary-general.
The Rocky Mountains provide natural fortification to the summit site. Remote, secure locations can foster an intimacy among leaders that is not otherwise possible. Mr. Raj noted former U.S. president Barack Obama and Mr. Harper were able to steal away for a 10 to 12 minute stroll at the G8 in Northern Ireland in 2013. Cameras, but not microphones, captured their encounter.
That level of privacy and casualness, conducive to building relationships, is not possible in cities such as Calgary or communities such as Banff, Mr. Raj noted.
Laryssa Waler, the founder of Henley Strategies and the lead media coordinator for the papal visit to Canada in 2022, expects layers of backup plans. Vehicles and helicopters will be at the ready in case anyone needs to make a quick exit. Generators will be fired up immediately should the electricity fail.
'There's contingencies for contingencies,' she said.
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Security planning for the gathering has been underway for more than a year, according to Superintendent Joe Brar, the G7 event security director for the Calgary Police Service. Officers from Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Tsuut'ina Nation will help CPS with its duties.
Supt. Brar said police are speaking with groups planning to demonstrate during the G7. These small groups could glom together to form sizable protests in Banff and Calgary, far from the summit.
The nearest RCMP-approved protest site – known as a Designated Demonstration Zone or DDZ in G7-speak – is a parking lot on the edge of Banff, roughly 80 kilometres west of the village of Kananaskis. RCMP, in a statement in May, said environmental and municipal concerns factored into the location decision.
'It took into consideration the safety of protesters as well as its accessibility and visibility to the main route leading to the G7 International Media Centre' at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
That, and RCMP said locals were not keen on demonstrators crowding downtown.
RCMP approved three demonstration locations in Calgary: one at city hall, another in a park near the Stampede grounds and one at Edward H. LaBorde Viewing Area, where plane-spotters hang out on the public side of the security fence at Calgary International Airport.
The sites near city hall and the Stampede grounds will be decked out with 'infrastructure to broadcast demonstrators' messages to G7 leaders' gathered in the mountains about 100 kilometres west of these downtown locations.
'Protesters will be encouraged to use these spaces to be both seen and heard,' the RCMP statement said.
With files from The Canadian Press