Taxpayers had to spend $515,000 for the installation of a new security system because proper background checks weren’t done on workers building a key air defence facility in North Bay, Ont.
None of the on-site contractors working on the building, used to house air surveillance systems to protect North America, possessed valid security clearances, with the exception of the architects.
That sparked concerns the facility could not be used for its original purpose, prompting the Defence Department to install the special monitoring equipment, according to a newly released report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee. Besides the initial cost, annual upkeep of the system is $84,000 a year.
"The Committee is astonished that security was not identified as an issue at the onset of constructing a highly sensitive NORAD facility," the report concluded.
"If the Department had taken security more seriously at the outset, it would not have had to perform extensive physical and technical inspections before occupying the facility, at a significant cost to Canadian taxpayers," it added. "This incident clearly demonstrates a lack of judgment by those involved. What is even more disturbing is that this may not be an isolated incident."
The facility, known as the North American Aerospace Defence Command Above Ground Complex, was intended to replace the underground complex housing the NORAD air surveillance and control system to secure North American airspace. That facility has an operationally vital role in continental security, according to Auditor General Sheila Fraser, who first sounded the alarm about problems during the construction.
The Public Accounts committee chairman, Liberal MP Shawn Murphy, said the lack of security around the construction raised eyebrows among committee members.
"This should have been red-flagged right from the beginning," Murphy said. "This was a highly sensitive building."
The committee also highlighted the 2008 case where plans for a new special forces headquarters were found in a garbage pile on an Ottawa street.
That incident, it noted, was an example the Defence Department still does not pay enough attention to security issues.
An Ottawa Citizen article revealed that the plans had been dumped in the garbage near the offices of one of the contractors working on the building. The plans for the headquarters of the unit – the military’s main response team to a terrorist attack using a weapon of mass destruction – showed the locations of security equipment to protect the installation. Included in that information were the locations of motion detectors, wall-mounted alarms and closed-circuit TVs, noted an internal Defence Department report.
The committee also questioned the testimony of Maj.-Gen. Glynne Hines, the department’s subject matter expert on the NORAD complex. Hines suggested to the committee that construction had proceeded normally and he also told the committee there had been no additional costs because of the security lapses. Hines also seemed unaware of delays in the project, according to the committee report.
Defence Department Deputy Minister Robert Fonberg later sent a letter apologizing for any misunderstanding the general’s testimony may have caused and assured parliamentarians there had been no intention to mislead the committee.
The committee report noted during its hearings that Fonberg acknowledged it was a mistake not to classify the blueprints for the NORAD facility but added that earlier testimony of Maj.-Gen. Hines "suggests a culture within the department where it continues to be normal and appropriate to not consider security issues from the outset of construction."
Neither Fonberg nor Hines responded to an interview request.
A DND spokesman said the department could not immediately provide comment on the report but suggested that might come sometime this week.
The committee also challenged the department’s claim that the plans for the headquarters of the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit – found in the garbage – should not be considered sensitive or secret.
"It is very difficult for the committee to believe that the blueprints for the military’s main responder to chemical, biological and radioactive threats should not be secure, especially in an era of heightened security awareness for possible terrorist threats," the report found.
The plans were found by the spouse of Anthony Salloum, then an analyst with the Rideau Institute in Ottawa.
Salloum’s connection with the Rideau Institute, which has opposed the Afghan war and large-scale defence spending, set off speculation on the Internet that the institute had somehow surreptitiously obtained the plans and engineered the find to discredit the Canadian Forces.
The plans, however, appear to have been discarded by one of the businesses involved in the construction project and, since there was no secret classification on the drawings, the documents were put into the garbage instead of being destroyed or returned to DND. At least one other contractor involved in the project did the same with its set of the plans.
Salloum turned over the documents to DND after realizing what they contained.
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