They're open, they're vulnerable, they're so-called soft targets..."

June 2006: The Harper government promised 95m for ‘measures that enhance the security for passenger rail and urban transit. At the time, that figure was considered ‘low key’ with RCMP training and the provision of firearms for border guards drawing the most attention. Yesterday 35 million of the promised 80 was ‘awarded’ to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and the National Capitol Region, in ‘round one’ of Transit-Secure.

The program “allows for the reimbursement of eligible expenses, for the period of June 22, 2006 to March 31, 2008, and is subject to all expenditure controls applicable to contribution programs as per Treasury Board Transfer Payments Policy.”

The funds will support risk assessments, staff, training, equipment, and security audits. The costs will be shared at a ratio of 3:1 and the initial investment divided in this way:

- Montreal: up to $11,411,657

- National Capital Region: up to $1,178,288

- Toronto: up to $11,033,765

- Edmonton: up to $2,250,000

- Calgary : up to $811,875

- Vancouver: up to $9,859,590.

The Transit-Secure backgrounder contains more details on how city funds will be distributed by operator, since they will not be administrated by the municipalities. According to the backgrounder this round is the first of several “initial measures” including 24 million over four years to increase transport canada’s capacity, 8 million to allow PSEPC and Transport Canada to run urban transit preparedness exercises with operators and ‘stakeholders’ ranging from table-top to live runs, and a 3m, 2 yr PSEPC Public Safety Portfolio Task Force which will support local efforts to identify and cope with security issues.

Interestingly, the backgrounder mentions Madrid and London, but does not include the Dubai train bombings which were by far more expansive than either of them as cause to consider public transit vulnerable. It also contains a familiar imperative from the Transportation Minister: “Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism. We must remain vigilant and continue to work with our partners in government and industry to address transit security issues.”

That statement was tellingly rephrased by the Vancouver Transit link representative as:

“I think what we're seeing in this announcement is that it's a kind of wake-up call for commuters that we are not immune [from terrorism], that we live in a global environment now,"

And by Wesley Wark, President of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies on CBC.ca as:

"We could easily be a target for terrorist attacks," he said. "We've been named by al-Qaeda as a target nation, so while we might like to think we're not a likely target, you just can't gamble with that."

However, he added, no amount of money can make a transit system invulnerable.

"They're open, they're vulnerable, they're so-called soft targets, in the professional jargon," Wark said.

"You can do some things: You can have closed-circuit TV's that are a help; you can have a bit more visible security measures in terms of armed police and guards and so on.’

As of this afternoon, however, modifications to the spending were already being made. Ottawa announced that the National Capital spending would be decreased to about 900,000 and that CCTV was off the table until a needs assessment could be done. Although the NCR had recently experienced a series of violent events, the need for this spending is far from ‘demonstrable’.

In fact, the entire apparatus is cast in a curious light when spending in the Capitol is compared with that of Montreal’s 11m allocation. Although Montreal in particular has been slated for an extended CCTV program for some time an 11m initial payment seems excessive and will almost certainly draw fire for being political.

With time, we may in fact see the entire plan scaled down; the Ottawa needs assessment is unlikely to bear out funding for live-run disaster training. The second biggest ‘winner’ is Toronto, whose mayor, according to CBC responded by saying that there is ‘no real threat’ to Toronto Transit, but thanked the government for the extra funding anyway.

One thing that Canadians should take from this, is that so far from not being able to ‘gamble’ with the possibility that Canadian transit may be a target, more than a year after the London 7/7 transit bombings, and the subsequent manifestation of armed guards and dogs in Toronto stations, in most cities neither operators nor municipalities have conducted thorough needs assessments.

At the moment, Possibility, Likelihood and Actuality are dots so far removed in the security narrative – at least the public one – that funding allocation notwithstanding, transit security programs have a fair way to go yet.