White powder mailed to senators
Substance harmless, RCMP says
• Police warned MPs and senators to be “vigilant” after a handful of senators’ offices on Monday received envelopes scrawled with threatening messages and containing white powder.
The RCMP declared the substance harmless and no one who came in contact with the mail showed signs of illness.
One envelope was marked “Ottawa shooting,” according to a security notice sent to senators, while another had “Shooting in Parliament” written in blue ink in the return address area.
The mystery envelopes were sent to the offices of several senators, including at least two in the East Block of Parliament Hill, at least one in the nearby Victoria Building on Wellington Street, and one in the Centre Block office of government Senate leader Claude Carignan.
On a day when the majority of senators were travelling back to Ottawa after a one-week break, an unknown number of such envelopes were also found, not yet delivered, in the Senate’s mail room.
“We are relieved by the news from RCMP that the contents of the envelope were negative,” Sen. Carignan said in a statement. “We thank Senate Protective Services and law enforcement for their prompt response.”
Conservative Sen. David Wells was on a conference call with his staff when Senate security guards ordered them out of his East Block office around noon. Unbeknownst to Sen. Wells at the time, he too had received one of the letters, with the envelope left inside the correspondence folder in his desk.
“Other than the emergency vehicles that were outside East Block, it looked like any other day,” he said. “We know they’re meant to instil fear, but you take that in stride.”
Affected offices were put on lockdown for almost three hours around midday, and offices in the East Block and Victoria Building were evacuated while hazardous materials teams examined them.
Hazardous materials workers left Parliament Hill shortly after 2 p.m.
Shortly before 3 p.m., a security note to senators said that RCMP tests came back negative on the powder in the envelopes. The security note said that tests “did not indicate the presence of any harmful substances.”
A House of Commons notice sent out Monday afternoon noted that “additional mail-scanning protocols continue to be in place” and cautioned MPs and their staff to “exercise vigilance when handling incoming mail.”
Earlier this month, suspicious envelopes containing white powder were sent to the Quebec riding offices of four federal cabinet ministers, with a source saying that one of the envelopes contained a threat: “Conservatives, you will be annihilated.”
No one was hurt in that instance and the substance is believed to have been harmless.