TALES FROM CANADA DAY

Mounties guiding crowds on Canada Day didn’t know names of downtown streets, and “uninformed” volunteers made up information, says a list of key complaints from Canadian Heritage.

The document was released through the Citizen’s accessto-information request.

It identifies many problems that were already well-known: “Fake lines” that led nowhere, “not enough bathrooms outside the (Parliament Hill) perimeter,” and a lack of buses.

But it also says there were unprepared RCMP officers and volunteers who couldn’t handle visitors’ questions, and who sometimes made things worse.

Mounties were “unsure where exits were” and could not find their way around downtown Ottawa, the internal memo says.

“RCMP approached our (Heritage) staff asking where the perimeter were located,” the document says. But when staff told them names of intersections, the officers “were unfamiliar with street names immediately around Parliament Hill. Throughout the three days RCMP officers would ask our staff to stay by them in order to answer the multitude of questions they couldn’t handle. A FAQ sheet would have been helpful for them to have.”

The yellow-jacketed civilian volunteers working for the Parliamentary Protective Service had other problems, summed up as “not bilingual, uninformed, (and) made up information.”

“When asked questions, it became apparent that many were unilingual and were not properly trained. They didn’t know where important resources were and would often give misinformation to visitors,” such as telling them that tours of the Parliament Buildings were available on days when there were no tours.

It lays some of the blame on the Parliamentary Protective Service, saying PPS gave “conflicting information” leading up to Canada Day on whether folding chairs, umbrellas and food would be allowed on the Hill. The PPS finally announced the rules just before noon on the day before Canada Day.