Plan to move national counterterrorism base out of Ottawa in doubt due to ballooning costs and a rise in the threat of attacks against ... Ottawa.

Terror threats, high cost cause rethink of plan

A plan to move the country’s special forces counterterrorism unit out of Ottawa is being reconsidered because of concerns over excessive costs and the threat of “lone wolf ” terror attacks on the nation’s capital.

In 2008, the Conservative government of the day announced that Joint Task Force 2, a Canadian Forces special operations unit specializing in counter-terror operations, among other things, would be moved from Ottawa to Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont. To prepare for that relocation, the government expropriated a 90-hectare family farm in the area.

But the cost of the new JTF2 base has jumped from an estimated $346 million to $1.2 billion. In the meantime, terror attacks have targeted various capitals around the world, prompting a rethink on the move.

“An emerging threat against western nations is that of ‘lone wolf ’ terrorist attacks against targets of tremendous symbolic importance, such as those we have seen in Berlin, London, Paris, and Ottawa,” said Department of National Defence spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier.

In October 2014, lone wolf attacker Michael ZehafBibeau killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, then attacked the nearby Parliament Buildings, where he was shot and killed.

“Many of our allies have responded to this shift in the security environment by relocating their top-tier special forces units to within close proximity and rapid response time of their national capitals, and the rationale for doing so has proven increasingly convincing,” Le Bouthillier said.

The Forces are now considering keeping JTF2 in Ottawa — and one source says the move has been all but shelved.

The Canadian Forces had talked about the need for a new base for JTF2 since 2005. Among the options considered was an expansion of the existing Ottawa site at Dwyer Hill or moving the unit to CFB Petawawa, where there are already special forces training facilities and installations.

But the Conservatives decided relocating the unit to Trenton made the most sense. They argued positioning JTF2 at CFB Trenton, one of the country’s main military airbases, allowed the unit immediate access to aircraft for domestic and overseas missions. Another unit in the special operations command with which JTF2 works closely — the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit, which deals with nuclear, biological and chemical incidents — is already there.

“This decision made sense when considering the operational context at the time as co-location with the Trenton airbase would allow for rapid deployments, both at home and during international missions,” Le Bouthillier said. “However, the global security environment has changed considerably over the past decade, and our readiness and posture must evolve to deal with these changing threats.”

In 2016, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance was warned the project to move JTF2 from Ottawa to Trenton was facing major risk in “cost and scope,” according to documents Postmedia obtained under the Access to Information law. The special forces had significantly added to the plans for the proposed site, expanding it beyond its original scope.

The Liberal government has announced plans to boost the size of Canada’s special forces from roughly 1,900 to 2,500, though it has not offered a time frame for the increase and it’s unclear how many of the new personnel would be assigned to JTF2.

The 2012 decision to expropriate Frank Meyers’ 90-hectare farm for the new JTF2 installation was controversial. The farm had been in the Meyers family for more than 200 years. Meyers argued the Canadian Forces already had large tracts of land, and could have built on property it owns in Mountain View, near Trenton.

When the Forces took over the farm they tore down barns and built a berm and some access roads, but have done little else with the land.

Postmedia News dpugliese@postmedia.com Twitter.com/davidpugliese

SGT DONALD CLARK / ARMY NEWS The Canadian Forces special operations unit was to have a new base near Trenton, but that plan may be changed.