OTTAWA -- A group of Greenpeace activists has created a major security breach on Parliament Hill this morning, climbing on to the West Block roof to bring attention to climate change.

 

The group are now being confronted by police at the scene, although there has been no effort made to force them down. The group as of about 9 a.m., was unfurling two large banners, each about 10 m in length, facing Wellington St. at the front of the West Block.

 

RCMP, Ottawa Police, the Ottawa fire department and city paramedics are all at the scene. A crowd of about 100 spectators has gathered along Wellington St. and more people are arriving as news of the protest spreads.

 

Although police are establishing a perimeter, people are not being kept off Parliament Hill and as yet there are no road closures.

 

Reports indicate at least some of the protesters have been arrested, but a group of about a dozen remains atop the West Block. They used ladders and rappelling gear to get atop the building.

 

In a release, Greenpeace says:

 

 

"Right now, 19 Greenpeace activists are on the roofs of our national Parliament buildings, sending a strong message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff to take bold action on climate change.

 

The action comes on the opening day of the pivotal Climate Change summit in Copenhagen.

 

The banners read, in English 'Harper/Ignatieff: Climate Inaction Costs Lives' and in French 'Harper/Ignatieff: Linaction climatique coute des vies.'

Greenpeace activists scale roof of Parliament Buildings

 

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

 

How was this allowed to happen? Parliament Hill is the seat of the Canadian Government. I've done work up there and no one, not even the MPs or Prime Minister himself, gets in without being checked by the RCMP. So how in the *bleep* did anyone manage to get onto the roof of one of the buildings with anything, let alone a package the size of a giant banner? And why are they being allowed to stay up there? Why haven't the RCMP's, or Ottawa Police's for that matter, tactical squads rushed up there and arrested these people? How can such a horrible disregard for the safety of our government officials be allowed to continue?

 

What if instead of Greenpeace, this had been a terrorist organization and they had brought bombs up there? How does the RCMP let this happen? Do you really think the Secret Service would allow this kind of thing to happen to the White House?

 

I'm so angered by this blatant breach of the security of my country's leaders, I can hardly type properly. I really hope whoever let them up there is brought up on charges and thrown in windowless cell for the rest of their life.

 

:-k Do they still hang people for treason?

It's a worrying security issue but you're ever so sightly over-reacting by talking about life sentences and hanging.

Yeah take a chill pill dude. We've had guys in tights climbing on Buckingham Palace before :rolleyes: (If I remember correctly - don't quote me)

 

Protesters do this to protest, and as long as they aren't bombing the place, I don't see anything hugely wrong with what they're doing. In fact, that they were able to get up there shows a lack of security and might encourage tighter measures for the future, when the terrorists come along.

 

They're just a bunch of ecomentalists, so unless they were vandalising the place or actual terrorists, I wouldn't get so worked up.

isn't greenpeace that terrorist organization?

 

cool news

Yeah take a chill pill dude. We've had guys in tights climbing on Buckingham Palace before :rolleyes: (If I remember correctly - don't quote me)

 

 

 

There have been a few, one guy broke in and had a conversation with the Queen before being captured. There was the Fathers for Justice guy and the Fan Man landed on the roof (the same nutter once landed in the ring during a Heavyweight title fight). So yeah, you're right.

Yeah take a chill pill dude. We've had guys in tights climbing on Buckingham Palace before :rolleyes: (If I remember correctly - don't quote me)

 

 

 

There have been a few, one guy broke in and had a conversation with the Queen before being captured. There was the Fathers for Justice guy and the Fan Man landed on the roof (the same nutter once landed in the ring during a Heavyweight title fight). So yeah, you're right.

Aha thats awesome, "had a conversation with the queen".

 

As for the Greenpeace people, I don't really care, but am a bit surprised they managed to get up there in the first place.

*deep breath* Ahhhh....

 

Okay. I've had a smoke, fixed a pump (not at the same time of course ;) ) and I'm thinking a little less angrily about this. I think I'm less upset that protesters climbed on top of the Parliament Buildings to put up a banner, than I am at the fact that anyone at all could have come in in the middle of the night and have that much freedom to move about in the first place. It's not like this was setup ahead of time and they got permits and had security overseeing them or anything.

 

Don't get me wrong. I've got no problem with people protesting (it happens all the time on Parliament Hill, in fact), but no one should be able to sneak onto the Hill in the middle of the night and be able to move about at will.

 

As a bit of context to this whole mess, right now there are 18 accused terrorists on trial in Toronto for planning several large-scale bombings in a 9/11 style attack (see here and here). Maybe I'm overreacting, but at the very least this should bring into light the lax security measures practiced by the RCMP around Parliament Hill and hopefully bring forth some serious changes to the way things are done.

 

...and admittedly the hanging thing might have been a bit much :oops: ...

Since when do we have security forces in Canada? I think that's the real question here.

It's a worrying security issue but you're ever so sightly over-reacting by talking about life sentences and hanging.

Here here.

 

As Racheya said, people have been climbing around Buckingham Palace before, normally arrested by armed police within a short amount of time, but it still happens. I swear such groups like Greenpeace (Also Fathers for Justice) do themselves more harm than good with they way they protest.

Yeah take a chill pill dude. We've had guys in tights climbing on Buckingham Palace before :rolleyes: (If I remember correctly - don't quote me)

 

 

 

There have been a few, one guy broke in and had a conversation with the Queen before being captured. There was the Fathers for Justice guy and the Fan Man landed on the roof (the same nutter once landed in the ring during a Heavyweight title fight). So yeah, you're right.

Aha thats awesome, "had a conversation with the queen".

 

As for the Greenpeace people, I don't really care, but am a bit surprised they managed to get up there in the first place.

 

Here's the wikipedia article on it:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fagan_incident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_[bleep]an_incident

The censor doesn't like his name.

 

The censor doesn't like his name.

 

Sorted now. You'll just need to copy & paste it to get to the page. Stupid censor.

Too bad they climbed up for no reason. Haha. I mean, the Global Warming phase of the Leftist search for a religion was ok for a bit; now it's getting old.

 

 

But to be honest, I think they should be arrested for a little bit to prove a point, but unless they have a bomb then they're obviously not dangerous.

That's pretty sweet.

A lot of security breaches as of late, eh?

Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration

 

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=6933

Canada is at a greater risk of being annexed by the United States than having the capital taken over by a bunch of tree huggers.

Canada is at a greater risk of being annexed by the United States than having the capital taken over by a bunch of tree huggers.

 

I'm pretty sure Canada is safe from being annexed by a NATO country.

 

Come to think of it, you're right, hippies really are less of a threat than nothing. Still, the point he's making isn't that they were a threat, but that they shouldn't have been so easily able to do this in the first place. Where the hell was security? If you tried this with the US Capitol you'd never get close!

Sounds like Australia isn't the only one with a security breach. For those who don't know, in September 2007, during the APEC summit, The Chaser pulled a prank where they pretended to be Canada (Which isn't even a part of APEC,) and got all the way through the second checkpoint and aborted because they got too far. Their security passes even had JOKE and Insecurity written on them. Better these guys and not extremists planning to kill innocent people.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaser_APEC_pranks

Edited December 9, 200916 yr by Mage_Man0103

Hopefully it's a wake up call for tighter security. Luckily it wasn't someone who could do real damage.

It seems like recently the most safe-looking people are breaching security where terrorists fail. Last year in Chicago a kid around 15 years old managed to dress as a police officer and ride on patrol for the day with an unknowing officer. Everyone assumed he was a new recruit, he was able to get inside the police headquarters and inside a police car. Thankfully he didn't do anything bad, he just wanted a police adventure for a day. But what if it was a domestic terrorist or just a criminal? He could have gotten access to weapons inside the headquarters, killed police officers within their own building, and done all kinds of atrocities in a police car. Now there's this issue with Greenpeace. Don't forget the countless hackers out there who have breached major networks but not done any damage, just to prove it was possible? We like to pretend we have security. But let's face it, there will always be a way to get through everything. Greenpeace is just the latest group that brought attention to their views by doing something so controversial.

Wasn't there some kid in the early days of the interwebz that managed to hack NASA for a while?

i see two things wrong with kaida's statement about our security

1. why would anyone bomb canada? we havn't done anything wrong. everyone loves us.

2. it's just protesters, so RCMP arn't going to shoot them off the roofs, or hang them. Canada handles its problems with anything but force. they will probebly spend a day in jail, mabye a week at most. or mabye not at all.

i see two things wrong with kaida's statement about our security

1. why would anyone bomb canada? we havn't done anything wrong. everyone loves us.

2. it's just protesters, so RCMP arn't going to shoot them off the roofs, or hang them. Canada handles its problems with anything but force. they will probebly spend a day in jail, mabye a week at most. or mabye not at all.

If I might respond...

 

1. Terrorists do not discriminate when it comes to who they attack (suicide bombing of school buses anyone?). Blowing up the Parliament Buildings of a large, industrialized western nation would be a major coup and bring untold attention from the rest of the world. Not 9/11 level attention perhaps, but you see my point.

 

2. The fact that they were "just protesters" isn't the point. No one should have had enough freedom to get up there in the first place. We're talking about the seat of our government. The response of security personnel shouldn't be adjusted according to the people involved. If someone is not supposed to be in an area, they should be removed immedately. *Not* after they've had a chance to try and make whatever point it is they're trying to get across.

 

The actions of these "protestors" (I say "protesters" because there are proper ways to go about holding protests on Parliament Hill) have exposed an incredibly troubling hole in the security of of our govenment officials. One that if not rectified could very well be exploited by people with a much more sinistar agenda next time.

 

...and I did admit that I might have been a bit harsh in my original posting. One should never post while angry. :grin:

i see two things wrong with kaida's statement about our security

1. why would anyone bomb canada? we havn't done anything wrong. everyone loves us.

2. it's just protesters, so RCMP arn't going to shoot them off the roofs, or hang them. Canada handles its problems with anything but force. they will probebly spend a day in jail, mabye a week at most. or mabye not at all.

Canada is still seen as an infidel nation, the reason America was targeted was because it was seen as invincible nation. If on the first day in school you knock the biggest [bleep] out then everyone fears you much more than that person ever will.