Meg Marshall of the Ossington BIA is calling for the federal and provincial governments to fund increased security at Toronto street festivals and events.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
On a Sunday morning in April, Meg Marshall was making coffee in her West Toronto apartment when news of a vehicle attack at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver the previous night flashed across her TV.
She was horrified by what she saw: 11 people were killed, and dozens more injured.
Her thoughts quickly turned to the Toronto event she organizes – July’s OssFest street festival, a one-day event showcasing trendy restaurants, boutiques and cafés on Ossington Avenue.
She soon started exchanging messages with other local festival organizers. The conversation turned to the need for increased security – and questions about how to fund it.
“It is very top of mind for everybody,” Ms. Marshall said. “Who’s going to pay for it? We‘re kind of tapped out.”
Those questions will be on the agenda at a security summit for festival organizers and city officials in Toronto on May 26. In advance of festival season in Canada’s biggest city, organizers and local officials will meet to discuss ways to better protect pedestrians from a phenomenon known as hostile vehicle attacks.
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Toronto City Councillor Mike Colle said in an interview that he initiated Monday’s meeting, and that the city needs to press the provincial and federal governments for financial help.
On Thursday, council approved a related motion he put forward asking for Queen’s Park and Ottawa to step in with funds. The motion says that the attack in Vancouver “calls attention to how local festivals immediately require additional and enhanced security measures to help prevent potential similar tragic incidents.”
Toronto and Vancouver are among major cities that already ask street festival organizers to put security measures in place as a condition of permit. Such measures can include sawhorse-style street barriers, paid duty police at entry points, or garbage trucks or city buses deployed as barricades at key intersections.
The municipality is now looking at whether additional funding might be available, city spokeswoman Laura McQuillan said.
Federal government officials did not reply to Globe and Mail questions about whether they would fund increased security measures for city festivals.
The Ontario government did not directly address this question. Ryan Whealy, a spokesperson for Solicitor-General Michael Kerzner, said the province has increased spending on police, who are required “to have a plan in place to respond to active attacker incidents, including vehicle attacks.”
Police examine the scene where a vehicle drove into a crowd at the Lapu-Lapu festival in Vancouver.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The April 26 attack in Vancouver occurred without warning when an Audi SUV accelerated into pedestrians on a side street lined with food trucks. Adam Lo, 30, is facing eight counts of murder. At the time of the attack, Mr. Lo was under supervision of the local health authority and was meant to be abiding by certain conditions after a forced stint in a psychiatric ward, as The Globe has previously reported.
A review by the City of Vancouver earlier this month concluded that the Lapu-Lapu festival posed no particular security concerns and did not warrant a dedicated police or traffic officer presence. A full accounting of next steps and recommendations will be delivered in a final municipal report near the end of summer.
Vancouver city officials said they assess security needs in advance of festivals. Of the more than 3,000 events and protests in the past year, only nine of them were deemed to require heavy-vehicle barriers, officials said. The city funds such measures if the event is free, on city property and open to the public.
The B.C. government is conducting a separate review, led by former Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson, who is expected to release a report by June 30, on whether stronger security perimeters are needed. The province does not currently fund “barrier security” at events, said Kevin Hemmat, spokesman for the ministry of the attorney-general.
Mass-casualty vehicle attacks have become more common in the past decade, experts say, including incidents in Berlin, Nice, London, Stockholm, New York and New Orleans.
“The bottom line is the vehicle is becoming a more permanent weapon,” said Jack Rozdilsky, an associate professor of disaster and emergency management at York University.
“Not only terrorist attacks,” he said, “but we see mentally challenged people. We see acts of criminality.”
Last year, Toronto city officials said they are planning to create “street furniture and bollards” on city roadways as part of a new “anti-hate” plan. The move comes several after years after a van attack on Yonge Street in 2018 that killed 11 pedestrians.
American cities have moved faster. In 2018 New York City announced US$50-million for 1,500 bollards and other security measures after two deadly 2017 vehicle strikes.
This past New Year’s Day an attacker in New Orleans struck the city’s famous Bourbon Street. His rented Ford F150 killed 14 people and hired security are now urging the city to permanently close off much of that street to cars and make it a permanent pedestrian plaza.
Montreal has also gone that route. Its core plays host to a sprawling zone known as the Quartier des Festivals, with multiple stages. Starting in the early 2000s, city planners re-imagined the space as a place that protects pedestrians by design, and more measures were put in place after an exceptionally deadly 2016 vehicle attack in France.
Marie Lamoureux, a spokeswoman for the Montreal site, said all entrances are secured – at times by potted trees or by concrete blockades known as jersey barriers.
“We are not worried now more than before. Security measures are in place and work,” she said.