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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Changing of the guard: commissionaires done

By: Bartley Kives

Posted: 07/1/2012 4:14 AM | Comments: 0

Terry Le Blanc worked his last day as a commissionaire at city hall on Friday. (BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

In 1995, Terry Le Blanc was among the first batch of commissionaires to serve as security at city hall.

At 7 p.m. on Friday, at the end of his shift at 510 Main St., he also became the last commissionaire to do the job.

The City of Winnipeg has ended a 17-year relationship with the national security firm, which is staffed primarily by former military personnel and police officers.

Last year, the city issued a request for proposals to conduct security services at the council building and wound up choosing Paladin Security, another national company.

The switch followed a pair of security audits that recommended the city beef up its security, said Iain Day, the city's acting manager of municipal accommodations.

The first phase of the changes saw the installation of more security cameras and an increase in security staff at the council building. In the future, members of the public who enter city hall may have to pass through a checkpoint as they do at the Manitoba legislature, Day said.

"We have to balance security with public access," he said, noting it may take a while to figure out how to provide more scrutiny of people entering the council building without discouraging public participation in the political process. "We have a lot more meetings (than at the legislature). We don't want to bung it up."

At the final council meeting of 2009, the mayor and council received a scare when a man entered the council chamber and spilled what appeared to be gasoline out of a liquor bottle on to the steps of the east gallery.

He shouted expletives about the hanging of Louis Riel and accused councillors of stealing each others' money as a commissionaire led him out of the chamber. The move prompted subsequent searches of visitors' bags on council meetings days.

Day said the city was satisfied with the work commissionaires conducted, but said the city is moving away from a security concierge service into more of a standard security model, in line with provincial justice-department guidelines.

While Paladin staff begin full time on Tuesday, the city may still hire commissionaires to serve ceremonial roles within the council chamber on council meeting days, Day said.

During his final regular shift in the building, however, Le Blanc said he will miss working with councillors, their staff and city clerks.

"I was there from the beginning, in 1995," said Le Blanc, who served with the Royal Canadian Air Force for 32 years before he became a commissionaire. "The people in this building have been great. They always treated us with respect."

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 1, 2012 B2

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