Security, accessibility to be weighed in Obama visit

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This article was published 28/01/2019 (2601 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One Winnipegger with years of experience greeting queens, princes, and presidents has a suggestion for what to if you encounter former U.S. president Barack Obama when he visits the city in March.

“You just simply shake his hand, and address him as Mr. President,” Manitoba’s former chief of protocol, Dwight MacAulay, said Monday. “That’s what I’d call him.”

American presidents retain the title of ‘president’ for life, said MacAulay, adding he was excited to hear Obama was coming to Winnipeg for a speaking engagement. “I think it’ll be a really big deal.”

Pre-sale tickets for A Conversation with Barack Obama became available Monday morning, ranging in price from $89 to $499, before taxes and fees, for the March 4 event at Bell MTS Place.

“He’s very popular wherever he goes in the world,” said MacAulay, who spent 19 years as the province’s point man on international protocol practices, legislative ceremonies and visits by Canadian and foreign dignitaries, before retiring in 2017.

And, wherever the 44th president of the U.S. goes (Obama held the role from 2009-17), the U.S. Secret Service follows.

“There’s a substantial amount of security,” MacAulay said. “They’d be working in co-operation with the RCMP.”

The RCMP officer in charge of planning for Obama’s security in Winnipeg said the threat level here isn’t as high as it is in the United States. The political climate and gun-control laws are different in Canada, said Sgt. Chris Willkie, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Manitoba RCMP’s VIP section and the explosives disposal unit.

“It’s still a big deal. You have to protect them from violence, but you also need to protect them against embarrassment,” Willkie said, recalling an incident in 2000 on Prince Edward Island, when a protester hit then-prime minister Jean Chrétien in the face with a pie.

“You don’t want that to happen,” he said. “Things like that upset the handlers a little bit.”

While the RCMP will be in charge of Obama’s protection in Winnipeg, the former president’s security detail will provide assistance, said Willkie. They’ll share information including Obama’s “likes and dislikes.”

(“Some leaders don’t like talking to security folks,” for example, he said.)

However, the U.S. Secret Service will not be “calling the shots,” Willkie said. The Winnipeg Police Service will be involved as well, providing the RCMP with intelligence on the area around Bell MTS Place and assisting with traffic and providing other supports, he said.

“There can only be one boss,” said Willkie, who’s had years of experience preparing for the safety of visiting VIPs.

“I’ve done a few of them. It’s always a challenge to do it. I thrive on the challenge part; to come up with all the different scenarios and what needs to be done. It’s a planning exercise — you have to account for a vast majority of variables to make sure the trip comes off as seamlessly — and that you don’t see us as the protection around him so nobody can say, ‘He was completely surrounded by security,'” he said.

“You’re trying to minimize that to make sure people can still see him and have some kind of access, like a normal person would.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca