Warning signs

Ottawa Sun ^ | October 23, 2001 | Greg Weston

[Clive]

Is Canada ready for a real bioterrorism attack? Judging from the official response to an anthrax scare on Parliament Hill last week, the answer is a resounding 'no' C Over the past three years, the United States government has pumped over $100 million into special training for emergency teams on how to deal with a bioterrorist attack.

Here in Canada, government planning against bioterrorism has consisted mainly of writing endless inter-office memos warning of the dangers of complacency.

This may help to explain the emergency response to an anthrax scare on Parliament Hill last week.

Barbara Robson, policy adviser to Sen. Mira Spivak, was caught in the middle of it all, and says she was horrified by her experience -- and by what would have happened in a real anthrax attack.

Herewith, what might best be described as her afternoon with the Keystone Kops:

It all began when the senator's administrative assistant reported a mysterious rash on her arm. At the senator's urging, the assistant sought medical attention on the Hill, and that's when all hell broke loose.

With another anthrax scare already under way on the Hill -- it also proved to have been a false alarm -- the emergency response teams descended on the senator's suite of offices, including the area where the affected employee works.

As it happened, Robson's own office is at the far end of the East Block senate building from the senator's main digs.

"At first, I got a call from security telling me to stay in my office," Robson said. "That seemed like a good thing to do, I suppose."

But it also dawned on Robson that she had been in and out of the potentially infected offices down the hall at least five times that day.

On several of those visits she had picked up mail and taken it back to her own office -- the one in which she had just been told to sit and wait.

"Then I got a call from an assistant (in the other office) who said she was with security people, and was relaying a message that all the mail I had picked up from there during the day, I was to bring it back to the senator's office."

ANTHRAX POWDER

Robson is no anti-terrorism specialist, but she did figure out that if one of the envelopes on her desk was indeed full of anthrax powder, it probably wasn't a smart thing to be carrying it through the entire length of the building.

"I said if they were so concerned about what might be in the mail I had, well, maybe I would just leave it on my desk."

On reflection, the security folks concluded that would probably be a good idea, all right, and promised to send a team to her office.

"I stayed in the office for a couple of hours, and then I finally called back and said: 'Are you still interested in this? Would you like me to come down there (to the senator's office) and bring anything with me?'

"And they said, 'Oh no. If you come down here you'll be contaminated."

At this point, Robson pointed out that she may have already been contaminated either during her earlier trips to the senator's office, or perhaps by a piece of the mail piled on her desk, and she would sure appreciate a visit by someone in charge.

"So then I was told to go and find someone to tell that I had the mail ... again this was the team that was in the senator's office.

"So I went down the hall, and it's all cordoned off with yellow tape, and there are guards preventing anyone from going anywhere.

"And I asked one of the guards: 'Would you like to come and see the mail in my office?'

"And he said, 'Well, geez, I can't really leave my post.' "

The guard finally agreed to walk back to Robson's office with her.

"I showed him where all the mail was I had taken from the office that day, and he said I should go tell someone downstairs.

"So I went down to the front of the East Block, and it was swarming with firefighters and police and Hill staff. And I told several people about the mail and no one was interested.

"There was some guy in black gear, and I also told the security desk guy that I had mail from this office that was being checked for contamination.

"And the guy on the desk asked me for my home phone number so they could call me if they needed me.

"I finally just left and went home.

"As far as I know, no one ever did check the mail in that office."

[America's Resolve]

LAF. Keystone Kops is right.

Canada doesn't have anything to worry about though.

If the muslims did this to Kanada, Kanada would tighten up their border and these muslim mercenaries wouldn't be able to get to this country as easy.

Obviously Kanada cares about Kanada, nobody else.