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OTTAWA The three-week long protest that gripped the capital and prompted the invocation of the Emergencies Act has now sparked a call for potential permanent changes to security in the parliamentary precinct, including the closure of a major street to vehicle traffic.

After grappling with the citys emergency response to the crisis, Mayor Jim Watson said Ottawa needs to consider changes to better protect local neighbourhoods and Parliament Hill.

Every time theres been a security breach on Parliament Hill, its acted as a catalyst for change, Watson said at council meeting Wednesday.

Council voted to temporarily close Wellington Street, which runs directly along Parliament Hill, to traffic until a new council is elected while the city works with the federal government on a plan for changes to precinct security.

We do not want, in the short term or long term, another caravan coming and invading this very important space that I consider the most important street in the country, Watson said.

Canadas seat of power is remarkably accessible to the public, and situated closely to businesses and residential buildings. The front lawn of Centre Block is reachable on foot to protesters and picnickers alike, and Wellington Street serves as a major throughway for the core.

Since protesters were driven out the city, the parliamentary precinct, including Welling Street, has been fenced off and accessible only to people who work in the area.

Downtown Ottawa Coun. Catherine McKenney put forward the idea to open discussions to transfer ownership of the street to the federal government, putting security for that area under national jurisdiction.

The councillor also suggested working with federal officials and the community to permanently close Wellington Street to all vehicles except public transit, pedestrians and cyclists.

During the demonstration the entire responsibility really fell to the city to defend and protect Wellington Street, McKenney told council Wednesday.

In a statement, Public Services Minister Filomena Tassi says Wellington Street is under the care and control of the city, but the idea of closing it has been one of the possibilities long contemplated as part of reimagining the precinct.

Similar changes were made to the stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. that runs in front of the White House in 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing put the U.S. on alert to the perils of domestic terrorism. That closure was made permanent in the wake of the attacks on D.C. and New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, although pedestrians can still stroll the street.

Downtown D.C. residents are all too familiar with the towering, unscalable fencing that encircled the White House campus throughout 2020, a year marked by widespread and frequent social unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Similar fencing also ringed Capitol Hill for months after the Jan. 6 siege staged by supporters of Donald Trump angry about the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Congressional leaders wont say whether that fencing will be making a comeback in either locale in anticipation of an Ottawa-style protest in the coming days, potentially coinciding with President Joe Bidens state of the union speech March 1.

Ottawas city manager said jurisdictional issues with security in Canadas National Capital Region need to be rethought as well.

You end up with a lag with respect to how quickly the various organizations have to get engaged, city manager Steve Kanellakos said at a council meeting Wednesday.

Councillors floated the idea of developing a working group to modernize the various levels of governments responsibility in a crisis in the capital, since jurisdictional scuffles became a stumbling block in the response to the demonstrations.

It isnt the first time those time lags have been an issue, Kanellakos said. Similar frustrations were felt when downtown Ottawa was put into lockdown in 2014, when a shooter roamed the capital. He shot and killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a Canadian soldier and reservist on ceremonial sentry duty at the National War Memorial, before entering the Parliament buildings.

All the while, Kanellakos, who led the citys response at the time, said officials struggled to share information and co-ordinate between the different levels of government.

He said the National Capital Region should have a standing emergency plan that includes the city, provincial and federal governments, as well as possibly the city of Gatineau, Que., on the other side of the river.

The events of the last month validated in my mind that we need to really be rethinking, he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 23, 2022.

With files from James McCarten in Washington, D.C.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

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