By Scoop Gerbil
No undercover security guards protected president Claude Lajeunesse at two recent press conferences—or so he says.
Maybe the tall, well-built men keeping a close eye on the president were just close friends.
But anyone who saw them after a Feb. 16 press conference might think otherwise. A cadre of uniformed Ryerson security officers escorted Lajeunesse and Jim Wilson, Ontario’s minister of energy, science and technology, outside after the event. Plainclothes officers were part of the team that protected the VIPs from the taunts and heckles of a few activists.
The security posse ushered Lajeunesse and Wilson through the Rogers Communications Centre to the minister’s waiting car. Wilson and his aides drove away, leaving Lajeunesse and his protectors alone on the curb.
The same men were back a week later for the president’s appearance at another press conference. They monitored the entrances, occasionally mumbling into their two-way radios.
Lajeunesse said he has no knowledge of a plainclothes squad assigned to protect him.
“They are not undercover,” Lajeunesse said. “They are people that are non-uniform, are there to direct traffic, tell people where to go. I haven’t seen any guards around me.”
Maybe the pictures accompanying this article will help jog his memory.
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