The Transformation of Security Planning for the Olympics

The 1976 Montreal Games

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4086356
AutoresDominique Clément (0000-0002-8116-962X, University of Alberta, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen29
Número1
Páginas27-51
Fecha de publicación2017-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTerrorism and Political Violence (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0954-6553 • E-ISSN: 1556-1836
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09546553.2014.987342
OpenAlexW2026200924
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas3

Montreal's Summer Olympics in 1976 was a turning point in Olympic history: it was the Games' first highly visible security operation. It was also a transformative moment in the history of security planning in Canada: preparations for the games contributed to shifting the Security Services' focus from communism towards domestic and international terrorism. The following article documents, for the first time, the scope of this operation. It is based on five years of requests and appeals under the federal Access to Information Act, which led to the release of over fifty thousand pages of Royal Canadian Mounted Police documents. I argue that security for the Montreal Olympics was based largely on imagined threats. In addition, I argue that security costs for the Montreal Olympics were high but modest as compared to the overall budget. Nonetheless, Montreal set a precedent for high security costs that have since become the standard for hosting the Olympics. Finally, I argue that the Montreal Olympics had long-term implications for policing in Canada. The scale of the operation produced new resources and inter-agency links that were only made possible as a result of hosting the games

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