Last month, I went to Ottawa City Hall to vote in the Ottawa municipal elections.
As a longtime Ottawa resident, I have been to my city hall many times, but this time, something was different: upon entering the building, I had to go through an airport-style security check.
These “enhanced” security protocols have been in place since May 2025 in order to improve safety.
There haven’t been any major incidents at Ottawa City Hall, but Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has pointed to a January 2024 terrorist attack at Edmonton City Hall, in which an Afghan immigrant fired multiple rounds from an SKS semi-automatic rifle into ceilings, walls and glass and ignited a gasoline-filled Molotov cocktail. As reported by the National Post, the suspect had invoked Gaza in his manifesto.
The rise of the metal detector
Ottawa City Hall is not the only place in Canada to get metal detectors in recent years.
Earlier this fall, the owners of the Edmonton City Centre mall, which is Edmonton’s main downtown mall, akin to Toronto’s Eaton Centre, Montreal’s Eaton Centre, Vancouver’s Pacific Centre and Ottawa’s Rideau Centre, announced that metal detectors would be installed at entrances to address safety concerns.
Meanwhile in Winnipeg, people now need to go through an airport-style security screening at the city’s main downtown library, the Millennium Library. These measures were put in place in January 2023, following a fatal stabbing at the library.
Metal detectors have also become commonplace at hospital emergency rooms across Canada, as well as schools.
At Dene High School in La Loche, Saskatchewan, metal detectors were installed in 2023 after a stabbing left a student and a teaching assistant injured. In 2023, the school also had four security guards on duty.
Back in 2014, Toronto schools rejected the idea of having metal detectors, with Toronto educators saying, “We don’t want to turn schools into the stereotypical downtown American city.”
Canadians once prided themselves on the fact that, unlike America, our public places, including hospitals, schools, libraries and malls, did not need airport-style security measures.
But now, these airport-style security measures are commonplace across Canada.
The increase in crime
In the last 10 years, crime has significantly increased across Canada.
As reported by The Hub, violent crime in Canada rose by 30 percent between 2013 and 2023, with repeat offenders responsible for 29 percent of homicides in 2022. A study by the Fraser Institute, meanwhile, found that violent crime had risen faster in Canada than in the United States.
Canada, after more than a decade of Liberal rule, has become more violent and dangerous.
And metal detectors popping up everywhere has been the result of this.
We don’t have to live like this
This increase in crime didn’t come by accident.
It came as a direct result of the policy agenda of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Justin Trudeau’s criminal reform agenda with Bills C-5 and C-75 led to a revolving-door justice system, with violent repeat offenders committing crime after crime, while Canada’s justice system has become more preoccupied with racial justice than public safety.
The push to destigmatize, liberalize and decriminalize drugs coincided with a sharp increase in drug use and homelessness, with experts saying both are linked to crime.
Furthermore, the Liberals’ immigration agenda resulted in an immigration system that let in foreign criminals, and woke judges have protected these migrant criminals by giving them sentencing discounts so they are not subjected to deportation.
This is a problem of our own making. But it can also be a problem of our own fixing.
The solution to Canada’s public safety crisis, which has led to metal detectors being installed in libraries, hospitals, schools, malls and town halls, is simple and involves doing the following three things:
Locking up the criminals and keeping them in jail rather than giving them bail.
Reopening mental health institutions and putting individuals with severe mental illness and drug addiction into involuntary care.
Deporting foreign criminals back to the countries they come from.
We don’t have to keep living like this.
