TORONTO - Campus security and protocols to warn students of danger were top of mind Tuesday among Canadian university and government officials in the wake of the deadliest school shooting in North American history.
As Canadian universities flew flags at half-mast in an act of solidarity, officials restlessly weighed the pressing issues brought to the fore by the shooting deaths of 33 people, including a Canadian, at Virginia Tech.
University of Toronto spokesman Rob Steiner said he would never "second-guess'' his Virginia Tech counterparts, who relied on e-mail among other electronic means to alert students and staff and were subsequently criticized for not acting quickly enough.
Still, Steiner said finding ways to better communicate with students in an emergency is one of the things that kept him up Monday night.
"A university is an unconventional environment for communications in a crisis," Steiner said, noting the country's largest post-secondary institution boasts 70,000 students and 11,000 staff and faculty members at three campuses.
"At any given time, most of these people aren't sitting in front of their computer. ... At any given time most of these people are in classrooms, libraries, labs."
Dalhousie University in Halifax currently relies on e-mail, but efforts are underway to obtain permission to use instant messaging as a means of communicating with students in an emergency, said spokesman Jim Vibert.
Still, the best defence is prevention, and the school has addressed that issue by beefing up psychiatric services for students, Vibert added.
"If someone is walking across your property with a gun and firing it at you, your options are extremely limited," he said.
"If you can identify problems before they get totally out of hand and help the individual who may be headed in a bad direction, then you've got more options."
Earlier this month, University of Calgary security staff conducted a table-top exercise on how officials would respond to just such a situation.
While he wouldn't comment on Virginia Tech's handling of the shooting, the Calgary school's campus security director Lanny Fritz said they discussed everything from evacuation and lockdown procedures to how the school might feed and house people in the event of an overnight incident.
The school is looking into how it might lock down buildings that don't have security card access and how officials might use cellphone text messaging in an emergency, Fritz said.
Closed-circuit television and building intercom systems are among the other tools the school has for communicating with staff and students, he said.
But identifying potential situations before they arise is crucial, he said, and security at the University of Calgary has had considerable success in that area.
Since July 2001, a threat assessment committee has been able to identify staff and students who might pose a danger to others, and has intervened and offered help in the form of counselling or time off work.
"Two to three situations like this develop over the course of a regular academic year,'' Fritz said. "So far we've got a 100 per cent success rate from the point of view that we've never had an escalation in conflict or violence since we've intervened.''
While campus security guards across the country often work in co-operation with local police departments, most agree arming themselves and installing metal detectors aren't viable options.
"Our approach to safety is not like the approach of an airport, because we have to keep an open environment,'' said Steiner, who added that universities are one of the few places where people are encouraged to freely explore ideas.
"If you start to put metal detectors in front of every door, you lose that and it's not a university anymore.''
While most universities appear to have emergency protocols in place which they periodically review, Roger Drinkall of Newfoundland's Memorial University student union suggests those protocols aren't always properly conveyed to students in advance.
Though he doesn't advocate a throwback to the days of the nuclear arms race when bomb drills were commonplace, he says there is an argument to be made for posting those protocols where everyone can see them.
Andre Brazeau of the University of Ottawa Student Federation said students generally feel safe at school.
He said a crisis response unit that comprises both staff and student leaders was created a year ago to address emergency situations, and that training began last week.
"It was adopted in light of these types of incidents,'' Brazeau said. "It's actually nice to be able to say that they've done this, because clearly it's something that's needed.''
Officials at Dawson College in Montreal said the school had nothing special planned to mark the sad occasion that comes just eight months after gunman Kimveer Gill opened fire on campus, killing one student and injuring 19 others.
"We listened to our students, who basically said they did not want anything that would make today different,'' college spokeswoman Donna Varrica said.
"They've been very vocal in their desire to return to normal.''
The shooting also sparked renewed calls from government officials to beef up campus security.
In Ontario, the government vowed to contact all the province's post-secondary institutions to discuss security, just as it did following the Dawson College incident.
"I wouldn't say for a moment that there is any magic solution to the horrible, horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech,'' Ontario Colleges and Universities Minister Chris Bentley said.
"It does encourage us all to take another look to make sure the institutions are doing everything (and) that collectively we're all doing everything that can be done.''
Premier Dalton McGuinty called the shooting rampage a "horrific tragedy'' and added that Ontario isn't "immune'' to a similar rampage.
Alberta's top cop said there are no plans to allow campus security officers to carry guns in the province.
Solicitor General Fred Lindsay said arming security guards would require extensive firearms training and certification.
Lindsay said police in Alberta have a strong working relationship with post-secondary facilities to ensure a safe environment.
