Concerns about safety and security linger in the background of Cancun, Mexico, the sunny tourist destination where delegates will convene next week for the UN summit on climate change.
The 12-day conference kicks off Monday, when worldwide delegates will talk about climate financial aid, deforestation and other issues in order to lay the groundwork for an umbrella climate deal down the road.
Canada will send its chief negotiator and ambassador for climate change, Guy Saint-Jacques, for the full length of the summit which will be held in Cancun's Moon Palace Hotel and the nearby Cancunmesse conference centre. It is expected that Environment Minister John Baird will attend the high-level talks that will take place at the end.
Environment Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson told CTV.ca that Canada will send a group of additional delegates to Cancun to provide support for Baird and Saint-Jacques, who will "remain the chief spokespeople" for Ottawa.
But before Baird touches ground in Cancun, the RCMP will have completed a threat assessment of the summit and its surroundings.
It's a standard procedure for when ministers travel abroad, but Toronto-based terror expert Alan Bell said it is especially important in a country where "crime is outpacing the government's ability to react and respond to it."
While Cancun has been mostly immune to the drug cartel violence that has sullied Mexico's inviting image in recent years, it has still been stung by being part of a country where more than 28,000 people have been slain since 2006.
Because despite drawing more than 500,000 Canadians to its beaches in the first-half of this year, Cancun and its surrounding areas have had their share of bad press in 2010.
The recent explosion at a hotel in Playa del Carmen that killed five Canadians, allegations that a former Cancun mayor helped protect two drug cartels, and the summertime discovery of 12 torture-and-murder victims found in graves on the outskirts of Cancun are just three examples of recent troubles in the Yucatan Peninsula.
And only a week before the Cancun summit, news reports suggested Mexican police had arrested kidnappers with plans of the hotel where the conference was taking place.
The Mexican government later said these reports were untrue, but the insinuation of Cancun violence was enough for news agencies to run with the story.
Keeping tabs on threats
In Ottawa, the RCMP's protective services division will be keenly aware of such reports and will be in close contact with Mexican authorities about potential threats in Cancun.
In a telephone interview, RCMP Const. Lucy Shorey told CTV.ca that the national police force could not offer comment on security measures provided to Baird and other ministers who travel abroad.
But Shorey did say that the RCMP liaise with local police and that the security measures they implement "are intelligence-led and commensurate with the threat assessments."
Bell said that delegates attending the Cancun summit are potential targets for extremists and the "narco-terrorists" who have been responsible for so much of the violence in Mexico.
Aside from these domestic security concerns, Bell said Mexican authorities will also have to pay close attention to the protesters who will try to make a statement at the summit.
Bell said these summits "always attract the wrong type of people," and he said they often appear in large numbers.
Pointing to the type of mass disobedience that occurred at the recent G20 summit in Toronto, Bell wondered how Mexico would handle such a threat.
On the Cancun summit website, a preliminary budget shows that the government intends to spend about 30 million pesos (US$2.4 million) on security at the summit. A request for details on the security services being provided at the summit was not immediately returned by a spokesperson for the Mexican government.
While some delegates will be staying at the hotel where the summit is taking place, others will be bused in every day from hotels in Cancun and nearby Riviera Maya.
With files from The Associated Press
