Article content continued

The morning after he won the election, Trudeau strolled through a Montreal subway station, where he was mobbed by well-wishers. Later that day, he was swarmed as he walked from Parliament Hill to a news conference across the street.

“He will be the type of person who will decide to go for a walk and shake hands with the general public,” says Dan Boehner, a private security adviser during Trudeau’s election campaign.

Security “can work around that. There’s things you do in advance … to have some control” depending on the environment, says Boehner, the former officer-in-charge of the RCMP’s Prime Minister Protection Detail (PMPD), for prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.

“If it’s unannounced and he’s just meeting the general population … when it’s time to stop, is he wise enough? I think he is. (He knows he) can only go so far with it.

“He’s not a stupid man … He’s a married man with children and very close to his family.”

When a leader makes an unannounced detour in his movements to greet people or visit a site, odds are there’s no one threatening – or armed – in the vicinity, says Boehner. “If you’re not in a society where everyone’s carrying a gun, what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? They might become insulting, they might try to approach. But really, is there a threat there?”

On the other hand, planned and announced events, especially in public, can attract potential threats.

If the RCMP threat assessment for an event points to potential trouble, “that’s a different situation where a leader has to take the advice of the security officer,” says Boehner. “I used to tell (frontline) people, ‘you’ve got to be ready to put your job on the line’ to get the leader to understand the situation.