OTTAWA—At least two separate proposals urging big changes to Parliament Hill security were prepared and shelved more than a year before the Oct. 22 attack on Parliament Hill, the Star has learned.

At the request of former public safety minister Vic Toews, the RCMP worked on a proposal for a single security force — more than simply a unified service of the two separate security guard services now responsible for safety inside the Commons and Senate sides of the Parliament buildings.

The idea of a single force is akin to the U.S. Capitol Police, a federal law enforcement agency that protects the American Congress. Some advocates believe such a force would offer both cost savings and tighter security. There does not, however, appear to be any appetite internally or externally for that force to be the Mounties.

But for reasons that are not clear, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Star on condition they not be named, the proposal did not advance and was rejected in 2013 after Toews was replaced by Steven Blaney, the current minister.

Now a working advisory group of senior Commons and Senate members struck after the Oct. 22 attack is working feverishly to come up with recommendations for overhauling security on the Hill — with one eye on exactly that: a single force that could look more like the one that patrols Capitol Hill in Washington. Indeed, it will be travelling to take a look at the Washington agency to study the American model.

The joint working group, co-chaired by Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer and Conservative Senator Vern White, expects to report by mid-spring on a plan to reinforce physical safety at the nation’s legislature, whether the outside review by the Ontario Provincial Police of the security response to the Oct. 22 attacker has been completed or not. It is clearly prepared to recommend other major changes.

The Star has learned those include:

Pushing the physical screening of public visitors well out onto the exterior of the parliamentary lawn and away from Centre Block;

The closure of two public points of access onto the Hill leaving just three main entrances where gate checks could be conducted;

Mandatory firearms training for all guards.

The security services will start looking more like one force, with new navy uniforms being discussed for all. In addition, the two services will be expected to have the same recruiting, hiring, training and education standards.

Two sources said the Conservative government was considering a dramatic suggestion to turn Wellington Street in front of the Parliament Buildings into a pedestrian mall and re-route traffic, such as the U.S. Administration did in 1995 with Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue, the boulevard that crosses directly in front of the White House.

But several other government and security sources said that while that may create a greater buffer zone, it is not an option on the table, or they were unaware whether it was indeed under consideration.

Sources say that a small group of senators drafted a response to the federal auditor general’s report of June 2012, which agreed with the audit and urged the two parliamentary services be unified under a single point of command. However, it appears it foundered long ago over disputes about whether the Commons and Senate authorities would have equal say in its management.

On the Commons side, sources insist much of the work to unify the forces — now underway — was begun under Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers before gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau stormed the Hill, and that resistance to some of the advances has come from the Senate side. (Vickers, named last week as Canada’s ambassador to Ireland, was the security officer who shot Zehaf-Bibeau in a volley of gunfire.)

Since Zehaf-Bibeau’s murder of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial and the attack at Centre Block on Oct. 22, that effort has been sped up.

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White — the co-chair of the working group and a former senior RCMP officer and past police chief at Durham and Ottawa police agencies — acknowledged in an interview that discussions are exploring how a “unified” force should work. He said it is also vital to “harden” the public access points to Parliament to be able to engage and stop any potential terrorists while still allowing people to come and go.

“There’s no way we should have ever been searching people under the Peace Tower, it’s ridiculous,” said White. An expanded secure perimeter would give security officers a chance against armed attackers, he said. “Kill them at the gate, kill them on the lawn or kill them outside the building. You should never have to kill them inside, that’s the way it should work.”

It is not clear what options the Conservative government — which has favoured a tighter security around Prime Minister Stephen Harper inside the Commons for years — prefers.

Blaney’s office did not directly address the Star’s questions about any proposal of a single force prepared by the RCMP or why it was shelved, or other specific measures under consideration.

On Tuesday, Blaney’s spokesperson Jean-Christophe DeLeRue, echoed Blaney’s earlier public comments.

“Until now, security on Parliament Hill has been the responsibility of the speakers of the House and Senate. The silos we have today are unacceptable. Security inside Parliament must be integrated with outside security forces,” he said in an emailed reply to the Star. He also said that since 2009, the Conservative government has “increased the budget for the RCMP’s presence on Parliament Hill by more than $16 million — allowing the RCMP to double its presence on the Hill.”