OTTAWA–RCMP officers who guard Parliament Hill are being equipped with submachine guns to give them more stopping power should a gunman attack the heart of Canada's government.

Security, which has already been significantly beefed up after a high-profile breach last December, will get another boost in the coming months when Mounties patrolling the Hill get the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine-gun.

While officers will still rely on their semi-automatic 9-mm pistols as their main weapon, they'll also have access to the small but effective machine guns, which will be carried as a "secondary weapon" in their cruisers.

The new weapons are meant to better engage an "active shooter," said assistant commissioner Pat McDonell, who heads the RCMP's protective policing unit, which includes the Mounties who patrol Parliament Hill.

He said all members of his team in the Ottawa area, including the officers who keep watch over foreign embassies, will be getting the weapon, noted for its rapid, accurate fire.

"Protective operation members are trained to respond and react immediately to active shooter type situations and the use of the MP5 should level the tactical playing field for our members," McDonell said.

For the RCMP, it's back to the future; officers once carried MP5s until the force replaced their .38-calibre revolvers with 9-mm pistols in the mid-1990s.

At the time it was thought the MP5s were no longer needed because the 9-mm gun was a "better tactical weapon" than the revolver it was replacing.

But the MP5s are being taken out of storage and officers given a refresher course on their handling after concerns that the police required some extra firepower.

"You need something with more accuracy and range," McDonell said. "It's a more effective weapon and you'll have a lot more rounds."

Senator Colin Kenny, former chair of the Senate defence and security committee, said the extra firepower makes sense in a scenario where "someone is on a rampage."

"Bluntly put, it is hard as hell to hit someone with a handgun," Kenny said.

But Kenny cautioned that protecting Parliament Hill will take more than just new firearms.

"The problems they face are much deeper than what sort of weapons they take ... they don't have enough people and they don't have enough dough," Kenny said in an interview.

The RCMP have noticeably stepped up security on Parliament Hill since a daylight protest last December by Greenpeace activists, who used climbing gear and a ladder to reach the rooftops of the Centre and West Blocks, where they unfurled banners taking aim at Ottawa's climate change stance.

The RCMP determined the protesters, wearing construction hard hats and coveralls, had reached the roof of West Block by scaling scaffolding at the rear of the building.

Since then, the force has added more officers and patrols on Parliament Hill. That extra presence is paying off – last week officers twice stopped protesters caught sneaking around the rear of West Block carrying banners.

But Kenny noted that security screening of Parliament Hill tourists is done in the basement of Centre Block. So by the time a would-be bomber gets screened, he or she is already in the building they are trying to attack.

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"You can't realistically expect to search people's backpack or briefcase underneath the Peace Tower. It makes no sense," he said.

He envisages a new visitor centre built beneath the expansive lawn of Parliament Hill with security screening and a theatre where visitors should pass the time before their tour.

"You could have the searching take place in an area that was designed for it and some distance from the building itself," he said.

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