But Will Boucanier was no idle visitor and he wasn’t there to see the wonders of nature, the docility of tourists, or the marvels of technology. He was there to recce the complex and get a first-hand look at the control room, generating units, and the other underground works that produced the energy without which southern cities would die. Of course he already had a complete description of the system, and maps and sketches of all the facilities, collected and confirmed by native workers on the site. The NPA planning team at Akwesasne had used the very open Hydro-Québec website to locate critical features in the system, the mechanisms and structures whose destruction would bring the whole complex to a standstill. But websites can be wrong – sometimes deliberately so – or outdated, and sometimes even accurate diagrams fail to bring out important features of a target that are immediately obvious once you’re actually looking at it. Soldiers will launch attacks based on maps if they must, but if the enemy leaves all the doors open, then they’d rather take a look for themselves. So Will had come to see his target at the invitation of Hydro-Québec and walked right on in.
The La Grande complex was, in military parlance, a soft target. It wasn’t hard for the planners to figure out how to cripple these critical sites, or even how to gain control of them, because the project had been built and maintained since its inception without much regard for even low-level security. The plentiful information Hydro-Québec made available to the world on its website didn’t conceal careful layers of security; the whole thing was as wide-open as it looked. The main problem for NPA planners was to conduct the reconnaissance, develop the operation, train the assault team, and assemble the resources and people for the raid without alerting the government.
With inexperienced leaders and followers, operational security is a major problem, even with a straightforward battle plan. In fact, the whole thing had almost unravelled twice in the spring of 2008. First, a patrol leader training his people to use explosives decided to try out some of their stolen dynamite on a Hydro pylon south of Radisson. They succeeded in damaging the transmission tower and line, but as a predictable result caused a wide-scale alarm that brought the Sûreté du Québec – the SQ, as the provincial police were commonly known – and the RCMP into action. Fortunately, the investigators couldn’t find any links to anyone and the government was happy to dismiss the attack as “some pranksters playing with stolen explosives.” The RCMP suspected more and continued their undercover investigation, but the politicians didn’t want to hear about it and there were no harmful consequences for the Movement, although the patrol leader in question suffered a tragically fatal boating accident three weeks later.
The second incident involved a group of CBC journalists who simply strolled into the Radisson installation without being stopped by guards, and then highlighted the problem for several nights on TV news. Premier Commeau asked both Hydro-Québec and the provincial police to investigate the matter only after the CBC’s French language network aired its investigative report. That prime-time news event showed journalists entering several power installations – including walking right up to the command centre at the site, and driving unchallenged in an unmarked van into another part of the site that provides power to millions of people in Quebec and the United States.
“We have asked Hydro-Québec to give us reports on the state of security and asked the Sûreté du Québec to do an independent evaluation, so we have a solid picture of what the security situation is,” the premier said in a news conference.
The utility company’s chief executive officer said guards in fact had the news crew under video surveillance at all times, but admitted to serious security shortcomings. He admitted also that Hydro-Québec had promised to increase security at its sites after the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001 but had not in fact done anything.
“In this case, it was just journalists,” he said. “It is not acceptable … If it was a terrorist, obviously, it would not be acceptable. And therefore, what we have to make sure here is that intrusions like these can never happen again.”
As managers of power grids in Ontario and several U.S. states expressed their concern, the federal public safety minister faced criticism in Parliament over the security breaches. She told Parliament that it was a matter for the company and the province to resolve.
Later, Premier Commeau responded saying, “The federal public safety minister is mistaken. The federal government has to provide more security funding for Quebec … something that they have failed to do since 9/11.”
Fortunately for the Movement, the federal and Quebec governments continued to squabble over responsibilities and money, and did nothing after this intrusion. Hydro-Québec closed all tours of its facilities across the province for two weeks while it “reviewed” its security arrangements at James Bay. The review resulted only in an insignificant increase in unarmed guards near the control room and the installation of a few security cameras and alarms to provide a better view, but no better way to respond to a more serious incident. The changes were typically enough to keep honest people out of the facilities but no real inconvenience to Will and his comrades.
The tour proved to Will that the facility and its security arrangements were almost exactly what the NPA had believed, and that it was safe to proceed with the plan. Later that day, he walked around town to place in his mind the vital points that in the coming days would be the lead subject of every news broadcast across Canada. The walk didn’t take long: down the street from the hotel past the three radio stations to the post office, then across to the police station, taking particular notice of the location and layout of the police car park, around to the town offices, and then back to the hotel.
He rented a pickup for tomorrow’s recce outside town and the meetings with patrol leaders along the road south from Radisson. So far, everything checked out. Everything on the ground matched everything on the maps and the website, and there weren’t any unpleasant surprises after Will had seen things for real. He was almost ready.
DAY THREE
Tuesday, August 31
Tuesday, August 31, 0530 hours
Radisson, on the La Grande Rivière
Will woke early, as always. He checked his e-mail messages, sent to him through a clandestine address – an “electronic letter drop” that allowed for contact between Will and the NPA. It was used to pass low-grade security information, but even so, the computer was never out of his sight. “Hot messages” went by cellphone, which were sometimes used only once. The plan required that Will be noticed by the police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the electronic Communications Security Establishment. But if the decoy was to succeed, the authorities would have to work for their information, and Will’s e-mail connections, multiple cellphones, and odd movements around Radisson were part of that lure.
He headed downstairs for his usual spartan breakfast of porridge, brown bread, and black coffee. Afterwards, Will loaded his pickup and drove out of town at 0624, exactly at sunrise, for another look at the approaches to the generating facilities. Part way there, he turned off the main road for a thorough check of an unassuming little cross-country dirt trail that in a few days, by his estimation of the Council’s plans, would be central to his assault plan, and his secret reaction plan if things went off the rails during the La Grande operation. Satisfied that his recce had given him a complete feel for the ground, Will swung the truck around and headed out of town south on Highway 109 towards Matagami.
It was time to check the Movement’s Radisson-Montreal operation, organizationally independent of the Robert-Bourassa scheme but an integral part of the James Bay campaign as a whole. Will drove south in the low early morning sunlight to meet the leaders who would put the highway part of the grand plan into action.
The basic idea was to lure “reaction forces” towards the James Bay complex, then trap them on the highway so