When seven of the world’s most prominent leaders meet in La Malbaie, Que. June 8-9 for the 44th G7 Summit, part of the security force used to secure their safety will have a Williams Lake connection.
In March, Spectra Power Sports (SPS) secured a contract to supply 20 UTV security vehicles — Polaris Ranger crew cabs — for use by the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) at the summit.
“It’s just cool to be included in this — the G7 Summit rarely happens in Canada,” SPS owner Heino Seibert said of their latest interesting contract.
“We’ve now done the Olympics and 100 vehicles supplied, and this. You can’t really get bigger than that.”
Seibert said the vehicles were slated to be delivered Tuesday, May 22 when G7 officials would begin all their pre-event security work.
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SPS general manager Scott Fraser has been busy working on the project for the past three months, and said the national agreement to supply the vehicles was secured based on work the business has done nationally with the RCMP, and during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
“I think they are looking for who has the right product, at the right price, and you have to be able to deliver and, historically, we’ve always delivered on our proposals,” Seibert said.
“The biggest we’ve ever done was the Olympics, but this one’s right up there as far as difficulty level because of the logistics of it.”
To fulfill the order, SPS has pulled product from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
SPS is working closely with Polaris Industries as well as Groupe Aktion Performance in Quebec owner Pascal Bergeron to ensure everything runs smoothly.
“The cool part has been all the collaboration,” Seibert said. “Negotiations with the manufacturer, collaborating with the trucking companies to get that done timely, and collaborating in Quebec to have them dropped off and delivered at the site and making sure everything goes like clockwork.”
Once activated, the security vehicles will be used for “patrolling questionable terrain and transporting security personnel around to be a responsive, transitional, mobile unit.”
World leaders attending the G7 Summit are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Emmanuel Macron (France), Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany), Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni (Italy), Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Japan), Prime Minister Theresa May (United Kingdom), President Donald Trump (U.S.), Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (European Union) and Council President Donald Tusk (European Union).
“This is just something we’ve done here not many people know about,” Seibert said. “We’ve been dealing with the RCMP and Department of National Defence for the past 10 years.”
