Torontonians asked if they want metal detectors at city hall

The City of Toronto wants to know how people feel about the prospect of having to walk through metal detectors to enter city hall.

The online questionnaire that closes April 10, however, is itself being questioned by some who say the wording appears aimed at eliciting support for the controversial security proposal.

“The specific questions are in my view heavily biased toward a particular outcome,” Councillor Gord Perks said in an interview Monday. “Saying ‘The police should do this, what do you think?’, without offering any other points of view or evidence, really does a disservice to providing council and the public with a good sense of where public opinion lies here.”

Perks also noted people can respond anonymously. In a multiple-question format, the survey asks how long respondents have lived in Toronto, their postal code and family income, without a request for proof or any apparent way to stop a person from registering the same opinion multiple times.

Last November city councillors received a city staff report endorsing new security provisions for city hall amid international terror attacks including the 2014 fatal attack on Parliament Hill.