TORONTO - The Ontario legislature is introducing airport-style security next year, as it becomes one of the last provinces to start making all visitors pass through metal detectors.
Currently, visitors to Queen's Park can enter through several doors, staffed by legislative security officers, and must present a government-issued I-D.
Visitors only have to go through a metal detector and have their bags scanned to get into the public galleries of the chamber, to watch question period, for example.
That will change around this time next year.
A visitor screening centre is being built and all visitors to the building will have to pass through that one entrance, with metal detectors and X-ray scanners for bags.
Most other provincial legislatures already require visitors to pass through a metal detector to enter the building, with only a couple requiring it just for entry to public galleries of the chamber.
Under Premier Doug Ford, the legislature has seen an increase in incidents of people protesting from the public galleries while the house is sitting, but the sergeant-at-arms says that isn't really a factor in the security upgrades.