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Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says he has “great confidence” in government security measures in Ottawa despite the discovery of building blueprints for a new Canadian Forces counter-terrorism unit in a pile of garbage in the capital.

Mr. Day was asked Thursday about the 26 blueprints, which were found March 13 by an Ottawa couple in a pile of garbage on Bank Street.

The documents, stamped with Department of National Defence markings, show a floor plan for the new home of the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit at CFB Trenton, Ont., and include sensitive details such as the location of security fencing, the electrical grid scheme and details about the sewer system. It's unclear if the schematics are a proposal that was rejected by the department.

“This is very early on ... the information is just coming to light,” Mr. Day said Thursday morning during an unrelated press conference.

“We have a very secure parliamentary precinct,” he said. “We continually analyze the levels of security and test those and make sure those are more than adequate. I have great confidence in not only the buildings and the precinct and the areas, not just here, but around the city, that are dedicated to dealing with crime, dealing with terrorism.

“We'll wait for the actual report in terms of what exactly these documents are and were and make determinations if there needs to be more things put in place.”

Morning phone calls to the Department of National Defence for a response were returned after 8 p.m. ET Thursday with a terse, unsigned e-mail: "We've launched an investigation into this matter. That investigation is ongoing," it read.

One military analyst said he's been told it wasn't considered a security breach because the plans were part of an engineering firm's failed effort to win a deal to build the facility.

“After they didn't get it, I assume they just threw the plans in the garbage,” said Alain Pellerin of the Conference of Defence Associations.

Essentially, he said, the blueprints were a draft plan for a building that won't be built.

Anthony Salloum, an analyst with the left-leaning Rideau Institute, said he was out looking for a restaurant in the Glebe area of Ottawa when his spouse spotted a garbage bag pinched on either end with eight or nine large rolls of schematics.

The documents were clearly identified as belonging to the defence department, he told CBC news.

Mr. Salloum said he hopes the blueprints are from bids or proposals that were rejected by the defence department, but noted it's still a serious matter.

“There were clearly delineated structures of existing facilities and existing layouts at Trenton. So that is an important point,” he said.

“You've got a military base. They should not be in the garbage or anywhere for public consumption.”

The Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit is a special operations unit, the military's first response team in the event of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological attacks.

According to its website, the unit is a “high-readiness, agile and robust special operations unit” drawn from all parts of the Canadian Forces.

With a report from Canadian Press