Transport Committee on May 6th, 2010

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay.

One other question I have for you, then, is in relation to the security checkpoints. Obviously you see it every time you go through the airport: there are always people who inadvertently have packed something, whether it be nail clippers or whatever it might be. I had it happen to me one time. I had received a gift, some stationery for my birthday, and I was taking it either from here to Alberta or from Alberta to here, I forget which. Regardless, I was taking it, and inadvertently there was a letter opener in there. It totally slipped my mind. I didn't even think of it. And so I had that confiscated. You see it all the time.

Obviously there has to be millions of dollars in products that are confiscated at the airport every year at the security checkpoints. I'd be curious about your suggestions or ideas on what might be able to be done to improve that. There must be some alternative. It seems like it's a pretty wasteful way of dealing with that.

Are there any alternatives you would suggest in terms of that?

[Laura Logan]

CATSA does have a program in place. It's not highly publicized, but just before the entry of these screening points—I'm not sure if it's everywhere, but I've definitely seen it in Toronto—if you have an item that is inappropriate for travelling but you want to maintain ownership of it, they have little mail envelopes and you can essentially mail it back yourself and get it home safely that way. We do encourage people to make use of those types of programs.

There are some jurisdictions where they have programs where you can put something aside and then pick it up later when you come back. I don't think that is really viable with the volumes that we have going through in Canada. If you have a very small airport then that might be a possibility, but certainly for major airports that doesn't work.

It's probably continued education and awareness, and giving people an opportunity to say they had an “oops” moment and letting them mail it to themselves or get it back home so they can keep track of it.

The problem is with the items that are not going to go well in the mail, such as liquids.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Ms. Crombie.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.

I want to let you know that I too worked for Air Canada. It helped me pay my way through my undergrad, as a matter of fact.

On Tuesday I expressed some frustration at being the lucky winner of the frequent flyer random screening program. I wanted you to talk about that, if you could.

You seem to be advocating more heavily for the behavioural screening, but also I think the approach the government has taken, or will be taking, I think, in the future, is a layered approach: partial behavioural, leading into some of the technical, the body scanners, etc. Do you want to make a comment on whether you think the body scanners are a good use of money, and give your opinion of the layered approach?

[Laura Logan]

We fully support the layered approach. All security measures consist of layers. Some are known to the public, some are not. That's why the actual details of the security measures are distributed to the airlines in confidential documents, because there's a lot that we do behind the scenes. So layers provide a structure where it can be at the same time less invasive, because each layer doesn't have to be quite as obtrusive, yet when you put them all together you have a better system. So we fully support that direction.

We do believe that body scanners provide an improvement on the level of security provided, certainly over walk-through metal detectors. There are threat items that will be detected by the body scanner that would not be detected by the walk-through metal detector.

But as we've said, we would like the government to layer their program such that we are able to triage passengers so that the ones who are going through the more intense screening are the ones who have indicated a higher risk for some reason, or supplement it with a small portion of random as opposed to the larger reliance on random that we have at this point.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'll give you an opportunity to comment, but it seems like such a no-brainer to go to the behavioural screening. Why haven't we been using it until now? As you indicated, we certainly gather a lot of intelligence about people even before they reach the counter. Somehow is that not assembled and reaching the critical checkpoints? Why haven't we been using it until now?

[Lorne Mackenzie]

Part of the reason is that in Canada we tend to be more conservative, and there's a sensitivity to the behavioural--

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Some of us are Liberal.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[Lorne Mackenzie]

So I'd say it's evolving, and we're moving in that direction, but it leads to your point about the prohibited items. There's a trend away from bad items toward bad people. We're looking less about the nail clippers and more about the behavioural piece and saying that maybe there's some demonstrated behaviours that suggest a person might be a higher risk than a lower risk.

To go back to your point about the frequent traveller secondary screening, I witnessed a similar experience on the way in, where an elderly gentleman was going through a double secondary with two pat-downs and two walk-throughs. What we're seeing here is an inefficient application of resources. It should be less on a person such as you, who are frequent travellers known to the carrier, known to the industry, versus somebody who is unknown and not a frequent traveller.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Why hadn't we adopted that approach until now?

[Lorne Mackenzie]

I honestly believe it's evolutionary. Keep in mind, 9/11 changed the industry forever. This recent event in December changed the industry forever. The environment we operated in 10 years ago is so different from today, we're essentially evolving to catch up to the new world that we're living in today.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

So how would that work? Perhaps you could explain it to us. We get to the counter, we're frequent flyers, presumably we do the same routes every week, and other individuals on business travel presumably have the same routes or similar routes every week. Would there be a little check mark somewhere on their boarding card so that when they present it to the screening authorities, they're known frequent flyers, safe travellers, less of a risk, and they wouldn't go through the secondary pat-downs? Is that how that would work?

[Lorne Mackenzie]

The NEXUS card would be a good example of that. You show your card, you go through biometrics, you're known. The opposite, particularly for the U.S., is that you're a “quad S” on the boarding pass, where you're identified as somebody who requires something additional. So that will expand to make it more streamlined for the majority of travellers.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Some people feel the NEXUS card is very invasive into their personal lives--you reveal much personal information that stays with authorities for long periods of time--and so are reluctant or resistant to going with a NEXUS card. I guess it's the next step for all of us frequent flyers, to obtain a NEXUS card.

[Lorne Mackenzie]

I think the principle there is that if you're willing to, quote, “sacrifice” that information to the service provider, in return for that you get expedited screening or expedited services through screening. It's not to suggest that you're going to get a reduction in secondary, etc., but the theory is that if you're willing to provide that information, in return you're going to get an expedited program.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I wanted to ask a question as well about the contracting out of the scanning and screening. Ms. Logan mentioned it in her presentation. These firms are always contracted-out; they're third-party firms.

Is that the same way it's done internationally--for example, in the U.S.--and is this the approach you recommend?

[Laura Logan]

In the U.S., all the screeners are TSA employees. It does a couple of things. It allows them to be more flexible in moving people around from area to area if they need to search, because it's one workforce. It also provides a career path for those screeners to see themselves moving somewhere else, which is one of the issues that we see with the CATSA model: these people are brought in through entry-level positions and essentially do not have a career progression within their company. That's it and that's all. They can get to be a point leader at the screening point, but that's as far as they can go. With the TSA model, you are in the TSA, and it does provide further progression.

On the international front, there's a combination. Some of the services are contracted out and some of them are employees. I'm not aware of another that is entirely contracted out.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Do you feel they receive the same sort of training here in Canada, given that they're third-party contractors, as they would in the U.S. as TSA employees?

[Laura Logan]

Yes, from a training perspective we see it as being equivalent.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

It's equivalent; it's just sort of a lack of commitment. I wonder about the ability to staff for those peak periods. For instance, there's always the 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. Monday mornings and back at about five o'clock, six o'clock Fridays. Are they given the same ability and flexibility to staff at those peak periods?

[Laura Logan]

I believe they are. The TSA may have more flexibility in their ability to move people from one area to another in a time of need. If there was an incident in one area of the country, they could reassign people from one to the other. With CATSA, if they have one security provider in one airport and a different provider in another airport, they can't move them between because of the contract.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Monsieur Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Ms. Logan, I would like to continue to talk about this, because it is important that we understand your message. Certainly, I want to be sure I understand it. We are talking about the user pay system and the fact that CATSA deals with sub-contractors. That means that there is a lot of pressure to consistently select the one who charges the least. That is also the case for the industry, which does not want to pay. It is a spiral where everyone is seeking to pay as little as possible. Unfortunately, security costs money. If you compare the Canadian system—which aims for the lowest possible cost and relies on the user pay principle—to other systems used around the world, you can only conclude that Canada's case is quite exceptional.

[Laura Logan]

I believe the charges passed on to our passengers are the highest in the world. That is really a problem for our passengers, because it is an additional cost for them. That has an effect on tourism in Canada, because it is becoming more and more expensive to come here, to travel in Canada and see the country. It is an additional cost. The difference between $5 and $28 is not huge; we're talking about $23. However, if a family of four wants to take a number of flights, the cost starts to go up pretty quickly. I believe this whole cost structure has an impact on passengers, tourism and industry in Canada.