Public Safety Committee on June 14th, 2007

[Allan Kagedan]

On that side of it, the concern is valid. Once a name is out there and so on.... Again, what we are doing is this.

The naming of an individual is subject to review at least every 30 days. What if someone's name has been on there? What happens to that? The air carriers will be advised that.... The new list will come out, as it were. The name will no longer be there. They will still be under obligation--permanently--to protect any information that they ever received on that list. If they or anyone else breaches that, there will be implications for those parties who breach it. That's how you deal with it. If a name is removed, it is removed. If someone else moves forward with it, then that is in breach of those regulations.

If that individual is being sought by Interpol or others, that's out of our hands, but in terms of any information that we produce that we provide to anyone, there's a permanent requirement to protect that information. It doesn't just leave you after a few months. That's how reconsideration works.

[Linda Savoie]

I'd like to clarify one point you made.

When you are denied boarding, this is not a big black hole process afterwards. You're given the coordinates of my office and you will be speaking directly with someone who will help you make your application. We're going to be transparent about how we're proceeding, about who's handling your file, etc., so there's not that big black hole for individuals who've been denied boarding. There is a person they will speak to.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

There's only one office, though; there's only one location in Canada, right?

[Linda Savoie]

That's correct.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Nobody can ever come to visit you, or--

[Linda Savoie]

Yes, they could. My advisers are going to be able to travel to the various places in the country, if need be.

We already do it. We already have the ability to do it for our marine side, because as I mentioned last week, my office is responsible for other aspects as well. We will be locating advisers in Halifax, Vancouver, etc. Depending on who's handling the passenger protect review, they might not be in Ottawa.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I know that I'm not going to get another round, so I probably would want you back next September, when we're here, to see how the summer has gone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Norlock is next, please.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

It's not hard to tell there's a very significant divergence of opinion here today. Some of it, I suspect, is what I would call a philosophical view of this type of arrangement; some perhaps...and I don't like to use the words “tainted” and “politics” together, so I'll refrain from saying that.

But one of the statements made was that someone could just say they were a terrorist and wanted a boarding pass. That would be like somebody walking down the main street of any city, town, or village saying they were going to rob a bank and then expect nothing to happen.There will be consequences to ridiculous statements.

I think we've probably highlighted some of the perceived inadequacies of those types of response to what is a worldwide problem. And of course we know that smart people—the people who really want to do us harm—will use every means possible to get around any kind of safety net we may have in our society. I was very happy to hear you articulate the fact that this is just one of several layers of security that are designed to take away the angst from the travelling public, specifically Canadians, when they want to travel by plane, because it's much more convenient in a large country like ours. I have family in British Columbia, and because of my current job I don't have a lot of time to visit them, so I can't drive or take the train. I'll take an aircraft. I think most Canadians would want to know that everything reasonably convenient is being done to provide safety.

This is leading me to a question, and the question is, has your department looked at other nations' programs to see if they have programs like this, or what in addition we can do? Have you looked at best practices worldwide? Who has the best aviation security, and how would or wouldn't things work here, given Canadian society, because of our laws? Have we done that?

[Allan Kagedan]

Certainly, as a matter of course, in the absence of the statistical studies that everyone would love to have. But with security and statistics, there's a challenge there, because you're trying to prevent something, so if you succeed you don't have any record of it. There might be certain cases where you do, but those are rare.

Certainly you look at other countries and how they do their own security, so Canada is involved in the G8. The G8, as one of its many actions, does have a group called the Roma/Lyons group: Roma relating to anti-terrorism, Lyons to the headquarters of Interpol. Canada is involved in that, and I am involved in that group, looking at best practices across the G8 countries.

We're involved in APEC. APEC—Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation—has a great interest in security. They have a great interest in aviation security, and I will be participating in the work of that group as well. A lot of work goes on with the Organization of American States as well.

In terms of lessons learned, we're looking at a watch list type of process. I'm aware that Australia and New Zealand are in a unique situation because they've linked visa issuance to a watch list. We in Canada also link these issuances to watch list types of criteria and so on. So you try to get as much advantage out of all those experiences as you can, then take that and apply it more directly to aviation.

In the case of Australia and New Zealand, since you have to fly to get there, they are applying a border control watch list type of situation to aviation. As I understand it, it's a fairly efficient system. Certainly the U.S. also has a system, and we're much more aware of that, we hear a lot about it. It gets a lot of media. So we're certainly aware of those experiences and learn from them.

But in all cases there's international study and awareness, certainly in terms of some Canadian initiatives and things we're doing--particularly, I would like to think, when it comes to achieving that very difficult balance between efficiency, security, and the protection of privacy. Perhaps there are a few things we have to share with other countries who are concerned about security, but we want to do it in a way that also protects privacy and reduces inconvenience to passengers.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

When the system was being designed, did you run it by, let's say, our international partners to see how they felt? Did it make them feel that a Canadian aircraft flying into their airspace or landing at their airports, when they're picking up their citizens...? Did you do that, to sort of say, we want you to be assured when you get on a Canadian aircraft that your safety concerns are being taken care of in this respect?

[Allan Kagedan]

Absolutely. There were extensive and in-depth discussions with other countries about this program. Each one, in its own way, is looking at their own programs with regard to the use of passenger information for aviation security. So there has been a lot of discussion, and as I say, we look at certain things they do and we say, well, maybe we should think of that for ourselves. It is a back and forth, and there's a great amount of interest internationally in this sort of program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Your time is up. There will be one more opportunity here, I think.

We're going to go to abbreviated rounds here.

Mr. Cullen.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to share with Mr. Chan, so I'll be very brief.

My whole point is that in the absence of our own list, airlines will use other lists. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get any answers, and I think in the fall maybe we should bring in the airlines and IATA, groups like that.

I know from personal experience--not that I was personally affected myself--that the U.S. no-fly list is flawed, or was flawed. If we have a tight Canadian list, then it might be better. But I haven't been able to get any reassurance.

I'd like to build on Ms. Barnes' point. We're saying that you cannot call up your office to say, “Look, my name is so and so. Here's my date of birth. I'd like to know if I'm on the list or not”, but if I have computer access, I can go and see if I can get a boarding pass, and I'll know then. If I can get a boarding pass, I'm not on the list.

That doesn't make any sense. On the one hand you're saying, “We can't really tell you if you're on the list or not”, but if you have a computer and you can get a boarding pass, that means you're not on the list. I don't get it.

[Allan Kagedan]

I'm not sure I quite understand.

One thing I can say is that the power under which the minister would deny boarding is a 72-hour power. So the denial of boarding is an emergency direction by the minister. That's the legal framework in which we operate, a 72-hour window, assessing the threat at that time.

If you just told people, if we just put the list on the Internet, it would violate privacy, and obviously it would reduce the security value.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I didn't say the Internet; I said to be able to phone up.

[Allan Kagedan]

But how would we know...? Okay, I'm phoning up; you're phoning up; you're saying you're me--

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

How do you know if I'm on a computer and I've asked for a boarding pass that I'm that person?

[Allan Kagedan]

Again, now we're getting into falsified ID. If you're denied a boarding pass--

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

No, no, we're not.

[Allan Kagedan]

I've been denied boarding passes, you know, but not because I'm on a list.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'll move to Mr. Chan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, I don't think the question got through.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

To follow up—