Evidence of meeting #25 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was airport.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Operating, Aéroports de Montréal (Dorval and Mirabel)
I beg your pardon?
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Operating, Aéroports de Montréal (Dorval and Mirabel)
That is your opinion.
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Aéroports de Montréal (Dorval and Mirabel)
What I find unfortunate in these comments is this: when someone discovers a chink in the airport security system, we rely on that person to help us fix the problem.
If the journalist in question had genuinely taken those chinks seriously, he might not have waited three weeks before reporting the incident in the newspapers in a very sensationalist way. He could have come to see us well before that to tell us about the deficiencies that needed fixing. In fact, he did nothing for three weeks.
Is he serious? No. His job is to sell papers. Did he help improve airport security? Not at all.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I've read reports about some wish to do some psychological profiling of passengers by CATSA. I'm wondering if you could expand on that. I'm quite disturbed about some areas, especially in regard to things that take place in other jurisdictions, other countries, such as racial profiling. I'd like to hear from you as far as that particular position on psychological profiling goes and why the desire to do that.
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
We're not talking about psychological profiling but behavioural profiling, which is different. We haven't done anything with this other than talk about it as an option. Really, it's something that has been put forward by my counterpart in the United States, Mr. Hawley, as a way of making sure we put the right resources at the right place at the right time.
You must have seen in the papers this week, a couple of days ago, a letter from a senator that went through. Do we need to put the same effort, the same emphasis on every single passenger? My answer to this would be no. How do we find a way to make a difference between people who can represent a threat and people who don't represent a threat? But it's clear that even if we were to do behavioural pattern recognition or profiling, we would have to have cabinet approval for that, Transport Canada regulation. It is a way. Everyone would have to be screened anyway. Other countries do it, and it serves their purposes.
Maybe it's that we're a different country. That's something we can look at, but we are far away from doing it ourselves. Right now, as is mentioned in regulations, 100% of people boarding a plane in Canada have to be screened.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I understand. It makes me uncomfortable because some jurisdictions, some countries, I would suggest--based on some readings I've done--use psychological profiling as opposed to racial profiling. I would find that extremely disturbing and I think most Canadians would.
You're suggesting that someone who's paid, as Mr. McGuinty put it, in the neighbourhood of $12 an hour is able to do some serious psychological profiling on behaviours or otherwise, which the RCMP, for instance, are trained on for six months. I would find it extremely unlikely that you would find the quality of people necessary to do that after the training, with a 15% turnover.
Again, those are only my comments.
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Mr. Chair, I think it's a very good point. As I said, we're not there yet, and it would obviously need much more training than what we do. My only fear is that if we're still looking only for objects, we might miss the greater picture, so we need to put the efforts.... Whenever we put a system in place, terrorists will try to go around it. So we need to evolve, as I mentioned before, and we're not even anywhere close to bringing in racial profiling.
As a final comment on that, you need to realize that Customs do it every day; they do profiling. Is it racial profiling? I don't think it is. They simply decide on people who are coming into the country. They're not screened all the same way. In their case, if they miss, well, we might have lost some money. In our case, if we miss, lives can be lost. That's something we need to think about.
It works in other countries. Could it work in Canada? As I said, we're not there yet.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Do you not see that the opportunity is really based on subjective measurements of tools, equipment, technology? A year after 9/11, I went through two security devices with a roll of duct tape and a jiffy knife, all the way to Ohio and I didn't find them until I got there. Obviously it wasn't intentional. Quite frankly, it made me very fearful that I could get through two security checkpoints--two major airports, in essence--with tools of that nature such as obviously were used by the 9/11 hijackers. I think the reality is that the only answer for this is technology, to move in that vein as fast as possible and put some serious investment in that so we can make sure the people aren't getting onto planes and other modes of transportation with dangerous materials.
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Sure. Bottom line, that's what we need to do.
Once again, we know that terrorists learn the way we work and they try to go around the system we put in place. What if they're not using metal weapons and are using ceramic weapons? Do we have the tools to do it? That's only an example. We need to evolve.
Two years from now, we'll come back here to say we don't think we have the right tools to defend ourselves against the threat that will be out there two years from now. That's why we need to assess; that's the first component of AGILE. We need to have a telescope telling us what's coming our way, before we see it at close range.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Or maybe we need to go and find them before they find us.
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Good point.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I think there is a telescope on the table, Monsieur Duchesneau, and I think it's pointing to one thing called “cargo”. I've had four conversations with presidents and CEOs of airport authorities, not Mr. Cherry, but others who have said that this is their nightmare scenario.
If we don't want to take the good advice or the findings of a journalist doing his job, Mr. Cherry, then we can perhaps listen to Senator Pat Carney quoting her son, a Boeing 747 pilot, who said: “It's all a farce. It makes me angry. This zip-lock bag obsession just detracts attention from all the real security measures that are not being implemented at our airports.”
I didn't say that. No journalist said that. A Boeing 747 pilot said it. It was quoted yesterday in the National Post, in an open letter to our public safety minister.
So I want to go back to a couple of things. To recap, Mr. Duncan, I take it, then, that in your negotiations with Garda there were no consequences, pecuniary or otherwise, for their failure, which was revealed by the Journal de Montréal articles this summer. Is that correct? They have a new contract that's performance based--you told me about a number of things--but there were no pecuniary or other consequences accruing to Garda as a result of their failure. Did I get that right?
5:10 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I can go back into their performance for the last year--
5:10 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
As a result of the breaches last year, their performance was assessed. I don't have the precise detail of that, but they did not get their full performance base because of those items.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Can I just move forward, then? I take it there were consequences.
Mr. Duchesneau, am I to understand that Air Canada Cargo has publicly called for cargo screening to be passed to CATSA?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I heard the comment.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
I've seen the letter. Have you seen the letter or the documents or a press release of any kind?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
No, I haven't seen a letter.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Would it be helpful--and it's something I called on the minister to consider for the government to do, in the wake of the article in Le Journal de Montréal--to conduct random searches of cargo at airport warehouses on two fronts: one, for security in terms of what's in the cargo, and two, for drug purposes? Would it be helpful to do that, Mr. Cherry? You're on the front line of running a difficult business.
