Evidence of meeting #10 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was catsa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I would imagine I have met him in 2008 and 2009. I don't believe...I have yet to meet him in 2010.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Are you aware that he only registered as a lobbyist for L-3 Communications security and detection systems in February of 2010?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I'm not surprised by it at all; I meet Mr. Angus for a number of his clients.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Which other clients do you discuss with Mr. Angus?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
His main client in meetings with me has always been... I'm drawing a blank on the name of the company, but they work with...
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I'm sorry. It's RYCOM. It's RYCOM that worked with the biometrics that we have in the...
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Let me just move on quickly, because I think I'm running out of time.
Are you aware that the Ottawa Citizen described Mr. Angus and the Capital Hill Group—and Mr. Angus in particular, who is a former Brian Mulroney staffer—as the most successful lobbying firm at arranging contracts with cabinet ministers on behalf of his client? Would you agree with that assertion?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I have never had any knowledge of the assertion. I have no knowledge as to the scope of his activities.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McGarr, I would like to come back to passenger services. You asked the government for additional funding, which you received. As mentioned earlier, the government decided to increase fees for passengers. This means that ticket prices will go up. You told us that one of the problems in December was that there was not enough staff. You admitted this. So you asked the government for money to buy additional equipment. You told us that, with body scanners, people could choose to be physically searched or scanned. What guarantees do we have that, in the case of another incident, an adequate level of service will still be provided, and that there will be no endless lineups?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I believe that the organization we have put in place will allow us to respond quickly and appropriately to any event that might arise. We have strengthened our regional structure to ensure that the people directly involved in delivering services are located as close as possible to the places where these services will be provided. In my opinion, the organization we have put in place, and the planning we have done so far, will allow us to meet any threats with which we may be faced.
Will we have all the necessary resources in place the same day a new regulatory obligation is imposed? Probably not, but I am convinced that we will be able to put in place any emergency measures that will allow us to meet our obligations to the traveling public.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
You say that you will probably not have all the necessary resources in place the same day. Why not? Is it lack of staff? Is it lack of flexibility?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
I imagine that we might be dealing with threats we have not yet faced. This might require a technology that we still do not have today. So, with the time needed to buy it...
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
The fact remains that, the last time an incident occurred, you conducted physical body searches. This is not new technology. People have been searched since security has existed.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
However, this security measure required a lot of time per passenger. In some cases, this led to long lineups which went out the door. Agreed, there was not enough space or staff, and this situation lasted until we were able to work with airport authorities, airline representatives and the regulatory agency to find a solution that worked well. Today, I can tell you that the new measures put in place for flights going to the U.S. are working very well, and that the lineups are not excessive. I believe that Canadians are receiving the level of service they are entitled to.
Bloc
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
We will call upon all of our resources to find solutions to deal with any such incident.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, I represent Canadians, and they're the ones who pay the bills. I'm really curious. Have you put together a cost analysis per passenger and compared it to other countries? Have you looked at modelling any other country that has been successful in their airport security, such as Israel? I think those are two questions that need to be answered here.
Also, have you looked at ways to provide the security at a lower cost, making sure that your processes are effective but also efficient?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Yes, and if I may, I'll address the question of efficiency first.
Last year CATSA conducted a strategic review of its operations. We identified opportunities for efficiency, which were reflected in the budget of 2010. We will be making changes to our operations to achieve the efficiencies that we identified through the review process.
This is an ongoing commitment that the corporation has. We want to consistently deliver service in the most efficient and effective way possible.
We have monitored and we do monitor very closely our cost per passenger and our cost structure. Where possible, we also try to validate the efficiency of our operations with partner organizations around the globe.
CATSA was instrumental in creating the International Forum for Security Screening in Aviation, which regroups representatives from countries around the globe. This is, I would say to you, probably the number one item at all of our meetings: to exchange information to ensure that we are as efficient and effective as possible--
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Excuse me. Could I just interrupt you for a minute?
Would you be able to supply this committee with a graph or information regarding the cost per passenger in Canada compared to some of the other countries that have an active air transportation--
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Unfortunately not, sir; we are unable to get that information from a lot of the other countries. It's information that is very difficult to get.
What we are striving to do...and we have an initiative ongoing currently with New Zealand, where we are trying to create key performance indicators that will be common to us in order that we can benchmark ourselves with international partners. There's also an initiative on the U.S. side to do that with all of our technologies. So we're moving towards that, but it would be premature to tell the committee that we in fact possess those numbers today. They do not exist for us, unfortunately.
