Transport Committee on April 20th, 2010

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So what you're telling me is that the police service at our airports is not consistent across the country?

[Marc Grégoire]

It's offered by different corps of police, but that is not a specific problem.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Well, for the Montreal police, how well are they integrated into the system? Because you've seen that aviation security requires an integrated system. It requires people who understand the nature of it. How well are the Montreal police integrated into CSIS? Is there a better relationship between them and, say, the RCMP, which have direct linkages with CSIS?

[Marc Grégoire]

I think they are well integrated as a source of information with all of those organizations. On the local site, in Montreal, for instance, there are communications daily, I would say, between the Montreal police and the airport management, especially the director of security of the Montreal airport.

It would be the same throughout. These police don't work in isolation. They work as groups. They meet regularly, and they do exchange information regularly, including, for instance, when we do background checks for airport employees. These police corps are consulted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Bonjour, monsieur Grégoire. Merci de votre présentation ce matin. That's the end of my French.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for the discussion this morning.

I am constantly amazed at the creative minds that are always looking for new ways to injure and destroy people. There was an economist some years ago from Austria, by the name of Schumpeter, who talked about the theory of “creative destruction” and how new technologies always take away the need for the old technologies. I think his prime example was the automobile and how it took over from the need for carts and horses.

I think about the constant change of technology that's going on in our airports to keep Canadians safe, and how, in many ways, many of the capital expenses that you may have made a very short time ago have now been overtaken by the need for new technologies because of the destructive minds that are out there imposing this on you in reality. So I'm very interested, because we've talked about a lot of the capital costs for the mechanical technologies that need to be purchased, but we haven't really explored a whole lot about this new behavioural study that's going to be done at the airports.

I wonder whether we could talk about that a little bit here this morning. Could you talk about this behavioural screening program and where we're at in that development? When do you expect the program to be in place? Do we have any idea of the costs that are anticipated? Behaviour analysis is a very complex area of psychology. Is this a new career path for psychologists? Is this an area that our universities are going to have to address in their curriculum? Can you speak to this?

[Marc Grégoire]

Unfortunately, I cannot answer all of your questions, and there were many of them.

We have been in the security business for a long time in Transport Canada, but more so after the Air India bombing. For many, many years, the approach internationally has been to treat everybody the same and to get everybody through the same screening process. But because our equipment is sophisticated and our processes are complex, and because terrorists are still interested in aviation and still trying to be extremely creative in finding gaps in the system, we think we have to better focus the efforts on people who might represent a higher risk.

The difficulty is how to choose the people who would then be subject to more rigorous screening. You can do that by doing behaviour analysis or, like some other countries would say, by characterization of passengers. But you have to do this in such a manner—and it's the same in every country we're discussing—that it will not ever be seen as profiling.

For instance, in Israel, they do passenger behaviour analysis, and Israel has to be careful, politically speaking, themselves. They have over two million people of Arab origin within Israel and they could not be perceived to screen only Arabs and not to screen Jews. So if we ever start such a program in Canada, it has to be based strictly on behaviour.

But there are a number of things that can be done to determine if somebody should go through additional screening. The way it's done normally is just by looking at people and their behaviour, but also by asking a few questions of people, by asking them where they're going and what are they doing. Also, document analysis can tell a long story on how to do that.

A few years ago in the United States, the Transportation Security Administration started a pilot project at Boston's Logan airport. That project was successful, so they decided to train a large number of behaviour detection officers. I think they have 600 to 900 now in place--let's leave it in that range--wandering around the screening point to see who should be selected for additional screening. The principle is that everybody is going to go through the first line of screening, but those behaviour detection officers would help detect those people in need of a secondary search.

Today in most countries the secondary search is strictly random. In Ottawa, for instance, you walk on the carpet, and if the arrow is to the left, you've been selected for a secondary search. But we think there are more intelligent ways to do that, and that's through behaviour detection analysis. That's why the government has decided to invest in the design of the program and the design of a training program, but the government has not decided yet to fund the establishment of such a program.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

How many other countries are currently using this?

[Marc Grégoire]

There are not many countries using this now, but there are many countries considering using it.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

How many airports in Canada would be implementing a behaviour analysis program?

[Marc Grégoire]

Well, that's premature because we don't have the program now. But for whatever we do, we always put our attention first on the eight major airports of Canada. They carry above 85% of the passenger traffic in Canada. We call those the class 1 airports. From east to west, these are: Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and--I think I missed one--Winnipeg.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes, Winnipeg.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Ms. Crombie.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Grégoire, you were responding to my colleague Mr. Volpe's question, and I just want clarification. CATSA is to receive $1.5 billion over five years from the air travellers security charge, but you indicated that there will be $3.2 billion over two years. Could you clarify for me which number is relevant and accurate?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes, certainly. CATSA already has $234 million in the fiscal framework, so if you take that over the next five years, that will give you an amount. CATSA received an additional amount of $1.5 million in accrual money. All the dollars in the budget are in accrual dollars.

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

That's billion, right?

[Marc Grégoire]

Billion, yes. Excuse me.

Transport Canada does receive a small share of that amount, as does the RCMP. So if you add up all of those, you will get $3.2 billion over five years. On the ATSC increases that were announced by the Department of Finance, if you calculate them using the forecast of passengers over the next five years, it will get you $3.2 billion in the fiscal framework. So what the government is saying is that the forecast expenditures will equal the forecast revenues, so that no money from the revenues of the ATSC will be used for anything else but aviation security.

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

Correct.

Mr. Grégoire, how will passengers and consumers respond to this new tax on them?

[Marc Grégoire]

I'm not sure I understand the question.

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

Well, this will be regarded as a new tax on passengers flying, and what will it be for the individual? How much will this new tax cost each individual?

[Marc Grégoire]

Well, the one-way ticket for domestic is going to be $7.48, I understand, including the--

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

From all airports? Or just some airports? A flat tax?

[Marc Grégoire]

It's a departure tax for screening. For domestic, it's $7.48. For the round trip, it's $14.96. For transborder, if you're going to the U.S., it's $12.71.

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

And what will consumers get for this new tax?

[Marc Grégoire]

They will get a good screening at the airport and their baggage--