Transport Committee on April 29th, 2010

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would like to give the first minute, if I may, to Mr. Storseth, and then he's going to pass it over to me.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Welcome back.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Volpe. It's nice of Mr. Jean to let me speak on his behalf for a change.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

It's a first.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Skrobica, I would like to follow up on a couple of questions at the end of my colleague's round. He was talking about the Fort Hood incident. You had suggested that pre-screening would have identified these people.

[Michael Skrobica]

In the case of the Fort Hood incident, there were clear indications that the individual was having some difficulties.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

What kind of pre-screening would you have done that would have identified this individual?

[Michael Skrobica]

The pre-screening would have to have a feedback system built into it, but if the person had applied for a NEXUS card, there may have been information on file that would have indicated that there were possible security problems, and he would have been denied it in those circumstances.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Okay, but in your answer my colleague, you said you were pretty certain that pre-screening would have identified this individual as being a potential threat. What are the triggers that would have set that off?

[Michael Skrobica]

It would depend. For example, he was under review by the U.S. Army. If a person had had contact, as it would appear that they had, with individuals who were suspected al-Qaeda members, that would probably come up through a CSIS background check. As I understand it, there's a terrorist quotient check that is part of the NEXUS card background. As a result, those were warning signals and red flags that this individual should not get that card.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Storseth, I don't know whether Mr. Jean's indulgence extends this far, but we're into minute three.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

That's all right. Mr. Jean doesn't mind.

I have one other quick question for you. You talked about “security, yes, but not at all costs”. Anybody who has been to Israel knows that security is the only factor that is taken into account. In our airport security, “At what cost?” would be my question to you.

[John McKenna]

I dare to say that Canada and Israel are vastly different countries, and we have vastly different cultures. I don't think we're ready to be walking through airports and seeing armed military personnel all over the airport.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I didn't say that. You said “security, yes, but not at all costs”. My question to you is, at what cost?

[John McKenna]

That needs to be determined, but right now we don't know what is being done with the cost of it. That's our preoccupation.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I'd like to give the rest of my time to Mr. Jean.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

He wonders why he was moved to a different committee.

Thank you, gentlemen. There are two things I want to deal with.

Mr. Jones, I want to say first of all that I've been good friends with Paul Spring from Phoenix Heli-Flight for many years, over 20 years. I can't believe you call yourselves hacks, because the reality is that I've never seen people spend so much time on maintenance, cleanliness, and being careful with their maintenance as helicopter pilots. I understand that a significant number of hours are spent on maintenance for every hour in the air. I think it's something like seven, or I've heard other rumours, but it's amazing how much maintenance you put into your aircraft.

What I'm interested in today, though, is productivity. I liked what you said about reducing the haystack to find the needle. I think that's something we should look at. We heard testimony that Israel puts approximately 50% of its travelling citizens onto a system, similar to the one we have, called “trusted traveller”. Do you see other ways in which we could increase the productivity of the country by reducing the lineups, the queueing lanes, etc.? That's something we're interested in, certainly, but do you see other ways in which we could increase the productivity besides these? Do you see this as the only low-hanging fruit we can identify, or how can we do this?

[Michael Skrobica]

One area that is questionable in which we could redeploy resources, both funding and personnel, is the non-passenger screening that we have at Canadian airports. As the testimony of John McKenna indicated, Israel and the United States don't have it. That doesn't stop the Americans from giving us advice that we don't screen a large enough sample of our non-passengers. Those non-passengers include pilots and other personnel who could be in a unique circumstance to cause a terrorist incident, but the experience is that they have not.

One of the things we need, as in any system, is to review the results of our experience. Are they finding threat items? Are they stopping terrorist incidents? If the answer after five, six, or seven years for non-passenger screening is no, then perhaps we should ask some questions. Is this the right way to deploy our capital and human resources?

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you.

Ms. Crombie.

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

Why don't I pick up from there as well, then?

In addition to the non-passenger screening—geez, I wonder whether you'd include frequent flyers, such as members of Parliament, in that—Mr. Skrobica, you talked a little about the need to look at tools used in Europe and the U.S. that are more appropriate for our security risks. I find that we don't seem to be leaders, but followers. You don't seem to be advocating for behavioural screening, so what are those tools for risk assessment that we should be adopting, based on U.S. standards and examples and best practices in the U.S. and Europe?

[Michael Skrobica]

Let me talk about the behavioural analysis, to begin with. I know that the standing committee heard from a witness a short time ago who obviously was advocating an entirely different course for Canada. I would caution the standing committee that the gentleman is a salesman and that he wants to sell a product. As a consequence, he is probably going to make statements that run counter to what other countries have done.

The Israeli experience, circumstances, situation is the most extreme that you will face, probably, in the world. Our threat levels are probably even lower than those of the United States and the U.K., but what we would recommend is that we follow along in whatever developments these countries have done. One of the reasons we use the “follow” term is that they have very large resources and research budgets with respect to aviation security, and both of those countries are strict adherents to the International Civil Aviation Organization's Annex 17. That's the international treaty that governs international air travel.

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

Do you want to elaborate on what specific tools those are?

[Michael Skrobica]

Annex 17 sets out a number of parameters you have to qualify for. On top of that, ICAO does an audit from time to time to determine whether countries comply with it. Canada was audited. The results have been kept secret, but I am told that there we're in substantial compliance with Annex 17.

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

Okay, I'm going to move on, but thank you for those responses. I just want to mention that the producers of body scanners are salesmen too.

Mr. McKenna, you seem in your presentation to be advocating for preferential treatment for sports teams and celebrities, who should get hustled through not in the main terminal, because of the security risk that might pose. I wonder what the public outcry might be, if that were the case.