Transport Committee on May 11th, 2010

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I absolutely agree Mr. Boivin. However, the problem is that the government spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. I am having trouble understanding why those in charge never conceived of the possibility of searching luggage piece by piece. They are paid to plan for that.

You are telling me that there were never negotiations or discussions previously. Nobody ever told you that one day you might have to search luggage by hand. Nobody told you that or discussed that before December 25. Is that correct?

[Normand Boivin]

There was essentially a lack of planning with respect to potential options or the potential risk of threats.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Obviously this was confirmed to us by the airlines who said they were not involved in those debates either. When you all sat down to work together you succeeded in avoiding that. The problem is that when I addressed the president of CATSA he told me that it was like that in all airports around the world. This committee was subsequently told that in Canada we have the longest waiting times on the planet. Those five hours that you mentioned represent the longest time anyone has to wait on the planet.

Yes?

[Toby Lennox, Vice-President of Corporate Affairs and Communications, Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Canadian Airports Council]

I have just a couple of things to say on the comments. The reason that the lines were the longest in Canada is that Toronto and Montreal are two of the largest access points into the United States. In fact, on any day, Toronto is between the fifth- and seventh-largest access point into the United States. So if you're going to have backups, you're going to have backups in Toronto.

But I think the point we're making is that we're about to engage in a national security review, and if all we're going to do is strengthen pre-board screening and thicken that effort, then to try to address the other issues--Mr. Volpe, you're absolutely right--the question is, how are you doing it and how deep are you doing it? Are you doing it where you have a system that respects civil liberties and that is going from the curb right to the aircraft seat?

Because if all you're doing is just strengthening one single line, you're never going to address the problems of customer service and, therefore, from time to time, issues are going to come up that will back everybody up and discourage people from flying. But you're also not taking advantage of even just the geography of an airport, which is going to allow you several different interdictions at different times.

The problem right now--and we've learned this in other jurisdictions--is that there is no one coordinating effort that is going to be overseeing how that happens from the curb to the aircraft seat, because everybody gets passed from hand to hand. The physical manifestation of that was four separate and incredibly long lineups on December 26.

But think about that physical manifestation as the fact that the responsibility gets handed over each time. We're not saying that CATSA is right, CATSA is wrong; what we're saying is that you had better look at what it is you want to put in place and then come up with an agency that is going to be handling that, as opposed to the reverse.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Part of what you are saying is true. We have to look at how we can best intervene. Transport Canada is the one who should have been coordinating that, but inevitably, when you delegate various responsibilities to independent agencies, each one ends up with their own responsibilities. You, the airport authorities, are responsible for a part of security. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority also shares that responsibility.

When we tell that to Israeli officials, they think it's funny, they split their sides laughing because they are the only organization controlling everything in their airport whereas we have four or five organizations that are each responsible for their small part of security, which means that we end up with long line-ups.

My second question is for Ms. Desrosiers. Inevitably, when you are considering how to ensure security, the best way to do that is through profiling. That is what has come out of the testimony we have heard. Earlier on I was reading over Ms. Lynch's testimony from when she appeared before the committee. She is not against behavioural profiling. Behavioural profiling is what Israel uses. We have been told that the only way to find terrorists transporting explosives is not with a scanner but rather with dogs. They are the ones who do that work best in the whole world. That means that there have to be, in the airport, dog handlers with their dogs who are able to figure out who is carrying explosives. The Israelis tell us they don't want scanners because they don't believe in them. So we have two different worlds. We use body scanners whereas they don't believe in them.

We have to try to strike a balance and ensure that all players are around the same table to figure out who is responsible. CATSA tells us they are not responsible. You are telling us that CATSA has not done its work properly. In the end will never know who is responsible for what. In my opinion the problem is that we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on CATSA to be responsible for a part of security and they are the ones mainly who are responsible for wait times, which is harming our industry. If there is another alert that involves a five-hour wait you are going to lose clients who will go elsewhere.

Mr. Boivin, our problem in Montreal is that they go to the United States to take the plane in Plattsburgh.

[Normand Boivin]

The same applies to Toronto clients who go to Buffalo and for Vancouver clients who go to Bellingham. There are even people from North Bay who will drive four hours in a car in order to take the plane south of the border because they know that wait times here are significant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses who are here today. I've really enjoyed your presentations.

There are a lot of issues that come up here.

Madame Des Rosiers, you talk about the four different segments. I think that's very well laid out.

On the intelligence, of course, the two incidents you talked about--Air India and December 25--were failures of intelligence in some respects, because we saw that intelligence services were using individuals to garner more information. They weren't taking steps before the fact.

So what we have with both of these incidents is that there is some culpability with the intelligence services that don't alert the authorities that a dangerous person is going on a flight. Is that not the case?

[Nathalie Des Rosiers]

No system is perfect. In our view, the intelligence continues to be...if it's evidence-based and if it's well done, I think should be and will continue to be part of the system. Because airport security is not the only security issue in the country. I mean, the bombing in Times Square that did not take place is just as outrageous as bombing the file d'attente if there is too much...it would be easier for a tourist to set himself up waiting to be screened if there are a lot of people there.

My point on le profilage is that the cost to civil liberties must be counted and must be part of the issue. If you're taking any of these models, there are costs. You have to evaluate them on the basis of how much they will impact civil liberties. If le profilage is the solution, you have to make sure that you evaluate whether it turns out to be racial profiling and compensate for the cost of that.

Similarly, we are seeing the failures of this security system, both on the positive side and on the negative side, where many people have been--

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But wouldn't you agree that you can't put the civil liberties in absence of the threat?

[Nathalie Des Rosiers]

That's right.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So threat assessment is important as well. We've had clear evidence that hardened cockpits take away the threat assessment around guns and knives for airplanes.

So don't you think as well that when you look at the civil liberties issues you look at the body scanners that are ostensibly going to detect ceramic knives? That was presented to us as well as being their major function, because they can't detect body cavity explosives, and they would have trouble with explosives in clothing. So what we're having is an intrusion on civil liberties that is really ineffective and really doesn't match up to the threat assessment.

So don't you think those should all fit together?

[Nathalie Des Rosiers]

Yes. Certainly I think proportionality is the essence of our civil liberties and democratic regime. It requires an assessment what the costs will be to the civil liberties of the individual.

My point today is simply to say that if you're going to do a cost assessment of all these models, do not forget the cost to the individuals whose liberties will be sacrificed in this. I think that's a very important point.

[Howard Bohan]

That's a very good point. The whole essence of scalability is to do a threat and risk assessment in each area or each activity and then be able to develop a national program that works with small airports, medium-sized airports, and large airports.

The threat at Thunder Bay or Saskatoon is just not the same as the threat at Toronto or Montreal. Whether it's domestic, international, or transborder pre-board screening, each one should be responding to the threat level, not just of that sector but of that day. We fully believe that predictability is a weakness and--

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So right now at, say, Pearson, you're dealing with everybody with the same level of security.

[Howard Bohan]

Our transborder security meets the U.S. regulations and Canadian regulations. The security at domestic and international meets Canadian regulations.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

What percentage of the travellers are U.S. bound?

[Howard Bohan]

About 30% to 35% are U.S. bound.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Could we move them into separate security arrangements?

[Howard Bohan]

We have separate security arrangements for them. They're processed in different areas.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But are they being processed the same way?

[Howard Bohan]

No. It's sort of like a national building code and a provincial building code.

We meet the highest standard of each country for the transborder, so if the Canadian system says that you need to have 25% random secondary search, which it does, then the passengers going to the United States get 25% secondary search. If the U.S. system says you have to take the shoes off and check the shoes separately, then their shoes are also taken off and checked separately. It meets the highest standard. It meets the standards of the U.S. and it meets the standards of Canadian security requirements.

Someone flying to Regina or Montreal will be processed using the Canadian standards and not the U.S. standards.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington.

Mr. Jean.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for attending today.

One thing we have heard on this in the last several years is that the security system is only as good as the weakest link. The entire system depends on the weakest link, so whether it be an airport in Yellowknife or an airport in Toronto, the situation is such that security should be kept at a vigilant time....

I would also agree with Ms. Des Rosiers. I apologize for my français. All of your comments I think were very good, and there are some concerns that the government shares as well, but I would say that I don't necessarily agree with your analysis that we are currently in violation of the charter based on trusted traveller and passenger protect. And even if we are, I think it's a reasonable infringement given what we face today under the charter and also the Constitution.

Since I agree with so much of your presentation, I would like to zero in with our other guests today. I know that 200 Canadian airports, 95% of domestic passengers...in no small way are we all impressed with what you bring to our economy and our GDP as airports across this country. We recognize that fully.

But what we want to do today is think about what could happen to the productivity of the country if we could make that system 1% more efficient, or even 10% more efficient, while maintaining the same security and vigilance. That's what I want to concentrate on in the next few minutes. I'd like your input and some thinking outside of the box.

First of all, we're winding up most of our study here and we would like to have some practical application of this. If you have any suggestions on who we could listen to, such as queueing experts—I think we are possibly having a queueing expert in the near future—but also on that low-hanging fruit that we can implement to make our system more productive and more efficient. I would look forward to your comments on that.

Keeping that in mind, I want to say—and I'm not long on speeches, at least most of the time—that in Israel 50% of their citizens are on a trusted traveller type of pass. That's what we heard evidence on. We are in the low-digit percentiles, if that, in Canada and the United States, and I think that is one way that we can certainly move forward: a trusted traveller type of scenario.

I would like to hear from the three of you on what you see as the low-hanging fruit that we can reach out for and grab and recommend to the government in the near future to make your system more productive and more efficient, and, in essence, to make a much stronger economic future for all of us.

[Toby Lennox]

One thing on that is that we did some analysis on the impact of the December 25 events. It was particularly acute when you were talking about access to the smaller cities in the northeast, out of Montreal and Toronto, places like Allenton, or Madison, Wisconsin, where transborder trade is enormous. Because of the length of time and the hassle factor, people were choosing not to travel, so you saw a serious decline in the ability of the economic engine to keep going.

Therefore, you're right. You have to be looking not only at questions of security, but also of customer service. A trusted traveller program has tremendous potential and tremendous possibility.

I get concerned, though, when we start talking about low-hanging fruit or something that we could implement quickly. In fact, what we're talking about is the singular challenge that the Israelis probably have in their own right, which is, “Don't balance customer service and security--excel at both”.

With respect to Madame Des Rosiers' presentation, where she talks about the four levels, we would never ask for or endorse one of them because what we're doing is endorsing all four of them. To ask whether a body screener is effective or not misses the point. Yes, it's always effective, but it's even more effective when you layer on a whole series of other things. Therefore, I'm afraid, what we're asking for is a very sophisticated, very aggressive, and very intricate look at the entire system.

Yes, there are low-hanging fruit, but--