Evidence of meeting #47 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 transport.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
No.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Therefore it is the airline's jurisdiction?
February 15th, 2011 / 11:20 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
That is correct.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
What is the process regarding veils? I am not entirely familiar with this but I know that there is a burka, a veil, a niqab, a black veil that only allows the eyes to show.
What do you do when a veiled person is about to go through the scanner? What is the procedure?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
The procedure is the same for all passengers. They have to submit to an inspection. Thanks to the available technology, we are perfectly able to operate regardless of the clothing being worn, whether that be clothing on the head, the face or the body.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
No, no, no! At the point of boarding you show your boarding card! You should be signed up with the Grands Ballets Canadiens or with Holiday on Ice at the Montreal Bell Centre because you really are quite the fancy skater!
At what point in time do you have to remove your veil to show your face? If I go to the airport and I take out my passport, the person can see that it is truly me. However, if I am wearing a veil...
What are the security measures? What do you do? Don't tell me that the same procedures apply to these individuals. What do you do in that type of case? Under your regulations, must that person remove her veil?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
That individual must identify herself to the airline, as you mentioned. At the checkpoint, there is no requirement for identifying yourself.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Therefore the responsibility lies with the airline: the airline must ensure that the individual boarding the plane is the person who appears in the passport photograph.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
The airline ensures that the individual boarding the plane is the individual the boarding pass was issued to.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Fine. I am not trying to be ironic but I have to say that I appreciate the detail.
Let's take an airline that is being rather complacent and whose staff are not doing their work properly... Do you have any authority over them? Once the pat-down has been done and the boarding pass has been displayed... You need to show your boarding pass before you have access to the restricted area.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Yes. Every one at the checkpoint has to prove that they have a document that gives them access to the restricted areas. Before entering those areas, those individuals are checked by the checkpoint agents. That is where our involvement ends.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Your responsibility as the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority ends there.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Yes.
Conservative
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
You know, travelling from the north as much as I do, with lots of people who are working in our northern conditions, where they're going from minus 30 in Inuvik down to plus 20 in Toronto, I'm a little concerned when I hear that there's a blanket provision about wearing heavy clothes in the summertime. I hope that the passenger identification is more sophisticated than that and that what you're talking about is a program that understands the nature of air travellers. Is that not what you're really trying to do here, to get to a point where the people who are in security actually have an awareness of the type of people they're dealing with?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Exactly; it is unusual behaviour.
As you've stated, in the circumstances of someone leaving the north, it would be very usual to have heavier clothing.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Or going to the north. Absolutely.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
I think I'd like to hear that such a kind of understanding is more a part of passenger identification.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Of passenger observation.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
Yes, it is, sir.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Okay.
Perhaps, then, you could go a little more into how you're designing this program, so that we understand better how you're working to open up the lines to those who are less a potential risk to the travelling public.
For instance, we had evidence in front of our committee that in many regional airports the security people are sitting having coffee with the airport staff or the airline pilots or attendants and then having to take them through security at the same time.
Is there going to be some understanding of the nature of the different roles that people perform in the system and their need for security, as in the case of airplane personnel, for instance?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority
The short answer is yes; however, as I mentioned earlier, I would not speak to the policy decisions of Transport Canada as to who must be screened, or things like that.
NDP
