Transport Committee on May 11th, 2017

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I'm thinking about after the fact. You've pulled it—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Hardie, perhaps you could hold those questions for the next round.

Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just have five minutes and I have a lot of questions. I will go through them quickly.

Mr. Rumig, part of a TVA report generated a lot of public concern. We learned that employees who are suspected of being radicalized are still working at the airport, but not in the secure areas.

Should Canadians be concerned that people who are suspected of being radicalized are still working in sensitive areas, especially since a number of terrorist attacks around the world have targeted unsecured areas at airports?

[Brian Rumig]

Obviously the revelations that surfaced from the media reporting were of concern to all of us—Canadians and certainly the security intelligence community. As we indicated this morning, we mobilized very quickly to make sure we understood that potential threat and to take mitigative measures to make sure the threat was contained. On the fact that the individuals may continue to work in the airport authority, I would actually defer to the departments that are responsible for that issue.

Next, should Canadians be concerned? They should be concerned about terrorism, absolutely. Should they be concerned that the RCMP, Transport Canada, CATSA, and the airport authorities are ignorant of that threat? Absolutely not. We view this as our number one priority in terms of safety of Canadians, to the point where, when this information did surface, we mobilized very quickly to contain that. Should the information surface again, that's what we will continue to do.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rumig.

My second question pertains to the budget. There is some tension between efficiency and security. The airports want things to go faster, while CATSA is concerned about proper security procedures. In addition, we see that there is less money to do all of that.

Mr. Parry, how much more money would CATSA need to protect passenger safety and also allow efficient access to those areas?

[Neil Parry]

As was noted by Ms. Kinney, CATSA receives its funding through a parliamentary appropriation. Under the Financial Administration Act, we live within that parliamentary appropriation. We continue to do so. We have a mandate for efficient and effective screening, which is under our legislation. Budget 2017 has provided us with funding to allow us to continue to implement, manage, and administer the non-passenger screening program 100%. From a security effectiveness point of view, all of our efforts go there.

The other reference to the budget has to do with an area that we are not in fact mandated for, and that is service level, which more affects wait times of passengers. Again, we don't compromise on the security effectiveness piece. However, we live within the appropriations available. The appropriations that were provided to us will allow us to deliver our target service level commensurate with the service level we offered passengers last fiscal year. We expect that roughly 85% of passengers across Canada will wait 15 minutes or less at screening points. That's an annualized average.

Again, it's not a mandated service level target, but that's what we believe we can deliver from an efficiency point of view.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Gooch, what are your thoughts on that?

[Daniel-Robert Gooch]

Thank you for your question. I will try to answer in English.

We don't question CATSA's commitment or ability to be effective in security screening, but on the travellers' side, we have travellers who are waiting over an hour at peak times. They're paying a fairly high air travellers security charge. This impacts the ability to compete and to attract travellers flying over Canada to other destinations.

Yes, it's very much a customer service concern. We do not question the professional approach to securing our skies by CATSA.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

You said that each passenger pays a certain amount for screening. How much money per passenger do airports collect in that way and what remaining amount is not returned to CATSA?

[Daniel-Robert Gooch]

The information that we have is just for the earlier fiscal year. We understand that the difference was about $110 million, and that varies, but traveller numbers are going up. As a result of that, the air traveller security charge revenue is going up, but the funding is not keeping pace with the growth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

You're over your time, Mr. Berthold.

Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Kinney, our discussion this morning about airport security is part of a study that is broader than the committee's study of aviation safety. I think it would be important to have access to a certain number of documents that are not necessarily public documents and that are not tabled in Parliament either.

Would it be possible for you to send us a copy of all the internal bulletins on aviation safety procedures that have been published since 2015, so we can see what changes have been made since 2015?

[Laureen Kinney]

Madam Chair, the question is in regard to a copy of the internal bulletins for airport safety or security since 2015, or both, and at airports.

I don't know that we have a lot of specific airports.... There are instructions per se to airports. There are regulations. We have instructions to our staff. Perhaps you could expand a bit on the question, which data and which airports?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I would like to see all the internal bulletins on procedures that Transport Canada has sent to staff that pertain in general or more specifically to aviation safety or security at airports, since these two matters are related.

[Laureen Kinney]

If I may, Madam Chair, can I ask if I can go back and look at what types of documents we have, what security classification they are, and how that mechanism would work? Perhaps we could have that conversation through the clerk to define that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Perfect, thank you.

My next question is for the witnesses from Canadian Airports Council. You talked about insufficient funding for security measures, funding that could make for a quicker and more positive passenger experience at airports.

Do all the members of your organization see the idea of privatizing airports favourably or unfavourably, or as completely neutral and having no impact at all?

[Daniel-Robert Gooch]

On airport privatization, our members actually have a variety of views on that. They're communicating directly with government and with the public on where they sit on that. As a council, as a result of that, we haven't taken a position on that particular file.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Let us go back to security issues specifically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Aubin, you'll have to wait until another round.

Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to follow up on my last line of questioning.

I thank you, Ms. Kinney, for providing me with that answer in terms of what triggers a suspicion. You mentioned a workplace incident, and you mentioned a couple of other things.

I guess, for lack of a better term, what is the culture within Transport Canada, perhaps even the process by which this concern would be raised, whether it's whistle-blowing or not? What is the process? If somebody observes something or they hear something, how does it get from on the floor at the airport to you and to the RCMP?

[Laureen Kinney]

I'm sorry to perhaps not sound as clear as would be ideal, but the problem is that there are many sources of that type of information.

An airport is a fairly non-homogeneous environment, with many employers and many workplaces that are often somewhat isolated. Some are not in the main terminal, and so forth.

Sometimes, in a workplace in one of those areas, there could be a question that would be raised in the group of workers. They could decide to go to the transportation security inspector and raise the question there. That has happened and can be very effective.

They could also go to the airport security people, because, as was mentioned, they have an obligation to report any concerns that they see, or they could go to their own employer who could come to us.

Additionally, there are other environments that have information come up about an employee. For example, let's say they had a Facebook account that said they were an airport employee, and something of concern arose there. That could then be reported by anyone to the RCMP or someone else.

There are many venues. They are all responded to by Transport Canada, very seriously. Any question like that immediately comes back to our transportation security group. As I said, if we have any reservations at all about what we hear, the clearance is suspended while we investigate.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I'm sure we've all seen the signs around the airports that say, “If You See Something, Say Something”. It would be the same for employees, and there's an open, non-punitive approach to that sort of reporting.

[Laureen Kinney]

That is certainly what is encouraged, and it is part of what was mentioned earlier in terms of safety management systems, where you take the approach of saying it's really important to share that information.

For example, say someone was routinely leaving a door open. I'm speaking for an airport authority. We would look at that, as well as the transport inspector. It's important to know what's going on. Is there something wrong with the way the door is set up? If the person is simply careless, refusing to follow rules, or not willing to make the effort, other action can and would be taken.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

I would like to give whatever time I have left to my colleague, Mr. Berthold.