Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the presentation by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. I rise to speak in favour of Bill C-44.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, on both sides of the 49th parallel, there has been a blur of legislative activity. In the United States, a mere 10 days after the horrendous attacks, Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina introduced Bill S-1447, the aviation and transportation security act.
In one bold act, congress sought to restore the confidence of the American flying public. Passengers, baggage, mail and cargo were to be screened. In flight crew were mandated new training to deal with air rage and terrorist crisis management. Air marshals appeared on U.S. flights. A complex passenger profiling system was enhanced and improved.
Despite an anthrax attack on Capitol Hill, which shut down congressional offices, consensus was quickly reached to prove that, while America led an impressive fight against terrorism abroad, the fight at home would be just as vigorous. The bill moved through both houses of congress faster than a rumour went through our parliamentary press gallery. President Bush signed the bill into law a mere eight weeks after its introduction.
In Canada the blur of activity was akin to the way tires spin in the first winter snowstorm: lots of noise, a little bit of smoke, but little action. The government was about as agile and as surefooted as a newborn calf. Unlike the calf, both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport are seasoned professional politicians with nearly 50 years of parliamentary experience between them. The lack of leadership would have been funny if it were not so dangerous.
The Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations was promptly mandated to look into aviation security. However the government quickly sent what it saw as more urgent matters in terms of legislation to the House. The Civil Aviation Tribunal needed to be extended to cover mariners and Air Canada's 15% share limit needed to be raised so that those who owned less than 10% of its shares could somehow be encouraged to buy more. Yet we do not know of a single current shareholder who owns the 10% limit who wants to buy more.
The Warsaw convention of 1929 also needed to be updated to deal with the realities of the third millennium. High priorities all, but top priorities for the air industry and Canadians they are not at all.
I must not omit the fact that the standing committee was paying some attention to the matter of aviation security. However, while witnesses from Air Canada, the pilots association and CUPE were advocating air marshals and other security measures, the government was desperately trying to be seen to be acting without in any way being sure what it wanted to achieve or how.
Then on the eve of the standing committee's scheduled November 26 and 27 trip to Washington, D.C., the rumour mill began to swirl with promises of action. On November 20, at about 5.25 in the evening, the government House leader sought unanimous consent to suspend the standing orders and introduce a government bill at 2 p.m. the next afternoon. The bill, an act to amend certain acts of Canada and to enact measures for implementing the biological and toxin weapon convention in order to enhance public safety, would be complex and a briefing would be offered.
Two months had passed since Senator Hollings introduced the aviation and transportation security act and there was now a flicker of hope that our government would finally react with some real legislation.
At 2 o`clock in the afternoon of November 21, the promised bill was nowhere in sight. Last minute problems delayed its introduction. In fact Bill C-42 was introduced the next day, on November 22, and contained some 19 parts dealing with everything from money laundering to the implementation of a 1977 treaty on biotoxins with a miniature section on aviation security thrown in for good measure and optics.
With the same deft touch that marked the bill's introduction, last Wednesday at 3.05 p.m., within a week of first reading of Bill C-42 in the House, the government House leader was again on his feet to state that unanimous consent had been obtained and required to delete section 4.83 in clause 5 from that bill and introduce a new bill, introducing that section immediately. Furthermore, the new bill would be ordered for consideration at second reading for last Friday, November 30, less than two sitting days later.
The House ran out of things to say not long after that and there were calls to adjourn early. On the one hand, the government agenda is light, but the need to add the contents of section 4.83 in clause 5 of the former Bill C-42 of the Aeronautics Act was urgent. Given the recent directionless “hurry up and wait” antics of the government, we have to wonder why one clause is worth so much haste.
There is a saying that everything makes sense. In other words, if we examine a situation long enough, hard enough and carefully enough in the fullness of time, everything will make sense. For this reason we need to look at the clauses in Bill C-42 which deal with the type of information an airline or other transport authority may provide to authorities.
Essentially there are three clauses. First, section 5, clause 4.82 would allow the Minister of Transport to require any air carrier to provide the minister with information that is in the air carrier's control concerning the persons on board or expected to be on board an aircraft for any flight where the minister believed there is a threat to that flight and therefore the public.
Second, section 5, clause 4.83 would allow a Canadian airline operating an international flight to a foreign state to provide a competent authority of that state any information that is in its control relating to persons on board or expected to be on board the aircraft and that is required by the laws of the foreign state.
Third, section 69 adds a new section 88.1 to the Immigration Act. The new section reads:
A transportation company bringing persons to Canada shall, in accordance with the regulations, provide prescribed information, including documentation and reports.
The summary, which accompanied Bill C-42, described the first two clauses as requiring air carriers or persons who operated aviation reservation systems to provide information to the minister concerning specified flights or persons. The same summary stated that the purpose of the third clause was to require transportation companies bringing persons to Canada to provide prescribed information which would enhance the department's ability to perform border checks and execute arrest warrants. In fact, clauses 4.82 and 4.83 of section 5 had a different purpose than section 69, so perhaps it is not a complete surprise that they address different types of information. It may, however, come as a surprise to some member in the House that airlines maintain two different types of files on their passengers.
The first is called the passenger name record, or PNR. This is the file that the airline creates when it reserves a flight for a passenger. It contains information such as the passenger's name, address, phone number and form of payment. It also contains the information on the reservation itself, such as boarding city, destination, connections, flight numbers, dates, stops and seat assignment. Based on this information the manifest is prepared for each flight showing who is sitting where. Routinely, at present, this is the type of information that is handed over to the authorities whenever there is an airline accident.
The second type of information is the APIS, or advanced passenger information system data. It includes only five data fields: passenger name; date of birth; citizenship, nationality, document issuing country; gender; and passport number or document number. Other than the passenger's name, this information is not normally collected by the airlines. In fact, unless passports are machine readable, much of this information has to be entered manually. For this reason, airlines only collect it when they have to provide it to immigration authorities. Currently the United States requires this type of information for U.S. bound Asian passengers transiting through Vancouver under the Canada-U.S. memorandum of understanding which allows such passengers to go to U.S. customs without first passing through Canadian customs.
It is my understanding that clauses 4.82 and 4.83 of section 5 of Bill C-42 would have required the airlines to give the PNR information to the Minister of Transport and that section 69 would have required them to give APIS information to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Let us contrast this with the U.S. legislation. There, the new aviation and transportation security act mandates the administrator of the federal aviation administration to require air carriers to expand the application of the current computer assisted passenger prescreening system, CAPPS, to all passengers, regardless of baggage. In addition, passengers selected under this system are subject to additional security measures, including checks of carry on baggage and person before boarding. In effect both the PNR and APIS information are sent electronically to the U.S. customs service super computer in Newington, Maryland. There the CAPPS system which they have developed enables the passenger profiling that keeps America's skies safe. The United States is actively fighting its war on terrorism. It is walking the talk, unlike what we see from this government.
Thus it is instructional to read section 115 of America's aviation and transportation security act. It reads:
Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, each air carrier and foreign air carrier operating a passenger flight in foreign air transportation to the United States shall provide to the commissioner of customs by electronic transmission a passenger and crew manifest containing the information specified in paragraph (2). Carriers may use the advanced passenger information system...
(2) INFORMATION-A passenger and crew manifest for a flight required under paragraph (1) shall contain the following information:
(A) The full name of each passenger and crew member.
(B) The date of birth and citizenship of each passenger and crew member.
(C) The sex of each passenger and crew member.
(D) The passport number and country of issuance of each passenger and crew member if required for travel.
(E) The United States visa number or resident alien card number of each passenger and crew member, as applicable.
(F) Such other information as the Under Secretary, in consultation with the Commissioner of Customs, determines is reasonably necessary to ensure aviation safety.
(3) PASSENGER NAME RECORDS-The carriers shall make passenger name record information available to the customs service upon request.
I would like, now, to consider the text that Bill C-44, which we are debating today, would add to the Aeronautics Act:
Despite section 5 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, to the extent that section relates to obligations set out in Schedule 1 to that Act relating to the disclosure of information, an operator of an aircraft departing from Canada or of a Canadian aircraft departing from any place outside Canada may, in accordance with the regulations, provide to a competent authority in a foreign state any information that is in its control relating to persons on board or expected to be on board the aircraft and that is required by the laws of the foreign state.
If we boil it down to its essentials, it reads that an operator of an aircraft departing from Canada, or of a Canadian aircraft departing from any place outside of Canada, may provide to a competent authority any information that is required by the laws of that foreign state relating to persons on board.
For example, the words “operator of an aircraft departing from Canada” in Bill C-44 would allow Air Canada to give the U.S. customs service the information that section 115, which I read, of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act mandates with respect to passengers on its transborder routes.
Similarly, the words “Canadian aircraft departing from any place outside Canada” would permit Air Canada to give the same information with respect to its flights from Australia and New Zealand to Honolulu en route to Canada.
Members will remember that I said that everything in the end makes sense. Just as I was trying to figure why, after several aborted attempts by the government to improve aviation security in Canada, Bill C-44 was being rushed through with such haste, I had a look at section 115 of the U.S. aviation and transportation security act. There are two concepts that are very important.
First, it applies to both U.S. and foreign carriers flying to the United States from other countries. Therefore, it applies to Air Canada and charter flights operated by WestJet, Air Transat and Sky Service.
Second, section 115 comes into force not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of the act, which was signed by President Bush on November 19. That means that it will come into force on January 18, 2002, while the House is still not back in session from its Christmas break. Therefore, as I understand it, if Canadian carriers are to comply with U.S. legislation, the House has to add the text of clause 4.83 to the Aeronautics Act before we rise mid next week.
The reason we are discussing this clause in the legislation today is not because of any desire, as was said by the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Transport, by the government to make our skies safer or to show leadership through decisive action, but because the United States acted and Canada's airlines told the government that if they could not lead, at least they should try to follow the U.S. and do so quickly.
Canadians can thank the United States congress for the bill. To the extent that it keeps our skies safer, no credit should go to the government but to the air industry for leaning on the government to follow the United States.
In the meantime, about the broader question of airport and airline security, Canadians are still left waiting and wondering when a hint of leadership may tumble out of the government and onto some legislation. It has been 14 weeks since the terrorist attacks and no serious legislative action has yet been taken by the government.
It sure makes one wonder. We have: an airport security system that has been clearly documented to be inadequate in terms of security; new security regimes being put in place in countless other countries; public demand for new security systems; air carrier demands for new management of airport security; pilot and fright crew demands for a new security regime, not to mention terrorist attacks; a massive drop in consumer confidence in flying; and a war. If this environment is not enough to inspire action from the government on air security, one has to wonder if it will ever get up off its backside and show some real leadership.
