By Senator Colin Kenny
The flying public is bending over backwards in the interests of improving security at Canada’s airports after the wakeup call that terrorists placed on Sept. 11. That makes it particularly galling that Canadian transport authorities – particularly those entrusted with security at Pearson International Airport – keep thumbing their noses at the public by refusing to offer evidence that they too are making every effort to enhance security.
Passengers are getting whacked $24 per return flight for heightened security costs introduced by the federal government late last year. You don’t hear a lot of whining about that, do you? Flying Canadians are standing in long lines at security checkpoints and pretty well having themselves turned inside out before getting on an aircraft. Again, not much whining.
On the other hand, the Senate’s Standing Committee on National Security and Defence heard plenty of whining from representatives of Air Canada and Transport Canada about being asked to respond to some very simple questions about what progress they are making to plug the leaks in airport security gaps. Worse yet, the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, directly responsible for administration at Pearson, has so far refused to even appear before the Committee to discuss security.
The Committee’s original perception, voiced in a report last April, that Canada’s airports are at least less riddled with security gaps than our sea ports is beginning to appear more questionable.
There is no doubt about the dangers at our seaports. We learned that high percentages of dockworkers have criminal records. Organized crime keeps enough smuggling holes open at the ports that terrorists could exploit them. Some seaport authorities expressed outrage when our April report contended that their security is lax enough that not only are Canadians imperiled, but trans-shipments that now go through Canada into America could be cancelled if Americans are not convinced they are safe. The outrage seems to have dissipated enough that in July the Association of Canadian Port Authorities asked the federal government for $40 million to help fill security gaps. The APCA spokesman explained that Canada must catch up with security improvements being made at U.S. ports – lest U.S. authorities order shippers to bypass Canada and come directly into America.
The airport section of our report was based on testimony and examination at Dorval International Airport in Montreal and Vancouver International Airport. While we discovered weaknesses with regard to background checks on security passes and the effectiveness of the pass systems themselves, we were later advised by current and former airport employees that we had only scratched the surface concerning security problems at Canadian airports.
Because of that information, we did a better-briefed, more rigorous examination of security at Pearson International in Toronto, and the defensiveness of witnesses who showed – and those who did not – suggests that the problem at Canadian airports may well rank with the problem at Canadian sea ports. There appear to be plenty of gaps, and not much evidence that the gaps are being closed.
For instance, there is the issue of members of organized crime working at Pearson International and other Canadian airports. Our witnesses from Air Canada said they had no knowledge of such gang infiltration. Yet a witness from the RCMP said categorically that gangs such as Hell’s Angels have infiltrated Pearson, and that while there is no proven link between their smuggling activities and terrorist activities, any holes that criminals open in security perimeters make those perimeters more vulnerable to all who wish to circumvent them.
We had several informants point out to us that, while passengers and flight crew have their carry-on baggage checked, service personnel who work on and around aircraft – fuelling, grooming, repairing, or bringing food on board – aren’t checked at all. They can wander around with tools such as boxcutters, never have their lunch pails checked, because, as one witness from Transport Canada told us, “it’s all part of a trust relationship.”
Why trust these folks and not the air crew? The air crew have a lot more to lose if a flight goes down – they’re on board, while the people who service aircraft are back at the airport. How hard is it to get a job as a groomer of jetliners? Why wouldn’t a terrorist organization try to place such a person in a position whereby he could leave whatever he wanted under a seat? If the Hell’s Angels can get their people in place at airports, what’s to stop Al Fatah? The Committee didn’t get a reasonable answer from Pearson authorities as to why service personnel are considered a separate, trusted species, wandering pretty well at will once they have their passes.
As for passes, witnesses acknowledged that they had encountered forged passes in the past. Forged passes may not be caught with the pass checks currently used. Yet nobody could tell us how the airport plans to fix its pass system. It was mentioned that technological upgrades cost money. So where is the $24 per round trip going? The committee genuinely expected that witnesses from Transport Canada and GTAA would share information with us – and the public – as to how the public’s money is being spent to improve security, what has been improved, and what still needs work. No dice.
We asked how parcels that show up at airports are scrutinized, and we were told we couldn’t have details because that might play into the hands of would-be terrorists. “Trust us,” was the basic mantra, just the way Transport Canada seems willing to trust that parcel services which use the airport repeatedly are doing adequate background checks on the low-wage employees delivering parcels to aircraft around the clock.
We asked how reliable scanning equipment has become in the wake of Sept. 11, and what the results had been of recent “infiltration checks” where people hired by Transport Canada try to sneak unacceptable items through security. Reports show that in the United States the results of these checks aren’t nearly as good as they should be. Are they in Canada? We don’t know, because our reluctant witnesses said they are not allowed to divulge such information.
No matter that some of the information, such as what kind of scrutiny an ordinary Joe delivering a parcel to the airport would undergo – could be obtained by any member of the public simply by going out to the airport with a parcel. Our witnesses were not about to share that information with Parliament. No matter that officials from Canada Customs and Revenue Agency had been most forthright with the Committee in demonstrating what new systems and technology it has introduced post-Sept. 11, where it has had successes, where it has more work to do, and what the public is getting for its money. No matter that the Americans – under a much more onerous terrorist threat – have been forthright about their problems, and their promises to fix them. At Pearson International, it’s “Pay up, shut up, and trust us.”
The security gaps may be wide open at Pearson, and much wider than we thought they were at Dorval and Vancouver. Or they may not be as bad as our informants say they are. We will re-examine Dorval and Vancouver, where authorities at least appeared to be trying to be cooperative in their earlier appearances. The Air Line Pilots Association International has asked to appear before the Committee next week. We may well learn that air crews are no more satisfied with what they know about ground security at Canada's airports than we are.
All we know about Pearson – Canada’s largest airport and North America’s fifth-largest handler of passengers – is that a huge whack of money is being raised to improve security there. About 26 million travelers pass through Pearson every year, and at $12 a pop for the security surtax, that’s a lot of money. Meanwhile, people behind the scenes are telling us that not nearly enough is being done to improve security. If Canadian transport authorities want to restore public confidence that everything reasonable is being done behind the scenes, they had better come clean on how they are dealing with some obvious problems, and let the public judge. “Trust us” isn’t enough.
Senator Colin Kenny is Chair Of The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. He can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca
The committee put out a report on Canadian Security & Military Preparedness in February 2002.