Airport Security: a flawed report with a Liberal agenda?

SENATOR Colin Kenny’s antics yesterday simply showed that politicians of whatever color can’t be trusted.

    Citing a “dusty” four-year old report, Kenny foisted the bogey of a terrorist attack against Canada using flawed data which virtually accused airport workers of being a security risk and of being “members of organized crime.”

    He conveniently brushed aside the fact that Canada’s involvement as a proxy invading force in President Bush’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the actual triggers that could make Canada a possible counterforce target.

    Kenny also proposed that Transport Canada be stripped of its airport “security functions” and that security duties are transferred to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) and the Mounties.

    This proposal, observers noted, simply laid bare the Liberal agenda.

    CATSA became operational in April 2002 through bill C-49 largely through the Liberal action and was promptly converted into a Canadian $1.942 billion bureaucracy ranking as one of Canada’s ten largest crown corporations in terms of revenue base -- one notch behind Via Rail.

    Truly, a Liberal operation indeed!

    CATSA as a Crown Corporation is an attached agency to Transport Canada (TC). TC security inspectors merely exercise oversight functions making sure that CATSA contractors perform its job according to a set of standards.

    The Transport Minister, on the other hand, recommends who sits on CATSA’s board including its chairperson.

    Sources believed this could have riled matters after former CATSA chair General (ret) Baril was relieved and replaced with an interim chair Margaret Purdy who at one time was head of Canada’s counterterrorism force.

    CATSA actually pays the RCMP for performing not only airport security duties but also those acting as air marshals or so-called aircraft protective officers (APO) who fly with passengers’ nondescript on certain flights.

    In its five action plan, CATSA revealed its “screening operations currently affect more than 37 million passengers each year – greater than the population of Canada.”

    But Senator Kenny’s most moronic accusation is that while the “public loses toothpaste tubes and water” in CATSA’s pre-board screening points, airport workers go through airport facilities without being checked.

    CATSA for several months now have supplanted normal IDs or so-called restricted area pass (RAP) with biometric ID cards with redundancy features. This will soon be the standard in most of the 89 Canadian airports under CATSA’s operational cover.

    At the Vancouver International Airport, for instance, airport workers are also subjected to random non-passenger screening by CATSA – similar to the screening conducted at pre-board points – in various “secret” locations, sources revealed.

    “I felt this story is not exactly true,” an airport worker confided.
It was learned that presently applications for an airport clearance takes from 6 to 8 months with no less than three government agencies doing a comprehensive background check on applicants.

    “It is ironic that Senator Kenny cited an RCMP report on organized crime when they themselves had a hand in giving security clearances,’’ one source said.

    It was revealed that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), Transport Canada and the RCMP itself are all part of the clearance process with the RCMP even conducting “a financial check” on prospective applicants.

    “We don’t know if this is allowed by law since we never authorized anybody to look into our credit and bank records,” an airport worker at YVR said.

    Insiders said those being subjected to extensive background checks are actually applying for a meager $8 to $9 jobs as ramp agents or plane cabin cleaners or even plane fuelers.

    The pay structure at most airport jobs – from sales to ramp to cleaning – are dubbed as McDonald rate so-called because it hardly justifies the tedious aerodrome security process that workers are subjected to.

    The shifts are also broken into 4-hour cycles especially in ramp work which imposes an added burden on a number of workers who have to go home and back.

    A security official, who declined to be named, said “in intelligence work there is such a concept as penetration in place.  "With such meager pay, I am really wondering if security can be had at our airports.”
   

    “A terrorist with $50,000 can probably co-opt a substantial number of airport workers,” he added.