[Translation]
It is a great pleasure for me to address you this morning.
[English]
What I'd like to do is to express my thanks and the thanks of Transport Canada for the opportunity to discuss the program with you. The approach Transport Canada has taken is to describe publicly as much as possible the nature of the program, its objectives, and how it operates.
In fact, last week Transport Canada launched an Internet site, www.passengerprotect.gc.ca, dans les deux langues officielles and the idea there is to help Canadians understand the program, its requirements, and its purposes. Through transparency and discussion we get better and more effective programs. I have spent the last two years talking to Canadians from coast to coast about the program--to civil liberties groups, to groups of certain communities who feel they might be negatively affected by the program. I have spent a lot of time also with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. And all that has been very helpful to us.
I'd just like to make certain remarks that relate to some issues that were raised last week here. First, I will begin with the point that our subject this morning is the program, but it's also aviation security. Aviation security remains an important concern for Canada, and it is with that goal of focusing ourselves on security of air passengers and, as we learned tragically in the events of 9/11, also the general public that we develop security programs. We do so in a manner to ensure that the programs have security value, are efficient, and match other Canadian values such as privacy protection.
What I'd like to do is focus for a few minutes on the question of effectiveness--I guess that was raised last week--and to make several points, maybe to elaborate on some points made last time.
When you look at security systems, you're looking at a complex system. You're not looking at one particular layer that is perfect in all respects and therefore can replace all other layers. Unfortunately, no one has found that perfect layer. No one has found that silver bullet. You need to overlay layers with other layers, and you do so with the intention that, taken together, they are stronger in their completeness than the individual parts. So we're looking at a layer and not an exclusive system unto itself.
I guess the point was made last time, because we were talking about identity, identification documents--there was a lot of discussion of those--that if someone wants to evade the system, they have to create a false identity. In general, although the program does apply both to flights between Canadian cities and international flights, the standard document used to travel internationally is a passport; and again, no documents are perfect, but the passport is among our strongest forms of identity, with some built-in security features that are always being improved. So that's one thing.
Another point to make is that the individuals we're concerned about--there aren't many of them, and that's a very good thing--are individuals who by their behaviour have demonstrated that they can pose a threat to a flight. Now, that means they're also individuals of interest to law enforcement and other organizations. Certainly one of the standard concerns of law enforcement and security organizations is to detect and look at false identification. That's absolutely one of the things they do. So the idea is that you're looking at a certain number of people--it's not a large number--and if their effort is made through false identification, well, that's part and parcel of the work of security organizations and intelligence organizations, to uncover that and try to address it. That's another point.
Another question that has been raised, as you know, is whether there have been studies showing effectiveness. Well, there's a bit of a methodological problem, and that is, if you look at various security systems, it's hard to study them because it's hard to prove a negative. When we lock our cars, do we know how many car thieves we've deterred? We don't. We're just happy that the car is still there and hasn't been stolen. On the other hand, we don't say we haven't had a study on how many car thieves this has deterred and on that basis decide not to lock our cars. So there is a bit of a methodological question.
I would also make the point that in this case, if you're looking at statistics, the statistics would be quite focused, because if a security system is able to deter one incident of the type that we're discussing, it will have paid for itself many hundreds of times over. That is the goal of security systems. The incidents we're talking about are extremely severe. We all know about those incidents, we remember those incidents.
So that's what you're looking at. If there's one time you can avoid that kind of situation, if we're fortunate enough to do so, it's a very significant matter.
In the absence of studies, what do we look to? We look to actions that have been taken in creating lists--watch lists, if you want--actions by governments, by industry, by the United Nations, by other institutions. The reason those actions have been taken is that they're seen by these entities to be effective.
That's the context in which I hope we discuss issues of effectiveness, that watch lists in a border control sense—clearly not in this sense, the program hasn't begun yet—have been able to prevent individuals with criminal backgrounds, with terrorist backgrounds, from entering countries. It's on that basis that watch list systems exist. If they had no effectiveness or no use, we wouldn't see any of them.
We also notice that we don't see countries moving away from them. We see an interest in those systems and pilot projects and others going forward to look at ways of improving and upgrading, so these systems do an effective job.
Thank you. Merci.
:
The program is based on the Public Safety Act, which was passed in 2004 after several years of discussion by Parliament and several years of study.
In October 2006, a regulation was published that outlines the program. At that time, the department publicized the program, it put background information on the Internet on how it would work, on those requirements, on the requirements for ID and the like. That was in October 2006.
What the department is doing currently is this. Newspaper ads were taken out across the country earlier this month, I believe on June 6 and 9. Other newspaper ads will be taken out next week. The newspaper ads were in English and French and in the aboriginal languages of the north. In addition, a lot of media have been around the program, and that has been helpful in getting the word out to people that the program is coming.
Additional advertising will go on, on radio and also on websites, travel websites and so on. Certainly air carriers have received material in the form of posters and other material. In fact, someone had the idea of creating little luggage tags that give information on the program.
Just to make the point in terms of impact, anyone who travels to the United States by air, or anywhere else, requires a passport, and that has been the case since January 23, 2007. So what we're looking at.... I mean, they're used to carrying passports that match and exceed the ID requirements of the program. There is concern about people flying between two Canadian cities, because the ID requirements there were not required by law. However, they were part and parcel of air travel as set forward as a good business practice by many air carrier companies.
I'm not worried so much about whether you think you're going to catch a terrorist with this list; I'm concerned about the person who goes there, because last week we were told that the 24/7 was for the airline to determine whether it was a match. It's the accidental upsets that are going to happen, and they happened with the other no-fly list in the States right now that we're certainly using at this point in time.
I just want to be clear. There is no way that someone whose identity has been mistaken, and it's said that that's the identity, has any way of changing the decision to board until they go through the reconsideration process, which you're saying, at this point in time, is a minimum of 30 days. That's your target, as I understand.
The way this would work is that when someone arrives at the airport, they're required to bring ID. The purpose of that ID is to distinguish them from people who might be on the list, so on the fairly narrow chance that your name would match someone on the list...because the list itself has been constructed against very stringent guidelines, and in a very focused way; we have focused ourselves on creating this, we have learned lessons from around the world in doing that. You produce your ID, you distinguish yourself from that person on the list, and you get on the flight. There is no problem with that.
The situation you're talking about is the rather unlikely situation of one of these individuals whose name, gender, and date of birth and other information confirms that they are actually on the list. Then we're into another dimension, but that's a very different dimension, and that's something that I think would concern everyone on the flight and everyone living in that city, given the sort of incident we're talking about.
:
We could discuss this at length, but I will move on to something else. It seems to me that anyone can understand that an airplane is a fragile vehicle. It seems to me that the essential aspect of the expertise needed relates to security rather than transport. However, you are not the one who decided this.
With respect to the questions raised last time, you said that it was very difficult to prove a negative. In terms of our concerns, I think that you are really looking in the wrong place. You should have looked where proof of the positive exists. The proof of the positive is the terrorist incidents or attacks that have occurred. We are certain that they have occurred. We can ascertain whether the people who committed them had characteristics from which we could have predicted that they were a danger.
I do not know whether studies like those exist; myself, I do not know. It seems that the people who came before you also did not know. What we generally know, in the public, is that there was not much about the people responsible for the events of September 11 that would have put them on the list, nor was there about the person who claimed to have explosives in his heels, and so on.
Did you look only for negative proof, or did you look where positive proof can be established?
:
I believe you have not answered my question at all. I do not even believe that you made an effort to answer it. But you know, not answering is an answer. I understand your answer quite well: it is that you have never investigated. If the existing measures had been applied in the past, you do not know whether an incident that occurred would have been avoided.
I am going to ask my third question. We are very concerned about the operation of an American no-fly list and the mistakes that have been made. Have you studied the reason why those mistakes were made, so they can be avoided in Canada? For example, could you explain for us why Bill Graham, the Canadian Minister of Defence and External Affairs, was on the American no-fly list? Why John Williams, one of our colleagues in the House of Commons, was also on the American no-fly list, as was Senator Edward Kennedy? Why the singer Cat Stevens -- I do not know his Islamic name; I liked his music a lot when I was young...
Voices: Oh, oh!
[English]
Mr. Serge Ménard: And I still listen to his music.
[Translation]
How is it that these people ended up on the American no-fly list? What are you going to do to avoid these kinds of gross errors?
:
Thank you. That is a very important question.
[English]
What I'd like to do, and I appreciate it, is clarify something. And I'm going on media reports. In the cases of Bill Graham and Ted Kennedy, they were not on any no-fly list. There was a situation of name match, which was clarified. What you had were situations of name match, which were clarified. Name match typically leads to a delay; it does not lead to a denial of boarding. This is a critical distinction, and one of the challenges of this is the failure to grasp that critical distinction.
So if a person is not on any no-fly list, there's delay, having to match your ID, showing your date of birth, and so on. It's an inconvenience, but it's against the issue of a much bigger problem if one of these people we're talking about were to get on the plane. I think you would agree with that.
:
So what have we done to reduce the inconvenience? That's very important and very helpful. What we have done is create guidelines, which I have mentioned to you. They are very specific. We have a very narrow, specific focus. What that immediately does, if you just look at the mathematics, is reduce the numbers, and therefore it reduces the chance even of a name match, let alone a mistake. So you reduce that.
We have created a 7/24 operation, on the spot, where you can show some ID, and there's a chance, an opportunity, to exchange not only name, gender, and date of birth but other information--if you happen to have a passport or if you happen to have a home address on a driver's licence--to clarify the matter and settle it right there. So what we have done is focus ourselves; that's one thing, to limit and focus who we're concerned about. Second, we've created an interaction at the time of boarding to clarify matters if your name happens to match.
Going back to my first point, we have to be very careful to distinguish between the issue of name match and delay--which is an inconvenience matter--and denial of boarding. Denial of boarding is much more serious. Denial of boarding, in the case of the Canadian program, would be a decision of the Minister of Transport. It would be taken at that time. There would be an assessment of those reasons at that time based on information received and with regard to the security of everyone on that flight and, more broadly, in the airport and surrounding areas.
So let's keep that distinction very clear in terms of a name match--which is inconvenient, and you work to reduce it and resolve it very quickly--and the actual decision to put someone on the list, which in our case would be along these guidelines. There has to be information behind that to reach that conclusion.
:
Certainly it's much beyond a criminal record. What we're talking about here is an individual who has been convicted of one or more serious and life-threatening crimes against aviation safety. This is not a common criminal record; this is a very special record. We're talking about these sorts of individuals.
Essentially, what you do is try to obtain information that is necessary to support this extremely sensitive decision to place anyone on the list. The information is received through various means; you have the United Nations, which lists over 200 people on a terrorist basis. So they have obtained information and gone forward with that. So you obtain information from various sources. Law enforcement has connections with other law enforcement organizations; security has connection with other security organizations.
You then have to check the reliability of the information. That is nothing strange or unusual. When you receive information, you look at it and say, how valid is it? That function is part and parcel of the analysis of the information. If you determine it is relevant and valid information, then you bring it to a larger group—law enforcement, intelligence, and Transport Canada—and make that assessment and reach a conclusion.
I guess there was discussion on the question of the age of 12, and so on, and the challenges this poses. If you're travelling internationally or to the U.S., you need a passport; it doesn't matter how old you are.
But within Canada it can pose a challenge. In trying to relate to families who may be travelling this summer, last week the Minister of Transport announced that an exemption from the full ID requirement would be granted to people between the ages of 12 and 17, that is, an exemption from having two forms of ID—they don't have to be photo ID—down to one form of ID, for the summer months from June 18 to September 18.
That decision was taken in order to help families. At the same time, it was taken in the knowledge that in Canada we have a pretty robust aviation security system with other layers, which I mentioned before, and that it is okay to do this for this limited time to allow people to get their documents together.
But I'd like to take this opportunity to shed a little bit of light on the question of why age 12? How did we arrive at that age?
:
Yes, the air carriers are fully aware of the documents on the list. We're working with them very closely. That is the regulation, and people are expected to comply.
The challenge is, for travel within Canada—it's not really a challenge if you're going to the U.S. or internationally, because you need a passport anyway—getting the word out that you need ID. To fly, you need one piece of ID.
Then again, it has been a common practice for decades in aviation to require ID. In fact, some people approach us and say, “This is new? You're kidding. We thought it was always there. We were just sure it was always there.”
So there may be adaptation for some. That's why we're getting the word out, and that's why the minister decided to issue this exemption over the summer months to reduce the ID requirement.
:
Why 12? There are a couple of reasons. This was not a number picked out of the sky; 12 plays a role in our Criminal Code. What we have is a distinction between individuals who are under 12 or over 12 in terms of their responsibility for actions taken. That is a Criminal Code number.
We also see that tragically—and this is a tragedy of enormous proportions—internationally, young individuals get involved in wars. They're known as child soldiers. This is a serious situation the United Nations is looking at.
This program is an international program. These flights go to and from many countries. That's a consideration as well.
There is a practical consideration from an air carrier point of view. How do you know how old someone is? Twelve is a bit of a distinguishing mark. Once kids are 13, 14, 15, are they 16, 17, 18? Depending on their size and so on, it's hard to distinguish. You have to start somewhere. Tragically, we've even had media reports within Canada of gangs and so on getting involved with kids, and teenagers getting involved with guns, so that's why the number was chosen.
We understand it poses a challenge for some people travelling within Canada, and that's why the exemption was issued for the summer. We're also taking action to address it.
That is where the number came from.
:
Obviously you don't really know how the system works. I have another question, though.
One of the concerns we had at this committee is that CSIS and the RCMP have pretty good intelligence, but every now and then they can make a mistake. So this advisory panel.... Transport Canada is not an expert on threats to our national security--as we all know and has been discussed earlier--so they would rely, and this advisory group would rely, on information from CSIS and the RCMP and others.
So let me think of a scenario where you have someone who, for their livelihood, has to travel internationally and somehow gets on this list and cannot travel. They're going to be quite upset, right? So what recourse do they have? Someone's going to take this as a charter issue. This committee looked on behalf of the Canadian public, in the context of security certificates and the anti-terrorism legislation--the analogy is not that perfect, obviously--so there would be some independent way of assessing and corroborating the intelligence information on behalf of the defendant or a passenger who's listed, to ensure, as an honest broker if you like, that the information from CSIS and RCMP was as reliable and as cohesive as one could get it.
What have you done in that area?
:
I understand the explanations you gave me regarding Senator Kennedy and Bill Graham. I gave you two other names and you did not answer. I am wondering why you did not prepare for this. It is too bad that John Williams is not here. From what we understood last time, he gave a good report of the problems he had getting his name off the lists. Apparently, he could not board the plane, because his name was on the list.
I gave you two other names: John Williams and Yusuf Islam, that being Cat Stevens' new name. That is a significant point, of course, because with a name like Yusuf Islam, you are dealing with racial or religious profiling. I will not argue Senator Kennedy's or Bill Graham's case further, because there was in fact a mistake in their cases. Nonetheless this is of concern to us.
John Williams was not a minister, but he was a member of the House of Commons. He has a fairly common name. I think there is a famous musician who is also called John Williams.
Are you claiming that all these cases that have been identified as mistakes on lists of undesirable air passengers are merely cases of matching names, that can easily be resolved by presenting identification papers showing date of birth and so on?
I would come back to the first explanations and arguments you gave us today. There is no single thing that can be done that can completely guarantee security. Security is best ensured by a set of measures that complement one another. I understand that argument perfectly. That is not where the question lies.
The question is what additional protection this gives us as compared to the disadvantages. I am still wondering what danger a terrorist who has been searched, and who we are sure has nothing on him or her, or in his or her luggage, can present once on board a plane. Can you give us an evaluation, that will necessarily be very subjective, of the additional security that no-fly lists provide as compared to security measures consisting of searches and examinations before boarding?
New technologies enable us to take the equivalent of x-rays, but in millionths of a second. They can even detect plastic weapons, in the same way as current technology can detect metal weapons. What more does this give us? The person may indeed be a terrorist, but if the person is not carrying a weapon, what danger does he or she present?
I would just draw this distinction. I think, again, one has to be very careful when talking about the nature of exact security measures and about exactly how each one works and so on. One has to be careful.
I would say broadly that the security we have in Canada is more robust, perhaps, than security elsewhere. I don't how many have travelled internationally. In terms of the machines, they're of various natures. There have been instances when, internationally, people who were supposed to do screening looked the other way, and people got on planes and the planes went down. There have been those instances.
What this would do is say to air carriers, here you are, you're the air carriers, you are taking responsibility for this flight; join us, work with us, work in partnership in relation to keeping certain people off the plane. But relatively speaking, the more security you have.... And I agree with you there. Each layer has a different function, but they all work together; they all benefit in reinforcing one another.
One thing, for instance, under this system and so on is that there is a moment when you have a person, their ID, their boarding pass, and the fact that they have a seat on the plane, and it all comes together at one point. It's just very basic common sense. This is the person who is supposed to be getting on the plane. They have valid ID.
It is an additional help, but I would put it to you that internationally it could even be, relatively speaking, of even greater help, given the different level of robustness of a particular layer in a particular place.
Again, this is one layer. As we said last time, there are many layers. The layers complement one another. Each layer has its own financial costs and efficiency costs, as well as challenges in terms of privacy and human rights. I'm just saying that one has to look at all those things when looking at any one of them. They all complement one another.
In terms of falsification of ID, I would like to offer a distinction between the ID falsification by a kid trying to get into a bar if they're not quite old enough, which is one sort of thing, and the sort of thing we're talking about. We're talking about something fundamentally different. We're talking about different individuals who are of concern to the international community. They are of concern to security intelligence organizations, who are very concerned that they will use false ID to try to do something. That's absolutely one of the concerns.
You deal with falsification of ID by trying to overcome the falsification. You're not dealing with dime-store.... Again, the consequences of what we're talking about, if we just consider for a minute, are very much different in terms of false ID for getting into a bar and false ID for trying to bring down an aircraft. Consequently, the amount of attention that's paid to individuals like that is going to be greater. If they try to use false ID, greater attention will be paid than to ID used in other contexts.
All security measures have to be looked at from the point of view of efficiency. People still want to travel, and they don't want to be inconvenienced. Also, do they raise issues for privacy and human rights? You have a blended system, a system with a number of different aspects that work together to deliver the desired result, which is safe travel. We have a healthy aviation industry; we have more people travelling. That's very positive, and we certainly want to support that.
There are many different airlines in the world. They are at different levels of sophistication in terms of computers. I myself have had experiences in which some were okay with my telling them who I am, while others needed a paper ticket. We have different levels of that in the developed world, and still more different levels in the developing world.
What we have done with our system--and again, we're looking at a dynamic industry--is that we have not focused on the ticket sale. The ticket sale is often at three or four removes from the air carrier. It depends on who is selling it and what the conditions of sale are. We're looking at the boarding pass, that document of whatever size or shape that entitles an individual to actually get on the plane. That's the one we're focusing on.
What we hear from air carriers is that depending on their business model and how it works, they know who's getting on the plane when someone arrives at the airport and is given a boarding pass to get on the plane, so we focus ourselves around that. As you go outward in the ticket selling realm, it gets less and less clear as to who, what, where, and when, and it gets much more difficult from an operational point of view and a business point of view.
That's why we are focused on the boarding pass as a document of entitlement, and on the question of denying a boarding pass to individuals of concern.
:
We'll look into it, and I thank you for the suggestion.
We are looking at cards that are issued by government--I think NEXUS is, I'm not familiar with it, but I think it is--cards that are related to an ID of a particular individual, not a group of individuals, and cards that enable that individual to do something, so if it fits into that category.... I would welcome suggestions of other cards that fit into that category. As the point was made here, people do like clarity; it helps them, so the more government-issued IDs we could actually list, the better. That's not to say that they're government IDs; some that are not there may be valid, but people do want them to see what they are.
We'll look into NEXUS and anything else you care to suggest. That's welcome.
We are getting suggestions from different parts of Canada and we're examining each one. We're trying to make it as easy for people as possible to comply with the rule.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I have to say that you're not convincing at all today on all the arguments that you're trying to put forward. I have three major concerns with this system.
One is the ID process. Regarding the list that you showed us, many of these could be easily falsified. It would be tremendously impractical to get someone from the airline to know how to identify false IDs just on this list, never mind additional IDs that might or might not be acceptable. As for training someone to identify what is a falsified driver's licence from across the country, there are 10 provinces that have 10 different drivers' licences issued, health cards. Even on your list there are a lot of holes to allow falsification.
You identify a passport as something that would secure the idea of people, yet on the other hand, there's a long list of IDs that are acceptable. So your argument that using a passport is a good one falls down the hole.
The other issue is about this security thing. Even if I agreed with you that if you can catch one incident it's worth troubling about 80% of Canadians—I don't agree with that, but even if I do—I'm worried that this system has such big holes to try to catch a small fish that it would have no added value to the layers of security that you're talking about.
If someone can falsify any two pieces of ID and buy an airline ticket off the Internet through somebody else, and they just pick up that ID and they take it to the airport, there's no way you can catch him, unless he has been tailed by the security officers all along. And if he has, you don't need a no-fly list, but at the same time about 20 million Canadians will be disturbed in this process.
And what's worse, you're creating a false sense of security for the public, while actually this has no value at all to the layers of security that you talk about. That's the first concern that I have.
The second concern is, how does someone get on the list? There is an opportunity that people who are not convicted will be on the list--suspects. The first criterion that you mentioned--a terrorist suspect, no matter where the suspicion comes from, could be on the list. Mr. Arar could have been on the list.
The problem I have is that they trample on civil rights. And the reverse onus on that individual to prove that he doesn't have some kind of guilt to be on the list violates our basic principles, the fundamental judicial right of due process for Canadians. That's what I worry about.
The third thing I worry about is that the airline could share this list with other authorities, and that impedes the privacy of Canadians.
So far, listening to all the responses that you have to the different parties, I'm not convinced. You're not convincing me how this could be worthwhile, and at the same time you're causing a lot of headache to a majority of Canadians. With any approach of any system that we want to impose, we have to balance between the effectiveness and the usefulness of the system and how much trouble it will create for Canadians and how many rights we have to trample on.
For U.S. and international, you need a passport. On domestic ID, the question is, can these be falsified? Again, I would put it to you that ID can be falsified. This is a small number of individuals. The question is, what if the police or someone are tailing them? Well, we do not live in a police society, we do not live in a society where everyone is all-knowing. Someone can be looked for and not found. There can still be an awareness of falsification of ID, even those...[Inaudible—Editor]...this is a small number of very specific people.
On the question of conviction and suspicion, yes, we are looking at a—
:
On the question of conviction and suspicion, this is a very important question. What we're looking at is individuals who may be in Canada, but they may not be; they may be anywhere. We're not in a position to convict anyone for something done in another place. These are individuals who we believe would threaten air passengers on flights. We had a threatened incident in London in August 2006, the allegation of people getting on aircraft and bringing down 10 aircraft over the Atlantic, so this is what we're talking about. They were not convicted at the time. Would it have been a good idea to keep them off the plane? I think it would have been.
We're very concerned about civil rights, but we're also concerned about the human right of security of person. Those things do have to be held in a balance, and a balance that benefits Canadians.
As for the sharing and the issue of privacy, the air carriers are not permitted to share with anyone. By regulation, by an MOU that we're signing, the minister has authority to penalize the air carriers and can bring into question their operations if they violate the law of Canada. So there are very stringent measures to protect against any further sharing. If there is any foreign government...if that were to exist, there's the possibility of a dialogue that could in fact prevent individuals from being put on another list. You're saying, okay, we're concerned about security, but you don't have to be concerned about that person. Those possibilities are there of enhancing the privacy of these individuals as well.
So when we look at this, we're not looking at—and I think you used these words before—petty criminals at all; we're looking at people from a specific, narrow perspective who are threats to Canadians' safety. So we get all tied up in some other “what if?” situations. They're not really valid. What's valid, and I don't disagree with my colleagues, is that some people for whatever reason will end up on the list. But if we have faith in the system—and that's why we're here, to build that faith in the system—we have to understand and you have to get us convinced that the system is very narrowly focused and there will be few people on that list.
I think what we're looking for is some sense that we're looking for that narrow focus, aviation safety, not somebody who's a petty criminal ending up on the list who might have multiple name matches in Canada. We're looking at Canadians; we're not looking at the Americans. We don't want to offend anybody, but at the same time, it's the safety of Canadians and it's the inconvenience to Canadians. So I think you need to convince us that it is a very narrow focus: it is purely on aviation safety.
I think all of us now have the information, thanks to a staff member here, of the ID. One of the things I noticed is that it says, “The following pieces of valid government-issued ID may be counted toward the requirements of the Identity Screening Regulations”.
Coming from a policing background, as my friend does, we were always taught as police officers that one of the biggest tools we had was the tool of discretion. When I read that, that doesn't say those are the only ones issued. There have been a number of questions about this card or that card, and my friend mentioned the NEXUS card, which would seem to be logical. I'm assuming, and tell me if I'm wrong, that those are the standard ones, that those are the ones that are accepted, but that there will be some discretion used by people who are doing the screening at the airports.
:
Absolutely, there is discretion. And just to make one point, in all of aviation security, we can't do it by ourselves. The police can't do it by themselves. It is a cooperative venture that involves government, police, the air carriers, and air passengers as well. We're all working together, so there will be some discretion exercised as to valid government ID.
When people get on a plane, we do not want people to look at others and say, “You look funny. I think you're a threat.” We want people to know that, in the view of the Canadian government and all the information that we have, everyone on that plane is valid. That's another way the program could have distinct advantages.
There have been situations where people look at others on the plane and say, “That person looks funny to me.” Well, they may. We can't change that attitude. People are going to have attitudes. What we're saying is that the people who get on the plane, based on the information we have, are validly there, and that should reassure everyone. There's a role for government in assuring and reassuring, and it can affect behaviour both in terms of security but also in people treating each other decently.
All of us talk about the different levels. So this is implemented; Canadians know it, terrorists know it, and I'm sure everyone knows it. But when we talk about a level and deterring people, I know from a little background previously that sometimes a little sticker on a window deters people from breaking into buildings, and I think you used that analogy when you talked about the stolen car.
So I recognize what you're saying is that this is just one other part of the whole equation, and I think Canadians also understand that there are different forms of deterrents that are extremely...if not impossible, very difficult to measure in terms of effectiveness. But I think it is a given that knowledge becomes somewhat of a deterrent, and I, for one, think the right decision was made in 2004 to go ahead with this kind of program--not that it will be perfect, but we can fix it as we go ahead.
So it's my opinion that from the perspective of Canadians, this might turn out to be a good start. It might be the perfect start. But at least it does provide some protection for Canadians.
You don't have to respond to that. That's just my statement.
:
Again, going back to 2004, it was a little closer to the events of 9/11. There was discussion over a period of three years on these matters, on the very section that has given legal basis to this program.
We were a little closer to that particular event. Unfortunately, we saw events in Russia in 2004 where two planes were brought down. We saw threats in 2006, just one summer ago, in the U.K., directed at North America, unfortunately. We heard reports in recent weeks in Saudi Arabia of people training to be suicide pilots, again using aircraft. We have the unfortunate fact that, back to 1995, with Operation Bojinka, there was an interest among terrorist groups in bringing down aircraft.
It's very unfortunate, but it's not really smart or safe to just wish it away and pretend that doesn't exist. What can we do, what can we do in a balanced manner, and what do we do in a cooperative manner, where everyone is involved, to try to keep things on a road ahead?
:
Okay. I've got to tell you that I'm going to get the calls--and they come to my home, not just to my constituency office--when people are refused. I have communities that have many different similar names, just like my colleague Mr. Chan. We are going to have those calls. I hope I don't get very many. I hope you're absolutely right, because we're faced with this in a couple of weeks.
But it seems to me there are ways you can let Canadians mitigate the problems of upsets at the airports and mistakes. One of them is to say that if you have an airline that allows you to get a boarding pass through your computer in advance, you do that, and then you can be assured you're not on the list.
I don't get it that you guys don't help people.
The other way to look at this, if I were the devil's advocate, is this. Say I'm a terrorist on the terrorist list; I'm going to check whether or not I'm going to get on this plane by printing their boarding pass. If I can't print it off my computer, obviously I'm on a list and I'm not going to get on that flight. So maybe that prevents, in an indirect way--Mr. MacKenzie, I'll give you this--someone from getting on a flight. But--
Now, once you're on a list, it's really difficult to get your name off. In the age of Internet, lists keep on going forever.
You're going to have a board of reconsideration. I don't want to mislead the public into thinking that you're going to act in 30 days, because you're not; you're going to only act--hopefully, within a 30-day time period--after you've received the information. No person is going to be able to contact you. We won't even know the names of these people who look at the cases. In one of our last meetings, we were told that people won't be told why they can't get off the list.
But let's presume a happy outcome right now. We're going to get somebody off the list because it was a false positive. How do you contact...or do you do anything to notify all the places the list went to with the bad name and the inconvenience to this person? How do you get their names off, considering that these lists may now be in other countries, because some of these people we've shared the lists with through the airlines may have breached your guidelines and regulations and shared them with other people?
:
On that side of it, the concern is valid. Once a name is out there and so on.... Again, what we are doing is this.
The naming of an individual is subject to review at least every 30 days. What if someone's name has been on there? What happens to that? The air carriers will be advised that.... The new list will come out, as it were. The name will no longer be there. They will still be under obligation--permanently--to protect any information that they ever received on that list. If they or anyone else breaches that, there will be implications for those parties who breach it. That's how you deal with it. If a name is removed, it is removed. If someone else moves forward with it, then that is in breach of those regulations.
If that individual is being sought by Interpol or others, that's out of our hands, but in terms of any information that we produce that we provide to anyone, there's a permanent requirement to protect that information. It doesn't just leave you after a few months. That's how reconsideration works.
:
It's not hard to tell there's a very significant divergence of opinion here today. Some of it, I suspect, is what I would call a philosophical view of this type of arrangement; some perhaps...and I don't like to use the words “tainted” and “politics” together, so I'll refrain from saying that.
But one of the statements made was that someone could just say they were a terrorist and wanted a boarding pass. That would be like somebody walking down the main street of any city, town, or village saying they were going to rob a bank and then expect nothing to happen.There will be consequences to ridiculous statements.
I think we've probably highlighted some of the perceived inadequacies of those types of response to what is a worldwide problem. And of course we know that smart people—the people who really want to do us harm—will use every means possible to get around any kind of safety net we may have in our society. I was very happy to hear you articulate the fact that this is just one of several layers of security that are designed to take away the angst from the travelling public, specifically Canadians, when they want to travel by plane, because it's much more convenient in a large country like ours. I have family in British Columbia, and because of my current job I don't have a lot of time to visit them, so I can't drive or take the train. I'll take an aircraft. I think most Canadians would want to know that everything reasonably convenient is being done to provide safety.
This is leading me to a question, and the question is, has your department looked at other nations' programs to see if they have programs like this, or what in addition we can do? Have you looked at best practices worldwide? Who has the best aviation security, and how would or wouldn't things work here, given Canadian society, because of our laws? Have we done that?
:
Certainly, as a matter of course, in the absence of the statistical studies that everyone would love to have. But with security and statistics, there's a challenge there, because you're trying to prevent something, so if you succeed you don't have any record of it. There might be certain cases where you do, but those are rare.
Certainly you look at other countries and how they do their own security, so Canada is involved in the G8. The G8, as one of its many actions, does have a group called the Roma/Lyons group: Roma relating to anti-terrorism, Lyons to the headquarters of Interpol. Canada is involved in that, and I am involved in that group, looking at best practices across the G8 countries.
We're involved in APEC. APEC—Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation—has a great interest in security. They have a great interest in aviation security, and I will be participating in the work of that group as well. A lot of work goes on with the Organization of American States as well.
In terms of lessons learned, we're looking at a watch list type of process. I'm aware that Australia and New Zealand are in a unique situation because they've linked visa issuance to a watch list. We in Canada also link these issuances to watch list types of criteria and so on. So you try to get as much advantage out of all those experiences as you can, then take that and apply it more directly to aviation.
In the case of Australia and New Zealand, since you have to fly to get there, they are applying a border control watch list type of situation to aviation. As I understand it, it's a fairly efficient system. Certainly the U.S. also has a system, and we're much more aware of that, we hear a lot about it. It gets a lot of media. So we're certainly aware of those experiences and learn from them.
But in all cases there's international study and awareness, certainly in terms of some Canadian initiatives and things we're doing--particularly, I would like to think, when it comes to achieving that very difficult balance between efficiency, security, and the protection of privacy. Perhaps there are a few things we have to share with other countries who are concerned about security, but we want to do it in a way that also protects privacy and reduces inconvenience to passengers.
I'm going to share with Mr. Chan, so I'll be very brief.
My whole point is that in the absence of our own list, airlines will use other lists. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get any answers, and I think in the fall maybe we should bring in the airlines and IATA, groups like that.
I know from personal experience--not that I was personally affected myself--that the U.S. no-fly list is flawed, or was flawed. If we have a tight Canadian list, then it might be better. But I haven't been able to get any reassurance.
I'd like to build on Ms. Barnes' point. We're saying that you cannot call up your office to say, “Look, my name is so and so. Here's my date of birth. I'd like to know if I'm on the list or not”, but if I have computer access, I can go and see if I can get a boarding pass, and I'll know then. If I can get a boarding pass, I'm not on the list.
That doesn't make any sense. On the one hand you're saying, “We can't really tell you if you're on the list or not”, but if you have a computer and you can get a boarding pass, that means you're not on the list. I don't get it.