"Canadian airport security firm fires whistle-blowers"

Thursday, August 23, 2007 

Airport security firm fires whistle-blowers
Staffers complained managers rushed passengers through screening
BY ALEX DOBROTA 
Canada - The Toronto Globe and Mail


The private company in charge of checking passengers at Toronto's Pearson
International Airport has quietly fired three screening officers who blew
the whistle on alleged security breaches, The Globe and Mail has learned.

In February, the officers lodged a complaint with Canada's Industrial
Relations Board against Garda World Security Corp., alleging their managers
took over security checkpoints at Pearson to rush passengers through
screening.

As a result, luggage and passengers boarded planes without being checked,
the screening officers said. Garda has repeatedly denied the allegations.

The three officers were suspended last month. They received their dismissal
notices last week.

A fourth screening officer, who made the same allegations against Garda, was
fired in April.

A Garda spokesman refused to comment, but did not deny that three of the
company's officers had been laid off.

Senator Colin Kenny, a vocal critic of airport security, vowed to
investigate the matter. He said he met the three jobless screening officers
Tuesday and was concerned by their allegations.

"It's serious," said Mr. Kenny, who is the chair of the Senate committee on
national security and defence. "They certainly gave me enough information to
want to ask more questions."

In an interview last month, Garda senior vice-president Allan Bentley said
security was "at no time" compromised at Pearson and suggested the officers
making those allegations were disgruntled employees.

But The Globe obtained internal Garda documents that showed one air
traveller completely circumvented security at Pearson in April by walking
through an unstaffed screening gate.

Similar documents showed a screening officer checking passengers for
U.S.-bound flights at Pearson worked without proper certification for more
than a year.

And, in interviews with The Globe, several screening officers said Garda
managers used termination threats to speed up the screening process.

The Montreal-based company manages screening at 28 airports across the
country, including Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Calgary
International. It was awarded those contracts by the Canadian Air Transport
Security Authority, a federal agency that reports to Parliament.

The three screening officers fired last week also complained that Garda had
withheld bonus money destined to screening officers that it had received
from CATSA. Mr. Bentley said the company is "negotiating with the union to
provide that additional compensation to employees."

During the latest airport security incident, planes were grounded for
several hours at Trudeau airport over the weekend, after a man managed to
pass through the screening checkpoint with a multipurpose tool in his
carry-on luggage.

The man showed up at an international departure gate shortly before 6 p.m.
on Saturday. On the X-ray machine, screening officers noticed he had an
object that looked like a Swiss Army knife in his carry-on bag.

"We don't know how the person managed to take the bag and disappear," said
Constable Lynne Labelle of the Montreal police, which was called to the
airport.

He was found after 20 airplanes were grounded for more than four hours,
stranding 8,000 passengers in the airport and delaying arrivals and
departures.

Calls for an interview with a CATSA official were not returned yesterday.

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