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Airport Security Screening

Admiral Beez

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I find it strange that we delegate the security of our airports, passengers, crew and aircraft to a contracted out firm paying minimum wage.

I propose that all airport security screening be done by the RCMP. Not full badge mounties, but the screeners should be part of the RCMP, much like Parking Enforcement and Crossing Guards are part of the Toronto Police Service.
 
I doubt they are being paid minimum wage. While I worked there (in another area of the airport) for a company that was outsourced by the airport we were paid a fair bit above minimum wage. I want to say we were about 40% above the minimum at that time. Security is not like working retail at BiWay and the pay is generally reflective of that.

That doesn't mean that the starting rates were anywhere near a living wage.
 
Forget airport security staff. I was surprised that the government didn't get rid of all the students working part-time as CBSA agents in the wake of 9/11. I'd rather we not have children as the arbiters of entry to Canada.
 
Forget airport security staff. I was surprised that the government didn't get rid of all the students working part-time as CBSA agents in the wake of 9/11. I'd rather we not have children as the arbiters of entry to Canada.
They're hardly children. They're university students in their late teens or early to mid 20s. I did that job when I was in fourth year university and then into my post-graduate, making me about 21-23 or thereabouts. My maternal grandfather was an officer in the British army fighting in Burma against the Japanese at a younger age than that. My paternal grandfather was an officer directing several anti-aircraft gun batteries during the Battle of Britain, again at a young age. My great grandfather was an officer in the Royal Navy by age 21, and first when to sea when he was 15. My father left home at 17, started his own business and emigrated to Canada with his wife and kids in his mid-20s. My Uncle left home at 16, rode an Australian-bound freighter out of Southampton to Oz and started a new life. As for myself, left home after high-school (came back in summers), went to university, stayed on-campus and immediately upon getting first full-time job at 23 left home and never looked back. Wasn't easy, job was crap, pay was terrible, first apartment was gross, and it took me over 15 years to pay off the student loans (no rush as interest is tax deductible - so focused on paying down other debt).

You may find the idea of students working as front line CBSA inspectors as insane, and in these post-9/11 days I 100% agree with you. National security both on in-bound and out-bound passengers should be handled by professional, full-time, fully trained specialized units of the RCMP, not students or Guarda staffers. However to refer to folks in their late teens and early 20s as children is silly, and infantilizes grown adults - a trend that started in the 1970s and carries on to this day with comments such as yours. No wonder we have a generation of men who are not utterly ashamed that they live with their parents into their 30s, and a generation of women who see nothing wrong with this to the point that they'll date these losers.
 
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If you make security more expensive, they will have to raise the security fee on our airline tickets.
I have no problem with that. Charge me an extra $50 a ticket if it means Guarda is given the boot and CBSA staff are made more professional, and that in-bound and out-bound security and clearance is handled by the RCMP.
 
I have no problem with that. Charge me an extra $50 a ticket if it means Guarda is given the boot and CBSA staff are made more professional, and that in-bound and out-bound security and clearance is handled by the RCMP.
Haven't RCMP staff in Canadian airports killed more innocent travellers than Guarda staff?
 
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"killed to death" - that's my new favorite idiot-speak term on UT.
It's a typo - I simply edited the verb I used, without properly editing the entire sentence. The meaning of what I wrote was quite clear, nevertheless.

I don't see that a typo warrants name-calling.
 
Redundant comments are en vogue. He was killed to death fatally in a lethal fashion using the deadly force of a mortal electrocution via electric current.
Ha! I love it.

Nfitz, I'm not suggesting that armed RCMP officers replace Guarda. What I'm suggesting is that we replace Guarda with a federal agency, likely a division of the RCMP. For example, when I flew to Israel in 2005 outbound security is handled by Mossad, their version of CSIS.
 
Nfitz, I'm not suggesting that armed RCMP officers replace Guarda. What I'm suggesting is that we replace Guarda with a federal agency, likely a division of the RCMP. For example, when I flew to Israel in 2005 outbound security is handled by Mossad, their version of CSIS.
Your suggesting we model our security on a what a right-wing racist theocratic criminal nation does?

Do you have an example of a major security failure with the current system?
 
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Your suggesting we model our security on a what a right-wing racist theocratic terrorist nation does?

Does an innocent suggestion about airport security procurement warrant *that* kind of name-calling?
 
Do you have an example of a major security failure with the current system?
The 9/11 terrorists all passed through the US private screening process, which is almost identically staffed, trained and equipped as the Guarda service in Canada. They passed through with weaponry in their carry-on bags. This would not, and has never, successfully taken place on an Israeli aircraft. When I left Tel Aviv airport every single bag, both carry-on and checked was opened, x-rayed, and inspected in detail, while MOSSAD agents conducted 5-10 minute personal interviews with every passenger in line. Lastly, every El Al plane is highjack proof - you stand up with a knife and you'll be quickly dispatched by the 2-3 armed MOSSAD guys on-board every flight.
 
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