Grits question government’s ‘sole source’ airport scanner deal ‘Didn’t go through the usual bidding process?’ says security critic
Published January 13 , 2010 By Martin C. Barry • TLN
Photo: Martin C. Barry Silvet Ali
The Conservative government’s hurried decision to equip Canada’s major
airports
with full body scanners for security reasons is drawing flack
The Conservative government’s decision to award an exclusive contract for full-body scanners at Canada’s airports to a “sole source” bidder is raising questions from the Liberal opposition. Last week, Transport Minister John Baird and Rob Merrifeld, Minister of State for Transport, announced that the government would be purchasing the scanners to enhance security at major airports across the country starting this month.
Choice offered
The technology — which some observers are likening to a “virtual strip search” — will give passengers a choice between a full body scan and a physical examination. The body scanners will be used to reveal objects, including weapons and explosives that could be concealed under clothing. The action is being taken largely as a result of a failed bombing attempt aboard a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
“The safety and security of Canadians is of utmost importance to our government,” Merrifeld said at a highly-publicized press conference in Ottawa where the new machinery was unveiled. He said the passenger screening technology will add layers of security to provide a robust defense to further protect air travelers.
Technology tested
“Given the recent terrorist incident on December 25, our government is accelerating its actions to protect air travelers,” said Baird. “The new full body scanners are the next generation of technology and balance safety and security with safeguards to privacy. They will allow for additional flexibility and enhancement to the security of screening process.”
According to Transport Canada, the scanners were tested last year at Kelowna Airport in British Columbia over several months to evaluate security effectiveness, collect operational performance data in an airport environment and validate the screening protocol for this type of technology. Health Canada was consulted on their use and has indicated that they comply with requirements. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has confirmed that privacy concerns have been addressed, while cautioning that Canadians should insist the government be kept to its word on ensuring privacy.
Just one provider
In a phone interview with the Laval News, Toronto-area MP Joe Volpe, the Liberal Party’s critic for security issues, said the opposition has important questions they’d like to raise about the scanner contract, but they can’t ask because Prime Minister Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament until March. “One of the ministers yesterday said there’s only one provider for this,” he said. “So does that mean they didn’t go through the usual bidding process?”
According to Volpe, the provider, a large U.S. military technology firm called L-3 Communications, “lobbied the government on a whole series of things and one of their lobbyists also lobbies on scanners. And one has to ask the question whether there was a completely open process.” Volpe wonders why the government decided to purchase the machinery now.
Bid matched specs
“Can it be simply because of what happened three weeks ago in the United States, or is it because we were told to do something by the Americans?” A spokesman for Smiths Detection Canada, a Laval-based company that competes with L-3 for the sale of security systems, said one of the key points in L-3’s product gaining approval was that it matched specifications issued by the Transport Safety Administration in the U.S. (the equivalent of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority here).
“We had not been necessarily requested to work” on the project, he said. “It’s a sole source from CATSA on this one.” Commenting on the contract, Raymonde Folco, the Liberal MP for Laval-les-Îles, said, “It’s an old trick that governments do at all levels … They make sure the criteria are so restrictive that only one or possibly two can answer … It’s a relatively easy thing for a government to make sure that the tenders fit the company they already know they want to give the contract to.”
Others critical
While the government insists the new equipment will be well worth the investment, critics of the new measures include not just political opponents. Some security experts are also sceptical, as is the umbrella organization that represents Canada’s travel agency industry. In at least one recent interview, David McCaig, president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, called body scanners “a huge invasion of privacy,” which is going to have far-reaching consequences when people decide that travelling has simply become too much trouble.
Andre Gerolymatos, a professor and terrorism expert at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, considers full body scanners highly invasive of privacy, that they will discourage people from travelling, and that terrorists will hide packages of explosives in body cavities because the scanners can’t detect them there.
