Prime Minister Trudeau the time has come to act on Aviation security Canadian lives are at stake
Canada’s insecurity gets greater every day that our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is in power, and Canadian interests are going to be harmed, and people are going to get hurt. On March 24th, our blog post entitled, Trudeau government appears to be ignoring intelligence threats to civilian aviation,” warned about how the government was ignoring key foreign intelligence on the aviation security front that could put lives at risk. A recent investigative JE news report on TVA found that several employees at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport were stripped of their security clearance due to radicalization and support for the Islamic State. One of the employees shared Islamic State propaganda videos, another individual suggested that the November 2015 Paris massacre needed to be replicated, while a third had direct access to runways and aircraft at Montreal’s airport. This employee reportedly had para-military knowledge of military assault weapons, yet still works at the airport, albeit in another area. Our Prime Minister when asked about the issue responded with, “I think that's part of the kind of conversations we have to have as a society. Keeping people safe is paramount important, but defending our rights and freedoms is as well, and making sure we do that in the right way.” The message is that the current government is not going to lift a finger to ensure security at Canadian airports even when potential terrorists have access to the back end of the airport and the aircraft themselves.
Remember in late March, when Transport Minister, Marc Garneau, was asked if Canada was going to follow our closest allies, the United States and United Kingdom, in banning electronic devices larger than a cellphone in airliner cabins from flights originating in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, and his response was that Canada was looking at the matter? Heard anything since? Canada just buried its head in the sand and walked away. Yet the United States and United Kingdom took rapid steps to prevent potential bombs disguised as batteries to a laptop or other large electrical device like an I-pad from entering aircraft cabins from states at risk. It has since emerged that the Islamic State has acquired airport screening equipment and has practiced evading security measures with laptop and other bombs.
The reported rational for the cabin ban is the 2015 Metrojet airliner that was believed to be downed by an insider who planted a bomb on the flight, and the 2016 failed attempt to destroy a Somali passenger with a laptop containing a bomb. Keeping in mind that, in 2001, we saw the so-called “Shoe Bomber” incident where an Al Qaeda bomber tried to blow up a flight from Paris by setting off a bomb concealed in his shoe. In 2009, we saw the so-called "Underwear Bomber" try to bring down a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb concealed in his underwear. Recently, the US Secretary for Homeland Security stated publicly in his visit to Canada that there have been terrorist plots to bring down Air Canada flights.
Thus, having potential terrorists in our airports, with access to aircraft, constitutes a grave security problem that puts Canadian lives at risk, and our government needs to act. Prime Minister the time for conversations is over.
