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June 01, 2005

Flying low

Jean Lapierre is right to raise concerns about the US proposal to screen passenger lists on domestic Canadian flights that use US airspace — indeed, no plan that makes so little sense should escape harsh scrutiny. Consider: under this proposal, an Air Canada flight that ventures 40km south of the 49th parallel would have to submit its passenger list, while one that comes within 40km of the border but does not cross it would not. That's powerful dumb. They're airplanes, not trains — hijack one and you can cross any border you wish.

As I see it, the possibilities are as follows: 1. The plan really is that stupid. 2. The plan isn't that stupid, but is proposing this half-measure as a step towards saying "Hey, you're right, any Canadian plane could cross the border...", and you don't have to be much of a conspiracy theorist to see where that leads us. Canada and the US should either be working towards a common security perimiter or they should continue to respect each other's screening systems. The current proposal is nonsensical at best; at worst, it's a serious sovereignty grab. We should definitely have our backs up.

Posted by Chris Selley at June 1, 2005 09:58 PM