There were more physical announcements than there were details yesterday as a new $95.7-million security program for air transport was unveiled.
Federal Defence Minister Peter MacKay was outside Halifax Stanfield International Airport yesterday, as five other cabinet ministers were at airports across the country, to unveil the air cargo security program.
The program is designed to establish counterterrorism security checks for air cargo travel.
“Unlike passenger travel, where there’s checks immediately before going on a plane, with cargo it often is in a warehouse, it often doesn’t get checked just prior to going on a plane,” said MacKay.
“So the idea is to have 100 per cent checking of cargo prior to it going on an airplane.”
However, MacKay couldn’t say what percentage of cargo is currently pre-scanned.
There was also no breakdown available of how much of the total pot would be spent at the Halifax airport.
It wasn’t entirely clear on what the money would be spent, though MacKay did give some hints.
“In essence it’s a more eyes-on, more hands-on approach to the handling of cargo prior to it going on a plane, and also capitalizing on new technologies and in fact some old technologies — the use of dogs, for example, would also factor into the future,” he said.
But MacKay said the responsibility to keep cargo safe will ultimately rest on the shoulders of the industry itself. He said there needs to be a joint approach between the government, air transport agencies and the private sector.
More than 20,000 metric tonnes of cargo travelled through Halifax Stanfield International Airport in 2008.
Since December, the federal government has announced moves to strengthen explosives detection, introduce full-body scanners and the development of a passenger behaviour observation program.
