Invitation to Disaster

"It is our opinion that the decision to make staffing reductions is not only highly inadvisable, but is, in fact, a serious mistake that significantly jeopardizes the security and safety of airline travellers in particular and public safety in general, not only in Canada, but in other countries as well." Air Line Pilots Association (International)

Seems as though William Elliott, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is thinking frugality to the detriment of what he has been tasked with; ensuring the RCMP as a federal agency is up to its job of providing safety and security to Canadians. If this represents one of his brilliant ideas of solving the problems within the RCMP, its once-brilliant reputation staggering under a succession of misadventures and misapprehensions, he isn't presenting as much of a problem-solver.

The decision to slash its air marshals program does not appear to be well thought out. The program, which sees covert Mountie activity in airports and aboard planes where on selected flights domestic and international, armed and specially trained men monitor flight events, is a necessary one. The decision to ramp the program down, starving it of operation funding has no appreciable merit, but it will be detrimental to Canada's need to impede terrorist plans in air transit.

Canada's air marshals program is recognized as a "world leader", something we should be interested in maintaining for the safety and security of air traffic and passengers' well being. It instills a note of confidence in air travelers, knowing that among them there is likely to be someone who looks just like them, but who in fact represents official acknowledgement of an obligation by the state to mount a vigilant presence against the potential for violent attacks.

Members of this special air marshal task force carry semi-automatic handguns, and are trained to respond when confronted with a threatening and violent on-board scenario. They represent the final preparation to respond on board an in-flight airliner when all previous safety precautions have been by-passed by suicide bombers intent on wreaking as much damage and terror in a population as they can manage.

The government of Canada and its security agencies have a practical and a perceived need to ensure that all avenues of potential security collapse have been closed off to terrorists. The very knowledge of the presence on selected flights of air marshals acts as an effective deterrence to aggression. Air Line Pilots Association (International) has taken note of preparations to diminish Canada's air marshals program, writing to Commissioner Elliott of their concerns.

They attest that the program has proven itself to be one of the country's most effective deterrents against the threat of attacks by radical Islamists determined to bring the industry and the country involved to its knees. In defence of the flying public, international air transit and the West's vulnerabilities to terrorist violence after 9-11, this program was Canada's response to a real and present danger.

To now rescind the country's commitment to airline and passenger safety is a retrograde step, one that will do damage to Canada's international reputation as a safe transit and destination country. And it will go far toward assuring potential terrorists that the threat posed to the success of their suicide missions has been diminished most helpfully by a government security agency that does not appear to take them sufficiently seriously.

That attitude in and of itself will no doubt encourage terror central to greater efforts, and the travelling public in Canada will become the major beneficiaries of their success. So how much is human life worth as opposed to the proposed savings in continued fully funding of an obviously necessary and security-prudent program?