Airline passengers in Canada to pay more to fund increased air port security
The Canadian government says there is a need to invest much more money to bolster air travel security in Canada — but it does not want to raise taxes; the solution: an increase of the Air Travelers Security Charge charged to air travelers
Canada’s Conservative government plans to hike the security fees paid by airline passengers to fund millions of dollars worth of added security measures at airports. Transport Minister John Baird announced the proposed fee hike last Thursday and said it is necessary to protect Canadian travelers from terrorists.
“While we have a long way to go to emerge from this economic downturn, this increase, which is like the cost of earphones or a pillow in some cases, is necessary to protect air travelers from the threats of terrorism,” Baird said.
Canwest News Service’s Meagan Fitzpatrick writes that the Air Travelers Security Charge currently ranges from $5 to $17 depending on where the flight is headed. The Conservatives want to raise the fee on a one-way domestic ticket by CA$2.58. For a transborder flight it would go up by CA$4.37 and on an international flight passengers would pay another CA$8.91 one way. For round-trip tickets those increases amount to almost an extra CA$5 for a domestic voyage and an extra CA$18 for an international flight.
The transport minister said the government is committing an extra CA$1.5 billion to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to enhance security over the next five years. That funding will partly be generated by the security fee hike. A Crown corporation, CATSA is responsible for the pre-board screening of passengers and their belongings, baggage screening through airport explosives detection systems and screening and tracking of non-passengers entering airport restricted areas.
Fitzpatrick writes that the Canadian government has spent millions of dollars on airport security since the 9/11 terrorist attack, and security was boosted again after the attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner this past Christmas. The federal government is spending CA$11 million on 44 full-body scanners, implementing a passenger behavior observation program and adding more baggage screeners.
More revenue is needed to pay for those measures, and the cost should be borne by the airline travelers who benefit from them, said Baird. “I think it would be wrong to ask the taxpayer to fund it. Rather, it should be done through a user fee,” he said.
The government wants the higher fee in place by 1 April, but the proposal will have to win the approval of the House of Commons first.
That may prove to be a challenge, with at least one of the opposition parties reacting to the announcement with disdain. “This is just a tax grab, period,” said the New Democratic Party’s deputy leader Thomas Mulcair.
