Canadian Senate Wants Its 'TSA' Replaced

A Canadian Senate panel said Wednesday that improvements in lax security at the country's airports have been "few and far between" since the Sept. 11 terror attacks and called for the agency in charge to be replaced.

The all-party security and defense committee said airport security should be shifted from Transport Canada to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It said the national police force would need to hire 600 to 800 more officers to take on the job.

"We think the RCMP should handle the security because Transport Canada clearly is not," said Colin Kenny, chairman of the committee. He called the department "incompetent."

Transport Canada Minister Lawrence Cannon said he would review the report but insisted changes have already been made. "We're much more vigilant in our airports today than we were a couple of years ago," he said.

The committee said, however, that the department's response to recommendations the panel made four years ago for overcoming "serious gaps" in airport security had bogged down in "more talking; more consulting (and) more thinking."

Kenny said it isn't good enough that only 2 percent of Canada's 110,000 airport employees are searched. The committee said the government should not still be deciding how to screen mail and other cargo carried in the holds of passenger planes.

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