00:02:30.280So effectively, what's been happening is sometimes it's the baggage workers and sometimes it's ramp workers.
00:02:37.540What they're effectively doing is they'll get your bag after you've given it to your airline, and they'll just take the tag and switch it out to a different luggage.
00:02:49.480And usually that luggage has an air tag in it that someone on the other side, when you're traveling internationally, will just pick it up.
00:02:55.720So when you go to pick it up at your location, oftentimes you'll just see it, and it'll have a rush tag on it instead of the original bag tag.
00:03:04.400Now, most people wouldn't think anything of this, but what's happening is sometimes the government through CBSA is catching it early, so they'll stop people from getting on board the plane.
00:03:14.580They've done a random search, found the drugs, and then so they detain and then arrest these innocent Canadians who had no idea that they were involved in this.
00:03:24.580In other cases, we've seen where Canadians have traveled to places like the Dominican Republic or the Philippines, where they have very stringent laws.
00:03:35.540And in one case, it took months to resolve the case of a couple that found that their bags had been swapped out for a drug bag.
00:05:48.560Okay, so what happens is you take your bag to the airport and you check it in, and it goes on the conveyor belt back into the area that you never get access to.
00:05:56.380There are 4,000 cameras at Pearson Airport, and as you mentioned, 16 of the cases happened at Pearson.
00:06:02.660But those cameras are not always monitored, and there are blind spots.
00:06:06.740And all it takes is for one corrupt baggage handler or ramp handler to unstick this off your luggage and put it onto a bag full of drugs.
00:06:18.520Now, that bag full of drugs is traveling to the same destination as you.
00:06:22.640And if it makes it, there are usually air tags in the luggage of drugs.
00:06:26.840Somebody on the other end is going to pick it up and take it.
00:06:30.820So people have no clue what's going on.
00:06:33.860And we'll have a graphic a little later on that shows some of the countries that have some pretty severe penalties if you're caught smuggling drugs into their neighborhood.
00:06:43.520And you said earlier, right off the bat, there's some people who've been there for months in different countries stuck because they were caught up in this.
00:06:49.760Well, how do you prove that it wasn't you?
00:07:18.240Not only did they miss their flight, they had eight hours of detention where they were grilled before they were finally exonerated and released.
00:07:25.840Now, in their case, it was because they had a video of them exiting their home.
00:07:31.780They actually had one of those security cameras that recorded them and switched on.
00:07:37.200That's the reason why they were let go, because they could see clearly that the husband was wearing a different backpack than the one that he checked in.
00:07:47.340And so here in Canada, you know, it's pretty standard.
00:07:50.800You just throw down your check baggage, they weigh it, they then put the tag on and it's gone.
00:07:56.840Many countries, actually, what they'll do is they'll take a picture and includes the weight so that when you get handed your check baggage claim, it has that right on there.
00:08:09.960And so that's one way to handle this problem.
00:08:12.220Another way to handle, though, is to actually have Transport Canada, which has responsibility
00:08:16.380for screening of these individuals that are in those sensitive, restricted areas, both
00:08:21.080for ramp as well as for baggage workers, would be to have them actually do their job.
00:08:27.920And when I asked the Minister of Transportation, Steve McKinnon, what concrete measure, just
00:08:34.740I said, Minister, give me one concrete measure that you have done besides simply talk to
00:08:40.100your officials, to solve this problem, he couldn't give me a single example.
00:08:45.840You think this would be a bit of a priority?
00:08:48.240Well, in fact, he made the statement that this was one of many, many priorities the
00:08:54.100government have, and there's no hierarchy.
00:08:56.980So meaning that someone being stuck in line, waiting for the CBSA computers to switch on,
00:09:05.100or someone delayed because an air traffic controller labor shortage in Vancouver, for example,
00:09:12.700those have the same priority as someone who is facing criminal prosecution either here in Canada or outside of the country.
00:09:20.040So I didn't feel much relief by having him say that.
00:09:23.440In fact, it made me think, do you not have a sense of priorities here, fellow?
00:09:28.440Yeah, you would think the minister would say, this is pretty serious stuff.
00:09:42.820Well, and this is the thing, is once they're in that CBSA system, they're flagged.
00:09:48.260So when they travel abroad, so maybe they were detained, arrested for a period of time,
00:09:53.940and then found that they were totally innocent and released, their names have been flagged.
00:09:58.340And so when they travel internationally and when they come home, they may be immediately pulled over to the side, have all their luggage ripped open forevermore because they're in that CBSA watch list.
00:10:10.500And when I asked the government about that, the minister just simply said, well, that's something that CBSA has to deal with.
00:10:16.740That's not fair to these innocent Canadians who are stuck now in this perma cycle of searches.
00:10:24.260And as you saw in that picture, it can be quite invasive.
00:10:26.580This is absolutely remarkable because the Liberals don't seem to have sympathy for problems they aren't experiencing, right? We talk about affordability. We've never had it so good. Like, what are you Canadians complaining about? And now, when there are people being detained in other countries that may have the death penalty, as we're seeing on the graphic here, it's like we don't have a hierarchy in terms of priorities.
00:10:49.020Well, we're not experienced. We get the fast lane, you know, the minister gets the fast lane, that's what I'm talking about, at the airport.
00:10:55.480They don't have to worry about this kind of stuff. And if something did happen, there's a way to talk this out.
00:11:00.560The minister would have a way out of this. But everyday Canadians, well, good luck to you.
00:11:05.240Well, and this is what really drives, I think, most people mad when they see this, is that, first of all, everyone waits in that long line.
00:11:12.000They often, if you had an artificial hip or knee replacement, you get flagged, you have
00:12:16.820There's just no budget cuts or anything like that?
00:12:19.160Oh, well, so on that, so the W5 expose certainly has raised this.
00:12:24.140But it's interesting you say that because the government was warned by the Canadian Union for Transportation Employees.
00:12:32.840They specifically cited that some of the service levels of certain departments,
00:12:39.400including the one that handles screening, you know, they've had pink slips.
00:12:44.680I know when I asked the minister when he came to the Transportation Committee,
00:12:48.800would there be cuts and would that affect safety levels?
00:12:52.560He said, absolutely not. These changes won't compromise safety one iota.
00:12:58.500I just received an order paper question response where I asked some very pointed questions
00:13:02.480around the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Directorate.
00:13:07.740This directorate usually gets about $17 million a year.
00:13:11.680And what they do is they make sure our rail cars, our transportation system, we're talking about dangerous goods like propane and other forms of energy.
00:13:22.960So if there's a problem with transporting these things, it can lead to big environmental or possibly safety issues.
00:13:29.600From a $17 million a year enterprise, they've cut $7 million from it, largely with pink slips for employees.