Passengers stand in a lineup running the length of the terminal at Pearson's Terminal one in Toronto, Friday, November 16, 2007. Canadians risk flight delays and even longer airport security lines unless Ottawa boosts screening funding to address growing passenger levels, industry experts are warning. THE CANADIAN PRESS/J.P. MoczulskiJ.P. Moczulski/The Canadian Press
Let the users pay! Some airport and airline executives have somehow got it in their heads that airport security is like universal health care, and that if wait times at the airport are too long, then the federal government ought to fix things by spending more public money.
But if we want to shorten the lengthening lineups at airports, and the way to do it is to hire more security agents, it only makes sense to raise the money to do this from users: airline passengers. Canada's airports are supposed to be user-pay affairs. You pay an airport improvement fee when you fly, and an airport security fee too, embedded in the price of a ticket.
Alternatively, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority can figure out how to become more efficient, and move more people through screening, faster.
The last federal Liberal budget gave an additional $29-million to CATSA, but taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing air travel. Nor should air travel be subsidizing taxpayers: At the moment, the security tax on air travellers appears to be taking in more money than Ottawa is giving to CATSA and airport security. User-pay makes sense; user-pay-plus-a-little-extra-for-Ottawa does not.
The panel led by former cabinet minister David Emerson which reviewed the Canada Transportation Act, submitted its recommendations in February to the federal government, which is considering them. In general, the Emerson report favours user-pay, but it also is understandably concerned with international competitiveness and the everlasting Canadian challenges of long distances. It concludes that aviation security should be financed from both the existing air travel security charge and general revenues.
We think it would be better to show some mercy for long-suffering general revenues, that eternal path of least resistance. Canada's major airports were quasi-privatized a generation ago, and while the system still needs improvement, the past two decades have seen a boom in travel and airport expansion, the latter not paid for by taxpayers. User-pay works.