CREDIT: Debra Brash, Times Colonist Prospective passengers at Victoria Airport who appear to be age 12 or older will be subject to screening against Transport Canada's no-fly rule, likely starting this spring. Airlines welcome the clarity provided by the no-fly list and don't expect it to slow down boarding.

OTTAWA -- Soon, this could happen to you: You're flying to another Canadian city and despite a confirmed reservation, the airport kiosk won't print your boarding pass.

You wait while an agent checks something in her computer. She disappears to make a call to a Transport Canada hotline. When she returns, you learn Transport Canada has refused you permission to board. Police might even appear and take you into custody.

You've just found out the hard way that your name is on Canada's new "specified persons list" -- better known as the no-fly list.

Until now, there has been no official list prohibiting people from flying into or within Canada.

That will soon change. The no-fly list, a key part of a program known as Passenger Protect, was announced in 2005 by the former Liberal government. Regulations were published in the Canada Gazette last October and the 75-day period for public comment expired last week.

The program will come into force after Transport Canada publishes final regulations in March.

The no-fly list's imminent introduction has raised numerous concerns, ranging from its impact on privacy, civil liberties and constitutionally guaranteed mobility rights to fears it will disproportionately target Muslims and further entrench security integration with the Americans.

Initially, the program will apply to domestic flights only. It will be extended to international flights in June. While some Canadian residents will certainly be on the list, Transport Canada expects it to focus on non-residents.

Once the program begins, air carriers will be obliged to screen anyone who appears to be 12 years of age or older against the no-fly list before issuing a boarding pass.

If a passenger's name matches that of a "specified person," air carriers must ask to see government-issued ID, such as a driver's licence or passport, to determine if gender and birth date also match.

If they do, airlines are obliged to notify a Transport Canada office that will be staffed 24 hours a day. After further checks to confirm identity, Transport Canada may issue "emergency directions" denying the passenger the right to board the plane. It will also notify the RCMP and airport police so they can take appropriate action.

The airline industry welcomes the clarity the no-fly list will provide and doesn't expect it to slow down boarding. "We would have liked it to have been done even sooner," said Fred Gaspar, vice-president of the Air Transport Association of Canada.

[They hope, of course, that it will in fact slow down boarding, as it has in every other airport, for the express purpose of getting everyone into the NEXUS system database, thus making it easier to initiate the coming martial law requirement of having an implanted tracking number to buy or sell. This is merely one step in the march toward the total command and control grid being set up.]

Transport Canada doesn't expect the list to be large but won't speculate publicly on its likely size.

[Well given that after spending nearly 11 Billion dollars to find terrorists in Canada, yet not finding any, this list should in fact not have any names on it at all - or at most, the number of MP's who voted for this garbage in contravention of our Supreme Law. So just what is the criteria for getting on the list, given that the US list contains well over 100,000 names? Perhaps this link will help you answer that question.]

Wesley Wark, a terrorism expert at the University of Toronto, expects it will contain several thousand names.

What seems certain, though, is that Canada's list will be far smaller than the error-plagued American no-fly list, which reportedly includes about 44,000 names. (Another U.S. watch list contains a further 75,000 "selectees" -- people who are routinely pulled aside for extra security screening but are not prohibited from flying.)

Air Canada and other Canadian carriers are already using the American watch lists whenever they fly to the U.S. and will continue to do so even after the Canadian list is activated.

"They have to," says political scientist Reg Whitaker, who recently chaired a panel that reviewed the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. "Otherwise the Americans wouldn't let them land."

According to Ottawa lawyer Maureen Webb, author of Illusions of Security, a soon-to-be-published book about global surveillance and democracy, some U.S.-bound travellers have even been denied the right to board connecting flights within Canada because their names are on the American watch list.

Joe Trento, co-author of Unsafe at Any Altitude, a critical look at American flight security measures, obtained a copy last spring of the secret 540-page U.S. list, which contained just 16 names prior to the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He found the list riddled with errors.

The sheer size of the U.S. list means misidentification has been a huge problem.

John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto think-tank that specializes in security issues, has been repeatedly stopped when he tries to board flights in Canada and Europe because, he says, another John Thompson is on the U.S. no-fly list.

"If I don't reserve airline tickets with my middle name spelled out," he says, "I always get stopped."

When plans for the no-fly list were announced in 2005, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said the program represented "a serious incursion into the rights of travellers in Canada, rights of privacy and rights of freedom of movement."

Since then, Transport Canada officials have made an effort to incorporate privacy protections in the program, said Florence Nguyen, a spokesman for Stoddart.

But the commissioner is withholding final judgment until the no-fly list is up and running. "Once it's implemented, she will be in a position to evaluate the program," said Nguyen.

[.....and of course by then, Nguyen will have gotten a tap on her shoulder telling her to approve the plan, or she'll be on the list. That is also what the list is for.]

For its part, Transport Canada says the Passenger Protect program is designed to minimize the errors and abuses that have plagued the U.S. list. [See below scan on fingerprint story directly below this paragraph]

Yes, of course it is.... Just as was the one that Maher Arar was on before he ended up in Syria....

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HOW THE NEW RULES WILL WORK

Using intelligence provided by the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, an advisory group led by Transport Canada will assess individuals who may pose an immediate threat to aviation safety.

[In Case you forgot, these are the two groups that were exposed as being behind the creation of the Toronto Terror cell, including recruitment, training, and selling of fertilizer.]

After reviewing the intelligence, the advisory group, which includes senior officers from CSIS and the RCMP, will make recommendations to the minister of transport, infrastructure and communities about whom to include on the no-fly list.

[In case you forgot, these are the two groups who were cited in an official report as FABRICATING evidence, that lead to the torture of a Canadian Citizen! Yet no pressure from the government was ever made in filing criminal charges against this corrupt security agency. Instead the media and government misdirected the public with the retirement of the RCMP commissionaire, based on inconsistent statements made at a public inquiry.]

According to published guidelines, candidates fall into three categories:

- Those who are or have been involved in a terrorist group;

- Those who have been convicted of serious, life-threatening crimes against aviation security;

- And those who have been convicted of serious offences and who "may attack or harm an air carrier, passengers or crew members."

[So what is the criteria for "serious offences"? Two or more speeding tickets? And how are they supposed to know who "may" attack a person, a tea leaf reader?? That would pretty much included anyone, would it not? And given the fact that the RCMP and CSIS have been discovered fabricating evidence, this should be of grave concern to every freedom loving patriot within this country.]

To minimize the number of "false positives," Transport Canada says its no-fly list will be reviewed at least every 30 days. And because the Canadian list will be smaller and more focused than the U.S. list, fewer innocent people are likely to be caught in its net, the ministry says.

[So this is proof that they expect to catch innocent people "in the net", and that they wouldn't even notice for at least 30 days. And we're guessing the "review" will be done by the evidence fabricators, who think fabrication of evidence is a training issue, rather than a serious criminal offence.]

As well, there will be an appeal process for those who have been denied boarding. Applicants must submit a notarized document confirming their identity to the Orwellian-sounding Office of Reconsideration, which will turn the file over to an independent adviser from outside the public service for review.

The adviser will report back to the Office of Reconsideration, which will recommend to the minister whether to remove the person's name from the no-fly list. Transport Canada says the process should take about 30 working days.