Montreal's airport authority is speaking out after a broadcast report called its security procedures into question — and suggested that some workers at Trudeau airport had becomeradicalized.
Aéroports de Montréal suggests police and investigators are doing a satisfactory job, after a TVA investigation revealed that several airport workers had their security clearances revoked, and that some people with employee cards were able to board airplanes without anyone being searched.
The TVA program J.E. also suggested at four airport employees had posted ISIS propaganda on their Facebook pages, including video of executions, while another employee had been doing Internet searches for weapons and explosives.
Pierre-Paul Pharand, the director of operations at Trudeau airport, confirms that while there have been employees suspected of radicalization, they wouldn't be working within any restricted areas.
"If you lose your security clearance, your authorization to work within the secure area, there's nothing that prevents you to work on the public side," he says.
Pharand also says that while there isn't a dedicated airport police task force at Trudeau airport, they do have access to police when needed.
"The important thing is that plans are coordinated," Pharand says, "and if we push the button, we'll have the required resources at the right place, at the right time."
The J.E. report also shows a particularly damning suggestion — video footage of someone breezing through a security checkpoint, without being stopped, questioned, or searched.
Pharand says that piece of video was taken out of context, saying they had been scanned off-camera as part of their regular security procedures.
"There are many levels of control before you access the restricted area, many measures that were not shown in the video," he says. "I say to the public, there are different mechanisms, there are different layers of security to ensure the safety of the travelling public."
Meanwhile, Quebec's public security minister says his department is doing everything it can to ensure the safety of the travelling public.
Martin Coiteux says Montreal police, the SQ and the RCMP are working together to keep an eye on the situation.
-CJAD 800's Emily Campbell contributed to this report