CANADIAN AIRPORT WORKERS MAY FACE STRIP SEARCHES FOR DRUGS

OTTAWA - Canada's border guards could soon get new powers to strip
search employees in airports and ports across Canada in a bid to crack
down on the smuggling of illegal drugs such as marijuana, ecstasy and
cocaine.

CBSA officers also would be allowed to frisk employees and to use
various types of scanners and detectors to examine goods in their possession.

The proposed new regulations, which do not have to be passed by
Parliament, would apply to everyone whose work requires them to be in
proposed new customs-controlled areas, regardless of whether they are
baggage handlers or ambulance attendants responding to an emergency.

All that would be needed to frisk employees or trigger a strip search
would be for a CBSA officer to have reasonable grounds to believe a
worker in a customs-controlled area is smuggling something illegal.
While the proposed regulations can allow CBSA officers to require
someone to open their mouth during a strip search, they also would
have to conduct the strip search in a private area.

Currently, border officers have limited powers to search employees as
they leave a customs area. Under the proposed changes, they will have
the power to search employees within a customs-controlled area and
those areas will cover more of an airport or port than the current
customs areas.

The regulations are part of the government's efforts to stem the
tide of illegal drugs being smuggled into Canada by organized crime.
It's a multimilliondollar trade the government says is flourishing
with the help of airport and dock workers who are either planted in
jobs or recruited after they start.