PORT AUTHORITY STANDS ON GUARD

New security measures may include criminal records check and a screen
by CSIS but will ultimately allow access for ships that might have
been otherwise banned

Teamwork between private companies, the Vancouver Port Authority and
government agencies has helped toughen security at the Port of
Vancouver during the past few years.

The co-operation is timely in an era where preventing terrorist
attacks, illegal immigration and drug smuggling is increasingly important.

Without strict port security here, shipping companies could bypass
Vancouver because they would fear that their ships could be banned
from entering other ports.

So, all eyes are on how to make the port more secure.

Private companies such as Western Stevedoring, government agencies
such as the Canadian Border Services Agency (CSBA) and Transport
Canada, and a multi-force police team known as the Waterfront Joint
Forces Operations unit have all lent support to the VPA.

Some of the VPA's security advances are physical. For example, it has
built higher fences.

But, increasingly it's adding technological solutions, said the VPA's
vice-president of customer development and operations, Chris Badger.

"One thing we did was implement a new security card system," Badger
said. "That meant that every employee on the waterfront -- and bear in
mind that there are 20,000-plus of them -- were going to have to
obtain an identification card."

Since the security card initiative's mid-2004 launch, the VPA has
replaced staff who formerly patrolled the gates. Now, there are
cameras and high-tech surveillance.

"You don't see people at the gates; you see a gate," said Badger. "You
see a swipe. What you don't know in the background is that you're
being surveyed, as it were, and monitored in everything you do."

All VPA workers and private company staff who work at the port have
identification cards but they are not currently required to undergo
any kind of background check, said Transport Canada spokesperson
Vanessa Vermette.

Her ministry is discussing potential new background checks with
unions, employers and other representatives of the identification card
holders.

If these checks get the go-ahead, port workers could be subject to a
criminal records check, a credit check and a screen by the Canadian
Security and Intelligence Service. Requiring these checks as a
condition of maintaining employment has been a bugbear for unions and
privacy advocates for more than a year and is unlikely to roll out
without rancor.

The CBSA has similarly boosted technological security. It has spent
$65 million in the last several years to boost detection technology,
including three James Bond-style remote operated vehicles that take
photos underneath ships and relay them to monitors where workers can
look for any suspicious activity.

When Public Security Minister Stockwell Day visited the port March 24,
he mentioned a goal to X-ray all containers. That is one of the CBSA's
tasks.

The CBSA plans to install radiation detection portals at the port of
Vancouver later this year. Once installed, CBSA staff will screen all
containers for radiation so they can prevent radioactive or nuclear
materials from entering the country.

Current VPA security projects include a $1.1 million marine
surveillance program that will connect a camera system along the
remainder of Burrard Inlet's south shore and along the north shore to
Point Atkins.

Another part of that program is to mount forward-looking infra-red
(FLIR) cameras to harbour patrol boats so staff can detect heat
patterns and leakage off ships. The RCMP has boosted its use of those
same cameras since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2004 that
officers could attach the thermal cameras to airplanes to detect
marijuana grow-operations without first getting a search warrant.

A final part of the VPA's second phase of security upgrades is a $2.3
million investment to develop a vehicle access control system (VACS)
at Deltaport.

"The engineering and design work has been completed," Badger said of
that project. "The gates are expected to be in place by the end of
this calendar year."

Police presence at the port has also increased.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Vancouver Police Department, Delta
Police Department and the CBSA officially formed the Waterfront Joint
Forces Operations in 2004.

That plain-clothed integrated investigative unit is housed at a
recently renovated Vancouver waterfront headquarters and has included
17 RCMP officers working alongside one VPD officer, one DPD officer
and one CBSA representative. The unit focuses on national security,
people or drug smuggling and organized crime.

Reports on in-progress robberies or muggings continue to flow through
a 9-1-1 operator or to the VPD or the Surrey detachment of the RCMP.