PUTTING SMUGGLERS ON THE RUN AT PEARSON

Every week brings a new crop of contraband items passing through the
gates of Toronto's Pearson International Airport. "Last week we caught
a guy hiding a snake under his shirt," said a superintendent with the
airport branch of the Canada Border Services Agency. Rounding up
smugglers is key to the Conservative government's plans for a "North
American perimeter," so the feds are on a campaign to ramp up border
security to U.S. levels and, in the words of Public Safety Minister
Vic Toews, "convince the Americans that our country is a safe country."

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Toews, along with at least a dozen reporters,
dropped by Pearson for a demonstration. The Post's Tristin Hopper went
to watch:

10: 14 The demonstration starts with Scout the food-sniffer dog, a
two-yearold beagle whose inherent cuteness is enhanced all the more by
his tiny CBSA vest. Led by border services officer Ed Filman, Scout
begins sniffing his way through a row of about 30 suitcases laid out
on the airport floor. Five suitcases in, Scout sits down. Unzipping
the bag in front of Scout, Mr. Filman pulls out an apple. Scout then
pegs another suitcase containing a hunk of garlic sausage. So the dog
can smell food. But Scout's real talent is selective sniffing - he is
able to ignore non-restricted food items such as chocolate bars and
potato chips, and zero in instead on meat, vegetables and potted
plants. Being cute, it turns out, is also an important part of the
job. "We want the dog to be able to come up to people in a calm,
gentle way," a border official tells Mr. Toews.

10: 16 His suitcase inspection complete, Scout poses for photos next
to a plastic table piled high with his take from last week: succulent
Austrian prosciutto, mouth-watering bratwurst, high-end Japanese fish
cakes and two large bonsai trees. They look harmless, says P.J. Joura,
superintendent of the detector dog program, but all it takes is one
contaminated sausage or houseplant to cause millions of dollars damage
to the Canadian economy.

10: 20 Five "travellers" (really border service agents in civilian
clothes) line up in single file in front of news cameras. Misha, a
stout black Labrador, waddles onto the scene to find any hidden drugs.
Glancing around nervously, the dog is led repeatedly around the
passengers. Once. Twice. Three times. If this was real life, the
smuggler would already be on his way to sell hits at the nearest
playground. "She looks pretty distracted," says Mr. Toews. "She's new
to the airport environment, so she's still a bit crowd shy and camera
shy," explains a border agent. Hemmed in by longhaired news
photographers, it is also possible that Misha is simply overcome by
residual odours.

10: 24 On to the ion scanner, a magical machine that can find
microscopic residues of everything from narcotics to explosives. Mr.
Toews hands a border official a $20 bill and asks him to give it a
quick test. A few minutes later, the machine beeps. "It's showing
cocaine," says the officer. Virtually every $20 bill in Canada has at
least one-or two-billionths of a gram of cocaine, and the Public
Safety Minister's money is no exception.

10: 45 Epilogue. Before a row of TV cameras and microphones, Mr. Toews
praises the work of Pearson's border officials and sniffer dogs. "If
we want to continue to be a co-operating partner in international
trade and tourism, we will need certain standards in place," he says.
Of course, "there is absolutely no way that everybody can be checked," he says.