Retrenchment in security staff at Canadian airports has been debated for some time, despite official reluctance to wind down precautionary measures while Canada continues military operations as part of the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The cutbacks come amid continuing terrorism investigations in Ontario that led to the arrest of four suspects.

Eight security screeners at the Saint John Airport in New Brunswick were told they will be laid off by the middle of September, while eight others will have their full-time hours cut to part time, the Telegraph-Journal said.

Lawrence McKay, spokesman for the United Steelworkers Union, called the airport cutbacks a terrible idea as it would lead to major delays at the airport. The union represents about 1,000 security works in Atlantic Canada.

"We don't understand how they expect our screeners to get people through security and follow the procedures they have to follow and do their job with that many less people," McKay told the newspaper.

There are about 35 airport security workers in Saint John and about 80 people will be affected in the region, he said. The cutbacks follow a decision by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to cut allotted hours for the passenger screening workers.

"These job cuts defy logic,"McKay said. "They disregard the well-documented need for improvements -- not cutbacks -- in airport security screening.

"If there are cuts, we fear the security screening situation can only get worse.

"It flies in the face of everything we've heard about in the security industry since Sept. 11," he said, referring to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

CATSA officials said the cutbacks were made necessary by slower season in air traffic and didn't rule out revisions at a later date in the work schedule for passenger screening at the airport.

The union officials, however, said they saw the cutbacks as the first layoffs in the troubled passenger screening sector, which is already facing problems, firstly because of difficulties with obtaining security clearance for potential new staff and then recruiting and keeping new workers in their jobs.

Industry sources said delays in security clearance and low morale turned people away from careers in passenger screening.

The United Steelworkers represents several hundred airport screening and security employees in Canada's Atlantic provinces and about 25,000 security industry workers across the country.

Added to the woes of passenger screening staff and other cutbacks at airports, Canada's security industry is concerned over developments in Afghanistan, as the Kabul government begins to bring in more local firms into the security sector there, with possible job losses among foreign companies operating in the country.

About 40,000 private security professionals are working in Afghanistan, many of them Canadians, and changes in Kabul are set to impact on job prospects for some.

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