OTTAWA -- A senior Via Rail manager says the passenger service is looking at asking all travellers for identification in the wake of an alleged plot to derail a train.
Marc Beaulieu, Via's regional general manager for eastern Canada, told the House of Commons public safety committee that currently, identification is not routinely requested from passengers.
"We only check ID when necessary," Beaulieu said Thursday.
"In other words, (we check) if we have a doubt as to the transaction that is going on. We do not, as a rule, ask all of our customers for ID."
Asked by NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison if the identification check policy had been evaluated as part of Via Rail threat assessments, Beaulieu said it is one of the measures "being assessed."
The public safety committee is studying the security of rail transport following the arrests of Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, and Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal. They face criminal charges in what the RCMP says was a terrorist plot guided by al-Qaida in Iran.
Beaulieu told the MPs that Via Rail had responded to at least eight to 10 security- or safety-related incidents this year.
Those incidents ranged from protest blockades to collisions with vehicles, Via spokesman Jacques Gagnon later said.
Gagnon did not immediately have statistics on the number of suspicious packages or other such incidents at rail facilities in recent months.
The RCMP arrested Jaser and Esseghaier last month -- close on the heels of the bombing attacks that killed three people and injured scores more at the Boston Marathon.
