OTTAWA - The United States has a legal right to demand information about Canadians who fly through American airspace, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Tuesday.
Toews defended federal legislation that would clear the way to provide the passenger information required by the U.S. Secure Flight program.
"I want to see open borders between the United States and Canada," he told the Commons transport committee.
Wary opposition MPs quizzed the minister about what Washington might do with the personal details.
Secure Flight would allow collection of the names, genders and birth dates of the approximately five million Canadians who cross American airspace each year en route to destinations such as the Caribbean, Mexico and South America -- even if their planes don't touch American soil.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration plans to run the names against security watch lists.
Passengers whose names appear on the list could face anything from extra security screening to being barred from a flight.
Toews said Tuesday that Canadian airlines will be expected to provide the information to the U.S. later this year or early in 2011. Such data is already given to the U.S. for flights that actually land there.
The Canadian government has acknowledged that sharing the personal information of passengers who merely fly over the United States is "currently prohibited" under federal privacy law.
Early this year, Canada's major airlines said they would be forced either to break privacy laws or ignore the new American air security rules unless the government came up with a solution to U.S. demands for the additional passenger information.
The National Airlines Council of Canada, which represents the four largest Canadian carriers, pleaded with the government to act.
The government introduced a bill in June that would permit sharing of the information.
Opposition MPs expressed concerns Tuesday that Canada would have no control over what the U.S. does with the passenger details.
Bloc Quebecois MP Michel Guimond noted the U.S. no-fly list has proven notoriously inaccurate, snagging innocent people including a prominent American senator.
Toews tried to reassure MPs the data would be used only for airline security purposes.
He said that during development of Secure Flight, Canada reminded the U.S. of the need to guard against false matches "that are not only inconvenient and disruptive to both the professional and personal lives of travellers, but also potentially damaging to their reputations."
Canada also told Washington that passenger information should not be vetted against any lists other than those used for aviation security, Toews said.
In addition, Canada received an exemption for flights that take off and land in Canada but cross U.S. airspace.
