Pressure is mounting on the federal government to take over passenger screening at Canadian airports after a Globe and Mail investigation revealed how easy it is to carry a weapon onto a commercial flight.

"If a reporter can walk onto an airplane with a knife, that tells you how bad the security really is," said Serge Beaulieu of the Air Canada Pilots Association. "What kind of a system is that?"

Mr. Beaulieu and others said they were outraged by how simple it was for Globe and Mail reporter Jan Wong to board flights at three Canadian airports carrying objects that can be used weapons. Among the items Ms. Wong carried were steel scissors, pen knives and a box cutter -- the weapon used by hijackers in the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

He said the only way to deal with the security problems that afflict Canadian airports is for Ottawa to take over passenger screening, now handled by private contractors.

"We're not the only people who don't like the system. There's been a lot of talk, but this shows that nothing has really changed."

"I'm not surprised she was able to beat the system," said James Lyon, an airline expert with advocacy group Transport 2000 Canada. "There has been a great deal of discussion, but the security is still unacceptable. It's no different than it was before Sept. 11."

Ms. Wong's report brought demands from Canadian Alliance transportation critic James Moore for new airport security laws.

"The fact is that airport security in this country is not good enough," he said in the House of Commons. "Will the Transport Minister table legislation and show leadership on this issue, rather than deferring it to his bureaucrats, and give Canadians the confidence they need to return to the skies?"

Transport Minister David Collenette said there would be disciplinary action if an investigation by his ministry confirms the allegations made by Ms. Wong.

"If the facts warrant, there will be disciplinary action. We will not tolerate this kind of lapse at security."

He said he is considering calls for airport security to be put into the hands of a federal agency, but he has made no decision yet. "I've said that we are going to examine all of those issues. And indeed we are talking about who actually discharges the service."

Kent Hardisty, executive vice-president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said the security lapses revealed by Ms. Wong show a need not just for better baggage screening but a series of other security measures. "There's a failure, and that's alarming."

He said pilots believe the government is dragging its feet in adopting new security measures, which should include improved electronic-identification technology for employees who work on the "secure side" of airports, including maintenance and service staff.

Armed sky marshals and new measures to strengthen cockpits are also needed, as well as better-trained and better-paid baggage screeners, he said. And the screeners must be federally funded, with federal standards and regulation.

"What we're saying is this: 'Get it away from industry and get it into the hands of government where oversight properly belongs.' We cannot put a price on security."

Rob Giguere, Air Canada's executive vice-president of operations, said his company would co-operate with the Transport Canada investigation. Mr. Giguere suggested that the Globe reporter had placed passengers at risk by taking weapons aboard, but would not comment on whether holes are present in the airline's security system.

"This is a very serious allegation that's been raised in The Globe today," he said. ". . . Frankly, we're very surprised that someone would intentionally breach security and put at risk the safety and security of the people on the secure side of screening."

Mr. Giguere and other Air Canada executives told a House of Commons committee they favour a publicly funded federal security agency modelled on Nav Canada, which oversees air-traffic control. The agency would report to the transport minister, but would include representatives from airlines and their unions on its board.

Mr. Moore said tougher federal standards and monitoring are needed, but believes security should remain in the hands of the private sector.

Many believe that the current system has a built-in conflict. In both Canada and the United States, passenger screening is contracted out to private firms that bid for security contracts with airlines or airport authorities. In both countries, federal rules are supposed to ensure the quality of service. Despite that, there have been some shocking lapses.

Between May, 2000, and May, 2001, for example, Transport Canada tests of private security screeners at Canadian airports revealed how easy it was to get a weapon past security. In 69 cases (out of 376 tests), agents were able to walk through security with weapons.

In the United States, it has been revealed that private security firms have allowed an appalling series of security slip-ups. Even though security has been tightened since Sept. 11, a passenger managed to carry a loaded handgun aboard a flight from Atlanta, and passengers at other airports have managed to get through security carrying weapons such as knives and box cutters.

Mike Wing, president of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, said the current system rewards the lowest bidder, creating a powerful incentive to cut corners.

Wackenhut Security of Canada Ltd., which has the contract for passenger screening at the Toronto terminal where Ms. Wong boarded, said it would not answer questions about the case.

Globe and Mail columnist Jan Wong hit a raw nerve yesterday in describing how she managed to fly back and forth across Canada with an assortment of bladed instruments in her hand luggage. Angry phone calls and e-mails poured in from readers, samples of which appear on this page.

Ms. Wong and The Globe stand variously accused of manufacturing news, pulling a self-promotional stunt, endangering fellow passengers, kicking an already battered airline industry in the teeth by fear-mongering and tipping off would-be terrorists about the laxity of airport procedures. Peel Regional Police, responsible for security at Toronto's Pearson airport, went so far as to suggest the whole story was invented.

Something is being missed by all those critics: A weapon is a weapon. However embarrassing or disturbing, the unpleasant fact remains that Ms. Wong was able to board four domestic Air Canada flights packing a box cutter, an X-Acto knife and a collection of penknives. Before Sept. 11, few airport security officers would have given such items much attention. But as the world knows, box cutters were the weapons of choice for the hijackers of the four doomed flights that day. As a result, seemingly innocuous sharp instruments -- even poppy pins -- have stirred unprecedented suspicion at airport check-in desks.

Or, at any rate, some of the time. Some of Ms. Wong's contraband items were found and confiscated, but most were not. She did not smuggle them aboard; she carried them in her purse and carry-on bag. Had security personnel inspected her effects more closely, all the weapons would have been found.

But Ms. Wong -- female, Chinese-Canadian -- doesn't fit the "profile" of those believed responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, it is noted, particularly since her face is reasonably well-known. The implication is that it is therefore logical that she escaped sterner scrutiny.

It's not logical at all. A hijacker might belong to any race, group or sex. If one lesson from Sept. 11 is written larger than any other, it is the need to expect the unexpected.

Other critics contend that testing airport security is a task best left to authorities. That too is a thin argument, supportable only if you believe that those authorities generally get everything right, every time.

As for aiding would-be hijackers by pointing to gaps in airline security, quite the reverse is true. By illustrating the ease with which she was able to breach that security, Ms. Wong's exercise underlines the pressing need to plug the gaps, notwithstanding the inconvenience to travellers that will likely arise.

Had the box cutter and knives been brought aboard by a hijacker, those busily rebuking Ms. Wong and The Globe would have had something very different to be angry about.

A Globe and Mail story revealing airport security gaps has unleashed a torrent of anger and worry, but travellers say they, too, have made it onto airplanes with sharp objects.

Businesswoman Barb Morrison said she took a trip to Calgary last month from Toronto and while security seized her nail clippers and scissors, a box cutter and nail file were not detected.

"I always carry them in my purse and I forgot to take them out," Ms. Morrison said in a telephone interview from Wingham, Ont. However, security officers did make her open her a container of plum jam on her return trip last week.

In the past week, reporter Jan Wong took four flights across Canada with a box cutter, an X-Acto knife and an assortment of pen knives to test the security at various airports.

While items such as folding scissors and nail clippers were confiscated from Ms. Wong at checkpoints in Toronto and Victoria, security guards did not detect most of the cutters and knives. She travelled from Toronto to Vancouver to Victoria to Calgary and back to Toronto.

Yesterday, some travellers spoke of having similar experiences. In all of the cases they had unwittingly left a sharp item in their carry-on baggage, purse or shaving kit.

One Toronto man said he was the subject of closer scrutiny on a trip from Atlanta after security noticed his shaving kit included scissors and tweezers.

"Not only was I not allowed to touch the bag, security officers first screened it with a device for explosives and drugs," wrote Norm Cheesman in a letter to The Globe. "After conducting their hand search, the scissors were summarily removed, but the tweezers were allowed to proceed."

Graham Casson said he has travelled numerous times since the Sept. 11 jet-suicide attacks in New York and Washington and a crash in rural Pennsylvania, but found "little quantifiable change" to airport security.

"Any changes that have occurred, have merely brought the system up to the level to which it should have been operating in the first place which may well have prevented this entire situation, and its endless repercussions from ever happening," wrote Mr. Casson, president and chief executive officer of OurPLANE Inc., an aircraft management company. "Kudos for you for using your position to identify the failures of those in charge of public safety."

During one of her flights, Ms. Wong even left a box cutter on her tray table in plain view for around 90 minutes.

But a flight attendant only noticed it before the plane landed in Vancouver.

The reporter voluntarily handed over the box cutter to the flight attendant and a ground agent outside on the exit ramp.

While many wrote vitriolic letters about Ms. Wong and her methods, others were appreciative of her efforts.

"Jan Wong deserves praise, not scorn for revealing the holes in Canada's airport security," wrote Herb Wagner of Victoria, B.C.