Originally Posted by ylwae

A Canadian government official's response to the 1,500+ complaints received about security screening was that the number was trivial. I don't know if they planned to do anything about it. I'm not sure if they'll revise their views on the triviality of the complaints after the incident with the elderly woman.

CATSA may be slightly better than TSA overall--as others have mentioned, no yelling or that sort of thing--but travelers are still dealing with the same pool (mostly stagnant) of talent when it comes to hiring.

I opted out of a random (non-backscatter) scan yesterday during screening for a domestic flight. The CATSA employee was cheerful but told me not to believe the hype about the machine--the process is safe and quick. That's fine, but I think I'd feel like a bit of a tool standing in that machine.

Anyway, the patdown was also very quick, back of the hand only on potentially sensitive areas (ie, thighs), no fondling.