The U.S. Embassy in Canada denied a newspaper story Wednesday that said Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham had trouble boarding a plane because his name was on a U.S. “no fly” list designed to deter terrorists.
The Globe and Mail article said Graham had to wait while his staff found ways to vouch for his identity and ensure he made it on to the scheduled flight to the United States in January.
“Apparently there is another Bill Graham out there somewhere who did something to get his name on an American watch list,” the paper quoted an aide as saying. “Mr. Graham was obliged to prove that he was the other Bill Graham, the one in charge of the Canadian (armed) forces.”
An embassy spokeswoman said that U.S. security measures were not responsible for any delays in Graham’s trip.
“The implication in (the Globe article) that Minister Bill Graham’s recent difficulty in obtaining a boarding pass was due to U.S. security procedures is incorrect,” the spokeswoman said.
But asked whether Graham was on the no fly list, which U.S. authorities also refer to as a watch list, she replied: “We don’t talk about watch lists. We don’t talk about individual cases.”
Graham was traveling in northern Canada Wednesday and no one on his staff was available for comment.