There are gaping holes in security at Montreal's Trudeau airport, the chair of the Senate's standing committee on national security said Tuesday.

Senator Colin Kenny, touring some of Quebec's busiest entry points, including the airport and the Port of Montreal, said they suffer from a staff shortage.

"At the airport, the workers who work around the plane aren't searched. They can take anything that they like out on the tarmac, put it into any of the aircraft that are there. Likewise, they can take things off of planes and remove them without them going through customs," said Kenny, a Liberal.

Kenny referred to earlier investigations that found many employees at the Port of Montreal had criminal records. Canada is a wealthy country, and it has the means and the responsibility to clean up the problem, Kenny said.

"At the end of the day, the government has got to make up its mind that it needs funding. Canada ranks 19th out of 22 reporting countries in the number of police per 1,000 of population. We’re the seventh- or eighth-richest country in the world. And yet we don’t seem to spend the money on policing that the citizens deserve,” Kenny said.