U.S. Homeland Secretary John Kelly said Friday the most significant security threat facing North America is a terrorist attack on aviation and that there have been countless threats to blow up Canadian and U.S. airlines’ planes.

Speaking to CTV’s Power Play on Friday, Kelly said there are “dozens and dozens and dozens of ongoing plots to get to the United States or blow up airplanes” by terrorists.

“That seems to be their Stanley Cup playoffs,” he said. “They want to knock down airplanes. They are trying to do it every day . . . . I can’t count the number of airplanes that have not been blown up in flight, whether they’re United (Airlines) or Air Canada.”

Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick, while noting that it’s policy not to discuss issues of security, denied the airline has been the target of such plots.

“There is no truth whatsoever in the suggestion that Air Canada may have been involved in such threats,” he said in a written statement.

A department of Homeland Security official later contacted the Star to clarify Kelly’s remarks and to say there was no direct connection to Air Canada.

“The Secretary was talking generally about the well-known threat to civil aviation from terrorist plots,” he said. “ He was not referring to a specific threat against any one airline. He used the names of airlines simply to illustrate the point that all airlines are at risk.”

In the TV broadcast, Kelly said he could not provide more information as it is classified, but added, “I can tell you there are dozens of plots ongoing all the time.”

Kelly was in Ottawa having bilateral meetings with Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Transport Minister Marc Garneau.

When asked about Kelly’s comments regarding constant aviation threats at a media session Friday afternoon, Goodale said people should not be “spooked” and that aviation safety has been a high priority in Canada for years.

“There is not a new specific threat against Air Canada,” Goodale told reporters.

“Obviously, if that were the case, we would be taking a range of actions, but the Secretary was not referring to a new, immediate threat.”

In the interview with CTV, Kelly spoke extensively about the Canada-U.S. border, stressing the importance of keeping it open and speeding the movement of people and goods across it.

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He also said he has had discussions with Goodale and Hussen about the recent surge of asylum-seekers crossing the border to Canada through remote locations.

“We’ve discussed that quite a bit,” he said. “Those that have been in the business — your ministers — longer than I have are equally as perplexed as to why people who, generally, as a group, have come to the United States legally . . . enter Canada between points of entry.”

With files from Andrej Ivanov

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