Posted on 03/15/2005 8:58:12 AM PST by hedgetrimmer
Canadians are being offered a new vision of a Fortress North America in which the continent is wrapped in a security perimeter from the Arctic all the way to the Guatemalan border.
A trilateral commission yesterday unveiled a series of proposals which also urge Ottawa, Washington and Mexico City to create a high-tech, biometric security system to speed passage of law-abiding travellers across borders that would ultimately diminish in importance, much as they have in the countries of the European Union.
The commission calls for trilateral threat-intelligence centres and would jointly train law enforcement agents in the three countries. It would also expand NORAD with an eye to Mexico's defence and even swap bureaucrats among the countries' respective homeland security departments.
The report, written for the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations, an independent but influential organization that specializes in the study of international affairs, is the work of Canada's former deputy prime minister John Manley, American William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Pedro Aspe, a former Mexican finance minister.
"The security of North America is indivisible," Manley said, stressing in an interview that the commission hopes to influence the trilateral summit taking place in Texas March 23.
Manley said the task force wants to challenge Prime Minister Paul Martin, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox to look beyond details and "think big ... show some vision."
But the report set off alarm bells in Canada, where critics immediately branded it as a push to surrender Canadian control over its resources and an abdication of sovereign decision-making, while succumbing to America's security agenda.
While Manley said Washington would not necessarily dictate the terms of any continental agreement, Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said it would be "irresponsible" for Ottawa to turn over information to Washington on a wholesale basis.
When Martin and Fox meet Bush at the summit next week, continental security is expected to be near the top of the agenda.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week raised again the spectre of Al Qaeda terrorists seeking entry to the U.S. from Canada as well as Mexico. And Washington is also concerned with the smuggling of high-potency marijuana across the 49th parallel.
But the three co-chairs are also advocating unprecedented integration at a time when relations between Mexico and Washington, and Ottawa and Washington, have significantly cooled over a series of irritants. For America, these have involved immigration and drug violence to the south, and missile defence and trade to the north.
One of the task force's most contentious proposals is a call for the three governments to work together on a North American energy strategy that would safeguard supplies for the continent, looking specifically at the security of infrastructure to guard against terrorists blowing up pipelines.
Canada already supplies the U.S. with more than 95 per cent of its imported natural gas and 100 per cent of its imported electricity.
In Calgary, Martin said North American security is just as important to Canada as it is to the United States.
"Sept. 11 changed the world and we don't think Canada is immune, and we obviously take security very, very seriously," Martin said.
McLellan, who followed Manley in the post, said her government has worked with Washington step-by-step on security concerns, and that's the way it intends to proceed.
"Where it makes sense for us to share systems, share information, and work together in identifying those high-risk goods ... high-risk people, we will continue to do so," she said. "Anything else would be irresponsible."
NDP Leader Jack Layton said in an interview the energy proposals could mean Canada would give up the right to determine where its natural gas supplies would go in the event of a shortage.
"We would lose our right to control supplies for our needs first," he said. "This would not be right for Canada to jump holus-bolus into an agreement that gives Washington the right to direct supplies of natural gas."
He said Canadians should be asking some tough questions about any continental agreement because it was hard to see how any deal could be brokered on a level playing field.
"This is not Europe, where you have countries of comparable size with comparable economies," Layton cautioned.
The three co-chairs say they would like to see these sweeping changes instituted within five years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `The security of North America is indivisible.'
John Manley, former deputy PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It took five years to fight World War II," Weld said. "We can harmonize a few government departments in that time."
Manley went on to challenge the three leaders to be "architects of the future, rather than custodians of the past."
He said those worried about planes again being flown into buildings are still fighting "the last war" when they should be focused on risks such as a dirty bomb in a suitcase, or the cargo container the countries do not have the means to inspect.
"The U.S. will not be safe without the whole-hearted support of its neighbours," Manley said.
Instead, he hopes the countries will move beyond the border accord he negotiated with former homeland security chief Tom Ridge to integrate visa regulations, asylum laws, more sharing of information on those entering and exiting the countries and providing speed passes to frequent travellers to ease long lines at airports and land border crossings.
That could include joint "border authorities" modelled after binational panels which oversee the Great Lakes, Manley said.
Maude Barlow, president of the Council of Canadians, called the Manley plan a call for "an unprecedented surrender of Canadian sovereignty."
"This is very clear that this is to satisfy a George W. Bush security agenda," she said.
"I think it is deplorable that big business on both sides of the border are continuing to exploit security fears to push the Bush agenda."
She said that under the Manley plan, all Canadian resources, including water, would be at risk, that the Canadian health-care system could not be protected, and that a refugee coming to Canada with no intention of ever going to the United States would still be subject to Washington's approval.
Barlow said it was important for Canadians to remember that Manley wants to become prime minister, so this task force cannot be dismissed as the agenda simply of big business.
Manley warned the rest of the world is not waiting for North America to get its act together.
Instead, with China and India emerging as economic and potential military powers and the European Union having coalesced around a common currency and few inner border controls, it's time for North America to look at what it wants to be in 2010, Manley said.
Weld said bureaucrats in all three countries who want to move incrementally have their "heads in the sand" and would fight these proposals with "every last drop of their blood."
It's time to "downgrade" internal borders within the continent, Weld said, and an external security perimeter could extend as far as North American-bound passengers embarking in a country like Hong Kong.
"It's not armed guards on the beaches," he said.
Manley said the U.S. cannot be made to feel safe merely by increased security at the Canada-U.S. border, where delays are already too long and federal agents are asked to enforce some 50 different pieces of legislation.
"We have to recognize we are in a common North American community," he said.
Robert Pastor, an American co-chair and the vice-president of international affairs at Washington's American University, said it was no longer enough to have meetings with the head of the U.S. homeland security and his Canadian counterpart, but time to have the departments "twin personnel" or exchange officials with each other.
"Canadians thinking of an alliance with Mexico is a problem," Pastor said.
"Some of that is changing and more and more people are seeing the advantage of having Mexico at the table.
"Canadians are always concerned about getting the attention of the U.S., but if you bring Mexico to the table, you get double or triple the attention in Washington," he said.
With files from Sean Gordon
A border of water and air, except for a slight strip of land, is much more defensible than what we have now. There is an ominious caveat to that. Our neighbors do not share our interest or ability to defend their borders. (Not that we are much better, but our glarning weakness will drive us to overreact when the time comes.)
to create a high-tech, biometric security system to speed passage of law-abiding travellers across borders that would ultimately diminish in importance, much as they have in the countries of the European Union.
After the first WMD attacks in the U.S. hit, Americans will react like you've never seen. Ig those weapons are found to have come across the border from Canada or Mexico (or both), those borders will change. Not necessarily by force, but not necessarily without it. The 'high tech biometric system' will be offered to our neighbors in a way they simply can't refuse. We will design a security system appropriate to the situation, and impose it on our neighbors. Watch 300+ million Americans; powerful, wealthy, and in mortal terror, and you will see action you never thought possible.
I really suspect that once the reality of American cities going up in nuclear fire arrives, Canada and Mexico will cease to be soviergn nations, except as a polite formality. Once it becomes an issue of survival, all other niceties will be swept aside. The only real question is when.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.