HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- L.A. Times January 28, 2002
RESPONSE TO TERROR
In Canada, a Sea Change Follows Wave of Terrorism In Canada, a Sea Change Follows Wave of Terrorism By WILLIAM ORME, TIMES STAFF WRITER OTTAWA -- Canada's quiet Victorian-era capital may seem serenely unchanged, but
officials and citizens agree that the political
landscape here
has been
dramatically and perhaps permanently transformed.
There are the minor but symbolically important inconveniences: No longer, for example,
can Canadians drive up to the doors of their
ornate Parliament
building or wander
freely in its corridors.
Less visible, but far more significant in a culture that puts a premium on privacy,
are the wide-ranging powers the government has been
granted since
Sept. 11. It
can now intercept e-mail, ban inflammatory
speechmaking and
interrogate anyone suspected of having knowledge
about terrorist
activities. And from bars to bus
stops to federal office
buildings, the
usual talk of hockey and political intrigue is overshadowed
by discussion of the infantry battalion about to be airlifted from Edmonton
to Kandahar--the first Canadian combat troops,
as opposed to
peacekeepers, to be
deployed abroad since the Korean War.
"This is not a peacekeeping mission," Defense Minister Art Eggleton stressed in Parliament
this month. "The military campaign in Afghanistan
is not over yet."
The decision to dispatch the renowned Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry to Afghanistan--and
to place the nation's combat forces under U.S. command for
the first time
since the Korean conflict--is a striking example
of what analysts say
is the most notable
change here since Sept. 11. There is a strong new pro-American
tilt of the political center, led by the once nationalist-minded Liberal Party.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien is using his solid majority in Parliament to align his government with the
Bush administration's counter-terrorism campaign in Central
Asia and North America alike, with new joint border patrols and the importation into
Canada of U.S. Customs agents, among other controversial initiatives.
"There has been a profound change in the way the U.S. and Canada do business," said a Canadian
Foreign Ministry official here as he headed out the door for a
recent
meeting in Washington with Thomas J. Ridge, the U.S. homeland security
director.
The new security measures are not designed primarily to protect Canadians, officials here contend, but to ensure that their nation does not become a staging
ground for attacks against the United States.
"Canada has never been a target for international terrorism, but there is a concern that Canada not be
used as a giant aircraft carrier for terrorists targeting Americans,"
said a Justice Ministry official who helped draft Canada's month-old anti-terrorist
legislation. Like most senior civil servants here who agreed to be interviewed, the official
asked not to be identified.
Chretien has drawn the expected rebukes from the New Democratic Party, the leading bloc
to his party's left, which charged that he is
"turning Canada into the
51st state." The
criticism has been joined by mainstream opinion
makers, including
Chretien's former foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, who said sending troops to fight
under U.S. command was tantamount to a surrender of sovereignty.
Chretien's foreign policy team bats away the criticism. "When Mr. Axworthy was foreign minister, we were involved in Bosnia and Kosovo and other places
with Americans, in fact frequently under American command
structures," said John Manley, the newly designated deputy prime minister, who is
charged with coordinating national security
policies with allies.
To the surprise of many analysts here, the pro-American stance appears to have strengthened rather
than jeopardized the government's standing. The largest
opposition party,
the rightist Canadian Alliance, advocates even
closer ties with the
U.S., and polls show
two-thirds of respondents supporting the American-led military
coalition abroad and strict anti-terrorism laws at home.
"In the wake of September 11th, security has jumped to the top of the agenda here," said Mike
Thielman, who heads the Canadian solicitor general's Counter-
Terrorism Division.
Security cooperation with Washington began almost immediately: When the U.S. closed its
airspace to incoming aircraft Sept. 11, the
Chretien government volunteered
within the hour to
have scores of jets diverted to
Canada.
"This government took a big risk that day," said the Foreign Ministry official. "Nobody knew if
there would be more attacks."
Canada quickly complied with a U.S. request to put plainclothes air marshals on every flight from
Canada to Washington's Reagan National Airport--even though
Canada had never
had such a program. About 2,000 of the 16,000
officers in the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police were reassigned in September to terrorism-related
jobs, most along the U.S. border, officials said.
Stung by critics here who said its visa rules were too lax, Canada's immigration service intensified
screening at overseas airports of inbound passengers. "It is as
though we took a
system that was not on alert and put it on permanent alert," said
a top immigration official.
In the Justice Ministry, meanwhile, government lawyers immediately began drafting counter-terrorism laws. "We had our first meeting
on the afternoon of the 11th,"
recalled a leader of
one team of 30 lawyers, "and within a month we had a bill written
and submitted."
Civil libertarians here concentrated their fire on two provisions of the legislation. One called for
court-ordered "investigative hearings" that could
compel testimony from
uncooperative witnesses or unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist-related offenses.
The
other gave new a uthority for the preventive detention of
suspects for up to 72 hours in
terrorism cases.
Despite the objections, the legislation was adopted in Parliament by an overwhelming majority in November
and became law in late December.
The terror attacks also forced the government to revamp its 2002 budget, adding $7 billion in security
expenditures, most of the money for the military. The appropriations
will deepen an already severe deficit.
Some Canadian nationalists worry that security fears will lead to a common external border patrolled
primarily by Americans. Those concerns intensified when U.S. Atty.
Gen. John Ashcroft
signed an agreement here in December for border policing and
intelligence-sharing that he said represents "a sea change" in U.S.-Canadian relations.
The agreement will put U.S. Customs Service agents in Canadian seaports handling
southbound container cargo. The Bush administration announced Friday
that it was
requesting an additional $2.1 billion for
further security measures at both the northern
and southern U.S. borders.
The Mounties, meanwhile, have formed joint "border enforcement teams" with U.S. law enforcement agencies. Just one of these teams,
working along a 100-mile stretch of the
St. Lawrence Seaway,
has 70 representatives from a dozen agencies from both sides of
the border.
"Since September 11th, there has been a speeding up of the 'continentalization' that started with
the free trade agreements," said Maude Barlow,
head of the Council of
Canadians, a leading
force in
anti-globalization protests here.
"And now for the first time since Korea, we have Canadian soldiers serving under Americans, as
if we were Americans," she said. "Our culture, and our country,
are
all being merged into one North America."
But Barlow concedes that most Canadians appear less than concerned about a blurring of their
national identity.
Many observers here have been surprised by the depth of the pro-American response--and the
seeming lack of American awareness of that
backing.
On Sept. 14, a hastily organized demonstration of support for the U.S. drew about 100,000 people in Ottawa. A few weeks
later, 20,000 Canadians trooped to New
York for a
solidarity visit--a gesture largely ignored south
of the border.
Nor have many Americans understood the extent to which Canadian political and military priorities
have been altered, officials say.
"What we do doesn't resonate down here," Paul Heinbecker, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, said in a recent interview in his New York
office.
Instead, Canadian officials contend that there is an unjustified but widespread U.S. perception that
Canada harbors terrorists from North Africa and the Middle East. "
There is no evidence
whatsoever of any Canadian link to the events of
9/11," said Sgt.
Paul Marsh, spokesman for the
Mounties.
Still, there is acute retrospective interest on both sides of the border in the case of Ahmed
Ressam, who was caught crossing from Canada to
Washington state
in 1999 with a trunkful of explosives he admitted were intended for an
attack on
Los Angeles International Airport. He was convicted on terrorism charges last
April.
Ressam, a confessed Al Qaeda operative who lived in Montreal and traveled with a forged
Canadian passport, was "an isolated case," Marsh
contends. However,
another former
Montreal resident, Mokhtar Haouari, who provided Ressam with
funds and a
forged Canadian driver's license, was sentenced
this month to 24 years
in prison by a
U.S. federal judge.
Ashcroft announced Friday that one of five suspected Al Qaeda terrorists who appear in videotapes
discovered in Afghanistan has been identified as a Tunisian-born Canadian
citizen. The man's whereabouts is unknown, Ashcroft
said, thanking Canada for its
"significant assistance" in the
case.
Although Canada may not have been a past target of terrorists, the military alliance with Washington in
Afghanistan could change that, officials here fear. "As we become more
engaged in this action, there is an elevated risk,"
said Thielman, the counter-terrorism
expert.
Some critics here assert that the deployment represents an unsettling departure from the Canadian military's recent role in
international peacekeeping missions. By early
February, Canada will have nearly 3,000 soldiers
and sailors in and around Afghanistan,
a commitment surpassed only by the U.S., Britain
and France.
The government was assailed in Parliament for the announcement that it would turn over prisoners captured by its forces to U.S. commanders
in Afghanistan. Yet there has been
little criticism over the combat commitment
itself.
Many Canadians are gratified that the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry has been asked to serve alongside the U.S. 101st
Airborne Division in combat.
"They welcome and support it," said army Col. Tim Grant, the chief spokesman for Canada's armed forces, "as this shows that we are
not a gendarmerie; in fact, we are
an army."
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles
Times
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Title: In Canada, a Sea Change Follows Wave of Terrorism
