`Fortress America' Sparks New Fears

"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.

"September 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 ... and 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 Director of Homeland Security 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 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.

Fortress America sparks new fears [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on March 16, 2005]