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 eeting
on Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, President
Bush called his northern neighbor "a brother" in the war
on terrorism. Mr. Chrétien assured reporters in Washington
that when the United States needs Canada, "we will be there."
One would expect as much: The United States is Canada's largest
trade partner and military defender. But if Canada is a "brother"
to the United States, he is a nasty one. Even in this time of war,
anti-Americanism is a national sport up here; so too, it seems,
is Canada's breezy indifference to fighting terrorism.
According to
intelligence reports, 50 global terrorist groups are actively operating
in Canada. It's "a piece of cake" for terrorists and spies
to obtain forged or legitimate Canadian passports, says one high-level
agent from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Once
they pony up for a passport, terrorists flood into the United States
on work or tourist visas. And if that fails, they can always hop
into border states through a prairie cornfield.
Canada is a
Club Med for terrorists, but nobody in the government seems to give
a damn. Last May, two ministers attended a fundraiser for the Tamil
Tigers, a terrorist organization that targets civilians in Sri Lanka.
Those of us who criticized the Liberals for coddling terrorists
were called racists.
So hell-bent
is the Liberal government on maintaining Canada's place as a nation
of "tolerance" that it elevates political correctness
above national security. A confidential White House report leaked
on Monday but written some time ago says Canada is a gateway for
organized crime groups to infiltrate the United States. Elinor Caplan,
the minister of immigration, said the report had forced Canada to
beef up its lax immigration policies. But those changes have yet
to be implemented.
The immigration
minister is the high priestess of official "diversity";
during the last election, she accused the official opposition —
without evidence and without apology — of being "Holocaust
deniers." Another Liberal, the "minister of multiculturalism,"
hallucinated in the press about an imaginary rash of Ku Klux Klan-style
cross burnings in British Columbia.
All of this
Orwellian psychodrama would be comical were it not for the fact
that it's threatening Americans' lives. At least four suspects in
the World Trade Center attacks crossed into the U.S. through the
porous Canadian border. Canada, according to former CSIS chief of
strategic planning David Harris, is "a big jihad aircraft carrier
[terrorists use] for launching strikes against the U.S."
These terrorists
fund their activities with the generous welfare payments they collect
from the Liberal government. Ahmed Ressam, a suspected Algerian
terrorist who planned to blow up the Los Angeles airport in 1999,
even convinced the Department of Foreign Affairs to issue him a
Canadian passport. Although he was caught carrying a truckload of
explosives into the U.S. by American police at the Port Angeles,
Wash., border crossing, he had evaded capture for five years after
making a bogus refugee claim. When he arrived in Canada, he told
Canadian authorities he was a suspected terrorist (accused of plotting
a millennial bombing in Dahoumane) but was nonetheless allowed to
stay in the country on "compassionate" grounds. Ressam,
who was a member of a bin Laden terrorist cell, opened bank accounts
in Canada and took vacations to Afghani terrorist training camps.
We in Canada
want to believe that snafus like the Ressam imbroglio are born of
simple incompetence. That would be terrible, to say nothing more,
but at least we can cure incompetence. A more troubling prospect
is that Canada's foot-dragging on security issues flows in part
from the Liberal government's bitter anti-Americanism. In 1997,
when referring to America's decision to approve new NATO members,
our prime minister said: "It's not for reasons of security.
It's all done for short-term political reasons to win elections."
In 1991: "I don't want to be friends with George Bush."
In 2000: "[Canada is] the United States with none of the inconveniences."
At election time, the Liberals routinely attack opposition policies
for championing "American-style" health care; "American-style"
tax reform; "American-style" immigration reform, etc.,
etc.
The question
then remains: Is Canada a "brother" of the United States?
I wish it were so.
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