Thank you, Ms. Brown. Thank you for the welcome back, too.
On the security issue, I would note that we have to delink security from the visa issue. As your colleague Mr. Trottier pointed out, it's tied to refugees and false refugee claimants or disputed refugee claimants. Mexico is a security challenge for the United States—it's not a security challenge for Canada—just as the United States is a security challenge for Canada. If you've been along the Detroit-Windsor border, the homicide rate is 44 per 100,000 in Detroit and zero per 100,000 in Windsor. You have visa-free travel and no going through an airport security line to get into Windsor. For us, that's the real issue tied to travel and entry to Canada around security.
What we can do to help Mexico with security, though, is an interesting question. I lectured at the navy war college in Mexico a few years ago. The issues that they were concerned about were management and organization. I don't know that there's much we can do on the security front. The Mexican military wants help from Canada in dealing with issues on counter-narcotics and dealing with drug gangs in Mexico, so the Canadian Armed Forces and DND send them to talk to the RCMP. We have a bit of an asymmetry
We also don't have the history of Plan Colombia and the counter-narcotics, counter-insurgency strategies that the Americans have. Our help in Mexico is on things that will require the presence of the Canadian International Development Agency, things like rule of law and justice strengthening. Our contribution to security in the Americas complements what the Americans do in the Caribbean and elsewhere by working on having CIDA fund rule of law programs and justice strengthening programs. We took CIDA out of Mexico. The U.S. left USAID in Mexico. They have the ability to help in what is, oddly enough, an area that would really be our specialization to help with in Mexico, to move them money and resources.
The last thing I would note on security is that, it's interesting; public opinion polling by Bob Pastor right before he passed showed greater support in Mexico for a common North American security perimeter than in the United States or in Canada. There are areas where being involved with Mexico could be helpful on that front, but in terms of contributions, we'd have to get CIDA back into Mexico.