Public Safety Committee on May 5th, 2009

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

And suggest specific ways to change the game, please.

[Perrin Beatty]

I think you have to go to the Americans with the Canadian proposal, Prime Minister to President, proposing a new type of partnership that's bold, that captures his imagination, and that can't be settled by bureaucrats.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

If I might interject, as politicians--it doesn't matter what political stripe--how do we handle that in the political context of the probable reaction that this is going to diminish our identity?

[Perrin Beatty]

I think the very good thing with the change in administration in the United States is that Canadians will now look at proposals for partnership in a more pragmatic way. I think they're very open. They don't believe the President of the United States gets up in the morning and looks for ways to gobble up Canada. As Ambassador Kergin will tell you, the difficulty was always getting the Americans' attention, not that they were too focused on Canada, and yet the perception in Canada that the Americans were anxious to consume us and still believed in manifest destiny was a real impediment to us. Right now I think the climate has changed dramatically in Canada. The challenge for us now is to get onto the American radar screen. We won't do it with small ideas. We can only do it with bold ideas, and we won't do it at a low level. We can only do it at the highest possible level.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Sir, were you in government at the time of the NAFTA agreement?

[Perrin Beatty]

Yes, and the FTA as well. You mentioned the debate. The significant concern that so many Canadians had was that by trading more with each other, we would become each other; we would sell our culture as opposed to cultural products. The surveying that's been done since then shows that culturally we diverged in terms of our values since the free trade agreement 20 years ago. I think Canadians are much more confident in their identity and in their sovereignty than perhaps they were 20 years ago, and they recognize that doing business with one another as mature partners is an expression of sovereignty; it's not a threat to sovereignty. If isolation were the definition of sovereignty, then North Korea would be the most sovereign nation on earth. It's not. It's just one of the poorest.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Rhéaume.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Very briefly. We're out of time.

[Gilles Rhéaume]

I don't think there was any inconsistency when I mentioned the brand. The brand has been reliable, secure, trusted, which is how we need the Americans to see us, and if they feel we are a secure nation, a trusted nation, it helps, and it gets rid of these aspects of misinformation that do exist and that we see from time to time, like terrorists that come from Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We'll move now to the Bloc Québécois.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I think that your presentations complemented each other. It is true that we have to develop a new policy. First of all, I thought that it was not a customs problem but rather a problem with foreign affairs. In your opinion, it goes beyond that. Nevertheless, we have to build on the cooperation that already exists between American states and Canadian provinces, and even between organizations like regional joint task forces. I like those very much since I formed them before other people did. They also work well in customs matters.

Mr. Kergin, I have found out that we can take four trips a year to Washington to meet parliamentarians there. I went once, when we were dealing with passports. We were received extremely well; the Canadian ambassador embassy helped us to meet people, with the result we had an extremely busy day and a half. Some of our colleagues in the House think that this kind of interaction amounts to tourism and that we are wasting Canadian taxpayers' money.

Can you correct this impression, if you think it should be corrected? If you do not, say so too.

[Michael Kergin]

After 12 years in various capacities at the embassy in Washington, I have always appreciated the meetings between elected representatives from Canada and elected representatives from the United States, because you speak a common language that we bureaucrats do not.

When I was on Capitol Hill, I was received like a representative of the Canadian government, but also as the advocate for a Canadian position.

But elected representatives were able to establish links with their counterparts because they were able to talk in political terms, to talk about problems their fellow citizens were facing, to ask if it was possible to find common solutions and so to be sure of understanding the challenges they all faced as politicians.

They spoke a language of sincerity, a common language that Canadian bureaucrats, diplomats and representatives could not emulate: we did not have the same credibility.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I am going to ask a more specific question about the decisions that Canada has to make immediately.

Mr. Beatty, I understand your explanation perfectly and I find it very enlightening. You said that the border is not the place where we should be investing. But, in the present situation, do you think that is a good idea to reduce resources on the border, such as the patrol on the Richelieu River, or by cutting overtime?

I think that that gives the Americans the impression that we are not taking border security seriously, even if it is our own border. But I am convinced that both the Americans and ourselves devote far too many resources there, resources that would be better spent elsewhere. Do you agree with me?

By the way, before September 11, Mr. Zaccardelli was saying exactly the same thing as you are: he was taking his police resources away from the border to investigate major criminal organizations by electronic surveillance and to do all kinds of activities that his office was involved in.

[Perrin Beatty]

I don't disagree with you at all. It was said after 9/11 by the U.S. ambassador to Canada that security trumps trade. I think that was wrong. I think insecurity trumps trade. To the extent to which the Americans feel that we don't take security seriously, they'll fortify their own border against Canada.

I don't think you can unilaterally thin out the border. And that's the trap we're in. That's precisely the problem. That is why we have to redefine the game. As long as the rules of the game are written the way they are now, we end up mirroring what the Americans do, even if it's highly unlikely that al Qaeda is going to land terrorists in Providence, Rhode Island, to attack Chicoutimi. We'll still guard against them. Unless we can redefine the game and look at security more broadly--how we provide for the security of North America with the sort of perimeter concept we were talking about earlier--we're caught in this trap. We continue to pour good money after bad into something that is simply badly designed.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Rhéaume, I listened to you very carefully earlier...

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I don't think you understood. Your time is up. Sorry, it's finished.

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Richards, please.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, and thank you to all the witnesses today. You're all clearly very knowledgeable in the area of border issues and Canada-U.S. relations. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to benefit from your knowledge and experience.

There's been a lot of mention today of the myth that our border between Canada and the United States is porous. We have heard some of the recent talk coming out of the States about that in particular. Fortunately, not all American representatives share that viewpoint. I know in particular that U.S. Consul General Tom Huffaker recently commented, and I quote:

The United States does not, underline not, view Canada as a safe haven for terrorists. We view Canada as a country that has worked very hard and very effectively to address the international terrorist threat. We have no better or more effective ally, in our view, in the war against terrorism.

That is certainly not something shared across the board in the United States. There certainly is a bit of a perception among some that maybe our border is porous.

I wanted to actually ask Mr. Kergin a little about your experiences. You were there during the 9/11 crisis. I wanted to get a bit of a sense of that from you. I'm sure these myths would have existed at the time you were there in 2001, particularly. I'm curious about your experience and what you and your team did to combat these myths and what advice you might give us today in dealing with the situation we face now.

[Michael Kergin]

Thank you. That's a very good question.

Certainly members might remember that three days after 9/11 occurred, there was a story--I can't remember if it was in the Boston Herald or The Boston Globe--that indicated three of the hijackers had come from Nova Scotia by ferry into Boston and then picked up the plane in Boston. That was the plane flown by Atta, which brought down one of the towers. That was a completely false story, and as soon as that story came out, we saw how toxic it would be for Canada. We moved very quickly, through the RCMP and others, to work with the FBI to find out where that story came from. Sure enough, it was a misquote by some low-level FBI officer in Boston. We were able to get John Ashcroft, who at that time was the Attorney General, several weeks later to make a public statement of disavowal, that in fact there was no question that any of the hijackers had come through Canada on their way to creating the destruction they did.

The regrettable thing is that once a story is out there, it's almost impossible to eradicate it. I can tell you, for five years I had a little card in my breast pocket, because I heard, at so many dinner parties or from so many representatives on the Hill and so forth, who said, “Gee, you know, it's too bad that you Canadians couldn't have controlled your territory a bit better, and we wouldn't have had one of the Twin Towers go down.” I'd have to trot out my quote from John Ashcroft, who categorically denied that this was the case.

First of all, you have a perception that's out there, or a story that's out there, and it's very hard to correct the record once it's out there in print. Second, there is always a propensity to blame the other fellow, because the dirty little secret with 9/11 is that of the 19 or 20 hijackers, I think 17 or 18 of them had come into the United States legally. Now, they had overstayed their welcome, but it had been a lapse of U.S. immigration security and not any other country's lapse. They had come directly into the United States.

This is something that took a long time for the administration and the media to acknowledge publicly. There was just a disinclination to say that somehow they had dropped the ball.

One other point I would make is concerning Hillary Clinton. I got to know her in the previous job I had, as Mr. Chrétien's foreign defence policy adviser. We met with the Clintons very often. She was very interested in Canada. She knew Canada, and she was very interested in our health care system. When she became the Senator of New York State, she needed to get votes for her campaign in northern New York State, which tends to be a bit Republican. Her way of doing that was to say that the border between upper New York State and Quebec was uncertain, and therefore they needed more resources for Homeland Security agents to establish offices there. That had an immediate impact in the poorer towns along the border. It was that simple.

Regarding her statements about a porous border, a number of us, including John Manley, were able to talk to her, and it became apparent that her statement was really about political economics. Unfortunately, sometimes that's the way politics operates in the United States.

How do you deal with that? You get out there early and often to counter those statements. You take advertisements out in the newspaper. You do op-ed pieces in The New York Times, if they'll accept them. You buttonhole as many congressmen as you can. But as I said, once a perception and a statement are out there, it's very hard to correct the record.

I don't know if that answers your question or not.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Certainly I appreciate that advice.

I would certainly hope that with our government's focus on improving border security through such measures as arming our border guards, taking different initiatives to fight drug smuggling and other smuggling across our border, and taking other measures to enhance border security, we can sell those measures and make sure that the United States is well aware of those measures. I'm sure we are, and hopefully those kinds of initiatives on the part of our government will help the United States recognize that our border isn't as big an issue as they believe it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're actually out of time. Sorry, we'll have to wrap it up there.

Mr. Holland, please.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses. I think this has been a very informative session.

I'll pick up perhaps on the points that have been made. When I was down at a meeting with congressional officials and congressmen and congresswomen, governors, the 9/11 myth came up many times. It seems some people who are corrected, a year later will forget it, probably because it serves a convenient political purpose.

Someone mentioned the fact that if you run a campaign for razors, you're going to spend tens of millions of dollars. We spent very little. But the reality is, even if we spent tens of millions of dollars, our message is infinitely more complicated than whether the razor gives you a good shave, so it's difficult to condense into a sound bite.

I want to bring up two possible points on that. One is your thought, Ambassador Kergin, to the adequacy or perhaps how well resourced we are to deliver our message. Perhaps the most effective way we can do it is as legislators, through connection between our members of Parliament and Congress and our senators, their senators, etc.

Secondly, I don't mean this in a threatening, ominous way, but the United States is talking about energy independence, and it's a central plank of Obama's platform. Perhaps to Mr. Beatty on this point, it strikes me that there's a point to be made here, really, which is that if you're interested in energy independence, it isn't achievable unless you have the cooperation of Canada. Maybe the message we need to be saying is, “We want to work with you. We're interested in moving toward things like energy independence, but if you're shutting down trade and putting up large fences at our border, either through non-tariff barriers or, if we get that far, through tariff barriers, it's going to be very hard to work with you on things like energy independence.” In other words, an open and free trading relationship simply doesn't work on the things you selectively pick and choose.

So quickly on those two points, and then I have a question on the western hemisphere travel initiative.

[Michael Kergin]

I'll handle the first one.

I left Washington four years ago, so I'm not up to date as to what f=Foreign Affairs is doing in terms of its campaigns. But to take the point, yes, as I mentioned to Mr. Ménard in one of his interventions, I do believe that legislators can speak to each other, and the more we have in Washington the better, because of that language they can have in common. It doesn't mean they agree on points, but it certainly brings a sincerity and a veracity to the argument.

I would also argue that, again, as I mentioned I guess in French, the subnational governments have a role to play with their counterpart states across the border, or their trading states, the states they trade a lot with, to play on the point of this economic interdependence of the two countries, that thickening borders or slowing down the borders on trade really does hurt those states that have Canada as their largest export partner as well. As someone said, 70% of our trade tends to be interactive within the sector, going back and forth.

I think, therefore, there are arguments that can be made by legislators, by officials, but I do believe the political level is perhaps the best place to do that, on the importance of Canada as a trading partner, as a partner for their own economic prosperity, and that cooperatively on security issues we're much better as a partner than as an adversary.

[Perrin Beatty]

I guess your question about energy was directed to me. I would prefer to see us use Canada's energy supplies as a carrot rather than as a stick. But again, it can be an important carrot set in this broader context that what we need to do is to engage the Americans on the subject of partnerships--partnerships on the environment, on energy security, on physical security, border management, on trade policy, and a whole range of other areas, but with bold ideas.

Also, we need to change the way we deal with the Americans. In recent years we've gotten into dealing with irritants, and our approach is, “Welcome to Ottawa, Mr. President, here's our list of stuff, irritants, we want you to fix for us.” And they go, “Oh, it's the Canadians again.”

I think somebody--I'm not sure who it was--quoted Condoleezza Rice as saying that talking with the Canadians was like a meeting of the condominium association. We need instead to be saying, “Welcome to Ottawa, Mr. President. We both face serious problems, wars on different continents, pandemics, global economic meltdown, concerns about security, about energy, the environment. We're here as part of the solution. We want to work together with you and we have ideas on how this can be done.”

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Maybe just to that--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'm sorry, but the next committee is waiting. We're actually a minute over time.