Public Safety committee  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 e

Public Safety committee  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 Bo

Public Safety committee  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

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much. You've really raised the $64 million question that I've been grappling with in the last 30 years that I've been dealing with Canada-U.S. relations, and that is, how do we get ourselves on their radar scope? The old story is that good news is no news, and very

Public Safety committee  I think the most outstanding example was the Maher Arar case, where rendition in the U.S. of a Canadian citizen was unacceptable from a Canadian perspective. That happened very shortly after 9/11. In any discussions we have with the United States, it is extremely important that w

Public Safety committee  I think you have captured it quite well. It's interesting that during the Cold War, the Americans were concerned about security, but at that point Canada was an asset. Why? Because we had this vast territory that allowed time for the Soviet missiles to be tracked, and hopefully

Public Safety committee  Well, there you go. That's our problem, I guess. With 9/11, the border suddenly became upfront and personal. That vast blank, which before was an asset, suddenly became a liability. How do you deal with that vastness, if you will? So I think security has always been paramount,

Public Safety committee  I'm the comic relief. I warmed the crowd up.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's an honour to be here to present to the committee. My background in border security dates from the time I was in Washington as ambassador from 2000 to 2005. I lived through the tragedy of 9/11 and the efforts to mitigate the problems along