SPOUTING BORDERLINE NONSENSE

U.S. accusations about Canada being a haven for terrorists are just the
latest chorus of an old familiar song, says historian and security expert
Steve Hewitt

Republican Congressman Lamar Smith and Central Intelligence Agency chief
George Tenet have been issuing warnings about security at the Canadian
border and some have hailed their statements as a much needed wake-up call
to Canadians. Our lax immigration and drug laws, underfunded police and
security services, and general indifference to such important matters, they
warn in chorus, have allowed Canada to become a "Club Med" paradise for
terrorists and organized crime and a de facto threat to our friendly
American neighbours. The Canadian government must do something, threatens
Mr. Smith, or the United States will do it for us.

A point quickly lost in the growing hysteria is that none of this is really
new. Over the last 150 years or so, politicians and others on both sides of
the border have worried and fretted about menaces, both real and imagined,
crossing from one country to the other. And, more often than not, the
dangers appeared to emanate from the good old U.S. of A.

In the 19th century, security problems were a two-way street. In 1865, when
Canada was still British North America, the government of Abraham Lincoln
and many northerners became incensed after Confederates launched a raid from
north of the border against St. Albans in the state of Vermont. Around the
same time, the United States became a staging ground for what today would be
called a terrorist movement. A group of Irish nationalists known as the
Fenians launched a series of attacks against Canada and in 1868 assassinated
a prominent poet, journalist and Father of Confederation, Thomas D'Arcy
McGee.

In the wests of both countries the border was largely invisible. Indian
bands regularly ignored the boundary as they conducted raids, or -- in the
case of Sioux warrior Sitting Bull and his followers -- sought refuge in
Canada from the murderous vengeance of the American military. Immigrant
farmers similarly moved back and forth, depending on which side of the 49th
parallel had cheaper land more readily available.

Industrialization and urbanization brought new consternation over the
border. Politicians and business owners blamed Canada's outbursts of labour
unrest, which in fact were largely fuelled by a long list of genuine
grievances, on American agitators who had journeyed north to create havoc.

In the First World War, which the United States sat out until 1917, border
dread took on a Canadian flavour, and Canadian officials warned of acts of
sabotage materializing from the south. One rumour had German agents
disguised as Swiss farmers entering Canada to spread "hoof and mouth
disease" among Canadian livestock. The 1920s saw the eruption of the first
widespread panic about illicit narcotics. The young Royal Canadian Mounted
Police sent an officer to New York to co-ordinate an anti-drug trade effort
with the Americans. At the time, the public perception was that drugs were
flowing from north to south; behind the scenes, authorities admitted that
the reverse was the reality. But if the narcotics traffic tended to move
northward, then it was more than matched by booze being transported
southward. Prohibition ruled the United States until the 1930s and Canadian
rum-running entrepreneurs made their fortunes violating U.S. law.

By the 1950s, the Cold War held sway in the Land of the Free. American
politicians worried about the Red subversives of all countries, including
Canada, entering their territory. To deal with such thought criminals,
Washington passed the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act creating a blacklist
that barred individuals on the basis of their political beliefs.

In the following turbulent decade, apprehension reversed again. Canadian
officials sweated about the appearance of U.S. radicals on Canadian soil and
especially about the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement
forming links with sympathetic Canadian organizations.

The last decade has been no different -- and has again demonstrated that the
United States has few lessons about security to teach its northern
neighbour. Cheap cigarettes have flooded into Ontario and Quebec, forcing
the governments of those provinces and ultimately Ottawa to cut the taxes on
a pack of smokes, while weapons belonging to a far-right American militia
group were found in British Columbia. Indeed, lax U.S. gun laws pose a
special threat to Canadian security, because weapons can be easily smuggled
into Canada to be used by criminals here.

Mr. Smith and and his lackeys are fond of quoting the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service documents about Canada being a haven for terrorists. In
the very same documents, however, it is pointed out that Canada still
remains second to the United States in that dubious category. The World
Trade Centre and Oklahoma City bombings are obvious evidence that the United
States needs to worry about its own house before attempting to clean those
of others. And more recent evidence supports my point: Forgotten in the
hullabaloo about the apprehension of an Algerian at the Canadian border last
December was the arrest earlier that same month in northern California of
two home-grown Americans -- would-be terrorists with connections to the
far-right militia movement, who were plotting to wreak Y2K millennial
devastation by blowing up propane facilities near Sacramento, Calif.

So why the latest fuss? In Canada there is a tinge of anti-immigrant
sentiment to much of the rhetoric. South of the border it should not be
forgotten that this is an election year and Mr. Smith wants once again to go
to Washington. His re-election path follows an old American tradition --
when it doubt, look for scapegoats. And if they can be found outside of U.S.
borders so much the better.

Steve Hewitt teaches history at the University of Saskatchewan and is an
executive member of the Canadian Association for Security Intelligence
Studies.