BOMBS, DRUGS AND MIGRANTS

In Seeking To Protect Its Border With Canada, The United States Risks
Creating New Complications

Traditionally, Canadians have been proud to live on one side of the
longest undefended border in the world. Indeed, many argue that the
6,500-kilometre frontier between Canada and the United States is not
only undefended but indefensible -- and a good thing, too.

Fear of drugs, migrants and terrorists slipping into the U.S. from
Canada has many Americans so twitchy that they are pressuring the
Clinton administration to impose security measures on their friendly
neighbour to the north akin to those used along the border with Mexico.

The legislation has already passed through Congress, and the arrest of
alleged terrorist Ahmed Ressam in December has speeded up
implementation. The U.S. Customs Service is expected to hire nearly
600 additional agents, and hopes to to receive increased funding for
bomb-detection equipment. There is also a plan, loudly touted by Lamar
Smith, a Republican congressman from Texas, for an automated
immigration tracking system that would record all foreigners,
including Canadians, entering and leaving the U.S. Additionally,
Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan wants 5,000 new border-patrol
agents hired over the next five years.

The prospect is daunting. The border between the U.S. and Mexico is
roughly half as long as the Canadian border, but the United States
employs twice as many customs inspectors to screen goods and people
and almost 25 times as many border-patrol agents to combat illegal
drugs and aliens crossing its southern frontier. Most of that border
is now protected with high steel fences, barbed wire and 24-hour armed
patrols.

Since that degree of security has not stopped the flow of illegal
migrants from Mexico into the U.S., it seems only reasonable to ask
whether it is even possible to secure the Canadian border, which
consists largely of lakes and rivers, dense forests, open fields and
deserted country roads.

Even if it were possible, is it worth it? Certainly drug trafficking,
especially the movement of marijuana across the border from British
Columbia into Washington, is flying high, so to speak. The same is
true of illegal migrants slipping into Canada through our elastic
refugee program and then quietly sliding across the border.

But traffic generally is soaring in the aftermath of the North
American free-trade agreement. Cross-border trade has more than
doubled since 1989 and is expected to double again within the next
five years. Most of that trade travels by truck through congested
border crossings near Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The costs of
slowing down legitimate trade must be weighed against the advantages
of nabbing traffickers in illegal goods and aliens.

Finally, how concrete is the Canadian-spawned terrorist threat looming
over American citizens? The fact that Mr. Ressam was arrested and the
bomb-making materials in his car were seized during his attempt to
infiltrate the U.S. is an indication that the existing system works.
Besides, it is prudent to remember that the two biggest terrorist bomb
attacks in American history were planned in the United States, by
long-time residents in the case of the World Trade Center and by
citizens in the case of Oklahoma City.

Compromising the good will and the lucrative trade that exists between
Americans and Canadians with futile attempts to inspect and track
everybody and everything that crosses the border creates a problem
instead of a solution.