ARMING BORDER GUARDS WISE

By month's end, Canadians and Americans crossing over the Peace Bridge
into Fort Erie will see something they've never seen before: Canadian
border guards armed with guns.

Guards at the Peace Bridge are expected to be among the first 100
Canada Border Services Agency officers to receive guns. The arming of
the guards - a campaign promise kept by the Conservative government in
Ottawa - seems a no-brainer.

These folks at our border points aren't the same Customs officers of
years gone by, whose jobs largely involved collecting duties and
taxes. Today, they're expected to enforce the Criminal Code.

Until now, guards have been in the unenviable position of having to
arrest people and waiting for armed police to arrive.

That puts guards in a potential life-threatening situation.

Consider this: you're an American with a gun hidden in your jacket,
and a stash of drugs you plan to peddle over here in the wheel well of
your vehicle. The border guard sends you to secondary inspection, and
inspectors find the drugs. They tell you you're under arrest.

You're armed. They're not. Do you submit to arrest, or do you use your
gun?

On July 16, border guards at the Peace Bridge seized cocaine with an
estimated street value of $2.2 million, and arrested two Toronto-area
men. That much money, and the prospect of jail time, is an awfully big
incentive for someone -- who might have a dangerous streak to begin
with -- to resist arrest with gunfire.

As far as we know, no Canadian guards have ever come to harm, despite
not being armed. But the world is a far different place than it was 20
or 30 years ago.

The rampant gun culture of the U.S. means many Americans - including
the bad guys - are packing heat. Now that gun culture is spilling into
big cities in Canada. Hardly a week goes by without hearing about
another brazen shootout in places like the Jane-Finch area of Toronto.

Arming border guards is simply a practical reaction to the escalating
risks faced by border guards today.

And it's not as if the guns are being handed out willy nilly to
guards: they're undergoing thorough training on safe handling of their
weapons and in incorporating firearms into the use of force
decision-making. It will take about a decade to arm all 4,800 border
guards.

It's costing us $101 million for this. But a safe work environment is
a fundamental right. That, plus the fact the border guards play a
vital role in the smooth flow of billions of dollars worth of goods at
the border each year, makes it a worthwhile investment.