Canadians won't mistake it for a northern twin of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or so the Martin government fervently hopes.
The newly created Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ministry does seem, in many ways, like the sister agency to the huge U.S. operation created in the wake of Sept. 11. It will oversee intelligence and security functions and co-ordinate border operations, just as is now done in Washington. Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who takes responsibility for the new portfolio, now becomes the link with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, a role played until yesterday by outgoing deputy prime minister John Manley.
But as Ms. McLellan emphasized in an interview yesterday, her new ministry is not the mirror image of the one south of the border. It is less sweeping, in one sense, because it does not encompass any immigration functions, a reflection of Canadians' sensitivity about any suggestion that there might be a link between security problems and foreign-born residents. But it also is more sweeping, in the sense that it includes numerous operations to combat natural disasters.
In the wake of the emergencies caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad-cow disease), it was felt that Ottawa needed to better co-ordinate its responses and its prevention efforts in health and safety, as well as against terrorism.
“The general objective is the enhanced safety and security of Canadians,” Ms. McLellan said.
It is no coincidence that the word safety receives priority in her ministry's name; government research has found since Sept. 11, 2001, that Canadians and Americans gauge the terrorist threat differently. To Americans, it is all-abiding. To Canadians, it is more complex; they worry as much about overreacting as underreacting. Terms such as security, and homeland security, in particular, raise mixed reactions.
“We value our collective safety, and security is part of that. But it does reflect a cultural difference,” said Ms. McLellan. , who is widely viewed as having become the second-most-powerful individual in the Martin government.
The new ministry is just one action, if the most important one, as Prime Minister Paul Martin works to improve bilateral relations. Mr. Martin, as promised, will chair a cabinet committee on bilateral relations. A host of his appointments announced yesterday are of individuals who favour closer ties, including Defence Minister David Pratt and former Tory MP Scott Brison, who becomes a parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for Canadian-U.S. relations.
In his campaign to win the Tory leadership last spring, Mr. Brison advocated a far-reaching partnership with the United States for the creation of a “seamless border.”
“Sept. 11 changed the paradigm,” Mr. Martin, who will hold his first discussion with U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday, agreed yesterday. “It's impossible to discuss borders without discussing security.”
Mr. Martin, however, has been cautious about specific measures for working more closely with the United States. He has never openly advocated the kind of integration that Mr. Brison suggested. , though many suspect that the new Prime Minister's reticence is more tactical than ideological. Still, the new ministry headed by Ms. McLellan is a case in point: It represents the most tangible continentalist effort for the newly installed government, yet Ms. McLellan said yesterday that it would have been created regardless of whether the U.S. had created its Homeland Security Department.
(One interesting sidelight in yesterday's proposals: the Martin government plans an independent review process to oversee the RCMP's national security efforts. This is a response to concern that the RCMP ill-advisedly provided intelligence to Washington in the Maher Arar case.)
Ms. McLellan said yesterday that she plans to build on Mr. Manley's close association with Mr. Ridge, particularly by completing implementation of the 2001 Smart Border Accord and by examining additional measures that would speed low-risk, cross-border commerce while maintaining vigilance against security threats.
But the Martin government remains leery of grand gestures toward Washington, at least on the eve of 2004, with a Canadian election expected in the spring and a U.S. election certain in the fall. Ms. McLellan's ministry likely will improve cross-border co-ordination. But even if this would win kudos in Washington, Mr. Martin seems content to have such progress happen quietly. Canadians, at the moment, are leery of grand gestures too.
