Washington — The sprawling waters of the Great Lakes are among the Bush administration's top priorities as it moves to plug potential security holes along the 6,500-kilometre Canada-U.S. border.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said yesterday that improving "maritime security" would likely be among his key objectives in future talks with Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, Canada's newly appointed Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
"We have literally thousands of waterways that we have to contend with on the Great Lakes," Mr. Ridge told reporters after meetings yesterday and Thursday with Ms. McLellan in Washington. "I suspect that will be part of our next iteration to enhance security."
The Great Lakes, which span more than 150,400 square kilometres, are almost entirely unguarded, making the smuggling of drugs and people relatively easy. In some remote spots, boaters check in or check out of each country by calling a phone number.
Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Anne McLellan smiles during a news conference with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in Washington. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Mr. Ridge also indicated that he wants to open talks with Canada about Alaska's wild and lengthy border with British Columbia and Yukon. "We recognize there are some unique needs up there," he said.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States has enhanced surveillance of its borders, including a doubling of the number of border patrol agents stationed on the Canada-U.S. border.
Mr. Ridge, Ms McLellan and their officials are trying to kick start the stalled Smart Border process, which was aimed at keeping the border open to trade and closed to terrorists.
Under the two-year-old agreement, the two countries have been working on 30 different co-operative projects, including speeding the flow of low-risk truck traffic and opening express lanes for prescreened frequent travellers.
But while Mr. Ridge is eager to shift the focus to the Great Lakes and Alaska, Canadian officials are more concerned about limiting damage from the rollout at the end of this year of new entry and exit controls at the busiest highway crossings.
In early January, the United States began fingerprinting and photographing millions of people entering the country at 115 airports and 14 seaports every year under the Visitor and Immigrant Status Technology program, or VISIT. Under U.S. law, the system must be extended to all major land crossings by the end of this year, and to all border points a year later.
Most Canadians won't be fingerprinted or photographed because they don't need visas to enter the United States. But it isn't yet clear how U.S. border guards will be able to easily screen those that do from those that don't without snarling traffic. So far, the United States has put 600,000 people and their biometric information into a newly created database and claims to have already nabbed at least 30 wanted criminals.
The Canadians have not yet said what their priorities would be in any Smart Border II agreement and the two have not agreed on a new agenda. Canadian officials said that the Ridge-McLellan meetings were largely aimed at allowing the two to get to know each other. Ms. McLellan's predecessor, John Manley, had forged a good working relationship with Mr. Ridge, which Canadian officials have often credited with helping to defuse many post 9/11 security flare-ups.
Mr. Ridge and Ms. McLellan, who were meeting for the first time, went out of their way to praise each other.
Mr. Ridge said the two had spent a "very productive and enjoyable" two days of meetings that included a dinner Thursday night.
Ms. McLellan pledged to give Mr. Ridge her "100 per cent commitment" to Canada-U.S. security issues.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ridge ducked questions about whether his department would co-operate with a Canadian government inquiry into the case of Maher Arar, who says he was tortured after being deported to Syria while changing planes in the New York. Mr. Ridge said he could not speak about the case because he's been named as a defendant in Mr. Arar's lawsuit against the U.S. government.
Ms. McLellan, who also met with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Attorney-General John Ashcroft, denied that Prime Minister Paul Martin has been slow to accept Bush administration overtures to visit the United States.
"As soon as it can be arranged to the mutual convenience of both leaders, that meeting will take place," she said.
The next most likely meeting between Mr. Martin and U.S. President George W. Bush would be in June at Sea Island, Ga., the site of the next Group of Eight leaders summit.
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