Ottawa — Canada has been branded a "favoured destination for terrorists and international criminals" by the research arm of the U.S. Congress.
Generous constitutional freedoms, weak law enforcement and lightly patrolled borders have made the country an inviting place for dangerous extremists to set up shop, says a new report by the Library of Congress in Washington.
"Canada has played a significant role as a base for both transnational criminal activity and terrorist activity," the report says.
The report, titled Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism, was completed in October by the congressional library's federal research division under an arrangement with the Central Intelligence, Crime and Narcotics Center.
The centre, staffed by members of various U.S. intelligence agencies, analyses information about illicit drug trafficking.
The authors drew on government studies, police and intelligence reports, media stories, academic articles and "personal communications with regional experts."
The report notes the recent co-operation between Canadian and U.S. officials in fighting terrorism. It also acknowledges Canadian steps to toughen anti-terrorism and immigration laws, but casts doubt on whether they go far enough, saying Canada's "liberal democratic identity" may limit adoption of sterner measures.
The Canadian government has expended great effort to try to dispel a nagging image of the country — particularly in the eyes of some hawkish Americans — as a terrorist haven.
The congressional library report could undermine that effort since the document is intended for politicians, aides, lawyers, and other movers and shakers on Capitol Hill.
Representatives of the Canadian government and public interest groups quickly took issue with the report.
"While we may have areas that we must continue to work on, every country has areas that it must work on in the fight against terrorism," said Alex Swann, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan.
"The issues that we have to deal with are pretty common ones globally."
Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees questioned the quality of the report's research, calling it one-sided and "laughably amateurish."
She said its themes are "chilling" and "virtually totalitarian" given the study's association of broad civil liberties with the cultivation of terrorism.
Numerous other countries, including leading industrialized nations like Britain, France and Germany, are also critiqued in the 234-page report, along with the likes of Algeria, Indonesia and Russia.
But only a handful of jurisdictions in the Western Hemisphere — Canada, Colombia, Mexico and the notorious tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay — are the focus of attention.
The report highlights the case of Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian-born Montrealer caught trying to slip across the border in 1999 to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. While planning the attack, Mr. Ressam supplemented his welfare payments by stealing cash and credit cards.
