The Associated Press
TORONTO- U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins said Wednesday that his country’s tough new passport initiative would result in a more secure border, insisting it would not hurt tourism or trade.
Wilkins made his comments at a disaster management conference, at which experts stressed that Canada must accept that terrorism is “inevitable” in this country.
Washington intends to require that all people coming into the United States after 2007, whether from Canada or Mexico, present a passport or some other tamperproof document.
Opponents of the proposal contend it will cause massive traffic backups on the U.S. borders and harm tourism and the flow of commerce. Canada and the United States enjoy the world’s largest trading partnership, with more than $1 billion (euro790,000) in goods crossing their border each day.
In the opening speech to delegates Wednesday, Wilkins said the new passport initiative has resulted in both countries collaborating on a plan to coordinate emergency services in the wake of a terrorist attack or national disaster.
Wilkins praised the efforts of Canadian authorities in the arrest of 17 terror suspects in the Toronto area earlier this month, and said those sentiments were echoed by U.S. President George W. Bush and his administration.
“If anything goes to the heart of disaster management, it’s thwarting a potentially devastating terrorist plot,” Wilkins said.
A British counterterrorism expert told the conference that Canada needs to wake up to the reality of a world where terrorism is “inevitable.”
Keith Weston said the city’s low security levels make it a “target-rich environment” in the eyes of terrorists. He said business professionals also need to put counterterrorism on the agenda and make it the “underpinning” of everything they do.
Weston recently retired from the London Metropolitan police force, where he specialized in counterterrorism. He now works as a senior research fellow in counterterrorism at the Resilience Center at Cranfield University in the U.K.