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Have passport, will travel (April, 2005)
by David Rudd
News that all Canadians would, by 2007, be required to flash their passports each time they sought entry into the United States was greeted with a mixture of bewilderment and resignation earlier this month.
How could the Americans subject their ‘best friends’ and neighbours to the same rigours that non-North Americans must endure upon arrival at any American port of entry? What had become of the special relationship? Was ‘the world’s longest undefended border’ succumbing to the post- 9/11 paranoia of Bush administration and the US Department of Homeland Security?
Leaving aside the fact that the new regulations will affect Americans more than Canadians (they will need their own visas to re-enter their country), Canadians flying south already favour passports over other proofs of citizenship, so south-bound tourism will hardly be affected. The flow of day-trippers coming the other way might be slowed only for a short time, as Americans not otherwise inclined to overseas travel will take the time to obtain the diplomatic means to access the cheap destinations in the Great White North.
Canadians have a higher rate of passport ownership than do the more inward-looking Yanks. Some among the US population, including a not insignificant number of congressmen, have made a curious virtue out of their never having travelled outside North America. Perhaps official Washington has unintentionally caught on to something. With visa in hand, more Americans may get the itch to see the world, and expose themselves to the fact that the US is feared as much as it is admired.
The challenge for Canadians is not the degree to which the snowbirds will have their Florida vacations made more problematic. At stake is the larger trading relationship that underpins the socio-economic health of Canada. The truckers moving their wares across the Windsor-Detroit bridge, or those creating business opportunities in America’s financial heartland know more than most of us how crucial the open border is to Canada’s prosperity. Happily, the $1.2-billion in trade that flows across it each day is now underpinned by the Smart Border Initiative, introduced after 9/11.
But what if another Ahmed Ressam is caught trying to smuggle explosives across the Canadian border? On a recent trip to New York I was astounded by the mood prevailing at the Canadian consulate, our unofficial embassy to Wall Street. A senior official spoke of the difficulties the staff routinely encountered in trying to convey to visiting Canadians that the physical security of the United States and its citizens was considered more important than the free flow of trade across the border. For Canadians, memories of 9/1l may have faded into the background. But in the US, and in its largest city, security was still a going concern, and nothing irked US officials more than the attitude (said by consular officials to be prevalent in Canada) that America should have gotten over it by now. New Yorkers recall that the first attack on the World Trade Centre took place in 1993. Osama bin Laden, whose blood-thirstiness is rivalled only by his patience, waited another eight years before striking again.
I came away from the meeting with the feeling that although Canada cannot be accused of having done nothing to uphold its security responsibilities, a degree of complacency had set in among dignitaries visiting the US; that security concerns were being quietly derided as constructs of George W. Bush’s addled mind. As if to read my thoughts, the consular official told me that security was an issue that crossed party lines. Democrats (among them Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) are just as concerned as Republicans that America’s neighbours cover all the bases.
Which means covering the baselines between first, second, third, and home plate. Not only will Canadians be obliged to show their national colours, they will have to devote more time and effort to ensure that their documents are bona fide. It was therefore no accident that on the same day as the regulations were announced in Washington, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser released a long-anticipated report on airport and passport security in Canada. She castigated Ottawa for not doing more to ensure that passport offices have timely access to information gathered by law enforcement agencies. ‘Watch lists’ comprising names of 73,000 sketchy individuals were incomplete, while passport office staff were found to have completed insufficient checks on the supporting documents required to obtain a visa. In 37 of 50 applications chosen at random, the identities of the guarantors had not even been verified.
Long accustomed to critiques of its performance on security matters, the government seemed unmoved. Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew declared in the House of Commons that the Canadian passport was ‘ the most secure document in the world’, a non-denial denial of Fraser’s observations.
The Minister’s statement that the passport is internationally respected betrayed ignorance of the threat to the esteem with which it is allegedly held, even by reputed allies. In September of 1997 two Israeli secret service personnel were caught with Canadian passports after a botched attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan. The passports held by the agents were thought to have been stolen from a Canadian mission in a European country. Canadian officials demanded assurances from their Israeli counterparts that such undiplomatic behaviour would not happen again - a quaint notion considering the latitude granted to the Mossad and the importance successive Israeli governments have attached to eliminating the Jewish state’s most implacable enemies.
The link between Canada’s economic health and the security of its southern neighbour has long been established, even if it is still taken for granted on this side of the border. To that we must add a further link. The security of the bi-lateral relationship hinges in part on the security of the Canadian passport. This means enhancing the integrity of the application process, ensuring that both the applicant and his/her supporting documents are subject to greater scrutiny. Ultimately it means that access to this prized document must be denied to all manner of criminals, as well as to other states and their intelligence services. Fraud detection is key, but so is safeguarding the blank passports held at all passport offices and at Canadian missions abroad, where hundreds are issued each year.
Paradoxically, the new regulations may create a surge in demand for Canadian passports, thereby magnifying the problems identified by the Auditor General. Ottawa should therefore move quickly to add additional staff to passport offices and overseas diplomatic posts. Supplementary training and technologies as simple as magnifying glasses must be provided to ensure that hucksters and fakers do not pass off forged birth certificates. (US passport offices should do the same, as the surge by non-passport holders will undoubtedly be greater.)
Over the medium term it will be relatively easy for Canadians to reconcile themselves to their neighbour’s desire for a tighter border. They must present travel documents when entering any European or Asian country, so why not the United States? Entry was always a privilege, never a right. Protestations that the special relationship has been compromised, that America public and commercial life is too security-centric, betray a misunderstanding of the American state of mind, even four years after 9/11.
But if America is searching for ‘perfect security’, it has embarked on a fool’s errand. No country can make itself invulnerable to all mischief-makers. The passport requirement will provide some physical but mostly psychological security to a nervous super-power. And as the Mexican border is infinitely more difficult to police than the 49th parallel, Washington would do well to cast its more critical eye at the human traffic to its south. The US Border Patrol has observed people of Middle Eastern descent mixing in with Mexican economic migrants slipping into the southern states. In the months and years ahead, Canada and its insecure passport may be the least of America’s worries.
David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.
Copyright CISS 2005
