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COMMENTARY
September 13, 2001
Our attitude problem
Everyone who predicted that terrorists would simultaneously hijack four fully-fuelled transcontinental jets kill or disable their crews and pilot three of them successfully into American national monuments has a right to an opinion about the security lapse. I do not belong to that group and neither does anyone I have noticed whining so we can leave off the told-you-sos. But in the second morning after the horrible attack on the United States the second morning in which we wake into a new and strange but real world war it is time to take security seriously. It never was just a Yankee problem; by any standard we have been letting down the side. It begins with the fact that the Americans spend nearly $50 billion (Canadian) on national security (the FBI and CIA) and we much less than a billion (on the RCMP and CSIS). Money spent is no firm indication of quality received but it is clear enough that our security forces are underfunded overstressed and demoralized. The rate at which they quit their jobs or apply for early retirement is alarming; for experience takes time to replace. We have for some reason I cannot plumb better agents than we deserve who have a good track record in detecting criminals and potential terrorists but the frustration of being unable to prosecute because there is no budget for that and no political will. Indeed decisions to prosecute are exceedingly political and the destructive rivalry between the RCMP and CSIS is at least partially fed by the excessively intimate way in which both must report to their political masters. We have customs and immigration agents who have trouble exchanging information within their own departments. They have access to the CPIC database which is itself an antiquated police system; but few of them know how to use it. They may be holding up the queues before them but they are ultimately reduced to their own wits to guess who might be dangerous. No such official can possibly "read" the faces of people arriving from hundreds of diverse cultures. My own impression reinforced each time I pass through Canadian customs and immigration or through the security shield in a Canadian airport is that our arrangements are just for show. We slow people down pointlessly for a system that would be easy to beat. (Cardboard cutters were apparently the secret weapon at Boston's Logan Airport on Tuesday morning; I don't think they'd be necessary at Macdonald-Cartier or Pearson.) We have a national attitude problem that I have discussed in this column passim. It will have to change because it is insupportable. It is a lethal combination of naivete ignorance and misplaced pride. We think we are somehow better than the Americans that we are more tolerant that we are "multicultural" and "welcoming" of immigrants and refugees when in fact we are only politically correct and have never been tested. We like feel-good gestures and avoid discussing hard facts. This in turn encourages a political culture in which as an expert in these matters writes to me Ottawa continues to heroically and quickly strip octogenarian Eastern Europeans who might have maybe worked for the Nazis, but drags its heels on tackling the Tamil Tigers or Chinese Triads. There is a double risk in this attitude problem. On the one hand we are easily surprised when bad things happen; on the other we might suddenly turn against all immigration because we are unable to make distinctions between immigrants. The great majority of our immigrants our peaceable industrious and eager to adapt to Canadian society. To put a fine point on it the great majority of our Muslim immigrants are so and ought to be above suspicion. We should not forget that many have come in order to get away from the oppressive atmosphere in their countries of origin. The last thing they want is to behave like or be treated like Palestinian refugees or potential terrorists. They have chosen to live in the West they have chosen to raise their children here. But we cannot come to terms with the terrorist threat without frankly confronting e.g. the distinction between religious and political Islam. Political Islam or "Islamism" is the deadly enemy of Western civilization; whereas the Muslim religion is no enemy at all. We must awake and quickly: because we cannot afford to have the Americans close the "world's longest undefended border". And they will not hesitate to do that if Canada appears to be a safe house for terrorists. Assuming of course it's not already too late. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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