U.S. shutdown invites scrutiny of Canadian border

WASHINGTON — The bitter debate about American security prompted Canada’s emissaries in Washington to prepare for another round of defending the world’s longest undefended border on Monday, as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history lurched into its fourth week.

Ambassador David MacNaughton said he’s relishing the chance to talk to U.S. lawmakers about the area where the relationship between the two countries is at its best: managing shared security concerns.

“I’d say it’s more of an opportunity than a problem,” MacNaughton said in an interview. “It allows us to talk about the degree of security co-operation that we have, a phenomenal working relationship.”

He cited in particular a program known as Shiprider (officially it’s the Integrated Cross-border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations program) in which lawenforcement officials from both countries team up on board Canadian and U.S. vessels alike to more seamlessly enforce North American laws in the waters of either country, including off Vancouver Island.

“There’s all sorts of good-news stories for us to talk about, and that’s something we should be doing — we shouldn’t shy away from that,” MacNaughton said.

Neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor Democrat leaders on Capitol Hill have shown any hint of movement in the impasse over the White House request for $5.7 billion US in funding for a wall or barrier along the southern U.S. border.

Democrats won’t pass a governmentfunding bill with the money in it.

With the government mired in shutdown week four, Trump rejected a short-term legislative fix and dug in for more combat Monday, declaring he would “never ever back down.”

As a result, the federal government has been partially shut down since Dec. 22, a state of limbo that on Saturday officially became the longest in the country’s history.

The U.S. military is taking on a new and extended role on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Pentagon said Monday.

At the request of the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon agreed to provide personnel to operate security cameras and to lay about 240 kilometres Of concertina wire between official ports of entry, officials said. The military also will continue to fly aircraft in support of Customs and Border Protection personnel.

But even with all the scrutiny and political energy focused southward, Politico reported Sunday that a key Democrat on the House National Security Committee wants to make sure that when it comes to keeping Americans safe, the northern border doesn’t get overlooked.

“Where is it that, you know, there’s porous areas in our homeland security structure?” Rep. Lou Correa, a California Democrat, told the news site. “I think looking at the Canadian border is definitely a place I want to go.”

Fears of “thickening” the Canada-U.S. border reached a fever pitch in the months and years that followed the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, thanks to erroneous claims that the al-Qaida attackers, all legal residents of the United States, had entered the country through Canada.

“It took us a long time to beat back the story about the 9/11 guys coming from Canada,” MacNaughton acknowledged.

And yet even if some in the U.S. harbour lingering public misconceptions about Canada and national security, recent reports suggest that the northern border poses a far greater threat to Americans than does the southern border, at least when it comes to terrorism.

Data provided to Congress last year showed that between October 2017 and April 2018, Customs and Border Protection officials intercepted six times as many people on a U.S. terror-suspect database trying to enter the country from Canada as they did coming from Mexico, NBC News reported last week. Even so, Trump has threatened repeatedly to declare a national emergency on the southern border.