Inside fortress North America: a huge challenge for Canada is maintaining its close trading relationship with the United States without losing its sovereignty.

September the eleventh--9/11--an event burned into the American consciousness. The people of the most powerful nation in the world felt vulnerable, and they still do. The response has been to secure the borders; to try to ensure than no more maniacs bent on taking innocent lives can launch an attack from within.

Bolting and barring the front door presents Ottawa with some problems.

Economically, Canada has become almost totally dependent on the

United States:

* In an average month, Canada exports $27 billion worth of goods to the United States;

* In 2003, the two-way trade in goods and services between the two countries reached $1.8 billion a day;

* Canada is the U.S.'s most important trading partner, taking in 19.2% of U.S. goods and services in 2003, while the U.S. takes about 86 percent of Canada's exports;

* In 2002, Canadian business investment in the U.S. was valued at approximately $202 billion. U.S. business investment in Canada was valued at just over $224 billion;

* Two million jobs in Canada depend on trade with the U.S;

* Canada is the United States' largest supplier of crude oil and refined products, natural gas, electricity, and uranium.

Without easy access to the world's biggest and wealthiest market, Canadian industry would be in a very sorry state. From a trade point of view, it is absolutely essential that the border between Canada and the U.S. remains open to the free flow of goods and services.

Since the terrorist attacks, the U.S. has made it much more difficult for people to enter the country. It is going to get even more difficult.

By 2005, everyone entering or leaving the U.S. faces strict new rules. They must provide identification as some combination of digital photo, iris scan, or fingerprints. About 300,000 people cross the Canada/U.S. border every day. Imagine the tangle at Canada/U.S. border posts if Canada isn't exempted from new entry requirements. Good luck getting through in hours if everyone has to be fingerprinted, photographed, and iris-scanned.

The Weak Link?

Washington is concerned about Canadian security. There is a fear that terrorists might find it too easy to use Canada as a back door to the U.S. A few days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the usually balanced Christian Science Monitor wrote: "Canada has been a fierce ally, top trading partner, and America's closest friend for more than a century. But, it may be something else too--a haven for terrorists."

The Seattle Times echoed this view: "While thousands of U.S. soldiers are being shipped halfway across the globe to fight terrorism, little manpower has been focussed on a problem much closer to home. Canada. Experts on both sides of the 4,000-mile border say the nation to the north is a haven for terrorists, and that the U.S.-Canada line is little more barrier than ink on a map."

There is scant evidence that crazed sleeper cells of suicide attackers are holed up in Canada waiting for orders. But, this perception just won't go away.

To prove the point, U.S. undercover agents tried to slip past Canadian immigration in 2002. They used fake driver's licences and birth certificates put together with commonly available computer software. All the agents got into Canada without any problems.

Calming U.S. Fears

Ottawa's challenge is to convince the Americans that Canada's security screen is just as hard to penetrate as theirs is.

For Canadians, that means extending the security perimeter to cover the whole of North America. There will be some changes:

* Police and intelligence communities on both sides of the border must share information. Does that mean information on Canadians finding its way into FBI and CIA databases? Probably, yes. Although it's likely a lot of that material was already there;

* Canada's immigration and refugee system needs to be harmonized with that of the U.S. Our refugee process, in particular, is in need of an overhaul. People arriving in Canada saying they are refugees are allowed in until their claim can he assessed. Some of these claimants then vanish, raising the suspicion that terrorists have used this ploy to get under the security radar;

* The personal privacy of Canadians is likely to be compromised. There will be more surveillance, more investigation, more data collection. Inevitably, mistakes will be made and innocent people caught in the security net. This has already happened. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was arrested in New York in 2002 and deported to Syria where he says he was jailed and tortured. U.S. authorities falsely believed Mr. Arar to be connected to the al-Qaeda terrorist group;

* In its 2004 report on global terrorism, the U.S. State Department criticized Canada for not making the most of the powers it has under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001. Washington pointed out that Ottawa had not prosecuted anyone under the act. The report also noted that Canada's criminal justice system is "more favourable to the defendant than in the United States." Some see this as a nudge for Canada to get tougher with the bad guys;

* Armed forces are going to become, to use the military buzzword, interoperable. That means using the same weapons and technology; upgrading to U.S. standards will be costly. It also means that there will be times when Canadian forces operate under U.S. command.

But, just tightening up security in Canada may not be enough to keep Washington happy. The policy makers in the U.S. want to see Canada doing some of the heavy lifting in the war on terror.

Boosting the Military

The U.S. spends 55 times more on its military than Canada does. This leads many Americans to mutter about their northern neighbour getting a free ride on defence. A November 2(102 issue of The National Review had a picture of Mounties on the cover along with the word "Wimps!" The issue was intended as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek attack on Canada's failure to pull its weight militarily. Right-wing media in the U.S. frequently take pot shots such as this at Canada.

But, the instinct of Canadians is to spend their public money on schools and hospitals rather than on tanks and aircraft-carriers. In the decade under Prime Minister Jean Chretien (1993-2003) Canada's defence spending dropped by about a quarter. At the same time, we cut foreign aid and closed some embassies. This certainly reduced our effectiveness on the world scene.

Canada's strategy in solving world problems is to use international laws, diplomacy, treaties, and multilateralism. Canada doesn't have much power, military or otherwise, so how else can it relate to the world?

The instincts of the world's only superpower are to use existing organizations such as the United Nations to apply the stamp of approval onto what it has already decided to do. For Canada, multilateral groups are essential, for the U.S. they are optional.

If you are the unchallengeable big guy, why would you voluntarily give up your power and have your goals and ambitions thwarted by small guys?

For Canada, managing the relationship is a huge challenge. Understandably, Americans get a little tired of Canadians getting preachy and filled with moral superiority. But, when we see the world so differently, it's hard to resist the temptation.

But, the message from Washington has gotten through. The tradition of the Canadian military for almost half a century has been peacekeeping. Our armed forces trained for war but their major tasks were helping failed states get back on their feet, monitoring ceasefires, and trying to keep enemies from hurting one another. When the United Nations put out the call for peacekeepers Canadians were always among the first to volunteer. Now, there are at least 30 countries that make a bigger contribution to peacekeeping than we do.

The Canadian troops in Afghanistan are involved in a robust mission in an active war zone. This is part of the war on terror and has already cost some Canadian soldiers their lives. The engagement wins brownie points in Washington.

In April 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin put $7 billion into the armed forces' shopping cart. He told his generals to go out and buy helicopters, a mobile gun system, and three navy supply ships. The Liberal government said it plans to add 5,000 people to the armed forces and boost the reserves by several thousand more. Add some more brownie points. Analysts say this is only the start to a long process of rebuilding Canada's military.

Public Safety

In addition to beefing up the armed forces, Canada has created a Department of Public Safety. This new office was announced in April 2004 and was placed under the supervision of Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan. Up goes the brownie point count again.

This new security structure carries a price tag of about $700 million over five years. It includes:

* A Threat Assessment Centre that will assess intelligence information from all sources ($30 million);

* A $308 million infusion of money into maritime safety to increase cargo inspections and coastal water patrols;

* Hiring more Canadian Security and Intelligence (CSIS) officers (spies) and Mounties ($137 million);

* The addition of digital photos and embedded microchips to Canadian passports to make them harder to forge ($10 million); and,

* Protection of government databases from hackers and creation of a cybersecurity task force ($90 million).

Other measures are being taken to tighten national security. This isn't just a matter of currying favour with the United States. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has put Canada in his list of targets. Ward Elcock, the Director of CSIS at the time took the threat seriously.

In May 2004, Mr. Elcock told the House of Commons justice committee: "It is no longer a question of if, but rather of when and where we will be specifically targeted."

Websites

Border-Crossing Tips--http://canada.gc.ca /SSC/ travel-us_e.html

Canada and Ballistic Missile Defence--http://www. ligi.ubc.ca/_media/ _reports/

Canada_BMD_Report_ Dec03.pdf

Department of Foreign Affairs--http://www.dfaitmaeci.gc.ca/ department/focus/bmd-en.asp

Homeland Security (U.S.)--http://www.dhs.gov/ dhspublic/index.jsp

Missile Defence Agency--http://www.acq.osd.mil/ mda/mdalink/html/mdalink.html

FACT FILE

A truck crosses the Canada-U.S. border every 2.5 seconds.

FACT FILE

"Snowbacks" is the name given to Canadians who work unofficially in the U.S. There may be as many as 100,000 of them.

FACT FILE

According to The Defence Monitor, the U.S. military budget for 2003 was roughly, the same amount as the next 20 countries spent together.

FACT FILE

During the Vietnam War, between 50,000 and 125,000 young Americans crossed the border into Canada to avoid being drafted into the U.S. military; Canada allowed them to settle.

FACT FILE

By April 2004, Ottawa had banned 34 groups it said were terrorist organizations; at the same time, the United States had 37 groups on its list.

MISSILE DEFENCE

With or without Canadian cooperation the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system is about to become operational. The U.S. plan is that the defence system will shoot clown incoming attack missiles before they reach their targets.

The interceptor missiles are to be located in Alaska and California; ground-based radars are to go into Alaska, Greenland, and the United Kingdom. Plans also call for 20 interceptors to be aboard vessels at sea. This is a quite modest defence system. Its purpose is to protect the U.S. from a small number of missiles that might be launched by a rogue state, such as North Korea, or a terrorist group. It isn't intended to be a defence against the massive weapons arsenals of Russia or China, although it could be expanded.

Ottawa and Washington have been talking about BMD collaboration. At the time writing, Canada had not made a decision about whether to be in or out.

Many of our other allies are already in--Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, among them; preserving our alliances is important. There's $9 billion in research, development, and manufacturing involved; getting a slice of these contracts wouldn't hurt. The missile defence system might even make Canada a safer place to live.

The downside is that BMD might be the first step towards putting weapons in space. The United States is carrying on research into space-based weapons technology. It says it has made no decision on fielding such systems, and that BMD is not connected. Peace activists have doubts about the truth of these U.S. statements.

Canada is very much opposed to the weaponization of space. If the U.S. does start to lob military hardware into Earth orbit, Canada will have a big dilemma to deal with.

If Canada stays out of BMD, the United States is likely to be more annoyed with it than it already is. This could hurt us in other spheres, such as trade.

SMART BORDER

Within weeks of the 9/11 atrocities Canada and the United States began putting together a so-called "Smart Border" plan. The idea is to keep legitimate goods and people crossing the border with a minimum of delay. At the same time, authorities have to stop bad guys disguised as good guys from passing between the two countries. These are very difficult goals to achieve.

Gone are the days of just driving up to a border post, declaring yourself to be a Canadian citizen, and expecting to be waved through. Now you need documentation, preferably a passport. Soon, a biometric identifier (iris scan, fingerprint, etc) could be required.

So far, low-risk goods and people who cross frequently have been identified; with pre-approval, they get fast-tracked through the border. This scheme is called NEXUS and applicants must agree to a fingerprint scan.

There's a lot of activity behind the scenes. Some we know about, such as video surveillance of the approaches to border posts, "look-out" lists of people considered a threat, and satellite surveillance and ground-sensors to pick up illegal border crossings in remote areas. There are probably also a lot of things going on that the general public knows nothing about.

The border may be smart, but it's still slow. An Industry Canada survey in 2004 found that 82 percent of businesses involved in cross-border transactions experienced delays. More than 60 percent of businesses said delays have increased between one and eight hours.

Companies said that complying with customs regulations is their biggest challenge; bigger even than finding new customers for their exports.