CKNW Editorial
for September 24, 2001

I’m thinking out loud this morning. And I’m worried, as all of you are, about terrorists getting into our country. And we must remember that they’re not just fanatic Muslims – in fact there are probably two terrorist cells from Ireland and many from other national groups. Moreover there is a very serious problem of definition. Today’s terrorist is often tomorrow’s national hero.

I’m not being glib or legalistic. One of the problems is that you have to have some working definition of what is a terrorist and to be fair you may have to include some people you may think of as patriots.

Let me give you an example. Suppose – and its just suppose for I don’t think these people exist – suppose there was within Canada a group of Persians … or Afghans … or Pakistanis … or Iraqis … who felt strongly that the governments of their native countries were terrible and cruel dictatorships which must be liberated from their misery. And we would no doubt agree. And suppose these groups planned to bomb hell out of Saddam Hussein or some cruel mullah. Are we going to permit that?

And there is no use saying that new Canadians shouldn’t import their strong feelings about politics back home because every immigrant does that. Our parents and grandparents did. And it sometimes goes into several generations – as with Irish Americans in New York and Boston from whom the IRA raises millions. You can’t pass laws that say if you’re a Tibetan or an Afghan you can plot the end of the what you see as a horrible regime but you can’t if you’re a Sikh or an Iranian … just because, for the moment at least, we like Indians and Iranians a bit more than we like the Chinese or the Taliban.

Which brings me to my main point – in a free society people must have the right to proclaim whatever views they may have – peacefully. At the same time no one has the right to plot violence whether that violence is against Canada, the United States, authorities in their homeland or wherever.

The notion of a "cordon sanitaire" is being bruited about meaning, as I understand it, that we will cooperate with the United States and Mexico and screen immigrants overseas. It’s a non starter, of course, because Elinor Caplin, clearly way over her depth, wants a Canada only policy.

I have no problem in our toughening up our rules re immigrants or refugees. In fact we are long overdue to toughen up our procedures. But we are badly kidding ourselves if we think that this will really make much of a dent on terrorist activities. Terrorists don’t announce themselves as such – they get passports and that seems to be no problem. No, what we surely have learned in the past days is that our real problem has been our intelligence and our politician’s unwillingness to act on information. We now know that CSIS had a handle on a lot of pre September 11^th terrorist activity in Canada and they simply weren’t listened to.

But – and here I may surprise you – I don’t attach much blame to either CSIS or the government. Why?

Because as a society we’ve become lax, I no less than any of you. It can’t happen here has been our byword. Even now we ask experts, can it happen in Canada? As if it couldn’t.

We got very security conscious after the Air India and Lockerbie disasters and it lasted what? Six months at the outside. Then it was business as usual. The inaction of the Ottawa government and the laissez-faire attitude of the Prime Minister isn’t hard to understand – he reflects the way most Canadians feel. This is Canada, for goodness sakes, who would pull a terrorist stunt in lovely, kindly, best place in the world to live Canada?

I don’t for a moment believe that we must give up our civil liberties – and least not to any degree. We do need a national debate on what we should do to head off these problems before they get here. Are we prepared to not only have immigration questions summarily dealt with by the immigration officer with reduced, if any, ability to appeal? Are we prepared to renege on our UN commitment on refugees and act summarily to reject them if we wish?

All of these things raise concerns of fairness. How do we know that a beleaguered bureaucracy won’t just give drumhead justice at best? We are, after all, a country that values freedom and an open society.

I think we start from this position – no one is entitled to emigrate to Canada. If an immigrant is turned down at the outset, that’s the end of the matter. It follows then that anyone illegally in Canada has no status and is deportable. If one becomes a landed immigrant or a legal refugee there is, of course, legal status and here is the problem, What sort of activity warrants deportation. How does the state determine if there is terrorist activity? What sort of legal process is an accused entitled to? Is it just summary before an Immigration Officer? Is there an appeal to the courts? And then there is the question of all questions – do we pass laws regulating such matters notwithstanding the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

The current system is certainly not working. It is so slow, cumbersome and expensive that it rivals Indian Affairs as the country’s biggest make work for lawyers project. Clearly a whole new approach is required – a new approach to the admission of immigrants, to determining refugee status and for dealing with deportations.

I wouldn’t, however, expect too much. In fact I wouldn’t expect anything at all. The Ottawa Liberal government won’t do a damn thing. It’s afraid to offend any part of its traditional voter base and the need for the Liberals to get re-elected is, of course, always paramount.

For if there has been one motto you can judge the Liberal Party of Canada by it’s votes before all else.