Time to review Canada’s security links with U.S.

With our no-fly list set to go into effect, Ottawa is moving closer to meshing security operations with Washington, despite its poor human rights’ record

January 22, 2007

Maude Barlow
The Toronto Star

In a few weeks, Canada’s no-fly list goes into effect. All travellers entering or leaving Canada will have their names checked against a list of “specified persons” the government doesn’t want flying. There has been a lot of speculation about whether that list will be shared with the United States, with most commentators guaranteeing that it will be.

This is bad news for Canadians, whose legal and human rights have been put into question by recent U.S. laws. But criticizing the no-fly list successfully demands that we look at the broader picture of security co-operation with George Bush’s America.

The Maher Arar commission revealed the consequences of sharing information about Canadians with foreign security agencies. Justice Dennis O’Connor pointed out in his report last year that once such information is in foreign hands, “it will be used in accordance with the laws of the foreign jurisdiction, which may not be the same as Canadian law.”

A review of our security arrangements with countries like Syria and Egypt is well overdue. But we must not forget that the United States is also a foreign country. It was, after all, the laws of that foreign jurisdiction that allowed Arar, a Canadian citizen, to be deported to Syria and tortured.

In fact, the recent signing of the Military Commissions Act by President George Bush makes it even easier for the U.S. to deport Canadians to countries where they will be tortured.

The Military Commissions Act strips all non-U.S. citizens, including Canadians, of their constitutional right to a fair trial. It grants the U.S. president the authority to detain non-citizens indefinitely, without charge, and “to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions” as they relate to torture.

Worse, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the act “allows detainees to be sentenced to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses (and) grants officials in the Bush administration a retroactive “get-out-of-jail-free card for war crimes.”

So why is Canada even considering a shared no-fly list and closer security and policing ties with the U.S. when it puts us at such enormous risk?

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a strong push on both sides of the border to integrate the Canadian and American security apparatuses. Much of this push is happening within the framework of the Smart Border Agreement of 2001 and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), agreed to by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in 2005.

Dozens of bureaucratic working groups are currently implementing the SPP through adjustments to Canadian policy, especially security policy.

If you haven’t heard about the security partnership, it’s because our government is very careful to disguise what are actually trinational security measures as “made-in-Canada” solutions to terrorism.

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