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National Security Strategy and Policy:
Planning for and Responding to Threats to the U.S. Homeland

October 28-29, 2004
Ronald Reagan Building
and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

Rob Wright, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet

Securing an Open Society: Canada’s National Security Policy

Introduction By: Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.

Rob Wright: Thank you very much, Bob. I'm delighted to be here, and thank you very much for the invitation. This is a very important conference, and the theme of this meeting is critically important to both our countries. We share this continent. As your Ambassador to Canada, the Honorable Paul Celluci, former Governor of Massachusetts, avid Blue Jay fan, who’s not here to explain that [laughter], but in a recent speech in Ottawa said, “The security and welfare of Canada and the United States are inseparable.”

Now, this reality is reflected in the emphasis which your conference has placed on partnerships, and we also share a unique economic relationship, which is critically important to both countries, and about which I will say more in a few moments. Beyond that, however, we share a deep commitment to common values which are basic to both our countries. We have defended those values together through two World Wars, the Korean War, the long vigil of the Cold War, the first Persian Gulf War and today in the fight against terrorism.

We have not agreed on every issue at every point in time; indeed, Canada is not part of the current coalition in Iraq. However, Canada has pledged $300 million in humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance in Iraq, and we are training Iraqi police. As well, Canadian forces contribute to US-led efforts in the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia more broadly. In particular, Canada was amongst the first to put fighting ground troops into Afghanistan, hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban alongside US forces. And we are still there. Until very recently, a Canadian general commanded NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. We were, until earlier this year, the largest single troop contributor to it, and we maintain a sizeable commitment there.

Now, current global security threats have led most countries in the world to strengthen their commitment to fighting terror. In Canada, our Prime Minister, the Right Honorable Paul Martin, has consistently called for a whole of government approach to national security, and upon assuming office in December of last year, the Prime Minister acted with important changes to the basic machinery of government in Canada. A new department was created to bring together elements of security and intelligence, federal policing and enforcement and other key areas, such as emergency preparedness and a border agency. Now, this new department does not exactly mirror your Homeland Security Department, but it’s as close as it gets internationally, and the two organizations work very, very closely together.

The Prime Minister also formed a new Cabinet committee on security, chaired by our Deputy Prime Minister. My position as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister is a new role with a principal mandate established to assist the Deputy Prime Minister and her Cabinet committee to prepare and implement Canada’s first comprehensive Statement of National Security Policy.

Now, I'm proud to report that the National Security Policy was released in Canada on April 27 of this year, and I'm going to focus my remarks on that framework as it reflects the Canadian government’s overall approach to national security. But first, it is important to note that after 9/11, the Canadian government had already taken major steps to enhance our security. Our budget in December of 2001 added $7.7 billion to our security apparatus. Like the US, very important pieces of legislation have been introduced and passed to strengthen the capabilities of Canada’s security and intelligence system. The Smart Borders process was also launched by our Deputy Prime Minister and Homeland Security’s Tom Ridge.

Valuable as these steps were, Prime Minister Martin recognized the importance of a more integrated strategy, the National Security Policy. Our National Security Policy begins with a sober assessment of the threats to Canada and to Canadians. Osama bin Laden has publicly identified Canada as a country he wants this followers to attack. He ranked us fifth out of seven countries. Every other country on that list has been attacked; the Bali and Madrid bombings, examples. So it is absurd to think that these attacks could not happen in Canada. So we have no illusions north of your border about the challenge we face today. We do not see the current terrorist threat as your problem. It is very much our problem, too. Indeed, prior to September 11, the deadliest single act of airline terrorism originated in Canada, the bombing of Air India 182 in June of 1985. Three-hundred-twenty-nine people were killed in that attack; 278 of them were Canadians; 22 were US citizens. There are other threats to our wellbeing and prosperity that require a new integrated approach. Health threats like SARS last year, and the electrical blackout of 2003 are cases in point.

So how do we respond to these threats as Canadians? The National Security Policy begins by setting out an approach to national security based on our values, such as our deep attachment to democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and pluralism. It is an approach which views security as a critical enabler of these values.

Indeed, as our Justice Minister, the Honorable Irwin Cotler, has argued, security is the most fundamental of human rights and the foundation upon which other rights are built. We are not going to lose sight of our core values as we deal with those who would abuse our openness and our tolerance, but we will deal with them. The government is asking and expecting every Canadian and every community in Canada to condemn terror and to do their part to contribute to our collective security.

Given the threats to Canada, the policy statement defines the three core national security interests of Canada, and they are: protecting Canada and Canadians at home and abroad; ensuring that Canada is not a base for threats to our allies; and contributing to international security. And the National Security Policy statement then sets out the importance of building an integrated security system and identifies six particular areas for action; I’ll elaborate a bit on each of these actions.

The first, an integrated system is a critical foundation for the National Security Policy. It outlines what is in effect a controllership model for Canada’s national security activities. That model is one of action married to a continuous process of evaluation, adaptation and improvement. The system begins with an effective whole of government threat assessment capability. This capability will reside in the new Integrated Threat Assessment Center, or ITAC, which is part of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. ITAC houses officers from across the federal government and many of our provincial governments. Its purpose is to ensure that all information on potential threats to Canada is brought together in one place, analyzed comprehensively and reported out to those who need to know. The Center will be connected in real time to similar centers in the United Kingdom, Australia and, most importantly, with TTIC here in the United States.

The next step in this integrated system is the development and deployment of more effective protection and prevention capabilities. The new Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has the federal lead on this aspect. Under their lead, the relationship between federal and provincial agencies and first responders has already been strengthened, and in many cases appropriate protection and prevention action requires concerted action with US counterparts.

Thirdly, any system that’s integrated and based on the principle of risk management must also recognize that there will be events that cannot be prevented, and so more effective consequence management capabilities are required. Again, the lead on this aspect will reside with our Department of Public Safety.

And, finally, any flexible and adaptive system has to build in strong mechanisms for continuous evaluation, coupled with appropriate oversight and review. Now, the key point of this section of my remarks is that these activities are part of a fully integrated system that we will connect to key partners -- provinces, communities, first line responders, international partners, especially here in the US, given our common interest on North American security, as well as our private sector and the Canadian public at large.

Now, ensuring a whole of government approach is classically easy to say and hard to do, and it's going to be very hard to do. But my Prime Minister, his Deputy Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues are demanding this approach to ensure they can ensure there is continuous improvement. So we will have this system operating this year, and we’ll have it operating in a way that we can ensure there’ll be a process of continuing improvement to meet Canadians’ needs.

Now, after outlining this commitment to build an integrated management framework, the National Security Policy outlines complementary actions in six key areas -- intelligence, emergency planning, public health emergencies, transportation security, border security, and international security. I’ll speak for a minute on some of the files, and we’ll begin with intelligence.

The government had already made major investments before the National Security Policy in additional capacity for intelligence collection and assessment, and these will be expanded and consolidated. We are further increasing the budgets and the legislative authorities for our communications security establishment, which is our version of your NSA, and CSIS, which is a hybrid between what your CIA and FBI do. Additionally, within existing budgets, we are sharpening our collective focus on security intelligence as our top priority.

Now, beyond these measures we must continue to adapt to developments elsewhere, especially here in the US. Your country’s in the process of reconfiguring your intelligence structures based on the work of the 9/11 Commission, and it’s critically important that Canada be ready and agile enough to adapt our intelligence relationships and key instruments as quickly and effectively as possible to your new structures, for we must recognize that our two countries have built a relationship in this area, which is unique in its closeness, and extraordinarily important for both of us.

By way of example, Canadian intelligence contributed importantly to the first successful prosecution in US history on the charge of material support for terrorism. And we received from your intelligence community a vast amount of information on threats to Canada and to the United States, without which we simply could not play our role in helping secure Canada and North America. It is critical to both countries that this intelligence relationship continue and prosper.

In emergency management, the need for greater efforts was also recognized, both as a result of 9/11, but also as a result of such events as SARS and the 2003 electrical blackout in the US Northeast and Eastern Canada. I remember that blackout and the immediate aftermath of the blackout; there were questions on both sides of our border as to what caused this, and although that would not be evident for some time, we did know right away that we were both in the dark, and we were not going to get the lights on unless we figured out how to get it together. And we worked together to get there, and it’s kind of a lesson on a whole range of security incidents.

So we recognize there’s more work to do there, and our Department of Public Security and Emergency Preparedness is making additional investments, modernizing our government emergency operations centers, creating a new and permanent high level federal/provincial forum on emergencies, creating a new critical infrastructure protection strategy and a cybersecurity taskforce that’s been struck with the private sector. When Secretary Ridge visited Ottawa just two weeks ago, he and our Deputy Prime Minister announced a common work plan on consequence management between our two countries given our common space and interest that again further develops that shared interest.

In the area of public health emergencies, we recognized in our National Security Policy that a robust public health system is a critical element in our defense against both manmade and naturally occurring threats. We are taking a number of steps to help not only deal with the terror threat, but other threats. And the National Security Policy framework provides that structure to do so.

On transportation security, our priorities will see us greatly enhancing our already significant capabilities in the area particularly of marine security by securing our ports and the cargoes that flow through them, further securing our airports and improving and extending background check requirements for transportation workers.

In terms of marine security, we’re looking at an integrated approach with all of our agencies of government, where the Canadian Navy is taking a lead in operational on-the-water experience, with our Coast Guard, our Fisheries, our Department of Transport and our border agencies to ensure to we have common domain awareness between agencies in Canada. I say that because it’s a reflection of the work you're doing to ensure an integrated approach within all your services in the US. This is an area we’re anxious to work together with our US colleagues on.

Our air systems already are very, very well structured given our terrible experience on that Air India incident, but we’re looking to do even better. Our air systems with the US are integrated. We have an open skies agreement, for example, and we have to continue to benchmark well with the highest standards in the world, the US standards. And we will.

The nature of this air integration was obvious when one looks at what happened on 9/11. A Canadian was in operational charge at NORAD and helped manage the response to those events. Hundreds of flights were diverted to Canada, all of that managed well and efficiently in large part due to the level of integration that already existed and that we are building on.

Our border security priorities include the ongoing implementation and development of the Smart Borders action plan that was signed by Canada and the US, by Secretary Tom Ridge, in December 2001. We are deploying biometrics in our passports, further streamlining refugee determination, and seeking opportunities to apply these principles of smart borders on the broader international trade agenda with our partners in the US.

On the risk management front, huge progress has been made in implementing NEXUS and FAST, the Canada/US programs for low risk, pre-approved travelers and commercial goods. They are now up and running at over ten high volume border crossings. We also have 23 integrated border enforcement teams made up of Canadian and US law enforcement representatives.

So we now have common programming for the secure movement of people and goods between our countries. Now, this is an extraordinary outcome in just three years. But we know that there’s more work left to be done. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary Ridge announced two weeks ago that the two countries would be consulting stakeholders on the creation at Buffalo-Ft. Erie of a commercial prescreening site. They've also agreed to discuss with these stakeholders a pilot for full land preclearance in order to move more of the customs and security screening away from infrastructure constraints.

Why are we doing all this? Some observers have said that security trumps trade, and Canada would never dispute that. But your President and our Prime Minister, also, said, when they announced FAST and NEXUS in 2002, we must not allow terrorists to determine our future, and that includes our economic future and prosperity. Consequently, we have found solutions with our business leaders that protect our economic security and physical security. Let me give you some quick statistics which reinforce the vital importance of this:

Canada and the US have the largest bilateral trading relationship in the world. Two-way trade in 2003 was $1.8 billion a day. Now, the US market is obviously extremely important to Canada. And Canada is the number one export destination for the US and for 38 of your states. US foreign direct investment in Canada was $228 billion in 2003; that’s over 10%, it’s 11% of your investment abroad. And 40% of the trade between our two countries is intra-firm trade, between the same company that operates on both sides of our border, where just-in-time delivery protects jobs in both countries. Our highways, energy grids and railway infrastructure are so tightly integrated that one has to think in terms of North American infrastructure.

Strategically, we are your number one energy partner. Canada is the single-largest exporter of oil and refined oil products to the United States. We supply 17% of all US imports, and, yes, that’s more than Saudi Arabia. It’s more than anyone. We also supply 94% of your natural gas imports, and 100% of your uranium and electricity imports.

So the bottom line is that we must have a mutual commitment to the security and prosperity of our continental space as your Ambassador has said. Let me assure you, the Canadian government is intensely focused on the question of homeland security, and Canada’s record compares favorably against anyone’s. But we, like you and others, have much more work to do; hence, the National Security Policy and our commitment to work with the United States in every way to enhance North American security.

In 2003, we accepted 57% of refugee claimants to Canada, while the US accepted 54%; hardly a startling difference. According to reporting in the New York Times, far more immigrants enter the US illegally than enter Canada illegally, and more than one-third of all our refugee claimants enter Canada through the United States. Many more enter Canada from third countries with US-issued visas. So you may hear a great deal about terrorists crossing the border of the North, but this is much exaggerated. None of the September 11 hijackers got into the United States from Canada, despite persistent media references to the contrary.

But, of course, we have challenges. The case of Ahmed Rasam who was apprehended by a very alert border guard in December 1999, from Canada, was a sobering wake-up call and we acknowledge that. We acknowledge that we have more to do, and we have done more, much more. The intense bilateral cooperation which marked the subsequent investigation of that incident in which it was determined that Rasam was also considering a range of targets in Canada is an indicator of the true state of our relationship. The point is that in both of our countries there are people who are intent on taking advantage of our openness. Our common challenge is to ensure that they do not succeed.

Now, the National Security Policy also recognized that security of Canadians is enhanced by investments in participation in international peace and stability. More specifically, the Policy envisages additional investments in our military; enhanced efforts at capacity-building assistance for failed and failing states; activities to prevent weapons of mass destruction proliferation, such as participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative; and activities to defuse inter- and intrastate conflicts.

We are certainly not starting from scratch as we consider how to enhance our defense cooperation in North America. Since the Second World War, an extraordinary network of institutions and bodies has developed to ensure that our military establishments are engaged bilaterally on continental security. The most well-known of these is NORAD, which was founded in 1958, and has seen the aerospace defense efforts of our two countries become fully integrated. NORAD is continually evolving and is an example of the benefits of close integration between us in the defense of North America.

Now, as I mentioned, we have substantially enhanced maritime security since September 11 and support the work with you in the bi-national planning group to explore the kinds of cooperation that we now have in NORAD and how that might be extended to the maritime sector and others to ensure a more integrated effort across all agencies and institutions in our governments. And beyond North America, as I mentioned earlier, we cooperate daily in the war against terrorism.

In conclusion, as outlined in Canada’s National Security Policy, our top priority is to protect Canada and Canadians against very real threats. But the very next priority is a national commitment to ensure that we are not a source of threat to our allies, to you. Our Prime Minister and his government take that commitment very seriously. But our actions in every element of this policy framework, to be effective, require an integrated effort with the United States. An integrated security system for Canada cannot work if our threat assessment is not connected to your view of the threat to North America, our frontline prevention and protection agencies are not connected to their US counterparts, as they are now, if our consequence management capabilities are not fully integrated with their US counterparts, since the consequences of these threats so clearly flow across our borders, as we saw with the electrical disruptions in 2003.

So we are partners. It is in our vital interest to ensure that this partnership grows and intensifies. In our most recent meeting, my Deputy Prime Minister, Anne McLellan, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called for their officials to look at a comprehensive framework to tie all of this cooperation together and to strengthen it. And we’re ready to do that.

As our Prime Minister has emphasized in every meeting that he has had with President Bush and with Congressional leadership, Canada remains committed in a very important way to North American security, and we will continue to reinforce the collective security of Canada and the United States.

So later on in your conference, when you're reviewing partnerships, the point I want to underscore is, count Canada in. Thank you very much. [Applause]

DR. PFALTZGRAFF: Our speaker has graciously agreed to take a few questions, so if someone would like to pose a question, now is the time to do so. Are there any questions? You have covered the subject matter so comprehensively that you have no questions here.

SECRETARY WRIGHT: I appreciate that, Bob, and I really, truly appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to be with you today. So thank you again very much. [Applause]

DR. PFALTZGRAFF: And we thank you very much for taking the time to be with us, and for this outstanding presentation, and we look forward to the cooperation that we have discussed and strengthening it as you propose. So thank you very much for being with us.

We shall now adjourn this luncheon session and move back to the amphitheater so that we may resume the afternoon session.

END