McLellan's U.S. Challenge

Op-ed appearing December 16, 2003 in the Toronto Star.
McLellan's U.S. Challenge Ben Rowswell Op-ed appearing December 16, 2003, in the Toronto Star When he announced his departure from politics, John Manley was justified in citing the Smart Border as one of the proudest achievements. Yet he leaves the file just when the momentum appears to be running out. The two years since he joined Tom Ridge in committing the two countries to "develop a zone of confidence against terrorist activity," have seen farreaching changes in how we protect our part of the world from this new threat. Canada and the US now systematically separate low-risk and high-risk traffic at every major airport and land crossing to speed the former and scrutinize the latter. Our customs officers work together in each others' ports to target marine containers. Police now patrol the open spaces between border crossings in integrated binational teams. In Manley's last week on the job, however, the Washington Times ran a three-day front-page series on "the silent army of terrorists" waiting in Canada to slip across the border. The words "Smart Border" did not come up once, demonstrating just how far Canada still has to go to convince the US that it is not a security liability. Recent news about the treatment of Maher Arar has made many Canadians doubt whether they should even try. Meanwhile, new layers of bureaucracy are being added to the border. The same day that McLellan took over, the US Food and Drug Administration began collecting detailed information on all agricultural and fisheries imports well before they arrive at the customs booth. These are tough times to take over a file on which one in three Canadian jobs depend. Luckily for McLellan, she has two assets to make the job easier. Unlike Manley, she will have direct control over most of the agencies responsible for domestic security. In the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Canada now has an answer to Tom Ridge's Department of Homeland Security.

She also has two years' worth of lessons learned from Manley's time at the helm. McLellan can start by looking back on the experiences of the Smart Border process. What did we learn from two years of intensive border discussions? First, unequal size does not mean unequal influence. In fact, because Canada is the more vulnerable partner it tends to devote more time, people and expertise to the relationship. This means that if they play their cards right, Canadian policymakers can shape the binational agenda. Most of the items on the Smart Border agenda began as Canadian ideas. Second, we make the most headway when we pursue common interests. The advocates of a "Grand Bargain" of Canadian economic interests for US security interests have it wrong. The US government is too decentralized to make effective tradeoffs across such different areas as economics and security. Canada can concede all it wants in one area and receive precious little benefit in the other. Canada does better when it identifies objectives that it shares with the US and shapes the agenda in a way that harnesses American interests. Manley did this by getting Ridge to agree that a secure border not only blocks out terrorists but keeps the North American economy ticking by facilitating the lifeblood of cross-border travelers and trade. Canada may have a greater relative interest in "economic security" and the US in "public security" but in the final analysis both countries share both goals. The third lesson of the Smart Border process is that it is about much more than the border. In fact, the original Manley-Ridge action plan also covered cooperation in emergency preparedness, intelligence, science and technology and even food safety. The label was useful when day-long line-ups made the border the highestprofile problem in Canada-US relations. Defining cooperation around a problem, however, has the unfortunate side effect of slowing momentum when you come up with a solution. Better to define Canada-US cooperation around the ultimate objective: keeping North America free from terrorism. McLellan's challenge will be to revive the momentum behind Canada-US efforts to adjust the relationship to the new security environment. The Smart Border process may have run its course, but the progress of the past two years provides a starting point for launching a broader effort. First, recognize that the ball is in Canada's court. McLellan can shape the Canada-US security agenda if she has clear objectives and approaches the US intelligently.

Second, build that agenda around shared objectives. There are certainly issues the two governments should be discussing on the economic front. On the security front, however, cooperation should be built around the shared goal of keeping North America safe from the threat of terrorism. Third, leave the border label behind. Expand the agenda to create a truly comprehensive approach to this shared goal. Improve law enforcement protocols so that each country has full confidence in how the other deals with suspected terrorists. Develop a common detection and response system to deal with a future SARS, whether introduced deliberately or not. Build an effective binational system to protect shared infrastructure so terrorists cannot reproduce a crash of the North American electrical grid. With these lessons and a new department to back her up, McLellan can do more than fill John Manley's boots. She can use them to walk the extra mile to a comprehensive security relationship that builds the confidence that each country needs in the other. Ben Rowswell is a visiting fellow with the Canada Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.