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Friends,
The sudden discovery that the ports on Canada's three or four coasts
need more policing is more than a mathematical assessment of the present
complement of port police. Until a few years ago, there was a federal
police force specifically dedicated to policing ports on the ocean and
great lakes ports. The decision to abolish the Canada Ports Police and
to delegate their work to local city police was a decision taken to
appease the far right wing demand for privatization and
decentralization. It was also a decision that ran against the spirit
and intent of the provision in the Canadian Constitution that
establishes that all marine activities are federal jurisdiction.
So emphatic were the founders of Canada, as they drafted the division of
powers in the bleachers of the U.S. Civil war that all marine matters be
federal that when they came to enumerate the list of provincial powers
and specified hospitals as one provincial power they specifically
qualified that by the parenthetical provision "(except marine
hospitals)". In other words, a moderate respect for the plain sense of
the Constitution would lead one to think that a sick sailor was a
federal responsibility. At any rate, there can be no doubt that a port
police is most definitely a federal responsibility.
At the very least it would be appropriate if the Alliance and
Conservative parties refrain from criticizing the present government for
the lack of officers experienced in specifically port policing. Those
oppositon leaders with pretensions of integrity might, in fact, stand up
in the House and detail the role played by their particular party or any
predecessor party in reducing the police competence and the federal
presence in Canadian ports. The Alliance, in particular, might recall
its repeated demands for tax cuts that might be achieved by the
elimination of such optional federal services as the policing or ports.
The issue is not whether the city police are as nice people or as well
trained in general police work but whether the abolition of a force
which, if only by trial and error and steady record keeping over a
century might have achieved some sort of collective knowledge of this
quite difficult job.
More to the point that any critical evaluation of themselves by
political leaders would be a review of political goals of pundits,
critics and ordinary citizens. All those people who thought they might
get something close to a free lunch if we just transferred enough
services to local authorities who had no experience and, without
specific federal transfer were constitutonally excluded from any such
role might want to think about the needs of their own community and
whether that community might be better served by a strong federal
government than by accelerated decentalization.
Let me then close this introductory note by saying that not only do we
doubtless need more port police, we need a federal port police along
with a general revival of federal authority. We also need a revival of
responsible government, the system under which federal agencies are
headed by ministers who are held responsible before Parliament for the
work of their department.
Michael Posluns.
]
Ports need more police: opposition
Last Updated: Fri Oct 26 22:13:16 2001
OTTAWA - Terrorists and other criminals see Canada's
border security as weak, Canadian Alliance Leader
Stockwell Day complained Friday.
He said the recent discovery of a man hiding in a
shipping container at a port in Italy proves more
needs
to be done by Ottawa to make the country safer.
"We've got to send a
message around the
world that Canada is
prepared and able to
screen and monitor
people trying to get
here," Day told
reporters.
"(Criminals) say to themselves, 'Where are the
points
of access, or where are the countries we know that
aren't as tough as other countries?' And,
unfortunately,
Canada has some loopholes here," Day said.
Conservative MP Peter MacKay argued that the
country's ports are particularly vulnerable because
the
federal government has stopped assigning guards to
patrol them.
"We don't have ports police anymore," MacKay said.
"We don't have the ability to check enough cargo
ships
that are coming into ports like Vancouver and
Halifax."
Earlier this month, a man was found hiding in a
container in Italy. It appears he was trying to
travel
from Egypt to Canada. According to reports, the man
was carrying a Canadian passport, airport security
passes, a laptop computer, cellphones and cameras.
FROM OCT. 25, 2001: Egyptian stowaway had
Canadian
passport
Solicitor General
Lawrence MacAulay
refused to say much
about the case of Rizik
Amid Farid on Friday,
referring to the
43-year-old man as
"container boy." It's not
clear if police think the
detained man may have links to terrorist groups.
MacAulay confirmed that the RCMP have been in
contact with Italian authorities, but wouldn't say
if the
Mounties were on the trail of the stowaway even
before
the arrest. Federal officials also confirmed on
Friday
that Farid is a Canadian citizen.
"I can tell, number one, this is a strange mode of
transportation that this individual took," the
Solicitor
General said. "So it's obvious we have to be very
sharp."
MacAulay pointed out that the government has already
increased funding for a wide range of security
measures since last month's terrorist attacks. He
said
the country's intelligence service is reviewing what
other measures may be needed – including possible
changes at ports.
Written by CBC News Online staff
Eric
Sorensen reports for
CBC TV
David
McLauchlin reports
for CBC
Radio
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--
If we knew where knowledge goes when it evaporates, perhaps we might
learn to recover what we have lost and to reconstitute it as distilled
wisdom.
"How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality toward the
wicked? Do justice to the poor and fatherless, deal righteously with
the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the poor and needy; save them from
the hand of the wicked." (A Psalm of Asaph, The Psalm for the Third
Day.)
How can we be sure that the unexamined life is not worth living?
Michael W. Posluns,
The Still Waters Group,
First Nations Relations & Public Policy
Daytime: 416 995-8613
Evening: 416 656-8613
Fax: 416 656-2715
36 Lauder Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario,
M6H 3E3
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