Ottawa Citizen - November 9, 2007
Calgary Herald - October 22, 2007
Hill Times - October 22, 2007
By Colin Kenny
A few years ago the U.S. Coast Guard snapped a photo of a Great Lakes smuggler smiling at their camera with his middle finger in the air, “flipping us the bird,” as one frustrated officer defined his contemptuous gesture.
The smart-ass smuggler knew the Coast Guard was powerless to retaliate. They had pursued him at high speeds, but had managed to make it into Canadian waters – and he knew exactly where the borderline was, which isn’t difficult using cheap Global Positioning System devices that are every smuggler’s friend.
So the Coast Guard, observing the rules of national sovereignty, was unable to pursue this guy, and he knew it.
Fast forward to October 2007, when a Coast Guard vessel chased a speedboat on the St. Lawrence River. Suspected of carrying illegal drugs. It was headed toward the Akewesasne Indian Reserve.
The boat being chased kept speeding when it hit Canadian water. That was a smart move, considering. Because if the driver has stopped to flip his pursuers the bird, he would have been dead meat.
Why the difference? Because the boat pursuing this smuggler was crewed U.S. Coast Guard officers, but it had a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on board. The two border forces now patrol together from time to time under the cooperative “Shiprider” program that allows Canada and the U.S. to go after suspected wrongdoers on both sides of the border.
The Shipriders didn’t manage to apprehend this smuggler. But they were close enough on his tail to seize his boat where it landed, plus 103 pounds of marijuana, more than a million contraband cigarettes and a 1999 Chrysler Intrepid that was waiting at the landing site.
That may just amount to a spit in the ocean measured against the huge amount of smuggling that takes place on the Great Lakes, but the Shiprider program is a welcome step toward serious patrolling this soft underbelly of Canadian security.
It is the on-water component of the Integrated Border Enforcement Team (IBET) program, whereby Canadian and the United States share intelligence and resources to help each other patrol the border. Both countries recognize that these joint efforts serve as force multipliers – you get a lot more payoff for what you invest in policing if you work together.
Problem is, the Mounties are so understaffed on the Great Lakes – with 14 officers assigned to patrol 92,200 square kilometers of water on our side of the border – that Shiprider program’s huge potential is undermined by a lack of resources on the Canadian side.
One of Shiprider’s big tests came during the Nation Football League’s Super Bowl played in Detroit on Feb. 5, 2006. It was feared that terrorists might use this high-profile occasion to pull off an attack reminiscent of Sept. 11, 2001, and that the attack might come from any conceivable size of vessel on the Detroit River.
The decision to launch a joint Canada-U.S. patrol during the month prior to the Super Bowl was sound. So was an internal RCMP audit (obtained by CanWest News Service under the Access to Information Act) that warned that joint patrols should be undertaken “only if” the Mounties were adequately trained in winter marine and airboat operations.
Unfortunately, in some of the early missions some of the Mounties involved in the patrols were not adequately prepared for winter maritime operations. Only two of the 14 Mounties who participated were qualified boat operators. Plus there were several equipment failures and the Mounties had no trained marine mechanics.
Things did get better, and in the end the four vessels involved conducted 45 patrols and boarded 173 pleasure craft. It was a useful exercise, but it demonstrated that good ideas are only that unless the resources are invested to make them workable.
The Shiprider program was expanded this summer, mounting two months of patrols throughout August and September between Cornwall, On. and Massena, N.Y. in the east, and British Columbia and Washington State in the west. There were two small boats in the water in each location, with up to 20 riders involved in both places.
The two operations put in 1,000 patrol hours and conducted 170 boardings. They tested operations that connected their activities with IBET operations on shore. The eastern mission provided waterside security for the meeting of Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón at Montebello in August.
Shiprider is a terrific idea. Security issues on the Canada-U.S. border are a huge threat to relations between our two countries, and a real threat to the future of the Canadian economy.
But Shiprider is never going to amount to the kind of deterrent to crime and terrorism that we need on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes as long as the RCMP is so incredibly understaffed – not just in its maritime capacity but across the board.
The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence estimates that Canada needs an additional 5,000-7,000 Mounties. That would mean spending an additional $1.03 billion to $1.95 billion on the RCMP budget.
In 2006, the government promised to recruit and train a mere 1,000 more Mounties. About a third of those ended up in jobs outside the RCMP – in places such as the Department of Justice.
This government pretends to be serious about law and order issues, but when push comes to shove, great ideas like Shiprider don’t get the resources they require to have anything more than a marginal impact on the criminals who ply our coastal waters, on the gangs who receive the drugs and guns in communities such as Toronto and Edmonton, or on the would-be terrorists who might some day use these waters to disrupt the entire North American economy.
Until the Mounties do come up with the resources, the bad guys will continue to flip the bird at us with impunity. These guys love good ideas that aren’t going to go anywhere.
Senator Colin Kenny has a longstanding interest in defence and security matters. He can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca