Windsor Star - June 28, 2005
By Colin Kenny
Windsor ranks with Ottawa and Toronto at the top of any list of cities of vital importance to the security and economic well being of Canada. The federal government needs to understand that and get busy upgrading the Windsor-Detroit border crossings that are so critical to Canada’s national interests.
If a terrorist wanted to severely damage the Canadian economy and inflict significant punishment to the American economy at the same time, what would be the best target imaginable? The Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence believes that the perfect target for any terrorists operating from Canadian soil would be the Ambassador Bridge.
How likely is it that a terrorist attack will take out the Ambassador Bridge? Risk analysts would agree: the probability is extremely remote. But the same analysts would tell you that, were it to happen, the negative impact on Canada would be stupefying. Intelligent nations prepare for low-probability, high-cost situations. This is one.
Canada’s economic health has always depended on a lucrative trading relationship with the United States, but the North American Free Trade Agreement has made the importance of that relationship far more crucial than ever before. More than 87 per cent of our exports go south, and a quarter of them cross at Windsor, mostly by truck.
Think about this: a shutdown at the Ambassador Bridge would be far more damaging to Canada than the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre was to the United States. Few analysts predicted the magnitude and impact of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. The issue is one of preparedness. The Ambassador Bridge is at risk now, and while it is unlikely that it will be attacked, we cannot wait until something happens to properly prepare for this possibility.
After September 11, 2001 one hopes that people are paying more attention to chinks in North America’s continental armor. Governments on both sides of the border cannot afford to be complacent about our Committee’s conviction that the two countries should be placing far greater priority on upgrading our major border crossings, and building in redundancy in case of a disaster at vulnerable points.
There are a variety of essential components to upgrading these crossings in the areas of infrastructure, systems and personnel.
For a start, there needs to be a permanent police presence at crossings. Either that, or border personnel should be armed. Border inspectors regularly come up against potentially dangerous people. We owe it to them to give them the tools to defend themselves, and we owe it to all Canadians to give them the tools to deter the entry of dangerous people and goods.
There should be less emphasis on checking out cross-border shoppers and much more emphasis on checking out people with ulterior motives for entering Canada. Reversing the placement of Canadian and U.S. inspectors would allow them to ferret out dangerous people before they enter crossings.
Electronic systems for checking out people who might constitute a threat need to be upgraded in a hurry. At most crossings these systems are clumsy and unreliable.
Steps also need to be taken to curb border crashing, which has been on the rise in recent years.
As for improved infrastructure, redundancy is critical. Our most important bridge and tunnel crossings shouldn’t stand vulnerable and alone. They need backups, so that if they are in any way incapacitated, a huge chunk of our economy wouldn’t grind to a halt.
Twinning the Ambassador Bridge – to deal with future capacity challenges – does not cut it. Windsor-Detroit needs another, separate crossing sufficiently apart from the Ambassador Bridge to ensure that one disaster couldn’t halt most of the traffic.
What is needed most, in terms of infrastructure, is a new resolve on the part of both Canadian and U.S. governments to move quickly to renovate current structures and build new ones. The target date for the next new border crossing in the Windsor-Detroit area is 2013. There seems to be no urgency to try to accelerate preparations, even though delays at the border are clearly causing investors to re-think the advantages of producing in Canada to serve U.S. markets, and even though every extra year of border vulnerability leaves Canada open to the unthinkable: border shutdown.
Let’s complete the final designs of the most likely new crossings before the current bi-national environmental assessment process identifies a final site. The extra cost of doing so, amortized over the life of the new crossing, would be approximately twenty-five cents a vehicle. Worth it considering doing so could speed up the process by as much as two years.
Let’s also put power in the hands of the Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to fast-track construction and to move ahead when the inevitable not-in-my-backyard challenges are mounted, and politicians move to protect votes in affected neighbourhoods.
If we cannot speed up the creation of a new crossing in Windsor-Detroit, we should initiate a process to create redundant capacity elsewhere in Southwestern Ontario, perhaps north of Lake St. Clair, or along the Niagara Peninsula.
Whenever Canada has been involved in wars over the years, Canadians have recognized that extraordinary measures need to be taken to protect our nation, our way of life, our political and economic future. Usually we wake up just in time to recognize the threat at our door.
The alarm clock is ringing. Time to stop snoozing. Intelligent people will recognize it as a call to arms.
Senator Colin Kenny is Chair of the Sentate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence. He can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca