Canada to Arm Its Border Guards

from NY times, last year, sept. 2006. Until I figure how to link, you get the full text. (apologies for length)

by CHRISTOPHER MASON

Published: September 1, 2006

Responding to a demand from border guards for weapons to defend themselves and combat criminals, the federal government said Thursday that it would begin arming guards in September 2007.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said some guards would begin receiving firearms next fall, with about 150 expected to be armed by March 2008. But it will take at least a decade to arm all of the nearly 5,000 guards along Canada's southern border, Mr. Harper said. That part of the border runs 3,145 miles on land and nears 4,000 miles when water boundaries are included.

The plan calls for 500 to 600 guards to be armed each year over the course of the program.

Mr. Harper, announcing the plan at a crossing south of Vancouver, British Columbia, said the move was ''vital to our country's economy, and will protect the safety and security of all of our local communities.''

The plan will also add a second guard at crossings that now have only one on duty, an increase of 400 guards at a cost of about $91 million.

Larger crossings, like the one at Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, will remain relatively unaffected at first because the Royal Canadian Mounted Police already provide armed security there. The guards at airports will not receive firearms because armed police officers are present.

The unarmed guards, members of the Canada Border Services Agency, have walked off the job several times in the past year, saying they need guns to defend the border and themselves. The union representing them threatened a strike over the issue in 2005. In January, Canadian guards in British Columbia fled their posts amid reports that two gun-wielding suspects were headed north for the border. Armed American officials apprehended the suspects.

That incident came days after a federal election campaign that pitted the long-ruling Liberal Party against Mr. Harper's Conservatives. The Liberal Party opposed the arming of border guards, offering instead to add armed officers of the mounted police at the busiest crossings. Mr. Harper promised more border guards and firearms for them.

Some experts see the move as an acknowledgment that border security is a growing concern, even if it comes at the expense of smooth-flowing border traffic.

''It's a move away from the border being a place where essentially we collect taxes -- recognition that it has a real security component to it that directly affects the safety and security of Canadians,'' Scott Newark, a security expert, said in a television interview.

Since taking office in February, Mr. Harper has tried to improve relations with the White House through an increased role in Afghanistan, a greater willingness to settle trade disputes and a more conservative stance on social issues.

Mr. Harper's decision to arm guards may allay fears in the United States that Canada is not doing its part to secure the border. When 17 homegrown terrorism suspects were arrested in Toronto in June, several American newspapers ran editorials questioning the attention paid to the Canadian border at a time when most of the focus was on Mexico.