Ridiculing US Official Just Made Your Border Wait Longer

(Edward Alden — The Tyee)

We overreacted to Napolitano’s gaffe. Why we’ll pay for it.

After years of frustration dealing with the George W. Bush administration over the tightening of the border, Canadian officials were hoping for better under President Barack Obama. It does not appear to be working out quite as planned.

Obama’s homeland security secretary, former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, caused a furor last week when she suggested in a CBC interview that some of the 9-11 terrorists had entered the United States from Canada, and therefore stricter border measures were necessary. The statement threw the Canadian government and media into apoplexy. It seemed to confirm the always compelling storyline that Canada is once again being “harassed” by an ignorant American officialdom eager to blame its northern neighbour for its own mistakes. The National Post dismissed her as “irrational” and the commissioner of the RCMP declared himself “surprised and somewhat disappointed that the secretary isn’t better informed.”

Little matter that Napolitano’s slip should rightly be considered a gaffe. “I knew the minute it came out of my mouth it was wrong,” she said later. Neil Macdonald, the veteran CBC reporter who caught her out, set her up perfectly. The secretary, defending American plans to impose new document requirements at the border this June, noted quite accurately that “to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.”

“Are you talking about the 9-11 perpetrators?” MacDonald asked, dangling the noose. “Not just those, but others as well,” said Napolitano. Drop the words “just” and “as well” and she would have been home free.

Instead, the furor that has erupted is certain to poison efforts by the two governments to cooperate over border issues at a time when it is critically important to deal with festering problems. Washington is set in June to require passports or other secure documents from everyone — Canadians and Americans — crossing into the United States, Napolitano made it clear she will not reconsider that deadline. Read more here.

Related: McCain links 9/11, Canada