http://www.chronwatch.com/content/conte ... ?aid=16457

The Show Goes On: Terrorists Still Doing Business in Canada
Written by Robert Klein Engler
Saturday, August 27, 2005

We make it with few delays through the construction zone around Detroit’s downtown and onto the Ambassador Bridge that leads to Windsor. Once across the bridge and heading towards Canadian customs, traffic begins to slow. Our lane into the checkpoint seems the slowest of all. When we get to the customs window we understand why. The Canadian customs agent working there asks many questions. We show our U. S. passports and answer politely.

“You guys left all your bad habits in the States?� she asks, at last.

“Of course,� I answer. Assured, she waves us through and then we head for highway 401, which leads to London, Ontario.

It’s hard to tell in leaving Windsor that you are in a foreign country. Canada melts into the United States and the United States melts into Canada at the Detroit/Windsor border crossing. The language and culture seem superficially the same here. Unlike a border crossing into Mexico, Canada and the United States have much in common. It’s only when we stop for dinner in Rodney, Ontario, that what it means to be from Chicago and not Toronto becomes clear.

We eat at the only restaurant in town. The sign in the window says, “Southwest, Chinese, Canadian Cuisine.� My friend looks at me and wonders what kind of menu that could be. Once inside, we realize this is the place where families from miles around come to eat. The atmosphere is eclectic, but homey. Silverware on the table is rolled in checkered washcloths for napkins.

I order fish and chips. It is like what I remember from years ago living in England, but they don’t have any malt vinegar for the chips. Then I ask the waitress what the weather will be like tomorrow. She says it was hot yesterday, almost 29, but it will be cooling off and may even go down to 14 by the middle of the week. Oops! I realize we are not in Kansas anymore. I just don’t get what 29 and 14 feels like weather wise. Different cultures do make different worlds.

We’ve come to Canada to see plays at the Stratford Festival. The productions of Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams are as good or better here than on Broadway. The audiences are prosperous, intelligent, and liberal. It’s hard to imagine that as one drama is taking place on stage, another involving terror and destruction may be in the planning off stage. The worldwide failure of many new immigrants to assimilate into their host societies seems to go unnoticed among the lights, makeup, and applause.

Nevertheless, the next day, the National Post for 23 August (p. A7) carries an article about immigration to Canada. Reporter Gary Dimmock writes, “Immigrants and refugees on whom authorities have little information should be forced to wear electronic tracking bracelets--like criminals under house arrest--to establish any links to the more than 50 terrorist networks operating in Canada, says [David Harris] a former chief planner for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.�

Canada, with its numerous terrorist networks, is becoming a problem for many in U. S. law enforcement. Because of liberal immigration laws and welfare policies, Canada could be a breeding ground for future terrorist attacks against the United States. Until recently, a terrorist threat from Canada has always been downplayed when compared to the problems on the southern border of the United States. With about a million illegal Mexican immigrants detained already this year trying to sneak into the United States, hardly anyone in the media has looked north to see who might be trying to cross that U. S. border illegally. This may soon change.

“ ‘Virtually all of the...international terrorists organizations are known to maintain a network presence in Canada,’ said a report, first publicized in the National Post.� Unless the U. S. government takes seriously this report and both its northern and southern borders, it will be vulnerable on all sides. The Bush administration must recognize that not only does it have a border problem in Iraq, but it also has one in the United States. To keep the insurgents out of Iraq and the terrorists out of the United States, we have to forget about amnesty and start talking about border security.

Canada is a wonderful place to visit. Everyone should leave bad habits behind before going there. Nevertheless, a CSIS report claims that the world’s “most notorious� terrorist groups are still doing business in Canada. Let’s hope these terrorists don’t disappear with their business into the great white north, only to emerge later and strike again.