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From PravdaMaclean's:
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/canada/article.jsp?content=20050718_109096_109096How safe are we?
Canada is the only nation on an al-Qaeda list of targets that has not yet been attacked. And we're woefully unprepared.
JOHN GEDDES and CHARLIE GILLIS with Andrew Potter in Montreal
...Destroying or even temporarily cutting off the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing in North America would, in Kenny's words, "lay waste to Canada's political and economic future." The 555-m structure connecting Windsor, Ont., and Detroit is protected under an arrangement between the police, the Canadian and U.S. border services, the two countries' coast guards and the U.S. company that controls it. But even the owner, the Detroit International Bridge Company, acknowledges its majestic asset remains needlessly vulnerable -- due primarily to Canadian stubbornness.
The problem: suspicious vehicles crossing from either country aren't searched until they reach the other side, where the respective countries have their customs booths. In the event of a terrorist attack, that's about 555 m too late. While the Bush administration has passed legislation that would allow Canada and the U.S. to simply switch ends, the Canadian government has been dragging its heels, citing sovereignty issues and the problem of having armed U.S. officers on its soil (Canadian border officers do not carry guns).
"This is a simple step, in our opinion," says Skip McMahon, special projects coordinator for the bridge corporation. Canada could simply agree to an exchange of land with the U.S., giving the border installations the same status as embassies, he suggests. The current system, says McMahon, "is like inspecting someone's luggage after they get off the plane."
...With two million people living in the region and a handful of comparatively narrow arteries leading out of the downtown, Vancouver is an obvious candidate. The urge to flee would almost certainly unleash mayhem throughout the downtown core, as residents sought to escape what they feared to be a radioactive cloud. Typically, dirty bombs are made from dynamite and fissionable material, the intention being not to create a nuclear blast, but to disperse ionized particles that would sicken tens of thousands. Because radioactive fuel is hard to obtain in North America, some experts see cargo containers as the most likely means of getting a dirty bomb into the country, and the Port of Vancouver has two busy container docks.
As it stands, we are only somewhat ready for such a scenario. Like most cities, Vancouver has a comprehensive emergency plan, but it's designed primarily around earthquakes, emphasizing things like firefighting, emergency shelter and electric power. Evacuating the city remains a logistical horror no one cares to contemplate. As for first-line response, authorities throughout the country have considered the threat of a dirty bomb entering the country through one of our seaports (the navy, coast guard and others have been rehearsing for such scenarios in Vancouver and Halifax). But the Kenny committee's guide book concluded that Canada's ports are "riddled with criminals whose mission it is to open up holes for smuggling." And, it added, "A vulnerability to criminals is by definition a vulnerability to terrorists."
After the London attacks, vulnerable is also the way to describe Canadian cities' subway systems. Montreal's Charlevoix metro station, for example, is deep. Nothing to compare with the stations in St. Petersburg, Russia, some of which are over 100 m underground, but it is still 30 m from the lowest platform to street level. It takes a good 2 1/2 minutes to hurry from the bottom to the exit turnstiles, and another 40 seconds through a shopping mall until you are outside into air. Who knows how long it would take to get out in the dark, after an explosion or, say, a sarin gas attack, with people in a panic and the air filled with chemicals?
Odile Paradis, spokeswoman for the Societé de Transport de Montréal (STM), says there are substantial emergency response measures in place. Whenever there is an attack or major public transportation accident anywhere in the world, other jurisdictions are debriefed about what went right, and what went wrong, she notes. And since 9/11, every emergency response team in Montreal knows what its job will be (a few months ago, the city ran a simulation of a response to a disaster at the Montreal stock exchange). In the case of a terrorist attack on the metro, the response would be coordinated by Montreal's police department, and its spokesmen too are more than happy to talk about emergency response. After last week's bombings in the London Underground, Montreal police immediately posted officers at metro stations considered likely targets, with Charlevoix at the top of the list.
Both the police and the STM are much less keen to talk about preparedness and prevention. This is partly for security reasons: it would not be wise to tip their hand to the terrorists. But after 9/11, there was a lot of talk about "the new normal" being increased security at high-risk places like airports, train stations and subways. Many jurisdictions adopted vigilance programs like the one in place for years in the London Underground -- public address warnings about leaving packages unattended, and signs exhorting people to be on the lookout for suspicious behaviour. The STM has no such public vigilance system in place, and the only visible warnings in the stations pertain to littering.
Ultimately, a terrorist attack in Montreal is unimaginable -- or at least that is what officials appear to be relying on. Spokesmen for both the STM and police emphasize that there has never been an assault aimed at the metro, and there is no reason to think there will be. But we'd do well to recall that in 2002, the new commanding officer of the RCMP in Quebec called Montreal "a haven for terrorists," and that Montreal was the home base for Ahmed Ressam, the would-be "millennium bomber."
... etc., etc.
