July 13, 2006: Counterterrorism

Steven Emerson on Mumbai Train Attacks & NYC Tunnel Plot By Andrew Cochran, July 12, 06, via newsbeat1
counterterrorismblog.org/2006/07/steven_emerson_on_mumbai_train.php

ZAHN: Bill, we recently learned that Hammoud actually went to college in Canada so how concerned should Americans watching this show tonight be about what an easy entry point it seems that Canada is for Al-Qaeda.

HAROLD WISEMAN: You’ve hit the major point. Americans have to be less concerned today under the Harper Administration because they are addressing three important points. Immigration is lax, horribly lax, and that bothers the vast majority of Muslims in Canada who are law abiding and contributing to this country. We take in 300,000 immigrants and refugees a year, three times that of Australia. And we have a three-year backlog before their cases are heard. This government is addressing the problem. They're also addressing two other problems: the lack of field intelligence. Seasoned agents don't have enough people on the ground to gather intelligence. With what they've done, they've done well and stopped a lot of other plots and aborted a lot of operations. The third issue that's going to be addressed by this administration that was failed to be addressed for ten years is our port situation. Much attention is always given in the United States and in Canada to airports and subways, and yet none is given to ports where only 1 in 100 cargo containers are checked. Since the federal [Liberal] government in Canada stopped funding port police that's not going to get better any time soon.

Why would the Liberals have stopped funding the ports police? To whose benefit?