Uneasy Neighbors

This article compares American and Canadian post-9/11 counter-terrorism policies in light of their pre-9/11 responses to terrorism. In the US, there has been a history of seeing terrorism as a military matter and concerns that Canada is a security threat that has often been unable to prosecute suspected terrorists. In Canada, there are concerns about overreacting to terrorism in light of the declaration of martial law to respond to terrorism in October, 1970 and the restraints of a 1982 constitutional bill of rights. The bulk of the article consists of case studies of the American and Canadian treatment of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen rendered from the US to Syria where he was tortured, Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who pled guilty to murder in violation of the laws of war before an American military commission and his older brother Abdullah Khadr whose extradition to the US on material support of terrorism charges was stayed by Canadian courts on the basis of rights violation during his capture and initial detention in Pakistan. These high profile cases fit into stereotypes that suggest that Canada has been concerned about human rights of suspected terrorists to the point of being unable to respond to security threats while the US has been ultra-vigilant about security to the point of abusing human rights and threatening international counter-terrorism co-operation. There are some the truths behind these stereotypes, but the reality is more complex. Much of the Canadian focus on rights is related to the role of courts and quasi-judicial public inquiries while the American focus on strong executive responses to protect security is assisted by a pattern of extra-legalism where courts deferentially review executive action or refuse to review such action. The differences in American and Canadian counter-terrorism help explain why Canada and the US are uneasy neighbors, but they have not prevented close security co-operation between the two countries based on shared economic and security interests including enhanced information sharing under the 2011 perimeter security and economic competitiveness declaration and action plan examined in the last part of the paper.