Canada Criticizes Its Security

TORONTO — Canada’s security net is full of holes, with most border crossings guarded by a lone staffer and airport security so lax that missing security badges and uniforms recently turned up for sale on EBay.

A new Canadian Senate security report calls for reform, a boost in defense spending and improved cooperation with the United States. Canadians have relied too long on luck to ward off a terrorist attack, it says, adding, “Unfortunately, luck is notoriously untrustworthy.”

The 315-page report by the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defense, the first released under the year-old government of Prime Minister Paul Martin, said most of Canada’s 160 land and maritime border crossings had only one person at the posts.

“The potential damage to the Canadian economy and other consequences that would come with allowing a terrorist to infiltrate the U.S. through Canada are massive,” the report said.

Trade between the nations, which share a 4,000-mile border, totals $1.4 billion each day.

“All it would take is a serious terrorist incident, caused by someone slipping through Canada, to shut down the border, and that would be an absolute disaster,” said Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in U.S.-Canadian relations.

Canada promised to spend more than $6 billion over five years to improve border security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but critics say little has improved.

More than 1,000 airport security uniforms and badges, required to gain access to restricted areas, disappeared in the first nine months of the year. Some turned up on the EBay online auction site. Transportation Minister Jean Lapierre ordered an investigation.