Gary Doer and U.S. National Security

Canada: This will be far less laudatory, judging from the list of witnesses invited to testify before the committee next Wednesday: most have already publicly challenged Canada plan to quickly accept 25,000 refugees, according to The Chronicle Herald. The Canadian embassy had also been invited to testify but declined, said ambassador Gary Doer, citing a long-standing practice of avoiding appearances in that partisan domestic political chamber. It sent a note to members of a powerful U.S. Senate committee that has scheduled a meeting next week titled, "Canada Fast-Track Refugee Plan: Unanswered Questions and Implications for U.S. National Security." The U.S. Senate homeland-security hearing is, for the Trudeau government, an unwanted flip-side to the praise it received from progressives and foreign media outlets last month when the prime minister personally greeted refugees at the airport. Instead, Doer sent a note beforehand outlining nine security measures the Canadian government has taken — five specifically related to the Syrian refugee program, and four others involving regular border co-operation with the U.S. They include the collection of biometric information from refugees; a zero-acceptance policy when doubts surface about any individual candidate; use of U.S. security databases; the prioritization of low-risk refugees like women and families; and the fact that the refugees would be non-citizens for years, and couldn't travel to the U.S. without visas. "Rest assured that no corners, including security screening, are being cut in order to achieve the government objectives," Doer wrote in the letter, sent last week. "Rather, the government has devoted significant resources to this effort." Doer concluded the letter by addressing a long-standing canard that repeatedly surfaces about the 9-11 attacks, noting that the congressional committee that studied the catastrophe concluded none of the hijackers came from Canada. We're not naive enough to suggest that there not a lot of politics in this." In the U.S., the refugees have become a political football in a campaign season where different Republican presidential candidates are proposing a Syrian refugee ban — led by Donald Trump, who has gone so far as to call for a total freeze on Muslims travelling to the U.S. Of the witnesses invited to testify at the Republican-controlled committee, three are likely to express concern about Canada refugee approach. In an interview Tuesday, Doer added: "We want to deal with the facts. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.