A container ship unloads at the P&O terminal in the Port of Vancouver
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The first glimmer of trouble appeared last week during a U.S. congressional hearing on the Dubai affair. Illustrating the global-terrorism threat posed by the international container trade, U.S. security expert Stephen Flynn sketched out a bleak scenario involving a dirty bomb placed inside a container of athletic shoes and smuggled from Asia through the port of Vancouver to its final target in the U.S. Midwest. "I use the Vancouver example to point out that from the U.S. point of view, this is a North American, a global, problem," Flynn told Time. Flynn, who says his survey of Canadian ports disclosed major security vulnerabilities, expects that the post-Dubai backlash in the U.S. will lead to more pressure on Ottawa to tighten security regulations for commercial-port operators and shippers. "What you really want to do is find a way to inspect the contents of every container heading for North America before it leaves its loading port, rather than the 5% or 6% we check now," he says.
How much security is enough? Ottawa has been out of the day-to-day business of running ports since it devolved authority to municipalities in the 1990s. Gary LeRoux, head of the Association of Canadian Port Authorities, says commercial-port operators in Canada have long since accepted their security responsibilities but adds, "There's no such thing as 100% security. People can go nuts thinking about this." All the same, says Gerry Frappier, Transport Canada director-general of marine security, Canadians are keeping an eye on the evolving U.S. approach to port security. "If there are lessons to be learned, we will learn them," he says. Lesson No. 1: Not every port is safe in a storm.