ONTREAL - The United States and Canada yesterday signed a landmark agreement to dramatically intensify security along the world's longest undefended border.
US Attorney General John Ashcroft arrived in Ottawa to approve the deal only a day after stunning Canadians with the announcement that hundreds of National Guard troops and military helicopters will be deployed to thwart terrorist incursions across the 5,525-mile-long line. The troops will be used as lookouts at busy checkpoints and will employ choppers, all-terrain vehicles, high-tech military surveillance gear, and boot leather to patrol vast swaths of border that hitherto have been nearly unguarded.
The agreement signed in Ottawa commits Canada and the United States to tightening security measures while seeking ways to speed the flow of commerce between two countries whose trade relationship is the largest in history. More than $1.1 billion in goods and services crosses the border every day, with Canada depending on US markets for 85 percent of its exports while 25 percent of American exports go to Canada.
''The North American front of the war on terrorism is more secure because of this agreement,'' Ashcroft told reporters in the Canadian capital. ''The accord underscores our mutual commitment to ensure the safety of all Canadians and Americans while at the same time preserving the sovereignty and political economic sovereignty, that these two nations enjoy.''
Earlier, at a news conference in Detroit, Ashcroft had said security along the border is undergoing a ''sea change'' with increased sharing of intelligence and integration of enforcement teams between the United States and Canada.
But he insisted that the deployment of troops to the border is a ''temporary'' measure that will ''not militarize or fortify a border'' re nowned for its friendliness.
While claiming to be supportive of the extraordinary dispatch of American fighting forces to the 49th parallel, Canadian officials were circumspect: ''Anything that helps US security helps Canada,'' said Solicitor General Laurence MacAulay, who oversees the country's law enforcement agencies.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, border procedures were drastically tightened, causing monstrous traffic jams at some crossings and costing businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.
The new agreement is meant to integrate US-Canada security and immigration procedures. Although none of the 19 suicide hijackers implicated in the attacks entered the United States from Canada, the country has long been criticized by America and Europe for lax refugee rules that have made its major cities a notoriously safe haven for Islamic militants - including operatives of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
Frightened that the giant trade relationship faces a serious threat, Canada is moving quickly - even desperately - to show that it is just as serious as the United States about cracking down on terrorists.
''September 11 hit us very hard,'' said a senior official of Canada's Foreign Ministry. ''We have to counter the image that Canada is the weak link in terms of North American security.''
Last week, Canada's House of Commons approved the country's first sweeping federal antiterrorist law, empowering police to make ''preventive'' arrests of people believed to be plotting terrorist activities; permitting suspects to be held for 72 hours without charges; and giving government broad new authority to use wiretaps.
Meanwhile, Ottawa this week pledged to rush through another law that would require domestic airlines to provide US authorities with information on passengers arriving from Canada. The American aviation-security law requires carriers to detail personal information about passengers and crew before they arrive in the country. This conflicts with Canadian privacy laws, which now are likely to be revised to satisfy US security concerns.
In a recent survey, polling company Ipsos-Reid found that a majority of Canadians now believe the risk posed by terrorist attacks outweighs the protection of individual rights.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan said new legislation is meant to apply only to terrorists and terrorist groups.
Under the border agreement signed yesterday, the so-called Integrated Border Enforcement Team - a pilot police project already operating at key checkpoints between Maine and New Brunswick - will be expanded to other border areas, especially critical Ontario-Michigan crossings.
Also formalized was an agreement to speed the exchange of fingerprint data and other information between the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Although Canadian news media reacted with astonishment to the announcement that the United States intends to use troops to protect its border with Canada, some politicians said the idea has merit.
''We have all sorts of border points in the prairies and through [British Columbia] that are just completely open. You can just walk across an imaginary line,'' said Joe Comartin, a member of Parliament from Ontario. ''Helicopters and National Guard troops would be of use patrolling those areas.''
