It's almost a tradition now. From time to time our esteemed neighbours to the south will say they'd love to see us again, and Canada will say "Sure!" But then we get there – it's just awkward. Sometimes it feels as if the U.S. has us over to their place only when the two sides of the House are fighting, and one side, left or right, thinks Canada will back it up.
It happened again this week at the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security meeting, leadingly entitled "Canada's Fast-Track Refugee Plan: Unanswered Questions and Implications for U.S. National Security." One imagines "Peril From the North: Attack of the Abominable Snow Refugees" was at least considered.
Our government sensibly declined to attend this show-inquiry, choosing instead to send a letter outlining our exhaustive refugee-screening process, but needless to say our nation, as a notion, was very much present.
There sat Canada, metaphorically pushing its food around the plate while arguments flew from both sides of the table, basically all of them ending with: "You're with me on this, right, Canada?"
We're used to this, of course. From filmmaker Michael Moore wandering around, opening our doors unannounced because it's that safe (well, the few of us who didn't lock our doors before sure do now, Michael) to conscripting our health-care system to prove this is either the single-payer promised land, where IVs run with milk and honey, or a polite, snowy Logan's Run, Canada is ever called upon to prove an American's point. We've always played this role with grace, and we did again this week, I think. Mostly in the form of Laura Dawson, of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute, a Washington think tank. Calmly, with the patience of a saint, she brought up the long history of successful Canadian-U.S. co-operation on security projects. "Canada is not a weak link in the fight against terrorism," she said, thanks for asking.
There we were, all but saying, "Oh, are those sweet potatoes with miniature marshmallows on them? Haven't had those in a while ... how nice," while our hosts tried desperately to score points off us. In the lead-up to all this, it was almost refreshing to see Conservative MP and immigration critic Michelle Rempel reverse the tradition; Ms. Rempel was quick to try to use Americans to score points against her Canadian political adversary.
"I think this [U.S.] committee has been struck because there are legitimate concerns," she said when the event was announced.
Although, given how much we rely upon an open border through which about 76 per cent of all Canadian exports pass, and given the nasty economic consequences of increased border-security measures after the 9/11 attacks, Ms. Rempel's remarks were perhaps not particularly helpful to the nation as a whole.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who led the committee, the stated purpose of which was to determine whether Canada's Syrian-refugee plan poses a threat to America, began by talking about Canada's "unsecured" border and the "growing" threat of Islamic terrorism.
It's an election year in the U.S., and Mr. Johnson is in a tight race.
The carefully curated witnesses included David B. Harris, who worked for Canadian Security Intelligence Service for two years in the late eighties before hanging out his shingle as a "noted terrorism expert." He's currently director of Ottawa-based Insignis Strategic Research Inc.
Mr. Harris is best known for having made a number of extremely alarmist and unsupported statements in the media regarding the threat Canadian-based terrorism poses.
Indeed, given half a chance, Mr. Harris tends to say things ostensibly designed to make anyone who hears them think to themselves, "Whoa, that's not good. I should call a noted Canadian terrorism expert right away."
What he told the committee: "You would have, for a group of 10,000 [refugees], at just a one-per-cent failure rate, between five to eight terrorist units each capable of doing [to] one of our cities what they did to Paris ... If you then multiply numbers for the 25,000 contemplated in Canada, you could be looking at [between] 12 and 20 terrorist units."
Where those figures were pulled from is anyone's guess, but I like to think his American audience decided he was talking metric terrorists or something, and not just nonsense, and didn't write us off entirely.
Another witness, immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann of Toronto, warned that processing lots of refugees would be lots of work for the people whose job it is to process refugees, and that might make them – including the 500 extra officials sent to Jordan and Lebanon to assist with medical and background checks – tired.
Americans can be forgiven for thinking that any problem best solved by some spa days would not be that insurmountable.
Overall, the Americans present ultimately seemed satisfied with our screening efforts, which involve checking refugee claimants against U.S. databases – and, of course, refugees will not become Canadian citizens for years and so will require a visas to enter the U.S. anyway.
Other witnesses included U.S. border agent Dean Mandel, who testified on behalf of his union that – wait for it – more border staff are definitely needed.
Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, of the lovely border state of New Hampshire, seemed very fond of Canadians, and expressed concern about the border, saying, "We need more people and more resources" to defend it.
I half-expected Ben and Jerry from the lovely border state of Vermont to show up and say the problem (which the committee never came close to pinning down) could be solved with lots and lots of ice cream.
Although, maybe I was thinking about ice cream because I was thinking about dessert, the final course, this whole uncomfortable affair being over.