Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Security at border is called impaired

There is a major security risk along the Canada-U.S. border as many "suspect" vehicles are not being checked, Canadian Customs officers warn.

Canada Customs Minister Elinor Caplan, who noted contract talks for the workers are about to begin, dismissed those concerns. She also referred to $165-million spent in the past two years, much of it on sophisticated inspection equipment.

Short-staffed border crossings are a big security risk that high-priced gadgets can't solve, said Marie-Claire Coupal, a customs officer at Canada's busiest crossing in Windsor, Ontario, on the border with Detroit.

"We know that the security is lacking, we know we're leaving a lot of stuff undone and there's nothing we can do about it," she said.

Worker shortages mean thousands of suspect vehicles clear the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit each month, Coupal added. She works at a secondary inspection site where about 1,000 trucks that lack preclearance are sent each day and where just seven officers work.

The inspection staff is adequate, said Colette Gentes-Hawn of Caplan's office.

Special lanes speed up precleared vehicles, and there is now greater reliance on intelligence and co-operation between law enforcement agencies to target potential risks, she said.

The threat isn't over, but cool rainy weather has helped fire crews working to contain British Columbia's worst wildfires.

The Okanagan Mountain Park fire, which forced 30,000 people to flee from Kelowna, is now 80 percent contained. The McLure-Barriere fire, north of the city, is 95 percent controlled.

The McGillivray fire still threatens Sun Peaks resort village.

Showers helped fire crews to control the Lamb Creek fire near Cranbrook and residents have returned home.

Some 32,000 people in Southern British Columbia remain on a fire-evacuation alert and about 700 fires are burning.

- A joint U.S.-Canada task force reports that various problems, including voltage shifts, line glitches and power plant shutdowns, were observed hours before the blackout that affected most of Ontario and the northeastern United States last month. Investigators believe it started with power line problems in Ohio. The group said more work must be done to determine the cause of the outage and why it spread so widely and quickly.

- Canada's third death this year from West Nile virus was an unnamed man in his 60s from Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. He also had a chronic medical condition, said Dr. Joel Kettner, Manitoba's chief medical examiner. Two elderly men from Ottawa and Windsor, Ontario, were the other victims. Last year, 21 deaths were attributed to the virus.

Canada's dollar continues to strengthen, reaching 73.32 U.S. cents Friday while the U.S. dollar dropped to $1.3638 Canadian, before bank exchange fees.

The Bank of Canada's key interest rate is unchanged at 2.75 percent and the prime lending rate is 4.5 percent.

Canadian stock exchanges were mixed Friday, as the Toronto index was lower at 7,580 points and the Canadian Venture Exchange higher at 1,374 points.

Lotto 6-49: (Wednesday) 1, 15, 24, 34, 40 and 48; bonus 12. (Sept. 6) 11, 27, 41, 45, 46 and 49; bonus 22.

- The campaign for the re-election of Ontario Premier Ernie Eves took a bizarre twist Friday over a news release calling Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty "an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet." Eves said it was an "attempt at humor, but it was an ill-advised attempt" on the part of his staff. McGuinty said he wasn't going to "get sidetracked by that stuff." The kitten slur shifted attention from the issue of privatized health care, something public opinion polls suggest is a top concern for Ontario voters heading toward the Oct. 2 election.

- Newfoundland is the latest province to refuse to prosecute gun owners who don't register their weapons. Premier Roger Grimes was applauded when he said the federal government could enforce its law itself. New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord had said the Canadian government should abandon the gun registry altogether since most provinces have refused to prosecute violations.