But Stephanie Carvin, a former national security analyst with the Canadian government who now teaches at Carleton University, says those decisions represent a serious challenge for Prime Minister Justin\u00a0Trudeau.<\/p>\n
“We are going to have to reassure the Americans that our vetting process for immigrants and refugees is consistent with their own\u00a0so that there’s no issue about security,” Carvin said.<\/p>\n
![\"94214831\"](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/be774_94214831.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Motorists in line at the U.S.-Mexico border on January 25, 2017 in Tijuana, Mexico. (Sandy Huffaker\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Canada lifted its visa requirement for Mexican travellers<\/a> in 2016, but said the decision would be revisited if refugee claims rose to 3,500 a year. Carvin says it’s not unreasonable to expect that threshold will be reached this year with the changes Trump’s initiated.<\/p>\n At a stop in Winnipeg Thursday, the prime minister was asked for his take on the U.S.\/Mexico situation, and how Canada would respond if there’s an increase in refugee claimants.<\/p>\n \n ‘He will find an excuse to turn on Canada.’<\/span> “Canada has its policy on refugees and immigration,” he said. “We set out the approach, which is open and rigorous and making sure processes are followed and security is strongly addressed and respected.”<\/p>\n Agustin Barrios Gomez, a former Mexican congressman\u00a0and founder of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations think-tank,\u00a0says\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0has to stand up to Trump.<\/p>\n “The only documented case of a terrorist trying to enter the U.S. via a land border was on the Canadian side, not the Mexican side, so it’s just a matter of time \u2014 he will find an excuse to turn on Canada,” Gomez said in an interview this week with Rosemary Barton on CBC’s Power Politics<\/em>.<\/p>\n Trump’s pen isn’t the only source of concern in Canada. So are his words.<\/p>\n In an interview Wednesday with ABC News, the president insisted torture works as a way of getting information vital to American security. His comments are raising the spectre that the abandoned and discredited “enhanced interrogation techniques” first introduced by the George W. Bush administration after the 9\/11 attacks could be brought back.<\/p>\n “I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked them the question, ‘Does torture work?’ Trump said. “And the answer was, ‘Yes, absolutely.'”<\/p>\n A return to practices such as “waterboarding” would require Canada to reconsider how it shares information with the United States and other members of the so-called Five Eyes network, says University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese, who’s written extensively on this country’s own anti-terrorism laws.<\/p>\n “The concern is whether Canada can remain in a close, seamless relationship of information-sharing with a Five Eyes partner that is not complying with international law,” he says.<\/p>\n It’s a concern for\u00a0the U.K., as well \u2014\u00a0another member of Five Eyes. On Thursday, the Guardian newspaper quoted a former British diplomat who said that country’s security agencies would be torn between a moral and legal obligation not to be involved with torture, and their heavy dependence on the U.S. for intelligence.<\/p>\n Forcese said similar concerns exist in Canada.<\/p>\n “Our agencies are net importers of intelligence from the U.S. They would have to screen everything that’s coming in,” he said. Forcese is worried agencies such as CSIS and the Canada Border Services Agency “would feel pressure to bend on the torture question rather than stop the flow of information.”<\/p>\n
\n – Agustin\u00a0Barrios Gomez,\u00a0Mexican Council on Foreign Relations<\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n‘Pressure to bend’ on torture<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"AFP_KO9FW\"](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/be774_afp-ko9fw.jpg\")
<\/p>\n