Canada brings up troops at summit

MONTEBELLO, Quebec — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday told President Bush that his country’s troop commitment to Afghanistan may face political obstacles in about 18 months, and also pressed the U.S. to ease new border-enforcement rules that Canadians consider an inconvenience.

“The prime minister affirmed that Canada would continue with its current mission through February of 2009 and explained to the president the dynamic of [how] Afghanistan is considered within Canada,” said Dan Fisk, an adviser to Mr. Bush on Western Hemispheric affairs with the National Security Council.

“The president now has a better understanding in terms of not only the dynamics here, but also that at some point the prime minister will need to go back to Parliament … on what the mission will be beyond 2009,” said Mr. Fisk, referring to the date that Canada’s current commitment of troops ends.

Mr. Fisk also noted that Mr. Bush “expressed his appreciation for the contribution and the sacrifices that Canada is and have made and are making in Afghanistan.”

Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper met this afternoon at the Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello resort, a secluded retreat about midway between Ottawa and Montreal. The meetings were the first in a two-day summit with the two leaders and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Mr. Bush later met with Mr. Calderon, in his first direct talks with the Mexican leader since the collapse of Mr. Bush’s proposed immigration reforms, a defeat Mr. Calderon publicly lamented. Mr. Fisk said the two men discussed immigration, border security, anti-drug efforts and hurricane relief.

All three men will discuss regional issues today — primarily their efforts to enhance trade and border security simultaneously through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). No major policy initiatives are expected from the summit, and formal announcements likely will be mostly symbolic and on smaller issues such as emergency preparedness.

Canada has about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and has suffered 67 fatalities since 2002. They are one of the largest foreign contingents in Afghanistan besides the U.S., which has about 28,000 troops in the country. Canada has no soldiers in Iraq but is helping to pay for reconstruction.

Mr. Harper’s Conservative Party does not have a majority in Parliament and so must govern through a multiparty coalition, and he faces an electorate that is “very regretful and very averse to casualties,” said Christopher Sands, a scholar on U.S.-Canada relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“When they see somebody killed, their public still immediately thinks, ’Maybe we shouldn’t be there,’ ” Mr. Sands said. “There is a lot of worry about whether this is the right mission and whether they should have troops on the ground.”

The latest death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan, early Sunday morning, received widespread and sorrowful media coverage yesterday in Ottawa. And several hundred protesters demonstrated outside the Chateau Montebello against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and against the SPP, which some see as a threat to each country’s sovereignty. Rocks and bottles thrown at the police lines prompted a tear-gas response. Several arrests were reported.

But Susan Cartwright, defense policy adviser to Mr. Harper, cautioned that “seeking the endorsement of Parliament doesn’t necessarily mean we’re leaving” Afghanistan.

“We have an ongoing commitment to our presence in Afghanistan, under the Afghan compact, and there are many elements to our presence in Afghanistan,” Ms. Cartwright said.

Ms. Cartwright said she would not speculate on what Canada’s role in Afghanistan will be beyond February 2009, but she said that if Mr. Harper sought Parliament’s approval to extend the troops commitment, “that doesn’t preclude that that endorsement wouldn’t be forthcoming.”

Mr. Harper, Ms. Cartwright said, also expressed his “disappointment” about requirements by the U.S. government that all travelers moving between the U.S., Canada and Mexico present their passport at the border. Canadians have complained that the new requirement has caused a backlog in passport applications, preventing some caught in the backlog from traveling to and from the U.S.

Mr. Sands, however, said that Canadians have a higher percentage of passport ownership than U.S. citizens and are less affected by the requirement, and the U.S. government declined to back down on the requirements.

“We are committed to implementing [Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative] in a reasonable way,” Mr. Fisk said. “Our focus is on how to facilitate this peaceful prosperous relationship with Canada. … We are going to do that in a way that also facilitates our security interests.”

The schedule here was compressed so that Mr. Calderon can leave Canada promptly to head home and help his country deal with the consequences of Hurricane Dean, which was headed for the Yucatan Peninsula last night.