 Let me close as I did in Gander on September 11, 2002 when I went to that community to thank the people of Gander and the people of Canada for the overwhelming support and help that was given to us in the wake of those attacks on September 11, 2001. |
| But Canada remains a crucial partner in this global war on terrorism, and we are grateful for that. Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and military personnel continue anti-terrorist operations in the Persian Gulf. |
| We are very grateful for what the Ontario provincial government is doing, and for cooperation from provincial and local police forces all across Canada. |
| We saw when those World Trade towers came down what these terrorists will do. |
| We get more oil from Canada than any country. |
| I do want to try to put things in perspective today relative to the U.S.-Canada relationship. I would like to start by talking about how important this relationship is to the people of the United States. |
| We believe, as the President has indicated, that this combination of a rogue state that possesses weapons of mass destruction and has known ties to terrorist organizations, is a grave threat to the people of the United States and to other countries around the world. |
| When I was Governor of Massachusetts, we worked to get Sable Island gas into New England. |
| These are Canadian and United States intelligence and law enforcement offices who are working in teams and who are using good intelligence and good law enforcement to really stop the criminals and terrorists before they ever get to the border. |
| We are also looking to Canada as we continue to integrate the North American energy market. |
| We need to defeat al Queda and other terrorist organizations. |
| Our ties are deep and long-standing. We are dependent on each other. And no matter what the issue of the day, whether it be softwood lumber, whether it be a war in Iraq, we need to continue to work together. |
| The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and CSIS have provided extraordinary co-operation, as I mentioned earlier. |
| Ironically, the Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel in the Persian Gulf I mentioned earlier who are fighting terrorism will provide more support indirectly to this war in Iraq than most of the 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there. |
| Like Canada, we very much wanted the United Nations to be a relevant and effective body. But once those efforts failed, we no longer saw things from a multilateral perspective. For us, now, it is much more basic than that. It is about family. |
| I can tell you that the Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been providing outstanding co-operation with our intelligence and law enforcement agencies as we work together to track down terrorists here in North America and put them out of commission. |
