OTTAWA — It's "unfortunate" the top official in charge of American's homeland security wrongly suggested the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada, says Bill Elliott, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"My initial reaction frankly is I was a little bit surprised and somewhat disappointed that the secretary isn't better informed," Elliott told the Star, just before he was to testify at a parliamentary committee.

Elliott was responding to suggestions by Janet Napolitano, U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security, who commented in a CBC interview that the U.S. is concerned that "to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there."

Asked if she was referring to the 9/11 perpetrators, which have been shown by an American commission to have entered the U.S. legally on visas — mostly from Saudi Arabia, not Canada, Napolitano said: "Uh, not just those but others as well."

Napolitano defended the sovereign right of the U.S. to treat its border as a "real border."

She went on to further defend the tough border restrictions adopted by the U.S. adding she was "not privileged to say everything that has occurred. I mean, some things have occurred in the past. I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

"We're no longer going to have this fiction that there's no longer a border between Canada and the United States. That is very different, however, from not having a workable border, and that's where my goal is."

Elliot said he "really can't explain" why such misconceptions about Canada as the source of the 9/11 terrorists persist.

He suggested that as the U.S. and Canada do more "joint threat assessment work together," the attitudes would change.

"We do a fair amount of that now with the Americans, particularly in the context of our Integrated Border Enforcement Teams, but I think more work there, so that we're all dealing with the same information, the same facts, we can sort of do joint analysis and come up with an accurate picture of the threats facing both Canada and the United States."

Later, speaking to reporters after his committee appearance, Elliott appeared to suggest that Napolitano may have been misquoted, but he nonetheless stated her view was erroneous.

"I shouldn't overreact to what I see in the media, but there was a suggestion in the media that the Secretary of Homeland Security in the United States made some reference linking terrorist threats in Canada to the 9/11 attacks. And there is certainly no link to be made there."

"There were mistaken reports that the individuals who conducted those terrorist attacks back in Sept. 11, 2001 had travelled to the United States through Canada. As we all know, that's just not what happened."

Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland said Napolitano's comments reflect "that there's an enormous lack of knowledge about Canada and our security procedures."

He said the persistent "Internet myth that Canada was somehow involved in 9/11" is extremely damaging to Canada.

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"This is deadly. When I was down in the United States talking with congressmen, this is a pervasive attitude among their legislators. So Canada has to be infinitely more aggressive in telling the story of what we're doing to protect safety, what we're doing to ensure that our hemisphere is secure, and that in fact Canada is every bit as safe as the United States and takes terrorism every bit as seriously."

"If we don't launch an information offensive, if we allow this type of comment from the Secretary of Homeland Security to stand then we really are putting at risk our trading relationship and creating a lot of non-tariff barriers."