Ports: Near-Unanimous Unease about Security, Polarization on the Dubai Deal

Transcription

1 Ports: Near-Unanimous Unease about Security, Polarization on the Dubai Deal BDO Dunwoody Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll by COMPAS in the Financial Post COMPAS Inc. Public Opinion and Customer Research March 6, 2006

2 1.0 Introduction Canada needs to do a lot more to protect its ports from terrorist threats according to a survey of Canadian CEOs by COMPAS. Three quarters of respondents said that lax port security has made this country vulnerable to attacks using atomic, bacteriological or chemical weapons. Overwhelming majorities of the business panel believe that security concerns should be treated at least as seriously as those about the environment, and support re-establishing the national port police and using radiation detectors to inspect cargo. While sharing a common concern about Canadian vulnerability, panellists divide on the Dubai ports deal that aroused controversy in the U.S. UAE s government-owned corporation, Dubai Ports World, would assume administrative responsibility for five U.S. ports along with part of the port of Vancouver. The White House staunchly backs the deal as do some Republicans in Congress while Democrats are resolutely opposed. The COMPAS panel of Canadian CEOs and business leaders polarizes on the issue: 47% (29% strongly) agree with the statement that it is risky to allow an Arab country any port control while 29% disagree (11% strongly), and 35% (17% strongly) believe that cancelling the deal would foolishly discourage investment while 40% (18% strongly) disagree. These are the key findings from this week s web survey of the COMPAS panel of business leaders and CEOs conducted on behalf the National Post under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP. 2.0 Details 2.1 The Dubai Deal Panellists give failing marks to both the Canadian government and parliamentarians for their perceived lack of interest in Canadian aspects of the issue, as shown in table 1. Once again we appear totally dependent on the U.S. to make our major strategic decisions, said one panellist. The Bush White House, which approved the sale of the American ports, also came in for criticism. Only the action of the United States Congress passes the CEOs examination with a score of 53%, equivalent to a D. 1

3 Table 1: A fight has erupted over whether the White House was right to allow a United Arab Emirates company to manage five American ports. If the deal goes ahead, the UAE company would also help manage the port of Vancouver. On a 100 point school report-type scale, what score would you give Mean DNK U.S. Congressmen for speaking on the issue today 53 3 Canadian Parliamentarians for speaking on the issue today 48 4 The Bush White House for the substance and process of its decision to allow the deal 44 2 The Martin government for the substance and process of its decision to allow the UAE company a presence in the port of Vancouver 41 3 Table 2: On a 5 point scale where 1 means disagree strongly and 5, agree strongly, how do you feel about the following opinions about the deal?[randomize] It is risky to allow an Arab country any port control because even the UAE produced much of the financing and planning as well as two of the hijackers in the 9/11 attacks The deal was foolish because the U.S. is at war Cancelling the deal would foolishly discourage investment The deal should go ahead because UAE, home to a large U.S. base, is one of the few Muslim governments to help in the war against terror Mean DNK

4 Table 3: If the deal were cancelled, would it % Send the wrong message to the Arab world 31 Send the right message 21 Send both a right and wrong message 33 Have no real impact on Arab attitudes 13 [UNPROMPTED] Don t know or no opinion 3 Large minorities staunchly support or staunchly oppose the deal. Opposition to the arrangement stems mainly from security considerations. Thus, 29% agree strongly with the statement that it is risky to allow an Arab country any port control because even the UAE produced much of the financing and planning as well as two of the hijackers in the 9/11 attacks. Another 18% agreed moderately with the statement, as shown in table 2. Support for the deal stems mainly from pluralist, anti-discriminatory convictions or concern not to offend rather than from military-strategic considerations. For example, 31% said that cancellation would send the wrong message to the Arab world while 33% said that it would send both the right and wrong message, as shown in table 3. Quite a number of respondents volunteered a concern that cancelling the contract would amount to bias and discrimination. Relatively few, 11%, embrace the White House s strategic reason for supporting the transaction, because UAE, home to a large U.S. base, is one of the few Muslim governments to help in the war against terror. As is evidenced in table 2, opposition to the Dubai deal is at least as strong as support. For their part, supporters tended to offer more comment. The following verbatims provide a sense of the passion and perspective in panellists opinions: Disallowing the port deal just because someone is an Arab is racial discrimination not all terrorists are Arabs and not all Arabs are terrorists. [For instance] just because the I.R.A. has killed over 2,000 people in terrorist attacks, should we also prohibit Irish companies from doing business? These particular Arabs are in fact on our side in the so-called "war on terror". If we discriminate against them just because they are Arabs, it tells all Arabs that whether you side with us or not you will not be considered a friend, just because you are an Arab. You cannot get more discriminatory than that! 3

5 No country in today's world should have foreign ownership of its ports, period! Bush is taking the term 'Bozo' to new heights and our government seems happy to jump into a clown outfits to follow suit. The security and ownership situation needs a great deal of open debate. A consensus needs to be developed on every issue. [The questionnaire did not mention that] the Dubai Port Authority has long been regarded as providing the most efficient and well administered port facilities in the world. If they can bring this expertise to Canada, we can learn from it. This is likely a good direction that is being swept up in nonsensical hysteria over factors that have little relevance. The issue of taking over U.S. ports by an U.A.E. company should be treated as a business practice rather than a political issue. If the deal won't go through for any political reason, how are we able to justify free competition and free trade any more? If the port deal is stopped, I don't know where you draw the line: no Muslim air traffic controllers; no Muslim pilots/ train drivers? It is the ultimate in racial profiling. 2.2 Canada s Ports There is broad based agreement that Canada s ports are unguarded gateways for terrorists seeking to enter the country or smuggle in weapons of mass destruction (see table 4). Table 5 shows that almost every suggestion to improve port security, from treating security concerns as important as environmental ones, to using radiation detectors to scan cargo, and re-establishing the national port police, found popular support. So too did the idea of using Canada s foreign policy to denounce dangerous regimes like Iran, and our military to stabilize Afghanistan. Collecting overseas intelligence in order to prevent WMDs bound for Canada from leaving foreign ports was also recommended. The only policy option roundly rejected by the panel was that Canada should publicly distance ourselves from U.S. foreign policy in order to make ourselves safer. 4

6 Table 4: Where 1 means disagree strongly and 5, agree strongly, how do you feel about the following opinions? It is said that Canadian ports are highly vulnerable because [RANDOMIZE] Weak port security makes it possible to ship in ABC weapons (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) terrorists are choosing ports over airports, where security is tighter they are penetrated for drug purposes by Hells Angels and the mafia, who are easily bribed by international terrorist organizations Mean DNK Table5: Where 1 means disagree strongly and 5, agree strongly, how do you feel about Canada [RANDOMIZE] Mean DNK making a security review at least as important as an environmental review in all decisions about ports, chemical plants, liquefied natural gas terminals, and other major installations using radiation detectors at ports re-establishing a national port police force that was cut to save costs speaking up against dangerous regimes in Iran and elsewhere doing overseas intelligence to prevent WMDs from leaving foreign ports for ours increasing military efforts to thwart the return of a terrorist regime in Afghanistan sending the Coast Guard to inspect ships at sea publicly distancing ourselves from U.S. foreign policy to make us less of a target

7 3.0 Methodology The COMPAS web-survey of CEOs and leaders of small, medium, and large corporations was conducted February 28 March 3, Respondents constitute an essentially hand-picked panel with a higher numerical representation of small and medium-sized firms. Because of the small population of CEOs and business leaders from which the sample was drawn, the study can be considered more accurate than comparably sized general public studies. In studies of the general public, surveys of 121 are deemed accurate to within approximately 8.9 percentage points 19 times out of 20. The principal and co-investigator on this study are Conrad Winn, Ph.D. and Tamara Gottlieb. 6