Ottawa's intention to provide training for Mexican law enforcement has been in the works for some time and is not a means of defusing tension over new visa requirements for Mexican nationals, Canada's Public Safety Minister said Monday.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the RCMP would provide some $400,000 worth of training to officers from all levels of Mexican law enforcement.
The prime minister made the announcement when arriving in Guadalajara, Mexico for the first day of the so-called Three Amigos summit -- a series of three-way meetings involving Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The training announcement comes only weeks after Ottawa announced that the 225,000 Mexican nationals who visit Canada each year would require visas to do so.
The Canadian government has said the visas are needed to cut down on the number of Mexican refugees making bogus refugee claims.
On Monday, Peter Van Loan told CTV's Canada AM that there is "no relationship at all" between the recently announced visa requirement and the training for Mexican law enforcement officials.
"The visa imposition is a reflection of the fact we're getting bogus refugee claims made in Canada, because our refugee system -- as it exists now -- invites that and we've got to get that changed. And that's really a Canadian problem, not a Mexican problem," Van Loan said during a phone interview from Guadalajara, Mexico, on Monday morning.
Van Loan said the Mexican government had asked Ottawa for assistance in its fight against drug gangs earlier this year, which led to the training announcement on Sunday.
"Anything we do to help them also helps us," Van Loan said, noting that many organized crime gangs in Canada rely on Mexican connections to do business.
Entry-level officers will learn about interviewing from the RCMP, mid-level officers will receive anti-money laundering training and undercover tactics, and those in the senior ranks will learn about crisis management, public relations, and dealing with civilian leaders.
Mexico is in the midst of revamping its justice system, while it continues to crack down on the country's powerful drug cartels. More than 6,000 people were killed in Mexico last year in incidents related to the country's ongoing drug war.
Van Loan praised Mexico's efforts to fight its ongoing drug problems and to strengthen its law enforcement capabilities.
"The current government -- the Calderon government -- is making big, strong efforts not only to fight the drug trade, but also in taking on those drug gangs and cartels, to build a strong, federal police force to clean up some of those corruption problems from the past," he said.
Like Van Loan, Harper has also played down the visa issue in Guadalajara, saying it is a problem with the Canadian refugee system and not with the Mexican government.
Visa critics
Scott Brison, the Liberal party's international trade critic, said it was not appropriate for the prime minister to blame the Canadian system.
"The fact that the prime minister has criticized Canada's immigration system on the world stage is really shocking," he told CTV News Channel during an interview from Halifax on Monday.
Brison said that if the prime minister has problems with the Canadian immigration system, he should introduce legislation to address them.
In Mexico, the visa issue has been controversial, with many theories being floated about for the reasons behind the visa requirement.
Mexico's El Universal newspaper suggested that the bogus refugee claimants were not the real reason behind the visas.
"Canada has traditionally been a generous country for immigrants," said the paper.
"It is simply not credible that the refugee issue would be the sole motivation for this drastic move. The other explanation, documented by this paper in March, are the strengthening ties between Canadian drug-trafficking gangs and Mexican cartels."
Mexican President Felipe Calderon had pledged to press Ottawa to reverse its visa policy during the two-day summit.
Calderon and Harper had a bilateral meeting on Sunday, and the Mexican president also had a private meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.
Harper will not have a private meeting with Obama until September, when he travels to Washington for an official visit.
The three leaders will meet together for two hours on Monday, before the Three Amigos summit wraps up in the early afternoon. They also met for two hours on Sunday.
Harper, Calderon and Obama are expected to discuss climate change, the economy and the ways North America will deal with the next wave of the swine flu, among other topics.
With files from Canada AM and The Canadian Press and a report from CTV's Roger Smith
