Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday that his country's open and diverse society was its greatest weapon against terrorism.
Speaking at the opening of the UN World Urban Forum in Vancouver, Harper noted that Canada has come under fire from some politicians in Washington who claim his country's border security and immigration laws are too lax and therefore is vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
"I believe exactly the opposite is true," Harper told the third annual World Urban Forum in Vancouver, where more than 10,000 urban planners and politicians from around the world are gathered this week to discuss how to make the planet's cities more sustainable.
Harper was referring to 17 Toronto area men and youths who were arrested June 2 and charged in an alleged terrorist plot to bomb buildings in southern Ontario.
He said Canada's ethnic communities flourish in cities because they are not cut off and isolated from the rest of society, like some "urban ghettos" in other countries.
"We will find these apostles of terror," Harper said. "They hate open, diverse and democratic societies like ours because they want the exact opposite: a society that is closed, homogenous and dogmatic. But their vision will be rejected."
The ideas generated at the five-day Vancouver forum will be compiled in a report to be presented to a UN-HABITAT meeting next April in Nairobi, Kenya.
The report will then be forwarded to the UN General Assembly, said UN-HABITAT chief Anna Tibaijuka.
She said the period from 1950 to 2050 will go down in history as a period which saw one of the greatest reorganizations of human settlements in history.
By 2050, an estimated 6 billion people will live in the world's cities, she said.
"How we plan and govern our cities will determine whether our future is bright and sustainable or brutal and chaotic," Tibaijuka told the forum on Monday.
"The problem is not the funds. The problem is the political will to provide for everyone," she said.
This week's meeting comes in the wake of a UN report that warns that the growing number of poor slum dwellers is a ticking time bomb that cannot be ignored.
The report, released last week, said the world will reach a key point next year when the majority of the globe's population will be urbanized, although many who moved to cities to escape rural poverty are now worse off.
Tibaijuka said that since it is people's expectations that are driving them to move to larger cities, there is nothing that can stop them, but aid programs targeting rural poverty may have to be overhauled.
And unless politicians see the urban poor as an asset whose improved well-being will help fuel national economic growth, "we will not solve the problem," she said.
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