WASHINGTON -- Sections of the Canada-U.S. border in B.C. and southwestern Ontario will likely be the first to deploy a "virtual fence" of high-tech monitoring equipment to stop illegal crossings, Homeland Security officials said yesterday.

Detailing plans for an array of sensors, infrared cameras, watchtowers, and drones that will stretch across America's entire 8,890-kilometre border with Canada, U.S. authorities said their goal is to have the world's longest undefended border under surveillance within three to six years.

The Department of Homeland Security said Chicago-based Boeing Corp. has been awarded an initial $67-million contract to begin work on the project, known as the Secure Border Initiative.

Starting with a 45-kilometre section of the U.S.-Mexico border south of Tucson, Ariz., the project will expand along both the Canadian and Mexican boundaries based on evaluations of the threat posed by illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and terrorists.

A spokesman for Premier Gordon Campbell said the virtual fence was a "federal issue" and there was no immediate response from the premier's office.

Campbell and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have expressed concern about American plans to impose mandatory use of passports or another high-tech document from everyone crossing land borders into the U.S. by Jan. 1, 2008.

B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal said he could understand America's "quest for security" and the need to take precautions against terrorist attacks. But he had reservations about the U.S. approach.

"I would like to think that our two countries that have this long, undefended border and this long tradition of friendship wouldn't need a border of that type," Oppal said.

U.S. officials said their priority is to gain operational control of its southern border with Mexico, where more than one million immigrants are caught sneaking into the U.S. every year.

Fewer than 10,000 people were detained trying to enter the U.S. illegally from Canada in 2004, but American officials have struggled to prevent the flow of narcotics across its northern border.

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