A popular U.S. television show, The West Wing, based this week's episode on reaction to a terrorist being arrested as he tried to cross the border into Vermont from Ontario -- even though the two places are almost 100 kilometres apart.

The National Rifle Association recorded an Internet broadcast this week saying Canada has become a haven for terrorists because it spends too much money on gun control.

The truth does not seem to be standing in the way of some U.S. commentators, who continue to blame Canada for helping terrorists. Some Canadian observers say the Americans' complaints reveal a deep ignorance of their northern neighbour.

In Wednesday's special episode of The West Wing, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation informs White House staff a suspected terrorist has been arrested trying to cross the border from Ontario to Vermont.

But such an arrest could never happen because Vermont borders Quebec, not Ontario.

"When I heard about it, the mistake seemed kind of typical to me," said Rey Stephen, a spokesman for the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation. Mr. Stephen's office regularly helps acquaint foreign writers with Ontario.

"Most of the American writers tend to know where we are," he said. "But sometimes the writers from far away don't have an exact idea."

The National Rifle Association, a powerful U.S. gun-lobby group, condemned Canada this week for spending money on a gun registry instead of cracking down on terrorist immigrants.

In the broadcast, an NRA spokeswoman described Canada as a "huge haven for terrorists," and asked Canadian Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz, "You think Canada has allowed these terrorists to multiply and contribute to what happened on the 11th?"

He replied: "The evidence that's coming forth appears to be that way."

But immigration security in Canada is actually tougher than in the United States, said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees in Montreal.

"There's very little relation to fact in all of this rhetoric that's flying around," she said. "In terms of getting into countries, about half of refugee claimants come through the U.S. because they know it's easier to get into."

A time line released yesterday by the FBI appears to contradict reports about the hijackers sneaking into the United States from Canada just before the attacks.

The FBI now believes that rather than slipping across the border, two terrorists waited in Portland, Me., on Sept. 10 and flew to Boston the morning of Sept. 11.

An FBI spokeswoman in Boston said she could not comment on whether the bureau is still looking into whether the suspects used Canada to enter the United States, but she confirmed investigators no longer believe the hijackers visited Canada in their final days.

Michael Kergin, Canada's ambassador to the United States, acknowledged yesterday that embassy staff in Washington have been busy trying to counter less-than-favourable views about Canada among some U.S. lawmakers.

Major U.S. media picked up early reports that the Sept. 11 terrorists slipped across the Canada-U.S. border into Maine, he said, and few have forgotten Ahmed Ressam, a resident of Montreal, who tried to cross the border into Washington state with bomb-making materials in his trunk.

"If congressional representatives read the newspapers, and if that's what they have as their base of information, they will be concerned," he told reporters in Montreal.

"A lot of work that I do is to try to set the record straight."