Canada's public safety minister says people need to be prepared psychologically to handle the fallout of a terrorist attack like the one that shook London last week.

Canadians are well prepared to handle environmental disasters, said Anne McLellan on Monday, but they need to add terrorism to their radar.

"I think we have for too long thought that these were things that happen somewhere else. And one never wants to scare any individual, but we need to start talking about the fact that we all need to be prepared for all possibilities."

Earlier on CTV's Canada AM, McLellan assured Canadians that the nation is under no specific threat of a terrorist attack.

"I don't think that Canadians should be unduly alarmed," said McLellan. But she added that it's the responsibility of Canadians to be prepared "for any possibility."

McLellan is attending a global conference on emergency management issues in Toronto, just as terrorism returns to the forefront of people's minds and the top of government agendas after last Thursday's deadly attacks on London's transit system.

She said Canada put a program in place to boost security after the Madrid bombings of March 2004, when 10 bombs exploded almost simultaneously on four trains, killing 191 people during the morning rush hour.

Canada's 24-hour emergency preparedness system, said McLellan, kicked in soon after news of the London bombings.

"And that's why on Thursday morning at about 5:30 a.m. Ottawa time you saw a new network, an intelligence network, directly related to our rail and transit, spring into action."

Airlines, railways, bus and light rail systems across Canada stepped up their security precautions Thursday while bus, subway, and light rail operators from Montreal to Vancouver were placed on high alert.

"That was a direct result of what we saw in Madrid, what we learned there and how we realized that yes, mass transit is vulnerable."

At the conference, however, McLellan said closer collaboration between the country's mass transit systems is needed. She also said training for security officials aboard trains and subways needs to be examined to determine if it's effective.

McLellan announced that Ottawa wants to come up with ways to ensure border security officials treat Canadians and other travellers entering the country fairly.

The minister rebuffed criticism that not enough federal money has gone specifically into protecting the security of Canada's public transit systems.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, who is chairman of the Senate committee on national security and defence, has warned about the threat of attacks on Canadian soil for years. He's called on the federal government to boost spending on security initiatives and specifically for more protection for critical infrastructure such as light transit systems after the Madrid attacks.

But McLellan said "a lot of money has gone into safety and security," including areas such intelligence gathering, and that the feds are working with different levels of government to determine the specific security needs of different communities.

"We can spend our entire GDP on safety and security measures, and for some it would never be enough," she said on Canada AM. "What we have to do is determine what the real risks are, and try and make sure we're spending our resources in the most effective way where we believe our risks assessments tell us."

Kenny pointed out that Canada is now the only country on al Qaeda's hit-list which hasn't been attacked.

In November 2002, Canada was specifically mentioned as a prime al Qaeda target by Osama bin Laden. "What business do your governments have to ally itself in attacking us in Afghanistan -- and I mention specifically Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia," bin Laden said on an audio tape obtained by Arab Al-Jazeera TV before warning of impending attacks.

Adrian Gordon, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, says although Canada doesn't have the advantage of experience in dealing with terrorist attacks like London, our response systems would be prepared to handle such attacks.

"We have preparedness plans in place and our response professionals -- the police, the fire, the emergency medical professionals -- I believe stand up to the best in the world," Gordon said on Canada AM.

Complacency

"I think our biggest problem, frankly, is a general complacency amongst Canadians that this isn't really going to happen to us."

He adds it's an understandable complacency, "because so far it hasn't" happened. Human nature tends towards getting back to business as normal, he says, whether after terrorist attacks, or disasters such as tsunamis or disease scares like SARS.

He says most of us believe we "stand a better chance of being killed every time we cross the road or get into a car" than we do in a catastrophic event such as a subway bombing.