Whatever happened to the "borderless" world?
The Americans are showing every sign that they intend to beef up security on their northern frontier. CIA director George Tenet recently warned a U.S. Senate committee that "the border is so porous that we don’t have the right people and kinds of equipment" protecting it.
It was not much of a surprise when Republican Congressmen got worked up about the issue of the menace from the north. But now they have been joined by liberal Democrats such as California Senator Dianne Feinstein who told a Senate hearing in Washington that "the situation on the northern border in some ways is more serious than on the southern border."
Feinstein charged that "Canada’s generous immigration policies have meant that terrorist groups can more easily set up cells there." She called for major action to enhance security on the Canadian border.
At a time when Americans are very jumpy about everything from old-fashioned to bio-terrorists, not to mention computer hackers attacking E-Commerce sites on the Internet, a consensus has developed in Washington that Canada is a hotbed of shadowy groups whose goal is to strike targets south of the border.
Some American lawmakers want to put a system in place that will track all persons moving in and out of the United States. Others, reportedly including the Clinton administration, want to hire hundreds of new officers to patrol the border with Canada.
Even before the almost certain deployment of many more officers on the border, the tough new attitude in Washington is already having negative consequences for Canadians traveling to the U.S. One Canadian who recently failed to tell U.S. customs about a decades old conviction for marijuana possession ended up in jail for weeks. He was even held in solitary confinement for a time before being shipped back to Canada in manacles.
One friend of mine, a former top executive of a major Canadian corporation was recently traveling to Portland, Oregon, to work as a consultant. He was held up for hours at U.S. Customs at the airport in Vancouver, where he was asked to assemble papers detailing every aspect of his business. He spent the day phoning Toronto and Portland, having the papers faxed to him so he could proceed. Now he’s been issued with his "NAFTA", a card that hopefully will expedite his future journeys to the U.S.
More U.S. officials on the border will mean more lengthy hold-ups, body searches, and trips to jail for Canadian travelers.
One of the major selling points in Canada for free trade with the United States was that it would contribute to a general freeing up of borders that would enhance our lives. Not only would it be easier to do business anywhere in North America, people would be allowed to follow their jobs across the across the border when jobs moved and frontier controls for travelers would be relaxed.
Indeed, all those things have happened in the European Union. Citizens of EU countries are allowed to migrate freely to any EU country and to work there. Crossing most EU boundaries these days does not even involve a customs check.
In North America, things are moving in exactly the opposite direction. Now that the United States has reaped the benefits of economic integration with Canada and Mexico, it is intent on building higher walls to make it more difficult for citizens of its NAFTA partners to enter the U.S., even those whose livelihoods depend on it. Capital flows more freely than ever in North America, but mobility for people is being threatened.
If the Americans are going to retreat from the borderless world to begin constructing a Hadrian’s Wall along our border, we ought to put some issues of our own on the table. A few years ago, it was the wide open smuggling of cigarettes across the border from the U.S. that forced Canada to lower the price of cigarettes with seriously negative consequences for the health of Canadian teenagers.
Today, police forces in Canada complain that the large scale smuggling of guns across the border undermines this country’s ability to apply its firearms regulations. That imperils safety in our school yards, bus terminals, in convenience stores and in banks.
If Congressional committees in Washington are going to chew over our immigration policy, let’s put their cultural policies, aimed at maintaining their stranglehold at our cinemas, bookstores and over our computer software, on the table.
Since the Americans have signaled their intention to do a rethink about borders and national sovereignty, let’s do a rethink of our own.
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