U.S.-Canada: world's longest over-defended traffic jam
U.S.-Canada: world's longest over-defended traffic jam
Posted: September 12, 2008, 8:01 AM by Diane Francis
Greed, Canadian Politics, U.S. Politics, immigration
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America defends against northern contraband, undesirables: bottlenecks not fences
No more world's longest undefended border
Right after 9/11, it was obvious that America's borders were shutting tight and that Canada and Mexico should have become part of a three-country perimeter.
Under NAFTA, this is the case involving economic goods. Product origins are checked because they cannot be back-doored through one of the three countries into another.
But the movement of people, tourism and immigration, should also be a jointly-managed affair. It isn't. And in the absence of that, the Americans have erected fences along portions of the Mexican border and red tape and hassles along the northern border.
Mexico is a huge illegal migration and drug smuggling problem, but Americans are also not convinced that Canada is doing a good job patrolling its side of the border. They are partially correct, according to John Johnston, a retired Canadian customs official who is now a consultant.
American security concerns and Canadian border problems should be cause for concern in the business community – a problem he dubs the “thickening borderâ€
