Keep pressure on to fix border, Beatty urges


By Dave Hall, The Windsor StarApril 1, 2009Comments (5)



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Canadian Chamber of Commerce head Perrin Beatty spoke in Windsor Wednesday morning.

Canadian Chamber of Commerce head Perrin Beatty spoke in Windsor Wednesday morning.
Photograph by: File photo, The Windsor Star

Convincing U.S. government officials that Canada is just as interested as they in security issues and preventing future terrorist attacks is the only way to make the Canada-U.S. border more efficient and streamlined to ease the two-way flow of billions of dollars in goods, Perrin Beatty, head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday.

"All of the political will in the U.S. is focussed on fortifying the border not making it easier for trade," said Beatty during a WindsorEssex Regional Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting. "So arguing trade will not change anything. We need to present an overall strategy which talks about security concerns because if we're sucessful on that front, we will be successful in achieving a more efficient border crossing."

Beatty also pointed out that the U.S. has problems with its southern border with Mexico. So a "one size fits all solution won't work because the problems at its northern border are fundamentally different than at its southern border."

Beatty, a former cabinet minister in the Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney Conservative governments, as well as a former head of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said "we need to keep up the pressure to fix the border and complete the infrastructure as quickly as possible.

"We can't afford to assume that now we're in a recession and traffic volumes are down, we don't need a solution that will work in the future," said Beatty. "We can't afford to roll over and go back to sleep and assume it's fixed."

Border also talked about the problems afflicting the North American auto industry. While acknowledging he thought it would always survive he said "it will be smaller and will look dramatically different when it comes through the current crisis.

"The primary decisions about the future viability of the auto industry will be made in Washington," said Beatty. "It will be up to Canada to make sure that any proposed solution does not facilitate the migration of jobs and production south of the border.

"It's been easy in recent months to bash the Detroit 3 but this has been the collapse of an entire sector," he said. "Sales are down across the board and it has impacted every automaker in the world, not just the Detroit 3."

And until consumer confidence returns, he said, the auto sector will continue to have problems.

"Interest rates are at a Canadian historic low but if you've decided that right now is not the time to borrow money because of your personal financial situation, it doesn't matter how low the rates go," said Beatty.
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