Tighter U.S. Border Risky to Both Sides

(The Toronto Star)

This country’s financial future hangs somewhere between the optimism of Washington security czar Janet Napolitano’s Wednesday visit here and the pessimism of Monday’s new “papers, please” border controls. In the fight to keep trade flowing freely, painful Canadian sacrifices in blood, money and principles are proving poorly matched against U.S. terrorism fears and rising protectionism.

Two hard truths frame our current reality. Apart from national unity, not much is more vital to this country than timely access to the world’s richest market. And nothing Ottawa has done since 9/11, not even Afghanistan missions costly in lives and loonies, convinced Washington that America’s back door is latched and locked.

That failure, multiplied by recession and the reflex U.S. “Buy American” response, has risky consequences. Along with squeezing arteries carrying more than a $1 million in goods and services every minute, they threaten the success of two economies moving beyond trade to making things together.

Without open capillaries between corporations operating in both countries, job-creating industries vital to Canada, including an auto sector already staggering under continental restructuring, will strangle. After all, only a bonehead CEO would invest on the wrong side of a thickening border easily closed by a terrorist strike.

Liberals recognized that danger and their Conservative successors have been just as willing to counter it by testing Canadian sensibilities. From intrusive anti-terrorism laws to abandoning a teenage Guantanamo Bay prisoner, to sending troops to Asia, key decisions continue to be shaped by determination to prove Ottawa takes security seriously. Read more here.