So Long Canada

(Salon Magazine – Edward McClelland)

Strict new border policies are turning Canada into a foreign country. Is this any way to treat our neighbors?

The United States and Canada share the longest undefended frontier in the world -- 5,500 miles. We are closer, in our habits, speech and folkways than any other neighboring nations on earth. Go into a tavern on either side of the border and you’re likely to find Molson in the fridge, hockey on TV, and a jukebox well stocked with Kid Rock and Rush. The real cultural dividing line on this continent is not the Canadian border, but the Ohio River. America’s Northern states would fit more amicably into a union with Ontario and Nova Scotia than the one with Arizona and Texas.

A study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that “the views of Americans who live in the northern border states are much closer to values held by Canadians than are the values of Americans living in the U.S. South.” A merchant sailor who shuttles regularly between Michigan and Ontario once observed, “The language is the same. It’s the same people. I don’t know why there’s a border. It’s just a nuisance.”

I’ve spent a lot of time in the borderlands over the past few years, and most of the people I’ve met say the crossing is becoming even more of a nuisance.

Thirty miles southeast of Windsor, along the Lake Erie shore, the farmland is flat, humid and fruitful, producing vines of deeply colored tomatoes and bushels of soft plums. The roadsides are crowded with tin-roofed produce stands flying American and Canadian flags. This is where I first met Carl Mastronardi, a farmer as Americanized as anyone else north of the border. He sold me a carton of blueberries and talked about how his life encompasses both countries.

Mastronardi is Italian, first of all, so he’s more verbose than most of his countrymen. “You can’t tell by listening to me that I’m Canadian,” he bragged. And, he’s a Detroiter. As a young man, he crossed the border to see Tigers baseball games and meet girls. His wife is from Michigan, which means he now needs documentation to visit his mother-in-law.

It took 9/11 to remind Mastronardi that he was marooned across the border from the city that provided him with his living, his family and his identity. In the weeks after the attacks, trucks were backed up 20 miles, waiting to cross into the states. When I talked to him again, after WHTI went into effect, he moaned that it was dividing two economies that should be drawing closer.

“It’s terrible for trade,” he said. “NAFTA was supposed to be so we were all strong -- 450 million of us to compete with those guys in Europe. If you go to Europe, it’s wide open. The borders here are not open, but were getting that way. If 9/11 hadn’t happened, it would have been laxer. Seventy-five percent of the time, when I took a bus to see the Tigers, we just breezed through. Now, they stop the bus and board it.”

Like many other Canadians, Mastronardi finds the restrictions insulting. Proudly multicultural, Canada is scrupulous about minority rights. To American border hawks, that makes it a haven for radical Muslims. In February, Chertoff told the New York Daily News that “more than a dozen” potential terrorists have tried to infiltrate the United States from Canada. According to a DHS report, Canada harbors “known terrorist affiliate and extremist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria.”

Mastronardi scoffed at the idea that the Canada was a haven for radical Muslims. “You’ve got eight million Muslims. We’ve got, what, 800,000?”

This February, I made a trip around the Golden Horseshoe, a cultural and economic region that encompasses the western bell-end of Lake Ontario, from Toronto to Rochester, N.Y. The two sides of the Niagara River have been getting along splendidly ever since the War of 1812 ended. Ontario has the wineries, the Shaw Festival, and the best view of Niagara Falls. New York has the Walden Galleria. The Buffalo Sabres depend on Canadian hockey fans; the Bills are so popular in Canada that they’ll be playing games in Toronto next year. Canadians also cross the border to ski in western New York and fly out of Buffalo-Niagara International Airport.

At Fort Erie Race Track & Slots in Ontario, a popular destination for Americans, Sue, a gambler from Buffalo, was lingering by the slots. “I just carry my birth certificate,” she said. “I got asked coming across. It’s a lot harder going back. They’ll look in your luggage. I saw a group of 80-year-olds, and they had their bags open. It’s not like they’re al-Qaida.”

I have a passport, but I wanted to test American border security, so when I reached the customs booth, after idling in traffic for 15 minutes, I stuck my driver’s license out the window. “Is this all you have to cross the border?” the agent demanded. Busted. “I have a passport,” I admitted. “Next time, bring your passport,” he ordered, assuming I’d left it at home. He handed me a brochure with a list of acceptable I.D.s and let me back into my native land.

For now, as the new policy is being phased in, the border patrol is issuing warnings. Nonetheless, there is “tremendous confusion” over what’s needed to cross the border, says Buffalo business leader Rudnick. One reason: DHS originally announced it would ask for passports starting Jan. 1, 2008. The State Department couldn’t handle the onslaught of applications, so Congress forced a postponement. In a letter signed by 32 members of the Congressional Northern Border Caucus, New York Rep. Louise Slaughter wrote that “DHS has not met its obligation to inform travelers regarding the new documentation requirements, leading to confusion, adding to delays, and hampering the cross border activity that is so important to our economy.” Read the entire article.