Border Problems Hurt Trade

(Diane Francis — Financial Post)

The United States-Canada “frontier” is not the world’s longest undefended border any more. Right after 9/11, it was obvious the United States’ borders were shutting tight and that Canada and Mexico should have become part of a three-country perimeter. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, 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 has a huge illegal migration and drug smuggling problem, but Americans are also not convinced Canada is doing a good job patrolling its side of the border. They are partly correct, says John Johnston, a retired Canadian customs official, now a consultant. U. S. security concerns and Canadian border problems should be cause for concern in the business community — a problem he dubs the “thickening border” issue.

Johnston is former regional director of Canada Customs for Southern Ontario and retired from the civil service in 2003. He now helps countries fix their border problems around the world. He says Canadians see the border from a trade and tourism viewpoint while Americans are focused on security. (Americans see Mexico as a criminal issue.)

Most egregious, he said, is the failure of Canada Border Services Agency to develop protocols to deal with terrorist incidents, the failure to investigate immigrants on “expedited import programs” and failure to catch smugglers.

Among the problems:

• There is a high-risk rate of 1.5% of traffic — that is, of the 100 million seeking entry into Canada each year 1.5 million are high-risk individuals;

• About $600-million in drugs are seized at the border annually;

• Poor border enforcement is not stopping the import of handguns;

• Each year there are up to 100 major child-porn seizures at the border.

“The major impediment to achieving an improved flow of people and goods at the border is the casual attitude of senior government officials towards security and protection,” he said. “Few of the agency’s senior executives have relevant experience in the areas for which they are responsible. The head of the Canada Border Services Agency is a meteorologist, not from customs, immigration or law enforcement.

Gun smuggling by criminal gangs in Canada is a huge issue for police but not the CBSA. (The gangs are often immigrants whom Canada has unfortunately allowed into the country or they are smuggling drugs southward.) “It appears that no one is in charge of the store,” he said.