Burney Promotes U.S.-Canada Border Commission

(Alison Crawford — CBC News)

While they've dubbed the event non-partisan, the [Liberal] party's goal in holding the conference is to harvest good ideas for future policy development. In that non-partisan spirit, one of today's speakers was former Canadian Ambassador to the United States Derek Burney. He headed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's transition team after the party's 2006 election win.

Among Burney's suggestions was that the Canadian government propose the establishment of a binational border commission, a body empowered to do the following: Streamline customs and entry provisions to eliminate protectionist measures, rationalize the hundreds if not thousands of needlessly different standards and regulations for items that flow across the border, harmonize immigration and refugee policies, establish a common tariff regime to reduce inefficient rule of origin provisions that are currently doing serious harm to Canada's livestock farmers and, finally, intensify the collaboration of our police to address the security, organized crime and illicit drug traffic issues that straddle the border.

Burney made sure to underline that this should be a binational effort, not trinational. The former ambassador says the problems the Americans are facing on its border with Mexico must not drive border policy with Canada. Read more here.