Since 9/11, a big concern for businesses on both sides of the Canada - United States border has been ensuring efficient trade. In the "just-in-time" world of manufacture as opposed to the traditional method of stockpiling parts we really don't have much choice but to figure out how to do this -- protecting each nation's sovereign rights while recognizing our close association with each other. Both sides have even come up with a name for it: FAST: Fast And Secure Trade.
It's therefore perplexing to see Stockwell Day withdraw from a tentative agreement to permit preclearance of trucks on the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York. The sticking point, it seems, was fingerprinting -- Canadian law only permits collecting such evidence when a person is actually charged with a crime whereas US law is much more lax when it comes to this form of identification.
The redevelopment of this crucial border link is already way behind schedule, with a twinned bridge that still hasn't gone through the environmental assessment process no thanks to some city planners in Buffalo who want a "signature" bridge instead of a second bridge next to the perfectly serviceable existing one. Now this hang up. What's the point of building the bridge if we don't have a way of speeding the clearance process?
Makes a lot of trucks want to use the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge about 30 km to the north. About two years ago Ontario created a separate truck exit to that bridge between the 405 and I-190 in anticipation of creating a US customs preclearance on that highway. Now it looks like because of the news about the Peace Bridge, that is up in the air too. We're familiar with the process at Canadian airports when we travel to the US. We go through US Customs but are subject to Canadian law in case of irregularities, until the plane is in the air. Why not do the same here -- with random fingerprinting once a truck actually hits US territory? And don't we already run security clearances on both sides of the border for people -- both commercial and private individuals -- who want frequent crossing passes? In that sense, such a check becomes redundant.
Any suggestions on how we can deal with this problem -- and it's not just this border crossing but also major points such as Windsor-Detroit and those south of Vancouver and Montréal and Winnipeg? Something that'll make both sides happy? Short of a European style arrangement where there are no borders at all (other than a line on a map) and broad information sharing, we need to solve this and FAST -- pardon the expression.
UPDATE (Friday 07/04/27 8:22 AM EDT, 1222 GMT): The CBC's Henry Champ has some thoughts on this issue -- seems the stubborn one might be Mike Chertoff and not Stock Day after all; but with Hillary Clinton taking Canada's side on this one might think the White House will look for a way to come to some kind of compromise and not turn this into an election issue for 2008. I hope so.
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