Effective June 1, a long-standing relationship between Canada and the United States will be over. The two countries will remain friends, more or less; but the cozy closeness will be a thing of the past.

Historically, it’s hard to imagine closer, or more closely integrated, neighbours. But the US is reverting to a position it has practiced to various degrees throughout its history – paranoid xenophobia. Naturally, like many current US postures, this ties more or less directly to September 11, 2001. It is not unique in US history, but this time it appears to be an utterly foolish step.

Despite the fact that Canada had nothing to do with September 11, and reacted swiftly, responsibly, and helpfully – grounded US-bound flights were given refuge, food and lodging, many firefighters from across Canada quickly made their way to New York to assist, etc. – Canada is now viewed by the US through the same jaundiced eyes as the rest of the world. Mexico, of course, is a very different case. The relationship has never been as close as that with Canada, the volume of trade is nowhere the same, and the flow of so-called ‘illegals’ presents the US with substantially different issues to worry about.

So what, you say? Well consider the effect this change is going to have.

The border between Canada and the US has historically been known as the longest undefended border in the world. It’s a little less than 9,000 kilometres (5,500 miles), and it isn’t just a dotted line on a map. The border binds companies, tourists, sports, emergency responders, families, workers who depend on services and goods just the other side of that line. The interconnectedness of the two countries is immense. For thirty-five US states, Canada is the single largest export market. There are close to $600 billion in cross border trade every year, and that trade ultimately supports 7.1 million jobs in the US alone, more in Canada. Up to now, about a million dollars in trade crosses the border every minute.

Beginning June 1, that flow will likely be crippled. And isn’t this an excellent time to be taking steps that will interrupt trade and result in even further job losses? Smarter people than me apparently think that encouraging and expanding trade between Canada and the US is not helpful at this point in history.

In fact, though, the constriction of the border began almost immediately after 2001. We all know that the US is confused about where the September 11 terrorists came from (Saudi Arabia, mostly, even though the geography-challenged White House sought retribution against Afghanistan and Iraq). But almost from the start, reactionaries in the US speculated that the terrorists crossed into the US from Canada. That is known to be utter nonsense, but it hasn’t prevented the US Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, from repeating the accusation as recently as last month. [She has since acknowledged that she misspoke, and that there is no truth to the accusation. But she gave this acknowledgement earlier this week in Ottawa, far from the television screens of US citizens.]

Now, suppose I want to cross into the United States via the Ambassador Bridge that joins Windsor and Detroit. [Trust me, I won’t ever do that – see the caveat at the end of this article.] As I drive up to the gate, a camera scans my license plate and in a span of .56 seconds, my personal data is displayed on a screen in the guards’ booth. Simultaneously, there is a second camera snapping a picture of my face. That process has been going on for some time now, and it affords both countries a splendid opportunity to hone their racial profiling skills.

Beginning June 1, it will take either a passport to cross the border or an ‘enhanced’ driver’s license. Only three Canadian provinces have the enhanced licenses in place as of this writing, although Ontario – the greatest source of cross-border traffic – is working on it in its usual plodding, inefficient manner.

Canadians understand – as do most Border States – that this is a recipe for financial disaster.

Many of the daily border crossings are by truckers facilitating all that trade. If there’s one thing truckers don’t need, it’s more delays in delivering the goods. When the new system begins June 1, there will be a dramatic decrease in cross-border travel, a massive backup at the crossings, or both.

Again, not a particularly inviting prospect for the economy of either country.

Canada’s biggest customer is the US; the biggest export destination for the US is Canada. It’s a financial arrangement that is incredibly crucial to both countries – particularly in these precarious economic times – and anything that is so likely to interrupt this relationship strikes some of us uneducated folk as foolish. In fact, if it seems this plan is more likely to have arisen under the Bush administration, that’s because it did. But the current White House crew has affirmed it as the way of the future. Perhaps Obama isn’t nearly so intelligent as people think …

Back to the bridge at Windsor-Detroit …

This is the busiest land crossing in North America. About 25% of all Canada-US traffic passes over the bridge, or through the tunnel under the Detroit River. There is some real high-tech stuff going on here. In addition to the cameras, every vehicle is scanned by some highly sensitive gadget that can detect radioactive material, like the stuff that could be used to construct ‘dirty’ bombs – because almost everyone in Canada has some of that. Of course, the scanner isn’t smart enough to tell if that glow coming off me is because I recently had a medical test that used isotopes. So a perfectly justifiable test for cancer will get me pulled over.

Before I even get to the booth, the guard will already have a screen full of information about me, and any mistake in answering questions – or any sign that I might be nervous – and the border thugs will pull me aside.

US border agents, fully armed and packing pepper spray, do random vehicle sweeps for no reason other than the fact they can. Border agents are just about the only people in the world who can, at a whim, order you to drop your drawers and spread for a cavity search.

Under the river, the Detroit-Windsor tunnel is generally full of trucks. Gamma-ray scanners peer into and under suspicious vehicles, because sometimes, you know, a truck just looks like it’s guilty of something.

There are only a handful of legal crossings between Canada and the US, and all these procedures are coming into play everywhere. But not to overlook anything, there are unmanned Predator drones whizzing along the unguarded parts of the border, equipped with infrared security cameras. They aren’t authorized to cross into Canadian airspace (like Canada would do anything about it if they did!), but those security cameras have a visual range of about 16 miles.

Before September 11, 2001, the US posted about 350 Border Patrol agents along the Canadian border. By early next year, there’ll be more than 2,000. All the water bodies between the two countries – and there are a lot of them – are being patrolled by high-speed boats, helicopters, and the Coast Guard.

And let’s be perfectly clear – all of this is to protect the US against its closest partner and best friend.

It should be noted this paranoia only works one way – Canada is not making any effort to duplicate this situation. In fact, the governments of Canada and all the provinces have protested and arm twisted the US mightily, with no effect.

Now if you don’t live in either Mexico or Canada, you might think – big deal. Everyone else who enters the US is only able to do so with a passport and potential border delays. But those countries do not have the volume of trade and human traffic that the Canada-US border has. And the financial repercussions of this border change are almost certain to disrupt a very important financial relationship. As if we don’t already have enough financial woes.

This whole process appears to have been the result of a monumental blunder – perhaps the biggest post-911 blunder. Even if it is accepted that there is a legitimate need to be wary of terrorism, the US has clearly smudged the line between that threat and the issue of illegal immigration. And in case no one in Washington has noticed, that doesn’t generally come from Canada.

In his 1933 inaugural speech, Franklin Roosevelt espoused what he called his ‘Good Neighbor Policy’. These were seven principles about how the US could fit into the world community without lowering its own standards and expectations. The opening principle stated: “The first step toward being a good neighbor is to stop being a bad neighbor.” If that lesson has ever resonated in the US, it was forgotten long ago.

[Note – writer’s caveat: I live in Canada, less than an hour’s drive from the US, and have not been there since 1983. Even then, I only crossed the border because my employer sent me there. When people ask why I don’t visit the US, I joke that it’s full of Americans. The real reason, though, is that it’s full of Americans.

I know generalizations are useless, but the simple fact is I don’t like what passes for culture in the US. I don’t like the lifestyle. I don’t like the history. I don’t like the government, or the militarism, or the personal weaponry, or the death penalty. I don’t like the social system. I don’t like – well, I don’t like very much really. But individual Americans can be wonderful. One of my dearest friends is an American, even though I know him only through the Internet. (Mind you, he did at long last have the good sense to get the hell out of the US and move to someplace with a future.)

So you can imagine that I don’t personally care about the border being locked down. I figure that at least it helps to keep the Americans out of here. But looking past my personal prejudices, I can’t help but see this situation as just plain stupid.

Paul Richard Harris is an Axis of Logic editor and columnist, based in Canada.  He can be reached at paul@axisoflogic.com

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