December 2001
Perimeter Puzzle
by Fred McMahon
The North American perimeter is one of the most important immediate issues facing Canada. Ottawa's response to this issue has been slow, contradictory, secretive, and often bizarre. Failure to get this right could be devastating for Canadian prosperity and jobs.
Since September 11, Canadian goods have faced long delays at the border. The old saying is: "Better late than never." In today's trading world, "late" likely means "never." Slow, unreliable delivery may translate into "no sale" in this era of tight inventory control and just-in-time delivery.
Even in cases where just-in-time delivery may not be crucial, the extra expense involved in long border delays adds costs, and that makes Canadian goods less competitive on the US market.
A North American perimeter would protect Canadians against this economic threat and, not incidentally, against terrorist attacks, by establishing common entry controls to North America. Goods and people could then flow across North American borders with less scrutiny.
Canada's border controls are a mess. Illegitimate refugees—or terrorists—can destroy their identification papers on a flight to Canada, arrive at customs without papers, claim refugee status, and be out on the streets a few hours later. Shortly after September 11, Citizenship and Immigration Canada acknowledged to the press that it couldn't find 27,000 "refugees" who have been ordered deported (Chwialkowska, National Post, Oct. 2).
The department can't even say whether these folks are still in Canada. Department officials seem exasperated that the media is impertinent enough to ask about such things. "I cannot tell you that we know [where the deportees are], because, I've explained over and over, we do not have exit controls," Huguette Shouldice, director of media relations for the department, told the National Post (Naumetz, Sept. 28).
U.S. immigration controls also have any number of holes—obviously, given the events of September 11. Border controls must be tightened and co-ordinated in both nations.
Canada's nationalist, anti-globalist left is up in arms about establishing a North American perimeter. It's an affront to Canadian sovereignty, they say. But sovereignty does not belong to government. Sovereignty belongs to individuals who entrust some aspects of it to their government. The central sovereign duty a government owes its citizens is sound security and economic policy. Our left wants the Canadian government to neglect its key sovereign duty to Canadian citizens for economic and physical security, apparently because this will somehow protect our sovereignty. If long-term enemies like France and Germany can establish a common perimeter around Europe, surely long-term friends like Canada and the United States can establish one in North America.
The Prime Minister, shortly after the horror of September 11, declared Canada had no interest in establishing a common perimeter. Then, a few weeks later, out of the blue and with no debate, Immigration minister Elinor Caplan told a startled House of Commons Committee that Canada was already in "visa convergence" talks with the United States—whatever that means. In the tradition of the current government, she provided no details on this vital matter. Nonetheless, Minister Caplan was clear about what was not in the cards. "When you say 'perimeter,' people think the European model where you erase the internal borders. That is not what we are talking about" (Alberts, National Post, Nov. 9).
Why not? Imagine the boost to Canadian businesses if goods could move across the Canada-US border as quickly as they can the German-French border. Imagine the convenience for individual Canadians crossing the border.
The European model would require some coordination of Canadian refugee and immigration policy with that of the United States, something European nations have already put in place. This hardly means that immigration policies must be identical in the US and Canada and Mexico any more than they are identical in Europe.
Caplan's recent revisions to Canada's immigration act do nothing to respond to the events of September 11—something that is hardly surprising since the amendments to the act were prepared before September 11. The only significant advance is the creation of a forgery- proof identity card, though Ottawa will have to ensure that the final product is, indeed, fraud-proof. In other sections, the amendments actually make things worse by loosening admission requirements and adding a new appeal body, as if our immigration needed more bureaucracy and delays.
This is not the place to review Canada's immensely flawed immigration system, but it's worth noting that the system penalizes genuine refugees in favour of queue jumpers. Queue jumping takes money and knowledge. Professional smugglers in foreign countries and immigration lawyers in Canada know how to manipulate the system, but it's not cheap. Meanwhile, a truly impoverished refugee has no hope of getting here in the first place.
Several crucial changes must be made to ensure Canadian security. Refugee claimants without documentation should be held until their stories are verified. We must be able to track claimants when they are released. Tightening border controls would help make a common perimeter possible, but we should do it for an even better reason—it is good policy.
Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador in Asia and the Middle East, says there's little immediate hope of a sensible immigration policy. "The new provisions in the [Immigration] Act are designed to gain political support for the Liberal party—at considerable cost to the economy and serious implications for the stability of Canadian society," Collacott said in a recent essay (National Post, Nov. 2).
His remarks have been echoed by any number of in-the-know observers, though it should be noted that Canada's immigration system has been used for political gain regardless of the party in power. Immigration boards are scandalously stacked with unqualified political hacks, and the votes of ethnic groups, particularly in Toronto, are bought with favorable immigration rules.
The cabinet seems all over the place on this issue. Last month, Finance Minister Paul Martin said Canada would proceed with new border security measures, but would stop short of establishing a common perimeter. On the very same day, Martin's parliamentary secretary, John McCallum, indulged in a bizarre flight of fancy. "We want to maximize freedom of border crossings," he said. "But we don't want to go to the point where we harmonize taxes, [since] that would lead to harmonize[d] spending and sooner rather than later... you are going to have everything in Canada the same as in the United States and we won't really have a country" (Taber, National Post, Nov. 16).
Is McCallum unaware of policies in the rest of world? The European Union has a common perimeter. Yet, within the common EU perimeter, nations vary more than do Canada and the United States in taxes and spending. Ireland's government is smaller compared to the Irish economy than is the US government compared to the US economy. Other European nations, France for instance, have governments much larger than Canada's.
Canada must negotiate a comprehensive North American border agreement intelligently and in a timely way. It's not enough to do it in some manner at some time. It must be done right and done quickly. Ottawa shows no sign of being up to the task or even of understanding the issue.
References
Alberts, Sheldon (2001). "Border deal would screen travellers before they arrive." National Post. Nov. 9.
Chwialkowska, Luiza (2001). "Bordering on harmonization: Why Canada faces pressure." National Post. Oct. 2.
Collacot, Martin (2001). "More workers, not more voters." National Post. Nov. 2.
Naumetz, Tim (2001). "Deportation warrant tally tops 27,000." Southam News. Sept. 28.
Taber Jane (2001). "Liberals at odds over border." National Post. Nov. 16.
Fred McMahon (fredm@fraserinstitute.ca) is Director of the Centre for Globalization Studies at The Fraser Institute. Formerly with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, his most recent book is Retreat from Growth: Atlantic Canada and the Negative Sum Economy.
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