Saving Canada

My brain is tired. Some of you may be quick to point out that it’s been showing signs of fatigue for years now, and I’d be hard pressed to offer a counter-argument. Be that as it may, I’m talking about a new phenomenon that began with the events of Sept. 11.

Some six weeks after that catastrophe, I’m still finding it hard to write about anything else but the new face of North America. The one we’re busily crafting on the fly, the effort that’s testing our collective strength under pressure, that’s making all our brains so very, very tired. Like most of you, I’d guess, I spend a lot of time and apply a lot of mental horsepower to the task of understanding what’s gone on here, and what’s coming down the pike.

So far I’m impressed with our response, broadly speaking, but we haven’t yet resolved the toughest of the practical challenges.

In this space last month I talked about the need to ensure that the North American Free Trade Agreement doesn’t collapse under the weight of a perfectly forgiveable but ultimately misguided American paranoia about border security. I wrote that piece just a couple of days after the terrorist attacks, and the border issue does indeed seem to be at the forefront of our many concerns. I’m not patting myself on the back for having identified the problem quickly-it was, after all, pretty obvious-rather re-emphasizing the notion that we have to deal with it. Like now.

Ottawa has not dealt with it conclusively, even in principle, perhaps because politicians listen too hard to the bleating of twits like Maud Barlow and her Council of Canadians. She sees our sovereignty being washed away in the process of aligning our border security regime with that of the United States. Nonsense.

We’re talking about simple administrative routines, about greater rigor in the way we deal with refugee claimants, and generally increased vigilance. So what’s the big deal? Yes, we’ll have to satisfy our friends to the south that we mean business, but isn’t that in our best interests anyway? Of course it is, in terms of our own security if nothing else. And it will have no effect whatsoever on our sovereignty.

What needs protecting most of all, however, is our ability to cross the border more or less at will. As I said in October: through NAFTA we’ve become part of an integrated continental economy, and if we put that integration at risk, we’re sunk. You could kiss goodbye to something approaching 40% of our trucking business.

I have no wish to become less Canadian. I arrived in this country as a wailing one-year-old in 1947, and the steamship voyage that led me here was without question the best gift my parents ever gave me. I’m still proudly Canadian almost 54 years later, despite a lifetime of bombardment by Howdy Doody and NYPD Blue and Coca-Cola and all the other symbols of U.S. cultural “aggression.” I like a lot of it, of course, but I’ll stay Canadian regardless, whether the border is easy to cross or not.

If the 49th parallel becomes a tough-to-penetrate wall, however, I’ll be a reluctant and very unhappy Canuck, because this country will be much reduced. My kids will have fewer opportunities of all sorts because our economy will be wobbly at best, and in the shorter term, my own horizons will be somewhat limited, too. So I want a border that defines our differences, but not a wall that prevents easy interaction. I guess I really just want to go back to Sept. 10, with more vigilance applied so that the border isn’t seen by Washington as the last or even the only defense against incursions from the north.

One last thought on all of this concerns drivers, the folks who bear the direct burden of the continuing Level One security alert at U.S. customs posts. First of all, I thank them for their incredible patience in dealing with this, especially in the first few days after 9/11. Many of them were stuck in line, inching forward in multi-hour traffic tie-ups at border crossings, unable to leave their trucks. They were thus dependent on the kindness of local citizens and groups like the Salvation Army and the Canadian Red Cross to bring them food and drink to sustain them through waits that went beyond 24 hours in some cases. Yet they suffered through this without complaint.

I keep hearing that drivers didn’t bitch and moan and demand extra waiting-time pay, though they deserved it and in many cases got it without asking. I heard some say their own difficulties were nothing in comparison to what others were dealing with. That patient understanding goes only so far, of course, so it’s no surprise that many of them have since requested Canadian hauls. Which puts a new spin on the driver shortage theme. And, if border delays continue, it adds a new dimension to the question of how drivers are paid. Not to mention who pays for waiting time. All of which is fodder for the next column. And a guarantee that this already tired brain won’t be much rested in the interim.