On selective patriotism

Shorter Kelly McParland, on learning that a single U.S. administration official had proposed treating Canada similarly to Mexico in terms of border issues:

Oh noes!!! We must drop everything and run - nay, SPRINT!!! - to the nearest megaphone and shout at the top of our lungs to defend our honour on border management and security, lest the slightest inaccuracy or unfair portrayal of Canada affect U.S. policy!!!! SHRIEEEEEK!!!!


Shorter Kelly McParland on the suggestion that it might be a good idea to point out a few of the inaccuracies being spread about Canada's health care system within the U.S. health care debate:

Meh. Why should anybody care whether one of the U.S.' major political parties uses every moment available to it on airwaves which cut through both countries to fabricate conspiracy theories about our health care system? After all, it's not as if it matters what they do anyway.

(Edit: added label & fixed wording.)

Credit not due

Macleans (along with other media outlets) seems awfully eager to praise the U.S. for what's supposed to be a move in the right direction on border crossings. But it's worth noting that the position put forward as evidence is no change at all from the stance the U.S. has held for years - signalling that the push now is instead to get Canadians to be happy with what the U.S. has always been demanding, rather than for the U.S. to moderate its position at all.

From Macleans:

The United States may be backing down from its plan to require visitors to and from Canada to carry passports...

The U.S. ambassador to Ottawa made positive comments about an alternative proposal that relies on new security-enhanced drivers’ licenses instead.

Speaking in Winnipeg, Ambassador David Wilkins said that the Department of Homeland Security would consider accepting the new high-tech drivers’ licenses - pointing to a pilot project that has been approved for use of the secure licenses between the state of Washington and British Columbia.

The problem, of course, is that it's always been clear that some other form of ID might be accepted - with the only question being whether the U.S. would get its act together sufficiently to actually approve it. Remember this from early 2006:

A simple identity card the size of a driver's licence could be sufficient to allow Canadians to travel in the United States, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday...

"The Department of Homeland Security is given the jurisdiction or the authority to come up with that or equivalent secure documents," Wilkins said in an interview.

"They are working very hard; it's being discussed at every level.

"I am optimistic that there will be such an alternative document to the passport," he said.

As a result, there's no reason to think that Wilkins' position - or that of the Bush administration - has moved an inch from where it stood all along. All that's been brought forward is a signal that some of the documents which Canadian provinces were working on anyway will finally be considered. In addition, there's no indication of what precise requirements are even on the table, meaning that provinces whose forms of ID aren't among those mentioned so far still figure to face problems when the land-crossing deadline strikes.

Granted, there's some reason for hope in the other evidence mentioned in the article - namely a call from the House of Representatives for both an extension of the deadline, and a study of the merit in more stringent documentation requirements. But there's still little reason to think that DHS in particular or the Bush administration in general have moved past their plan to impose greater burdens on Canadians for their own political purposes...and no reason at all for Canada to act grateful at finally receiving word that its efforts to meet the burden are being considered.

A limited partnership

Thanks to Peter Julian and the NDP, Canadians are in the midst of receiving a much better idea what's involved in the Security and Prosperity Partnership. But the CP reports that one of the few publicly-released details of the current discussions seems to confirm many of the worst suspicions about the process:

There's an outcry on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border over an abrupt move by American officials to drop plans to pre-clear travellers and reduce costly congestion at land crossings.

Many are viewing it as a major black mark on bilateral relations since a co-operative measure publicly championed by the White House has been unceremoniously dumped by the Homeland Security Department...

The main sticking point was Homeland's unwillingness to accept Canada's legal problem with having U.S. authorities take fingerprints of people who approach the border but decide not to cross.

Canadian law doesn't permit fingerprinting unless someone volunteers or has been charged with a crime.

Canada's assurances that it would co-operate in investigating any suspicious person who approaches the border weren't enough, said one Capitol Hill source.

"The Attorney General's office really just wants to grab as much biometric information as it can," said the source.

Canada won't consider any proposal that doesn't comply with Canadian law, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Thursday in Ottawa.

But he's hopeful the U.S. will come back to the table.

Of course, it's for the best that Canada is publicly refusing to play along. But Day's supposed reassurance seems likely only to highlight the serious risks involved in continued discussions, rather than offering any indication that Canada will be able to maintain its sovereignty as the SPP process goes forward.

After all, it's hard to see how any government negotiating with the Bush administration could have expected anything other than a demand that Canada serve as an intelligence-gathering agency for the U.S. It's all too likely that the Harper government will eventually follow the same pattern it applied on softwood lumber, seeking to impose the U.S.' demands on Canada (by changing Canadian law to allow the demanded fingerprint collection) for the sake of getting a deal done rather than defending Canada's interests. And indeed the Cons' track record will likely provide a reason for the U.S. to think it can get away with making a firm demand of its every whim, no matter what Canadian law may say.

Needless to say, that's the kind of partnership that Canada is far better off avoiding. And hopefully the public airing of both the U.S.' current demands and the Canadian side of the story will make sure that the SPP process doesn't go any further in its current form.

Privatizing the border

Just in case the Cons weren't looking for enough ways to transfer money gratuitously from government coffers to big business, Stockwell Day suggests that one of the changes he plans to make in Canada's security policy is to try to funnel yet more business to Halliburton and other private security contractors. And the first area Day would like to privatize is the Canada/U.S. border:

Canada is considering greater use of public-private partnerships to help bolster security both in Afghanistan and here at home, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told a counterterrorism conference Tuesday.

Already Canadian troops in Afghanistan are housed at the Kandahar Airfield base run by Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney used to run.

Halliburton has been awarded close to US$10-billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Asked what partnerships the Conservative government is considering in Canada, Mr. Day said the controversial formula, granting turn-key contracts to private-sector companies, could be used for Canada’s border security.

Now, there may be some perverse logic to such a move as long as Bushco remains in power, as the current U.S. administration will presumably be far more willing to overlook any security issues as long as its favoured corporate partners are making money out of the deal.

But from the standpoint of both security and effective use of resources, it's difficult to imagine a more shortsighted and counterproductive move than to take Canada's border out of Canada's government's hands. Which offers just one more area where the Cons' interests seem to be directly opposed to those of Canadians - and one more reason not to leave them in power any longer than can be avoided.