Canada US Border

Posted on December 17, 2007
Filed Under Government |

The Canada US border seems to be growing more and more “thick” - causing disruptions in our free trade. Canada’s International Trade Minister David Emerson blames United States’ protectionism and aggressive security bureaucracy for the erection of new obstacles to our cross-border commerce.

Emerson said he is hearing more and more “horror stories” of companies forced by border delays to warehouse costly inventory on either side of the Canada US border and “referring to it as a just-in-case supply chain rather than just-in-time.” He said the post-9/11 security approach among U.S. government departments has led to a raft of new border obstacles, fees and inspections. “Private companies are in some cases finding they have no choice but to produce on the US side of the border.”

Looking deeper in to this problem, we actually see that both countries have turned their border security agencies over to their respective Customs agencies in the aftermath of of the attacks on Sept 11, 2001. What’s the problem with this? Well both these agencies have historically been impeding the flow of goods through the Canada US border. On top of all this, border security is now big business in the United States. Firms lobby not only Homeland Security but also the US Congress to get their latest goodies adopted.

What’s the solution? We’ll its definitely not Emerson’s anti-American inferiority complex, but rather a more co-operative approach. We are not anywhere in sight of the day where we can scrap NAFTA and start selling all our oil to China. Well sure we need to diversify. But how?

Why are we so dependent on the Canada US border? It wouldn’t take a Nobel Prize winning economist to find the answer - “geographical proximity”. That’s exactly the problem. Canadian businesses have been relying on that sole advantage to trade with the United States. We need more incentive and support from our government to increase our productivity; in only that way will we able to diversify compete on the global markets. We need to stop complaining about United States acting on its best interest; rather its time we start doing the same.

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