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Canada-U.S. Deep Integration: Establishing the Bi-National "Security Perimeter"

Canada and the U.S recently issued a joint threat and risk assessment as part of ongoing efforts to further enhance security on the northern border. This initiative supports a declaration by the leaders which will work towards facilitating the movement of travel and trade between the two countries. The Canadian government has announced that they are seeking online public consultation on the security perimeter arrangement. Meanwhile, the country has been thrust into an election with the defeat of the ruling Conservative party in a non-confidence vote. During the campaign, sovereignty concerns associated with the proposed trade and security deal could become a hot-button issue.

On March 10 of this year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews unveiled a Joint Border Threat and Risk Assessment. The report focuses on national security, criminal enterprises, migration, agriculture and health threats to the border. A press release described how the joint initiative, “is a part of a shared vision for border security that Secretary Napolitano and Minister Toews outlined during meetings held throughout 2010, and reflects their mutual commitment to working together to safeguard both nations' vital assets, networks, infrastructure and citizens.” The assessment addresses common threats to the border such as, “terrorism and transnational crime articulated by President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in February. Their historic declaration – ‘Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness’ – sets forth how the United States and Canada will manage our shared homeland and economic security."

The Conservative government has maintained that a security perimeter with the U.S. will not impact on sovereignty, but a poll issued last month suggested that Canadians remain concerned. The Vancouver Sun reported that a survey conducted by Ipsos Reid found that 68% believe Canada, “will compromise too much power over decisions about immigration, privacy and security to get a perimeter security agreement.” The poll also found that 51% of Canadians don't, “trust Stephen Harper to negotiate a deal that improves border access but doesn't give up powers that are important to Canada maintaining its own independence.” With respect to transparency, "An overwhelming 91% of Canadians say the negotiations should take place in public so that they can see what is on the table." There is little doubt that the border deal will mean some sort of tradeoff between sovereignty and security.

read full article http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=24059

   

I'm in favor of this as the current Janet Napolitano policy on the US-Canadian border angers me. We need that on the Mexican border, not the Canadian Border. She needs to get her head out of her girlfriends ass.

I absolutely agree that these negotiations and arrangements should be done publicly. The Canadians have their own interests and concerns that need to be respected and this can best be preserved by making this public. Canada is not an American door mat.

I want the border to be returned to what it use to be, something unique in all the world a tribute to our two great nations.

   

The Obama Administration can't bring itself to say that Mexico poses a security issue because they've invested so much into calling Arizona 'racist' for wanting to stop illegal aliens and drug cartels from entering the USA from Mexico. So for the Obaminions to 'look' effective they're going to 'crack down' on Canada because that way they can say they did something without being called bigots. Plus there's the added bonus that Obama can crap on another close US ally.

   

This security fence thing is just more foiler Amero crap.

   

Those damn "snowbacks". Always sneaking south to infiltrate America's entertainment industry.

   

No, it isn't.

In January 2007 Congressman James Sensenbrenner (Democrat) sponsored and then got the House and Senate to pass a Joint Resolution calling for a security fence along parts of the US-Canada border. The Republicans have essentially killed it at this point by legislatively marrying it to the Mexico border fence that the Democrats oppose.

Any physical barrier is almost just window dressing given the massively heightened level of security on the US-Canada border already in place. My friends who live in Custer, Washington (right on the border) used to walk to the end of their road, open a gate, cross into Canada and then catch the bus to Vancouver and then vice-versa on the way back and no one cared. Now they've been told they're committing a felony and will go to jail if they do it again. Dave also has pictures (which I will try to post later) of the UAV's he's seen along the border.

The way Obama is treating Canada is utter nonsense and it's also highly insulting when he's amping up security on the Canadian border at the same time any such security on the Mexican border gets labeled as 'racist'.

   

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=24059 <-- Foiler stuff.

   

The Obama Administration has also deported about 400,000 illegals back to Mexico in each of the last two years, which is far more than your allegedly security-consicous right-wing Bush Adminisration ever did on a yearly basis. So all this stuff about Obama being weak on border security is just another talking-point lie by your favourite professional liars at places like FOX News.

And the ridiculous Arizona laws are based on anti-Latino racism. That's because the Arizona's GOP and anti-immigration activist/militia groups are all run by people with deep connections to the Aryan Nations and, on the business side, by others who are deep in the pocket of the private prison lobby, i.e. privatize all the state penetentiaries and with more of the filthy Mexicans we can lock up, the more money we can make by sending the bill to the state. Even the Arizona GOP finally turned on Russell Pearce when they finally had enough with his quasi-fascist attempts at starting a race war when they recently rejected even more anti-Mexican laws he proposed, and the local Chamber of Commerce also finally had the guts to come out and say that all this anti-Latino stupidity has cost the state upwards of $150 million in boycotted tourist and convention money alone.

The public face of Arizona, and especially of right-wing Arizona, is now Shawna Forde, who's facing the death penalty for when she and a couple of her neo-Nazi militia buddies shot a nine-year-old Mexican-American girl in face as she was begging for her life. You should be a lot more careful with what you say here Bart, becaused these are the kinds of crazy and evil bastards that you've attached your hopes and dreams to on immigration matters. Your typical anti-Obama boilerplate pales in comparison to the vile and disgusting nature of those who are now in total control of the anti-immigration part of this issue.

   

Do you even know what those laws are? I mean, aside from what you've been told on CBC?

Just to save time, the Arizona law, SB 1070, codified existing Federal law into the State Code so that local and state LEO's can have the authority to check immigration status on people they stop or encounter for other reasons.

SB 1070 codified two facets of Federal Law:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/usc ... -000-.html

and...

http://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~calda/Docume ... an_52.html

There's nothing 'racist' about it. The fact that most of the affected illegal immigrants are Mexican is not about race, but proximity.

Maine wants to do the same thing and, obviously, it would have nothing to do with Mexicans.

http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/01/ ... -in-maine/

Maine, it should be noted, is traditionally liberal and your bleating about 'RACISM!' would be pretty impotent if levied against them.

The problem is that the states are bearing the costs of illegal immigration that the Obama Administration seems to be paying lip service to. The 1200 National Guard Obama deployed to the Mexican border last year with great fanfare have all now been sent home (and you won't see that on CNN).

If the Federal government was doing the job they're supposed to then the states would not be pushing for this.

   

Considering that the overall crime rate in Arizona (except for Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe's private little empire, where it was still increasing) was going down for several years before Obama got elected, I'd view it as any anti-crime/law & order arguing in favour of harsher actions against Mexican illegals doesn't have much basis in reality to it. Much like the Republican reasoning for invading Iraq, in hindsight Arizona's decisions appear to be based on fantasies and mirages.

I'd really like someday to see you not to couch your rhetoric with the usual anti-Obama nonsense. ICE under the Obama Administration is operating now basically the same way it did during the entirety of the Bush Administration, except in terms of deportations where the Obama effort is actually several degrees tougher on illegals than Bush ever was. So, just like your nation's financial problems and your runaway fears of terrorists under every bed, this particular issue didn't spring up into an apocalyptic crisis (the way all American right-wingers view everything apparently) the minute the black guy got elected. If you can't enter into these discussions without your typical 'only one man (President Barack Obama) is to blame for EVERYTHING!" attitude then I don't see why the rest of us should take any of your arguments all that seriously.

   

What does the crime rate have to do with it? Illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants.

Find, deport, and if necessary, repeat.

   

Agreed. Guess that makes us racist. But neither the Bush nor Obama administration were interested in doing that, because they want the Latino vote. And in the US, Latins coming in from Mexico is basically seen as a right.

   

Not that simple, considering how much of the American economy depends in the itinerant labour provided by these people. Remove some of the illegal agricultural subsidies that the US used to collapse the domestic Mexican farming economy and most of these people would have stayed at home anyway. That's who most of them are you know, farm labourers who lost their livelihoods back home thanks to the subsidies the US Congress keeps giving to corporations like Archer-Daniel-Midland and Monsanto, and to, ahem, "family farms" owned by people like Michelle Bachmann. The basic American politics on Mexican immigration are so hypocritical and full of shit it isn't even funny anymore.

   

No argument there. I don't see it helping to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration - all that does is depress wages in the US and turn the immigrants into semi-slaves. My prescription for dealing with the problem is to fine and jail the employers, rather than go after the immigrants.

As for agricultural policies, I guess Canada can't lecture the US about subsidies. But we do seem to get a lot of produce from Mexico. Probably grown by the same big business as on the US side. But I would guess that even as illegals, farm laborers in the US earn more than they would in Mexico, subsidies or not.

   

I'm fairly certain that American conservatives are quite happy to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration when it suits them too. In terms of providing employees for their farms, McHell slaughter houses, golf course groundskeeper teams, construction sites that have no safety regulations at all, nannies so rich white women won't have to go through the trauma of actually raising their own children, sweatshops for the clothing business, hotel chamber maids, and about a thousand other poorly paid, dirty, and incredibly dangerous jobs, illegal immigrants provide the backbone for a huge chunk of the overall American economy. In reality if you find and jail those employers it won't do a bit of good because there's a dozen others waiting to hire the same workers.

If the right-wing American nativists got their way on border security and immigration they'd cripple the US economy overnight. Too bad this sort of fact doesn't have any impact at all on their ridiculous anti-this-anti-that way of thinking.

   

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