The Foreign Service Journal, October 2007

border may be conducting repeated crossings. The Cost of Doing Business The Canadian economy needs access to American business and American visits as much as individual Canadians need, and want, to get to the U.S. side of the border. A border people is dependent for its prosperity, and for its psychological as well as its physical well-being, on its ability to cross the border freely, openly and with- out fear of closure, however temporary such a capricious interruption may be. In an age of “just in time” commerce, the automobile industry, still one of the most important generators of high-end manufacturing jobs in Canada, cannot lose an hour if it is to compete with Asian efficiency (Japan) and low wages (China). The border must be invisible. For if it exists in more than a pro forma sense, then it imposes what is called “border risk” on the investor who, in cross- ing that line, must contend with slowdowns and red tape. No one understands better than a border people how obstacles will work to their economic disadvantage. Both local and foreign investors will tend to avoid investment in the neighboring country if the risk is too high. Thus, efforts to make the border “smart,” by expe- diting those who are regular and familiar crossers, pre- inspecting cargoes on each side of the border, and using the latest in monitoring technology to detect terrorist materials or terrorists themselves, are the most plausi- ble of actions, costs permitting. Stockwell Day, the Canadian minister of public safety, and Michael Chertoff, head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, hold more than the physical safety of their countrymen in their hands; they administer programs that affect jobs and determine incomes. Asymmetries with the United States The risks that a border people may fear if their abili- ty to cross national boundaries is interrupted are exacer- bated by the further reality of asymmetries. The United States has 10 times as many people as Canada, generates 10 times its gross domestic product and wields immea- surably greater military power. Moreover, the vast majority of Canada’s foreign trade is with a single coun- try, the United States. Notwithstanding the territorial security that the U.S. defense presence provides, and the absence of any immediate external threat to Canada, such awesome one-sidedness might make any border people wary. And it does. This reality probably enhances Canada’s desire for autonomy and self-identity, though this sometimes takes the form of a nationalism that attempts to define itself in terms of whatever the United States is not. When the British Empire collapsed, Canada lost its chief counterweight to the United States. On the one hand, Canada turned to its southern neighbor for pro- tection and prosperity, and enjoyed a security umbrella at low cost to itself. On the other hand, it felt overshad- owed and dependent on Washington. The unsuccessful effort under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s to create an offset to perceived American dominance by a “Third Option” of trade diversification with Europe proved to be an embarrassing failure. The European Economic Community, as it was initially called, wanted too much in return for Canadian association. Sharing its single primary border with the most pow- erful country in the world affords Canada most attractive commercial opportunities. Yet notwithstanding Cana- da’s penchant for contributing to international organiza- tions, and absent meaningful territorial contact with any third country, this proximity also condemns it to perhaps the greatest sense of psychic subordination experienced by any nation-state on Earth. The North-South Border Quandary Now we return to the question I posed at the begin- ning of this essay: Why do Canadians object to the requirement that they produce passports to enter the United States? From the American perspective, the border with Canada and the one with Mexico are juridical equals. Thus, in order to avoid invidious contrasts, they must be treated equally in political terms. But from the perspec- tive of Canada, this is a false equation. The overwhelm- ing difference between its border with the United States and the U.S.-Mexico boundary is the flow of people. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturali- zation Service, at least 10 million Mexicans, and quite possibly more, have crossed the American border ille- gally in the last decade. The same level and rate of ille- gal immigration surely is not true of Canadians. Admittedly, Canada tends to soft-pedal the fact that over the past century, millions of its citizens have become Americans, sometimes after supposedly tempo- rary visits that drifted into permanent residence. F O C U S 46 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7