Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/476674
P PROJECT MANAGEMENT 21 DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015 www.vanguardcanada.com Corporal Karine Boulay, medical technician, from 24 Canadian Forces Health Services Centre in Trenton, Ontario I am not saying the border has disappeared; only that "the border" evolves quickly and quietly in ways that govern- ment offi cials often grasp only dimly. Take the notion that what holds up progress on relieving pressure at the border is the exclusive American focus on terrorism in the post-9/11 world. Canadians in this narrative are focused solely on the eco- nomic imperative of border opening, as befi ts a country that ex- ports roughly half of everything its private sector makes, with four fi fths of that going to the U.S. But in the post-post-9/11 world things are more complicated. America has gone through a devastating recession and jobs have been slow to recover. The political consensus is that President Obama got heartily smacked by the electorate in the recent mid-terms for failing to focus on the economy. He is now trying to make up for lost time. At the February meeting of Obama and Prime Minister Harper in Washington, ne- gotiations were announced to reduce im- pediments to trade at the border. President Obama now understands that a congested border is hurting North American prosperity. Ford Motor Company estimates that border delays are adding $500 million in costs to North American pro- duced cars that have to cross the border as many as six times at different stages of production. Japanese and European cars get imported once. The difference costs jobs on both sides of the border. President Obama isn't the only one who gets that. In recession- savaged Michigan, the new governor, Rick Snyder, campaigned aggressively to get a new bridge built between Detroit and Wind- sor on the grounds it would be good for US workers. Not so many years ago then-U.S. Senator for New York, Hilary Clinton, was repeating the old canard that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada. Today, New York Senator Chuck Schumer de- mands of senior U.S. border security bureaucrats in Senate com- mittee hearings that they strive for pre-clearance of every truck crossing the Canada-U.S. border. On the Canadian side you might think that we have focused on market opening and worried about security issues only to the extent we have been forced to by our need to placate Americans. You'd be wrong. We're spending $785 million arming customs agents at the same time that we let major border crossings like that at Lacolle, Quebec crumble. If you compared the U.S. crossing at Cham- plain, a few yards away, you'd think it was America that was preoc- cupied with border effi ciency, not Canada. Ninety-fi ve percent of land border cross- ings into the U.S. from Canada are now equipped with radio frequency identifi ca- tion systems, allowing trusted travelers to enter the U.S. quickly and seamlessly. The Canadian proportion of lanes so equipped is feeble in comparison. The U.S. has estab- lished customs preclearance at nine Cana- dian airports, allowing the vast majority of Canadian air travelers to enter the U.S. as domestic passengers. The number of such Canadian facilities in the U.S.? Zero. Does all this mean that the U.S. is now beating down Canada's door asking to open the border? Of course not. Canada still has more at stake than the U.S. in re- moving impediments to trade, and the relative seniority of those heading the Canadian and U.S. ture of the higher priority Canada sets on success. Canada's pleas to move freight from trusted shippers seamlessly through the border are meeting big resistance at the offi cials' level. US money politics are still allowing the owner of the Am- bassador Bridge, Manny Maroun, to buy political opposition to another bridge and preserve his cash cow for a few more years. But that just proves my point about generals fi ghting the last war. Wministration offi cials on both sides. The time has come to talk, no longer about administrative incrementalism, but bold steps to give respective bodies. Give a human face to their rela- tionship with. To ipic totaepeleni corestiatio dolorep renihiciume nonsed molupt tem quis aces delis dolore con exero duciate volecatin conse Just as generals are usually fi ghting the last war, oŠ cials on both sides of the Canada-U.S. Rethinking the border President Obama isn't the only one who gets that. 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