The Border and Terence Corcoran

Two articles in yesterday's Star ought to be quite concerning to Windsorites.

First, Corcoran, the editor of the Financial Post, did a column about how NAFTA is at risk. He pointed out that there is serious talk of Canadian economic retaliation against the US and partnering instead with India and China. He talks about government managed trade rather than free trade. That should concern business people here who depend on cross-border trade. [For a bit of history, go back and read about the National Energy Program and the Canadian oil industry]

Second, the front page story in the Star talked about fewer Americans crossing our border. Gordon Orr did not mention that one reason for the reduction could be a consequence of the various political and economic irritants that we have with our largest trade partner.

Why are these two stories disturbing? Taken together, our area is in serious economic jeopardy.

Unfortunately, what I see helping to create this downturn is certain Windsorites and others making it easy for decisions to be made to stay out of this area, whether for business or for pleasure, to our economic disadvantage.

Why come to Windsor to open a plant or go shopping or to a restauruant or to stay for a weekend when we are told that there are border backups. On the one hand the Casino is spending money on media ads trying to convince Americans that it is easy to come over here while on the other we may tell them they will be caught in traffic jams unless they get a subsidized Nexus card for their several trips a year here.

Instead of praising Minister Peterson for being ready to tell the world that our short-term problems are over, we scold him. Even our friend the Premier wanted to hire someone to tell some good stories about the border to improve business. How do we react: scare stories from our leading paper and the City's retained traffic guru that the Bridge may have structural problems.

Would you really want to cross the bridge that Senator Kenny has said is a prime target for terrorists? He got a lot of coverage in the US media when his Senate Report came out.

Can we really blame an American choosing not to cross the border and to go to an American Casino in downtown Detroit? Would you really want to build a plant here with all of that bad news? We are indeed our own worst enemy.