Customs And Windsor/Detroit

The Government of Canada wants the Ambassador Bridge. Full Stop!

There is no doubt about it whatsoever. It does not matter whom it hurts in our region economically. It does not matter whether it destroys the relationship between Canada and the United States. It does not matter if it costs taxpayers billions of dollars that should not be paid out.

Someone within the Government has decided that this could be the last chance that Canada has ever again to control the crossing between Windsor and Detroit. Convince the Americans to help us take over the Ambassador Bridge. If that will not work at this time because traffic and economic factors are against us, then figure out a way to back off to win the war another time.

Accordingly, the Government must be continuing to listen, foolishly in my opinion, to our Ambassador to the United States for strategy. They continue to listen to a person who should have been out of a job by now considering NAFTA-gate, whether he was involved personally or not. He should have been the sacrificial lamb to try to re-establish our relationship. The fact that he is around still is nothing more than a source of friction between the White House and our country.

All of this is tolerated because the Government of Canada wants the Ambassador Bridge.

I have no doubt in my mind either that Members of our Government are delusional. Their strategy is absurd. The consequences are disastrous. They really have no sense of what is going on. They must think that because the President invited the Governor General to come to Washington that everything is all right. It is interesting that he did not invite the Prime Minister or did someone in the Privy Council Office miss that point!

Consider this comment by Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan

• “Canada-U.S. border review worries overblown: Minister
  
  Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan on Monday said he's convinced early worries that the new Obama administration might impose new security measures at the Canada-U.S. border have been overblown.
  
  At the start of a three-day visit to Washington, Van Loan said he's satisfied that a U.S. review of its northern border — ordered in January by Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security secretary — was simply a matter-of-course exercise by the department's new head to become familiar with her portfolio.
  
  "What I thought was very positive about that is that she recognized that the northern border is very different (from the U.S.-Mexico border), that we have a very different situation," Van Loan said in an interview. "She does view us in a very different light . . . She very much understands the objective here is achieving security while facilitating trade."

Overblown? That is correct Minister. That is why the Americans are using drones to patrol the border between Canada and the United States for the first time and to look into Canada at a distance of up to 9 km:

• “American Surveillance Plane To Guard Manitoba Border
  
  An RCMP Border Integrity Officer is not worried about privacy concerns raised by an unmanned American surveillance plane.
  
  The drone will patrol the International Border between Manitoba and North Dakota and Minnesota. Although it can't fly within 16 kilometres of the border, it can still capture images up to 9 kilometres into Canada.
  
  Staff Sergeant Ron Obodzinski says he doesn't have any information that leads him to believe it will be monitoring activity in Canada, but says as the illegal individuals are identified coming in and out of the country the plane will be able to intercept them.
  
  Obodzinski adds as a Canadian Law Enforcement Agency they will be able to benefit from the information captured by the surveillance drone and will help them in the fight to identify illegal border activity.
  
  Although the drone is not armed it is the same type of aircraft used to hunt Taliban forces in Afghanistan.”

Do the Americans really have any interest in our border? Not really. They are more interested right now in the Mexican border and especially because of the violence there. However, the Americans are being tough with the Mexicans as well and are not afraid to flex their protectionist muscles:

• “US legislation will stop Mexican truckers at the border
  
  The spending bill Obama signed Wednesday eliminates a program that let some drivers deliver goods in the US.
  
  Cross-border commerce hit another red light late Tuesday when the Senate eliminated a pilot program that allowed some Mexican companies to ship goods deep into the United States.
  
  The $410 billion spending bill approved by senators Tuesday and scheduled to be signed by President Obama Wednesday eliminated funding for the controversial program and could reinforce concerns that the US is turning to protectionism as it fights its deepest recession in decades…
  
  The move to bar Mexican trucks follows the “Buy American” provision in the $787 billion stimulus bill approved by Congress Feb. 18, which could require stimulus spending to go to US-made products. The provision has been criticized in Latin America and Canada, and analysts say rising protectionist sentiment could hurt global economic recovery efforts.
  
  While free-trade advocates fear the creation of new trade barriers, the Mexican truck impasse is well over a decade old.
  
  US authorities have repeatedly delayed implementation of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) rules that would have granted Mexican truckers access to border states in 1995 and nationwide in 2000. The US has refused to budge even following the decision of a NAFTA arbitration panel in 2001, which ruled that the US is required to grant access."

I am certain that Canada, and other countries, will be interested in seeing what the reaction is to the Mexicans proposing tariffs on US goods in retaliation. I am glad to see that Senator Kenny’s “Dirty Little Secret” applies to Mexico as well. If the Americans do little, that might in fact embolden Canada to be more aggressive with the US. However, here was the interesting line in the Story:

• “Now, with the economy faltering and fewer trucks lined up at border checkpoints, it’s unclear when – or if – the issue will finally be resolved.
  
  “If there was a great demand, and an economic boom, then maybe [this would get fixed],” says Gustavo Del Castillo Vera, a researcher for the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana. “But with things as they are right now, it doesn’t make much difference.”

In other words, if there was an economic need to solve the problem, United States and Mexico would do so. There is no need right now. In the same way, if there really was an economic need, Canada and the United States would solve our border problems as they did in the past. There is no need right now.

And that is why Canada is acting now. They think that they can beat the Americans while they are asleep and worrying about AIG instead! Prime Minister Harper raised the border issue with President Obama. Minister Cannon raised the matter with Secretary Clinton. And now Minister Van Loan is doing the same thing.

Do not forget as well the Kergin initiative which is now coming out via the Blue Water Bridge under a different guise that is designed to circumvent the White House. That is part of Canada’s Ultrasecret Playbook.

But what has prompted me to thinking about all this is a most strange comment made by Minister Van Loan. Before he met with the Americans, he stated:

• “Van Loan said Canada is interested on reopening talks with the Obama administration about opening U.S. customs pre-clearance facilities at Canadian land border crossings. The aim would be to allow trucks carrying goods to the U.S. to clear American customs before they arrive at the border, "the same way we pre-clear passengers at airports" in several Canadian cities. The idea went nowhere under the Bush administration.”

Nothing wrong with that. There were serious negotiations going on between Canada and United States about Shared Border Management at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie. The purpose of that was to minimize the need to increase border facilities on the American side so that a good chunk of Buffalo would not be ruined by a truck Plaza. At that time, there was no conversation about a similar program in Windsor and in fact, as you will recall, when the Bridge Company tried to do something similar in the United States, Canada objected to it.

Accordingly, when I read this, I almost fell out of my chair:

• “In Washington to talk to his U.S. counterpart, Canada's public safety minister said Wednesday that they agreed to meet twice a year to head off problems that might snarl trade at the border…
  
  Van Loan said the two sides would probably meet once a year in Canada and once in the United States, perhaps at the border itself.
  
  He also got a commitment from Napolitano that Washington will look again at the idea of what is called land pre-clearance, he said.
  
  Under a proposal favoured by Ottawa, American officials would check U.S.-bound trucks on the Canadian side of the border and vice versa, easing trade bottlenecks.
  
  Van Loan said he suggested a pilot project at the Windsor-Detroit border but nothing was settled.”

This is ridiculous. Shared Border Management failed because of Canada. Here is what a US GAO Report stated:

• “According to DHS, the overarching issue was the subordination of U.S. law enforcement personnel and authorities to Canadian law rather than U.S. law and the inability to ensure necessary U.S. law enforcement authorities under Canada’s legal framework.”

Why drag ex-President Bush into it except to win points with a Democratic Administration. It seems as if it is Canada that wants this initiative to start all over again, not the Americans. As I have Blogged before, Canada is interested in controlling all of the Corridors and Gateways into the United States in order to preserve our trade into the US. But the most bizarre statement of all was a suggestion of a pilot project in this region. What gives?

There is one conclusion that can be reached. If the Americans want Shared Border Management in Buffalo so that a good part of Buffalo does not have to be destroyed by a truck Plaza (do not forget that the Bridge Company wants to build a bridge there as well) then let us test it out in Windsor/Detroit.

And where would the best location be to test it? Oh my goodness, at a new DRIC Bridge. The American Government would have to help Canada end the ownership of the Bridge Company. Presumably, some omnibus legislation would have to be passed in both countries to do so.

Wipe out the Bridge Company in Windsor/Detroit and wipe them out in Buffalo/Fort Erie as well. A Twofer!

Alternatively, if there is a desire for reverse customs, why not try it out at the Tunnel? Remember that Canada still needs to control the Tunnel if a P3 operator gets involved in a DRIC crossing. The operator will want a monopoly to guarantee a return on its investment.

I have been quite surprised that the Tunnel Plaza Improvement Project is still mentioned as a possible Infrastructure project to be paid for by the Federal/Provincial infrastructure monies. There should be no way that this project could be justified because there already is a cost sharing scheme in place and it is the City that has not put up its $10 million as its share.

Could it be that when Minister Baird was here he offered to take on the extra costs of this project and to justify it as the "pilot project" for reverse customs? That sounds doable to me and it takes a lot of pressure off of the back of our Mayor.

For something completely different, perhaps this is Canada waving the white flag of surrender, at least for the next decade until traffic builds up so they can start all of this again. Is this a message to the Bridge Company that the Federal Government would like to talk and use the Ambassador Bridge as the pilot because it has always been viewed as the model crossing in Canada? In this way, negotiations could start for whatever it is that Canada thinks it might be able to get out of the Bridge Company at this stage without losing face because their plans to take over the Bridge failed miserably.

Better to retreat and regroup to fight another day rather than to lose for all time. The idea would be to try to fool the Bridge Company again as they did with the FIRA settlement.

If a poor lonely Blogger can figure out these alternatives so quickly and so easily, then the Canadian Government must believe that the Ambassador Bridge people and the US Desk at the State Department are a bunch of fools.

Prime Minister… it really is time to see if Michael Wilson is interested in retiring.