customs

Wednesday June 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 23, 2021

The retreat of North Americanism: Canadians and Americans keep moving further apart

Back in the day, when Canada signed the landmark free trade agreement with the United States, there was a good deal of fear and loathing.

February 6, 2001

The Progressive Conservatives led the way on reciprocity and the Jean Chrétien Liberals, as former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy recalled in a phone call this week, reluctantly climbed aboard. Like many, he worried the border would weaken, that continentalism had won out.

Then, deus ex machina, beginning with 9/11, expectations were overturned. The response to the terrorist horror – with many Americans believing the hijackers had come through Canada – was to fortify the world’s longest undefended border. Passports became necessary.

A bitter split with the George W. Bush administration ensued over Canada’s refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Later, under the Republicans, came the populist explosion on the right. Donald Trump treated Canada more like an adversary than an ally. His medieval empire, his attack on truth, democracy and decency, soured the opinion of Canadians on America like never before.

April 30, 2021

Maybe the bigger the border, Canadians reasoned, the better.

Then, taking the boundary divide to the max, came the shock of the coronavirus pandemic, which had the effect of cocooning Canada, shutting down the border to all but essential traffic. The closure has endured more than a year and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in no hurry to end it. He’s been hearing from his public: Keep the Americans out.

It doesn’t make sense, Maryscott Greenwood, the North Carolinian who is head of the Canadian American Business Council, said in an interview. “You’re saying vaccines don’t matter.” Canadians shouldn’t underestimate the opposition and frustration this has provoked in Washington. She’s hearing from top officials, she said, that the U.S. is considering opening its side of the border fully on June 21. If Mr. Trudeau and company don’t respond in kind, so be it. To heck with them.

October 10, 2020

All said, there’s been quite a turn since the heady days of free trade. Instead of continental cohesion, much division. Instead of a border thinner than ever, one thicker than ever. Instead of a new North Americanism, a retreat to a more fragmented mindset.

“The heyday of the Canada-U.S. relationship has come and gone,” said Christopher Kirkey, director of the Center for the Study of Canada at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. “The trend is toward more divergence than convergence.”

In addition to the advent of Mr. Trump, the calamities of 9/11 and the coronavirus, there were other factors. Free trade, as Mr. Kirkey observed, coincided with the end of the Cold War. That termination meant Canada needed the U.S. less and the U.S. needed Canada less. The special relationship between the two countries that was built in the period 1945 to 1990 became too difficult to sustain and it isn’t, in his view, about to be restored by Joe Biden’s protectionist Democrats. “I can tell you Canada is hardly on the radar screen in Washington. Let’s be blunt about that.”

 

July 14, 2020

Michael Adams, the head of the Environics Institute who has been surveying Canadian attitudes toward Americans for decades, concurs that the North Americanism envisaged with free trade is pretty much kaput. In the post-Second World War years, Canadians used to look up to the U.S. in so many ways, he said. “It used to be like the utopia.” Now, given the hold Mr. Trump’s populist authoritarianism has on such a large swath of the population, “it’s more like the dystopia.”

 
Of course, as was rightly noted by Goldy Hyder, chief executive officer of the Business Council of Canada, economic dependence on the American market is here to stay, despite any other decoupling tendencies. The Trudeau government better be careful, he warned. With companies reviewing their supply chains in the wake of the pandemic, more investments will remain in the U.S. if the Canadian border poses too much of a barrier.

March 13, 2021

If the Liberals were following the science, they’d quickly open the border, he added, but instead they’ve been following the politics (their polling). He said Mr. Biden told Mr. Trudeau in Europe that he promised freedom for Americans by July 4 and that opening the Canadian border is part of the deal.

The Prime Minister will take his sweet time in reciprocating. Continental consolidation isn’t as big a priority as it was before the century turned. Since that time, it’s become increasingly clear how different Canadians are. Rather than welded to an American block, they much prefer their own. (Globe & Mail) 

 

Friday April 30, 2021

April 30, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 30, 2021

Cabinet’s ability to award Buy American exemptions ‘strenuously limited,’ Biden says

President Joe Biden set some Canadian pulses racing again Wednesday with more tough Buy American talk, telling Congress he has “strenuously limited” cabinet members from granting exemptions to the 88-year-old protectionist doctrine. 

February 23, 2021

In the same breath, however, the speech marking Biden’s first 100 days as commander-in-chief offered a measure of comfort by suggesting Buy American would not offend the terms of trade deals like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. 

“American tax dollars are going to be used to buy American products, made in America, to create American jobs. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and it will be in this administration,” Biden declared. 

The notion of keeping U.S. government spending on American soil, a philosophy that dates back to 1933, will be the “one principle” guiding the $2.2-trillion infrastructure package dubbed the American Jobs Plan, he added. 

“I might note, parenthetically, that does not violate any trade agreement. It’s been the law since the ’30s,” Biden said through sustained applause in the House chamber, where COVID-19 allowed only a relative handful of lawmakers to attend. 

September 17, 2020

“I’ve made it clear to all my cabinet people: their ability to give exemptions has been strenuously limited. It will be American products.”

Much of what Biden said on the subject, including mention of trade agreements and cabinet members, did not appear in the prepared version of his remarks distributed to reporters before the speech. 

And it offered little solace or clarity for Canadian stakeholders still smarting from the punishing steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by Biden’s stridently protectionist predecessor, Donald Trump. 

“Those policies continue to concern us — ‘Made in America’ failed to embrace the integrated nature that we have in the steel business,” said Catherine Cobden, head of the Canadian Steel Producers Association. 

“Protectionism between neighbours and allies hurts everyone. We’re really hopeful that that’s not the way this plays out.”

The picture is likely to become more clear by midsummer, when an internal review of the existing rules — including how domestic content is defined and whether information and communication technology should be covered — is due. (Canadian Press) 

 

Thursday March 11, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 11, 2021

Vaccination passports: a long, tortuous road

Prepare for the next COVID-19 controversy: vaccine passports. The idea that vaccine, or immunity, passports will need to be developed and implemented manifests in two major ways. They can be loosely defined as domestic and international.

January 9, 2021

For the purpose of international travel, Canada won’t have much choice but to adopt vaccine passports. Countries around the world have already started down this road, including Israel and several European countries. Denmark and Sweden announced last month they are developing digital passports. President of the European Commissions Ursula von der Leyen tweeted March 1 that a proposed “Digital Green Pass” would help EU citizens move around safely. The pass will include a record of vaccination, or failing that of a negative COVID-19 test.

And Canadian airlines are already asking for the government to make vaccine passports part of the plan for reopening international travel.

September 19, 2020

So Canada needs to decide, and fairly soon, if it wants to be part of this worldwide movement. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed misgivings. He worries, as do many, about the potential of some people being unfairly and unintentionally targeted, such as people who cannot be vaccinated for reasons of immunosuppression. Others worry the passport may stigmatize those who, for whatever reason, choose not to get vaccinated. 

These are legitimate concerns, which is why this subject will only become more contentious over the coming weeks and months. Notwithstanding Trudeau’s concerns, Health Minister Patti Hajdu has said the government is having “very live” discussions with international partners. All things being equal, some form of international travel vaccine passport is pretty much inevitable, and those who don’t have one won’t be travelling. 

October 8, 2020

The contentiousness only gets thicker when you consider how this will apply domestically. Will provincial governments want proof of vaccination for interprovincial travel? That is relatively easy to police through airports, but what about land crossings? Given the Constitution guarantees Canadians freedom of movement, not just those vaccinated, how long until a legal challenge is launched? Might some provinces simply say you are not welcome unless you are vaccinated? (The likely answer is yes — look at the Maritime bubble.)

October 15, 2020

It’s not just about travel, either. Consider major events. Will those organizing football, hockey, basketball, concerts and graduations and the like want a virus-free environment? The only way to ensure that is through record of vaccination. So is someone who isn’t vaccinated precluded from attending?

Consider it at the individual level. If you are making a reservation with friends at your favourite restaurant, surely you are entitled to ask if the restaurant has restrictions for unvaccinated patrons. Even though you are protected, you could still carry the virus and pass it to unprotected people, such as your unvaccinated parents, friends and kids. 

Consider small to medium-sized businesses, already struggling through pandemic restrictions. At some, vaccinated patrons may demand proof of safe passage. If five per cent of the business’s customers refuse vaccination, will the business have to write off their business? Can they afford to do that given the financial pressure they are already under?

It’s headache-inducing. If everyone who can safely be vaccinated is, the problem will be dramatically reduced. But we know that isn’t likely to happen, that even with vaccine hesitancy reduced, a percentage of the population will stubbornly refuse. How the rest of us relate and interact with those people poses new and thorny challenges. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Friday July 17, 2015

Friday July 17, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 17, 2015

Pan Am Games: 4 members of Cuban rowing team defect to U.S., coach say

Four Cuban rowers have defected to the U.S. during the Pan Am Games, according to the team’s coach, a move one agent says is likely due to economic conditions inside Cuba.

Coach Juan Carlos Reyes says Leosmel Ramos, Wilber Turro, Manuel Suarez and Orlando Sotolongo have left the team and travelled to the United States. There are more than 150 Cuban athletes at the Pan Am Games, competing in a range of sports.

Thursday December 18, 2014The Games rowing venue in St. Catharines, Ont., is only a few kilometres from the U.S. border.

Reyes says Ramos and Turro dropped out before the regatta began on Saturday while Suarez and Sotolongo were in earlier races and then withdrew. Sotolongo won a silver medal at the Games and made a Facebook post about his love for Cuba shortly before leaving the team.

Pan Am Guide | by Graeme MacKayHe said they have been in touch with teammates through Facebook.

Two Cuban baseball players, Luis Yander La O and Yadiel Hernandez, previously defected during a tune-up competition in North Carolina the week before the Games.

Joe Kehoskie, a U.S.-based agent who has represented several Cuban baseball players, said the defections are likely driven by the economic conditions inside Cuba rather than the chance to pursue a sports career in the U.S.

While the U.S. is in the process of normalizing relations with Cuba, including a recent agreement to reopen embassies, Kehoskie said many Cubans are more concerned with leaving the island now than ever. That’s because, he said, the U.S. may end its “wet foot/dry foot” policy, which allows any Cuban who steps foot on U.S. soil to remain in the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to keep the policy earlier this year. The Cuban government opposes it, saying the policy promotes illegal immigration and human trafficking.(Source: CBC News)

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Tuesday, April 23, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Anger over proposed fee for Canadians entering U.S.

A proposal to charge travellers a fee for entering the U.S. by land has sparked anger in both countries, with opponents citing fears it will hinder border crossings and hurt the economy.

The proposal to study the new fee is included in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s 2014 budget.

In its proposal, the department urges a study examining the effect of collecting a crossing fee for both pedestrians and passenger vehicles along the Canadian and Mexican borders. Proponents say the fee is being considered as a way to cover increasing security costs.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson explained the study to reporters on Monday.

“There’s a proposal for some money for a study. We’ll wait to see what happens,” he said.

But opponents of the proposed fee already lashed out against it on Monday, saying it will complicate trade between the U.S. and Canada. It is estimated that nearly $1.6 billion in trade takes place every day along the U.S.-Canada border.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it would “vigorously lobby” against the proposal. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce called the fee a “serious mistake” and promised to fight it.
Chamber President Perrin Beatty told CTV News Channel the proposed fee unfairly punishes travellers. “The decision they’ve made is to study sticking it to the beleaguered traveller one more time,” Beatty said.

He said that if the fee is being used to cover security costs, it should be paid from general tax revenue and not charged to travellers. (Source: CTV News)