The following is excerpted from the 12 September 2011 edition of The Ottawa Citizen.

Last February Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama signed a joint declaration Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness. The declaration stated both countries intended to “pursue a perimeter approach to security” in order to “accelerate the legitimate flow of people, goods and services” and to do so in ways that would “support economic competitiveness, job creation, and prosperity.”

There was little public discussion of the ideas in the declaration at the time but in recent weeks there have been several supportive opinion pieces on the subject. For example, one former Canadian ambassador to the United States called it “the first, potentially major, bilateral initiative in more than two decades.”...

This release is available in its entirety on the Ottawa Citizen website at:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Canada+will+steep+price+border+talks/5386073/story.html

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