28 May 2007

 

 

 

Balancing healthy nautical trade and tight security with our neighbour to the south is a complicated task, Canada's top soldier said yesterday….

 

He said the secure tracking and co-ordination of thousands of ships approaching Canada's coasts requires immense co-operation with the United States.

 

A Fraser Institute report released last week recommended a new security perimeter and border management strategy with the U.S., including pre-clearing of commercial trade and harmonized biometric checks on people.

 

Author Alexander Moens said in a release accompanying his report that Canada's Conservative government has recently moved to improve relations with the U.S., and could take advantage of this new window of economic opportunity.

 

He said Canada has an enormous stake in the free flow of trade and investment with the economic superpower, as the total value of trade with the U.S. in 2005 was $709-billion - about 51.8 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product.

 

Mr. Moens said contentious disputes on softwood lumber and mad-cow disease were allowed to fester and drag on primarily because Canada had no political capital with the White House - a situation that he said is changing.

 

"The U.S. agenda is fixated on Iraq and the 2008 race for the White House," he said. "But this preoccupation does not historically mean that the executive branch cannot be engaged on bilateral issues. ... The Canadian government should begin preparing the ground for big changes."

 

Noting the renewed North American air-defence system Canada shares with the United States, Gen. Hillier said the two countries now share the responsibility of protecting Canada's water-based trade.

 

"Halifax versus Boston versus New York Harbor - there are quite literally tens of thousands of containers every single day going towards those ports," he said. "You want to be synchronized in how they're all tracked."…