U.S. Border Paranoia Continues

Homeland Secretary Says Canada Border Should Be Treated At Par With Mexican Border

OK, don’t hold your breath any more. It looks like the Obama Democrats won’t change much, or anything at all, when it comes to the US- Canada border. Or it may even be worse than before…

It was reported by Travel Press Today, that Janet Napolitano, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, said yesterday at a Canada-US Border Conference: ``One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border,'' she said.  

Mariachis, generous cleavage and cheap tequila in White Rock? I just can’t wait. (For those unfamiliar with the border, White Rock is the border community on the Canadian side of the border, the Canadian Tijuana, if you will)

She said ``We shouldn't go light on one and heavy on the other,'' of the Canadian and Mexican borders.

``This is one NAFTA, one area, one continent, and there should be parity there. I don't mention this to suggest that everyone in this room will agree with that, I mention it to suggest it's something I have to deal with, and so I ask for your sympathy.''

I just love Americans’ sense of fairness and equality. I’ve always wanted parity with Mexicans when it comes to sexy talk. I think I’ll grow back my mustache.

Her comments came after she testified at U.S. Senate hearings into growing drug violence at the US Mexican border that's prompted President Barack Obama to send more than 500 federal agents to border posts and the Mexican interior.
 
The United States is concerned that drug wars that killed 6,000 people in Mexico last year will spill across the border. Mexico says that American guns are fuelling the violence.

Don't they have any AK-47's from Russia?

Napolitano told the hearing it would probably take weeks to complete a contingency plan for sending US National Guard troops to border areas.

She later had a sobering message for Canadians hopeful that, under Obama, there would be freer movement of goods and people across a Canada-US border that looks almost Utopian compared to the chaos at the American-Mexican boundary: it's a real border and things aren't easing up anytime soon.

``It's as though there's not a border at all,'' Napolitano said of the close relationship between the two countries, particularly among those living in border communities.

``People are used to going back and forth, and the hockey teams go back and forth ... people just don't think of it as two different countries. But the reality exists that there's a border there too.'' Another hockey mom dedicated to save Americans from the bad guys!

She said there would be no further delay of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative despite a Democratic congresswoman's remarks to the conference earlier in the day that neither the United States nor Canada was prepared to make the June deadline.

``We are prepared to go forward in June,'' she said.

``There is a lot of concern on both sides of the border...are we really ready?'' she acknowledged.

The last phase of WHTI has been delayed several times. As of June 1, adults entering the United States from Canada, the Caribbean, Bermuda or Mexico will be required to present a passport.

Napolitano said to delay the initiation date again would send the wrong message to both Canadians and Americans that neither country is serious about getting the program up and running, and so she's determined it will go forward on June 1.

``We're exploring what we can do with Canada to publicize that this deadline is coming; it is real. And it really goes to that change of culture - there is a sense in some places that we've always gone back and forth, why do I need to get a passport, and we're going to get some of that,'' she said.

 ``But it is a real border and we need to address it as a real border.''

In case you haven’t seen it yet, there’s now a new checkpoint when going northbound on the I-5 at the Blaine crossing just before you leave the U.S. It is is manned by green-bereted armed troops that search your car and ask questions about what you are taking out of the United States. Or was the beret purple, I’m not sure, I might have been colour-blinded by the unexpected goodbye reception under incandescent light.  Somebody must have tipped them off about my $5.99 bottle of Columbia Crest, I thought, and shuddered at the price tag in Vancouver. “I swear I’m not smuggling out any Mexicans, just cheap feta cheese from Costco and a bottle of wine” I said, and begged the green berets to rescue us from the Dairy Control Board and the Liquor Control Board north of the border.

No, just joking. Even the green or purple berets can’t do that.