US Ambassador calls for better border practices
Posted Jun 8, 2011 6:20 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The U.S. ambassador to Canada says there’s no reason the 49th parallel can’t be more secure as well as more free-flowing for people and trade at the same time.
David Jacobson made those remarks today at a luncheon in downtown Calgary.
The task for both federal governments over the next few years, according to U.S. Ambassador Jacobson, is to combine intelligence and have a smart strategy for bringing in criminals and terrorists, while making life easier for everyone else.
“We want to spend more time doing the things that are actually going to yield results and less time inspecting my grandmother,” he says. “If we have a truckload of goods and we inspect it fifty miles away from the border and it proceeds to the border sealed, when it gets to the border, which is a place that’s a bottleneck, it’s going to be able to go through much more quickly than if the truck has to be inspected at the border.”
The ambassador says according to the numbers he has, 87 per cent of Canadians support a more integrated border.
He says while it’s still to early to tell which border measures will need congressional approval on the American end, he’s confident Congress will be cooperative, provided the legislation is well thought out.
