Canada blamed for drugs entering U.S. at borders

Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have formed a Northern Border Security Caucus focused on what it considers the underfinanced, largely unnoticed national security crisis taking place on the longest international border in the world.

They are particularly concerned about what they claim is a huge inflow of illegal drugs and immigrants into the U.S. from Canada.

While it is nice to have members of Congress notice Canada, the real political target of this new group is President Joe Biden and the problems associated with America’s southern border and their immigration concerns in general.

Unlike Canada, which is eager to attract immigrants, in the U.S. a large chunk of the Republican caucus is opposed to any immigration whatsoever. While supposedly a bi-partisan group, to date no Democrat has joined the 20-odd Republican members of the Northern Border Security Caucus.

If any nation has a legitimate concern about illegal activities on the CanadaU.S. border, it should be Canada. Being a country where guns outnumber the population, the U.S. it is the prime source of illegal hand guns coming into Canada.

Similarly with drugs, it appears that a sizeable flow of such drugs from countries to the south of the U.S. mainland flow through it into Canada without interdiction.

There is valid reason for the group’s concern about understaffing of the U.S. Border Patrol on the Canada-U.S. border, particularly on the border along the lower 48 states. The wilderness of the Alaska-Yukon frontier is really not a major security risk.

While some members of the House caucus have complained that Canada’s immigration regulations are less strict than those of the U.S., it is unlikely the caucus will try to change Canadian rules — unless, of course they want their government to adopt Canadian policies with resect to abortion and gun control.

While at least 60% of Americans support some form of gun control, particularly of automatic rifles and some form of legal abortion during the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, Congress has consistently failed to take instruction from the American electorate touching these issues.

The fact is that for Canada and the U.S., continuous dialog and co-operation is fundamental to avoiding unfortunate conflicts. We are closely linked financially, economically, culturally and politically. Our interactions are almost beyond enumeration, be it rivers crossing the border or the sharing of air space, weather and radio spectrum or integrated transportation systems.

The continent is defended by NORAD, the joint-operated air defence force that is about to undergo a more than $25 billion upgrade.

As Pierre Trudeau said, sharing the North American continent with the

U.S. is like sleeping with an elephant, even a friendly one: we can easily be unintentionally crushed. Both governments are aware of this, or at least the administrative arms of our respective governments are. Congress, perhaps, not so much.

There is no evidence that this interdependence is changing and we, as well as they, have to respond to concerns raised by the other country. We have managed to do this mostly successfully for more than a century-and-a-half and both countries are better for it. Indeed, this long-standing record of cooperation is one the hallmarks of our peaceful joint history.

I assume trust this will continue in the future.