The Federal Budget and Smart Border Declaration: A Good First Step to Balancing Security and Trade

To some, the measures dealing with security and trade at the border may appear to be a hasty response to September 11, 2001. The reality is that, as more and more trade moves between Canada and the United States, the way security risks are assessed while ensuring a fluid flow of people and goods across the border has needed significant overhauling for several years.

Document Highlights 

Needed changes were relegated to the policy backburner because there was little political will to overcome two important obstacles:

1. the bureaucratic obstacle of jurisdictional differences between the many departments and agencies responsible for border security, immigration, transportation, security intelligence and policing; and
2. the political obstacle raised by Canadian economic nationalists who lament that any co-ordination with the United States is tantamount to giving away Canada’s sovereignty.

This publication looks at:

• the federal budget;
• border security and facilitation;
• border intrastructure;
• smart border declaration—the people, goods, infrastructure and co-ordinated intelligence and enforcement; and
• the way forward.