Some of the protesters for the Bush/Clinton visit to downtown Toronto on Friday. Photo from The Globe and Mail.
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were the featured guests of a non-debate at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Front Street on Friday, literally in the shadow of the CN Tower in downtown Toronto. The event was supposed to be an insight at the two men who had lived in the White House for the last 16 years. We didn't learn much about what they did know, but we did learn a kernel of what they didn't know.
The issue was new rules for crossing the border, requiring Canadians to present passports to enter the United States (and vice versa).
From Ian Brown's story in The Globe and Mail:
But when Mr. Bush claimed total ignorance of the problem, there were gasps from the audience. "It's an hour and a half wait at the border," a man hissed in the middle of the room.
"We had the EZ Pass cards," Mr. Bush said, holding up his hands. "I don't know what happened to the project. I'll be frank with you, Frank" — the audience laughed — "I don't know anything about the passport issue."
Mr. Clinton admitted the stickiness of the U.S. border was news to him too. "I told Frank the other day, I don't know anything about this, when he mentioned it."
The last stages of the transition toward virtually absolute passport requirements finally kicks in Monday, long after Bush and Clinton went back to the States.
Reports from the major U.S. media sources never even addressed this issue, including The New York Times, The Washington Post (actually a Bloomberg News story, sad given that the paper was the last major daily to have a reporter in Canada), and Reuters.
Clinton does get somewhat the benefit of the doubt, even though his wife is Secretary of State. But Bush's ignorance — politics aside — is more disturbing. The extreme shift in border security not only happened on Bush's watch, but also his administration worked very hard to implement these actions, and put harsh pressure on then Prime Minister Jean Chretien (and his successors, Paul Martin, and current PM Stephen Harper) to crack down. The false allegations that somehow 9/11 attackers made their way from Canada seemed to be used to make significant changes in travel policy between the two countries.
And in case you might think we are making this about one particular party, current Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano hasn't let up on the hysteria on U.S.-Canada security. Though Napolitano did apologize for repeating the false 9/11 allegations.
This isn't just about travelers from Canada to the United States and vice versa. Costs of wait times at the border slow down commerce on both sides, something that has taken a big hit over the last eight years. The fact that Bush says he didn't know what was going on is depressing because a) he signed off on this, and b) he should know for what he was signing.
And given that this trip was Bush's second to Canada in the last five months, which was about as many official trips as he made during his stay in the White House, if he is going to keep going back and forth, he should learn something about the others who are crossing the border.
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Posted by: Travel Passports | July 20, 2009 at 01:26 AM