It was pretty inevitable when you think about it.
Amidst U.S. President Donald Trump’s holding his breath in order to get $5.7-billion for a border wall along the Mexican border, comes a call to look at the border with Canada.
Rep. Lou Correa, a California Democrat, is calling the U.S./Canada border “porous” and saying the house national security committee should be looking at it.
He’s right, of course. A quick glance at an aerial photo shows what probably adds up to thousands of miles where a person could just walk straight across. But, these areas are usually pretty remote, with not much on either side someone would want to get to — if you’re smuggling drugs, it makes for a long hike to and from anyplace you could sell your product.
Better to build a tunnel from one side to the other for your smuggling, like an enterprising group tried in Langley in 2005, and Mexican groups continue to build. A wall just isn’t going to have much effect when you’re going Bugs Bunny right under it.
Interestingly, many of those aerial views clearly show “the slash,” a roughly 10-metre wide no-touching zone maintained by both countries so no one can say they didn’t know they were illegally entering the other country. But the slash is intended as more of a symbol, rather than an actual barrier to crossing the not-so-invisible line.
But the real reason this is, or was, the longest undefended border in the world is that both countries have so much in common — economies, security, trade and more — that working together made more sense than building barriers.
Of course, common sense, at least on the political scene, is in short supply south of the border, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are, as it is inscribed on the Peace Arch, “children of a common mother.”
– Black Press
