There's a reason God put that border there. Let me tell you some stories…
But first, let me show you something from Hansard:
Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham–Kent Essex, Lib.): Canada and the United States share some 8,800 kilometres of border. In Canada we employ more inspectors and people at the border than our U.S. counterparts. Canada has 350 citizenship and immigration inspectors and 2,400 customs inspectors while the United States at the same time has approximately 1,500 in total.
Many statements have been made by politicians in Canada and in the United States that Canada is a haven for terrorism. That is absolutely not true. Let us look at terrorism and what happened tragically on September 11. Canadians did not go into the United States and create that danger. However we have to look very carefully at border operations between Canada and the United States. Certainly some changes need to occur.
Senior bureaucrats in the United States have commented that most of the western border crossings do not operate on a 24 hour basis. They were talking about North Dakota. Three out of fifteen border crossings operate on a 24 hour a day system. That means the other 12 only operate from 9 until 5. The only thing that stops anybody from crossing the border is a red cone in the middle of the road. That is not the protection we expect between Canada and the United States.
And that, my friends, is not the shadowy, threatening implication the Americans are trying to make, but it is nonetheless shadowy, threatening, and implied.
Americans could be sneaking across the border into Canada!
In fact, they are. They've been doing it for as long as the US has had wars. Nelson's packed to the rafters with ex-American military types, not to mention draft dodgers who simply avoided the whole thing. Unlike Cheney, they couldn't come up with five consecutive deferments.
But things are different now. Since 9/11 some of the people in
North Dakota have gotten a mite worried about those wild-eyed Arab hordes who could come sweeping down from Manitoba at any moment. I hear bison can go without food or water for up to three hours at a time! It's getting them into a trot that's the problem.
Anyway, it just so happened that some of these anxious American folks lived not too far from a border crossing, one of those mentioned above that is open from 9-5 and closed the rest of the time. It's guarded by the very latest in red traffic cone technology, and it was this fact which the Yanks found somewhat nervous-making, fearing above-mentioned Canuckistan Terrorist invasion. They demanded change.
They got it.
The Canadians took action immediately, responding with alacrity to the pleas of their neighbors and allies to the South. Security at that border checkpoint has now doubled. Yep.
Two red cones.
Now let me tell you another story.
Did you hear about the militiamen who have taken it upon themselves to drop the rebuilding of Biloxi and New Orleans, to quit their volunteering with the Red Cross, to tell the peacekeepers in Africa to talk to the hand. These suburban Pa-in-laws and Jethros have asserted their right to bear arms as part of a militia. Now, you and I know it goes on to read "against the British" but let's not get too fussy. It's bad manners to correct a gun-toting Texan, or at least it's bad thinkin'.
So they got them some hot militia action. And what are they doing as part of said militia? They're guarding the border with Mexico, that's what they're doing. Because it was that or go to Iraq, right? So when Pancho looks across the Rio Grande, he can see row upon row of middle-aged men with beer guts and golf shirts and thirty-aught-sixes and know the meaning of fear.
But lo, the patriotism of the suburban battallions knows no bounds.
For lo, they have come north. That's right people; armed and patriotic hobbyists from Middle America are currently patrolling the BC border, keeping a keen eye out for any caribou-jockey invasions coming down from the rugged steppes of Whalley. The Mounties, not insensible to the potential for fireworks, asked them whether they truly intended to shoot anyone they caught crossing the border from Canada to the US; they replied It is far easier to make war than peace, I mean Yew Betcha! or words to that effect.
Not many more weeks later, one of the militiamen shot himself slightly, accidental-like. Nothing life-threatening, but a bullet is a bullet and probably good for a purple heart, but you need the doc to sign for it. The nearest hospital to the bushwhacking warrior was in White Rock, BC.
He was turned back at the border for not having papers.
Don't keep it to yourself!
Sigh. I was a charter member of the George Stephanopoulos Fan Club, a contributor to the Stephanopouletter and once actually spoke to him, the man himself, Icon for a Generation George Stephanopoulos at the Vancouver Summit. He was there representing the democratic ideals of good government, peace and justice; I was there representing Starbucks.
I am absolutely fucking hysterically giddy and a half to report that now, after two years of developer-based interference, you can finally skate all the way from the Main Street Viaduct to Stanley Park continuously, without any stupid detours for construction or stairs or elevators, or trying to sneak through the bridgeway from the Seabus because, face it, they have cameras and loudspeakers and they live to make you look like an ass for trying to sneak through that goddam bridgeway that your own tax dollars paid for in the first place.
Don't say I never did nuthin' for ya! This is the only place on the whole of the World Wide Web you'll find that super-seecrud seekrit.
and sometimes outright repellent.
raincoaster 