Canadians worry about restrictions

TORONTO – Every 4.7 seconds, on average, a cargo truck rumbles across the border from Canada to the United States. More than 6,000 passenger cars cross to the United States every hour. Inspectors on both sides wave through nearly 70 million visitors a year.

Officials in both countries fear that President Bush’s tough new measures on the Mexican border will increase calls for tighter restrictions on movement over the bridges and highways leading in and out of Canada. Canadian officials already are trying to fight a U.S. plan to require a passport or a new identity card for travelers at the land border by Jan. 1, 2008.

“We all recognize the border is important, and security is the number one issue. But we don’t want the border to become an obstacle to trade and mobility,” Jean Charest, the premier of Quebec, said Monday in an interview from Montreal.

Charest met with New England governors and the officials of four other Canadian provinces Friday to propose a delay in the U.S. rules. U.S. and Canadian citizens do not now need a passport, and most of the vehicles that pass through the 130 entry points along the border go through with a wave or cursory stop.

“The daily story of our respective countries is the hockey teams that cross the borders every day, trade that goes on, people who shop on the other side,” Charest said. “This is going to affect a lot of people.”

While illegal immigration is the focus at the Mexican border, U.S. Homeland Security officials have complained that the largely unguarded Canadian border, stretching more than 5,000 miles across land and water, provides easy entry for terrorists and drug dealers. Canadians say guns and criminals flow north.

As calls for increased security on the Mexican border have increased, the Bush administration has talked about increasing electronic surveillance, adding border guards and toughening entry requirements at the Canadian border.

“We are concerned that you don’t have a one-size-fits-all policy. The challenges on the southern border are completely different than the northern border,” said Scotty Greenwood, executive director of the Canadian American Business Council in Washington.

In Niagara Falls, Ontario, Doreen Wilson, director of sales for White Glove Tour and Reception, said she already has received cancellations from tourists worried about the new passport requirements, even though the rules do not take effect until next January for air travelers and Jan. 1, 2008, for travelers by land.