[BRIEF NOTE] Americanada, not North America

[rfmcdonald]

What I called Canamerica, The globe and Mail's American affairs columnist John Ibbitson calls Americanada. Dismissing fears that closer integration would threaten Canadian identity, he calls for thorough military and economic integration.

Offering to move from co-operation to integration on security would afford Canada the opportunity to ask for the same on the economy. As the final tranche of this comprehensive continental agreement, Canada should propose a customs union.

This would be the biggest, boldest move Canada could make: a joint tariff, based on bilateral consent, that would allow both countries to erase the border completely, permitting the free flow of goods, services and people between our two countries, no passport or work visa required — a freedom those in the European Union already enjoy. As part of the union, both countries would drop all remaining protections in agriculture, cultural industries and financial services. After all, our supply management boards are anachronisms, promoting inefficient farming and expensive milk in the nostalgic desire to preserve family farms that mostly no longer exist.

If there's no passport union, though, or none without significant changes to Canadian immigration policy, he's against it. Also, he's against including Mexico.

If I'm wrong, if the Americans would not agree to any further substantial easing of the border without significant restrictions on Canadian immigration, then Canada should walk away from the discussions. The only thing more important than promoting increased access to American markets is preserving Canada's robust multicultural identity. That identity is based on the world's most enlightened immigration policy, which encourages more people to move to our country, per capita, than any other nation, and which ensures that they come from all parts of the world, preventing the emergence of a race-based underclass such as the United States already created through slavery and is recreating through Latino immigration and which Europe is duplicating by allowing the vast majority of its immigrants to come from former colonies, which in many cases means northern Africa and the Middle East. Immigration is who we are. It is our future. It is the one thing we must never bargain away.

For the foreseeable future, any conversations we have with the United States over the border should not include Mexico. In this respect, NAFTA may actually have harmed the Canada-U.S. relationship. Every time Canada brings a border proposal to the United States, the Americans shake their head. "We'd be interested," they say, "but if we did it for you, we'd have to do it for the Mexicans." The truth is, Canada and the United States are developed nations, winners in the global lottery of wealth. Mexico, sadly, is not.

As the frightening violence surrounding the drug cartels illustrates, the country is still far distant from becoming a modern, liberal democracy with a developed economy and adherence to the rule of law. Canada and the United States need to talk about the problems at our border.

Can my American readers tell me--and us--how they'd react to a tight union of the United States and Canada, exclusive of Mexico, on these terms?