Home Border Cooperation Key Border Speeches Key Border Speeches Archives Deputy Prime Minister John Manley to the CAN-AM Border Trade Alliance in Ottawa

Deputy Prime Minister John Manley to the CAN-AM Border Trade Alliance in Ottawa

OTTAWA, Ontario
May 5, 2003

Thank you, Jim (Phillips). I am happy to meet once again with the CanAm Border Trade Alliance, as I did at this time last year.

Meeting with all of you is a priority for me because it is such an important progress check - and reality check - on the effectiveness of our Smart Border Agenda. You are my 'Dial 1-800-How Am I Doing?' focus group. US Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and I meet regularly to review progress. I hear from senior business leaders, like at the Canadian Council of Chief Executives conference in Washington last month.

But you are the ones who represent the daily reality of the Canada-US cross-border relationship - essentially the clients for the work that Tom and I have been leading over this past year and a half. So, as much as you are, no doubt, waiting with great anticipation - and hopefully a steady supply of coffee - to hear me speak to you this morning... I am interested in hearing from you, as well, on how we are doing to support your activities and interests. And so I propose to just offer some relatively brief comments on where we are, and where we are headed on the border agenda, and then would like to have an extended Q&A; with you.

This notion of a 'reality check' is important, especially in a relationship as large and complex as that between Canada and the United States. As I said in Washington last month, Canada and the US have had our 'bumps in the road'. These last couple of months we've had to navigate around a few potholes. And we'll probably hit a few more from time to time in the future. But we have not fallen off-track. Canada and the US are still moving forward and moving in the same direction.

My meetings last month with Tom Ridge, and with Treasury Secretary Snow, and with leading members of the Canadian and American business communities provided clear evidence of that.

I would also like to add how very pleased I am that Canada will be playing an important role with its American partners and with the international community in Iraq's reconstruction, including through a substantial humanitarian aid commitment and the deployment of police training resources, just as a starter.

I will say this to you, though : that Canada, as a country, cannot afford to be dismissive of rifts that may arise in our relationship with the US. Nor can they. But neither of us can afford to blow them out of proportion either. This said, I do believe that we both need to work harder to understand each other - something we may have too easily taken for granted in the past.

A major element in the success of our Smart Borders agenda has been its grounding in a sharp understanding of new realities. Namely that security and economic interest have to be addressed in tandem. And that our governments - and the different agencies and departments within our governments - should strive to work from one agenda where possible, so that our time is spent less on haggling over what we're going to talk about, and more on getting the job done.

That has been a principle of considerable importance to Tom and I. And I can tell you that our common check-list - colour-coded, of course, in red, yellow and green - now has an awful lot of checkmarks on it. It also has some new items for us to make progress in - such as the proposed entry-exit system and advance notification.

Let me take a few moments to review some of the main points of interest to you. I shall try not to go into excessive detail, as you will be hearing from Elinor Caplan and other federal Ministers, as well as a number of senior Canadian officials, who will cover a lot of this in more depth later on.

First - a few notes on NEXUS, the program for pre-approved, low-risk travellers. I was pleased to see NEXUS implemented at the Windsor/Detroit Tunnel on March 31, 2003. This brings to a total of seven ports where NEXUS is currently functioning. And it is still on schedule to be installed at the Queenston/Lewiston, Rainbow, and Whirlpool Bridges by June 2003 and at Lacolle/Champlain by this September.

I am also happy to report that Minister Caplan and US Customs Commissioner Bonner will be announcing today the expansion of NEXUS to two additional ports by September 2003. These are St. Armand -Phillipsburg, Québec and Highgate Springs, Vermont, and at the crossing at Coutts, Alberta and Sweetgrass, Montana.

To complement the secure facilitation of travellers, we created FAST, the program for pre-approved low-risk commercial traffic. FAST was implemented in record time, opening at the six major commercial ports of entry along the land border by December of last year. And we will expand FAST to 6 additional high-volume commercial crossings by December - again at the crossings at Coutts and St. Armand-Philipsburg; and at North Portal, Saskatchewan; Emerson, Manitoba; Lansdowne, Ontario; and Stanstead, Québec.

Our goal is to have FAST at every commercial crossing along the land border by 2005.

The expansion of FAST and NEXUS will go a long way to ensuring that our border remains secure and remains open for business. They also mark the end of a chapter in our efforts to build a Smart Border. With expedited clearance programs in place from coast to coast, we have institutionalized risk management as the guiding principle for border management.

I was also very pleased that my colleagues, Ministers Graham and Collenette, met with Ambassador Cellucci last Friday to formally bring the Air Transport Preclearance Agreement into force. The Agreement - which we've been working on since the outset of our Smart Border talks - outlines the framework under which the U.S. provides preclearance services at Canadian airports, and facilitates the flow of low-risk travellers between our two countries. Another important step forward.

We still have work to do to bring about a Smart Border, however. Lately we have turned our attention to the issue of keeping risk management in effect during periods of crisis.

When the U.S. increased its National Terrorism Alert Level in mid-March, we developed a joint contingency plan to deal with the impact. FAST and NEXUS remained open throughout. We also conducted outbound inspections to complement U.S. inbound inspections, created new channels of communication to coordinate reporting on delays and respond to problems as they arose, and developed a system to identify and facilitate the movement of FAST-approved trucks. While delays were considerable in a number of cases we were much better off than in the aftermath of September 11.

This issue was a central focus when I met with Secretary Ridge in early April. I showed him detailed graphs which explicitly identified the delays being faced at the various border crossings. We both recognized that, while the delays are much smaller than those caused by enhanced security measures following September 11, we need to do more. Both countries depend on cross-border trade and travel. We need to ensure that everything possible is being done to remove barriers to this vital flow of goods and people.

And this brings us to another issue that has significant potential to add to border delays and congestion - the U.S. Congressional mandate to implement entry-exit systems at all U.S. ports of entry by 2005. I don't doubt that most of you in this room are familiar with this subject, and are concerned about how entry-exit tracking will affect the border.

The media has reported several opinions about how this issue could be resolved. Certainly, it has always been our position that Canadian and U.S. citizens should be exempt from tracking. We were pleased to see that the Data Management Improvement Act Task Force Report to Congress in January 2003 recommended that the U.S. engage Canada in finding a solution to entry-exit implementation. I know that the CAN/AM BTA played a role in this work, and I want to take this opportunity to thank Jim and his group for their efforts.

One of the scenarios presented by the DMIA Task Force had Canadian officials providing the U.S. with exit data on third country nationals crossing the land border. These are all issues that are being explored by both Canada and the United States. On April 7, 2003, Secretary Ridge and I reaffirmed our commitment that entry-exit systems would not be allowed to impact negatively on the secure flow of legitimate goods and travellers.

The Smart Border is not just about the 30 points in the Action Plan. This is a dynamic process, which we use to address new issues as they come along. In addition to entry-exit, we have added also biosecurity, cooperation in science and technology, measures to coordinate driver registration programs, and others.

Now, let me lead off our Q&A; session by throwing out a few important questions at you.

As I have said, you are often the first ones to experience the impact of our Smart Border measures. What other new items do you think we should be addressing? What are the upcoming issues for you that you would like to see governments focussing on?

Another question: I just mentioned our response to heightened security alert levels in the United States. We did pretty well, but we could be better. What specific steps do you think we could take that would make a difference next time?

I'd welcome your views and counter-questions on these and any other issue.

Thank you.