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Report urges greater US-Canada container security co-operation
POSTED: 8:41 a.m. EDT, May 29,2007
Reaching an agreement on shared border security is the best way for Canada to maintain an open border with the United States and safeguard trade, says a new study published by the Fraser Institute, a national think tank based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Alexander Moens, author of the report and a senior fellow with the institute's Centre for Canadian American Relations, recommended a treaty to create a secure border permitting the free flow of trade and people including a customs union to remove differential external tariffs and costs associated with certificates of origin and whether products qualify for tariff-free shipment.
Dr Moens approach was echoed a few days later when Canada's Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier told a meeting of Toronto's Economic Club that "there's een a huge amount of good work but the amount of economic traffic is just enormous. To be fully aware of all that is a continuing challenge, there is no question."
Gen Hillier said the secure tracking and co-ordination of thousands of ships approaching Canada's coasts requires immense co-operation with the United States.
"There are quite literally tens of thousands of containers every single day going towards those ports," he said. "You want to be synchronized in how they're all tracked." |
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