Study

August 15, 2012 | EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.

Measuring the Costs of the Canada-US Border

Key findings

After ten years of post-9/11 border innovations, the costs associated with border crossing have not significantly decreased while government spending on border security has markedly increased. In order to develop performance-based and cost-effective border management policies, an outline of costs associated with the border is required.
After adding up the lowest values from the estimated ranges for all three types of costs (trade, tourism/travel, and government programs), we find an annual cost of C$19.1 billion in 2010 or nearly 1.5% of Canadas GDP.
Canadian and American governments should provide detailed descriptions of costs and expenditures for specific border programs and new security measures. Furthermore, these costs/expenditures must be linked to expected outcomes and timelines. Costs and Results based evaluations should be undertaken on a year-to-year basis, and subsequently made public.
In December 2011, the governments of Canada and the United States issued a joint declaration called Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness. While the vision provides specific benchmarks and timelines for measuring progress, it does not tie these guidelines to government expenditures, or reductions in border crossing costs. Either we will continue with incremental and uncoordinated programs, creating some improvements but not lowering the overall cost of the border, or we will begin to create a new border regime.

Download PDF

Alexander Moens

Professor of Political Science, Simon Fraser University

Alexander Moens is a professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and a former Senior Fellow in
American Policy at the Fraser Institute. He teaches American Foreign Policy and the Political and Security Relations between Europe and North America. He is the author of Foreign Policy Under Carter, Boulder : Westview Press, 1990, and most recently The Foreign Policy of George W. Bush: Values, Strategy, Loyalty (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, November 2004).His work on European Security includes Disconcerted Europe: The Search for a New Security Architecture (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994). Co-edited with Christopher Anstis; NATO and European Security: Alliance Politics from the Cold War's End to the Age of Terrorism (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2003), Co-edited with Lenard Cohen and Allen Sens; and Foreign Policy Realignment in the Age of Terror (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, 2003), Co-edited with Lenard Cohen and Brian Job.In 1992, Moens served in the Policy Planning Staff of Canada's Foreign Affairs Department and in the Spring of 1999 he was a visiting fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is also a researcher with the Council For Canadian Security in the 21st Century, and a Fellow of the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute.
… Read more Read Less…
Nachum Gabler

Nachum Gabler was a research assistant in the Centre for Canadian-American Relations at the Fraser Institute. He has an M.A. in economics from Boston University.