In April this year, Canada lost another opportunity to work with our American neighbours to enhance border security and take a step towards improving cross-border trade.

A pilot project envisaged in the 2004 Canada-U.S. Shared Border Management Program to have a joint Canada-U.S. border facility on the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge between Ontario and New York fell apart when Canadian officials could not agree on a U.S. demand to fingerprint travelers turned back at the border.

The Canadian side, led by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, argued that fingerprinting Canadians not charged with a crime is illegal in Canada. While the Canadian officials appear constrained by Canadian law, the American side is unlikely to compromise on security.

This breakdown of negotiations emphasizes once again, how U.S. concerns about border security can negatively affect Canada’s economic relationship with our largest trading partner and clearly underlines the urgent need to initiate harmonized Canadian-U.S. biometric checks and protocols at the border.

If the U.S. government requires its own citizens returning home to show a pass card that includes biometric data, on what reasonable ground can we claim exemption? The Canadian government should require Canadians traveling to the United States to meet U.S. security criteria. If the U.S. has doubts about our security policies, we should try to overcome these by proving that our security provisions are as good as, or better, than those in the U.S. A large amount of our merchandise trade depends on it.

More than 80 per cent of all Canadian merchandise exports go to the United States and more than 70 per cent of all these shipments are made by truck crossings. Delays at the border caused by congestion have been a problem for many years. However, the added security checks after 9/11 have created a new barrier to trade.

Several recent studies point out how dependent Canadian trade is on a streamlined border. A 2002 KPMG study found that southbound truckers experienced a 20 per cent increase in waiting times between 2001 and 2002. An Ontario Chamber of Commerce study and a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Transportation found steeply rising costs across the board. Trucks are idling, sometimes for hours. Paperwork is increasingly complicated. Firms that depend on just-in-time delivery are forced to switch to more inventory. Trade is diversified as American firms cannot rely on dependable Canadian deliveries. Even investment patterns are affected as foreign firms decide to invest in the U.S. rather than invest in Canada and face an uncertain border.

These studies estimated the cost of the border before the 9/11 security clamp down to be more than $13 billion, or nearly three per cent of the value of two-way merchandise trade. A Transport Canada study in 2004 found that the cost of border processing and waiting was four per cent of the Canadian trucking industry revenue.

Can Canadian and U.S. industry really afford to spend three to four per cent of overall trade value on differing security regimes? If this current trend at our border continues, it will result in a significantly negative impact on North American competitiveness in an increasingly global production processes.

Recognizing this challenge, the Canadian and American governments have been working together on a Smart Border Plan since 2001. A key component of this plan is to pre-clear low security border crossings for both people and commercial vehicles. Programs to speed up personal travel, such as NEXUS and commercial crossings such as FAST, are based on Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. But studies show these programs still have a small enrolment and are not yet able to reduce border congestion.

The Peace Bridge pilot project would have combined and integrated border checks by both countries and thus sped up processing. Rather than losing this vital opportunity, Canada needs to move to even more joint border and security perimeter management. To do so, we must raise our security checks to the U.S. level and find a single-harmonized set of security criteria for personal and commercial border crossings. Such an approach will save money, increase trade, and enhance security for both countries.