Originally posted by Enfield:
[qb]Well, it‘s official lads. Were now an American Protectorate. Our troops are US Army Auxilaries, and now our borders are guarded by US Customs. Maybe we should start a letter campaign so that we at least get statehood.
(interesting but misleading CBC article snipped....)[/qb]
As a Canadian customs officer, I can say this neither surprises me, nor threatens my country‘s sovereignty, in my opinion.
U.S. customs officers have been working in Canada for a number of years at major airports, including Toronto., performing "pre-screening". Although they do not carry weapons and have no legal authority, they CAN prevent unwanted persons from boarding their flight if they do not wish to comply with search or document requests. The program is and has been very successful in keeping undesireables and contraband out of the U.S. and far from removing U.S. customs from Canadian airports, we should be looking at having our own customs present in THEIR airports.
Seaports, it can be argued, are no different than airports. A certain volume of sea cargo entering Canada is ultimately destined for the United States. Performing customs clearance here in Canada can allow the goods to enter the U.S. market more rapidly. Likewise, Canada Customs preclearing cargo in U.S. ports can allow goods being transshipped to Canada to clear more quickly.
Sea shipments originating in Canada will benefit not only from export checks by us, but from import checks by them.
Provided they only check containers destined for the U.S., there is no reason why they can‘t operate here. It is misleading to think they will be checking shipments on first arrival into Canada, because the CCRA is very adamant about privacy concerns and non-interference from foreign agencies.
As a customs officer, for example, I couldn‘t even communicate the fact that a shipment had arrived to a U.S. customs officer without violating the Customs Act, section 107, prohibition on disclosure of information to a third party. This has to be done at the "intelligence and targeting" level, and then only with a proper MOU.
While I find the fact that our army must be ferried on rented conveyances to execute a war in a far off land, I can honestly find no problem with allowing foreign customs access to our ports to conduct their own checks of shipments going to their countries.
We did it for years in Germany. If the CCRA had the money to spend (and they do, they just don‘t want to admit it), we would already be doing pre-clearance in U.S. airports, and I would be writing this email from Dallas-Ft.Worth, Miami or Atlanta, three large hubs of air traffic to Canada, all of which are very nice and warm year round!