Victor Konrad - Beyond Walls: Re-inventing the Canada-United States Borderlands

Re-inventing the Canada-United States Borderlands

VICTOR KONRAD
Carleton University, Canada

HEATHER N. NICOL
Trent University, Canada

First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Victor Konrad and Heather N. Nicol 2008

Victor Konrad and Heather N. Nicol have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Konrad, Victor A.
Beyond walls: re-inventing the Canada-United States
borderlands. - (Border regions series)
1. Border security - United States 2. Border security
Canada 3. National security - United States 4. National
security - Canada 5. United States - Relations - Canada
6. Canada - Relations - United States 7. United States
Boundaries - Canada 8. Canada - Boundaries - United States
I. Title II. Nicol, Heather N. (Heather Nora), 1953
327.73071

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Konrad, Victor A.
Beyond walls : re-inventing the Canada-United States borderlands / by Victor Konrad and Heather Nicol.
p. cm. -- (Border regions series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7202-9
1. United States--Relations--Canada. 2. C anada--Relations--United States.
3. Borderlands--United States. 4. Borderlands--Canada. 5. Border security--United States. 6. Border
security--Canada. 7. National security--United States. 8. National security--Canada. 9. Terrorism-
Prevention--Government policy--United States. 10. Terrorism--Prevention--Government policy-
Canada. 11. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001--Influence.
I. Nicol, Heather N. (Heather Nora), 1953- II. Title.

E183.8.C2K66 2008
303.48273071--dc22
2008007604

ISBN 9780754672029 (hbk)

For Aili, Joel, and Laurianne

For Rupert, James, Jessica, Daphne, William, Cedric and Hillery

Almost two years ago we decided to write a comprehensive book about the border between Canada and the United States of America. The border was gaining attention and becoming apparent to many more Americans and most Canadians. The decisions of governments in both countries brought about new measures to combat terrorism, regulate trade, anticipate emergencies and control border crossing. Initially, these measures produced a noticeable change in how the border worked, and ultimately they may have a fundamental impact on how Canadians and Americans interact with each other. These were compelling reasons to explore what was happening at the Canada-U.S. border.

Yet, there were more specific reasons and some very large issues that intrigued us, and the growing number of scholars, policymakers and observers who have acknowledged and examined the changes at the border. We have not addressed all of these questions in our book but we have tried to be both comprehensive and detailed in our approach to the major issues before us at the border. In late 2007, as we complete our writing, border security remains a major concern for Americans, but measures to control the movement of people across the boundary are slow in evolving. New identity requirements for Americans as well as foreign citizens, including Canadians, have drawn new lines and emphasized others between peoples in North America and around the world, at the same time that globalization trends have erased other lines between us. North American companies have urged governments to align trade and security imperatives and create a new order of cross-border trade corridors. But the sustained viability of the North American prosperity partnership remains uncertain fully six years after the events of 9/11. The re-bordering of America has had a massive price-tag but its potential impacts on the lives of Americans, and certainly Canadians, remains to be examined and more fully understood. These human dimensions, the impacts of re-bordering on the people in Canada and in the United States, and particularly those who live in the borderlands, is a major concern of this book. What is the new security border doing to the borderlands culture which has evolved over centuries between the United States and Canada?

In the 1960s Canadians recognized that they enjoyed a special relationship with Americans, and that this relationship was articulated at the border between them. Canadian writer and editor Bruce Hutchinson expressed this sentiment well in his book The Long Border, published in 1966:

The border between the United States and Canadais the most friendly and least visible line of international power in the world. It is crossed daily by thousands of travelers who hardly notice it in their passage. It is washed by a Niagara of congenial oratory and illuminated, or sometimes obscured, by a perpetual diplomatic dialogue. On both sides the border is taken as a fact of nature, almost an act of God, which no man thinks of changing.

The border has changed, most prominently in recent years of the 21st century. The boundary itself is more visible. Security has become an imperative. American power and hegemony appear to be cascading up to and over the boundary. Daily cross-border movements of people now number in the hundreds of thousands. The diplomatic dialogue continues, but Canadians acknowledge that, more and more, Americans are setting the agenda on security, immigration and border dynamics. The border no longer appears to be a fact of nature but a construct of a strong willed and single minded U.S. administration. Is God on their side?