The Passport Kerfuffle
Can someone explain to me what the big deal is with acquiring a personal passport before travelling to the United States? I understand there are economic concerns about increased border vigilance by the United States, but lets be realistic. The United States is a sovereign country with border security concerns (however illegitimate.) They are well within their rights to ask for a passport when entering that country from another. Canadians have (rightly) rejected deep integration of North America, so we have to live with the reality of sovereignty. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass, but for majority of Canadians travelling to the United States is not a necessity, nor a daily activity.
I’ve always thought that if you can afford a passport you should get one. You never know when something is going to come up.
The problem is that Canadian tourism is going to take a real serious hit as too are border towns when the land crossing rules come into place.
Most Americans don’t have passports, in fact 75% don’t have one.
It’s not cheap to get a passport for Americans and I really think places like Banff, Whistler, Toronto and Niagara are going to see a big dip in visitors once the land crossing regulations come into place.
Most Americans won’t leave the United States in their lives and if they have to get a passport to go north to Canada I have a feeling they’ll just say “nahhh.”
The ones who travel Europe likely already have proper documentation so they have nothing to worry about.
Comment by Darren McEwen — March 4, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
I have to agree - it’s not a big deal to need a passport to enter a foreign country. In other parts of the world it’s a given, I suppose we’ve just gotten so used to not having a real border that it’s still a shock. What would be nice is if our passport offices had more locations and more staff - as reasonable as needing a passport is, it still sucks to stand in a line outside for 6 hours because yours has expired and you’re going to Texas later this month
Comment by D. Burnie — March 4, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
the problem is that our gov’t is sooo fucking inept that it didn’t anticipate greater numbers of canadians applying for passports because of this and it now takes two fucking months to get a passport.
Comment by canuckistanian — March 4, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
You know I always wonder at comments like this. The Federal bureacracy is pretty fucking big… not because of the fact that it is a government operation but because it is a huge one that has a very complicated set of functions.
Being able to plan ahead is one thing, and developing a plan that effects an entire bureaucracy based on a probability is quite another. Unless you can demonstrate an actual incidence of incompetence, you should perhaps cut the Ministry some slack.
Comment by Joseph — March 4, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
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Pingback by Canada’s Debate » 2007 » March » 04 — March 4, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
or, maybe i’m inept for not getting a passport months ago before this mad-rush caused by the yanks. nah, i prefer to scapegoat faceless bureaucrats in ottawa who have nothing to do all week but order office supplies and browse the net…frickin goobers!
Comment by canuckistanian — March 4, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
I’m just glad you didn’t use the word boondoggle in the title.
Comment by Ted — March 5, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
But seriously, although Europe has decades of practice in moving between borders and owning passports, they have always had easier movement. Even before the EU and the euro you could basically arrive in say Amsterdam and not see a customs officer all the way to Portugal.
When I think about going to the States, despite having had a passport for 10 years, I know it’s going to be an ordeal. Just two months ago I went to Seattle and faced 15 minutes of questioning by some officer who just wanted to be difficult. I didn’t have a return ticket back to Canada yet, but so what, lots of people don’t or can’t make concrete plans like that. And in Europe, they are much more flexible, and we’re talking about over a dozen countries.
Here, two countries can’t trust each other and live in a state of paranoia and rhetoric. That’s all part of huge overarching issues of our culture and discourse, but one way it is strongly manifested is at the border.
So to hell with it, I’m not going to bother going to the States unless I have a really good reason to go. And I’m a traveller. Who’s really going to want to go to the outlet mall in Niagara Falls or on a weekend fishing trip in Minnesota? It ain’t worth it.
Comment by Ted — March 5, 2007 @ 10:20 pm