Was Harper Really "Just Visiting" Washington?

Stephen Harper and Barack Obama are getting on suspiciously well on the border integration issue.

Last week in the Sun Media newspapers, L. Ian MacDonald predicted that Stephen Harper’s trip to Washington to sign a draft agreement on border harmonization with Barack Obama would go really well, and today in the Montreal Gazette he concludes that in hindsight he was absolutely correct.

The Ottawa Citizen’s editors aren’t as optimistic however, arguing that the ramifications of integrating the border aren’t known yet. “It is easy to see what Canada has to gain from a new border security agreement with the U.S. – plenty,” says the Citizen. “What is more difficult to see, at this stage, is what it might cost.” Harper hasn’t released much information about the negotiations so far, and Canadians fear that Ottawa will have to barter some of our sovereignty in exchange for a trade-friendly border. The Citizen finds particularly “ominous” the “draft agreement's references to sharing traveller information, given the history of the U.S. no-fly list.”

The Toronto Star’s Chantal Hébert believes that the border integration issue could soon trigger an election because the Liberals are divided by it and the NDP won’t support it at all. Questions about Canada relinquishing “more and more of its sovereignty just to maintain its existing advantages” and the spotty U.S. record of honouring trade agreements “are bound to resonate within Liberal ranks — and in particular within the party’s vocal nationalist wing” Hébert writes. She judges that the NDP’s core constituents won’t support “the biggest leap towards increased Canada-U.S. integration in more than two decades,” increasing the likelihood that Jack Layton will pull the plug on the government at the next opportunity.

To us in The Mark Newsroom, border integration makes for a particularly interesting election issue because it provides Michael Ignatieff with a golden opportunity to flip the script on Stephen Harper, who for years has claimed Iggy is some kind of American in disguise. Hard to argue the other guy is looking out for U.S. interests when you’re the one negotiating trade deals that could compromise Canadian sovereignty just to placate a handful of Americans who think the 9-11 terrorists came through New Brunswick.