It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and Canadian newspapers are full of stories about how grateful we should be to farmers and how the Nova Scotia giant pumpkin contest once again had a bumper crop. Such folksy stories must reemerge so that they can be resurrected again next year at this time. There’s also a lot of non-fluffy material about the miserable state of relations between Canada and the US. “U.S. gives up claim that Canadian lumber is subsidized”, “Canada to protest Arar, PM tells Bush”, “Thousands on terror watch lists by mistake”, “Passports could be required sooner: U.S.”, “Boundary commission can’t see border for the trees”, “Deserter who fled to Canada released from prison” (all from pp. 1-6 of the Saturday. Oct. 7 Vancouver Sun).
The question is whether such intense dislike of the attempt by the Bush administration to put up a seamless barrier around US territory will be forgotten quickly up here once a new government comes to power in Washington and presumably begins to remove the most flagrant attacks on its largest trading partner and neighbour. It comes at a time when Western and most Central European countries have virtually eliminated the last remnants of defended national boundaries. Canadians who cross the U.S. border now with non-North American friends and colleagues are shocked to see them being fingerprinted and photographed in a separate lineup. Canadian citizens won’t cross the border as often as they once did if they are to be fingerprinted, and many don’t even own passports, having found North America big enough for their travel.
In today’s Sunday paper there is another border story: “B.C. pair survives high-seas sinking”. A U.S.Coast Guard helicopter heard the distress call of a Canadian fishing boat sinking 200 kilometers off the Washington coast as it was answered by Canadian Coast Guard in Tofino on the central coast of Vancouver Island. It sent its own rescue helicopter, already airborne on a training mission, out from Astoria, Oregon. After returning to base to refuel and pick up a rescue swimmer, the crew was the first to reach the life raft of the fishermen, who came from Vancouver Island and Newfoundland, and plucked them out of the freezing water. A rescue plane from Sacramento and a cutter were also on their way. So there is evidence that there still exists in some quarters a code of conduct that transcends borders and is based on mutual respect, civility and, in this case, courage.