Related: episode 653 of 99% Invisible mentions Peace Arch Park, which is along the US-Canada border in Blaine, Washington, and Surrey, British Columbia. Anyone from either country can enter the park and mingle with people from the other country. There's supposedly strong incentive, because of a treaty from the War of 1812, for both countries to keep their side of the park open:
If Canada broke the treaty, in theory, the U.S. could lay claim to parts of Ontario and Quebec. And if America broke it, Canada could get parts of Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin. So, basically, North American geography as we know it is contingent on this early 1800s treaty remaining in effect.
The podcast was from December -- an eternity ago in these interesting times -- and I don't know whether anything has changed since then.
This is a good story, but you can read both the Treaty of Ghent (which ended the War of 1812 while keeping the US-Canada border the same) and Rush-Bagot (which restricted naval fleets on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain). Neither document states anything about the border needing to remain open or without barriers.
The podcast's transcript suggests that their source for this is https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/peace-arch-u.... The person confidently claiming that any closure of the park would result in catastrophe is an immigration lawyer, not a historian:
"Saunders said the treaty stipulates there could not be any boundaries or physical barriers erected on the northern border of the U.S. — and if either side violated that treaty — the boundaries revert back to pre-treaty."
Since the Treaty of Ghent restored the pre-War of 1812 borders of both the United States and Canada, this doesn't make any sense. Canadian historian C. P. Stacey states that the period after the War of 1812 actually saw more border fortification than the years before (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1840618).
I mentioned that the idea that a 19th century treaty keeps the US-Canada border demilitarized was a good story, but I think the truth is an even better one: that the border is demilitarized because both countries know that they can trust their neighbor. Let's hope it stays that way.
We went to Peace Arch Park several times during COVID to visit relatives in Canada. And then I noticed the tents on the eastern edge of the park. What's that all about? I called it the End Zone. Couples separated by the border would meet there. One park ranger said he saw things he couldn't unsee...
I have a hard time believing that Canada would ever get parts of the US if America broke this. Even if the signed document included unambiguous promises written in the verified DNA of a famous American president or other extravagances
I really hope we get back to times where we were really best friends. It was good for both countries and was a model for international relationships/partnerships.
Im Canadian, so I cant do much to affect American policy. I'm generally happy with how Canada's politicians are handling this situation. I do hope more Americans do what you say, it is why democracy exists.
The nice thing about having a rep that supports my ideals is I don't really see the need to. It won't change anything, and I don't need to convince them.
It is important because they need to decide priority. And if they are not strong supporters they may even change their opinion to get votes next fall if they see the political winds. (I don't know your representative, some are more swayed by the winds that others)
> Get off your arse and take lessons on protesting from the French.
Sir, I'm fleeing this country. The time to protest was 30 years ago. Or 70 years ago. Either way, it is well in the past. This country will need to crash and detox from its addiction to money before it can become a real democracy.
The French have more of a social safety net, which enables extended protests. I understand the irony in stating this (well then, USian, get off your ass and demand a social safety net), but the chicken-and-egg problem is real. This is setting aside cultural mores and biases; for an example thereof, see sibling comment.
To get the basics of welfare the US has now, it took 25% of the country being unemployed,, everyone seeing their hard working grandparents dying in the ditch at the end of their life with nothing, and constant bread lines everywhere.
Oh, and massive organization of voters and rabid progressive populist support.
President Trump, above all, is the clearest and most direct example of how you absolutely can get what you vote for in the US. Republicans did not want Trump and fought it as much as they could. They openly declared how bad he was and how stupid and how awful he would be, and it didn't matter. Because people voted.
Donald Trump is in flagrant violation of constitutional law constantly, again, and it doesn't matter because voters want it.
He should be in prison but it doesn't matter because voters wanted him, wanted his bullshit, and voted against anyone who got in their way.
And yet, losers will STILL insist that "voting doesn't matter" or "Blah blah money in politics"
The Citizens United decision virtually ensures that the average voter, even in aggregate, has nothing important to say. Shortly, one particular U.S. citizen will have a net worth of $1T; and this, more than anything will ensure that “We the People” are only noise, compared to the real signal.
That is a problem, but the larger problem is people don't have an informed vote. They vote for a party straight down without considering what they really support, or what the unintended consequences of those things are.
The other half of this is there is so little choice that a voter does have. On the national level it's just over one bit of information per year. Over 12 years - 3 presidential races, 6 congressional reps, 4 senators. I'm not counting primaries because while they can shape policy, they can just as well unshape policy from people voting strategically ("electable"). And a voter can only vote in half of the primaries, so primaries are already part of the dynamic ushering people into these packaged sports teams of the major parties.
In addition to the obvious fixes like Ranked Pairs voting, I'd say we need a Constitutional amendment bringing back independent agencies with their heads being directly elected rather than merely picked by whomever wins the presidential race. For example you shouldn't have to balance your guess of how you think one president will treat the ATF vs the NSF. Or the President shouldn't have any power over the Attorney General, as it's the Attorney General who should be prosecuting a criminal President, rather than merely being a lapdog in the criminal conspiracy. A race for each agency would also create focus on each agency head's actual results, rather than how the current guy is using a round-robin of all these different departments to create a tough-looking spectacle in one area, only to move on to another one when the actual results start becoming apparent.
We also need the right to recall for all national politicians, for obvious reasons.
The representative system in the US is all but dead when it comes to high-power politics, this second Trump presidency has vigorously shown that. They weren't of that much use before, also, apart from blocking a few essential things here and there. They're also not at the Caligula's horse in the Senate moment, but they're rapidly going that way.
When you figure out how to leverage a vote to get something, let me know. Last time I tried this I was screamed at for electing a fascist for withholding it.
As a Canadian watching from a distance the fact that the administration and its congressional allies etc don't seem to be concerned at all about what is going to happen in November gives me a lot of apprehension about what they might know that is not being stated publicly.
Midterms coming up and prosecuting an endless "war" that doubles gas prices, and not seeming concerned at all about the blowback?
Once you accept that Trump is literally senile, a lot of things click into place. Why does he seem unable to predict obvious consequences of the actions he takes? Why does he fixate on random mean words and repeat them with no regard for normal political strategy? Why does he randomly fall asleep on camera?
When he says that he has no reason to worry because the polls show everyone loves him, I think he genuinely believes that.
Bessent is really smart? It’s possible he may be; but he communicates so poorly, that unless you knew anything of his background (I do not.) then it would be hard to assess. If he understands anything about monetary policy, apart from personal enrichment - which of course is a given in this administration, one couldn’t discern that from his public utterances.
To some extent those people have all been vastly enriching themselves with insider trading. They're going to be getting pardons as well. What's the worst that will probably happen to them, they retire to some country with their new fortunes?
AIPAC bought the KY-04 seat by pumping so much money into shows demented boomers watch that they completely upset the usual primary voters in the state by getting truckload of demented people to show up from a 30 second sound blurb played over and over that Massie was selling out Kentucky to the democrats. This despite the fact the votes from last term's primary voters basically did not change at all.
It's actually mind blowing how effective AIPAC is. They managed to upset one of the most popular Republicans in the US house by a genius campaign at non-voting demented boomers by tricking them to believe probably the most conservative guy in the entire congress is secretly a Democrat.
Apprehensions on the northern border usually want to be found, as asylum claims. Anyone who wants to cross illegally at the northern border could easily do so since forever. So in this case the bazillion other points land in Canada, since those that wanted to illegal into the US from the North always could. That's a "win" for the US from the perspective of the administration.
> Apprehensions on the northern border usually want to be found, as asylum claims
Not anymore, not right away anyway:
> The new terms allow each country to expel asylum seekers who apply for protection within 14 days of crossing the U.S.-Canada border between ports of entry.
Not the first time something like this has happened either. A small road in Montana/Alberta is being sectioned off because it sits on the border... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly7gl95nnpo
Truly, Trump is an inverse Midas - everything he touched turns to shit. Even if the Trump/MAGA administration goes peacefully (the fact that one has to state this as a possibility instead of a certainty is shocking enough), the Canadian road will remain, a permanent reminder of the idiocy.
That's a pretty good example of US-Canada relations. That entrance isn't getting closed when the US regains its sanity. The new reality is that it exists now.
There’s a joke to be made with this headline: is there now an entrance for Canadians, Americans and a new 3rd one for Quebeckers that refuse to use an entrance for Canadians?
Believe it or not, the library predates the understanding of monads as a mathematical concept! Though it can be argued it is an example of a functor (the library is mapped over two countries).
Believe me an open border would do nothing but increase xenophobia. Canada is dealing with its own immigration crisis with a ton of newcomers DDoSing the overextended healthcare system and real estate market.
Canada DoS'd its own healthcare. I'm mostly familiar with Quebec but the overextended healthcare system is mainly our own doing, so is housing shortage.
Well the structural issues have been present for some time but the influx of newcomers during COVID did not help the situation. Not saying it is right, but these newcomers have become a scapegoat and it's stoked the flames of xenophobia which was previously never an issue in this country.
Also QC for all it's local issues has largely been insulated from "over-immigration" due to the language requirements. If your only experience is there you may not be aware of the scale of the problem.
I'm not saying over-immigration has no downsides, clearly it did not help our overstrained system, but to say it caused it is to willfully blind ourselves to the structural issues that lead to these issues in the first place. i.e. they will never be fixed
In the 90s, it was the norm for people in northern maine to cross into canada and vice versa, like weekly, to do certain shopping. We regularly took advantage of the low value of the Canadian dollar back then, and every grocery store in the US had daily Canadian customers.
Crossing the border was pretty much just agreeing that you weren't trafficking any specific produce. That's it.
Fort Kent, Maine is literally across a river from Canada. The bridge and border crossing is basically part of the town, and it was a normal daily thing to drive to the other side of the river and do something in Canada, like eat at the nice Chinese restaurant, "The Maple Leaf".
Every northern maine school had regular field trips across the border.
The two communities were basically one. There was no border. It was just a line on a map and a nod to your local friend who worked in the booth.
The southern border used to be similarly uncontrolled. The "Immigrants" and migrant workers who pick your produce have been a normal thing in US history forever. They wouldn't stay in the US, because the border was so lax they didn't expect any trouble coming back in the next time they need the paycheck.
The reaction to 9/11 was atrocious. All it did was kill already struggling communities in rural areas, hurt hardworking Americans, waste billions of taxpayer dollars on "Super duper important" airport scanners sold by a friend of the Bush admin, which then sat unused in a warehouse and we stopped using them entirely shortly after.
This idea is adorable, but ultimately untenable if either country drifts in its views on how its citizens should behave.
I suspect that Canada isn't fond of how Americans view guns, and I suspect that the US is not quite on board with blasphemy/hurty-words laws. I suspect the divergence will grow.
> I suspect that Canada isn't fond of how Americans view guns
I'm putting this into my overflowing bucket of internet comments that doesn't "get" Canadians. Sorry to be curt but, since Canada-USA relations has been more at the forefront, I've seen too many comments that just "don't get it" and it riles me up each time.
They've had the 2nd amendment since their country was founded. It has no bearing on relations between the two countries, both at a micro and macro level.
We respect that they are their own country and have their own ways of doing things, which isn't even the same across each state. We respect US sovereignty over their own laws. It's the lack of respect for ours by the current US administration that is upsetting.
That's basically all its come down to. Oh, and the tariffs don't help either.
It doesn’t take too much effort to square the idea of being fine with firearms while not being a weapon-access absolutist. I’m able to have nuanced opinions about a lot of things that have negative externalities. Like how cigarettes kick ass but so do indoor smoking bans.
Simple. Cigarettes make you cool and hot, offering or bumming a light outside is instant chemistry to chat somebody up, and although I haven’t been a chronic smoker in probably a decade now, a drunk cig outside on a chilly night still hits like crack.
It’s not the heater itself, it’s everything else about them that is 10/10.
It's funny / overall-positive to compare how we seemingly see them to how my daughter's generation (18) sees them. In my 20s in the 90s despite being a mainly-non-smoker I felt/thought as you. That's not how my daughter or her peers think though.
I'm not yielding to your premise but I'll entertain it for a moment. Massive biological differences aside, the rough composition and weight of a deer isn't so much different than a human. An AR chambered in something like 6.5 is one of the most ergonomic and effective deer killing machines you could possibly use. Very light, able to make follow up shots easily, swappable magazines, insane aftermarket availability and cheap ammunition for training because nearly the entire US military uses the parts, etc etc.
It's my understanding hunters in Canada are often using the SKS for intermediate cartridge hunting, largely because it's/was cheap and wildly available, which was designed for killing people.
This... has... nothing to do... with how the 2 countries view guns or blasphemy laws (??).
This library worked well for a hundred of year, and then the US government decided they wanted to invade Canada, wage an economic war, and needed to protect their border at all cost in case an invasion of migrants would come from... that library.
Kristi "Dog Killer" Noem did a little act in the library where she jumped between the American and Canadian sides, saying "51st state" every time she went to the Canadian side. Which is unbelievably pathetic: When you have to deploy rape tactics to try to get someone to join you (while simultaneously trying to convince everyone how wonderful and great you are) -- something many in this administration are very accustomed to -- how completely busted and pathetic is your country?
This whole administration is just vile, and are long past the point where there should have been an uprising. Just an absolute idiocracy. A worldwide pariah, spiralling down the toilet.
I don't agree with most of what Germany does and I am sure they are not very fond of our (Switzerland) "liberal" gun laws, yet I can just walk/drive or take a train across the border and no one gives 2 cents.
Germans and your other neighbors call you guys weird, took me a while before I stopped by but for me - an American - Switzerland is perfect
guns, jets, immigration sovereignty and a disinterest in peer pressure about it, similar combination of cultural influences, publicly traded central bank that just creates money and buys US tech stocks and produces dividends, ATMs that dispense $200, $500 and $1000 denominations and nobody batting an eye about it
just some tweaks to life that stand out to me, all the other normal stuff is cool too
only citizenship I would consider trying to marry into
>lauds a foreign country for being anti immigration
>wants to immigrate there
>not by making an economical case that having you in the country will make them richer
>but by trying to marry a local
Real talk. You may want to delete this post before you actually do the citizenship by marriage thing, buddy. Marrying for the express intent of obtaining citizenship is generally considered citizenship fraud.
Ultimately its one country unilaterally acted the fool and is reaping the rewards of that idiocy. Any other explanation of what's going on is either willfully blind or so uninformed that they should not share their ideas with others.
My god, they want it so desperately to be something else they're willing to resort to complete misinformation.
There's some bizarre pseudo-libertarian contingent out there that seems to genuinely believing that Canada is some place where we arrest people with Jordan Peterson books off the street and that the Ottawa "trucker" convoy was some sort of colour revolution brutally stamped out by a Communist Regime(tm).
(When actually if said "truckers" had tried what they did on the US side of the border, DHS would have just shot them, and the vaccination law that they were supposedly protesting was a law demanded by the US and the Trudeau gov't tried multiple times to have it delayed/deferred)
He's just dog-whistling some disinformation about Canada's hate speech laws. In my experience where I've made the mistake of actually engaging... It's usually about trans people and pronouns and some family court case in BC that they spread half-facts about, and so on.
And Canada's hate speech laws are pretty reserved compared to some of their European counterparts. You pretty much have to be an actual goose-stepping Nazi or white robed Klansman to catch a charge.
Remind me again -- which country is it that demands to see the content of your social media feeds at the border, and then chooses to deport (or worse, detain) you based on what your feed says about their president and his thieving gang of companions?
Or detains and deports academics with green cards based on their stated opinions about what's happening in Gaza?
>A French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament says she was denied entry into Canada only days before she was scheduled to participate in conferences in Montreal.
>Rima Hassan wrote online that she was "prevented" from coming to Canada in what she described as an attempt at censorship.
Cultural differences are not why this happened. This is explicitly because of the trump administration and its draconian approach to immigration. This is a very symbolic and sad thing to see happen
Related: episode 653 of 99% Invisible mentions Peace Arch Park, which is along the US-Canada border in Blaine, Washington, and Surrey, British Columbia. Anyone from either country can enter the park and mingle with people from the other country. There's supposedly strong incentive, because of a treaty from the War of 1812, for both countries to keep their side of the park open:
If Canada broke the treaty, in theory, the U.S. could lay claim to parts of Ontario and Quebec. And if America broke it, Canada could get parts of Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin. So, basically, North American geography as we know it is contingent on this early 1800s treaty remaining in effect.
The podcast was from December -- an eternity ago in these interesting times -- and I don't know whether anything has changed since then.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/653-beyond-the-99-inv...
This is a good story, but you can read both the Treaty of Ghent (which ended the War of 1812 while keeping the US-Canada border the same) and Rush-Bagot (which restricted naval fleets on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain). Neither document states anything about the border needing to remain open or without barriers.
The podcast's transcript suggests that their source for this is https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/peace-arch-u.... The person confidently claiming that any closure of the park would result in catastrophe is an immigration lawyer, not a historian:
"Saunders said the treaty stipulates there could not be any boundaries or physical barriers erected on the northern border of the U.S. — and if either side violated that treaty — the boundaries revert back to pre-treaty."
Since the Treaty of Ghent restored the pre-War of 1812 borders of both the United States and Canada, this doesn't make any sense. Canadian historian C. P. Stacey states that the period after the War of 1812 actually saw more border fortification than the years before (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1840618).
I mentioned that the idea that a 19th century treaty keeps the US-Canada border demilitarized was a good story, but I think the truth is an even better one: that the border is demilitarized because both countries know that they can trust their neighbor. Let's hope it stays that way.
America does not want friends only vassals. Which arguably is what Canada became after the British left.
We went to Peace Arch Park several times during COVID to visit relatives in Canada. And then I noticed the tents on the eastern edge of the park. What's that all about? I called it the End Zone. Couples separated by the border would meet there. One park ranger said he saw things he couldn't unsee...
I have a hard time believing that Canada would ever get parts of the US if America broke this. Even if the signed document included unambiguous promises written in the verified DNA of a famous American president or other extravagances
It's not an unfair reaction to the main entrance being closed, but it is a little sad.
The northern border used to be so much more flexible and I don't see any real benefits from doing all this.
I really hope we get back to times where we were really best friends. It was good for both countries and was a model for international relationships/partnerships.
Write your congressman. If congress decides the people care things will change, but when they hear nothing they don't care.
Im Canadian, so I cant do much to affect American policy. I'm generally happy with how Canada's politicians are handling this situation. I do hope more Americans do what you say, it is why democracy exists.
The nice thing about having a rep that supports my ideals is I don't really see the need to. It won't change anything, and I don't need to convince them.
It is important because they need to decide priority. And if they are not strong supporters they may even change their opinion to get votes next fall if they see the political winds. (I don't know your representative, some are more swayed by the winds that others)
mid terms will be fun, and scary to watch. Consequential times....
> If congress decides the people care things will change
Hah
That fatalistic attitude is why your democracy is in peril.
Get off your arse and take lessons on protesting from the French.
> Get off your arse and take lessons on protesting from the French.
Sir, I'm fleeing this country. The time to protest was 30 years ago. Or 70 years ago. Either way, it is well in the past. This country will need to crash and detox from its addiction to money before it can become a real democracy.
The French have more of a social safety net, which enables extended protests. I understand the irony in stating this (well then, USian, get off your ass and demand a social safety net), but the chicken-and-egg problem is real. This is setting aside cultural mores and biases; for an example thereof, see sibling comment.
> The French have more of a social safety net, which enables extended protests
How do you think they got those in the first place though?
Those rights were won at the time when stomachs were more often empty than full and before video games got really good.
Ah, meaning things need to get worse before they get better... The video games part reminds me of "Opium of the masses", probably some truth in that.
To get the basics of welfare the US has now, it took 25% of the country being unemployed,, everyone seeing their hard working grandparents dying in the ditch at the end of their life with nothing, and constant bread lines everywhere.
Oh, and massive organization of voters and rabid progressive populist support.
President Trump, above all, is the clearest and most direct example of how you absolutely can get what you vote for in the US. Republicans did not want Trump and fought it as much as they could. They openly declared how bad he was and how stupid and how awful he would be, and it didn't matter. Because people voted.
Donald Trump is in flagrant violation of constitutional law constantly, again, and it doesn't matter because voters want it.
He should be in prison but it doesn't matter because voters wanted him, wanted his bullshit, and voted against anyone who got in their way.
And yet, losers will STILL insist that "voting doesn't matter" or "Blah blah money in politics"
All you gotta do is vote people.
There's also a propaganda feedback loop. It's not like Trump's voters are innocent, though. They want to be told lies.
I don't disagree, hence the chicken-and-egg problem.
[dead]
It is one reason, but certainly not the only one.
The Citizens United decision virtually ensures that the average voter, even in aggregate, has nothing important to say. Shortly, one particular U.S. citizen will have a net worth of $1T; and this, more than anything will ensure that “We the People” are only noise, compared to the real signal.
That is a problem, but the larger problem is people don't have an informed vote. They vote for a party straight down without considering what they really support, or what the unintended consequences of those things are.
The other half of this is there is so little choice that a voter does have. On the national level it's just over one bit of information per year. Over 12 years - 3 presidential races, 6 congressional reps, 4 senators. I'm not counting primaries because while they can shape policy, they can just as well unshape policy from people voting strategically ("electable"). And a voter can only vote in half of the primaries, so primaries are already part of the dynamic ushering people into these packaged sports teams of the major parties.
In addition to the obvious fixes like Ranked Pairs voting, I'd say we need a Constitutional amendment bringing back independent agencies with their heads being directly elected rather than merely picked by whomever wins the presidential race. For example you shouldn't have to balance your guess of how you think one president will treat the ATF vs the NSF. Or the President shouldn't have any power over the Attorney General, as it's the Attorney General who should be prosecuting a criminal President, rather than merely being a lapdog in the criminal conspiracy. A race for each agency would also create focus on each agency head's actual results, rather than how the current guy is using a round-robin of all these different departments to create a tough-looking spectacle in one area, only to move on to another one when the actual results start becoming apparent.
We also need the right to recall for all national politicians, for obvious reasons.
Social unrest is not usually a hallmark of a functioning society.
The representative system in the US is all but dead when it comes to high-power politics, this second Trump presidency has vigorously shown that. They weren't of that much use before, also, apart from blocking a few essential things here and there. They're also not at the Caligula's horse in the Senate moment, but they're rapidly going that way.
Midterm elections are coming up.
When you figure out how to leverage a vote to get something, let me know. Last time I tried this I was screamed at for electing a fascist for withholding it.
I think they are afraid they are going to get creamed in November, but for some reason they are more afraid of the president.
They might not be wrong about this, the president is known for siccing the department of Justice on his political enemies.
As a Canadian watching from a distance the fact that the administration and its congressional allies etc don't seem to be concerned at all about what is going to happen in November gives me a lot of apprehension about what they might know that is not being stated publicly.
Midterms coming up and prosecuting an endless "war" that doubles gas prices, and not seeming concerned at all about the blowback?
What's up with that?
Once you accept that Trump is literally senile, a lot of things click into place. Why does he seem unable to predict obvious consequences of the actions he takes? Why does he fixate on random mean words and repeat them with no regard for normal political strategy? Why does he randomly fall asleep on camera?
When he says that he has no reason to worry because the polls show everyone loves him, I think he genuinely believes that.
That's a given, but what is the excuse for Bessent and so on, who are clearly very smart. Just in a really bad way.
Bessent is really smart? It’s possible he may be; but he communicates so poorly, that unless you knew anything of his background (I do not.) then it would be hard to assess. If he understands anything about monetary policy, apart from personal enrichment - which of course is a given in this administration, one couldn’t discern that from his public utterances.
I'd say it's not ... smart about economics. No, he clearly is not. He's a blunt ideological tool for a kleptocracy.
More smart about politics and power in the Machiavellian sense.
To some extent those people have all been vastly enriching themselves with insider trading. They're going to be getting pardons as well. What's the worst that will probably happen to them, they retire to some country with their new fortunes?
They will care more if you pay them instead, though.
Given how cheap some politicians are, a pro Canadian lobby could do wonders. If AIPAC can get so much influence for so little why not.
AIPAC bought the KY-04 seat by pumping so much money into shows demented boomers watch that they completely upset the usual primary voters in the state by getting truckload of demented people to show up from a 30 second sound blurb played over and over that Massie was selling out Kentucky to the democrats. This despite the fact the votes from last term's primary voters basically did not change at all.
It's actually mind blowing how effective AIPAC is. They managed to upset one of the most popular Republicans in the US house by a genius campaign at non-voting demented boomers by tricking them to believe probably the most conservative guy in the entire congress is secretly a Democrat.
It's apparently a response due to a noticeable increase in apprehensions over the last 6 years.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107501
Funnelling “problems” to known points is better than pushing those problems to any of a bazillion other points.
But i guess ticking “we did something” checkboxes keeps the paycheck deposits flowing.
Apprehensions on the northern border usually want to be found, as asylum claims. Anyone who wants to cross illegally at the northern border could easily do so since forever. So in this case the bazillion other points land in Canada, since those that wanted to illegal into the US from the North always could. That's a "win" for the US from the perspective of the administration.
> Apprehensions on the northern border usually want to be found, as asylum claims
Not anymore, not right away anyway:
> The new terms allow each country to expel asylum seekers who apply for protection within 14 days of crossing the U.S.-Canada border between ports of entry.
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/us-canada-ex...
To a wannabe authoritarian, fear and uncertainty are benefits. They love to flex in shitty ways.
It's more than a little sad to me.
Canada allowed millions of temporary foreign workers in.
Unfortunately the border actually needs to be more sealed.
These moves annoy a lot of people (or cost money) and manages to go from a 0.00000001% to a 0.000000010001% sealed border.
Once again, borders doing what they do best: waste honest people’s resources.
Not the first time something like this has happened either. A small road in Montana/Alberta is being sectioned off because it sits on the border... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly7gl95nnpo
Truly, Trump is an inverse Midas - everything he touched turns to shit. Even if the Trump/MAGA administration goes peacefully (the fact that one has to state this as a possibility instead of a certainty is shocking enough), the Canadian road will remain, a permanent reminder of the idiocy.
> the fact that one has to state this as a possibility instead of a certainty is shocking enough
yeah.. i get the feeling they learned from J6, and won't make those same mistakes again :(
That's a pretty good example of US-Canada relations. That entrance isn't getting closed when the US regains its sanity. The new reality is that it exists now.
You are absolving Canada of blame for admitting millions of immigrants from the same countries that often illegally immigrate to the U.S.
this remains an american problem for creating a demand for underpaid and untracked workers
That's bollocks, the majority of immigrants to the US come from their Southern border.
It depends on the year, sometimes it's actually visa overstays.
Millions from specific countries? Over decades, or do you not actually know anything about Canadian immigration?
How "often" do they "illegally immigrate to the US"? Come on, be specific. Surely this isn't absolute bullshit.
There’s a joke to be made with this headline: is there now an entrance for Canadians, Americans and a new 3rd one for Quebeckers that refuse to use an entrance for Canadians?
wow, that caused me quite a bit of confusion
> Haskell Free Library
Has zero to do with haskell the language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Free_Library_and_Opera...
Believe it or not, the library predates the understanding of monads as a mathematical concept! Though it can be argued it is an example of a functor (the library is mapped over two countries).
A library is just a manuscript depository in the category of lending institutions.
> Though it can be argued it is an example of a functor (the library is mapped over two countries).
Now that's a special kind of joke I can only find on HackerNews
It should not have been necessary, but this is the new reality under the U.S.'s recent lack of probity.
I'm so glad both towns an other private donors pulled together to make this happen.
As an American, I'm deeply ashamed of m̶y̶ this country.
I don't expect the damage to be undone within my lifetime.
Maybe it's time for a European President to come and visit, speak these important words[1]:
> Mr. Trump, tear down this door!
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_down_this_wall!
All of North America should have open borders like a Schengen zone. This xenophobia is bad for the economy.
Believe me an open border would do nothing but increase xenophobia. Canada is dealing with its own immigration crisis with a ton of newcomers DDoSing the overextended healthcare system and real estate market.
Canada DoS'd its own healthcare. I'm mostly familiar with Quebec but the overextended healthcare system is mainly our own doing, so is housing shortage.
Well the structural issues have been present for some time but the influx of newcomers during COVID did not help the situation. Not saying it is right, but these newcomers have become a scapegoat and it's stoked the flames of xenophobia which was previously never an issue in this country.
Also QC for all it's local issues has largely been insulated from "over-immigration" due to the language requirements. If your only experience is there you may not be aware of the scale of the problem.
It has not been insulated at all, there are tons of federal immigration pathways made easier for french speaking immigrants. According to this https://www.statista.com/statistics/444906/number-of-immigra..., Ontario does seem over-represented.
I'm not saying over-immigration has no downsides, clearly it did not help our overstrained system, but to say it caused it is to willfully blind ourselves to the structural issues that lead to these issues in the first place. i.e. they will never be fixed
Europe has open borders and this hasn't facilitated any increase in xenophobia that I'm aware of, despite many countries having many immigrants.
South Africa by contrast does not have open borders, and is currently going through another bout of violent xenophobia.
I don't think these two things are specifically related.
> hasn't facilitated any increase in xenophobia that I'm aware of
Then you haven't been paying attention.
> South Africa by contrast does not have open borders, and is currently going through another bout of violent xenophobia.
Arguably a legacy of the time when it did.
> hasn't facilitated any increase in xenophobia that I'm aware of
My friends in Europe describe the situation differently
I don't understand, why have some of the newcomers become builders and doctors?
We had literally that until 9/11
In the 90s, it was the norm for people in northern maine to cross into canada and vice versa, like weekly, to do certain shopping. We regularly took advantage of the low value of the Canadian dollar back then, and every grocery store in the US had daily Canadian customers.
Crossing the border was pretty much just agreeing that you weren't trafficking any specific produce. That's it.
Fort Kent, Maine is literally across a river from Canada. The bridge and border crossing is basically part of the town, and it was a normal daily thing to drive to the other side of the river and do something in Canada, like eat at the nice Chinese restaurant, "The Maple Leaf".
Every northern maine school had regular field trips across the border.
The two communities were basically one. There was no border. It was just a line on a map and a nod to your local friend who worked in the booth.
The southern border used to be similarly uncontrolled. The "Immigrants" and migrant workers who pick your produce have been a normal thing in US history forever. They wouldn't stay in the US, because the border was so lax they didn't expect any trouble coming back in the next time they need the paycheck.
The reaction to 9/11 was atrocious. All it did was kill already struggling communities in rural areas, hurt hardworking Americans, waste billions of taxpayer dollars on "Super duper important" airport scanners sold by a friend of the Bush admin, which then sat unused in a warehouse and we stopped using them entirely shortly after.
Just makes me sad.
Agreed. Rupture is real and permanent, driven by one side.
"Mr. Trump, tear down this wall."
I wonder what this regime's Swan Lake is going to be. Probably medication commercials.
[dead]
en tant que séparatiste québécois, moi, ça me va
This idea is adorable, but ultimately untenable if either country drifts in its views on how its citizens should behave.
I suspect that Canada isn't fond of how Americans view guns, and I suspect that the US is not quite on board with blasphemy/hurty-words laws. I suspect the divergence will grow.
> I suspect that Canada isn't fond of how Americans view guns
I'm putting this into my overflowing bucket of internet comments that doesn't "get" Canadians. Sorry to be curt but, since Canada-USA relations has been more at the forefront, I've seen too many comments that just "don't get it" and it riles me up each time.
They've had the 2nd amendment since their country was founded. It has no bearing on relations between the two countries, both at a micro and macro level.
We respect that they are their own country and have their own ways of doing things, which isn't even the same across each state. We respect US sovereignty over their own laws. It's the lack of respect for ours by the current US administration that is upsetting.
That's basically all its come down to. Oh, and the tariffs don't help either.
Also the idea that Canada is in any way anti-gun is ludicrous.
With very few exceptions, you can’t acquire handguns in Canada anymore. They’ve also banned most semiautomatic rifles.
Maybe Canadian public opinion isn’t anti-gun, but the current government seems to be.
It doesn’t take too much effort to square the idea of being fine with firearms while not being a weapon-access absolutist. I’m able to have nuanced opinions about a lot of things that have negative externalities. Like how cigarettes kick ass but so do indoor smoking bans.
As an occasional pipe or cigar smoker... I'm personally trying to square this "cigarettes kick ass" thing with real world experience :-)
Really? How?
Simple. Cigarettes make you cool and hot, offering or bumming a light outside is instant chemistry to chat somebody up, and although I haven’t been a chronic smoker in probably a decade now, a drunk cig outside on a chilly night still hits like crack.
It’s not the heater itself, it’s everything else about them that is 10/10.
It's funny / overall-positive to compare how we seemingly see them to how my daughter's generation (18) sees them. In my 20s in the 90s despite being a mainly-non-smoker I felt/thought as you. That's not how my daughter or her peers think though.
I live in a pretty cosmopolitan city and I’m happy to report the kids are smoking free range all natural cigarettes again. Vaping is now uncool.
Oh these kids are all weed smokers (sigh) and eye rolling at flavoured nicotine vapers is def. a thing.
Right, so.
We're not anti-gun. Just anti the "only used explicitly for killing people" kind of gun.
I grew up and live in rural Canada. Rifles for hunting or farming are just part of life. Though the long gun registry did make them more of a hassle.
Why do you need a killing-person gun? What's that for?
I'm not yielding to your premise but I'll entertain it for a moment. Massive biological differences aside, the rough composition and weight of a deer isn't so much different than a human. An AR chambered in something like 6.5 is one of the most ergonomic and effective deer killing machines you could possibly use. Very light, able to make follow up shots easily, swappable magazines, insane aftermarket availability and cheap ammunition for training because nearly the entire US military uses the parts, etc etc.
How many deer are you trying to kill in one go??
can you back this up with how many hunters prefer going out with handguns as their weapon of choice for hunting deer?
I mean, I've not heard any of the hunters I know complaining about the efficacy of their hunting rifles for taking down deer, moose, or even bears.
It's my understanding hunters in Canada are often using the SKS for intermediate cartridge hunting, largely because it's/was cheap and wildly available, which was designed for killing people.
Everyone with a rifle and a hacksaw has ready access to a very loud handgun.
This... has... nothing to do... with how the 2 countries view guns or blasphemy laws (??).
This library worked well for a hundred of year, and then the US government decided they wanted to invade Canada, wage an economic war, and needed to protect their border at all cost in case an invasion of migrants would come from... that library.
Kristi "Dog Killer" Noem did a little act in the library where she jumped between the American and Canadian sides, saying "51st state" every time she went to the Canadian side. Which is unbelievably pathetic: When you have to deploy rape tactics to try to get someone to join you (while simultaneously trying to convince everyone how wonderful and great you are) -- something many in this administration are very accustomed to -- how completely busted and pathetic is your country?
This whole administration is just vile, and are long past the point where there should have been an uprising. Just an absolute idiocracy. A worldwide pariah, spiralling down the toilet.
I don't agree with most of what Germany does and I am sure they are not very fond of our (Switzerland) "liberal" gun laws, yet I can just walk/drive or take a train across the border and no one gives 2 cents.
Germans and your other neighbors call you guys weird, took me a while before I stopped by but for me - an American - Switzerland is perfect
guns, jets, immigration sovereignty and a disinterest in peer pressure about it, similar combination of cultural influences, publicly traded central bank that just creates money and buys US tech stocks and produces dividends, ATMs that dispense $200, $500 and $1000 denominations and nobody batting an eye about it
just some tweaks to life that stand out to me, all the other normal stuff is cool too
only citizenship I would consider trying to marry into
>lauds a foreign country for being anti immigration
>wants to immigrate there
>not by making an economical case that having you in the country will make them richer
>but by trying to marry a local
Real talk. You may want to delete this post before you actually do the citizenship by marriage thing, buddy. Marrying for the express intent of obtaining citizenship is generally considered citizenship fraud.
one out of many possible interpretations, pound sand
Ultimately its one country unilaterally acted the fool and is reaping the rewards of that idiocy. Any other explanation of what's going on is either willfully blind or so uninformed that they should not share their ideas with others.
My god, they want it so desperately to be something else they're willing to resort to complete misinformation.
There's some bizarre pseudo-libertarian contingent out there that seems to genuinely believing that Canada is some place where we arrest people with Jordan Peterson books off the street and that the Ottawa "trucker" convoy was some sort of colour revolution brutally stamped out by a Communist Regime(tm).
(When actually if said "truckers" had tried what they did on the US side of the border, DHS would have just shot them, and the vaccination law that they were supposedly protesting was a law demanded by the US and the Trudeau gov't tried multiple times to have it delayed/deferred)
Yeah, could be that, could be the open threat of invasion, I dunno.
Canada technically had a blasphemy law on the books until 2018, but it was basically gathering dust, the last conviction was in 1927.
He's just dog-whistling some disinformation about Canada's hate speech laws. In my experience where I've made the mistake of actually engaging... It's usually about trans people and pronouns and some family court case in BC that they spread half-facts about, and so on.
And Canada's hate speech laws are pretty reserved compared to some of their European counterparts. You pretty much have to be an actual goose-stepping Nazi or white robed Klansman to catch a charge.
"Hurty-words"
Remind me again -- which country is it that demands to see the content of your social media feeds at the border, and then chooses to deport (or worse, detain) you based on what your feed says about their president and his thieving gang of companions?
Or detains and deports academics with green cards based on their stated opinions about what's happening in Gaza?
I could go on.
>A French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament says she was denied entry into Canada only days before she was scheduled to participate in conferences in Montreal.
>Rima Hassan wrote online that she was "prevented" from coming to Canada in what she described as an attempt at censorship.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2242739/pro-palestin...
Yes, there's definitely bad on this side, too.
Cultural differences are not why this happened. This is explicitly because of the trump administration and its draconian approach to immigration. This is a very symbolic and sad thing to see happen