I have a passport. I have used it for years. But I think that we are losing more than we gain. I think the US day trippers, people who go across the border for a few hours, cause they have always done it, may stop. I think the kids won't be doing it either. Thus both countries lose. If you accept the loss, fine.
I think that it will be hard on student tours and other things. If you feel that loss is justified, that is fine. I think it means an end to kids going to play soccer, and other things that have made our relationship special between countries. If you accept that that is fine. You cannot after 200 years change the rules, and assume that it will not damage the relationship, that is just silly.
I think instead of New York for a week Canadian kids will stay in Canada, going to Montreal or ottawa. I think Many Americans won't go to the theatre in Toronto when they can go someplace else with no passport. I think that instead of visiting back and forth, many people will lose something special.
Unless you have spent your life on the border, you will not understand. But if you live in a border town, the change is a major pain in the butt, until you realise that you don't need to buy milk in the US, we have milk here. It is a simple thing that Canadians near the border are not going to buy 3 million passports.
If florida loses 25% of the Canadian visitors, I am sure you can make it up. You only need half a million visitors from other states to cover it. hardly anything, and now the US will be just another destination. And we will know next month, because Canada immigration cannot provide the passports fast enough.
I have many friends who have houses across the border for vacations, I have relations who have always come to Canada to visit, now they need a passport to go home.
So will there be a cost, of course there will. Don't let anyone tell you there will not be a financial and economic cost to making the border harder to cross. The trick for Canadians will be to make sure that cost is born by the Americans who made the decision. Remember American Senators talked at one point of building a wall between Canada and the United States, the harder the US tries to close the border, the more honest people you keep out. Any crook can cross at will anytime, and passports won't stop them. That is the biggest problem, you have placed a solution that only stops honest people. |
