That's a very good question. Yes, I have polled regularly. I've polled almost monthly since September 11 in Canada and the United States on issues like borders. It's interesting to note for example that the western hemisphere travel initiative is the most recognizable piece of public policy in Canada today. Ninety percent of Canadians can give you a working definition of WHTI even if they don't know all the letters, how it works, when it came in and so forth, which eclipses any policy in our Canadian panoply of policies, which is interesting. They're very concerned about this.
The issues at the border are ones for which we've seen some changes through time. Basically, we've seen in both Canada and the United States in the period from 2002 to about 2006 the idea that maybe we should be strengthening our borders. And in the United States, it wasn't surprising. It was pretty well just driven by security concerns, but Canadians would be saying we have to keep out undesirable things like guns, handguns, and drugs and so forth. And unfortunately this co-existed with a period when the border actually did become more difficult to negotiate. WHTI was implemented. We were starting to arm our border guards. And I really wonder whether or not in the long term this is not something that is going to have a deleterious effect on the ability of the two countries to do business with each other, to move freely, which basically the majority of Canadians and Americans still strongly support.
So I'm quite concerned not just about the practical significance but also the symbolic significance of what's gone on with the border. I think it would be an optimistic read now that we see some relaxation of the concerns with security in the United States, particularly among some of the younger cohort that were responsible for propelling President Obama to victory. The concerns with things like civil liberties and the economy and trade were more important and would have eclipsed the traditional balance points that have been put askew by all the concern in the post-9/11 world. Now there's some sense that maybe things might be moving back. And as the relationship between the two countries shows some sort of improvement, it would be nice to believe that maybe we could see some thawing and some better movement. And then maybe we could see as well strong support for again raising the notion of focusing on a perimeter rather than necessarily raising walls within North America.