Statistics Canada did a study a few years ago in which they counted the number of Canadian firms that are engaged in exporting. They counted something like 42,000 of them, about 35,000 of which do trade with the United States. So we have 35,000 companies in Canada--not just large corporations but quite a large range of corporations--that are engaged in this kind of trade. And the kind of trade they're engaged in is what economists are now calling “integrative trade”. They are participating in the making of things.
An economist, Stephen Blank, at Pace University in New York, says that Canada and the United States no longer trade with each other; what we do is we build things together. Given the fact that we build things together, the fact that there's a border in between the two parties who are building things together is a potential disincentive to investment in Canada. If you are an investor looking for a new opportunity or to expand an existing opportunity, one of the things you're going to look at is the kinds of problems you are going to have at the border. If you think you're going to have problems, you'll say, “Well, I'll tell you what. I'm going to locate in the big market and export what I need to the small market, rather than locate in the small market and face the hassle of 90% of my goods that need to go into the network in the United States having to cross that border.”
So I think it is a legitimate and very important objective for Canada to see what's being done at the border and ask what we can do to reduce the disincentives that the border creates. I give the Canada Border Services Agency and the Government of Canada full marks for having done as much as they can on a unilateral basis. We have done a tremendous amount in streamlining what we do, in putting in place programs that use electronics, that use pre-clearance and so on, to move things away from the border. I think we cannot do much more unless we do it together.
The main objective we should be pursuing is asking what we can do together with the Americans. Now, in order to do it with the Americans.... The Americans are not preoccupied by the border as a revenue issue or an economic issue. They're preoccupied with the border now as a security matter. That's why the two are so much tied together. You cannot build a more open border, which I think is what we need, unless you enhance the confidence that the Americans have in Canada as a security partner. That's why I think it is important that this is tied together, but that's why it's also important that we work with the Americans in enhancing their confidence in us as a security partner so that we can reduce the number of things that the Americans feel they must do at the border.