US / Canada Border Fence

Originally posted by Guy Fawkes
Honestly, a fence between Canada and the U.S.? A fence between the planets greatest allies? Canada is America's BFF.

A fence along the Canadian border is needed not so much to keep out Canadians, as to make the border less vulnerable to our enemies. The same goes for the southern border.

Americans winked at illegal immigration since day one. Now, 230 years later, some of us have come to realize that the stakes are very high and one would think that our friends would understand that.

No one is thinking that a fenced border would be an attempt at another Maginot Line, but rather a tool to make border enforcement more manageable.

[edit on 2006/9/18 by GradyPhilpott]

This looks to me as the Gov't knows that Americans are going to start fleeing when the economy collapses, the petro dollars switches to Euro's and the U.S. can't payback their creditors causing a huge increase in taxes and property siezures.
Remember Canada is the U.N.'s byatch. What ever they say we do.
Looks like the powers that be want to destroy America or turn it into Nazi Germany in order to kill the shinning beacon of freedom. You can't have a one world gov't with America refusing & still a super power. I don't know?

OR it could be a smoke screen to draw away attention to get the people to accept a North American Union.
They are building "detainment center in the U.S. BUT they also are building them in Canada as well.
Something bigger than we all can comprehend is about to go down.

[edit on 18-9-2006 by BattleofBatoche]

What are they gonna do with towns that straddle the border?

This ones in Saskatchewan.
Canada is on the left, the United States is on the right.


Could an American please come up and cut your grass, it's looking a little long.

The only reason I could see for a better fence would be to keep some of the guns out of Canada.

[edit on 18/9/2006 by anxietydisorder]

What towns would those be? Do you mean like El Paso and Juarez? Border control is just as important, if not more so, in these cases as in other cases.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
Could an American please come up and cut your grass, it's looking a little long.

Our grass might be long, but it also appears to be greener.

I'm not sure which towns exactly, but there are a few of them on the Prairies. I remember this because a guy got charged with illigally entering the US for getting gas(because it was the closest at the time). There was no fense, but there is quite a bit of surveilance(he was picked up in like 10-15 minutes after crossing the invisible line. There is even one Inn that straddles the border and there is a line going straight down the center of the Dance area, one side was painted USA the other Canada.

Originally posted by sardion2000
What are they gonna do with towns that straddle the border?

That's easy...remember the Berlin Wall? Machine gun emplacements and trigger-happy guards. A perfect scenario for those colloquial villages.

I'm still not sure about walls on the Great Lakes, though...they're a little big with open water stretching from the Gulf of St Lawrence to Kenora. That's a few miles of unfenced water any 14 foot aluminum boat can cross. it's been done with canoes

[sarcasm]
As for the Rocky Mountain ranges...several hundred well placed nuclear devices might make it a bit easier to fence, but I'd like to see the logistics on that first.
[/sarcasm]

...


Choose one:

a) A full package North American Union, with shared "security" and military presence; or

b) Shunning without "friendship," with fence, and potential for pre-emptive strike.


It's a bully move, intended to instil fear and create public drama.

It's Canada's cue to back down, say no to the fence, and yes to the "Union," which is really a Continental Corporate Takeover.

Originally posted by soficrow

b) Shunning without "friendship," with fence, and potential for pre-emptive strike.

Soficrow, I think you're right...this is about the impending US/Canada unification.

But I pick 'b'.

Let America build the fence...really, really high with razor wire and lots of military presence. Let it wind its way from Vancouver to St Johns, over mountains and prairie, lakes and rivers from ocean to ocean. Let there be a constant US military presence throughout the more than 4000 miles of fencing. Do I want to see North America split in two, just like North and South Korea? ( That'd be something, eh?) No, but, that's what this idea is going to work itself into. Go ahead, isolate yourself from Canada, cause a rift between our countries, I'm sure that it'll make you feel very safe.

(Not one penny of my Canadian taxes should go to that project, though)

As long as the fence is on US territory what's the problem?

Good fences make good neighbors.

www.bartleby.com...

www.writing.upenn.edu...

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
As long as the fence is on US territory what's the problem?

Good fences make good neighbors.

www.writing.upenn.edu...

From your link (I love Robert Frost, btw...)

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

(My bolding)

If it's on US soil and at US expense, built it high and strong, man it with multitudes of steely eyed watchers as must have been the case with the Great Wall of China or Hadrians Wall.

You miss the point. There are "cows."

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.

www.writing.upenn.edu...

Good neighbors respect one another’s property. Good farmers, for example, maintain their fences in order to keep their livestock from wandering onto neighboring farms.
www.bartleby.com...

[edit on 2006/9/18 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
You miss the point. There are "cows."

I love your sense of humour...it really is excellent.

Good point...but why aren't these cows rampaging through the Canadian hinterlands, bent on destruction. There are no fences between provinces or around our towns or cities...and we are, after all, killing and being killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Are we not in the 'same boat' as America with Al Qaida threats?

I am of the opinion that the threat from 'sleeper cells' is the same in America as here in Canada. Do you see us as that different...a veritable haven for multitudes of terrorists cleaning their guns, strapping on explosives and peering gratefully at the easy access to what they deem the Great satan?

Canada's very liberal immigration policies have been a concern for Americans for quite some time now and perhaps even before 9/11. A Canadian fence currently is not the priority, but the border between the US and Canada is just as vulnerable as the southern border, even if far less used by illegals.

Some Canadians say they don't want our guns and, frankly, I don't want anyone running guns from the US to Canada, either, nor do I want Americans going to Canada to buy cheap drugs that are subsidized by Canadian citizens.

The border between the US and Canada has always been pretty wide open, if I recall correctly. A fence would only assure that anyone who chooses to cross enters at a legally designated point.

[edit on 2006/9/18 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Canada's very liberal immigration policies have been a concern for Americans for quite some time now and perhaps even before 9/11. A Canadian fence currently is not the priority, but the border between the US and Canada is just as vulnerable as the southern border, even if far less used by illegals.

I believe the northern border to be, in much of its length, totally vulnerable...much more so than your southern border. There is, for much of it, absolutely nothing stopping anyone from crossing if they desired to do so. If you had, like I did, a 17 foot boat, you could cross Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario without difficulty, and many do daily during the summer months in all sorts of craft, using the radio to alert the small port authorities that they would be visiting for short stops on either side of the lakes.

If I wished to cross any border waters surreptuously under cover of night, there would literally be nothing much to stop me from doing so.

The same goes for the breadth of the prairies...as anxiety disorder pointed out in his pic showing the lawn needed cutting. In the mountains of BC and the Badlands of Alberta, there is nothing to stop anyone determined enough.

There is only security at the roads and bridges which cross the border.

I doubt the Mexican/USA border is as easy to circumvent as is the Canadian/USA border.

However...back to those cows...

I did some surfing around on the US immigration statistics and found this:

Since 1970, the foreign-born population of the United States has increased rapidly due to large-scale immigration, primarily from Latin America and Asia. The foreign-born population rose from 9.6 million in 1970 to 14.1 million in 1980 and to 19.8 million in 1990. The estimated foreign-born population in 1997 was 25.8 million. As a percentage of the total population, the foreign-born population increased from 4.7 percent in 1970 to 6.2 percent in 1980, to 7.9 percent in 1990, and to an estimated 9.7 percent in 1997.2

www.census.gov...

In regard to Canadian immigration, there is a new source for our immigrants lately...

The sources of immigration to Canada have changed greatly. The European-born continued to account for the largest proportion of all immigrants living in Canada in 1996. But for the first time this century they accounted for less than half of the total immigrant population, due to a growing influx from Asia and the Middle East.

In 1981, 67% of all immigrants living in Canada were born in Europe. By 1996, this proportion had declined to 47%. In contrast, the share of Canada's immigrant population born in Asia and the Middle East increased from 14% in 1981 to 31% in 1996.

www.statcan.ca...

Bolding mine. So, yes, I can understand why America would be concerned, but what I couldn't glean through my search was exactly how many 'middle easterners' immigrated into America. I'd like a comparitive study done of that, to see if there are actually more immigrants from the ME in America compared to Canada.

Chinese and South Asians were the largest visibly minority groups in Canada according to the 2001 census, and the projection doesn't see that changing. Roughly one-half of all visible minorities would belong to those groups by 2017.

www.cbc.ca...

Chinese and South Asians...

Some Canadians say they don't want our guns and, frankly, I don't want anyone running guns from the US to Canada, either, nor do I want Americans going to Canada to buy cheap drugs that are subsidized by Canadian citizens.

All very reasonable, Grady...no argument there whatsoever.

The border between the US and Canada has always been pretty wide open, if I recall correctly. A fence would only assure that anyone who chooses to cross enters at a legally designated point.

I believe that this is do-able on land...but not on the rivers and lakes. The sheer length of such a fence would be difficult to watch over as well. Take a look at a map and note the length of the Canadian border compared to the Mexican.

All in all...is it really worth the expense? The cows we're talking about can dig tunnels, navigate boats or fly airplanes, after all.

If it was the other way around, I would not feel assured that a fence would force terrorists to cross into Canada at those legally designated points.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
grammar edit




[edit on 18-9-2006 by masqua]

I think the concern is not so much with where the immigrants are coming from, but the ease with which they immigrate under the political asylum laws.

I'm not sure about the details, but it really isn't the nationalities of these immigrants, as we have no restrictions in that regard, as far as I know.

America is concerned with who specifically gains easy access to Canada and therefore into the US. That's where the fence comes in.

As I said before, no one expects the fences to be Maginot Lines, just means by which the efforts of our enemies can be made more difficult.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
America is concerned with who specifically gains easy access to Canada and therefore into the US. That's where the fence comes in.

And that's the crux of the matter. America is bordered, unfortunately, by 2 countries who might not jump to allay America's obviously well based concerns.

And that is where we depart on our seperate ways. It's not that I'm not worried about who immigrates into Canada and what their ulterior motives might be, but I have to trust the RCMP and CSIS to be watchful in that regard. Just exactly what our policies are at the moment, and how stringent the screening process is here at the moment is a very good question. I'll look into it. I think, though, it's far superior to that of Mexico, but I'd be guessing.

If the 37 million people north of your border cause you enough concern, though, then built that fence... who am I to say what you do on your soil, but, by the same token, I prefer that America stays out of our affairs, immigration or otherwise.

The most troubling question of all, though, is what I've asked throughout this thread, and, to which I have received no reply whatsoever...

Just how do-able is the construction of a fence from the Atlantic to the Pacific?

What would it cost, how do you patrol all that airspace, all the water and, how do you secure those mountain passes...and, more than anything, what would it take to watch over it all? I think it's an impossible dream.

[edit on 18-9-2006 by masqua]

Personally, I hope it's never built. The greater accomplishment would be to end the problem of a religion that wants to destroy the other two-thirds of the world's population.

We won't be able to keep Islam at bay forever. There have to be better solutions and I don't include surrender in those options.

It seems to me that if a fence is to be used to keep those bad guys from coming to get you, it would be more effectual to merely leave that region of the bad guys and stop trying to play global masterminds with other peoples lively hoods. Then even without a fence they wouldn't have any reason to come and get you and you would be safe from them?