New Wrinkle for UK / Aus / NZ / EuroZone girls wishing to travel to Canada ...
from
(snip)"Harper fences off world to wrest open U.S. doors
Stephen Harper is promising to slap stricter security on travelers and goods in Canada’s latest attempt to secure a new border deal with the U.S. -- one that would expedite Canadian trade across an American frontier that has grown congested with anti-terror measures since 9/11.
The prime minister announced during a Wednesday White House visit that Canada plans to track entries and exits as part of a perimeter security pact with the United States, a deal that requires Canadians to march in lockstep with the Americans on threat monitoring.
In return for these security concessions, Barack Obama’s administration is agreeing to ease obstacles to trade plaguing Canadian businesses at the Canada-U.S. border -- a payoff that Mr. Harper is betting will mean increased commerce, jobs and economic growth.
At the same time, Canada and the U.S. are pledging to harmonize regulations in 29 areas from food to health to eliminate minor differences that block trade.
The Conservatives bill the Obama talks as the biggest step forward in Canada-U.S. cooperation since the 1993 NAFTA deal. (snip)
(snip)At the heart of this perimeter deal s the notion that the ports of Halifax, or Vancouver, for instance, form part of a common perimeter encircling North America and must be secured to the Americans’ satisfaction so Washington can more readily trust shipments that enter the United States at the Canadian border.
The perimeter deal is Canada’s third effort since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism attacks to convince the Americans that bilateral commerce needs to be protected from the ever-expanding U.S. security clampdown that is clogging trade with new rules and procedures.
“Billions of dollars worth of goods and hundreds of thousands of people cross our shared border every day,” Mr. Harper said.
“Moving security to the perimeter of our continent will transform our border and create jobs and growth in Canada by improving the flow of goods and people between our two countries.”
Under the perimeter-security plan, Canada has committed to increasingly sharing with the United States the security intelligence gathered by its police and law authorities.
Canada has also pledged to ratchet up scrutiny on foreigners – even from countries that don’t need a visa to come to Canada. Citizens of countries that require no visa for Canada will be obliged complete a form before arrival that supplies what officials refer to as visa-type information. (snip)
(snip)A centre piece of this agreement, first heralded by both countries in February, is a joint entry-exit tracking system where the United States and Canada will effectively merge their land-border screening efforts on their common frontier by recording and sharing details on people crossing there. (snip)
I'm not sure what this will mean in regard to Commonwealth Country girls ... who will soon need the approval of the USA to enter Canada. For certain it means that all international travellers, both across the US-Canadian border, as well as to/from any foreign country into / out of Canada, will now be tracked as part of a shared security database in the same way that travellers to/from the USA to foreign countries are already being tracked.
That shared security database will also provide an extremely convenient automatic means of tracking Canadian girls living in the USA, and vice versa. This will probably translate into automatic ICE investigations into any Canadian girls who crossed into the USA and who haven't crossed back into Canada after a period of 6 months - and the equivalent for US girls living in Canada for more than 6 months without re-crossing into the USA. In fact at that point, besides a deportation option, the US and Canada could now jointly decide that the girl has established de-facto 'premanent residency' in the adopted country and deny her the right to immediately return to her country of citizenship if she is unable to prove a current residence and a current source of income in the country of citizenship !!!
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