Dawson Strategic

The Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council and Beyond the Border initiatives are nearing the end of their first year of bilateral meetings and stakeholder outreach.On December 12, Christopher Sands and I will meet at the Wilson Center in Washington to discuss the progress in the first year and to introduce our new paper “A Safe and [...]

Join panelists Laura Dawson, Gerald D. Chipeur and Peter Foster for an Economic Club of Canada lunch in Toronto on Wednesday June 13th. This panel will discuss the legal, policy, and political challenges that Canada and the U.S. need to overcome in order to create a more prosperous relationship. For more information or to register, click here. [...]

Dawson Strategic is pleased to announce the formation of the Canada-US Motor Coach Passenger Coalition (MCPC) to streamline the movement of motor coach passengers across the Canada-US border. The Beyond the Border Action Plan announced by Prime Minister Harper and President Obama in February 2011 announced plans to work towards pre-clearance for passengers and cargo [...]

In response to the demographic pressures of the baby boom generation entering retirement and the labour market demands of Canada’s surging energy sector, the Government of Canada is using immigration policy to fill labour market demand.  Permanent resident programs are being reconfigured to focus on skills-based criteria for admission and temporary foreign worker (TFW) programs [...]

If RIM is targeted by foreign investors, the Canadian government will face tough choices regarding net benefits to Canada and implications for national security, argues Laura Dawson.  In a commentary for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute entitled Potash and BlackBerries: Should Canada treat all foreign direct investment the same? Dawson argues while the sale of Canada’s flagship intellectual property (IP) company to a foreign [...]

By Stefania Bartucci For those who enjoy a good mystery, give Budget 2012 a read. I’ve never been a mystery fan myself. I’m always jumping ahead to figure out how it all ends, and in typical fashion I did the same when reading this year’s unremarkable budget. I dug deep in the annexes, I read [...]

While we wait for the Beyond the Border and Regulatory Cooperation announcements, some media have started to fixate on irritants as evidence that the larger Canada-US co-operation initiatives are impossible.  It’s true that elements of  the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process have turned to street theatre, that CBP did, in a multi-hundred page report, use [...]

  Easier, better, faster, and less expensive: US-Canada regulatory cooperation promises to be a boon to supply chain management.  Since early 2011, the two countries have been putting together a cooperative framework to reduce regulatory inefficiencies and streamline certification and testing procedures. Canada released a summary of stakeholder suggestions in late August.  The report classifies [...]

  I don’t know if Finance Minister Flaherty prefers to wear a sword for cross-border crusading or whether web-slinging wristbands are more his thing but since the election he has been a man on a mission.  Some of his targets: U.S. Internal Revenue Service – The Minister says the IRS is going too hard on [...]

No Fence – David V. Aguilar, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection says, “Any fence that is being considered at the northern border is specific to a port of entry footprint or complex. There is no intent at the current time to build a fence between the ports of entry.” Thanks Bilateralist.com for [...]