Dawson Strategic

By Stefania Bartucci Receiving this year’s budget, I felt like a kid at Christmas who was really hoping that Santa would pony up for a Nintendo Wii, and instead discovered some new socks and pajamas under the tree.  You know you need them, but socks and PJs won’t entertain you for hours on end. No [...]

In a paper released by the Fraser Institute as part of a collection of essays on the U.S. election,  Laura Dawson argues that Canada-U.S. economic relations have been on autopilot since the 1989 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. In light of the recent shift in economic focus towards Asia, the leaders [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan (a.k.a the Canada-U.S. Border Plan) looks like a great deal but the devil is in the details. Sustained political attention is needed to make sure that commitments are met.  Here’s Dawson talking about the deal on CTV News , quoted in Huffington Post, and in Canadian Press. [...]

With the new US-Canada border deal attracting so much attention in Canada, my Canada Institute colleague Paul Frazer and I thought it was important to generate some attention in the U.S., especially in border communities where better access to Canada for traders and travellers translates into easier participation in cross-border supply chains and regional economic growth. With presidential elections looming, it [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The Obama and Harper governments have big plans to make the border easier for traders and travellers.  The Beyond the Border (BTB) initiative is the kind of high-level bilateral cooperation that we haven’t seen since the pre-NAFTA days.  But, unprecedented cooperation and nimble government footwork will be required to put meat on the bones of this agreement.  [...]