Coderre Introducing Made-in-U.S.A. Immigration Procedures

Immigration Minister Denis Coderre has proposed a new, voluntary identity card for Canadians which would incorporate biometric information such as fingerprinting and retina scanning, in order, ostensibly, for Canadians to gain easier access into the United States. His proposal has met with resistance from his own Cabinet colleagues who have expressed concern that such procedures could lead to Canada's becoming akin to a "police state". The Privacy Commissioner, George Radwanski, has opposed this, as well as other increased security measures which have already been implemented by the Canadian government in the past year and a half.

Since the thirty-point Smart Border Declaration was signed between Canada and the United States in December 2001, a number of measures have come into effect to monitor people entering the U.S. through Canada, including Canadian citizens and permanent residents, who previously had enjoyed relative ease in crossing the border. The U.S. government has issued a number of alerts in recent months, suggesting that terrorists have entered the U.S. through Canada because of lax Canadian border regulations and monitoring, ignoring the obvious truth that anyone who enters the U.S. must go through U.S. Customs, not Canada's. However, the propaganda has been used to create an atmosphere in which calling for tighter Canadian regulations seems sensible in order to combat terrorism; the implication is that whatever is good for the U.S. is good for Canada.

Part of Minister Coderre's current proposal is the creation of an online data bank of all information coded into the identity cards. This is a serious concern as the U.S. has been calling for the "harmonization" of all information on cross-border travellers and commercial traffic, and this has already been put into effect with the new NEXUS, FAST, CSI and other programs reported in the February 3 issue of Modern Communism. If an identity card should become mandatory, then the U.S. government might have easy access to detailed information on all Canadians. Just last week, the government announced that its Customs database, which will track all flight information on Canadians travelling outside of Canada and hold it for up to six years, will be up and running as well within a month.

Changes in Canadian laws and regulations concerning immigrants and refugees already came into effect with the new Citizenship Act of Canada in the fall of 2002. Aside from the controversial inclusion of pledging allegiance to "Canadian values", it also required all permanent residents of Canada who are not yet Canadian citizens to apply for a new permanent resident (PR) card in order to be able to return to Canada if they should leave temporarily. The PR card will be required after December 31, 2003. Each individual man, woman and child must have their own PR card; the fee is $50.00 per application and is renewable in some cases every year, and in most cases, every five years.