U.S. holding Nexus trusted-traveller program ‘hostage,’ envoy says

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WASHINGTON — The Nexus trusted-traveller program is being “held hostage” by unilateral American efforts to renegotiate the 20-year-old preclearance settlement between the USA and its northern neighbour, Canada’s envoy to the U.S. stated Thursday.

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Kirsten Hillman known as it “disappointing” and “irritating” that Canada’s 13 Nexus enrolment centres stay closed, even with these south of the border open since April — and she or he laid the blame squarely on the toes of the U.S.

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“There’s an try to renegotiate the phrases of a 20-year-old program unilaterally and this system is being held hostage to that effort,” Hillman instructed a symposium on the Canada-U.S. border hosted by the Future Borders Coalition.

The techniques being utilized by the U.S. are “heavy-handed” and never in step with what has in any other case lengthy been a cordial and co-operative relationship with Canada, she continued.

“There must be a recognition that we’ll work on the challenges, however we are able to’t have the entire program kind of on its knees till we work these by means of as a result of it’s going to take a while.”

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The nucleus of the dispute has been largely opaque for months. But it surely revolves round a long-standing request by the U.S. Customs and Border Safety company that its brokers be afforded the identical authorized protections inside Nexus amenities in Canada that they at present have at ports of entry like airports and the Canada-U.S. border.

Hillman, whose self-described “super-undiplomatic and blunt” message got here throughout an unscheduled second look onstage on the Canadian Embassy, stated she’s seen a authorized opinion suggesting the U.S. calls for are inconceivable to fulfill.

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The one path out of the dispute should embody a recognition from the U.S. “that what’s being requested is just not easy — and will not be doable,” she stated, intimating that the way forward for Nexus could possibly be at stake.

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“We will’t simply let the entire program disintegrate primarily based on a request that’s perhaps not doable.”

Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino has cited the rules of Canadian sovereignty in explaining why U.S. customs officers can’t have the identical authorized protections on the Nexus centres that they do at airports and the border.

It’s simpler to handle preclearance areas at ports of entry as a result of travellers there are transferring immediately into the U.S., in contrast to on the Nexus enrolment centres in Canada.

However Scotty Greenwood, chief government of the Canadian American Enterprise Council, has been arguing for weeks that Canada already has the facility to find out and redefine preclearance zones.

“I can’t work out what the motivation is, except it’s merely to attempt to blame the USA on your personal inadequacies,” she stated.

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“Blaming the USA on your personal lack of want to facilitate the Nexus program — that’s not being simple, that’s not working from a place of goodwill. That’s not working from a place of information.”

The dispute is just the newest irritant to return up between Canada and the U.S. since Joe Biden took over the White Home in 2021. However it’s the first to showcase such undiplomatic rhetoric.

The 2 nations have exchanged formal complaints over a lot of trade-related points within the final two years, and Canada lobbied aggressively in opposition to a now-defunct incentive scheme for electrical automobiles that might have excluded Canadian-made automobiles.

However observers have famous that since border restrictions imposed in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic started to ease final yr, the 2 nations started taking a extra asymmetrical method to the shared border than earlier than.

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Certainly, whereas Canada deserted its vaccination requirement for overseas guests earlier this month, the U.S. has but to take comparable steps on the subject of Canadians travelling south.

“Nexus, in some methods, is emblematic of the particular nature of Canada-U.S. co-operation that we’ve seen eroded in recent times,” Greenwood stated.

“Nexus is on life help proper now, and the Canadian authorities seems to be deciding to drag the plug as an alternative of save the affected person. And that may have repercussions.”

Justin Trudeau struck a decidedly extra docile tone Thursday when requested throughout an occasion in Hamilton about Hillman’s broadside. The 2 sides are in talks “virtually day-after-day,” the prime minister stated.

“We’re going to proceed to work with them on methods to make it smoother and simpler for individuals who work on each side of the border,” Trudeau stated.

“That’s why the trusted-traveller packages like Nexus are so essential and why we’re so wanting to get it rolling once more.”