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I simply can't agree on this one.

To me the current level of border checking even for plane passengers is absurd and wasteful. It simply isn't justified on a risk-reward basis.

The U.S. clearly doesn't have a tight border, or it would have no material illicit drug issue, since the majority of cocaine and even heroin and opiods are all produced offshore.

Similarly, while lesser in scale than in the past, the U.S. has vast numbers of undocumented immigrants; while many did enter legally and simply overstayed their lawful welcome; many others walked right across the border and/or were stashed
in trucks or on ships etc etc.

Likewise, we only scratch the surface with illicit guns being taken into this country.

I'm not suggesting we abolish all borders and associated precautions, by any means. But each action we take should be evaluated on weighing its costs in time, hassle and money vs its perceived benefit.

If you believe these border measures have material impacts, I'd like to introduce you to the contraband trade down at Akwesasne ( a reserve on both sides of the border in eastern Ontario) or take you up to Lake of the Woods where you can hop, skip, jump and swim across the border pretty much at will.

The implicit level of surveillance has more holes in it than armour, and simply serves to cost us all a lot of money and time.

As a wise person once pointed out, you can choose to extol the virtues of a 700mile border wall on the U.S. southern border, or the 1,300 mile open doorway.

The former not being particularly effective, in light of the latter.
It seems to make little sense to treat every little old lady (or a little old guy - like me) like a potential smuggler or terrorist, but accurate intelligence at the individual level on a massive scale is extremely difficult and relying solely on profiling (the type of person *likely* to be a smuggler/terrorist) to be effectively interpreted and exercised by literally hundreds of federal employees thousands of times a day has so much potential for grief for government agencies. It is helpful to remember that, in most cases, agents have mere minutes.

Akwesasne is a rather unique and confounding cases (what were they thinking?). We in southern Ontario get accustomed to being separated by physical barriers like lakes and rivers. There are many kilometers of border that are a line on a map and very remote, and several legitimate ports of entry where we can literally 'phone it in'.
 
It seems to make little sense to treat every little old lady (or a little old guy - like me) like a potential smuggler or terrorist, but accurate intelligence at the individual level on a massive scale is extremely difficult and relying solely on profiling (the type of person *likely* to be a smuggler/terrorist) to be effectively interpreted and exercised by literally hundreds of federal employees thousands of times a day has so much potential for grief for government agencies. It is helpful to remember that, in most cases, agents have mere minutes.

I think the material issue though is whether interdiction on the basis of either random search/secondary inspection or a refusal to surrender a cell phone to be read or a look exchanged that the border agent is unsatisfied with actually produces a material benefit to the country doing the inspecting.

If you're interdicting 1% of cocaine, you've changed nothing that matters, even assuming we thought prohibition made sense. (which I don't).

The things that truly might matter would be a prospective terrorist with munitions/explosives etc., a gun smuggler, a people smuggler, or someone potentially bringing in a agricultural/forestry pest from a foreign country.

The latter is largely moot at a land border crossing internal to North America.

The others.........what percentage of people are being caught? If the number is 50% (its not) then we can agree on the utility; 10% its debatable...........1%?

I think we need to restrict measures that have low utility vs reward.

Which then gets us to yes, there should be rules against the 'things that matter'; yes, there should be enforcement based on credible intelligence, and/or the blindingly obvious.

But can the rest of the money spent on intrusive inspection, without such grounds really be justified? My instinct is no. Even if no budget were taken away from investigating/enforcing such things, I expect the money could be spent
to greater effect, such as intelligence-based operations.
 
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Regardless of their statistical effectiveness, I think the admittedly brief face-to-face border encounter has a deterrence value. There are obviously different degrees of threats to a nation's interests; security, economic, environmental, etc. Someone bringing a weapon into the country to do mischief is one thing - bringing it in because they are heading to Alaska (or, as mentioned to me once by a US citizen found in possession of a handgun, 'I didn't declare it - we don't consider them a weapon, just an accessory, like your wallet') is another. Similarly, many of the agricultural concerns are out of ignorance, like baitfish that could be invasive, but we still have to try. Much of the commercial-level threat deterrence and enforcement does not happen at the port of entry; you not claiming a purchase at that Niagara Falls outlet mall won't bring the economy to its knees (and many border agents dislike being small beans tax collectors).

The problems with intelligence, particularly foreign, is that it is very time-consuming, costly, and I'm not sure the CBSA is set up or mandated for it. In order to know that a load of handguns are northbound from Florida, you either have to have assets on the ground there or have very solid partnerships with local agencies. I'm not even sure if the CBSA has members on the ground there or is even allowed to, and local agencies might have different views on priorities. Regardless, it would still be more expensive. I don't think the population would accept personnel being re-directed from ports of entry so that lanes went unstaffed.
 
As has been touched on with the points above, it's pretty wasteful/inefficient/not possible to check on every single individual who is crossing the border. That's a point I certainly agree on and wont argue on at all.

But it's the deterrence part that also plays a certain level of importance. If you present a border crossing as an easy gateway to get things across, individuals will be more likely to abuse that crossing (my earlier point with the Niagara train crossing is one I was using to illustrate this example). A lot of people have a certain understanding that border agents on both sides have the ability to X-ray/use other forms of tech to see the contents of a vehicle, thus that serves as a certain level of deterrence. Same goes for plane travel, and bus travel. The people who are really intent on smuggling things will find the loopholes no matter what kind of deterrence is present, that's just a given.
 

West Coast Canadians and Americans are now over a hundred million dollars closer to high-speed rail travel between the two countries.

Both Democratic and Republican Washington State legislators approved spending $150 million USD on a train that travels 250 miles per hour from Vancouver to Portland.
 

Of note from the above:

- BC has yet to commit to funding a share of this round of planning (it did partially fund a previous round)

-This, of course, is just planning money, the actual estimated cost of construction and rolling stock is 24B USD

- Earliest possible delivery of service is estimated at 2035

- If delivered Travel time from Vancouver to Seattle is estimated at 1 hour.
 
Of note from the above:

- BC has yet to commit to funding a share of this round of planning (it did partially fund a previous round)

-This, of course, is just planning money, the actual estimated cost of construction and rolling stock is 24B USD

- Earliest possible delivery of service is estimated at 2035

- If delivered Travel time from Vancouver to Seattle is estimated at 1 hour.
So the train can run slow in Canada
 
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^ Four trains for an agency the size of Caltrans is more of a toe in the water than a leap into the pool. The earlier 2019 order, for one train, won't be filled until 2024.

The option to purchase another 21 trains is interesting, and suggests that the trial four will be watched carefully/optimistically as the "crawl before the walk".

Personally I'm quite content to have Ontario watch this one from the sidelines. If the test proves successful, and Caltrans does exercise the option, there will be an open assembly line ready for other orders, so no opportunity cost by waiting. Let someone else get the bugs out.

- Paul
 
Cool map here from Barrie in 1979. H/T to "Nomad | YLK ➞ ?" on the Global Transit & Infrastructure Central discord server and the "Railways in Canada" channel.

unknown-1.png
 
I saw these in the CN Kamloops yard last week when taking VIA from Jasper to Vancouver. Apparently they're from the Charlevoix train in Quebec. Any idea what they're doing way over in Kamloops?
 

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Sorry, I guess it didn't upload correctly. Here it is:

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