Brookings: Topics - Canada

Could al-Qaeda Direct a Canadian Plot From Iran?

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:30:00 -0400

The revelation of an alleged plot to attack the Canada-U.S. train system by a small cell somehow connected to al-Qaeda’s presence in Iran has sparked interest in the relationship between the Sunni Muslim terror group and the Shia Muslim Iranian government. There is no doubt that al-Qaeda has a presence in Iran – but how it relates to the Tehran regime has been murky for years.

The relationship between al-Qaeda and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been shrouded in mystery and secrecy for years. Al-Qaeda operatives have transited through Iran regularly before and after Sept. 11, 2001, and some found sanctuary in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001, although the circumstances of their status in Iran was always unclear. But the hints of occasional operational co-operation between al-Qaeda and Tehran are mostly outweighed by the very considerable and public evidence of the deep animosity between Sunni-extremist al-Qaeda and Shia-extremist Iran.

Antipathy for each other is at the root of their ideologies and narratives. It has been most visible in their competition for influence in Iraq, and now also in Syria.

The Sept. 11 plot is a good place to start if we wish to understand the mystery. The 9/11 Commission report concluded that there was evidence of contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iran (through its Lebanese Hezbollah ally) dating back to his years in Khartoum in the mid 1990s.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Globe and Mail

Image Source: © Jon Blacker / Reuters

U.S.-Alberta Energy Relations: A Conversation with Premier Alison Redford

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 9, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event
Recently, the U.S. Department of State released its draft Supplement Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved by the Obama administration, would connect Canada’s oil sands with U.S. refineries in the Gulf Coast. The debate surrounding the pipeline has brought increased attention to the Canadian province of Alberta—which, with an estimated 170 billion barrels—is home to the world’s third-largest proven reserves of oil.

On April 9, the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings hosted Alison Redford, the premier of Alberta, for a discussion on the the Alberta-U. S. energy relationship, environmental efforts undertaken by her administration, and the Keystone XL pipeline.

Senior Fellow Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative, provided introductory remarks. Brookings Trustee Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, moderated the discussion with Premier Redford.

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A Complex Constellation: Displacement, Climate Change and Arctic Peoples

Elizabeth Ferris — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

The Arctic is home to unique human communities whose livelihoods and communities are increasingly challenged by the effects of climate change. Melting ice, stronger storms, growing erosion, thawing permafrost, more unpredictable weather and other direct effects of climate change are already impacting indigenous communities. But warming temperatures and melting ice are also making possible more commercial, transport and military initiatives in the region. New sea routes are being opened, new enterprises are being planned, new drilling and mining licenses are being issued and new tourist destinations are opening up. The movement of more people to the Arctic region will have significant effects on indigenous populations, cultures and livelihoods.

What will be the impact and potential impact of climate change on the mobility of indigenous communities in the Arctic region. Will indigenous populations be forced to move elsewhere because of the effects of climate change? Will they be relocated by governments to protect them from an increasingly unstable environment – or perhaps for other less altruistic reasons?

This paper is part of a collaborative research project within the Foreign Policy program of the Brookings Institution which is examining issues and trends related to the Arctic including energy exploration, maritime security and governance. This study seeks to complement those efforts by focusing specifically on indigenous communities – the people who inhabit (albeit sparsely) the northernmost reaches of planet earth. It draws on three research papers commissioned for this project which examine the effects of climate change on human mobility in three Arctic countries: Alaska Native communities, the Russian North and the Scandinavian Arctic.

The Arctic is inhabited by approximately 4 million people[1] of whom 400,000 are considered indigenous. Approximately two-thirds of the total population in the Arctic lives in relatively large settlements, although indigenous peoples living in circumpolar countries is characterized by small, widely separated communities.

Based on study of the relationship between the Arctic’s indigenous communities, climate change, and different forms of mobility, a few general observations can be drawn:

Mobility is not new for Arctic peoples. Migration for livelihoods – whether hunting or reindeer herding – has been central to the indigenous way of life for centuries.
Limitations to mobility occurred long before climate change appeared on the international agenda, particularly as the result of indigenous groups settling in villages in order to access education and other public services.
Climate change is likely to affect the mobility of Arctic peoples in many different ways. In some cases, they may be forced to relocate because their habitats are no longer habitable (as in the Alaskan cases examined by Robin Bronen). In some cases, their traditional livelihoods will become more difficult (e.g. reindeer in Scandinavian Arctic and cattle among the Viliui Sakha in the Russian North will have more difficulties in finding food in winter months.) Changing fish and animal species (often with knock-on effects) may mean different patterns of hunting. Traditional transportation is likely to change as sea ice melts.
But people in the Arctic will likely be influenced as much by new realities made possible by global warming as they are by melting permafrost and melting sea ice. With “longer ice-free periods now available to explore for hydrocarbons, a new scramble for oil and gas could occur” especially if the price of oil and gas increase and new technological developments take place.[2] In 2009, 15 percent of petroleum production came from onshore Arctic production. But 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 percent of world’s undiscovered oil is in the Arctic.[3] New maritime routes in the Arctic raise new issues about sovereignty and offer expanded opportunities for military operations. The stakes are getting higher for control of territory in the Arctic and indigenous communities should engage in these discussions – and not just on issues of maintaining traditional lifestyles.
The issue of adaptation to climate change is an intensely political issue. A focus on climate change adaptation “downplays the fact that climate adaption is to make societal choices informed by many other concerns and challenges than climate.” The question is who in the Arctic will make these choices.[4]

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[1] Stefansson Arctic Institute, Arctic Human Development Report, 2004. http://www.svs.is/ahdr/AHDR%20chapters/English%20version/Chapters%20PDF.htm. Note that using a broader definition of the circumpolar North, the population is estimated at 13.1 million.

[2] Ebinger and Zambetakis, op. cit., p. 1216.

[3] Bruce Jones et al, op. cit., p. 3.

[4] Sejersen, op. cit., p. 239.

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A Complex Constellation: Displacement, Climate Change, and Arctic Peoples

Authors

Elizabeth Ferris

Image Source: © Reuters Staff / Reuters

Forging a New Strategic Partnership Between Canada and Mexico

Andrés Rozental and Perrin Beatty — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:37:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This report was originally published by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

The visit to Ottawa by Mexico’s President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto the week of November 26, provides Canada with the opportunity to elevate its bilateral relationship with Mexico to the level of a strategic partnership. Bilateral trade and investment have increased steadily since Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, but there remains enormous, untapped potential, particularly in Mexico. In this report, Andrés Rozental and Perrin Beatty offer substantive recommendations that point to the benefit of efforts that will intensify bilateral partnerships, not only in their own right, but also in strengthening both countries’ ability to deal more effectively with the United States in pursuing matters of mutual concern.

Recommendations:

Work on deepening the direct, bilateral relationship between Canada and Mexico where there are real gains to be made by strengthening trade, investment and people-to-people linkages.
Work together to maximize benefits from participation in the TransPacific Partnership (TPP).
Pursue further economic cooperation with the United States on a pragmatic basis.
Institutionalize the North American Leaders’ Summit (NALS) and establish a complementary North American Business Council.
Launch a public awareness campaign about the mutual economic opportunities for Canada and Mexico.
Remove the visa requirement for Mexican visitors to Canada and encourage student exchanges between Canada and Mexico.
Increase funding to the Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program (ACCBP).

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Authors

Andrés Rozental
Perrin Beatty

Publication: Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Image Source: © Henry Romero / Reuters

What’s Good for Mexico Is Good for Canada

Andrés Rozental and Perrin Beatty — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto’s visit to Ottawa this week offers a major opportunity to upgrade bilateral relations between Canada and Mexico to the level of a strategic partnership.

Although Canada joined the North American free-trade agreement talks to preserve the gains from the earlier Canadian-U.S. free-trade agreement, this “reluctant” decision has proved to be remarkably rewarding. Canada not only succeeded in protecting its primary market with its most important trading partner – the United States – but it also found a new partner in Mexico. Since NAFTA, Canadian trade with Mexico has grown nearly sixfold. Mexico is now Canada’s third-largest trading partner, with two-way trade reaching $34.4-billion in 2011.

The growth in the bilateral economic relationship has not been limited to trade. Canadian investments in Mexico have more than doubled since the late 1980s, as Canada has become one of Mexico’s largest sources of foreign direct investment. More than 2,500 Canadian companies have offices and operations in Mexico. Many have used their Mexican operations as launch pads to reach other markets in Central and South America. Mexican firms are now also showing greater interest in Canada.

After the United States, Mexico is now the most popular foreign destination for Canadians. The majority of these are short-term visitors, but there are also a growing number of business people, students and other long-term residents living in Mexico. In the other direction, Mexico is the second-largest source of temporary foreign workers for Canada, boosting the productivity of Canada’s agricultural sector through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. As Canada’s labour force continues to age, Mexico offers a rich source of younger workers upon which to draw.

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Authors

Andrés Rozental
Perrin Beatty

Publication: The Globe and Mail

Image Source: © STRINGER Mexico / Reuters

Canada's Aid Failure is One of Politics and Punditry

John McArthur — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:59:00 -0400

Pundits are not policymakers and they should not be held to the same standard of public responsibility. But opinion leaders do need to take responsibility for their role in shaping public debate and, at times, contributing to policy failure. I was reminded of this last week when reading one of Jeffrey Simpson’s Globe and Mail columns, in which he lamented Canadian foreign aid cuts and asserted that the country’s “once-sterling reputation for caring about Africa is over.”

Rewind the clock to June 2005, when Canada had a brief, once-in-a-generation public discussion on its foreign assistance strategy, especially for Africa. It was the eve of the historic Gleneagles G8 Summit, hosted by then-U.K. prime minister Tony Blair. The Martin government was riding a knife edge in deliberating whether to join other advanced economies, such as the U.K. and the rest of Europe, in committing a fair share of the global financing required to tackle global problems such as AIDS, malaria, and food insecurity.

Fair share was defined as a timetable to achieve the international aid target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income by 2015, the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals. After missing multiple natural policy moments to commit to 0.7 over the previous year, the government was in a last-minute scramble finally to decide before Gleneagles. Many Ottawa decision-makers were new to foreign aid issues and eager to be perceived as hard-headed. At the time I was managing the UN Millennium Project and tracked the situation closely.

During the final critical days of deliberations, Simpson wrote an influential column that helped tip the scales when it accused aid advocates of fiscal naivety. “By all means,” he wrote, “let Canada raise its foreign aid to 0.7. … Remember, however, that such a commitment would eat up just about all available federal money for the next decade. … Forget, therefore, more federal money for provinces, daycare, the homeless, tax cuts, postsecondary education, research, aboriginals or anything else. … There wouldn’t be anything left.”

Thus one of Canada’s most trusted voices misleadingly framed 0.7 as a choice between global disease control and Canadian day care. Absent was a discussion of Canada’s responsibilities toward the Millennium Development Goals. Nor was there mention of the cost of hypocrisy, since Martin had already endorsed 0.7 as finance minister at a landmark 2002 UN conference and his successor minister Ralph Goodale had endorsed the target in March 2005 as a member of the Blair-led Commission for Africa.

Days later, at the G8 summit, Canada said a final no to 0.7. The faux hard-headedness struck a two-fold blow to the country’s international political capital. First, many in the global policy community had believed Martin could be trusted to provide leadership on this issue and felt let down when he did not. Second, Canada is generally considered the “home of 0.7” since the target first took hold globally following an international commission chaired by Lester Pearson in 1969. It is extra costly when a national progenitor is seen as failing to follow through.

In fairness, Simpson had changed tune by a December 2005 column, where he probed, “When the world asked for commitments to deliver 0.7 per cent of GDP for foreign aid, where was Canada?” In March 2010 he later bemoaned Canada’s global aid laggard status as part of the country’s ability to tackle its problems partly on the back of the world’s poor. But where was that Jeffrey Simpson in early 2005?

Fast-forward to 2012 and the U.K. continues to lead by example on 0.7, despite a much worse fiscal situation than Canada’s. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron realizes that 0.7 is not just a good investment in humanity, it is also good politics. The UN Secretary General recently announced a high-level panel to propose global development goals and strategy for a post-2015 world. Cameron is one of three co-chairs, along with the Nobel laureate President of Liberia and the President of Indonesia. The U.K. has earned its oar in the water.

Canada’s politicians should be held responsible for the country’s multi-partisan failure to lead on international development, but ultimately they follow the evolution of public discussions much more than they create them. At a deeper level, Canada has suffered a failure of public deliberation. This can only be solved through active long-term leadership from public voices of all types. Leaders from media, academia, and the private sector need to step up alongside the traditional voices of non-governmental organizations.

It typically takes years for public discourses to take shape around specific issues and serious facts. They need to advance in step with technical debates. What, for example, should Canada’s role be in protecting the remarkable achievements of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria? How should Canada engage on international efforts for girls’ secondary education, or for smallholder farm productivity? How can Canadian businesses and researchers best contribute to post-2015 global development goals if the country’s climate policy is out of sync with global norms?

It will likely be some time before Canada is ready for another high-profile discussion of major aid increases. That does not diminish the importance of proactive and rigorous debate on underlying global issues in the meantime. To avoid long-term echoes of “where was Canada when the world came calling?” opinion leaders should take more responsibility for tackling the substance today.

Authors

John McArthur

Publication: The Ottawa Citizen

Image Source: Chris Wattie / Reuters

Design Key to Canada’s Pension Plan

Robert C. Pozen — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Like many developed nations, Canada continues to refine its retirement system. As part of that effort, the provincial governments will soon authorise a new savings vehicle – Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs). With the right policy decisions, PRPPs will go a long way towards increasing retirement security for millions of Canadians.

Canada already has a sophisticated retirement savings system. It has a financially stable public pension programme, and it offers substantial tax benefits to private savings. Even with those incentives, however, less than half of all Canadian workers – highly concentrated in large employers – participate in a private plan.

The provincial governments hope to boost the level of private savings through the introduction of PRPPs. In broad outline, workers would direct a portion of their salaries to national investment pools, which would be run by a small number of financial institutions. Employers, on the other hand, would not be required to contribute.

Many other critical programme details continue to be debated. Here is a quick summary of the issues policymakers will need to consider, along with our take on how the decisions will affect the success of the initiative.

Universal access. While Canadian employers need not make contributions to PRPPs, we suggest that employers (with more than 10 employees) be required to provide access to these plans for their workers, if they do not already offer another type of workplace retirement plan. Such a universal access provision would ensure that almost all employees have the ability to contribute to a retirement programme through payroll deduction. To offset the administrative costs of linking a payroll system to the PRPPs, employers would receive a tax credit.
Automatic enrolment. Employees earning above a specified minimum should be automatically enrolled in PRPPs – though they would have the ability to stop or reduce contributions at any time. Experience with US workplace retirement plans has shown that this “opt out” approach leads to higher levels of participation compared to processes that require workers to “opt in” to start saving.
Default contribution rate. If policymakers endorse automatic enrolment, they then must decide on a default contribution rate.

In other words, what percentage of salary will be deducted from a worker’s salary and contributed to the PRPP, barring instructions to the contrary? We would recommend an initially low rate of 2 per cent or 3 per cent of wages, but would also suggest this rate increase slightly after the worker is in the plan for a specified period, such as five years.
Default investment option. Many of the employees participating in a PRPP will not actively decide how their contributions will be invested, so policymakers must make that choice for them. This default investment option should be broadly-diversified, holding both stocks and bonds. We favour balanced funds, with a relatively stable allocation between asset classes. However, target-date funds, which gradually change asset allocation over time, may be appropriate if their changing mix is clearly disclosed.
Costs. Keeping costs down is key to the programme’s success, because lower costs mean higher returns. One way to keep costs in check is to take advantage of economies of scale. The savings will be easier to realise if financial institutions can create PRPPs that are available nationally, but that will only be possible if the provinces harmonise their rules. Given the small average account size anticipated, providers will also need to use web technology effectively to provide customer service and communicate with participants.

Although expenses for retail mutual funds in Canada can be quite high (often 200+ basis points), institutional retirement accounts are much more reasonably priced at an average of 60-70bps. Thus, pooling must allow for PRPPs to closely resemble these institutional accounts.
Oversight obligations. The provinces should relieve employers of all oversight obligations for the PRPPs – as they seem prepared to do – making the PRPP feasible for small employers. The financial institutions sponsoring the PRPPs should provide general oversight, though they should not be required to provide advisory services, nor should they be held liable for investment losses if the pools hold a diversified portfolio.

In short, PRPPs have the potential to increase significantly retirement savings in Canada, but the success of the programme will depend on a number of key design decisions. Although each province will set its own rules, we encourage the federal government to take a leading role in framing the issues and persuading the provincial governments to adopt uniform policies.

Authors

Robert C. Pozen

Publication: Financial Times

Boosting the Great Lakes International Economy

John C. Austin — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:39:00 -0400

The regions on both sides of the Great Lakes international border need to team up to strengthen their highly integrated economies.

That was the conclusion of over 250 public and private leaders from both the United States and Canada recently brought together by Brookings and the University of Toronto Mowat Centre in Detroit-Windsor.

The tone was set by Bruce Katz’s keynote--where he pressed for international metro action to expand exports and encouraged the industrial Great Lakes to seize and lead the low-carbon, clean-tech economy.

Overall, two topics dominated discussion by delegates as ripe for international teamwork.

One was building the 21^st century transportation infrastructure the region needs as a platform for enhanced exports--and in particular building a state-of-the-art span connecting Detroit and Windsor, the world’s highest dollar international trade crossing point. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, and Canada’s Consul General Roy Norton were pitching hard for the Michigan Legislature to follow Governor Rick Snyder’s call, and vote final approval for the new bridge.

The New International Trade Crossing has been 10 years in the planning, and is strongly backed by business leaders and governments on both sides of the border. It seemed a done-deal when Gov. Snyder announced that Ontario would pay cash-strapped Michigan’s share of the project, and in turn the U.S. Department of Transportation would let the Canadian dollars stand-in as Michigan’s match for federally-funded highway projects across Michigan.

The project keeps being sabotaged by the aging billionaire Mattie Maroun (born 1927), owner of the equally aging Ambassador Bridge (built 1929), fighting hard to keep a monopoly on toll traffic.

Maroun has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Michigan State legislators, and bankrolled groups that are behind dirty tricks that would make Donald Segretti blush, including fake eviction notices at the doors of homeowners near the proposed bridge and patently false TV spots claiming Michigan taxpayers will foot the bill.

Meanwhile the whole $250 billion economic relationship with Canada is at risk, as the tightly wound manufacturing, agricultural, and commerce supply chains are bottlenecked--just at a moment they are poised to grow.

Another area for Great Lakes international teamwork is converting the region’s prodigious innovation, technology-base, and manufacturing talent to support new jobs and leadership in the clean-technology market. Recent Brookings research shows Michigan already 12^th in the nation in share of clean-tech jobs and confirmed the jobs potential of clean-tech growth.

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell made the point, “I can think of nothing more important than a more robust, and better harmonized Great Lakes renewable energy portfolio standard to drive job creation in the clean energy sector.”

Heartwell was articulating the market opportunities seen by business leaders in West Michigan, who feel well positioned to grow product lines and new jobs developing and manufacturing clean-energy and clean water solutions. When Gov. Snyder showed up in West Michigan to give his first “Reinvent Michigan Award” to Energetx, a wind turbine and electric vehicle parts supplier, the former venture capitalist was also petitioned by a 40-member delegation of clean energy business buddies, asking him to better support these emerging markets with more aggressive public policy.

As the Brookings study shows, clean-tech is one emerging arena in which to repurpose the engineering and manufacturing competencies of the Great Lakes to replace jobs lost in auto and other sectors--if state and metro leaders provide the supportive policy platform.

Authors

John C. Austin

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic

Building Metropolitan Economies in the Great Lakes Region

Josh Hjartarson and Bruce Katz — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The Great Recession ended two years ago this month, but many countries around the world are still reeling from its economic devastation. Moving forward, every country must fundamentally re-examine its economic growth model, and build a different kind of economy.

For the United States and Canada, this means transitioning to a "next economy" that is driven by exports, powered by low carbon energy sources and fueled by innovation. The Great Lakes region has everything it needs to be the engine of the next economy of the U.S. and Canada.

The two Canadian provinces and eight U.S. states in this region are home to over 105 million people. As a whole, the region generated $4.6 trillion in economic output in 2009, making it one of the largest economies in the world. More than $2 billion worth of goods and services cross the U.S.-Canada border every day, with $356 million traversing the Windsor-Detroit crossing alone. Despite the decline in North American manufacturing, the Great Lakes region produces nearly 75% of total Canadian manufacturing and 33% of total U.S. manufacturing.

The Great Lakes also possess significant innovation assets. Twenty of the top 100 research universities in the world are located in the region. Paired with corporate research labs located throughout the region, the Great Lakes could lead new technology development in emerging sectors.

The Great Lakes themselves provide a huge advantage, given the world's insatiable demand for innovation in the supply and delivery of clean water.

So what must happen for this cross-border zone to realize its potential in the next economy?

Metropolitan leaders must be purposeful about their economies. Business, political and civic leaders in northeast Ohio are coming together to craft a smart business plan for their region with ideas to retool manufacturing firms and retrain industrial workers. All cities need to develop such plans.

Cities also need to be collaborative. As they develop plans, they should look to neighboring cities to see whether there are ways to seize common opportunities with potential partners on the other side of the border.

Federal, state and provincial leaders must also orient their investments and policies toward metropolitan area visions. Toronto and Chicago are transitioning to a green economy with robust, market-shaping renewable energy and sustainability policies and incentives. Milwaukee, Grand Rapids and Windsor have targeted water and clean energy technology sectors for investment and growth. Provincial, state and federal governments need to get behind the innovation strategies of their cities. Both countries need to support this kind of bottom-up federalism in a fiercely competitive world.

Finally, federal leaders must rebalance security and economic concerns. The U.S. and Canadian governments have to maintain a secure border, while also harmonizing regulations and investing in 21st-century infrastructure at the border.

The next economy could be a bright one for the communities in the Great Lakes region, but it will not just happen on its own. Both countries need to act with purpose. Creating the next economy will begin at home, in the metropolitan areas that drive our prosperity.

Authors

Josh Hjartarson
Bruce Katz

Publication: National Post

Climate Compared: Public Opinion on Climate Change in the United States and Canada

Christopher P. Borick, Erick Lachapelle and Barry Rabe — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:35:00 -0400

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This is the key findings report for the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change and the National Survey of Canadian Public Opinion on Climate Change.

The following report summarizes results drawn from national level surveys in the United States and Canada that examine public perceptions regarding various aspects of climate change. Since 2008, the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change (NSAPOCC) has examined the perceptions and preferences of residents of the United States regarding their views on the existence of climate change and potential policy approaches to address global warming. In order to gain comparative perspective on climate change matters in Canada, the National Survey of Canadian Public Opinion on Climate Change (NSCPOCC) accompanied the most recent version of the NSAPOCC. This report provides insight into the evolution of American public opinion regarding climate matters while producing direct comparisons between the views of the American and Canadian publics on matters pertaining to climate change and its mitigation.

KEY FINDINGS

After experiencing significant declines in the level of belief that global warming is occurring between the fall of 2008 and spring of 2010, American belief rebounded slightly in late 2010, but remained well below the levels observed in 2008.
Belief in climate change among Canadians substantially outpaces belief in this phenomenon among residents of the United States.
For residents of Canada and the United States that believe that climate change is occurring there is general belief that this constitutes a very serious problem.
In the United States an individual’s partisan affiliation is the most important determinant of their views on the existence of global warming, with Democrats significantly more likely than Republicans to believe that the Earth is warming.
Partisan affiliation is also associated with individual views on global warming in Canada, with Conservative Party supporters significantly less likely than supporters of all other parties to believe the Earth is warming.
Among the cohort of Americans and Canadians who believe in climate change there is significant division on the root causes of global warming, with most believers pointing to both human activity and natural factors as contributing to increasing world temperatures.
Americans remain highly divided on claims that scientists are manipulating climate research for their own interests, with most Canadians rejecting such claims.
While placing the primary responsibility for addressing global warming on the federal government, a majority of both Canadians and Americans believe that state/provincial and local governments share responsibility for addressing this problem.
Canadians expressed a higher degree of willingness to pay for increased production of renewable energy resources than their American counterparts.

While most Americans do not support such policy options as cap and trade and carbon taxes, a majority of Canadians indicated that they would support such policy options even if they imposed increased costs of up to $50 per month in energy expenses.

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Authors

Christopher P. Borick
Erick Lachapelle
Barry Rabe

October 2010 Update for TIGER: Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery

Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:49:00 -0400

Editor's Note: In collaboration with the Financial Times (FT), Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda of Brookings have developed a set of composite indexes which track the global economic recovery. The Financial Times has produced the Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery (TIGER) interactive map, which appears on the FT Web site.

The October 2010 update of the Brookings Institution-FT Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery (TIGER) paints a sobering picture of the world economy, which has lost momentum. The global economy is teetering between a slowdown and at best a tepid recovery. Advanced economies are stuck in a funk and even the dynamic emerging markets have lost some of their swagger.

The updated interactive map below displays how fast individual G-20 economies are faring in global economic recovery. Underneath the map, links to updated key indicators display how fast those indicators are recovering for advanced economies, emerging markets and a composite total. The October 2010 updated indexes now also incorporate credit growth as an additional financial indicator to help further gauge the pulse of financial markets in G-20 economies.

Economic Recovery in the World's Advanced and Emerging Market Economies

View the interactive map »

Click on an individual country in the map to view charts for the main TIGER indexes for that country and charts for the indicators that make up the indexes, which are broken down by real economy, financial and confidence indicators.

As well as tracking country performance, the TIGER indexes also track the performance of key indicators across groups of advanced economies, emerging markets and a composite total. Click on the following links to view the charts for the following key indicators:

Real Activity Indexes

Financial Indexes

Confidence Indexes

For detailed information on the composition and construction of the indexes and a comprehensive description of the data and source information, please refer to the technical appendix.

The October 2010 update reveals three main themes:

In G-20 economies, a common feature is that financial markets are not providing much support to the real economy. This reflects poor performance of equity markets and weak credit growth. Financial market weaknesses and lackluster employment growth have dented consumer and business confidence, which could hold back the recovery in aggregate demand.
Financial markets appear spooked by the notion that macroeconomic policy tools may have reached their limits in terms of supporting economic growth without creating untenable risks for the future. Uncertainty about the regulatory landscape may also be restraining financial market performance, although some of this uncertainty should now have been resolved by the Basel III accord.
All told, the optimism of the summer is giving way to the realization that the global economic recovery is going to be a long and hard slog. The G-20 objective of robust, balanced and sustainable growth remains a chimera for now.

Highlights for Q2 2010:

The Overall Growth index has fallen in recent months for both advanced and emerging market economies, mainly because of weak financial market conditions.
The Financial index took a beating roughly around the initial period of the European debt crisis and has continued to weaken. Stock markets around the world remain in a state of torpor after a correction that signals a reversal of the optimism that led to their getting ahead—perhaps too far ahead—of improvements in real economic activity.
Real economic activity has eased up after initially surging from the low levels around the trough of the global recession in late 2008. Real GDP growth has not done too badly, especially among emerging markets, but growth in industrial production, exports and imports have all dipped across the board in recent months. Employment growth in the advanced economies also remains weak. If the negative trends in these variables persist, real GDP growth might moderate in the next couple of quarters.
Among G-20 economies, confidence indicators in the private sector have leveled off from their gains earlier this year. Even though business confidence is still rising in advanced economies, it has not yet made up the ground lost during the crisis and consumer confidence has entirely lost momentum. Consumer confidence has dipped sharply in the U.S. and many emerging markets.

Read the related commentary: TIGER Update: Global Economic Recovery Is Teetering »

For commentary and analysis on Q1 2010, please see the original release of TIGER »

Authors

Eswar Prasad
Karim Foda

Drilling for Oil in the Great Lakes

John C. Austin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:36:00 -0400

One of the annual Great Lakes political rites of late spring is the leadership policy conference on scenic Mackinac Island, the car-less Great Lakes getaway, at which Mackinac’s Grand Hotel, with the longest front porch in the world, is weighed down by 1500 of Detroit and Michigan’s leading business, media, and political figures, along with the odd early presidential aspirant.

This being an election year, the manure being spread by seven Republican and Democratic Michigan gubernatorial hopefuls, along with visiting keynoter and maybe presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, rivaled the piles left by Mackinac’s famous horse-drawn taxis.

An unprecedented (and unlikely to be repeated) bi-partisan gubernatorial debate hosted by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce saw seven Michigan candidates to replace term-limited (and sand-blasted by Michigan’s auto and economic collapse) Governor Jennifer Granholm deal with a host of hot-button topics.

None was more interesting, given the BP moment, than the question posed by moderator Tim Skupick: “If the Canadians were to start drilling for oil in the Great Lakes, would you try to stop it, and if so, how?”

The question was not a wild hypothetical. Canadian provinces have been considering exploiting more of the significant gas and oil deposits under the Great Lakes. Drilling has been done on land for years. Drilling in the Lakes has been episodically proposed by various states, and most recently, Canadian provinces. Michigan’s legislature was moved in 2002 to ban Great Lakes drilling, and pushed a federal law in 2005, as proposals for “slant drilling”—getting at oil and gas under Michigan proper—from “out at sea” in the Great Lakes were seriously being pursued.

Michigan straddles almost 4,000 of the 10,000 miles of Great Lakes frontage; but eight other states and two Canadian provinces—including leading metros like Chicago, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Toronto to smaller Duluth, Green Bay, and Traverse City—share the same waterfront real estate.

Given the Gulf-induced drilling backlash—all the candidates—Republicans and Democrats—groped to outdo each other in demonstrating their zeal to prevent such a thing with varying degrees of credibility given Canada is a sovereign nation and a lack of clarity concerning what, if anything, a governor could do.

Some of the answers: “I’d fly to Ottawa; I’d phone the premier of Quebec; I’d lobby the Obama administration to stop it; a governor can’t do anything, but I’d try.”

At a moment when the nation is just beginning to pour serious dollars into cleaning the Great Lakes, repairing damage done by the prior carbon-fueled industrial era’s water abuse; and prompted in no small part by our work demonstrating the huge economic importance of clean Great Lakes to the long-term economic revitalization of these industrial metros, there have been some ironic recent twists in the political winds.

Prior to the Gulf BP disaster, not only was Great Lakes drilling once again sneaking up as a real and potentially “needed” economic opportunity (albeit with Canadians as the stalking horse), but Michigan just gained an unprecedented windfall to maintain its once crown jewel state parks system from the latest round of oil and gas leases that are routinely auctioned. Michigan’s park system, like a lot of Michigan, has been decimated by 10 years of economic and state budget collapse, leading to deferred maintenance and park budget cuts. The recent round of land-based oil and gas exploration leases earned a surprise $178 million for the parks trust fund—almost as much as the $190 million total netted since the program began in 1929.

Making a choice in the Great Lakes devil’s bargain between long-term economic gain by capitalizing on its spectacular freshwater coast as a place-defining, people attracting magnet or exploiting the rich resources that lie below the Great Lakes, and maybe wrecking the place again, will be held at bay due to the BP moment. But the underlying tensions and Faustian political choice remains.

Authors

John C. Austin

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic

Image Source: © Reuters Photographer / Reuters

The World Economy is Recovering

Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This commentary is based on research and analysis from the Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery (TIGER) interactive map, which appears on the Financial Times Web site.

View the Brookings version of the interactive map »

Despite all the portents of doom the world economy has been quietly mending itself.

This is not to say that the recovery is firmly entrenched or that few risks remain, but despite the rough patches in 2010, it is important to keep in mind that the economic picture looks far better now than it did a year ago.

Why do I conclude this? Well, to get an accurate picture of where the world economy now stands, we need to look at a broad set of economic data. We have gathered data from the G20 economies for three types of indicators: real economic activity, captured by GDP, industrial production, employment, imports and exports; financial indicators such as national stock market indexes, stock market capitalization and, in the case of emerging markets, their bond spreads relative to U.S. treasuries; and finally, indicators of business and consumer confidence.

By combining information from these variables using statistical techniques, we can take the pulse of individual economies as well as the world economy. And thus was born the Brookings Institution-Financial Times index for the world economy, which we have christened TIGER—Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery.

The composite indexes reveal five dominant themes. First, the global economy turned the corner by mid-2009 and has strengthened gradually since then. Growth rates of many indicators have rebounded strongly after plunging into negative territory during 2008.

These high growth rates are off a lower base of course and there is still a lot of ground to be made up before the levels of these indicators are back at their pre-crisis levels. For instance, growth rates of industrial production in many G20 economies are now higher than before the crisis but, because growth rates fell sharply during 2008, the levels of industrial production are still below pre-crisis levels. Still, the recovery has clearly gathered momentum.

Second, the recovery has been rather uneven. Growth rates of industrial production and trade volumes have recovered strongly, while the recovery in GDP and employment has been modest at best. Employment growth, which tends to be a lagging indicator of the business cycle, was very weak in advanced economies until the beginning of 2010 but is now showing some signs of life. So the recovery is ever so slowly becoming more broad-based.

Third, the performance of world financial markets has outpaced that of key macro variables. In the last two months, however, financial markets have dipped as they have been rattled by the problems in Europe. This could signal prescience of financial markets about more difficult times ahead or just a temporary pullback from an earlier surge of unfounded optimism. Either way, this is not good for the recovery. Then again, a more tempered financial market performance may not be such a bad thing for the longer term.

Fourth, confidence measures have regained some of the ground they lost during the worst of the crisis. In both advanced and emerging market economies, business confidence is still rising gradually but consumer confidence in advanced economies has been stuck in a rut in recent months. Resurgent business confidence is a positive sign as it could boost investment. But weak consumer confidence and minimal employment growth could dampen the recovery if they translate into tepid growth in private consumption.

And finally, emerging markets felt the effects of the global crisis later than the advanced economies and have also recovered more sharply. Among the major emerging markets, the recoveries in China and India have been particularly strong.

So far in 2010, emerging markets are still barreling their way to a strong performance despite the problems that have beset advanced economies. Perhaps, in a long-term structural sense, they are becoming less dependent on advanced economies. But emerging markets cannot pull the world economy along by themselves. If advanced economies continue to turn in a weak performance, we are in for a long and hard slog towards a durable global economic recovery.

We are certainly not out of the woods yet and all manner of risks could still forestall the recovery. While it is easy to paint dire scenarios, it is still worth recognizing that there is a lot of positive news relative to the desperate circumstances that the world economy was in a year ago. It’s not yet time to open up the bubbly, but at least there is less need now for a stiff drink.

Authors

Eswar Prasad
Karim Foda

Publication: Financial Times

TIGER: Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery

Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Is the global economic recovery on track or are we in a lull before the next phase of the storm? This question dominates the news headlines and the current debate on the state of the global economy. But before we know where we are going, we need to know where the world economy now stands. This new index from the Brookings Institution and the Financial Times aims to track the recovery based on a set of macroeconomic, financial and confidence variables for the G-20 economies.

The interactive map below displays how fast individual G-20 economies are recovering and weathering the storm. Underneath the map, links to key indicators display how fast those indicators are recovering for advanced economies, emerging markets and a composite total.

Economic Recovery in the World's Advanced and Emerging Market Economies

Click to view the interactive map »

Real Economy Indexes

Financial Indexes

Confidence Indexes

While global economy turned the corner by mid-2009, there is still a long way to go before the recovery is entrenched and on track toward robust growth. Industrial production and trade volumes, in particular, have recovered strongly while the recovery in GDP and employment has been more modest.
Emerging markets felt the effects of the global crisis later than the advanced economies, experienced milder slowdowns, and have also recovered more sharply.
Since mid-2009, the recovery in world financial markets has outpaced that in key macro variables. In the last two months, financial market performance has leveled off, suggesting greater uncertainty about the recovery and possibly presaging a period of weak growth.
Confidence measures have regained much of the ground they lost during the worst of the crisis. Business confidence has continued to increase gradually while consumer confidence has been stuck in a rut in recent months.

Highlights for Q1 2010:

The global economic recovery continues to gather momentum but has hit some rough patches in 2010.
Financial market performance has cooled off in recent months. The debt crisis in Europe has clearly rattled financial markets. This could signal prescience of financial markets about more difficult times ahead or just a temporary pullback from an earlier surge of unfounded optimism. Either way, this is not good for the recovery.
Employment growth in the advanced economies was very weak until the beginning of 2010, when it started showing some signs of life.
In both advanced and emerging economies, business confidence is still rising gradually while consumer confidence in advanced economies has been stuck in a rut in recent months. Resurgent business confidence is a positive sign as it could boost investment. But weak consumer confidence and minimal employment growth could dampen the recovery if they translate into tepid growth in private consumption.
Emerging markets are barreling their way to a strong performance despite the problems that have beset advanced economies. Perhaps, in a long-term structural sense, they are becoming less dependent on advanced economies. But emerging markets cannot pull the world economy along by themselves. Continued weakness in the advanced economies could mean we are in for a long and hard slog toward a durable global economic recovery.

Read the related commentary: "The World Economy is Recovering" »

Authors

Eswar Prasad
Karim Foda

Kandahar is What the Canada-U.S. Alliance is All About

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Watching from my vantage point in Washington, it seems many are missing the big picture in Canada-U.S. relations these days. Relatively minor disagreements over matters such as who should attend a summit on the Arctic are obscuring the central point that American and Canadian forces - as well as diplomats and development experts - are beginning the most important combined wartime operation since the Second World War. On this effort - the decisive Kandahar City campaign - most likely rests the fate of the Afghan mission.

Canada has been trying to control Kandahar for years, of course, but without the kind of broader NATO support needed for such a large and crucial area. Kandahar is the spiritual home of not just the Taliban but, arguably, Afghanistan in general. It's the city where the 9/11 attacks were organized. It's the focus of Taliban efforts to defeat the Karzai government and the international community in our effort to create stability, the rule of constitutional law and opportunities for economic and human development.

The Kandahar campaign is not a simple military operation. As the initial waves of 30,000 additional U.S. troops arrive this spring (along with lesser numbers of other NATO reinforcements), they are starting to take key positions in the area. This will be no repeat of the recent takedown of Marja, the town in neighbouring Helmand province where U.S. Marines arrived by helicopter in an inside-out operation. Nor will it resemble the big firefights that characterized early days in Iraq, in places such as Ramadi and Fallujah.

Rather, it will - out of necessity - be a gradual and indirect approach, with U.S., Canadian and other NATO soldiers establishing a perimeter around the city, in places such as Arghandab, Zhari and Panjwai. The theory is that, with these towns secured, Taliban operatives seeking to infiltrate the city proper from more rural bastions will be impeded. Over time, the city will be under less threat, and as we better train Afghan police and army units, they can establish actual control within Kandahar itself. The whole approach will take months, even if it works exactly according to script.

Because the Taliban haven't carried out the sort of widespread truck bombings that turned local populations against al-Qaeda forces in Iraq or, more recently, the Taliban movement in Pakistan, our metrics of measuring success will be harder to identify. A simple reduction in violence will not be so dramatic, or so easy to see. We will have to look for subtler measures of effective governance, gauged through public opinion surveys and the like.

Understanding the strategy for Kandahar underscores the centrality of the Canadian role. Clearly, as the year unfolds, it will be U.S. troop numbers that dominate the battlefield geometry. But this isn't all about slugging it out with the enemy; in fact, it's least about that. Three challenges face us: understanding tribal and political dynamics, and working to help improve the effectiveness and legitimacy of local Afghan governance; preparing Afghan security forces for the job of controlling Kandahar; and gauging whether our indirect approach is working.

To tackle these tasks, expertise built up over years rather than months is crucial. Experience working with local Afghan army and police units, for example, is irreplaceable. The Canadians have a three-to four-year head start over Americans in such endeavours, so we need to listen to our friends from the north.

We Americans also need to feel unabashed about asking Canada to stay on in Afghanistan past 2011 in whatever form, and in whatever numbers, may prove possible. Deciding what's feasible is a Canadian matter, of course. But the importance of the war is too real, the expertise brought by Canada too special, and the importance of consolidating any gains we can make this year too great to pretend we can do this job ourselves.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Globe and Mail

Continental Climate Governance Challenges for North America

Henrik Selin and Stacy D. VanDeveer — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:44:00 -0500

Executive Summary

Over the past decade, policymakers in Washington, D.C., Ottawa, and Mexico City generally failed to take meaningful action to reduce global greenhouse gases (GHGs), even as leading municipalities, states and provinces and firms worked to move forward with climate policy making. With ongoing global climate change negotiations and climate policy debates heating up in the United States Congress, it is time to think more seriously about North American climate change governance. To date, North American politicians, and particularly those in the United States, have paid little attention to continental options to reduce GHG emissions.

If North American GHG emissions are to be reduced efficiently and effectively across public and private sector entities across the continent, with the fewest trade distortions and other economic consequences possible, federal authorities in all three countries will need to realize and act on these shared interests. In this paper, we explore North America’s current GHG output and policy actions to date, examine four possible multilevel climate governance scenarios and extol the benefits of continental climate change cooperation.

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Authors

Henrik Selin
Stacy D. VanDeveer

President Obama in Mexico

Vanda Felbab-Brown — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:00:00 -0400

Vanda Felbab-Brown joined Diane Rehm to discuss President Obama's meeting in Guadalajara with leaders of Canada and Mexico on issues of mutual concern including escalating drug violence in Mexico, immigration and the economy.

Diane Rehm: Vanda Felbab-Brown, even as we mention the war on drugs in Mexico, the New York Times is reporting this morning that a Mexico lawyer who represented drug traffickers, but who had also spoken out strongly against the government accusing politicians and prosecutors of allowing criminals to operate – she was assassinated yesterday. What can you tell us about that?

Vanda Felbab-Brown : Hello Diane. I don't know that I can tell you any more specific details about the killin,g other than to emphasize this is yet another demonstration of the extraordinary toll the war on drugs is exacting in Mexico.

And indeed, the approach that President Calderon has undertaken – while brave – has so far failed to reduce the violence. It is becoming questionable how long the current strategy will be sustained without some major improvements, at least in some areas that his administration identified as priority areas, such as the city of Juarez where unfortunately violence in May, June and July has again spiked to peak levels.

This is of course taking place in the context of a real questioning of the Mexican public of more and more human rights allegations against the military. So clearly, the Mexican government – with our help and also with the help of Mexico and jointly – will need to think how to adjust the strategy to reduce violence while being continually effective against the cartels.

Listen to the full show » (external link)

Authors

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Publication: The Diane Rehm Show

The Effects of 9/11 on Canadian-U.S. Trade: An Update through 2008

Steven Globerman and Paul Storer — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

This study updates the authors’ (2008) statistical examination of changes in the behavior of Canada-U.S. trade following the tightening of security at the Canada-U.S. border in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In addition to an updated sample, this study uses constant-dollar “real” exports and imports rather than current-dollar values. The use of constant-dollar exports and imports identifies changes in quantities of goods crossing the border and controls for changes in the prices of those goods.

The regional analysis in this study focuses on three sets of ports rather than the ten ports in the original. The three sets of ports are the Great Lakes Gateway (Detroit, Buffalo-Niagara Falls, and Port Huron), the Cascade Gateway (represented by the Blaine Peace Arch Crossing), and a grouping of all other ports that corresponds fairly closely to the Rural Gateway category from the “Toward a New Frontier” Brookings study by Sands (2009). By using these groupings of ports, our statistical results are more directly applicable to the framework of the Sands paper.

For total U.S. exports to Canada, there are significant declines in trade volumes in at least the second half of 2001 and in 2002. There are smaller effects in 2003. For total U.S. imports from Canada, significant negative effects are found in the 4th quarter of 2001 and in 2002, 2003, 2004, and again in 2008. In general, there is greater evidence of disruption of trade flowing from Canada to the United States than from the United States to Canada. As imports from Canada promote higher real income levels in the United States through several different channels of influence, the adverse impact of border security developments on U.S. imports from Canada is of concern to Americans, as well as Canadians.

The intensity, direction, and duration of border security-related trade impacts varied across ports. Trade disruption effects seemed to be of shorter duration in the Great Lakes Gateway than in the Blaine/Cascadian Gateway. This difference could be due to the greater utilization of programs such as FAST in the Great Lakes Gateway. Shares of individual ports in total Canada-U.S. trade reveal changes in trends that roughly coincide with the post-9/11 security regime.

The results of our study indicate that increases in border costs may have had significant impacts on trade. An inference of this observation is that the long-run real living standards of both Canadians and Americans have been adversely affected by post-9/11 border security developments.

This creates a public policy imperative to reduce costs of bilateral trade without making undue sacrifices in the safety of Canadians and Americans from terrorist attacks. Further, differences in impacts on trade observed between specific ports and gateways argue for policies that reflect regional differences, including differences in the composition of trade.

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Authors

Steven Globerman
Paul Storer

Publication: The Brookings Instuitution

Toward a New Frontier Improving the U.S.-Canadian Border

Christopher Sands — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

In an age of international terrorism and illegal immigration, a well-functioning border is vital for homeland security. For the United States and Canada, however, it is also vital for national prosperity, for each is the other’s largest trading partner, and much of that trade is in intermediate goods that support the bi-national production of finished products, most notably autos. Roughly 400,000 individuals cross the border every day, many with deadlines for delivering cargo or reporting to work. This trade and travel supports jobs throughout both countries.

Since 9/11, however, security concerns have trumped economic ones, leading to delays and higher costs for the cross-border movement of people and goods. Several initiatives have attempted to address these problems, most notably the U.S.-Canada Smart Border Action Plan and the Security and Prosperity Partnership. They have achieved some success, but the unfortunate reality is that the border today remains a source of considerable user frustration and economic drag. This report focuses on the policy process itself and on the conditions that shape its outcomes. In particular, it argues that progress requires taking greater account of the variety of ways in which the border is used by different categories of users in different places.

There are four geographically distinct corridors or “gateways” along the U.S.-Canada border: the Cascadian gateway in the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes gateway in the Midwest, the extensive Rural gateway in less populated areas, and the continent spanning Perimeter gateway. Each requires a different mix of technology and infrastructure to respond to unique regional conditions.

There are also five identifiable types of U.S.-Canadian border users: Commercial shippers, energy shippers, regular commuters, amateur travelers, and, of course, illicit border crossers. Each is found in varying degrees within the four border regions, further enriching the heterogeneity of the border. Yet the post-2001 border strategy has emphasized uniformity, with one-sizefits- all rules that ignore this diversity, and at times have falsely equated conditions at the U.S.-Canadian border with those at the more difficult U.S.-Mexican border.

At present, borderlands communities have no channel for regular input on key policy issues, and regional differences are often overlooked by “one border” rules and programs that result in uneven performance. Some categories of U.S. border users have seen their specific needs addressed, but much more could be done to improve communications and to customize policy implementation. Moreover, the U.S. government agencies concerned with economic flows and those responsible for national security could do far more to reconcile their competing purposes in a fashion that optimizes security and prosperity.

President Obama acknowledged during his visit to Ottawa in February 2009 that too often in the past, the United States has “taken Canada for granted,” allowing problems to fester and opportunities to work together to be lost. Such an opportunity now exists, and not only because there is a new administration in Washington and a new willingness on the part of the Canadians to think boldly about working with the U.S. The current recession has hit the auto industry with particular force, and the auto industry is both the biggest component in U.S.-Canada trade and a prime example of the bi-national integration of North American manufacturing. The “Detroit Three” U.S. auto makers depend on an efficient border, as does Michigan, the state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate. More generally speaking, for many American firms to remain competitive in the global economy, their extensive Canadian supply chains and just-in-time inventory systems must function well, and the current recession makes this an opportune moment to tackle any problems occasioned by the border.

The keys to making the best use of this opportunity are to partially decentralize border policy management and thereby enable problems to be identified and resolved with greater precision and sensitivity to regional concerns. If these process improvements are undertaken by the Obama administration, the underbrush of concerns that fragments responses from regions and user types and bedevils the U.S.- Canadian border could be cleared away, and a path toward an inclusive consensus on the future of the U.S.-Canadian frontier could emerge. In short, the time is right for instituting reforms that will resolve particular problems and open the door to a broader dialogue about a “new frontier” for the 21st century, a truly modern border that could be a place of innovation and serve as a model for progress on the management of other borders. With that in mind, this paper recommends the following:

Create and engage a state-level Homeland Security Network;
Ensure that performance evaluations of Customs and Border Protection Port Directors and other local representatives of the federal government include assessments of their efforts to develop relationships with local governments and stakeholder groups;
Emulate the 30-point U.S.-Canada Smart Border Action Plan on a local level;
Empower local federal officials in ways that ensure greater lateral communication and resource-sharing without recourse to Washington;
Adopt a Total Quality Management (TQM) model of continuous process improvement at the border;
Congress should authorize funds for a Border Security Pilot Project Challenge Fund to test new ideas;
Publicly adopt a two-speed approach to the Canadian and Mexican borders;
Reform but do not abandon the Security and Prosperity Partnership;
Form a U.S.-Canada or North American Joint Infrastructure Planning Commission.

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Christopher Sands

Brookings: Topics - Canada

Could al-Qaeda Direct a Canadian Plot From Iran?

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U.S.-Alberta Energy Relations: A Conversation with Premier Alison Redford

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A Complex Constellation: Displacement, Climate Change and Arctic Peoples

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Forging a New Strategic Partnership Between Canada and Mexico

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What’s Good for Mexico Is Good for Canada

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Canada's Aid Failure is One of Politics and Punditry

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Design Key to Canada’s Pension Plan

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Boosting the Great Lakes International Economy

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Building Metropolitan Economies in the Great Lakes Region

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Climate Compared: Public Opinion on Climate Change in the United States and Canada

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October 2010 Update for TIGER: Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery

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Drilling for Oil in the Great Lakes

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The World Economy is Recovering

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TIGER: Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery

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Kandahar is What the Canada-U.S. Alliance is All About

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Continental Climate Governance Challenges for North America

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President Obama in Mexico

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The Effects of 9/11 on Canadian-U.S. Trade: An Update through 2008

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Toward a New Frontier Improving the U.S.-Canadian Border

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