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Originally Posted by acottawa
That may well be the case, but it is a different argument that the one you were using before that it can’t be done or that nobody does it.
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My argument was not that on-board border checks cannot be performed on the Canadian-American border, but that if such practices are virtually unknown at borders with much more pragmatic attitudes towards border security, it is simply not realistic to expect such practices to get prioneered at our border. I had indeed forgotten about the Finnish-Russian border, even though I’ve seen with my own eyes the border agents waiting at the platform in Kouvola (some 100 km west of the border town Vainikkala) waiting to board the Sapsan (which has been and remains suspended since March 2020, which are of course not relevant for our discussion here), but that doesn’t invalidate my argument.
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Frankly, I think if Trudeau had gone to Amtrak Joe with a specific proposal for on board clearance I think Biden would have at least required the agencies to look at the proposal seriously. I just don’t think it is on anyone’s radar.
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I believe the (for me at least) rather surprising burst of plans for uilding a border facility in Windsor to allow cross-border rail connections between Toronto, Detroit and Vhicago to be restored, clearly shows that there is some level of international commitment to improve the Status Quo. However, given how the oolitical gridlock in the United States is slowing down even the most mundane (and uncontroversial) policy decisions, I can’t blame anyone in Washington for not treating improved border procedures and cross-border connections for one of the tiniest niches of an already shockingly unpopular transportation mode as any kind of priority. That said, with the stalled plans for the border facility at Gare Centrale, the roadblocks seem to be firmly on our own side of the border…
Many of the discussions we are having here would be better suited for a politics forum (or fantasy threads), as they assume an alternative political universe than the one we Canadians and especially our American neighbours live in…