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Lobby group seeks alternatives to passport laws

New security protocols cause concern on both sides of the border
By Andrew Mitchell

Unless the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can be convinced otherwise, visitors will soon need a passport to get into the U.S., and Americans will need passports to return home when they visit another country.

Known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), the new rules will kick in for sea and air travel for Jan. 1, 2007, and for all road crossings on Jan. 1, 2008.

The Pacific Northwest Economic Region board, which represents B.C., Alberta, The Yukon, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, is just one of the groups lobbying against the new rules. They gave an update on the status of their talks last month, when PNWER representatives were in Whistler for a Regional Economic Leadership Forum.

According to Ken Oplinger, the president and CEO of the Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber of Commerce, WHTI is not a done deal just yet. For one, the Department of Homeland Security is required to file an economic impact statement before the new law can implemented.

Also, the U.S. General Accounting Office has been ordered to produce an economic study on the border issue, looking at the potential economic impact as well as possible alternatives to the passport requirement.

Some of those alternatives include:

• Accepting a national drivers’ license in the U.S. that includes biometric data;

• Accepting the same combination of I.D. that people need to apply for passports, such as drivers licences and birth certificates;

• Improving the implementation of the NEXUS card program;

• Creating a new kind of identification in the U.S. for low-risk citizens that is cheap and available at all post-offices, for people who wish to visit Canada and Mexico and return to the U.S.;

• Extending the passport implementation date of road crossings, which account for most North American cross-border travel, include ferry links as road crossings, and test the new system as a pilot project before making it law.

Only 37 per cent of Canadians have passports, although 90 per cent of the population lives within 150 kilometres of the U.S. border. Only 25 per cent of Americans have passports.

One of the reasons could be cost. An adult passport is $85 for five years in Canada and $97 for 10 years in the U.S.

In terms of visitation between the two countries, in 2003 34 million Canadians visited the U.S., spending approximately $10.9 billion. Conversely just 15 million Americans visited Canada, despite the fact that the population is 10 times larger.

For that reason, members of Congress from states that benefit most from Canadian tourism are also lobbying against WHTI, or asking for extensions until it can be properly studied. The U.S. Passport Office believes that at least 27 million Americans will have to be processed in the next five years to implement WHTI, based on business and other travel.

But while cross-border tourism is generally in favour of the U.S., American visitors are important to B.C.’s tourism economy. It is estimated that with the WHTI rules there would be 7.7 million fewer visits to Canada from the U.S. from 2005 to 2007, and the cost to B.C. would be over $400 million a year.

“It’s already having an effect,” said Oplinger. “Some people think the regulations are already in place, and are staying away. Just the perception of this new rule has been a problem for us.”

According to Rick Lemon, the vice president of marketing for Tourism B.C., they have already added a story to the HelloBC.com website to inform visitors that the new laws are not yet in effect after receiving numerous inquiries from the U.S.

There are also stories of bookings being cancelled because of the confusion, and there have been changes to Canadian conference bookings reported as far out as 2012.

“There has been a lot of media coverage on this issue in border areas and tourism areas, and groups like the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and Vancouver Chamber have done an outstanding job, but now we need to get the word out to the rest of the U.S.,” said Oplinger. “We have to engage businesses and stakeholders, and get legislative support from the provinces and states. We have to co-ordinate our lobbying efforts at the federal level, and to the provinces and states that should be concerned by this.”

According to Matt Morrison, the executive director of PNWER, the new passport requirement is redundant, given the national drivers license standard and existing programs like the NEXUS cards.

“It took three years to get that program (NEXUS) to function the way it is supposed to function. It’s clear that we are still floating a lot of ideas… so it doesn’t make sense to implement this now,” he said.

“This is a short way of saying let’s delay the process, let’s have a pilot study with the public… and let’s wait until we have a communications program in place to let people know what’s happening and when.”

On Oct. 31, PNWER sent a letter to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, which is now under the Department of Homeland Security, listing their concerns as well as suggesting alternatives to the passport laws.

PNWER members will meet again in February, four years out from the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, to draw more media attention to the issue and to discuss progress.