Balloon Outrage

A company from the United States is testing a new, sky-high surveillance technology along the border of Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. A 15 metre long balloon shaped like a plane’s wing was placed above Port Huron with a camera aimed at the St. Clair River, which flows past downtown Sarnia. Officially this balloon is called an Aerostat. This helium-filled craft floats more than 240 metres above the ground and zooms to survey the water and the two bridges the link Sarnia to Port Huron. It is controlled by a ground crew in a trailer at a launch site near the river. The company that owns it, Sierra Nevada Corporation, wants to see if it can be sold to U.S. Homeland security to help monitor the border and coastlines. The Aerostat has to follow Federal Aviation Administration flight rules and must be pulled down out of the sky each night at 11:30 p.m. It is permitted to go back up at 6:30 a.m.

Most of Sarnia residents are outraged saying that this technology is "going too far."

But Bradley Lott, the retired U.S. Marine who is running the Aerostat testing in Port Huron, said the company's plan is to see what the aircraft can do and how it can be used in a variety of situations -- including for use in rescue operations after natural disasters or airline accidents. He said the camera would not be capturing images of buildings or people along the Sarnia waterfront, and it would focus only on the waterway and bridge.

In April, the U.S. border patrol said it would erect video surveillance towers to monitor boats leaving the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair. The $20-million security project will involve the installation of 11 video surveillance towers along Michigan waterfronts.

Sarnia residents have already put up with surveillance from helicopters, boats, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other patrols along the Ontario-Michigan border. Not to mention the flying drones that will start patrolling the border next year. It goes beyond the issue of U.S. defence concerns for many Sarnia residents, who say they simply do not want to be spied upon. Having a camera peering into Sarnia is a violation of their privacy and our sovereignty.

The Mayor of Sarnia, Mike Bradley, is upset at this violation, and is additionally upset that no one in Sarnia was asked as to whether the city wanted the Aerostat flying over its horizon.

He's even written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, though Bradley said he has not yet received a response about the Aerostat issue.


On facebook, a group was made to "Moon the Balloon". Residence of formed a line, turned their backs to the U.S. border, drop their drawers, and point mooned Michigan.

Canada-U.S. border crossing faster than before 9/11: ambassador

Quicker today than before 9/11, Jacobson claims
Susan Delacourt Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA – Security may be tighter, but getting across the Canada-U.S. border today is faster than it was before the terrorist strikes of 2001, U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson says.

Jacobson, in his first major public remarks on Canada-U.S. border concerns, told an Ottawa audience Tuesday that for all the worries about “thickening” of the border between the two countries, the reality is that things are getting better.

“We’re already making progress. Border wait times today are, on the average, less than they were prior to Sept. 11,” Jacobson told a sold-out crowd of politicos, lobbyists and business people at the Chateau Laurier. “In fact, since 2007, average border wait times for passengers have been cut by almost a third and during that same period of time for goods, wait times have been cut in half.”

This progress has come despite concerns about all the extra security measures and passport requirements, Jacobson noted, as well as a perceived rise in U.S. protectionism since the economic crash of 2008. Some Canada-U.S. experts have suggested that wait times are down because overall trade traffic is also on the decline since the downturn.

Continued here

Canada-U.S. trade: Borderline insanity

How the U.S. obsession with security is crippling our economy.
By Thomas Watson

Consider the predicament of Greg Bavington, CEO of Toronto's National Rubber Technologies, a leading North American supplier of engineered products and materials derived from recycled rubber. The factory he runs is populated with machines so big, he says, they're "anchored to the centre of the earth." He can't exactly move operations closer to his customers in the United States. As a result, the company is stuck in this country, where Bavington spends a lot of time protecting razor-thin margins from U.S. border-security measures. "The people we use to cross the border are sophisticated brokers," he says. "But shipping 1,000 kilometres to the border is still significantly cheaper than driving 1,001 km and crossing it. The border costs us money. And for what? To stop guns coming this way and hydroponic drugs going south. That seems ridiculous if you've been to Europe."

Those executives who, like Bavington, dream of a European-style common market for North America, with borderless trade and harmonized standards will, for the foreseeable future, just have to dream on. An indication of just how poor the state of free trade is came in early February. After months of negotiations, Ottawa and Washington belatedly came to terms on the so-called Buy American issue. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he had won an exemption that will enable businesses to bid on contracts stemming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. "We really have established the notion that Canada is fundamentally different," Harper said, "and the relationship between Canada and the United States is fundamentally different." Yet, with most of the US$787 billion in stimulus funds already spent, our late-stage inclusion seemed to show how low a priority the Americans are putting on trade with Canada.

Continued here

Matty Moroun climbs Forbes richest list

Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun climbs Forbes richest list

Moroun 556th richest, magazine says

By Dave Battagello, The Windsor StarMarch 12, 2010Comments (57)

In this 2006 file photo, Matty Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan is all smiles as he donates $2 million to help the University of Windsor pay for its athletic stadium complex.

Photograph by: Jason Kryk/File Photo, The Windsor Star

WINDSOR, Ont. — With a net worth of $1.8 billion, Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun is tied at 556th among the richest people in the world, according to the annual list released Thursday by Forbes magazine.

The 82-year-old transportation mogul, who resides in Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., saw his net worth increase substantially from a year ago when hit by the economic downturn reduced his wealth to $1 billion -- tied at 701. In 2008, Moroun's net worth was listed by Forbes at $1.5 billion.

Moroun this year is tied at $1.8 billion with such notables as Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, 67, CNN founder Ted Turner, 71, Subway founders Peter Buck, 79, and Fred DeLuca, 62, FedEx founder Frederick Smith, 65, and William Randolph Hearst III, 60, the grandchild of newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst.

Officials at Moroun's company head office in Warren, Mich., declined comment on the Forbes rankings.

The business magazine, in a brief profile of Moroun, said the trucking tycoon is "battling Canadian government to maintain his priceless monopoly over the Detroit River border crossing. Owns Ambassador Bridge, conduit for 25 per cent of commerce between U.S. and Canada; bridge handles 8,000 trucks a day, $100 billion worth of goods each year."

It said Moroun is "scrambling to build second bridge before Canada builds its own. Filed lawsuit to block construction, claiming Canuck plan will displace minority residents in U.S. Ottawa reportedly considering a bid for Ambassador Bridge."

The secretive Moroun for decades has guarded his financial holdings behind an array of private companies, so his true wealth has always been difficult for Forbes and others to determine. A 2006 Windsor Star investigation revealed he owns a wide variety of businesses: insurance companies, logistics firms, railways, air cargo companies, constructions firms, about 25 real estate companies and dozens of trucking companies on both sides of the border.

His empire stretches to nearly every corner of the world with shipping connections in Australia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China and Japan. His trucking interests include companies and affiliates across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have most often held the top two spots on the Forbes list, but this year Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, who amassed his fortune through telecom holdings, including America Movil, was named the wealthiest person with an estimated $53.5 billion -- up $18.5 billion since last year. Shares of America Movil are up 35 per cent in a year.

Microsoft owner Gates, who has held the title of world's richest 14 of the past 15 years, is now worth $53 billion at second -- up $13 billion from a year ago after shares of Microsoft rose 50 per cent in 12 months.

Buffett, in third this year, saw his net worth jump $10 billion to $47 billion on rising shares of his company Berkshire Hathaway.

David Thomson -- a major player in the world media market through Thomson Reuters -- is the top Canadian on the list at 20th with a net worth of $19 billion -- up considerably from $13 billion last year. Among the Thomson family's holdings are CTVglobemedia, The Globe and Mail and dozens of TV channels and radio stations.

Other noteworthy Michigan billionaires include Mike Ilitch, 80, and his family with a net worth of $1.5 billion with holdings that include Little Caesars pizza, MotorCity Casino, the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers. Also on the list are mall developer Alfred Taubman, 86, at $1.5 billion and auto tycoon Roger Penske, 73, at $1.3 billion.

This year's Forbes billionaires list includes 1,011 members, short of the record 1,125 in 2008.

Click here for the Digital Edition of The Windsor Star

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Windsor-Detroit border still busiest, most valuable

By Dalson Chen, Windsor Star

WINDSOR, Ont. -- The Windsor-Detroit border is still America’s busiest and most valuable land transportation gateway, says a new study by the U.S. federal bureau of transportation statistics.

Based on 2008 data, the study ranked our local border crossing the top U.S. land-based freight gateway and fifth out of all U.S. freight gateways (including sea and air) in terms of total value of shipments.

According to the study, the Windsor-Detroit crossing (which includes the Ambassador Bridge, the tunnel, the rail tunnel and truck ferries) moved $120 billion in U.S. trade in 2008 — $54 billion in imports and $66 billion in exports.

That’s 15 per cent of the value of all U.S. land trade, states the study.

The study found that 1,510,000 trucks entered the U.S. via the Detroit gateway in 2008 — which is actually a decline compared to 2007 figures.

The study predicts that the downward trend in truck traffic may continue, stating that “the decline in production by the Big Three automakers... and the overall slowdown in heavy manufacturing activities are likely to continue to influence freight traffic at Detroit's land facilities and in the freight transportation corridors they serve.”

Nevertheless, the study still makes special mention of the Windsor-Detroit crossing as being important in the context of NAFTA and border security.

“The confluence of transportation issues presented at the Detroit gateway underscores the complexity that characterizes the flow of land trade today,” states the study’s introduction.

Congestion, infrastructure management, and environmental impact remain “critical concerns,” according to the study.

The study devotes a couple of paragraphs to summarizing potential crossing improvements — including the DRIC project and the privately planned but unapproved twinning of the Ambassador Bridge.

However, the study does not make any specific recommendations on the situation.

The Research and Innovative Technology Administration, which co-ordinates U.S. Department of Transportation research, released the study last week. Prior to that, their most recent study on U.S. freight transportation gateways was done in 2004.

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Obama administration supports DRIC's Bridge

Obama administration supports DRIC's Windsor-Detroit bridge, ambassador says

By Chris Vander Doelen, The Windsor Star, March 24th 2010

WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Obama administration supports construction of the proposed DRIC bridge over the Detroit River but the border here will never again be as easy to cross as it once was, says the new U.S. ambassador to Canada.

With the DRIC project now the only bridge-crossing application still standing for U.S. regulatory approval after the Ambassador Bridge’s disqualification, “my government supports the DRIC,” said David Jacobson. “We think it’s a good thing.

“We believe there is probably demand for both” crossings, Jacobson said in an interview Tuesday, prior to delivering the annual Herb Gray lecture at the University of Windsor. “But certainly there is enough for the DRIC.”

David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, spoke at the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor Tuedsay.

Jacobson, a lawyer and Democratic party organizer, was appointed the U.S.’s 22nd ambassador to Canada by President Barack Obama six months ago — a posting he describes as his “dream job.”

Fixing the Windsor-Detroit border will be part of that job, but it “is going to take time,” Jacobson warned. “We’ll have to be patient.”

In the interview, he declined to answer questions regarding the financing of the U.S. half of the project, saying the money end was out of his pervue.

But he said improving border travel between the two countries has become a major focus of his job in Ottawa and will probably continue to be so during the duration of his tenure there.

But even when the infrastructure of the border at the Windsor-Detroit frontier is finally fixed, he said, it won’t likely duplicate the ease of crossing that existed pre-9/11.

“The world has changed, unfortunately,” Jacobson said. “I wish it were not so, but that is the reality. There are people in the this world who wish us ill.”

“It’s probably never again going to be the way it was when your grandfather crossed,” he told a student who asked how the border could be improved. “Probably not again during our lifetimes.”

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Growing up on the Border

You know you have lived in Windsor a long time when . . . .

• you remember when the age of majority dropped to 18 in Ontario and all of a sudden Detroit students thought Windsor was cool.
• your first concert was at Olympia Stadium or Ford Auditorium (Cobo Hall) or Pine Knob
• you remember hockey at Olympia Stadium
• your grade school field trips included the DIA and the Detroit Zoo
• BOBLO was heaven

• the Freedom Festival had activities on both waterfronts
• Belle Isle is a beautiful place in your memory
• you had to wait until 9pm for the CBC to broadcast the Maple Leafs game if the Red Winds were playing in town
• the Big 8 ruled music on both sides of the border
• you attended Windsor night (usually Monday's) at Tiger Stadium
• the Elmwood Casino & Night Club was advertised as being in Detroit

• your grade 8 prom dress came from either Woolco in Windsor or Kresge's in Detroit
• you remember stubby beer bottles in Windsor and 32oz. pours in Detroit
• Better Made potatoe chips and Stroh's ice cream were sold in Windsor
• you remember that Channel 9 was the only Canadian station and 'Bill Kennedy at the Movies' was the only thing on during the day if you were at home sick.

• Oakland Mall was better than Devonshire Mall
• you knew who Rita Bell, Bozo the Clown and Sonny Elliot were
• Lafayette Coney Islands - need I say more!
• everyone had American currency at home (for that quick trip across the border)
• the BOBLO Boat (actually two of them) docked in Windsor and Detroit
• the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press were delivered on Sunday's
• when the 'Top Of The Flame' building changed it's lights to correspond to the season or holiday.
• the Red Wings played an exhibition game every year at Windsor Arena
• walking down Woodward Avenue at Christmas was a truly special event and a wonderful sight to behold

Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun files suit against U.S. and Canadian government

WINDSOR, Ont. — Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun has filed a federal lawsuit against the Canadian and U.S. governments and several prominent government officials in the Obama administration, claiming interference with his bid to build a twin span.

He filed the 48-page suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleging both governments are in violation of existing legislation that grants him the right to proceed.

The U.S. Coast Guard earlier this month returned Moroun's permit application for the project because of unresolved property issues and several pending court actions regarding the bridge company.

The Michigan Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower court decision which ruled the bridge company must demolish its duty free store, gas pumps and toll booths on the Detroit side because they were constructed on city property and in violation of government agreements under the US$230-million Gateway Project.

Moroun's twin span application has been stalled on the Canadian side since he has not yet provided information requested by federal authorities guiding the environmental assessment for the project.

Moroun's court documents ask the courts to order the governments to allow him to proceed with his second span proposal.

http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Moroun+sues+Canadian+governments/2721152/story.html

Virtual Border Training

While searching for ideas for the border book assignment, I came across the most interesting border patrol training idea. Virtual Border Training. If there was not a video, I may not have taken this seriously. The Canadian Border Services Agency has incorporated a mixed reality simulation of border crossing encounter in their training classes. It is training, like training videos at most retail stores, but in the virtual world to learn how to guard real world national borders. How do you teach interview skills using a Second Life simulation? How does this virtual reality properly train an individual for real world situations (with real guns, real people, real drugs, etc)? Check out the weblink to see what our Border Service Agency is putting their funds towards....enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCUWcpVPtMM

Integrated Border Enforcement Teams

After seeing the interesting relationship between the Indian and Pakistan Border I was curious to know how our own country conducted business. Despite the elaborate dance moves The RCMP is just as methodical and nationalistic when paroling our boarders in cooperation with the U.S. below is the out line for the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams from the procedure manual for the RCMP.


IBETs enhance border integrity and security along the shared Canada/U.S. border, between designated ports of entry, by identifying, investigating and interdicting persons, organizations and goods that threaten the national security of one or both countries or that are involved in organized criminal activity.

IBET units protect both Canada and the United States from potential threats of terrorism and impede the trafficking/smuggling of people and contraband.
Partners

The five core IBET agencies – each having law enforcement responsibilities for areas at or near the shared border – are:

* Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
* Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)
* US Customs and Border Protection/Office of Border Patrol (CBP/OBP)
* US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
* US Coast Guard (USCG)

The Integrated Border Enforcement Team Program is comprised of both Canadian and American law enforcement agencies. The bi-national partnership enables the five core law enforcement partners to work together daily for more efficient sharing of information and intelligence.
IBETs:

* Secure the shared border between Canada and the United States, while respecting the laws and jurisdiction of each nation
* Focus on national security and target organized crime and other criminal activity between the ports of entry
* Collaborate with municipal, provincial, state, federal and First Nation law enforcement agencies, stakeholder agencies and related government departments

IBET is a cooperative bi-national initiative that ensures that borders are open for trade, but closed to crime.

Cross-Border Gun, Drug Ring Busted 22 - arrests made in Windsor and Toronto area

Last Updated: Thursday, March 11, 2010 2:17 PM ET: CBC NEWS



Ontario police say they have smashed a sophisticated organized crime group that was smuggling illegal weapons and drugs into the province from the U.S.

The co-ordinated effort by police in Canada and the United States — code-named Project Folkstone — resulted in 22 arrests and hundreds of charges stemming from gun- and drug-related offences, Insp. Steve Clegg of the Ontario Provincial Police said Thursday.

"There are some staggering results," Clegg said. "Most notably, 18 crime guns …were seized along with a substantial amount of drugs. Additionally, stolen vehicles, including cars and motorcycles, have been recovered."

Many of the search warrants were executed Wednesday in the Toronto area and Windsor, but police released scant details.

On Thursday, Clegg told a news conference the raids dealt "a significant blow to a firearms and drug trafficking network operating primarily in the Greater Toronto Area, with import routes through the United States."
One of the men arrested during raids in Toronto on Wednesday is escorted by police. (CBC) The guns and drugs entered Canada from the U.S. through Windsor, police said. Two Windsor men were "the primary source" for the organization's illegal weapons, which police said originated in Kentucky.

"We have information that approximately 80 firearms were supplied to the traffickers in Windsor," Clegg said. " To date, 30 firearms, 18 through Project Folkestone and 12 others recovered through police activity in the GTA, have been recovered.

"This organized crime group in Ontario was very sophisticated and, we believe, has been operating for a number of years while avoiding police detection."

Along with the guns and drugs, police recovered money and stolen vehicles.

"We have seized in excess of $75,000 in Canadian currency, as well as 10 vehicles valued at over $175,000," said Clegg.

Police say the investigation into the crime ring is continuing and that further arrests are possible.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/windsor/story/2010/03/11/project-folkestone.html#ixzz0i5MqvBrK

Canadian Bigotry : the case of Gustavo Gutierrez

CBC Radio's The Current ran a story a few days ago about a Juarez police detective commander, Gustavo Gutierre, whose application for asylum in Canada had been rejected: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/201003/20100310.html. Gutierre has had repeated threats on his life (and that of his family) for refusing to take bribes from various drug cartels in a city that is plagued by organized crime.

While it is increasingly common knowledge that the situation in Mexico is particularly dangerous for those working in law enforcement, our current hard-line policies on refugee claims from Mexican citizens should really cause us to be ashamed. This policy is clearly adopted to please our neighbors to the south and we are quickly losing our reputation as a country that promotes fairness and tolerance towards both future immigrants and refugee claimants.

Writing on this story for Embassy Magazine, Jim Creskey suggests that "Its Time for Canada to get up to speed on Mexico's realities". He continues:

"There is a reason why Mexican police and military wear balaclavas when they are participating in raids or acting in a very public capacity. They know that if the wrong people identify them, they and their families are no longer safe.

And that is exactly the point. The people who are most responsible for carrying out public security in Mexico are no longer safe themselves. The Mexican government is powerless to protect them. Yet when these same people turn up in Canadian cities asking for asylum, they are turned down.

Reading Canadian court decisions on Mexican refugee claimants is a frustrating exercise in rearview mirror decision making. Canada's courts and quasi-judicial Refugee Board are still acting on a tragically outdated way of looking at security in Mexico.

Windsor and Detroits' 4th border

The vast majority of Windsor and Detroit citizens know that the international border between Canada and USA runs down the middle of the Detroit River. Consequently, unless you owned a boat, the closest you would come to that imaginary line in the river would be when you crossed the Ambassador Bridge, drove through the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel, or transversed the International Rail Tunnel. Yet, there are a few people on either side of the river that work within 50 feet of the border each and every day. The employees of the Canadian Salt Company and The Detroit Salt Company, work within 50 feet of the border on a regular basis.



A rather large salt deposit was formed in our region some 300 million years ago. The international border cuts through the salt deposit from Amherstburg, through Windsor and Sarnia, then on into Lake Huron. The border must be respected, and surveys are done inside both salt mines to assure that the international border is not breached.

The Canadian Salt Company mines salt for our dining room table, as well as for salting the icy roads of Ontario (and other parts of Canada/US) during the winter months.

Salt mining is carried out at a depth of 1,000 feet in an area 20 feet high. Widths of the salt tunnel are 40 feet and "pillar" type mining is used to keep the ceiling of the mine (and river bed) from collapsing.

The salt pillars can be as large as 25 feet in diameter and are spaced approximately 20 feet apart. Forty percent of the salt is left for "pillar" support.

So, when it comes to person made borders, the salt mines of Ojibway cannot be overlooked. In fact, this is one of two (the other is on the Czech / Poland border) operating salt mines in the world that cross an international border.

Boarder Discrimination

After a recent trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua I noticed that there was a certain expectation of being discriminated against simply for being from a different country. I saw this on several occasions as the car that I was traveling in (which had Costa Rican plates) got pulled over at ever chance by the Nicaraguan police and was questioned fairly heavily, even though the driver had done nothing wrong.
This observation made me think of the ways in which this type of discrimination can be seen in our local area. I know its not as extreme as the police trying to exploit someone for money (as was the case in Nicaragua) but it can still be seen to some extent in Windsor. There are bars downtown that don't allow entry to Americans and if they do, they are charged more as an entrance fee. I know people that hold a certain amount of hostility towards Americans simply for just being Americans. I don't know why these feelings are generated in people but it seems that there can be a kind of resentment towards people of a different country, even extremely similar countries such as Costa Rica and Nicaragua or Canada and The U.S.