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September 13, 2006
Why won't this die?
Politicians both north and south of the 49th parallel continue to insist upon the idea that Canadians are too stupid or poor to obtain passports. Tuesday in Halifax, Condoleezza Rice became the latest:
"It will not be the necessity of a passport. We are looking for an authentic document, a document that can authenticate identity but one that is relatively cheap and easy to acquire but that can help to keep the border secure…"
Your long search has ended, Madame Secretary. Behold — sound the clarion! — the Canadian passport.
The world must have finally gone totally mental — unless some senior Conservative apparatchik is buddies with a biometrics tycoon I can't see why we would still talking about this. A Canadian passport currently costs almost exactly as much as an Ontario driver's license. It is madness to think that it could possibly cost less for a "security-enhanced driver's licence that includes biometric and citizenship information," which the feds are apparently still pushing — or indeed for any brand-new technology, especially one that would have to be rolled out in 13 Canadian jurisdictions.
We'd end up paying more for these things, either at the Ministry of Transportation or on tax day, and the only possible benefit would be to maintain a purely cosmetic sort of "special status" for Canadians at the US border. That can't possibly be worth it.
It says here every nanosecond the Canadian government expends on this file should be in pursuit of two goals:
• Encouraging the US government to develop something cheaper and more convenient than a passport for Americans to use when coming to Canada. (It might make no more sense for them to do so than for us, but that's not our concern. The fewer Canadian tourists who go to the US, the better for the Canadian economy. We need the Americans to keep coming north.)
• Encouraging Canadians to get passports ASAP, and adding more staff and resources to the Passport Office to cope with the increased demand.
(Cross-posted to the Shotgun.)
Posted by Chris Selley at September 13, 2006 09:20 PM
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Comments
You're focusing on the "cheap" part of her comment, while I'd be more inclined to emphasize the "easy to acquire" aspect.
Obtaining a Canadian passport isn't financially straining, but between running around for photos, getting them signed and vouched for, filling out the typical government paperwork, etc, it's most certainly a hassle.
I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing - probably both, truth be told.
Posted by: Damian at September 14, 2006 09:32 AM
Damian - if the new document is to be "security enhanced" and include biometric identifiers, what are the chances that it will be cheaper or less hassle to obtain? As Chris has noted the cost may be borne on April 30th, but it will be borne. The process of verifying identity by reference to (supposedly) established members of the community is a minimum to prevent fraud - I wouldn't mind seeing it become more of a hassle, even granted that as a preventative security measure verifiable identities are of little use; the passport has value simple as proof of identity, irrespective of security considerations.
If it is either easy or cheap to issue these things, how much reliance can be placed on them? As the saying goes, if we are going to have an identity-verification document we have a choice of easy, cheap, and secure: pick any two - although in fact we might only get to pick one or one-and-a-half
Posted by: DCardno at September 14, 2006 03:11 PM
if we are going to have an identity-verification document we have a choice of easy, cheap, and secure: pick any two - although in fact we might only get to pick one or one-and-a-half
You make sense, Dean, which is why I said the move was probably both good and bad. Good, from a security perspective. Bad, from an ease of travel perspective (which drives an ease of commerce imperative).
There doesn't seem to be much way around having security trump trade, does there?
Posted by: Damian at September 14, 2006 05:01 PM