By Wilson Ring
The Associated Press via The Hamilton Spectator
RICHFORD, Vt. — A restaurant owner in Vermont held a contest to help Canadians buy passports so they can cross the border for a meal. A fire department can’t depend on help from a few kilometres away. A short drive to pick up a milk can may bring unpredictable delays.
A decade after 9/11, tightened security measures have divided communities on the Canada-U.S. border, where for centuries, people crossed back and forth to shop, work or visit relatives.
Where the Green Mountains of Vermont begin to give way to the broad plains of Quebec’s St. Lawrence valley, residents acknowledge the need for enhanced security, yet many are frustrated. Most agree life will never be as it was, but they’re adapting.
“It used to be real simple. We just went across the border. Sometimes I wouldn’t even take my wallet,” said Paul Martin, 59, the fire chief in Richford, a Vermont town of about 1,300 near the border.
Now, Martin said, he crosses the border two or three times a week to see his girlfriend in Quebec. He never knows how difficult it will be to come back, an uncertainty that illustrates the disruption of a small-town way of life that had pervaded even across international lines.
“If I get somebody I went to school with, I don’t have a problem,” he said. “If you get somebody new, they have to inspect everything. It all depends on what kind of a day the inspector is having.”
Within weeks of 9/11, the United States began increasing border security that, as one official said, hadn’t “changed much since the French and Indian War” of the 1750s. National Guard soldiers were helping staff posts and plans were being made to increase the size and technical prowess of the U.S. Border Patrol, which has roughly tripled its staffing since. Long backups at the border became common. Once-unguarded roads were blocked. The changes disrupted the way people had always lived.
“We don’t have much choice. It’s that way or the highway,” said Ral Pelletier, the mayor of the Quebec town of St. Armand. He visits the United States several times a week. Gasoline is about 40 per cent cheaper there.
“The first one or two years (after 9/11) it was really, really bad. It was like we were in a war zone.”
The delays have eased some, he said, but people who once crossed between the United States and Canada with only a nod now need passports or other travel documents, such as Vermont’s enhanced drivers’ licences or passport cards. Still, they might have to wait or open their trunks.
For the past 25 years, Rosaire St. Pierre has run the restaurant The Crossing in Richford. About half his customers come from Quebec. A few years ago, he held a contest with money for passports as prizes. He did it so Qubcois might be enticed to apply for the documents needed to come to Vermont.
Yet he estimates his business remains down 30 per cent. He’s frustrated by what he sees as the unreasonable demands for border-crossing documents and the overzealous nature of the border agents who, he claims, are sometimes rude to his potential customers.
“They think that everybody is a potential bomber,” St. Pierre said. “I think that the terrorists are getting us through our pockets.”
Concerns about agents being rude to people entering the United States should be reported to the U.S. border agency, says acting area port director Gregory Starr.
“Our officers take an oath. That pledge conveys great responsibility. There’s a lot of balancing of facilitation and enforcement.”
Martin, the Richford, Vt., fire chief, works closely with his counterparts just across the border. Before 9/11, Canadian firefighters would come to Vermont to help fight fires, big and small.
His firefighters still cross into Quebec regularly to help fight fires, even smaller calls. Now the Canadians only come to Vermont for big fires, about once a year.
“The Canadians will open it up and ask questions later,” Martin said, referring to the border. “The Americans, it all depends on who you get.”
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