Normal? What’s normal? The events of September 11 were a real wake up call to the folks who manage our border crossing points. They might have been aware of the problems before the fateful day, but those kind of inconveniences never made it to a priority position the government radar screen. The U.S. computer database was said to be on the verge of collapse, and the Canadian system has been in disarray for years. But, they never managed to muster the support to fix the problem.

Now, with the effects of the delays still fresh in their minds and the minds of the business operators in their constituencies, government officials are literally throwing money at the problem. They want the problem fixed too, but they’re still not too sure what the problem is. I suspect they’ll identify the real difficulty sooner or later and they take steps to fix it, but by then, the urgency may have begun to slip.

So, will the borders return to normal. I doubt it. But what ever results from probing and questioning I suspect it will be an improvement over what we’ve come to call normal.

Jim Park