Pack Them Yourself?

Oh no! We'll all need passports to travel to the US by 2008. The sky is falling!

Sure symbolically, needing a passport just isn't as warm and fuzzy as showing less secure documents but really, are you surprised that this is happening. My only shock is that it has taken this long.

I just have to shake my head at the response though.

Particularily that of the media and our Deputy PM, Anne McLellan:

"We will review our requirements for American citizens, and we're going to do that in collaboration with the United States," Ms. McLellan said outside the Commons.

A vague threat perhaps? The local TV news portrayed ths as potential "retaliation".

Ms. McLennan continued, "There's no point in either of us going off in a direction without working together to determine how best we can facilitate the flow — a free flow — and movement of low-risk individuals."

Ah yes, typical, follow up the vague threat with a concilitory statement. Not that anyone other than the Canadian media are listening. Not that it matters. Apparently Ms. McLennan either didn't understand the implication or was just grabbing the spotlight (or more likely both). As the G&M put it:

It remained unclear what point Ms. McLellan might be making by threatening to require U.S. citizens to carry documents to enter Canada that their own government will require them to carry to re-enter the United States.

The local TV media also played the fear-mongering card "longer line-ups at the border" and showed shots of heavily congested customs stops. This is likely false as "traffic at often-choked land crossings could actually be speeded up by the change to machine-readable, reliable documents meeting common standards."

The stuff is italics is from the much clearer, straight-forward, non-fearmongering article in today's Globe and Mail.

Maybe we should require passport inspections for Ms. McLennan and the media before they go to air. Have you had your facts checked ma'am? Did you pack them yourself? When was the last time you were pandered to the lowest common denominator? Any lies that you are planning to leave in our fair media?