Governor seeks open border Canada checkpoints ‘ridiculous,’ says King

CARIBOU – Gov. Angus King is calling for the elimination of border crossing checkpoints between Canada and the United States.

King told WCXU radio station that the two nations should coordinate a “continental” border policy to determine who is allowed into the countries in the first place. If that happened, King said, the Canada-U.S. border checkpoints could be eliminated so people could travel freely back and forth.

Such a proposal is gaining support among other government officials in the United States and Canada, and would provide an economic stimulus for border towns in northern Maine, King said.

“It’s ridiculous you can drive from France to Germany at 65 mph without slowing down for a border crossing, and you have to sit in line for two hours to cross from Canada into the U.S.,” King said Friday during a visit to Aroostook County.

Security along the U.S.-Canada border has been tightened since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

It can now take hours to travel through some checkpoints in other parts of the country, King said. He said Michigan’s governor told him that cars were backed up for 30 miles into Canada at a border crossing in that state.

“We do a billion dollars of trade a day with Canada,” King said. “We can’t have that.”

King said he has also proposed using National Guard troops to assist border officials and speed up the time it takes to cross between the countries.

Maine has the longest stretch of shared border with Canada – 611 miles – of the states in the continental United States.