State of Washington Driver's License Signing of Memorandum of Understanding

Remarks by
The Honourable Stockwell Day
Minister of Public Safety

March 23, 2007
Seattle, Washington
As delivered

Thank you, Secretary Chertoff.

It's an honour to be with you today. I have to say that for a while, it appeared as though we wouldn't make it here. This morning, our plane was delayed leaving from Ottawa and then again from Toronto to Vancouver.

Despite that, I can tell you one thing that worked very well in the airport – my Nexus card. Everywhere I showed my Nexus card, we were whisked through with great efficiency. In Canada, two of our major airports are equipped to deal with Nexus cards. I am happy to say that there will be an additional six airports in Canada who will be able to exercise similar capabilities starting this summer.

Together with the Governor, Secretary Chertoff and the Minister from British Columbia, who I'll introduce to you in a moment, we all share security concerns.

September 11, 2001, was a tragic event that certainly has galvanized us as neighbours with similar concerns. We lost Canadians in those towers. Canada has been identified by Osama bin Laden, by Al-Qaeda, as a potential target. Nobody in the world is immune to terrorism.

On our continent, we want to make sure that we're working together, and that everything possible is being done to maintain a high level of security.

Governor, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that it would be your state that would open the negotiations and discussions with the province of British Columbia. You have been a leader in many areas. I believe your state is home to the first woman to be elected as Attorney General and certainly you have been a leader in the area of the nuclear clean-up of the Hanford site. That is still the largest site in North America, and I believe, possibly the world.

You dealt with the public debt in a very vigorous way here and you don't like line-ups at borders, I would assume. And that's the prosperity side of the Security and Prosperity Agenda. We believe that by working together, we can maintain security. But we must encourage prosperity as well – low-risk travel and the ability to travel back and forth especially for those who live along our borders. And that's why the issue of alternative documents is near and dear to our hearts in Canada.

Secretary Chertoff, I thank you that you are open to that issue. This is another example of your openness to working together.

You also mentioned the issue related to younger people being able to move across the border with the same ease to which they have been accustomed. We appreciate that very much.

I also appreciate the fact that you mentioned in your memorandum of understanding that the Olympic Winter Games are being held in Vancouver. It shows your sensitivity to an issue that is a big concern for us in Canada and specifically in British Columbia.

The Minister from British Columbia, John van Dongen, is here. His background is in business. He is a successful businessperson, a successful dairy farmer. In those businesses, time is important. You can't afford things backing up either in the business or in the agriculture world. In light of that, he's keen and attuned to this initiative. We believe that this will be a wonderful demonstration to other provinces in Canada and to other states in the United States of what can be accomplished when we work together for both security and prosperity.

Thank you so much for allowing us to be here today to attend this event with you. We'll be working closely with our provincial counterparts in Canada.

Thank you.