Canada's Fluid Borders

"Canada's Fluid Identities focuses on international negotiations primarily with the United States on issues with a transborder dimension (a process the editors describe as 'bordering'). Geoffrey Hale stresses the need for greater administrative cooperation with American border officials to manage rising levels of migration, complex issues of food safety, and the complex rules governing Canada's growing economic integration with the United States. Greg Anderson examines the 'spaghetti' of rules governing foreign investment flows and calls for 'a coordinated approach' to the issue (p. 82), while Monica Gattinger points to the challenges Canadian policymakers face in regulating the Canadian oil and gas industries, given the transformation of North America energy markets and the need to address climate change. The remaining chapters deal with the importance of Rules of Origin (ROO), temporary entry regulations, and food safety and technical standards in trade agreements, with particular reference to the recently renegotiated Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. The main theme of the book is that 'American exceptionalism is a luxury that Canada cannot afford' (p. 148) and that Canada's goal must be closer integration of American and Canadian policies. Several of the authors do, however, admit that given the imbalance of power between Canada and the United States, it will not be easy to negotiate agreements that protect Canadian interests. The editors believe that Patricia Lambert's chapter on cross-border-tourism policy in the Pacific north-west economic region provides a model for closer regional integration but what Lambert actually shows is the limited degree of integration that can be achieved even in regional tourism agreements, since the interests of Canada and the United States only overlap to a limited degree. Although many of the issues discussed in the book are very technical, the editors made the wise decision to keep 'theoretical, scholarly jargon' to a minimum (pp. 180-1).--Phillip Buckner, University of New Brunswick ""https: //www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/bjcs.2022.13"""