Wayne Kemp’s observations about the border after the Nine Eleven attacks

This videoclip is an extract from an interview with Wayne Kemp that Héritage Sutton recorded in February 2020.

Nine Eleven changed the border in a minute. Before, the border between Canada and the U.S. was the friendliest border in the world. It’s also the longest border in the world between two countries, and overnight that changed. Nobody trusted anybody anymore. And the Americans, they were very strict about it and they did a lot of things to increase the protection on their border and their offices and really, when you look back, I think they forced Canada to do the same. That’s why today the officers in our offices in Canada are armed with side arms. Because years ago, even if you wanted to have guns for the officers, the Treasury Board said “no”.

Back when François and I first started working. You didn’t have to have a passport to go to the States. You didn’t have to have a passport to come back to your own country. They ask you for your passport at the Canadian border, your own home, and going into the States ask you questions, you answer to the point.

No passport and not only that. When you arrive at U.S. Customs, when they ask you a question, you answer to the point, nothing more, nothing less because it only takes them about three seconds to know your pedigree. It’s all on the computer today across Canada. Technology is something because when I started working at the customs, we only had a phone and then maybe sometimes a communication between the offices.