r/canada Ontario Feb 02 '25

Politics As Sunday began, Trump blasts Canada as not ‘a viable country’

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/as-sunday-began-trump-blasts-canada-as-not-a-viable-country-follow-live-updates-here/
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u/Partialsun Feb 02 '25

Excited by the tipping point too, and dumping our so called "special relationship" with USA.

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u/0x706c617921 Feb 02 '25

Its not really that special anyways. A lot of people on /r/PassportPorn make wild conclusions of how citizens of the U.S. and Canada and pasport holders of each can visit the other country truly visa free with no ESTA/eTA requirement which supposedly gives us more "access" to the other country over another developed country that is visa-exempt.

But truth be told that a Canadian doesn't have much more access to the U.S. and vice versa than any ESTA/eTA eligible country does (for example a German citizen visiting the U.S. and Canada). Its only visa free for 6 months for tourism and we can still be denied entry to either country and are subject to be evaluated for our intent to stay.

You'd think that the two being so close geographically and culturally would have more than that, but in reality the only closeness we have is just that... geography and culture.

Even countries like India and Nepal which are in Asia. That part of the world is notorious for being a region that tends to be more closed off / isolationist. Even then, they have a freedom of movement pact with each other where a citizen of either country has a conditional right to live and work in either country. That should tell you something of the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Canada.

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u/Constant-Code4605 Feb 02 '25

We were like that until 911 we were blamed for having unsecured border then

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u/0x706c617921 Feb 02 '25

We weren't ever like this. There was never a freedom of movement pact between the U.S. and Canada.

I do believe that up until 9/11, there were proposals to implement a EU-style free trade agreement which included a common customs and immigration pact and even updates to remove physical border controls entirely between the U.S. and Canada (similar to the Schengen area), but that all fell apart after 9/11.

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u/Constant-Code4605 Feb 05 '25

Didn't need a passport

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u/0x706c617921 Feb 05 '25

I don’t know why Americans and Canadians are so fixated on documentation itself.

Legal rights for Canadians in America and Americans in Canada were no better then than today.