Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty thinks there's a growing chance the U.S. will accept an alternative to passports.
"I think there's a bit of a door opening here. I think we're making real progress," he told reporters in Washington on Sunday.
McGuinty, New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham and Manitoba Premier Gary Doer are in the U.S. capitol to raise concerns about the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI).
As it now stands, air travellers between Canada and the U.S. are required to carry passports.
The restrictions will be expanded no later than March 2009 to include travellers crossing the border by land.
On the Canadian side, there is widespread concern that the full implementation of the initiative will have a devastating economic impact on border traffic.
At a news conference in Washington on Sunday, McGuinty said requiring passports at land crossings would badly damage tourism and trade on both sides of the border.
He said 300,000 Canadians cross the border daily, and that Canada remains the number one source of tourists to the U.S.
"Requiring our families to purchase passports, or that U.S. families require a pass card will, without a doubt, act as a real deterrent to cross-border tourism and trade," said McGuinty.
Graham used the example of St. Stephens, N.B. and Calis, Maine as how U.S. and Canadian communities can be intertwined.
"These two communities share the same fire brigade, so it's difficult when a fire alarm goes out that you're going to ask the fire department to produce a passport when the sirens are blarin'," he said.
Passport alternative
The premiers are proposing an alternative document to the passport, including a "much more secure driver's licence" like one that Ontario is planning to roll out at the end of 2007.
"It would have the latest cutting edge security features that should put us at the forefront in North America," said McGuinty.
Asked how it would work, McGuinty said the provinces could work with the federal government to find a way to encode citizenship information onto the driver's licence itself.
"We recognize and understand that it's not in our purview to recognize citizenship as provinces, but we are convinced that we can work with the federal government to ensure that ... information is provided in an encrypted manner."
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has recently said he'll consider licences if they meet certain standards, McGuinty said.
Americans are working on several types of secure documents of their own.
Roughly 40 per cent of Canadians have passports, but only 28 per cent of Americans do.
Some estimates have suggested the heightened restrictions could result in 14 million fewer Americans coming to Canada, and a massive $3.6 billion in lost revenue over the five-year period ending in 2010.
Ottawa has been pushing Washington to rethink the plan, but has so far made little progress despite relatively warm relations between the two governments.
Economic consequences
Graham said today that the WHTI would slow cross-border traffic to a crawl, and that it would unravel many of the ties that connect the two nations.
"The impact in the U.S. will also be significant, not just in border states like Washington and Maine, but others like Florida, California and Arizona," said Graham.
"Thirty-eight U.S. states have Canada as their largest export destinations, and Canada-U.S. trade supports over seven million U.S. jobs today."
Doer, meanwhile, said in addition to the economic consequences, the new laws run "contrary to the whole philosophy of good neighbours and travel between both countries."
The premiers' audience will include representatives from the Organization of American States, the Senate foreign relations committee, the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of state and commerce.
Recently, Canadian ambassador to Washington Michael Wilson warned the expansion of the program could jeopardize both economic relations and "people-to-people connections."
New York Representative Louise Slaughter, chair of the powerful House rules committee, joined in the chorus earlier, telling The Canadian Press the passport laws are an example of anti-terrorism policy gone wrong.
"I don't think they really appreciate the damage that they're doing,'' said Slaughter. "It's disconcerting.
"They have no reason in the world to believe that Canada's not as secure and they can't do as good a job as we do.''
Slaughter, who represents both Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y., presented legislation recently that would require U.S. officials to look into the possibility of requiring high tech driver's licenses rather than passports.
With a report from CTV's Joy Malbon and files from The Canadian Press
