Quebec premier joins calls for U.S. government to abandon border passport

Quebec premier joins calls for U.S. government to abandon border passport plan

WASHINGTON (CP) - Quebec Premier Jean Charest joined several top U.S. politicians Wednesday in urging the federal government to abandon its plan to require passports for crossing the border with Canada.

"It would be a further impediment to travel and trade," said Charest, who was meeting with New York Gov. George Pataki Wednesday at the third annual Quebec New York Economic Summit held in Albany.

"If you're talking about a family with three kids, whatever the idea is, you're going to need to have something that is affordable and passports are not affordable for many of the people that live along the border," said Clinton, a Democrat, in Washington.

A U.S. passport costs $97, and officials say they are working to come up with a cheaper, more widely used alternate document for U.S. citizens. A driver's licence and a birth certificate are used by most who cross the Canadian border now.

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/news/shownews.jsp?content=n100531A

Jean Charest. Switched parties sometime around 1997....

here's how out of the loop I am with Quebec's politics....I thought Lucien Bouchard was still premier! :dunce: :blush: :spank:

A legal and sacred treaty -- one of the hundreds of treaties that both Ottawa and Washington have trashed over the decades.