Too Close For Comfort

Canada’s greatest advocate considers our place in Bush’s world order.

Not since 1984, when Brian Mulroney went to New York and told a blue-chip business audience that Canada was “open for business,” has there been such a push toward continental integration and a common market for North America. The big business community is eager to use the fear of terrorism to erase the border between our two countries as much as possible. The only conceivable way to do this, as far as the U.S. is concerned, would be to make the border irrelevant by essentially harmonizing our foreign, trade, military, security, social, and resources policies.

What does this really mean? In Too Close for Comfort, the author walks us through the implications and consequences for Canada’s sovereignty and shows us how many of the values we hold dear and which tie us together as a nation would be undone. Chillingly, she also shows us how much we have already lost through such policies as the proportional energy-sharing agreement of NAFTA, and she reveals how deep integration could be used to pry open key Canadian policies such as our public health system.

In Too Close for Comfort, Barlow first offers us a clear-eyed view of the issues we’re facing and then suggests a range of possible solutions for maintaining the kind of country and society we want.