Canada Today: A Dead-End Road, Judging a Judge and Broadway

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/canada/canada-today-immigrants-border-crossing.html

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Last month we looked at migrants entering Canada through sometimes risky, illegal border crossings from the perspective of the Canadian side of the border. This week, Rick Rojas went to the part of New York State known as the North Country to provide the reverse border perspective through an article about how people are making their way to the border. Here are his thoughts on the experience:

The New York Times had already covered the surge in migrants, many of them going to great lengths to cross the border. I was interested in doing something much narrower: one country road, how it was playing a role in this and how nearby residents were responding to it.

The first time I traveled this far north, to the uppermost parts of upstate New York, two convicted murderers had broken out of a maximum-security prison and fled into the dense and brutal wilderness just below the Canadian border. To look at the migrants’ escape to Canada from the United States, I went to Champlain, N.Y., and, specifically Roxham Road. It dead-ends at the border and had become a popular point of exit.

I reached out to local officials in Champlain and called the number for the taxi service listed on the side of the car that appeared in a local television news clip about the illegal crossings. Based on that, I decided that I should drive to Roxham Road, park and watch life unfold. While waiting, I walked up and down the quiet rural street and talked to its residents. When cabs pulled up, I tried to talk to the migrants, largely to no avail. But I cannot blame them for not wanting to stop and unload their thoughts and fears to a reporter in that moment. And I talked to the cabdrivers before they drove off.

The answers I got back were thoughtful and nuanced and, I think, said a lot about the conflicting ideas surrounding politics and American identity that some people on this side of the border are grappling with. Despite its proximity to the border, Roxham Road is a remote place, where, I think, people appreciate having a little distance from the rest of the world. But the current situation has brought the issues of the world right to their doors.

In its own way, Champlain also has an international feel. The exit signs on the major highway, Interstate 87, are partly translated into French: “Sortie.” Residents listen to radio stations from Montreal, and Canadians regularly come over to shop.

But for some, Canada can seem like a world away, even when the distance from the border is best measured in yards.

“I’ve never even been to Canada,” one resident of Roxham Road, Matthew Turner, told me on his front porch, maybe a tenth of the mile from the border. “But I want to go.”

Stacking Up Canada took second place after Switzerland in a ranking of the best countries in the world. The United States slid three spots compared with a year earlier and ranked seventh. Canada also placed high in separate rankings for the best countries in the world for women, children and retirees.

Resigned The handling of sexual assault cases attracted an exceptional amount of attention this past week. In an unusual move, Justice Robin Camp quit the Federal Court of Canada on Friday after a panel, through a scathing report, recommended he be fired. He was brought down by his behavior as a provincial court judge in Alberta during a 2014 trial. Among other things, he asked the complainant in that case why she hadn’t just kept her “knees together.” And separately, prosecutors in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John’s, Newfoundland, said they would appeal cases in which young women said they had been attacked while drunk. Those attacks took place in a taxi and a police car. And next week, the conviction in a highly publicized Toronto case will be appealed.

White Way Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, will travel to New York on March 15 to see the Broadway production of “Come From Away,” a musical about how Gander, Newfoundland, took in stranded American air travelers after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Michael Paulson reports that it is among the very few productions to reach Broadway that are both by and about Canadians.

Negotiator The free-trade agreement between Canada and the United States that was signed in 1988 reshaped Canada’s economy and provided the framework for the North American Free Trade Agreement. The often fractious talks that created the agreement took over my reporting life for a couple of years. While articles in Canada focused on Simon Reisman, Canada’s sometimes bombastic chief negotiator, Clayton Yeutter, the United States’ top trade official, was also no wallflower in my experience. Mr. Yeutter died last week at the age of 86. In an obituary, Daniel E. Slotnik reported that The Times once aptly described Mr. Yeutter as “a burly, back-thumping, 58-year-old official with the voice of a hog caller.”

Harm Reduction The Times’s Daily 360 video group visited safe drug-injection sites in Vancouver, British Columbia, and posted its results this week.

Sent Home John F. Kelly, the new secretary of homeland security, flew up to Ottawa to meet with cabinet ministers on Friday. While little in the way of an announcement emerged, Mr. Kelly offered no apologies to Canadians who have said they have been turned back at the American border for no apparent reason.

Here are some articles from The Times over the past week, not necessarily related to Canada and perhaps overlooked, that I found interesting:

— Paul Shaffer, the bandleader, musician and native son of Thunder Bay, Ontario, found himself at loose ends after David Letterman stepped down as host of the “Late Show” in May 2015. Now Mr. Shaffer is back with a self-titled album.

— Living full time on cruise ships during retirement seems wildly extravagant. But at least one study found that it actually isn’t all that more costly than life in an assisted living center with similar amenities.

— A new running shoe puts a spring into its users’ steps, but some worry that its use in races may provide an unfair advantage.

— 3G Capital, the Brazilian company with holdings that include Tim Hortons and Labatt, is known for maximizing profits through ruthless cost cutting. It’s less clear, however, if the company can build long-term value once the slashing is over.