Goodale says U.S. counterpart John Kelly wants to make the border ‘thinner’ and ‘work well’

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he had a “broad-ranging discussion” with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly Friday on border and immigration issues of concern to both countries. 

Goodale said the meeting “proved to be extremely important and extremely valuable,” as Kelly met with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen and the rest of the cabinet committee responsible for Canada-U.S. relations.

“It covered everything from border issues to immigration concerns, to steel and pipe exports from Canada to the United States, it was a very broad-ranging discussion,” Goodale said. 

Kelly is the first member of U.S. President Donald Trump’s cabinet to travel to Canada to hold meetings with his Canadian counterpart. Several Liberal ministers and the prime minister have travelled to Washington in recent weeks to meet with members of the new U.S. administration there.

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Goodale said the meetings focused on the issues Canada and the U.S. agreed to work together on during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit with President Donald Trump in Washington last month.

“We pursued all of those issues that were mentioned in that communiqué from the president and the prime minister and we have established ways to make progress on all of them,” said Goodale.

One of those areas, Goodale said, is extending border pre-clearance beyond travellers and into the area of cargo to help boost to the economy. 

Kelly also discussed innovation, counter terrorism and the ongoing battle against ISIS.

“I take a good deal of encouragement by the first remark that was made by Secretary Kelly as our first meeting began this morning, in which he simply said his objective is to find the ways to make the border thinner and to work well for both countries,” Goodale said.

“That’s a very important signal about the relationship that we have.”

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/goodale-kelly-homeland-safety-1.4020023?cmp=rss