It was bound to happen. Niagara County recorded its first case of the SARS virus last week, when a 33-year-old man who commuted regularly to Toronto checked himself in at Newfane Community Hospital.
Other cases have been reported in Rochester and Syracuse, each with a Canadian connection.
Free and open borders -- and ours with Canada is the longest in the world -- allow for increased trade and tourism, but also make it difficult to contain communicable diseases and terrorists, both of which have entered the United States from Canada.
While Canadian leaders from Jean Chretien on down have denounced the World Health Organization's recommendation to stay the hell away from Toronto, we think their time might be better spent taking a look at their country's incredibly open immigration policies.
Pretty much, if you can get to Canada from some Third World slum, you can stay there.
And maybe even get a job in a restaurant.
Or a food processing plant.
While this makes cities like Toronto and Montreal wonderfully diverse places, we think the laudable goal of multiculturalism is being taken a bit too far when it places people's lives in danger.
While only about five out of every 100 people who contract the SARS virus die, that ratio is much higher than that of the 1917 flu epidemic, which killed around 20 million people worldwide.
And, given the highly communicable nature of SARS, the five-in-100 death rate could produce a significant body count in a relatively short period of time. As usual with respiratory infections, the weakest among us -- the very young and the very old -- are the most vulnerable.
Canada chose not to support the United States in its war with Iraq, and that's fine.
There are millions in this country who don't support it, either.
But when our neighbors to the north adopt policies that facilitate their country's use as a staging ground, allowing the spread of terrorism and deadly disease to this side of the border, it seems quite legitimate to question exactly what kind of neighbors they are.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 29 2003 |