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Because of the long shared undefended border, Canada and the United States have historically worked closely to standardize security procedures, such as the vetting of refugees, in the name of North American security. Indeed, the Canadian procedure for vetting Syrian refugees, established when Stephen Harper was prime minister, is similar in almost all respects to the American procedure.

But U.S. President Donald Trump, in the controversial executive order he signed last week halting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, signalled an intention to toughen those procedures, and if the U.S. does that, then Canada would almost certainly be obliged to follow suit.

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Neither Goodale nor Trudeau’s security advisers have had any requests from Trump administration officials to change.

“There are some members of the U.S. Congress who even in looking at our policy last year said there are important dimensions of that policy that should be emulated by the United States,” Goodale told reporters Tuesday. “We both have a very active interest in making sure that that border both ways is strong and secure and safe for both countries, and at the same time, that it’s smooth and efficient and and leads to prosperity on both sides of the border.”

Trump’s executive order was explicit in singling out the vetting process for immigrants and refugees as a problem that needed to be fixed: “While the visa-issuance process was reviewed and amended after the September 11 attacks to better detect would-be terrorists from receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the United States.”