 Well, welcome, George, to the program today here. We're at CCTV, Tom meeting TV, and we're here with George Weller, who is in Stanisthead, Quebec, and tell us a little bit about what life is like up there at the border. Oh, what life is like? Well, since I'm an American and a Canadian, and we have had lots of groups that we visit and go to, like square dancing and the church and every line, the UU church, we cross quite a bit. And we have a farm here. And over the last 15 years or so, we have had a bunch of woofers. Woofers are W-W-O-O-F, and that is worldwide opportunities on organic farms. And all of the woofers from Europe are kind of curious as to why they can't just go from Canada to the U.S. Because in Europe, 26, 27 countries agreed about 30 years ago that you could just travel without stopping at any border point between them. So if you fly into, say, Paris and you want to go to Zurich, well, you just drive or take a train or to Seville, Spain or to Rome, Italy, any of these 27 countries, you can just go. So I've been thinking for several years now, maybe 10, 15 years, of maybe trying to get a system between the U.S. and Canada to establish a border that would be open for people to go across. You know, just by going. This, of course, both Canada and the U.S. have their own laws and their own regulations. And that's the way it was with all those 27 countries, but they figured it out. So I think maybe we can figure it out here in North America. And you are part of an organization. So there's a lot there, which is, you're talking about, this is, you've noticed this over the last 15 years, sort of tightening around the border. And you're part of an organization called CanUSA. Tell me a little bit about when this organization started and what's the structure of the organization? What are you trying to achieve? Well, what I was saying was we're trying to achieve a set of laws between Canada and the U.S. so that people could travel back and forth without having to stop at customs. Some kind of a system. A system would be everybody has a microchip that planted in them. And you just go across and buy a booth or something and they scan your microchip and they know if you're okay or not. But they don't have to do that in Europe. They say if you're in the zone, you can go. I was in a committee, a Newport Airport Committee and we had a meeting of people down at Burlington Airport about commerce in the aviation industry, aviation construction and whatnot, building parts for airplanes between Montreal and Burlington. There's several companies and they wanted better crossing, but also they had a person from the groups that expedite commercial shipping. Forget the name of them right now. But anyway, they have changed the timeframe for a truck going across the border from maybe 20 minutes to about one minute. Everything is checked ahead of time. All the information is put in an email to the customs. And when the truck gets there, the driver can just show him what he's got on a document. And the document comes up on the officer's screen. So it goes really quick. I've sat at customs waiting to go across the border in a car for maybe three or four or five minutes and I've seen two or three or four trucks go by. So anyway, there should be something that we can do for people. Got it. I see. You're saying currently at the Canadian US border they have created systems to allow commerce and trucks to move more quickly. But the same system. Now we certainly, we do have a Nexus system. Talk about why the Nexus system doesn't work or isn't enough in your mind from your experience of living at the border. Okay. We have a new customs operation, a new facility at Derby Line on Interstate 91. And they didn't even put in a Nexus line. The Canadian customs on Route 55 on the Canadian side, they have one and it's not open all the time. So, yeah, at the airport it works better, but in cars it doesn't. So the Nexus system is being used at the airport but not as much at the borders in Allberg or, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, what's your instinct? I mean, what's your research and your experience telling you about why the US, Canada and Mexico, for example, which would be sort of the North American equivalent of the European 27 countries, why can't it work here? Well, Canada has a different medical system and a different dental system than the US. And so they charge extra tax to cover that. The US does not necessarily everywhere charge a tax for the medical or dental. So the systems just need to be harmonized between the two and also guns and drugs and all these things that need to be harmonized between the two countries. So as far as I'm concerned, we need somebody who or, what we need to do at the beginning is to, I have, okay, back at the beginning, I have set up and incorporated as a nonprofit the Canusa Project Inc. and worked with Marina and we have a website there and we have started, I took out the nonprofit organization so we have a legitimate company to work with. We have a website with a name, but we need a committee of interested people, a steering committee of US and Canadian members and then of course we need a website manager, we need some researchers and inquires people. When I've gone back and forth across the border in Quebec between the US and Quebec and US and Ontario and the US and New Brunswick, I've talked with people in businesses on both sides and they say that it's, it would be a lot better for their business if we could establish something that would make it easier for people across the border. Rock Island and Rock Island or Sanstay to go back and Jeremy Lyon in Vermont, the businesses on both sides have been suffering terribly, which are closed because of the lack of ability for people across the border easily. And of course for years these border crossings were much more easy, much more easily crossed. How long have you lived in Stanisthead and been in that area with their reliant? How has it changed over the years since really I would say the impact of 9-11 and closing and really shutting down border crossing? Well if you go back quite a ways when I was a kid living in New Jersey and coming up with my parents in the summertime to the place where I am now, which was a historic house that was kind of run down, but we were here in the summertime and we would go back and forth just wave to the customs officer. They knew us and that was it. I learned swimming with the Three Villages Swimming Project and many times for many years it was a U.S. bus coming and picking up Canadian kids and from Stanisthead, Quebec, BB, Quebec, Rock Island, Quebec, Derby, Vermont, Derby Line, Vermont and taking them down to the swim project in Derby on Lake Salem. And then sometimes there was a Canadian bus that picked up all the kids going to the U.S. and taking them down. And then after I moved up here in 1970, I don't know when it was, but maybe 72 or 3 years something. There was a U.S. school bus that came across to pick up the Canadian kids and they got stopped by the Quebec police because there was no Quebec license plate on the bus. So they weren't allowed to do work and picking up kids. So that stopped it there. So then the kids went to the library, which is on the border of the Haskell Library, which is built right on the U.S. Canada border and the kids had walked across the border into the bus. Well, that wasn't legal really. So then the officer's customs said, well, you got to go to the customs. Well, then the kids coming of the customs in the morning and then back in the evening created problems with traffic. So then the whole project was stopped and it's really too bad because it was started by a Canadian Red Cross lady, Ivy Hatch, and a U.S. Red Cross lady, Anne Aldridge. The two women, both Red Crossers, they started this project to teach kids how to swim because there are too many kids drowning. So over time it's just gotten more and more tight and it's just not a good, I think it's not a good thing. I think it should be more open. Yeah, and you are working, you do have quite a bit of support from local mayors in Quebec and cities and from folks along the border. Talk about the support that you do have and who's involved in this project, the Canusa project. Okay, I got council resolutions from Sanstead approving the idea of the project from Sanstead, from Sanstead East, from the MRC, which is like a county of Quebec, of Quattacook, the Irish Cliff also, all the local areas. I had a committee of three people from Canada and three people from the U.S., and we worked on this project and we thought, well, maybe we can work with just the customs. And the customs people say, well, we just enforced the law. We can't do anything. You got to talk with the politicians. And then talk with the politicians. They say, well, that's a nice idea. But who's going to vote for me for this project? So I think there has to be a popular movement of some kind. And I think not people like in the Midwest, Nebraska or anyway, they're not too interested in the border. It's the people in the North that are interested in the border. And I'm working on just Canada and the U.S. at the moment. I think it'll be easier between Canada and the U.S. than Canada, U.S. and Mexico. So anyway, what? Well, I'm curious, I mean, if not including Mexico, some of that have to do with what's the role that immigration or what people call illegal immigration play in the fears around having open borders? How does it affect what you're talking about or not? Well, one of the interesting things about illegal immigration, if somebody wanted to come into Canada and didn't have a Canadian passport or the right to come into Canada, if they went to a port of entry, they would get shipped back to their own country very much automatically. They have to come in a place that's not a port of entry, which means they have to come in illegally. So when they come in illegally, then the RCMP picks them up, takes them to the customs and then I guess gives them a meal and gives them support and then they go and wait for paperwork to happen. I don't know if that's the same on the Mexico U.S. border or not, but it seems that the way the laws are working, you cannot come in legally through a port of entry. You have to come in illegally somewhere else to be able to stay in the country as a refugee until your case comes up, which I don't think most people understand that. So you're saying in your mind it doesn't really affect this idea of open borders. People would come to the port. What does it look like in your mind? What are you envisioning that would happen at the Canadian border? Okay. If things happen the way I hope they could happen, everybody in the U.S. and everybody in Canada illegally, people who are legally in one of the countries, one of the two countries could legally cross the border without stopping at customs. But in order to do that, you have to harmonize the laws and you have to harmonize whatever taxes there are or some system for taxation. So you have to have a political will and a legal framework. This project, this will be done in a year. It may even be done in 30 years, but I think it's worth trying. So really has to do with harmonizing our political systems. I mean, that's what we're talking about in Europe is 27 countries that have relatively similar, you know, have created basically the European Union and we could have the North American Union, but you're talking about harmonized political systems. Right. One thing that people don't understand in North America is, or most people, a lot of people, there's the European Union and there's the Schengen area. The Schengen area is 27 countries that agree to let you go back and forth freely across the border. The European Union, there's two countries that are different, different ways. I understand, got it. So this is more than, this is not just- I guess you'd say it's the common market. The common market is different than the Schengen area by two countries. But this is more than, so what you're talking about is a project that's much more than just about the borders. Right. Yes. Yeah, it's a, I guess it would be a long term project, but there's a lot of people that would benefit by being able to cross the border easily and a lot of businesses that would benefit by having people able to cross the border easily. Is, you know, is this what, what is it, what are the impacts of having the border like this? Is this just an inconvenience, waiting in line a half an hour? What are some of the impacts besides what you've already talked about? Well, the impacts that I see, some people on the Canadian side are, and have been relaxed since the middle of COVID, almost afraid to go to the U.S. They just don't want to even go near the U.S., which is quite strange. But then there's also U.S. people who are saying, well, we have everything in the U.S. We don't need to go to Canada. So, you know, it makes communication and commerce less. So, this is more than just like making it easy to pass through this one point, but really opening up relationships between the two countries. Yes, that's exactly what it is. This is, what's happened is the relationships have shrunk. They've, they've been less. If you, if you don't communicate with a relative for quite a while, pretty much, they become, you know, estranged. I mean, they don't know what you're doing. You don't know what they're doing. And it's just not as nice as if you are communicating with them. And, you know, from my point of view, I feel like the Vermont, you know, the local Vermont government or the statewide government does a lot to try to build relationships with Canada, with Montreal, with Quebec, Toronto, Ontario. But what's not working for you from your point of view? What's your point of view on that? Well, Quebec is a special case, but between English-speaking Canada and the U.S., I think it's much easier. Quebecers, most of Quebecers who go to the U.S. they go to more French colonies, kind of, in Maine or, or Florida or, or why not, because a lot of Quebecers don't really speak English very well. And, of course, Americans don't speak French very well. And recent laws in Quebec mandate that businesses have to operate in French, which makes it more difficult. But anyway, that doesn't have a lot to do with the, with the Canusa project. It's just business-wise that makes it more difficult. So what is the mission of the Canusa project? Because it sounds like, it sounds like it does have a lot to do with what you're talking about in terms of open borders, is, you know, aligning our systems of government, aligning our values, aligning our medical systems, right? But what is the mission of Canusa? Well, Canusa project is to really start the ball rolling in a, in a, in a way that involves a lot of people, having a lot of people, a popular movement that is interested in such a thing. Because the politicians won't move unless there's a popular movement, and the customs won't move unless there's a, I mean, the, the legal system won't work unless there's a popular movement, making the laws and all. The, the politicians, the politicians, but the, the customs there, they can't do anything unless the laws make it so that it's possible. And is this very practical for you, George? What's the, what's your impetus behind this? Is this ideological? Is this practical? Are you a man who doesn't believe in borders? Is this, what, what drives you personally around this? What drives me? Well, I'm certainly not making any money at it. So I guess it's altruism or the wish that people would be able to be more friendly with each other. Wish that people would understand each other more, rather than become more estranged. You know, I guess that's pretty much it. I also am a pilot and I've loaded across the border, not recently because they've made the, the aircraft rules for small planes more difficult too. But that's a whole, whole different ball game. Yeah, I have people that I built an airport on the farm here with my son, John. And we have planes that are based here. I'm also on the airport committee in Newport, Newport Airport. But there's a problem with small planes crossing the water and I have a fly in the second Saturday in September. This will be the 14th year in a row. And if people could come across the border, then little planes could fly across the water too. And I'd have to go through customs. Yeah. So I haven't, in all the time of all my plans, I've not been able to get anybody to come from the U.S. Because it's just too hard for a small plane to go to an airport of entry like Montreal or the Bromund or way up to Sherbrooke and then come back again because my field is only a mile from Holland, Vermont. Yeah. So if somebody does fly from a somebody does take off, say from the Burlington International Airport in a small plane, they have to fly all the way to a designated landing strip of entry register with customs and then they can fly around Canada where they want to go. Right. That's the way to go. Yeah. I did get the chance once to take a small plane over the border and see how clearly the line is designated from the air. It's a fascinating picture to really see a whole, you know, basically a. Country divide, you know, continent divided divided by a cut strip of woods. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why the strip is, but it's probably a 50 feet wide. Yeah. The Pacific Ocean all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah. Fascinating symbol of something that we think we can control. A really interesting, funny thing. On the Mexico, Canada, Mexico, US border, they built some wall there like a steel wall. Okay, somebody or some politicians or whatever have suggested, well, why don't we build a wall between Canada and the US? Well, that would be really. Challenging engineering wise because you've got to build a wall right down through the middle of the Great Lakes. And you've got to have a place for ocean liners to be able to go through carrying cargo. So they're going to have to go through a port of entry. In the middle of the lake somewhere in the Lake Erie, Ontario, Superior, what not? This is, it's quite a joke. Yeah. Because it's impossible. Yeah. So you're a farmer by trade and you've been working on this project since the mid 2000s. Is that right? What is next for you with this project? Well, I'm not a farmer by trade. I mean, I guess a farmer by just doing it. We, I went to college and have a degree in chemistry and physics. Then I went to Dartmouth, the Tuck School, and I have an MBA. And then I worked for five years for a corporation in Ohio, owns Illinois. That's some really good jobs and made a bunch of money and then decided to go on my own. I guess they had an early in midlife crisis after my mother died and then my brother, it was a Navy pilot. His plane crash. He was killed and I decided to just go on my own and do the way on thing. So we're going to move to Homer, Alaska or which was a place that we saw when we took a trip across Canada and down the Mexico before I started to work on Toledo. Either Homer, Alaska or Stan said right here where my ancestors were, my parents bought this place from relatives and then I bought it from for my dad. But anyway, so we moved here and then we decided to grow our own food, cut our own wood, try to be as independent as self-sufficient as possible. And so that's the kind of thing that we've been doing and we've had woofers. Like I said, we've tried to help people learn about being independent and learn about how to use nature to to help you. Like we have, I bought some ponds and we have a gravity feed waterline from the bottom of one of the ponds down to the house that we have free water. We also have a well, but we have free water. You just turn it off and you have free water because I have a built a water treatment system in the bottom of the pond to allow water to flow as much as the pipe can carry down to the house. I'm an inventor. I haven't made any real money at inventing yet, but when I was a kid, I kind of invented the roadie lawnmower with a wagon and an electric motor before the roadie mower came out. But I didn't have, I didn't take the time to go and make a shield for the blade and I cut the top of my shoe off and my mother said, you know, more of that. But two or three years later, the roadie and mower came out. I learned about, I learned about marketing. I learned to sew, I was sewing drapes in the new house that we moved into. She had a bunch of drapes to sew and I learned how to sew and she had a vacuum cleaner that took the paper bags and I thought, well, why don't I make a cloth bag and put it in the vacuum and then you could just take it out and shake it out and you didn't have to buy these bags anymore, paper bags. And she thought, whoa, that's a great idea. So my mother took me and I was like 14 or 14 I guess, into New York City which is about 30 miles to the east of us and took us to Luit vacuum cleaner company to the president. And she said, my really smart son here has figured out making a cloth bag for your vacuum cleaner. It's wonderful. And he did not want to see us anymore. Yeah. You were taking money out of his pocket. Bags and vacuum cleaners. Yeah. Yeah. So that's part of our marketing. That's neat. Also, one other thing. The person living next door to us, I lived in a castle. His name was Googleman. I don't know how many people know the name of Googleman. But have you ever heard of the mechanical adding machine? No. Well, it was before the digital editing machine and the computer. Yeah. Mr. Googleman, who's our neighbor, he had as many patents as Edison did on this machine and other things. And his wife was a teacher supporting him and supporting his, defending his patents against people who were just making mechanical adding machines. And then one day a man from Remington, Remington calculators came to him and said, how about if you give us a free license to do our calculators and we will depend, we will prosecute anybody who is using your patent illegally. So he signed the papers and he was almost a millionaire installing because Remington had deep pockets and they could defend all of his patents. And so IBM, National Cash, Burroughs, all of the companies had to start paying them. That's the way that works. You could have a patent and that's wonderful, but if you don't have the money to defend your patent, it doesn't do any good. Yeah. Well, George, this is fascinating, interesting to talk about. I certainly like to get up to Montreal and drive across the border and enjoy some time in Quebec. And to do that more easily, more seamlessly would be enjoyable without the anxiety and anticipation of crossing and whether you're going to be able to be allowed in and you've had all your papers in order. What is next for the Canusa Project and if folks want to know more about it, how do they find out? Okay. Well, they can email me directly, gweller at ctq2.org. If they really want to, they can give me a call. 8762-819-876-2528. But what we really need is people who are interested in developing the project, working on it. I'm pretty sure we can get donations from people. And if we get donations, then we can actually pay people to go do some of these jobs. But they have to be people who really want to do such a thing. At the beginning, there's no money. There's only volunteering. But hopefully we start getting donations or grants, then there will be some money to go ahead. So I guess what we need is initial people to volunteer to help, especially people. Well, Marina is really good to do with computers and internet. But we do need people who are good at soliciting information all across the border. Research your paper. Well, thanks for telling us about it and telling us a little bit about yourself and about why this is important to you. And for folks that are watching, thanks for watching CCTV. And we'll have this and other programs for you available if you keep on watching.