Re: [OT]Peperoni

> That's a difference in culture. In Australia, someone coming in with
> forged documents is of relatively minor concern - at worst they're Al
Qaeda
> types who are out to kill at most a few thousand people.
> 
> But a stick of peperoni could well be carrying any number of
> foreign diseases, which could wreck a large part of our agricultural
> sector, and thus cost us billions.

The pepperoni incident was last summer, after the mad cow scare. It's
quite 
funny seeing the difference between U.S. and Canadian Customs. In the
U.S. 
they are most worried about people sneaking into the country to work.
They 
don't seem to worry about how much stuff you bought abroad and whether
or not 
you should be paying taxes and/or duty. In Canada they are more worried
about 
what you bought in the U.S. and making sure you pay your share of GST on
it. 
They don't seem to be worried much about whether or not you're sneaking
into 
Canada to work.

Both countries are pretty careful about food. It's hard to patrol the
border, 
though, considering it's so big. Almost anything airborne that can
affect the 
food supply of the three countries (Canada, U.S., Mexico) is going to go

across the border anyway. Anything that gets into good chunks of the
Canadian 
water table _is_ going to go into the United States. The meat industries
of 
both countries are heavily integrated. The pepperoni was worrisome due
to mad 
cow, I guess. I do know of someone who was fined US$50 for trying to
bring a 
couple of oranges across the border from Canada to the U.S. (I'm not
sure if 
that's because they didn't immediately declare it, or if it was because
they 
were just bringing it across). The irony is that they were California 
oranges, but I suppose it's possible that it could have picked up a
weird bug 
in Canada. 

I know that Agriculture Canada has dogs at the airports for sniffing
food, 
but they're mostly worried about stuff from outside of the continent.
The 
U.S. does the same sort of thing. The Customs forms for both countries
ask if 
you visited a farm when you went across the border, so they are
obviously 
worried about picking up things from the other country (in spite of the
fact 
that Canadian and American health and agriculture bureaucracies have
very, 
very similar policies when it comes to treating diseases). 

I can understand Australia being paranoid, seeing as how it's such a
unique 
biosphere cut off from the rest of the world. It really could devestate
the 
country's economy.

--
Allan Goodall		   agoodall@att.net
http://www.hyperbear.com   agoodall@hyperbear.com