What exactly have tighter border controls accomplished anyway besides restricting freedoms?
Leaving out the whole terrorism angle, I see nothing wrong with just making "the West" one big Schengen area.
The fact that Europe does it doesn't automatically mean it's "stupid". Please provide reasons for claiming something is "stupid".
And why shouldn't people be allowed to move wherever they want? Should we be restricting people where they can live based on their birth/blood?
Just because you move around, doesn't affect your citizenship anyway. If you wanted to permanently move somewhere, you'd have to pay your taxes there etc.
It's the 21st century people. Borders should be disappearing, not getting more tightened up.
When it comes to North America, don't forget that Americans have one constitutionally guaranteed right that we do not - the right to bear arms. Opening up our borders with the US would mean giving up our gun control laws not to mention the fact that we'd have to commit to their wars on drugs and terror.
Switzerland is the only member of the Schengen Agreement that I can think of that has embraced the gun as much as the US. Even then, purchasing a gun in Switzerland is still much harder than in many US states. When Switzerland joined the Schengen Agreement, it was forced by its much larger neighbours to tighten gun control laws. Do you really think Canada has as much influence over the US as Germany alone does over Switzerland?
Then there's always the fear (justified or not) that complete freedom of movement between the US and Canada would result in a massive brain drain.
There's probably a few countries we could make Schengen-type agreements with without much hassle: parts of the Caribbean and parts of the Commonwealth, for example. However, for the time being, any agreement with the US would involve too many consessions on our part. Europe works because there is no superpower dictating terms or wielding too much power. The relationship between the US and Canada is too one-sided. It's the same reason why Russia will probably never join Schengen, and why so many people are hostile to Turkey joining (although, admittedly in both cases, there are many other reasons for not letting them in). Perhaps a better comparison: would Schengen be possible, and would the UK be included, had WWII not de-superpower-ized that continent?
About a century ago, which is not so long by historic standards, people around the world were generally free to move anywhere they pleased, and passports and visas were not used to restrict movement. It's in this time that "new" countries like Canada, US, Australia received the most immigrants. World War 1 changed that. Hopefully we can go back to that situation within my lifetime.
Don't forget the awful condition many if not most of those immigrants lived when they arrived here. Check out old photos of the Ward for a local example. A recent report (I forget by whom) stated that there are 60 million people around the world who would pick Canada as their first choice for immigration. We simply do not have the resources to triple our population instantly while ensuring the economic and physical wellbeing of those immigrants.
I think you're overstating how free this movement was. It was expensive and time consuming. At the same time, many millions of people around the world were unable to move due to serfdom, slavery, etc. Travel is much easier today and more people have the resources to afford it. And even a hundred years ago there were restrictions on immigration to Canada, the US, Australia, etc. Why else would the Komagata Maru get turned away? What about the head tax? Going back even further, why do you think no Protestants or Jews settled in New France? There have always been some restrictions.
There are brain drain concerns again here too. What would happen to China, India, the Philippines, etc. if their middle classes just up and left en masse for the developed world? Consider too what has been happening to local communities in the world's tropical paradises when they are flooded with wealthy North American/European ex-pats - what would happen if all the restrictions that so far have at least partially limited the devastating effects of ex-pat-driven rising land prices in some parts of the world suddenly disappeared?
I'm all for a borderless world eventually, but I don't think it's possible so long as huge economic/political/legal disparities exist between countries.
