babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Canada to close 5 U.S. consulates....including the one in ANCHORAGE?
June 3, 2012 - 7:43pm
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/canada-closes-5-us-consulates-1.3756193
(excerpt)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - (AP) -- The Canadian government is closing five consulates in the United States, including Anchorage.
The other closures are in Buffalo, N.Y., Philadelphia, Phoenix and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
A government spokeswoman said nearby hubs will provide services to areas that had consulates close.
(end excerpt)
Here's the deal.
The next nearest "nearby hub" in the U.S. to Anchorage is Seattle
Anchorage is 1435 air miles/2310 air km from Seattle(a direct flight takes 3 1/2 hours, and most of the flights take longer since there can be stops between Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell and Ketchikan in between, and that's not even discussing flight delays)...it's 2400 miles/3862.425 by car(three hundred miles/482 km longer than the drive between Toronto to Vancouver).
And, in fact, most of Alberta and ALL of British Columbia is closer to Anchorage than Seattle is.
Thus, anybody in or passing through Anchorage who needed "face time" at a Canadian consulate would be put to an expenditure in time and money that would be far greater than anyone in the "Lower 48" who needed to show up at one or even to present originals of documents at such a place.
This not only impacts Alaska residents(many of whom have trouble and expense enough just getting to Anchorage, whether they are U.S. citizens or not), but travelers from all over the world(many flights headed for Canadian destinations still end up landing at the Anchorage airport as part of their regular schedule or getting diverted there due to some sort of in-flight crisis..
See the problem here?
(btw...if this needs to be moved to a different forum within Babble, that's fine...I just wasn't sure which one it should go to.)
Clarification...you don't have to stop off at all those places on EVERY Seattle-Anchorage flight...what I meant was that, were this policy in effect today, and someone had to get from Anchorage to the Canadian consulate in Seattle at the last minute(people often have to do that on consular business)there's no assurance that you'll be able to get a flight on Anchorage-Seattle nonstop(or that if you do, the flight won't overfly Seatac airport and end up landing in Spokane, or Portland, or Reno or somewhere else.
I wasn't arguing that every Seattle flight was the equivalent of trying to get from Resolute to Calgary.
Also...there's the cost of a last-minute ANchorage to Seattle plane ticket(I checked it just now on the Alaska Airlines website-we can assume that the cost would be the same on any of the OTHER airlines flying out of Anchorage)
If you had to take that flight tomorrow, for example, you'd pay(one way)at least $541.00(and possibly up to $780.00)and that's before the local tax on the flight.
If this decision were to stand, it would simply pose an intolerable burden on those who have used the Anchorage consulate's services.
Also, driving from Anchorage to Seattle is not an option for a large number of Alaska residents...either they don't have passports, or they have something on their records(and this can be something as minor as fourth-degree assault, which is what you get convicted off-from what I've heard, for the record, not from personal experience-for, say, showing somebody in a bar during a momentary dust-up)that bars you from entering Canada(to say nothing of the intrinsic absurdity of having to drive through Canada to go to a Canadian consulate in the U.S.).