When the loonie approached and then passed par with the American dollar, there were those on this side of the border who cheered.

To the extent that our inferiority complex had been embodied by the low value of the Canuck buck, I guess it seemed like good news. We always knew we were better than 68 cents, after all, better than 78 cents too. And for those folks given to ordering stuff from the L.L. Bean catalog, it made life easier because a $40 shirt was actually a $40 shirt for a change. No conversions necessary.

That’s all very nice, but as we know only too well, Canadian cross-border carriers were dealt a nasty blow in the process. The service they sold had become expensive, though not suddenly.

Not long after the launch of free trade agreements and the end of regulated carriage, the Bisons and Challengers of our world enjoyed serious international growth and soon dominated the north-south market. But a decade ago I remember hearing complaints from some of them as the Canadian dollar began to rise from its low-60s value. With every hike of just a penny, serious cash was effectively lifted from their wallets month after month. Even with our buck at 70 cents, they were losing ground.

Now, with the dollars at about the same value and looking like staying there for awhile, the situation is dire for some. Add the aftermath of 9/11 with border hassles aplenty, plus the slowing U.S. economy, and the mixture is such that the shape of cross-border trucking has changed radically. Maybe for a long time to come.

In fact, from an eagle’s perspective, it’s just the newest wrinkle in the endlessly fascinating relationship between Canada and the United States.

For me at least, very few things in this world are more interesting than watching the evolution of that connection. Forever changing, it moves us this way and that quite beyond our control, the complex core of it being at once an archly competitive rivalry and a fulsome friendship.

Unfortunately, the border means more to us than it does to them. For us it’s the gateway to a lush market, while the vast majority of Americans see it as a fence that isn’t quite tall enough. The brutal reality is that those guys can dismiss us as another state or ignore us totally, or maybe choose to do business with us, and it won’t really make too much difference to them one way or another.

They can make the border tougher and tougher to cross, as they’ve been doing in the last few years, and the only Americans who really see this as bad news are the guys running Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. With plants on both sides of the border, and closely integrated, they depend on an easy flow of just-in-time parts. These days, like Detroiters who enjoy a visit to the Windsor ballet, they’re frustrated.

Ontario Trucking Association president David Bradley says “the costs and difficulties of crossing the border are seriously undermining Ontario’s ability to trade in the U.S. market.”

He adds that, “despite the investment of millions of dollars by the trucking industry in new security measures supposedly designed to facilitate legitimate trade, wait times at the border have not come down, and in many cases we are still subject to frequent, long delays.

“We need better infrastructure and we need governments on both sides of the border to get serious about coordinating, harmonizing and improving the delivery of border security programs so that both security and trade facilitation goals are met,” Bradley says.

I couldn’t agree more.

“If Ontario, indeed if North America is going to compete with the emerging economies, we are not going to do it by lowering wages to third world levels,” Bradley adds. “We’re going to have to be smarter.”

Well, one newish expression of that ‘smarter’ theme has hit the news in the last couple of weeks. We’ve noted that New England Motor Freight has partnered with Toronto’s Concord Transportation to handle its freight headed for Canadian destinations. Concord will receive NEMF freight in Chicago for delivery to western Canada, in Toronto for Ontario deliveries, and in Montreal for shipments to Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Concord freight destined for the northeast U.S. will flow through NEMF. The two carriers speak of “complete integration of our IT components to offer seamless connectivity.”

And then there’s the similar deal struck by Calgary’s Canadian Freightways with five regional U.S. carriers. The network will be made up of Canadian Freightways/Epic Express; Pitt Ohio Express (mid-Atlantic); Lakeville Motor Express (midwest), Averitt Express (south and southeastern), Land Air Express of New England (New England); and DATS Trucking (west). Naturally, they too talk about a “seamless” network.

I can see an increase in links like these, and they make perfect sense. But what I really want to see is governments thinking in continental terms. And I guess that really means I want Washington to think that way. We already do.