The threat of apples

I was just trying to be honest. I was in Toronto, clearing customs on my way back to Kingston via Miami. Fueled by a little paranoia and a healthy respect for immigration regulations, I answered honestly when the U.S. customs agent asked if I had any food.

“Yes,” I said, “my lunch, some bread and an apple,” I managed to say. “You will have to have the apple inspected,” she said sternly. I have had food confiscated before because of security requirements (yoghurt is apparently a risk over three ounces), but never because of NAFTA or some obscure trade regulation.

So I ventured off to the inspection area (behind some double doors), where three male agents were standing behind different stations. A Spanish-speaking woman was being questioned while a man in a grey suit attempted to steer a luggage cart with several suitcases to another agent.

I waited awhile and no one acknowledged my presence. So I walked up to a free agent and asked if he could inspect my apple. He did and promptly told me I would have to throw it out because it didn’t have a sticker indicating that it is either from Canada or the U.S. My poor apple was then dumped in a cardboard box with a lot of other sad-looking food. I was surprisingly upset: it looked like a delicious apple!

Then I got to thinking: these arcane, obscure and complex rules are drafted by international trade lawyers and bureaucrats in some office or at a summit with the best of intentions. Perhaps to protect local farmers or encourage trade, and here is how they are manifested. Good food literally becomes garbage, doing no good to no one except the vendors.

Is this how the politicians and bureaucrats envision success when these trade deals are signed at press conferences? I tried to do a bit of research and have come up short. Some web sites tell me you are allowed to bring in fruit from November to April, while other say it is prohibited at all times. Who knew there were so many rules? I ended up buying another apple on the other side, which was rotten in the middle, by the way, and sure enough, it bore a sticker saying it was the product of the U.S.

In any case, this incident served to remind me of the disconnect between the bureaucracy and the human beings who are ensnared in it, despite all good intentions.