Illustration by Matt Daley

On the second Saturday of every July, the Haudenosaunee people march across the border at Niagara Falls to remind North America of a message: “We are not American. We are not Canadian. We are Haudenosaunee.”

Harry Doxtator can remember attending the ceremony as a toddler, and now sits on the Border Crossing Committee as the Oneida representative. “We are establishing our right of having the ability to cross the border that they have designed. We are saying that we have the right to freely travel, as we call it, Turtle Island.”

Since the 1783 Treaty of Paris established the boundary between Canada and the United States, the Haudenosaunee have become a people divided. The borders of Canada, the United States, Ontario, Quebec, and New York demarcate their lands.

Since 1928, the crossing celebration acts as an affirmation of the rights laid out in Article III of the 1794 Jay Treaty. Signed by Britain and the United States, this article purports that the First Nations people dwelling on either side of the border can cross to and from and freely carry on commerce.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy says that they have neither been defeated by, nor accepted citizenship from, Canada or the United States and thus remain sovereign. Respect for the nation is expressed as early as 1613 in the Two Row Wampum Treaty. “As allies, the Haudenosaunee people were promised that their freedom and independence would always be recognized,” explains Grand Chief Mike Mitchell of Akwesasne, a Mohawk reserve that straddles both international and provincial borders. “From the imposition of the Indian Act, of residential schools, to brainwashing to make us forget who we are, the end product is still that, we are citizens of our own nation.” They have also held their own passports since the 1920s, and ID cards since the 1950s.

All members of the Six Nations—Oneida, Seneca, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cayuga, and Onondaga—can hold a Haudenosaunee ID card and passport. The ID card is used is at the Canada-US border, and passport-holders have successfully used them to travel around the world. But heightened border security since 9/11 has caused escalating conflicts over the legitimacy of the Haudenosaunee passport.

Through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), the United States released a restricted list of documents acceptable for entering the United States. The Haudenosaunee responded by creating a documentation committee in order to bring both pieces of identification up to date, both in terms of security and political acceptability. “We are in negotiations with the United States about having it accepted as compliant with WHTI,” says committee member, lawyer, and professor Paul Williams. “We’re also in negotiations with Canada, whose law at this point doesn’t have a list of acceptable documents.” Canada’s regulation only states that the documents should be satisfactory to the officer at the border crossing. “It gives the officer a bundle of discretion,” says Williams.

The latest upset was in June 2011 at the Cornwall border, which divides the Mohawk Nation in half, when Joyce King produced her Haudenosaunee passport as identification to enter into Canada. The Border Services Officer seized the document, deeming it unsanctioned.

Problems persist more on the Canadian side of the border than the American one. This is because, unlike the U.S., Canada never incorporated Jay Treaty’s article III into law. The Treaty of Ghent, which provides the restoration of the rights of First Nations as they existed prior to the War of 1812, has only been enacted in the U.S. The Crown promised to do the same—but never has.

“There are 28 articles in the Jay Treaty,” says Grand Chief Mitchell. “Canada has ratified and sanctioned 27 of them.”

The federal government believes there isn’t a reason to keep this promise, claiming that circumstances have changed. But Williams relays the stories of over 200 families that are broken apart by their inability to leave Canada, such as a woman from Tuscarora who, married to a Cayuga man at Six Nations, cannot return to the United States to visit her father who is dying of cancer. Forced to stay in Canada in fear that they won’t be permitted re-entry, it is clear that there are plenty of reasons for the Haudenosaunee to continue protesting for their rights to cross a border that their community precedes by hundreds of years.

Meet the lobbyist who brought the tar sands inside the beltway. Illustration by Antony Hare

Paul Frazer is an invisible Canadian. He doesn’t live in Canada, and hasn’t for more than two decades. But he works for us, and he represents us abroad, and he holds sway over the leaders and big businesses that affect our lives. In many ways, he has power over the powerful. But here at home, this sway is often unremarked upon.

Frazer is a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., focused on representing Canadian interests below the 49th. Many regard him as our secret weapon in an ongoing political and social battle within North America. He has represented our provinces (Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan), and our businesses, on issues including solar energy development, trade policy and homeland security. In his work, Frazer often holds our environment—and thus our economic and social welfare—in his hands.

In his office, two blocks away from the White House, there are two engravings on the wall. One depicts the Battle of Lundy’s Lane during the War of 1812, which the Canadian side won. The other (“For balance,” Frazer notes), the Battle of Chippewa, won by the Americans in the same war. The images of that seminal conflict are what his clients are greeted with when they knock on his door. And if they’re Canadian, with a reliance on doing business in the United States, they inevitably will.

Frazer was born in Toronto and grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario. His parents owned a summertime motel, a restaurant, and a gas station. His family border-hopped back when it was still easy—some of his aunts, uncles and cousins have married Americans.

A habitué of odd jobs, Frazer spent a summer cleaning basements and washing windows for the late Liberal MP and Pearson cabinet member Judy LaMarsh. He also worked at the Rainbow Bridge, which he credits with teaching him about the basics of migration between Canada and the United States.

Still, “It was clear to me that I would seek my professional work outside of that place,” Frazer says bluntly. In 1967, he spent the summer working at The World Expo in Montreal. At the Ontario Pavilion, the excitement soon wore off—the same old politicians needed handholding tours of the venue, and the glamour of playing host to VIPs lost its lustre as the summer wore on.

“We were fairly jaded,” says Les Monkman, Professor Emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, who worked the event with Frazer. He remembers a last-minute tour that was scheduled for the end of a long day: “Everyone called out ‘Not it!’ and Paul said he would do it. At that point all we knew was that the tour was for the person who had just become Justice Minister, and his name was Pierre Trudeau. Paul had really good instincts on when to move.” After earning two degrees in political science, from McGill and Carleton universities, Frazer was encouraged by Lester B. Pearson to enter the Foreign Service. When Frazer demurred, Pearson wrote him a recommendation letter for law school instead. Frazer ended up in the Foreign Service anyway: working for Prime Minister Kim Campbell, in the Department of Foreign Affairs under Joe Clark, and was appointed ambassador to the Czech Republic by Brian Mulroney in 1992.

In 1989, Frazer had attended the wedding of Globe and Mail correspondent Paul Koring in Washington—just a short trip from where he was studying international affairs at Harvard University. There, he met Dr. Tina Alster, who was also studying at Harvard. For five years, Frazer and Alster kept up a long distance relationship between Washington (where Alster was raised), Ottawa, and Prague. “This is not a medicine town,” says Alster, of Washington. “I moved back not because of my family, but because this guy was a Canadian diplomat, and I thought one day he’ll be here in Washington.” And he was, but: “I never wanted to be posted to Washington,” says Frazer. “It wasn’t foreign enough for me, it wasn’t exotic.” In 1994, the Foreign Service posted Frazer to Washington to work at the Canadian Embassy, and he’s lived there ever since. It may not be the exotic locale he dreamed of—but the Beltway is home to plenty of unique wildlife and customs all its own.

Frazer and his colleagues like to say that he’s the only lobbyist in Washington to provide basic translation services between Canada and the United States. At the root of it, what he really does is tell Canadian companies how to effectively make Americans do what they want. Likewise, he brings Canadian business to the attention of American policymakers.

As our business interests are so inextricably linked, Frazer’s clients come to him to ensure policy decisions made in Washington don’t lead to turmoil at home. On his part, Frazer continually finds himself reminding Americans that we live in a linked economy.

After the mid-term elections in November 2010, many Canadian businesses were prepared for an upheaval when the Republicans took majority in the House of Representatives. Frazer asked them to cool down, reminding them that the change meant little in terms of legislation.

“You can’t catch all those things that go pop,” he says, with some resignation. “Some of them make more noise than anything else, and some are more serious than others.” He is reluctant to spill client names. Along with the Province of Alberta, Frazer mentions a company in Nova Scotia that developed an enhanced, environmentally friendly process to dispose of toxic liquid. He’s also provided advice to the Government of Ontario regarding American interests in green energy.

The Lobbying Disclosure Act database maintains a list of all lobbying actions filed with the House of Representatives. Frazer is listed in their database dating back to 2001 as having represented clients including the Canada International Pharmacy Association, Scotiabank advisor Adrian Tauro, and the Certified General Accountants of Ontario.

In 2009, Frazer took on a challenging client, and one that would bring him into the spotlight: the Government of Alberta. Frazer and consultant James Blanchard were approached to lobby on behalf of the Government of Alberta’s interests—especially pertaining to the oil sands in northern Alberta. Frazer and Blanchard’s team was paid $40,000 per month for their work.

Frazer’s job, simply, was to monitor the American government to prevent another “Section 526.” The Section 526 provision to the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 forbids the U.S. government from buying the type of high-carbon fuels produced in Alberta’s oil sands. Canadian Embassy officials lobbied hard to weaken the language in the bill, and it shook the province’s business and politics to its core.

As part of his contract, Frazer brought Albertan officials to Washington—something not all clients do. “Frankly, it was just so that they could put a human face on some of this stuff”—“stuff” in this case being things like whole flocks of dead birds, destroyed wetlands, toxic spills, and ravaged landscapes.

Frazer has been fending off criticisms about representing Alberta ever since. At an alumni event in Washington this fall, grads chastised Frazer for his decision to take the province on as a client. “People raised their eyebrows and thought, ‘How could you represent Alberta on oil sands?”,” he says. “But I say, give me something to work with. We have a tap that will turn oil or gas on and off, but the tap for solar and wind is only giving a tiny bit right now.” His contract with the province ended last March and with a new government in Edmonton, Frazer is off the oil sands beat—for now.

Lobbying is more often than not considered ethically dubious, since there are lobbyists for practically every profession from teachers to cigarette companies. But University of British Columbia economics professor Matilde Bombardini says they’re often caught in a game of shoot the messenger.

“They’re the least trusted profession in the U.S., and yes, there are some that do illegal things,” she says. “But most operate within the boundaries. And they often produce information that is useful for policymakers.” John Chenier, former editor and publisher of the Ottawa-based publication The Lobby Monitor, says that lobbying is simply, “Games within games, wheels within wheels.” Of the ethics of lobbying on behalf of a highly controversial project like the oil sands, “I go back and forth,” says Chenier.

“One might judge someone lobbying for the tar sands as arguing on the side of the devils, rather than on the side of the angels. But many people in Alberta would disagree.” According to Chenier, the Government of Canada is this country’s largest spender on lobbying, and it has spent over $100 million in the U.S. and Europe lobbying other governments on environmental issues like softwood lumber exports and the Northern seal hunt.

But while we spend millions abroad, there are no Americans living in Ottawa full-time (as Frazer does in Washington), for the express purpose of lobbying Parliament Hill on American interests. Their embassy does most of the work in Ottawa, simply because our government is quick to consider U.S. interests without needing to be prompted. Decades of ever-tighter economic integration—from the Auto Pact to NAFTA to the proposed Great Lakes Partnership Council—means Canadian governments have no choice but to listen when American businesses speak. In the end it’s an American decision that will determine how the oil sands, and thus a considerable chunk of Canada’s economy, will proceed. “The decision in Washington on the Keystone XL pipeline could very well decide the fate of the tar sands,” says Chenier. “If you’re against it, it’s very important. If you’re for it, it’s very important. They could decide the development of northern Alberta, and in the process the environmental health of the world.”

“Americans don’t think of Canadians as foreign,” Frazer says. “You can take that one way or another. My perspective is to say run with it. Make it work for us.” He argues that Canada needs to be more bullish, in the American style. “Go in. Stand straight. Say your piece.”

David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (where Frazer is a co-chair on the Institute’s advisory board), remembers a time when a client didn’t follow Frazer’s exact instructions on how to send thank-you cards after they returned to Canada. The next time they visited Washington, they were greeted with a frosty reception. “You can’t really say in Washington, ‘This is great for Canada’,” Biette says. “People look at you and reply, ‘I have a meeting…’ or something.”

That might be changing, though. After the federal election in May 2011, the Wilson Center held a discussion on what a Conservative majority means for Canada-U.S. relations. The house was packed, with an overflow crowd that couldn’t fit in the room.

“I wish I could be back in 1812 right now,” says Frazer, back in his office in Washington. “Or maybe 1814, and ask those Canadians what they think. I think they’d say we as Canadians did something nobody thought we could do.” Earlier this fall, it was announced that the Harper Conservatives had created an $11.5 million fund to recognize the history surrounding the War of 1812. The official commemoration will actually be a four-year process, culminating in 2015. New plaques will be mounted, monuments polished, battle re-enactments held, and plays and musical performances scheduled. In Canada, at least, the bicentennial is being trumpeted as a military victory that forged the nation that would eventually become Canada.

In the U.S., the conflict barely registers. “It doesn’t really have to do with whether it helped form your identity,” Biette explains. “It’s that it’s still part of your identity in 2012. That’s not so much here. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve heard anything about a commemoration of the War of 1812—and that’s when we got the Star-Spangled Banner.”

It’s divides like these that Paul Frazer has made a career bridging, explaining their foreign northern neighbours to America’s political class. Whether you hate or love his line of work, he is among the most important, and poorly understood, figures linking our two countries. For better or worse, a lot depends on Paul Frazer—our man in Washington.

The website Two Of Us promotes marriage as “a viable option to 18 to 30-year-olds” and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Healthy Marriage Resource Centre.

The site’s design and polls are reminiscent of a 90’s issue of Seventeen magazine. Side bar polls include such old chestnuts as: do you listen to your partner and can you really change someone?

Gawker took a look at the Do’s and Don’ts from Two of Us; we looked up an old Social Hygiene film from 1949 and found that nothing has essentially changed in the world of dating advice. I’ve embedded the cringe-tastic film above for your viewing pleasure.

In the film, Woody’s mom warns him about the dangers of being late for a date. She dumped her first date because he was late, in favour of Woody’s puntcual Dad. The lesson: tardy people don’t get married. Two Of Us advises coming up with a date-night schedule to ensure you have time to get ready, drive to the date, and park  your car, and to call if you’re running late.

Two of Us also warns readers to avoid getting physical too soon, not for “moral reasons,” but because waiting gives your relationship “a fighting chance.” Woody’s date with Anne drives home this point when she actually runs away screaming as he lunges in for a goodnight kiss after their first date.

If the reason to avoid intimacy isn’t moral then why does an article titled,”Should we live together,” link directly to article on the perils of cohabitation in lieu of marriage, published by the National Marriage Project? The article includes such info as as cohabitation increases a woman’s risk of domestic violence, the risk of divorce and depression. Some of the article’s conclusions have been called into question by the Alternatives to Marriage Project.

Two of Us may offer more carrot than stick than the National Marriage Project, but their goals are the same: to encourage hetrosexual relationships that lead to marriage and babies. Marriage rates in the U.S. have been falling for the last 10 years, while divorce rates seem to hold steady. A website full of dating tips and sketchy statistics probably isn’t going to turn things around radically.