A booming B.C. city known for its cultures, food — and an international crisis

Laurie Trautman, director of Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute, describes it as “border blindness.” Despite robust commerce between Whatcom County and Lower B.C., “Our understanding stops at the border,” she says. 

The masses of participants at the Surrey Vaisakhi parade in April barely registered notice a few miles south, other than in Whatcom County’s Sikh community of about 8,000 people.