Now the Canadians DO have the RCMP, which I have always thought of as an upright outfit, many cuts above those Mexican police forces upon whom I have unfortunately chanced to encounter. Also, the Canadians do not seem to have the mordida bribe philosophy engrained in their border agents and policemen. There being so many fewer Canadians than Mexicans, and the country seemingly being so much better run and organized, has apparently lulled me into a false feeling of security about the Northern border. I do realize it is much harder to patrol, with thousands of miles of roadless woods, trans border lakes and rivers, etc. In fact, I dare say it it is little changed and probably less secure than it was in Grandfather's day, when he was known to cross into Canada by boat, foot, and truck, to secure medicines from Scotland, Ireland, and France (alcohol-based) for desperately sick neighbors.
Now about the PRI. That party is the Party of the Mexican Constitution of 1910, which IMHO, is the cause of much dysfunction. Unless our Mexican neigbors ditch this Marxist document and decide on key issues like private property and official religious freedom and the rights of churches, etc. etc. they are going to get nowhere no matter which party is in power. Also, the whole machinery of a heavily centralized government is and will remain in dirty PRI hands. It is much the same in the US, where the Democrats held power for so long that in most government agencies, the workers are all Democraps who survive any change of government and who can throw many monkey wrenches into any thought of reform.
Oddly enough, Mexicans and Canadians do have one incredibly annoying trait in common: that is their "intellectuals," all seem to carry on as if they were denizens of some Left Bank Café in the Paris of the late 1930's. Of course admiration for Karl Marx, socialism and anti-american-capitalism are de rigueur with this type of thinker. Fox seems free of this taint, but his cabinet surely ain't.