The western premiers want Ottawa to lobby the U.S. government to delay a requirement that Canadians and Americans crossing the border have a passport.
Washington has said it will introduce legislation requiring all cross-border travellers to carry a passport starting next year, but the U.S. Senate has said the law should be put off.
Manitoba Premier Gary Doer says his colleagues all agree the law should be delayed to at least 2009.
"The key message today is: 'Delay and get it right,'" Doer told reporters at the western premiers conference in Gimli, Man.
Doer says the premiers believe the U.S. government can be persuaded to postpone the passport implementation.
"We do not believe our national government should assume that 2007 is a fait accompli. We believe that we should continue to be vigorous with the other levels of governance in the United States," he said.
"We believe the more the Americans realize how much this will hurt their tourism industry as well as the detriment it would be for our tourism industry and how many jobs are at stake, we can continue to keep this issue alive."
The western premiers say the cost of obtaining passports for every family member will be prohibitive and will certainly affect the numbers of people crossing the Canada-U.S. border.
A number of U.S. and Mexican governors will join the premiers on Wednesday.
In earlier discussions at the premiers' meeting, Canada's native, provincial and territorial leaders said they have renewed their commitment to closing the economic gap for aboriginal people.
The topic was the $5 billion Kelowna Agreement signed with the Liberal government last fall, but the deal wasn't mentioned in the recent federal budget, leading many to believe the Conservatives intend to scuttle the deal.
But the western leaders haven't given up hope.
Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert says he'll host the first-ever economic summit for First Nations, Inuit and Metis people next year.
"I see this ... as an important step forward in building economic capacity, and through economic capacity, social capacity," said Calvert.
There will be a meeting in January to discuss aboriginal health, and another to discuss violence against aboriginal women.
It's all good news to Beverly Jacobs president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, who says violence against native women takes on many forms. "Oppression ... colonization, those are all issues of violence that [are] affecting our women and our communities," she said.
The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples says it also likes what it's hearing. It believes any new deal could be expanded to include native people living outside of reserves.
Phil Fontaine, grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, says not only is he optimistic the principals of Kelowna will be respected, he says it may not be limited to the what native leaders signed in Kelowna with the former Liberal government.
"We're not only talking about $5 billion, I think ... we can actually do better."
When asked what does "better" mean, Fontaine replied, "it may be $10 billion."
Fontaine says the meeting in Gimli has given aboriginal leaders the support they need to tackle the problems facing native people. And all parties believe the federal government wants to work with them on this deal.
The next western premiers meeting will be in Nunavut next year.