Chaos At The Border
The U.S. government plans to require up to 24 hours' notice of all commercial shipments into the United States by October, a move Canadian exporters say will hit both economies hard.
The advance notification plan would force truckers to submit a contents lists four hours before loading their cargo, an impossibility for just-in-time operations such as the Big Three automakers, which ship $100-million in components across the border each day.
Under proposed U.S. Customs Service regulations, air couriers would need to submit a manifest list eight hours before loading; railways would need to give 12 hours' notice; and marine shipping would be subject to a 24-hour notification deadline.
The rules would apply equally to all countries. But none has the $1.9-billion-a-day in cross-border trade that Canada does and only Canada and Mexico have to worry about truck and rail shipments, many of which are designed to arrive within a few hours of being ordered.
An estimated 30,000 trucks cross the Canada-U.S. border each day, including 7,000 that cross the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
"Nobody in Canada feels the four-hour notification is workable," said Elly Meister, vice president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. "We could be shut out of markets in the United States because of this."
The U.S. government plans to require up to 24 hours' notice of all commercial shipments into the United States by October, a move Canadian exporters say will hit both economies hard.
The advance notification plan would force truckers to submit a contents lists four hours before loading their cargo, an impossibility for just-in-time operations such as the Big Three automakers, which ship $100-million in components across the border each day.
Under proposed U.S. Customs Service regulations, air couriers would need to submit a manifest list eight hours before loading; railways would need to give 12 hours' notice; and marine shipping would be subject to a 24-hour notification deadline.
The rules would apply equally to all countries. But none has the $1.9-billion-a-day in cross-border trade that Canada does and only Canada and Mexico have to worry about truck and rail shipments, many of which are designed to arrive within a few hours of being ordered.
An estimated 30,000 trucks cross the Canada-U.S. border each day, including 7,000 that cross the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
"Nobody in Canada feels the four-hour notification is workable," said Elly Meister, vice president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. "We could be shut out of markets in the United States because of this."
