Trucks stop near the Peace Bridge at the U.S.-Canada border crossing, March 20.Yuki Iwamura/The Associated Press
Persistent and unexplained problems with a critical federal electronic system have created widespread delays for imports into Canada, costing trucking companies millions of dollars a day as they wait for clearance to bring goods into the country.
It is the second time in a year that stumbles at the Canada Border Services Agency have created disarray for importers, some of whom have had to wait a full week to secure customs clearance that, in normal times, might take a few minutes.
The problems, which have intensified over the past two weeks, are hitting importers using eManifest, a digital portal for goods preclearance.
The delays have grown sufficiently severe that Air Canada has told importers they may want to consider abandoning digital processing altogether, opting instead for in-person visits to CBSA offices to secure physical stamps. Shippers have paid thousands of dollars to store goods in warehouses while they wait. Truckers have spent hours stuck without authorization to approach the border.
“It’s a terrible mess,” said Trevor Kurtz, general manager of Brian Kurtz Trucking in Breslau, Ont., which manages a fleet of 65 trucks. On a typical day, 20 cross the border. Over the past two weeks, however, drivers have had to pull over on the U.S. side, waiting for customs clearance. Food and other goods that require clearance from additional agencies, such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, pose particular problems.
Drivers are “almost home and they get stopped in Michigan and stopped in New York by the border and have to sit there and stare out a window waiting for something to release,” Mr. Kurtz said.
“It’s really embarrassing, as a Canadian, that our system is so broken.”
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On Thursday, the CBSA said it continues to “investigate the causes” of the recent delays.
“CBSA personnel have been working around the clock to restore system performance and resolve challenges, while also working directly with trade chain partners to move and release goods as quickly as possible to minimize disruptions,” spokesperson Rebecca Purdy said in a statement.
“We thank our trade chain partners for their co-operation and apologize for any inconvenience,” she said.
Canadian industry groups worry that the United States will use the border problems as a cudgel in coming trade negotiations, and they warn that persistent problems could damage Canada’s ability to attract investment.
”We have entered into crisis mode,” said Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. ”The supply chain has now become very aware that the new normal is not normal.”
The recent rounds of delays have been worst in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba, which together see about 11,000 trucks enter from the U.S. each day. The CTA has calculated that a four-hour customs clearance delay in those three provinces alone costs truckers $3.3-million, and twice that for an eight-hour delay.
“Over a single week of these systemic failures, the outage tax on Canadian goods and manufacturing and all the rest of it is $30- to $45-million in waste,” Mr. Laskowski said. “That’s just the trucking waste. Let alone what happens to our partners in the supply chain.”
Late last September, a separate series of CBSA issues created problems with inspections systems, airport entry kiosks and programs that govern who can and cannot board aircraft. The ensuing problems caused air passenger delays and missed flights; some truckers had to wait three days to enter the country.
In a report last year, the federal government blamed human error in a Sept. 28 database upgrade that corrupted data. The following day, a digital security patch ruptured lines of communication between the agency and airlines, which were unable to confirm which passengers were on no-fly lists. That change was thought “to be non-disruptive, but clearly was not,” the CBSA and Shared Services Canada wrote in the report.
The recent problems have been confined to goods movement, rather than passengers. They have nonetheless caused acute frustration.
On Wednesday, 20 minutes past the time most businesses close for the day, Bruno Biondi took a moment to tabulate the troubles.
Mr. Biondi is president of e-business at GHY International, a Winnipeg-based brokerage company that does a busy trade in online orders of clothing, most of which come into Canada through the U.S. and Europe.
Over the course of the day, he had submitted roughly 29,000 items to the CBSA through eManifest. By shortly after 5 p.m., only 4,000 had been released. Of the remaining 25,000, some had been submitted as early as 7:30 a.m.; clearances that eventually arrived later that evening came too late to deliver that day, causing a full-day delay.
“You can’t really get ahead, so you’re constantly behind the eight-ball,” Mr. Biondi said. Customers don’t get their packages as expected. Worse, “I can potentially lose contracts based off of not being able to deliver things on time.”
The CBSA has held phone calls with industry groups, promising urgent action. In recent days, the agency has managed to clear daily backlogs in the middle of the night.
By then, the delays have already created a cascade of effects.
“Warehousing is full,” said Warrington Ellacott, who chairs the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters. There is “great concern from industry when stability and predictability will return,” he added.
The problems confronting the CBSA extend far beyond the current round of delays, said Bruce Rodgers, executive director of the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association. Vital Canadian border functions are being run on decades-old legacy systems.
“They are antiquated, there are major issues and gaps. They’re not robust enough to handle the volumes that we’re currently handling today. And until there is investment made, these problems are going to continue,” he said.
If Prime Minister Mark Carney “is looking to grow the economy,” he added, “we need to get the goods in and out of the country. We can’t have customs going down to the degree it’s going today.”
Only importers using eManifest have been affected, while shippers using older programs, such as the Courier Low Value Shipment program, are not affected. Canada barred new applications to that program in 2019; shippers still using it include major international couriers.
“They can get their product through,” Mr. Biondi said. “I cannot.”
His longest delay was an Air Canada shipment that arrived in Toronto from Amsterdam on April 21. Obtaining clearance to move it out of the airport took a week.
“They could see it in the system, but nobody could figure out what the problem was,” Mr. Biondi said.
And “trial and error in Air Canada cargo is expensive.”
Mr. Biondi said the delay cost him nearly $7,000 in storage fees, more than the cost of the air bill itself – and more than “what we actually get paid to deliver the cargo,” making it a loss.