Canadian political leaders have been seized with the U.S. Government on tariffs and how to keep our economy and international supply chains thriving, but the Canadian Trucking Alliance says this week’s prolonged and damaging Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) IT infrastructure outage clearly illustrates that attention and investment is required to improve and stabilize the antiquated systems that electronically process trade moving into our country.
“The prolonged system outage this week slowed the movement of trade down to a trickle at the Canadian border, severely impacting just-in-time shipments, service standards for customers, hours of service for truck drivers, and numerous other costs for carriers and the supply chain during a time where these extra costs cannot simply be borne by the trade community,” says Stephen Laskowski, President of the CTA.
“With trade coming to a standstill, this gives Canada’s trade partners and customers in the U.S. another reason to relocate and reassess whether dealing with cross-border shipments remains feasible. The Fall federal Budget must deal with this matter once and for all.”
Due to reasons unknown to CTA and trade chain partners, CBSA experienced significant system outages and delays in processing impacting the EDI and eManifest systems, which first occurred around 5:30am (ET) on July 23.
“Regardless of the reasons related to this system issue, carriers and the supply chain have dealt with frequent and and severe outages for at least five years. The hardworking border officers at the CBSA continue to do their best to facilitate trade through paper processes, but the Government of Canada must invest in immediate system upgrades, and recognize this relief is critical to cross-border trade and the truck drivers who must endure the ramifications of these extended delays at the border,” said CTA’s Director of Policy and Industry Awareness Programs, Lak Shoan.
“Our Board’s hope is that Prime Minister Carney will understand the sensitivity and impact of these challenges on the business community and bring these concerns to the cabinet table when it comes time to make spending decisions on the border during the upcoming budget,” he adds.
CTA is also reminding the Government of Canada and cabinet ministers that increased investments at the border can be greatly offset by getting by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) collecting the over $ 1 billion annually in forgone taxes due to their neglect in enforcing current tax laws on the trucking sector.