Let Me Ask My Canadian Friends....

hi, bear : this has been of great concern to ontario and the bordering u.s. states for well over a year. a/t newspaper reports several high-level meetings between the various states and manufacturinng reps have taken place to try and SPEED-UP the transfer of goods across the border. the automobile industry is particularly interested to INCREASE on-the-spot deliveries of manufactured parts across border(MAGNA auto-parts manufacturer practically manufactures whole cars - certainly sub-assemblies - that are basically "put" together in the final assembly process). while in a dire emergency the borders could of course be closed, i believe the cost to the economy would be substantial; my un-educated guess is that the manufactures will come up with better security pre-clearance measures so that the exchange of goods will not suffer from major interruptions. even u.s. arms manufacturers rely on parts from canada(and other countries) and it would be pretty well impossible to come up with substitutes in the short term. ... here is just a little unrelated personal experience : watertown, n.y. is about an hour drive away from our home in canada and we travel to watertown on a fairly regular basis. last fall on a nice saturday mrs h and i decided to pay a visit to watertown. we crossed the 1000 island bridge and soon found ourselves in a loooong line-up of mostly u.s. registered cars and trucks(many with fishing boats on trailers). u.s. customs and immigration and the ARMY (!) were out in full force and going over the cars/trucks/boats/fishermen with a FINE toothcomb; trunks were opened, tarps rolled back, identification papers checked ... mrs. h suggested that we turn back, but there was no way of turning around ... packed like sardines ! i kind of saw our car being disassembled ! after about 45 minutes we rolled up to the u.s. custom's booth passport in hand ... the usual questions re. citizenship etc., finally : "where are you going, sir ?" , i(meekly) : "going shopping in watertown" , customs officer : "well, have a good trip, sir ". the whole APPROVAL process lasted no more than perhaps 3/4 of a minute ! getting back into canada was a different kettle of fish and it took at least a few minutes to be RE-ADMITTED ! these are the news from lake ontario ! hbg

Not too concerned. I work on the fringe of the trucking industry, and we monitor the border situation constantly. There are threats and threats and threats and threats, and then the U.S. can't follow through, as U.S. industry (overall) is more dependant on Canadian suppliers than the other way round right now.

The last couple of times this came round, it was U.S. border states and U.S. businesses that got things back in order. We didn't even really need to get involved.

hamburger's right - the U.S. truckers do seem to be having the worst time of it. Odd, that.

There should be better solutions - possible loads sealed and bonded at the point of origin?

Uh huh. This reflects the good side of the international economy. Nations becoming too dependent on one another to get really outrageous.

Roger, a lot of the loads are already sealed and bonded at source of origin - unlocked at the border - inspected and re-sealed - then unlocked on delivery. I've had to learn a lot about this recently in a fraud investigation I'm doing.

Well, if they're unsealed and inspected at the border anyway, that wasn't much help, was it?

I gave up trying to understand U.S. border officials ages ago. They require the documentation confirming the sealing at point of origin - then they open and re-seal. Yeah, ok, that's helpful.

roger : you wrote ... " There should be better solutions - possible loads sealed and bonded at the point of origin? ". having worked in the port of hamburg/germany for a number of years before coming to canada, the practice of "shipping in bond" is long established practice. railroad cars would be loaded in some other european country and pass through the german border "in-bond" to the port of hamburg or some other european port. here the goods would be loaded directly from the railcars onto ships going overseas. german custom agents would just check the bill-of-lading and check the special locks on the railcars(they would usually be supplented by a special "lead seal" to try and prevent tampering). now-a-day's containers arrive in ports to be loaded direcly onto ships(quite a sight to see a ship stacked with containers going through the panama canal; it looks more like a floating warehouse). as i said earlier "TO TRY AND PREVENT TAMPERING" - it doesn't always work. sometimes we would find that even though the locks looked o.k. and the seals looked fine, someone had managed to make a clean break-in and to snatch some particularly costly piece of merchandise from the "locked" railcars. i understand that container-shipping has cut down on pilfering, but it can't be eliminated completely. (even armoured cars are sometimes highjacked; i guess that's part of doing business). hbg