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Canada – United States
Transportation Border Working Group (TBWG)
November 18-19 2008 – Toronto, Ontario
CBSA Border Infrastructure
Environnemental Scan
1
Overview
 Growth in trade has outpaced the capacity of border infrastructure.
Further, the transportation of goods has also been transformed by
developments and increased use of containerisation, just-in-time
delivery of goods, increased competitiveness of air cargo, and
international courier services;
 Challenge is to enhance security while reducing congestion and
border wait times.
 Pressures from industry to address concerns that current border
processing and wait times are having impact on Canada’s
competitiveness
 Concerns that WHTI will exacerbate the negative impact of
border processing and wait times
 Transportation and related border infrastructure is multi-jurisdictional
in nature:
 Challenging to achieving consensus among various levels of
government on both sides of the border;
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Current State
Previous government border investments did not always address
the bottlenecks that are essential to improving the border’s
capacity:
 e.g. CBSA Ports of Entry.
96% of previous Border Infrastructure Fund and the Strategic
Highway Infrastructure Fund investments were exclusively in
highway capacity improvements:
The Gateways and Border Crossing Fund (GBCF) has corrected this
oversight.
The capacity of our ports of entry are driven by the needs of the
transportation system such as the nature and volume of traffic, the
level of service expectations of users, and national security
considerations;
 Port of Entry installations, systems, and processes are often a
bottleneck in the transportation system they serve
3
Strategic Investment
Essential that future border investments be focused and
integrated to achieve system wide improvements;
 Credible investments in information technology, operational
equipment and systems, human resources, and fixed
infrastructure are essential to develop and maintain the
credibility and trust necessary to sustain these relationships with
our security and trade partners
the GBCF recognises that system wide capacity improvements
can only be achieved by investing in the system bottlenecks:
 Infrastructure (roads, bridges, ports, ports of entry) and, or information
technology improvements (intelligent transportation systems);
Specifically recognizes that the CBSA port or entry is an essential and
integral component of the global and trans-border transportation system.
4
Future Direction
Future
Current
Prior to Arriving at
the Border
At the
Level of Activity
Low
Beyond the
Border
Level of Activity
High
Low
Level of Activity
Low
Border
Level of Activity
High
Low
Level of Activity
High
Low
High
Level of Activity
High
Low
High
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Future Direction…. Cont’d
Information technologies are facilitation and security enablers
and have the potential to expedite the processing of goods and
people seeking entry into Canada, and in controlling exports;
Recent investments in information technologies have moved
processing away from the border and improved the timeliness,
accuracy and completeness of the information provided for
border management. Information technology has also effectively
increased the capacity of the fixed border infrastructure by
expediting border processing, while improving significantly our
capacity to interdict. These investments have helped to forego or
delay major fixed infrastructure investments.
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