CBSA Border Infrastructure Environnemental Scan

1
Canada United States Transportation Border
Working Group (TBWG) November 18-19 2008
Toronto, Ontario

• CBSA Border Infrastructure Environnemental Scan

2
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 Canadas 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

3
Current State

• Previous government border investments did not
  always address the bottlenecks that are essential
  to improving the borders 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

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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.

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Future Direction
6
Future Direction. Contd

• 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.