They're filling a border refugee processing centre to capacity on the weekends, but these weary travellers entering Canada from the U.S. aren't seeking asylum — they're cross-border shoppers lured south by the loonie's record-breaking showing against the Yankee greenback. Bargain-hungry shoppers — often arriving by the busload — have been choking key border crossings across the country on weekends, straining resources at the border and forcing officials to scramble to find staff and facilities to process their purchases. In Ontario, a building intended to handle refugee claimants has been pressed into service to deal with the sheer volume of shoppers. All across Canada, the story is much the same as Canadians cash in on a dollar that's been worth more than its U.S. counterpart for weeks. Residents of St. Stephen, N.B., endured a two-kilometre lineup of vehicles snaking through their small town bordering on Maine during the Remembrance Day weekend. At the same time, the wait at the Pacific Highway border crossing in Surrey, B.C., was about four hours long. In Ontario, the crush of cross-border shoppers has led to extraordinary measures. Last Sunday, 50 chartered shopping buses carrying up to 55 people each began arriving after 4 p.m. at the Fort Erie crossing from Buffalo. With no personal exemptions on same-day travel purchases, hundreds of shoppers had to be processed for tax and possible duty payments. "We had to park the buses in our commercial area so that we could orderly process them, [and] we did open up extra facilities," said Jean D'Amelio-Swyer, a spokeswoman for Canada Border Services Agency. "We opened up a refugee processing centre and we had some extra cashier capability."
Problem is, there's only so many people you can put in those buildings at the same time, said D'Amelio-Swyer. As a result, after waiting an hour to cross the border, same-day shoppers then faced a two- to three-hour wait for customs agents to process their goods. "At minimum, these people have to pay PST and GST on their goods," she said. "There may be some duties applicable if the goods are not made in North America." Border agents were already working with stretched resources before the dollar's historic climb and many are now working overtime to handle the current crush, said Ron Moran, president of the Customs Excise Union. "It's still relatively early as a phenomenon, but we're already hearing that they won't be able to hold that line indefinitely," Moran said.
Early stages of bargaining
The country's 10,000 customs and immigration offers have been without a contract since June 21 and are in the early stages of collective bargaining, but no job action is planned, he added. "If the union were to start exercising pressure, it would get disastrous pretty quickly, [but] we're not suggesting that we're at that stage," he said. On a relatively calm Tuesday afternoon at the Queenston-Lewiston border crossing near Niagara Falls, Ont., shoppers that passed through customs after a mere 30-minute border wait weren't all that impressed with the goods to be had south of the border. "There wasn't any really huge deals. There was some on video games, which I primarily came for. It was mostly toys and stuff for Christmas," said Gina Robinson, 38, who made the two-hour trip from her home in Aurora, Ont. "I probably wouldn't be in a huge hurry to come back because it's the whole headache with the border. We were panicking, looking at our watches thinking, 'What time are we leaving, what time are we leaving?' " How high would the dollar have to go to lure Robinson back to the malls in New York state?
Deal on turkey
"A buck-fifty. In my perfect world, yeah. Otherwise, no." All the bargain hunting amounted to little more than Thanksgiving turkey for another Ontario woman who made the trek. "I feel the prices were not that good, about the same as in Canada," said Pauline Rochon of Lowbanks, Ont. — about an hour's drive from the Queenston bridge. When asked if she managed to ferret out any deals, Rochon replied: "Only on turkey at 29 cents a pound." The loonie's strong performance has turned border traffic flow in Surrey, B.C., somewhat on its head, said Len Dasilva of the West Coast Duty Free shop. "The busiest use to be on a Sunday when U.S. traffic was heading back. It's switched to Friday and Saturday now," said Dasilva.
'Buying habits are different'
"We lost the U.S. traffic and made it up with Canadians somewhat, but the buying habits are different. Canadians tend not to spend as much per head as Americans." The same-day shopping phenomenon has also struck the Prairies, saddling border agents there with the same crush witnessed in Ontario and elsewhere. "We used to get the 48-hour exemption, the weekend traveller. But now we're seeing more and more same-day travellers," said Loretta Nyhus, Canadian Border Services Agency spokeswoman for the Prairie region. The limited facilities and staff to process those travellers "reduces our capacity to open up additional lanes because there's only so much capacity within the office." Anyone who's still eager to spend their loonies in the U.S. might want to do it on a weekday to avoid spending several hours in a refugee processing centre with busloads of shoppers, D'Amelio-Swyer said. "Anyone who's got the opportunity to plan a shopping trip on a weekday, that might be a better alternative because right now on weekdays we're not having this huge surge of buses coming back."
No comments:
Post a Comment