Lengthy border delays fuel Manitoba’s shipping sector calls for system revamp

Seven-hour waits — or longer — are a reality for some Manitoba shippers trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

Truckers have been pulling into United States-side highway stops and visitor centres, refreshing their cellphones for updates. Some stall, waiting to leave company loading docks.

Glitches in Ottawa’s digital portal for goods pre-clearance are causing delays. It’s renewed calls from industry for a system revamp as businesses lose money and customers.

“It’s been a little hectic,” said Trevor Froese, owner of Runnin’ Red Transport.

His staff typically cross the international border at Emerson twice per day. They’ll transmit information about their shipments — such as Manitoba-bound online shopping orders — to Canadian border agents via a digital system called eManifest.

The process must happen an hour before Runnin’ Red’s van reaches the border. Usually, staff are approved for clearance by the feds within 20 minutes, Froese said.

But for the past three weeks, the system has lagged. Runnin’ Red might not see approvals for seven hours.

It gets more complicated for Runnin’ Red’s brokerage arm, RNR International Customs Brokerage. The company might need to submit paperwork to another federal department — such as health certificates to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency — before transmitting documents to customs.

That could be another seven hours, Froese said.

In some cases, live animals — horses, cattle — might be sitting near a Canadian border for several hours while shippers wait for entry acceptance. “That’s been frustrating, and it’s not fair to the animals that are just having to sit at the border,” Froese said.

Runnin’ Red touts next-day deliveries. However, IT delays have pushed back arrival times. Froese and his co-workers are logging on during evenings and weekends to submit shipment information to the feds, in an effort to keep their delivery time promises.

They’re also calling and emailing clients, explaining the cause of delays.

“Some (customers) are very understanding, some not so much,” Froese said. “We’ve had some that have just given up, and just ran down to the border themselves … if they’re in a rush.

“I’m hoping that there’s going to be a resolution soon.”

Aaron Dolyniuk, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association, said he’s been pushing for one while in Ottawa. He’s on Parliament Hill this week with the Canadian Trucking Alliance and his provincial counterparts.

Delays at the border have come up in conversation with MPs, Dolyniuk said.

“The domino effect of that on an individual truck driver and the company is massive,” he said. “There’s nobody that’s compensating industry for that lost time.”

Bison Transport loses roughly $75 per border crossing because of the delays, said Chris Moerkerk, the company’s director of central fleets in Winnipeg. He cited time drivers spend waiting, administrative time to process crossings differently and loss of use on equipment.

Bison trucks might cross the U.S. border into Canada 125 times a day.

A four-hour delay at the border can cost $3.3 million to Canada’s supply chain, the Canadian Trucking Alliance said in a statement last week. It highlighted Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec as the provinces most impacted from IT issues.

The aging infrastructure has gone through periods of delays for years, but problems have escalated over recent months, Dolyniuk said.

Outages in the Canada Border Services Agency’s airport and highway crossing inspection systems last fall led to an investigation by the federal government. Ottawa found a botched database upgrade and a security firewall patch led to the disruptions, which happened between Sept. 28 and Oct. 5.

Delays have been noticeable over the following months, transport company leaders say.

“Our trade is interrupted by our own systems not being functional. It kind of undermines our economy at a time where our economy is struggling to grow,” Dolyniuk said. “Systems need to be updated.”

The CBSA invoked a contingency plan due to “intermittent system delays” on April 18. It’s investigating the causes of delays and has been working “around the clock to restore system performance and resolve challenges,” spokesman Luke Reimer wrote in a statement.

The feds haven’t accounted for the spike in e-commerce shipments that now need processing, said Bruno Biondi, GHY International’s vice-president of strategy.

The Winnipeg-based brokerage didn’t process e-commerce goods around five years ago, Biondi said. He estimates the company will process 10 to 12 million shipments this year.

By 1 p.m. Wednesday, he was looking at a three- to five-hour delay; he hadn’t had a single good released that morning.

“They need to … take a look at, ‘Is there something that can be done with (e-commerce) marketplaces to… try to get the goods across the border and outside the normal day-to-day stream?’” Biondi said.

Shared Services Canada’s 2026-27 priorities include moving off legacy systems and developing “modern enterprise alternatives,” its departmental plan reads.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com