Commuter complaints about wait times continue, but CBSA official says ‘we try to plan’ for surges in traffic

Sault MP Terry Sheehan, flanked by J.D. Marchand, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) regional Indigenous Affairs advisor and Micheline Dube, Federal Bridge Corporation Limited (FBCL) president and CEO, cuts the ribbon at the Sault Ste. Marie Port of Entry official opening, Aug. 15, 2018. Darren Taylor/SooToday

1 / 1 Sault MP Terry Sheehan, flanked by J.D. Marchand, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) regional Indigenous Affairs advisor and Micheline Dube, Federal Bridge Corporation Limited (FBCL) president and CEO, cuts the ribbon at the Sault Ste. Marie Port of Entry official opening, Aug. 15, 2018. Darren Taylor/SooToday

Nearly nine years after plans to build a new Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) Sault Ste. Marie port of entry were announced by the federal government, Sault MP Terry Sheehan was joined Wednesday by several federal officials for the facility’s official opening, which included speeches and a ribbon cutting ceremony.

“I love the sound of commerce,” Sheehan told an audience gathered for the occasion, as transport trucks rolled by after being cleared by CBSA officials.

The Federal Bridge Corporation Limited (FBCL), a Canadian Crown corporation, is the facility’s designer and new owner.

“Previously, for the considerable volumes this port of entry faces, there were too few lanes and this plaza just wasn’t big enough. This contributed to congestion and longer waits at peak periods. But now, with the aim to ease and speed traffic flow, the Canadian plaza has been completely renovated, both the CBSA travellers facility and secondary examination facilities have been expanded,” Sheehan said.

There are now four regular traffic lanes, one bus lane, and two dual commercial and traffic lanes, for a total of seven lanes.

However, there have been complaints voiced by Canadian and U.S. motorists about backed up traffic and waiting, sometimes as long as an hour or more, to get into Canada at Sault Ste. Marie port of entry.

“Hopefully when they cut the ribbon they’ll realize they have some shortcomings there and work on that,” said Kevin Cain, speaking to SooToday Tuesday.

Cain, who lives and works in Sault, Ont., is in the process of immigrating to the U.S., and while that process is underway, visits his American wife who resides in Sault, Michigan.

Cain said getting over to the States to visit presents no problem, but getting back to Sault, Ont. has its challenges for himself and, he feels, many other motorists.

“Basically the issue is they (CBSA) don’t have enough people on duty. They don’t get any more than a couple of the lanes open because they’re short of people, they don’t have enough people there, and the people that are there are working way more than they want to because they don’t have enough bodies,” Cain said.

“That makes it difficult (in terms of wait times).”

Cain said he has not voiced a complaint to CBSA.

“I support the people that work there. I think it’s more of an upper management thing where they simply don’t have enough people, and it falls on the shoulders of the people that work there and it’s really unfair to them because I think people take the brunt of it out on them, and it has nothing to do with the front line people who work there.”

“Just to be clear, I’m on the side of the people who are working there. The issue isn’t theirs, it’s the process and the people above them,” Cain emphasized.

Cain said “today (Tuesday) at noon, it was well over an hour (waiting on the International Bridge to get back into Canada).”

“I left my wife’s at 11:25 a.m. and I got over at 10 minutes to 1. And I had to get to work at 12:30. There shouldn’t have been any issue...it was a bad situation.”

That wasn’t the first time the bridge wait time had caused him to be late for work, Cain added.

“When I first stopped (Tuesday), I was before the flags, so I was on the American side.”

“This isn’t unusual,” Cain said, adding a 15 or 20 minute wait seems to be the norm.

For Cain, it’s more than a personal inconvenience.

He said it’s bad for business and tourism.

“I know a lot of American people who would love to come over. As an example, there’s no movie theatre in Sault Michigan anymore, and a lot of young families would love to take their kids to our movie theatre in Station Mall, but you don’t know what you’re going to encounter on the bridge, and so people just simply don’t do it.”

“They see the bridge and they just don’t want to sit there,” Cain said.

“If I owned a business in Sault Ontario I wouldn’t be happy because people just simply aren’t coming over. Everybody in Sault Michigan loves the good restaurants we have but they aren’t willing to spend the time on the bridge, especially with the unknown of how long it will be to wait.”

CBSA could learn from their U.S. counterparts, Cain said.

“On the American side, they have three or four lanes open all the time. What used to be a problem going over the bridge that way (to the U.S.) is not a problem anymore since they put their new building up. Now it’s turned the opposite way.”

“They spent a tonne of money to put up the new Canadian border crossing and it looks beautiful but they need to hire more people and open more lanes to be able to get the traffic through and for them to do their jobs right,” Cain said.

“You want the border to be safe, and the people that work there do a really good job, but when people are backed up as far as they are, it’s human nature to push people through, so I think to get it done right they need multiple lanes open and more people working there.”

Ottawa-based Denis Vinette, Canada Border Services Agency associate vice president of operations, who attended Wednesday’s ribbon cutting ceremony, told SooToday it is not a matter of being understaffed.

“Some of it are sudden surges that are unexpected, but for the most part we do a lot of advance planning to know what we can expect in terms of traffic, and we have those peaks that are typically known, and year over year we’ve come to be able to plan and actually forecast when we expect those to be.”

“What we do then is we work with our staffing complement. We plan for increased officer availability through the summer, we have management practices in place to ensure that. We limit, for example, vacation and other things so we have the greatest availability of officers,” Vinette said.

“It is during the summer when we process most travellers at a point of entry like this one. Sometimes upwards of 60 per cent of the yearly travel will occur between the Victoria Day weekend and Labour Day weekend, so what we do through this planning is look to optimize the scheduling of our staff, use overtime as required, to ensure we have as many booths open, contingent on what’s transpiring.”

“We do have instances where we may have enforcement activities taking place that draw on the resources that force us to shut down a lane for a period of time while we deal with a particular situation, and then we send the officers back (to the booths),” Vinette added.

“We strive to ensure, to the greatest extent we can, that we never exceed 60 minutes.”

“We always also encourage travellers to make use of our border wait times postings online so that we can inform them of what they can expect, and maybe see if we can affect some of the travel patterns to try and minimize the impact on those travelling between the two countries,” Vinette said.

Wednesday’s ribbon cutting comes nearly nine years after then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the Sault and announced $44 million in federal funding for the new customs plaza, in September 2009.

The final cost for the development came to $51 million.

Construction began in May 2015 and finished Dec. 18, 2017.

The new 46,000 square foot building is more than four times larger than the original facility, built in 1962.

The Sault Ste. Marie point of entry ranks among the 20 largest commercial ports in Canada.