Sask. truckers concerned about changes to U.S. border hours

With changes at the Port of Raymond, there will soon be only one 24-hour border crossing from Saskatchewan into the U.S., and that has some truckers concerned.

“We can’t have one border crossing that everyone accesses without the cost to the trucking companies, and therefore the consumer, going up,” said Nicole Sinclair with the Saskatchewan Trucking Association (STA).

As of April 14, the Port of Raymond — which is across from the Canadian Port of Regway and directly south of Regina — will go from being open 24 hours a day to being open between 6 a.m. and midnight. Regway, meanwhile, will remain open 24 hours a day.

According to a release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the change at Raymond is being made because there aren’t enough vehicles using the port overnight to justify the expense of keeping it open.

Sinclair countered that Saskatchewan is a land-locked and export-based province. She said companies need to be able to get goods to market, and trucking is a 24-hour job.

“We do have companies within the STA membership that access that border crossing regularly at all different hours, and they need access to it 24 hours a day,” she said.

Sinclair said the association doesn’t have solid statistics on that port of entry, but what they do have says around 50 commercial vehicles access the port every day, with an average of just more than two using it between midnight and 6 a.m.

Making things more complicated

Commercial truck drivers can only be behind the wheel a certain number of hours per day, and there are Saskatchewan and Canadian regulations, along with U.S. regulations, to which drivers must adhere when they cross the border.

So, Sinclair explained that waiting until the border opens takes valuable time out of a driver’s day.

After the change, the only border crossing open 24 hours will be North Portal, which is about 174 kilometres away. So a driver would have to take nearly two hours to get to North Portal and then drive back to where they were going — again, taking time out of the day and the driver’s hours.

“This could, for the driver, make the difference of a trip that could be done in two days might now take three days,” said Sinclair.

While it might be easy for some to just adjust their drive times, Sinclair said that’s not possible for everyone, because drivers are at the mercy of when they can pick up and deliver their goods.

STEP

The STA is against the change at the border, and so is the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP).

Chris Dekker, the president and CEO of STEP, said the U.S. is still Canada’s No. 1 customer for exports, by far, and most of that is shipped by road and rail.

“Any additional thickening of our borders is problematic,” said Dekker.

He explained that companies will have to manage things a bit more closely or they’ll end up facing a cost of time and money to go around to North Portal once the change happens.