The following article is excerpted from the 17 April 2009 edition of “The Journal of Commerce”.
Canada Customs is bowing to favored importers and carriers, those certified to be of low-risk, and for them is not enforcing its long-stated policy of only clearing imports into Canada at their first port of arrival.
The many and mostly smaller businesses and their carriers, Canadian or American, which have not joined the bi-national FAST … program or other Canadian or U.S. supply chain security programs, are not included. Canada Border Services Agency last week told the trading industry at a Toronto meeting that it will retain for designated low-risk carriers and importers the option of carrying goods inland to bonded warehouses if there is a problem of delayed or incomplete or inaccurate admissibility data that is supposed to be received before a truck rolls up to the border.
CBSA has long been adamant that it is moving to a strictly-enforced first-port-of-arrival policy, that shipments would have to be cleared where they would enter Canada, or at least have had their admissibility data received before moving inland. A main reason given was that this would provide greater convenience and less cost for CBSA itself&hellip.
The policy handed bonded warehouses in Canada their death notice, unlike the situation in the United States where they remain an active part of the goods trading system, and several have closed over the last couple of years. For less-than-truckload carriers and their importers, problems were particularly strong. If only one importer’s goods on a truck had key data missing or incorrect on arrival, the whole truck would be held up.
CBSA now is relenting to a degree, saying the option of later clearance at a bonded warehouse nearer destination remains open to low-risk carriers and importers. The agency has yet to come up with the detailed regulations surrounding all this.
