I have only crossed the border once, and I did that later in the evening. When I saw one of the bridges in the early evening it appeared to be moving along at a decent speed, but I trust that is an anomaly. What typically happens is that during the day the trucks try to cross the border and are stuck in traffic that is barely moving. Then there are costs associated with this,
extra costs associated with late deliveries, additional diesel and labour for trucks, and a loss of business
And those extra costs are around $5.2 billion for Ontario alone.
The problem is that the public doesn't associate this extra costs with their pocketbooks. The costs aren't delivered in the form of a tax or a bill. What the public generally is concerned about is the extra pollution from the exhaust of these idling vehicles. While that is undoubtedly a problem it is only a part of the entire problem.
Every day there is about $1 billion in goods traded between Ontario and the United States. If the delays could be lessened this amount would only rise. More companies would be willing to trade across the border. Meanwhile the companies that already are trading across the border will not have the additional costs that result from these delays.
A problem that is specifically for Canandians is that some businesses would rather leave Canada than deal with the border crossing problems.
Chatham recently lost out on 600 jobs to Michigan when auto-parts manufacturer Dr. Schneider Systems Inc. Decided to set up shop in the United States, fearing costly border-crossing delays.
Those numbers will only increase when economics force Canadian companies to realize that the border crossing isn't getting better. Especially if these companies are primarily in business with American companies.
Canada is going to have to do something to make the border passage more attractive. The ways to do this are by opening more passages and expanding already existing crossings. The key area is the Windor border that connects with Detroit.
The Detroit-Windsor border is said to be the world's busiest border crossing, with $128 billion in annual trade crossing in both directions. An average of 10,000 trucks a day cross the bridge both ways.
Canada is about to begin an environmental assessment to determine if they should create a new border crossing at Windsor. The problem is that this is a long term solution that could take too long to occur.
The best example of the red tape bureaucracy is what has been happening with the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie.
"At Fort Erie, they've been arguing about a second span for the Peace Bridge for 15, 20 years. We can't afford to wait another 15, 20 years"-David Bradley, president of the Ontario Trucking Association.
It seems clear that Ontario needs to move beyond the talks and get some more borders opened. I think that Ontario is attractive to a lot of businesses and probably would have a much easier time attracting those potential companies if they can make the economics less costly.
