Well, no, we didn’t. We had border guards and inspections and all that before 9/11. I was in some long-ass waits, I can tell you, before 9/11.
What’s changed is you now need a passport, instead of a birth certificate or some other form of proof of citizenship. (Conversely, though, we now also have NEXUS, which wasn’t a thing before.)
“Strip-Searched at North Portal” - sounds like the title for a piece by Stuart McLean in the Vinyl Café!
It’ll never happen, for two reasons:
Reason 1. The Yanks will never trust us to handle their northern security on our own, but only under close US supervision and control.
Reason 2. Canucks will never agree to the reduction in Canadian security needed to accommodate Reason 1.
Actually there are four. The lesser known Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, a little over a mile downstream from the Rainbow Bridge, is reserved for passenger vehicles carrying NEXUS subscribers, and it’s not even open 24 hours a day.
I’ve found the wait times vary widely depending on days of the week, time of day, whether or not it’s a holiday weekend in Canada or the US, whether or not the customs officers are particularly grumpy that day - so many factors. Two or three clueless dopes in a crowd of cars can really slow things down (“I know I had my ID here somewhere…”)
The Vancouver I-5 crossing was pretty crowded. Lewiston can get busy. Ft. Erie and the Rainbow bridge are usually not as busy as Lewiston. The Thousand Islands crossing was pretty speedy the last time we took it. We took I-89 and crossed into Quebec at St. Armand last month and it was not bad at all.
Anyway a good rule of thumb is to put some slack into your travel estimates to allow for shenanigans at the border, and be prepared for a wait. You never can tell.
Sorry, that should have read “the reduction in Canadian sovereignty to accommodate Reason 1.”
I have read that NEXUS can be dangerous - for example, if you drive up to the border with a person who does not have a NEXUS pass, drop him off to walk across, and then go through NEXUS - you will have your pass revoked and possibly be denied entry into the USA from then on. So if anyone in the car is not cleared, you can’t use NEXUS.
Part of the problem is that there is no incentive to put extra staff on to handle rush volume - plus, it usually happens on Saturday nights, Sunday nights, and major holidays - not the time when people want to work. And returning to Canada, the government wants to be sure you render unto Caesar their share of what you spent.
It is not easy just to summon the border guards for extra duties.
Most immigration points have frictional levels of officers who work to rosters. Typically when they are not on duty they are on rest days or leave. They work round the clock and typically work a system of early starts, lates and nights. Plus they need caseworkers who will finish the cases and illegal travellers.
In an ideal world you will have a lot of redundancy built into the system ie more staff than needed, but that is a waste of tax payers money.
Plus if ther are six booths, to have much more than 8-9 on duty at one time is a waste of money too.
It isn’t really so hard to set up a work schedule that uses the new people, maybe the newest 10%, on a call-in basis. Paying their dues sort of thing. The inefficient thing is when you have more people on duty than you need, no waiting at all. The ideal is likely when the delay is 3 or 4 cars. What the motorist wants, if possible, is predictability.
I think the main reason Canadians will never go for it is summed up in one word: handguns.
Canadians are typically really intent on keeping them out to the extent possible, and an open border would make that very difficult.
Unless they have really remarkable X-ray systems I’m unaware of, I sincerely doubt an open border would make any difference at all over the current system.
Really? Because through the 70’s and 80’s there were lots of times I just drove or walked across that border and never had to show an ID:
BORDER GUARD: “Citizenship?”
ME: “US”
BG: “Reason for entering Canada?”
ME: “Tourism”/“Driving to Buffalo”/“Driving to Detroit”/“Want to see Niagara from the other side”
BG: “OK, have a nice day”
Always had my ID with me, but honestly, I think we were asked for the dog’s papers more often than our own. Of course, there was always the possibility of being asked for it, or having your vehicle searched, but really there were plenty of times we were just allowed cross without more than the above. Always got more crap from the American side crossing back into the US.
They still make at least the pretext of checking. Maybe it is all ineffectual “theatre”, I dunno, never having tried to smuggle a gun into Canada.
Lots of articles make the point that criminals can easily smuggle guns anyway.
This, though, misses the point somewhat - the idea is to prevent the establishment of a culture in which gun-carrying is largely winked at. Sure, it is impossible to prevent hardcore criminals from smuggling. It is however possible to make gun-carrying a de facto, as well as de jure, hardcore criminal activity. The idea (however flawed) is to prevent the establishment of an accepted ‘gun culture’.
OTR drivers get paid by the mile.
Steven Wright: