Things are starting to move again, but as of Friday morning, thousands of Canada-bound truckers remained stuck in the United States due to an IT outage at the Canada Border Services Agency.
Winnipeg truck driver Don Taylor got the OK to cross the border Friday — after having been stuck in Fargo since Wednesday — and he told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg that other drivers haven’t been quite so lucky.
“I was talking to a friend of mine who’s got a specialized load that needs a little more work to cross the border,” he said.
“He got shut down on Monday in Pembina … and he’s still not cleared to cross.”
The outage happened on Sunday, and while the CBSA says it’s been resolved, delays continue.
Taylor said he’s concerned that the time it takes to clear the backlog could impact the supply chain.
“In some cases, it can bring an entire factory to a standstill,” he said.
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“A lot of places, like car manufacturers, they operate on what’s called ‘just in time’ … so the trucks are scheduled to arrive just as those parts are needed on the assembly line.
“If that truck is held up even as much as 10 minutes, that plant could end up having to shut down until those parts get there.”
The Canadian Trucking Alliance says about 70,000 trucks cross the Canada-U.S. border every day, and also warned of the potential impacts on the supply chain.
Stephen Laskowski, the alliance’s president and CEO, told Global News he wasn’t surprised by the outage, and that it’s been a recurring issue, despite federal promises to invest in the border.
“Unfortunately, with regards to Ottawa, we are yet to get a clear message as to what is going on, and when this will be addressed, and quite frankly, equally as important, how this issue will never happen again,” he said.
In a statement to Global News, the CBSA said the outage happened after a data entry problem during routine maintenance on Sunday morning, which is being investigated.
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