More than 9,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada working for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) have secured a strike mandate which could lead to significant disruptions to the flow of goods, services and people at Canadian ports of entry. It is believed that ocean, air and rail shipments would be less impacted by a CBSA strike than ground transportation. For ocean, air, and rail shipments, only a percentage of shipments are automatically flagged for spot checks, and there are also triggers indicating an inspection is needed for shipments deemed high-risk. Under normal conditions, customs will inform us they’re sending an inspector out in 24 hours to two weeks. During a strike, that could become much more unpredictable.
“The biggest impact would be on freight traveling into Canada by truck, because a border agent must physically be present to review the customs paperwork and scan the bar code on it. We manage more than 650,000 shipments across the Canadian border a year, so we can say from experience that a slowdown in this process can create wait times of four to five hours,” says Burkhart, vice-president for Canada at C.H. Robinson. “These delays had a ripple effect on supply chains, particularly disrupting industries like automotive manufacturing that rely on just-in-time delivery of parts and components. Many of our automotive customers treat North America as one interdependent supply chain. So parts traveling to Canada are often coming all the way from Mexico, and one late part can shut down an entire production line.”
As the possibility of a CBSA strike looms, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has written to transportation industry stakeholders warning of potential disruptions at ports and border crossings nationwide and urging them to pressure the government to negotiate a fair collective agreement for FB group members as soon as possible to avoid delays in the event of job action.
The Public Interest Commission’s report is expected to be released before mediation sessions scheduled to begin June 3, 2024 to seek a resolution to the bargaining impasse. PSAC-CIU will be in a legal strike position following the release of the report.