Vancouver Sun Regular cross-border commuters like Jim Pettinger, a Richmond man with a business in Ferndale, is looking forward to getting his Nexus card. He expects it will greatly reduce his travel time from the current one hour.

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Thursday, June 27, 2002

The three border crossings between the Lower Mainland and the U.S. are shaking off the paralysis that followed Sept. 11 and bringing back a fast-lane for frequent travellers.

But when the new high-tech Nexus program officially opened Wednesday, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of applicants had received the new cards needed to use the dedicated commuter lanes.

Canada Customs officials expect it will take four to six weeks to process each application. However, some immigration lawyers say that estimate is overly optimistic, considering the initial backlog of applications. More than 20,000 applications had been received by last week.

"I'm telling my clients to apply as soon as possible to try to get to the head of the line," said Bellingham immigration lawyer Greg Boos. "I think it will take longer than six to eight weeks, at least during the initial period. There were 189,000 people in the commuter lane program before and so processing a group that big again is going to cause a big bottleneck."

Immigration experts say this week's opening is timed to coincide with the scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Jean Chretien and U.S. President George W. Bush at the Group of Eight Summit in Kananaskis, Alta.

James Kohnke, manager of Totem Ocean Trailer Express, applied for Nexus membership in early June. Kohnke doesn't expect to be able to ride on the Nexus lane this month, but is optimistic he'll receive his membership in early July.

"Because of the processing time, there is going to be some time lag between when the lane officially opens and when it will be accessible to people."

The Nexus system, based on cards with pre-clearance information, a photograph and fingerprints, is designed to enhance security at the border while easing traffic bottlenecks.

Although there will be random checks, Nexus members will be able to enter both countries without facing the normal customs and immigration questioning.

Nexus, which takes its name from the Latin for bridge, replaces the Pace and CANPASS programs, which were established in the early '90s during the heyday of cross-border shopping.

By the end of the '90s, the Pace and CANPASS lanes had taken 30 per cent of cross-border vehicle traffic out of regular lanes.

These fast lanes were suspended following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Pace cards gave vehicles and occupants fast-track clearance into the U.S. while CANPASS cards provided similar entry into Canada.

Regular commuters like Jim Pettinger, a Richmond man with a business in Ferndale, is looking forward to getting his Nexus card. "Right now I have to allow an hour to get from my door to my office. When I had a Pace card, my commute time was 40 minutes."

Pettinger was one of 66,000 Pace and CANPASS cardholders in British Columbia. There were 189,000 Canadians and Americans who held fast-track cards under the old system. The two crossings at Blaine had more fast-track cardholders than any other U.S.-Canada border point.

Pettinger runs International Market Access, Inc, a Bellingham-based firm that helps Canadians do business in the U.S. So when the border crossings at Blaine closed hours after the WTC twin towers collapsed, and when cross-border traffic was reduced to a crawl for many weeks afterwards, Pettinger questioned whether his company would survive.

"I wondered whether I would be put out of business because my income is dependent on Canadians being able to come south."

The return of the dedicated commuter lane will help businessmen schedule meetings on either side of the border, said Totem Ocean Trailer Express manager Kohnke, whose firm runs ships between Seattle and Alaska.

"It was unpredictable crossing the border because you never knew if it would take 15 minutes or two hours. You never knew exactly when your arrival time would be. People would often set up the meeting after they crossed the border rather than before."

The crisis over border security sparked by Sept. 11 also brought attention to the importance of cross-border trade and galvanized officials on both sides of the border into action. "There has been an enormous coordinated effort, both among political people and the grass roots, to get dedicated commuter lanes back in operation," said David Andersson, a Vancouver lawyer who specializes in cross-border issues and is president of the Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council.

Much of the pressure came from business groups in Washington state, especially Whatcom County, where cross-border trade and traffic is critical. The congressional delegation from Washington lobbied the federal bureaucrats and politicians who were skittish about reopening an express lane. Their mantra was "Nexus now!"

"Canada was willing to get Nexus going at any time," recalled Andersson. "The issue was convincing the U.S. bureaucracy, which felt after September 11 that it was a state of war."

There had been concern before Sept. 11 among U.S. officials that the 10-year-old Pace system was not secure enough. Security in the Pace program amounted to a windshield decal showing that the vehicle was registered and a letter that was proof of registration.

But there was little to prove identification. The Pace program did not have the biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, which were already being used in pre-clearance programs at points on the U.S.-Mexico border and by U.S. immigration at airports.

Generally, Pace members were law-abiding. But there were enough seizures of contraband, ranging from drugs to lettuce, to cause some customs staff to facetiously call the Pace line the Paraphernalia and Contraband Express Lane.

American and Canadian customs officials were already planning to replace Pace and CANPASS systems, which had different application procedures for Americans and Canadians with a single, harmonized system. Nexus had been introduced in 2000 at the crossing between Sarnia, Ont. and Port Huron, Mich.

Nexus was suspended after Sept. 11 and then reintroduced earlier this year at the Sarnia crossing as a pilot project. The program will now be installed in most Canada-U.S. border points, starting with the two Lower Mainland crossings. Nexus is expected to be in operation at the Point Roberts crossing in July and at other B.C. crossings, including Sumas, at a later date.

Nexus applicants must complete forms, which are available on the Internet (www.ccra/nexus) and will be available starting July 19 at any Canada Customs or Citizenship and Immigration Canada office. Processing will done on the Canadian side at the CANPASS Processing Centre in Douglas, B.C., at the Joint Canada/U.S. Enrolment Centre on the American side in Blaine.

The applicants will be checked for any criminal record and violations of customs and immigration procedures.

Successful applicants will then be invited for an interview at the enrollment centre, which opened Wednesday and is staffed by Canada Customs, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Prints of two index fingers will be taken at the office.

Among other questions, final-stage applicants will be asked if they have ever been arrested. The question is pertinent because Canada and the U.S. have different rules of inadmissability. The U.S. will not allow in Canadians who have been convicted of a crime, typically a drug bust or a "crime of moral turpitude," but have later been granted a pardon by Canadian courts.

Canada, for its part, has rules against admitting people convicted of driving while under the influence of alcohol.

"So while it's a great program, the laws of criminal inadmissability in Canada and the U.S. don't exactly fit hand in glove," Boos said.

"So for that small percentage of people who want to enrol but might have a criminal conviction, it might cause problems and confusion."

The enrolment office in Blaine is expected to employ about 17 people, processing 7000 to 8,000 people a month.

Those who are approved at the interview will be immediately issued two cards: a photo ID card to be used when entering Canada and a "proximity" card to be used when entering the U.S. The price of enrolment is $80 Canadian or $50 US for a five-year period.

Nexus members crossing into the U.S. on the dedicated lane will use a card with enrolment information encoded in it that will relayed by an antenna to a computer screen. The card can simply be held out the window, although the technology is strong enough that the card is expected to work if it is simply on the dashboard or a seat.

Data contained in the proximity card will contain fingerprints, a photo ID and Nexus membership information, including name, date of birth and Nexus expiry date. Everyone in the vehicle must be a Nexus member.

A U.S. Customs agent will examine the transmitted information on his monitor and check the photograph with the driver or passengers.

The technology is different for those entering Canada. Nexus members approaching B.C. will have their licence plate scanned to verify registration in the program. The vehicle's occupants will then show their Nexus photo ID cards to the customs officers for identification.

Nexus has two cards and two different technologies -- proximity scanner and licence plate scanner -- because only the U.S. has the proximity data technology. Canada already had the licence scan technology and decided to use it rather than postpone Nexus until the spring of 2003, when the technology is expected to be harmonized.

As Nexus cards will only begin to be issued this week, it is expected that the program won't solve the problem of long lineups for tourists in the summer.

Vancouver Board of Trade president Darcy Rezac said his group is pressing Canada Customs officials to accelerate the pass application and approval process, especially for former Pace members.

"The Pace system was a godsend to many of our members. Many members say it changed their lives and that they simply won't do business now in the U.S. because of the lengthy delays at the border."

Rick Turner, president of International Aviation Terminals, said he looks forward to quick implementation of the Nexus system.

"The lack of a fast-lane system has made travel between the Lower Mainland and Washington state quite inconvenient, time consuming and costly," he said.

The most frequent users of the Pace and CANPASS cards, and most likely of the Nexus cards, live in the communities near the border: White Rock, Langley and south Surrey on the Canadian side, Blaine, Lynden and Bellingham on the American side. Many, of course, came from the two major metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Seattle.

Lawyer Andersson said there was a large flow of people back and forth across the border. "Many people in Bellingham work in Vancouver and people in White Rock work in Bellingham. There are lots of mixed marriages and dual citizenships.

"Many Canadians vacation in Birch Bay and Point Roberts while Americans like to come to downtown Vancouver for entertainment and Whistler for skiing."

The flow can vary somewhat according to the value of the loonie. A high Canadian dollar boosted the number of Canadians shopping at the Bellis Fair mall in the early '90s. The low loonie attracted American skiers to the north.

Nexus is for travellers only and will not be used -- at least in the immediate future -- for trucks taking commercial goods across the border.

"Trucks are more complex because they have cargo aboard and there is more paper work involved," said Totem manager Kohnke, whose firm uses trucks to haul goods across the border.

Nevertheless, Kohnke is hopeful that eventually truckers will use the Nexus lane.

"Theoretically it should be possible for Nexus to accommodate truckers. Hopefully it will happen, because this is a very busy crossing."

Truckers can still get quick passage across the border through the new Customs Self-Assessment (CSA) regime. Under this program, truck shipments are cleared immediately at the border after customs are given the name of the driver, the carrier and the importer. This data is then compared to the importer's profile, already established with the CCRA, to ensure the shipment is CSA-approved.

Importers qualified under the CSA system send their accounting data electronically to customs.

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A GUIDE TO THE NEW FAST-LANE SYSTEM

How to apply

Nexus forms are available on the Internet (GetNexus.com) and, starting July 19, at any Canada Customs or Citizenship and Immigration Canada office. Processing will done on the Canadian side at the CANPASS Processing Centre in Douglas, B.C. and at the Joint Canada/U.S. Enrolment Centre on the American side in Blaine.

Cost

The price of enrolment is $80 Canadian or $50 U.S. for a five-year period.

Waiting period

Canada Customs officials expect it will take four to six weeks to process applications. However, some immigration lawyers think it could take eight weeks or more to process the initial tide of applications.

Background checks

The applicants will be checked for any criminal record and violations of customs and immigration procedures.

Interview process

Successful applicants will be invited for an interview at the enrolment centre, which opens Wednesday, and is staffed by Canada Customs, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Prints of two index fingers will be taken at the office.

Among other questions, final-stage applicants will be asked if they have ever been arrested. The enrolment office in Blaine is expected to employ about 17 people, processing up to 8,000 people a month.

Identification cards

Nexus members will be given two cards: a photo ID card to be used when entering Canada and a "proximity" card to be used when entering the U.S.

Data contained in the proximity card will include fingerprints, a photo ID and Nexus membership information, including name, date of birth and Nexus expiry date. Everyone in the vehicle must be a Nexus member.

Nexus members approaching B.C. will have their licence plate scanned to verify registration in the program. The vehicle's occupants will then show their Nexus photo ID cards to the customs officers for identification.

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