It’s Canada’s turn for pre-, e-notification

WINDSOR — A select group of truckers attending the recent Driving for Profit seminar in Windsor, Ont., got an earful and a leg up on some big changes coming to border crossings.

The presenter was Debbie Dent, the director of Compliance and Customs with the customs experts Panalpina, and the topic was e-manifests.

In the name of efficiency, national security and economics, the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) is pressing on with automating all documents and information that arrives at the border before the driver and truck show up.

The e-manifest project is now in its third phase of the CBSA’s Advance Commercial Information (ACI) project and it’s already in place for goods crossing the border via marine and air.

“Like in the U.S.,” Dent said, “highway carriers will be required to report one hour prior to arrival at the border.”

That means the border will want to know everything about the driver, the vehicle and the freight and they will want to get the information electronically.

Currently, CBSA and various user groups are meeting to discuss details and a web-portal design but one thing for sure is, eventually, all carriers will have to register.

Data requirements for CBSA’s own emanifest program
will be detailed this summer.

For truckers and railway users, the changes will be phased in over the next five years, Dent told the audience, but it’s starting as a pilot project this summer.

However, CBSA and Dent agree that once implemented, crossing the border will be much less of a headache for drivers.

Here’s a few e-manifest FAQs courtesy of CBSA:

What does a fleet need to know?
Nobody’s quite there yet. Data requirements for carriers will be outlined in an Electronic Commerce Client Requirement Document, scheduled to be out this summer. But it’s likely you’ll need to transmit more or less of what’s already requiring for US Customs.

As much as possible, information requirements for highway carriers are being aligned to those of the U.S. e-manifest program. Also, the CBSA is developing an e-manifest Internet portal to facilitate the submission of data electronically.

When will e-manifest be implemented?
It should be running on all cylinders by 2012.

What will it cost carriers?
Compliance costs will vary, based on your volume of trade, your business processes and your chosen method of information transmission. Like in the States, the single portal will likely be used by smaller carriers.

Will e-manifest be mandatory?
As carriers already shipping to the U.S. know — you bet.