Boaters waiting for fully open borders
Travelling hours away to nearest reporting site ‘not very convenient,’ says sailing club manager
Marina operators along the Niagara River and Lake Erie say they’re disappointed boaters crossing the Canada-U.S. border still aren’t allowed to access their ports of entry.
Boating clubs in Niagara want to see Canada Border Services Agency reopen its small vessel reporting sites, which prior to COVID-19 were places where both Canadian and American boaters could report their cross-border water activity.
Robert Ciupa is chair of the Smuggler’s Cove Boat Club’s operations committee, as well as a lifetime sailor. The club, based in Niagara-onthe-Lake, is one of dozens of marinas in the Niagara region still closed this spring: its services were suspended after CBSA restricted cross-border travel during the pandemic.
“We’re trying to be good citizens and offer a service to our community and our government,” he said. “We don’t understand why the CBSA higher-ups choose not to take advantage of that offer.”
Of the hundreds of reporting sites open before March 2020 in Canada, 86 have been reopened. CBSA said it’s taking a “phased and measured” approach to restoring border operations.
To date, only three sites have been reopened in the region: Lock 1 Port Weller in St. Catharines, Miller’s Creek Marina in Fort Erie and Sugarloaf
Marina in Port Colborne.
The issue, said Ciupa and other marina operators, is boaters will have to consume more time and more gas reporting back at one of these three sites, versus their own. For Smuggler’s Cove and Niagaraon-the-Lake Sailing Club, the nearest port of entry is Port Weller, adding one to two hours to the journey, depending on the weather.
“It’s not very convenient,” said Mark Minor, general manager of the NOTL sailing . “It makes people maybe not want to come from the States to Canada if that’s where they have to go to check in.”
Beyond using up time, it also presents a safety issue, said both Ciupa and Douglas Bienko, commodore of Buffalo Yacht Club, which uses the Point Abino Station in Fort Erie.
“Lake Erie is known for picking up quickly,” Bienko said, describing the lake’s conditions. “You’re spending an extra four hours on the water.”
A spokesperson for CBSA said the agency is making sure sufficient resources are available to manage the border, including potentially sending officers to a telephone reporting site to examine and confirm travellers are complying with public health requirements.
As of April 1, fully vaccinated travellers no longer need to provide a pre-entry COVID -19 test result, but partially or unvaccinated travellers do. Those arriving still need to submit other information through the
ArriveCAN app within 72 hours of re-entering Canada.
CBSA said it is conducting an analysis to determine where the closures of reporting sites are impacting its communities most significantly. As it resumes services, the agency will be considering, among other criteria, pre-COVID-19 volumes, proximity to other reporting sites and the availability of CBSA resources to provide services due to distance.
Niagara Falls MP Tony Baldinelli brought the issue before the House of Commons on Monday, pressing the government to reopen sites such as at Smuggler's Cove and Greater Niagara Boating Club in Chippawa.
“We need to meet the demands of our boating community by having all sites in Niagara reopened,” he said.
The CBSA spokesperson did not provide a timeline of when marinas can expect to reopen reporting sites.
Ciupa said he’s surprised they haven’t been reopened already, with Victoria Day this weekend and, on the other side of the border, Memorial Day on May 30. Holiday weekends usually see a high volume of cross-border boating activity, he said.
“We’re always hopeful, and we’re patient, but we share the same frustrations of thousands of other recreational boaters in Niagara,” said Ciupa.