Tip of the iceberg

Dear editor:
The subject of refusal of U.S. citizens who want to visit Canada on vacation recently reared its ugly head again. We are referring to statements by CBSA at the Rainy River District Municipal Association’s annual meeting in late January.
While 606 visitors refused entry does not seem like a large number, let’s look at it from a different perspective. If we assume that all 606 visitors were visiting a resort, and would spend roughly $1,000 during their stay, the loss would represent around $606,000.
However, an important detail that CBSA does not mention, or record, is the number of people in the party who leave along with the individual who was refused entry.
Last summer, KDCA/NWOTA, the Sunset Country Travel Association, and Patricia Travel Region surveyed its members. The average number of people in the parties that were turned back with the person refused was 4.5 people.
Taking the loss for the 606 people and factoring in those that left with the person refused entry, the loss to Northwestern Ontario would be $2,727,000.
This is far from being a minuscule issue in our opinion.
Another issue brought out in a document sent to us by the Hon. Stockwell Day was that CBSA does not record those who were not refused entry, but left. In other words, if a person removes his request to enter Canada and returns to the U.S., he/she is not recorded in the stats.
How many more fall into this category?
To put this issue in perspective, prior to 2001 this minor criminal issue was not a problem because CBSA did not access the NCIC FBI database. In some cases, these so-called “criminals” already had been visiting Canada for many years.
Abruptly that all changed in the spring of 2001 when CBSA, without notice, started sending visitors back home after having travelled 12 hours or more in many cases. In some cases, the crime was more than 40 years old.
We are not saying we should allow criminals into Canada! We are not saying we should allow drunks into Canada! We are asking the question, “When a person has done his time and paid his fine, why must he pay again when he gets to Northwestern Ontario’s border?”
No other country in the world (to our knowledge) restricts visitors for minor criminal issues.
Has this new policy made Canada a safer place for Canadian citizens? We don’t think it has, but one thing we are certain is that the policy has made us a lot poorer. The economic impacts from these enforcement actions have been much greater than what CBSA is telling us.
If they were minuscule, then this issue would not have been front and centre for the past seven years.
While everyone is focusing on the CBSA on this issue, they are just enforcing the law. Our position is that the law needs to be reviewed.
We recently became aware of longtime U.S. property owners who were not allowed to visit their vacation property. In other cases, some U.S. business owners can’t get to their business.
What will the impact be to direct foreign investment when this word starts trickling down to those U.S. buyers who want to invest in Northwestern Ontario?
In our opinion, $2,727,000 is just the tip of the iceberg. It is one year’s loss that may not be complete because of CBSA’s recording methods, the fact that this has been going on for seven years, leaving a bad taste with every visitor involved, and the U.S. property and business owners not able to get to their properties in Northwestern Ontario.
With all of the other alternatives available to today’s travellers and investors, anyone thinking of Northwestern Ontario may be saying “why bother with the Canadian border?”
We applaud and support the Rainy River District Municipal Association’s efforts to bring common sense to an issue that is costing Northwestern Ontario millions and millions of new dollars from both tourism and direct foreign investment.
(Signed),
Jerry Fisher (President, NWOTA), Harald Lohn (President, KDCA),
and Gerry Cariou (Exec. Dir., SCTA)