I recently ran head long into a situation at a border crossing that puzzles me in that I had a portion of my load have its PARS clearance rejected. For those of you not involved with the movement of goods into Canada PARS stands for Pre-Arrival Review System in which the pertinent customs documentation is faxed to a customs broker with the bar coded PARS sticker attached complete with the vehicles license number(s) and estimated time of arrival at the listed port of entry.
This documentation must be faxed at least two hours prior to attempting entry for the appropriate actions to be taken and the information entered into Canada Customs and Revenue Agencies computers and the customs officers to approve the entry of the goods. Add to this that if it is a load steel in excess
of a certain value it requires a steel permit from the federal government.

Now being as I know the process involved in crossing goods into Canada I faxed the paperwork on a Friday (a full three days) prior to my crossing to the broker listed on my paperwork -- now it should be noted here that this broker is located over 800 miles from the port where I was crossing. I then called the broker to make sure that all the paperwork had arrived and that there would be no processing problems. I was assured that everything was in order. That the steel permit would be applied for and that all was well and I would have no problem crossing on Monday morning with this portion of my load. Guess what -- Yep I got to the border and everything cleared customs -- everything except that portion of the load. I then called the broker and they apologized but the paperwork had to be corrected as far as who was importing the goods and that it was discovered after they had talked to me. No attempt was made however to contact my company to let me know there was a problem and so to be prepared for it. It took an hour and a half at the border before the proper paperwork was faxed to a customs broker at my crossing port who was now acting on the first brokers behalf.

I now must provide a release form specially coded from my company hand filled in as at this point a manual entry must be affected. I am now required to walk the quarter mile to the brokers office and inquire if the paperwork has arrived from the first broker and explain what the problem was. A person from this broker asks to see the documentation I have wherein I explain again that my papers contain incorrect information and that the new corrected papers are being faxed to them from the first broker. This agent asks once again to see my paperwork and I comply. This agent then looks it over and tells me that there is no problem a manual release can be affected because all the information was right there, whereby, once again I explained that the information was incorrect and that the corrected paperwork was being faxed to them. This agent turns abruptly, goes back to their desk and proceeds to fill out papers then leaves for lunch without saying a word to me(yep I've now been here three hours). After a while another agent takes over and finishes the paperwork then brings it to me and proceeds to explain what they have done wherein I stop her and explain once again why the new papers were sent and what needed to be done -- she tells me that this first agent has done it all wrong and she will have to redo it. Another half hour passes and with the paperwork finally finished I go to customs where the officer acts as though I'm the last person they ever wanted to see takes my papers stamps my copy of the release and tosses it back at me.

I climb back in my truck three hours and forty-five minutes after I arrived and leave. Now you may think to yourself that's not so bad but who pays for that time as I don't get anything for this wasted time and I have to show it in my log as work time which is time taken off the actual time I can use to earn my living and not only on that day but because of the way the log system works it affects my time over the next seven days. I have spent as much as fourteen hours at border crossings due to similar mistakes.

So now lets summarize, an importer and two customs brokers made and compounded mistakes for which their penalty is -- oh I'm sorry. Myself and any other driver who finds himself at the border
under similar circumstances gets not only to waste their time but actually pay for those mistakes
through lost income with little or no chance of compensation or reimbursement for this loss. And best of all we work for companies that do not require that any added compensation be paid by the customer and will throw up their arms and inform you that, that's trucking. Also please remember that these brokers at this port are located a quarter of a mile from customs and on a warm summers day that's not a big deal, but this day the temperature was -28 and if I hadn't caught the second brokers mistake it would have been four quarter mile hikes. At the same time there was another of our drivers, an owner operator that was held up for over four hours due to an error in the application for a steel permit and this guy has tractor and trailer payments to make over and above our normal expenses. Yet he is the one who pays for the mistake not the ones who made the mistake.

Well that's another little gripe off my chest.