Guards letting shoppers cross border without duties & taxes

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(Updated)

Canadian border guards are reacting to a weekend report by the Canadian Press, accusing them of being too lenient with cross-border shoppers. They say stopping crime and criminals at the border takes a higher priority than tax collection.

Marilyn Taylor is shopping at the Canada One Factory Outlet Mall in Niagara Falls: “Because our Canadian economy needs all the help it can get.”

Anthony and Tina Hough agree. They own Springy’s Baby Goods store in Hamilton and say they lose business to cross-border shopping: “We have people blatantly shopping around calling us, letting us know if the prices they found in the states, or what they’re going to buy over here. And can we match it. They make little effort to hide it.”

Canadian retailers say they can’t compete — and they wish Canada border guards would do more to charge taxes and duties as a deterrent. But retired Canada Border Services officer Fred Milligan says lots of other things take precedence over taxes: “Some days you’re going to have 200 dollars. You’ll be sent in to pay tax on it. Another day you’ll have 500 dollars and you will be sent up the road. And I’m not going to tell you why. It’s just that things are going on.”

Things like guns and drugs and child porn and people trying to enter Canada illegally take priority.

Canada border guards resent the perception that they’re nothing but glorified tax collectors. It used to be one of their priorities was to protect the Canadian economy, but that mandate has shifted in a big way to border security, especially after 9/11. Canadian guards are now armed with guns and other weapons.

“Obviously the emphasis is on the criminal and the drugs and everything else that goes with it.”

Canadians make about 33 million same-day trips to the U.S. every year. And there is no exemption for same-day travel. Meanwhile, the border guards collect about $150 million in taxes — and no one knows how much isn’t collected.