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Point Roberts Border Troubles
the World this Weekend, CBC Radio, October 13, 2001
It’s happy hour at Brewsters restaurant. Five men are chatting and drinking at the bar. These regulars are the only customers in the place-all the tables are empty. Joan Roberts has owned the restaurant for six years. Like many Point Roberts residents, she is a citizen of both the US and Canada. She says this is the smallest crowd she’s ever seen at the Friday happy hour.
“I just don't see people waiting in a lineup for two hours for a dinner. It’s just not going to happen. Our community as a whole, everybody is talking about being down the same percentage. 30-40% down in business and these figures are in relation to the same period last year.”
The unique location of Point Roberts is creating problems which are more serious than most other border communities. Point Roberts is a town of one thousand people located south of Vancouver. The town isn’t geographically connected to the rest of the US. It’s on the tip of a peninsula that can only be reached from Canada. If residents want to travel to the nearest American city, they have to cross the border, drive for forty minutes through Canada and cross the US border at Blaine, Washington. This is because the 49th parallel cuts across the peninsula. What has been an odd historical quirk is now becoming a nightmare for residents since the borders have been tightened. The trip to Blaine now takes at least two and a half hours. On some days, it takes over five hours.
“Our community is very dependent on being able to travel across the border. We're basically land locked here. We travel across the border to do just basic functions. Go to the store, go to the gym. My kids play sports across the border in Canada. The Food Bank has a hard time getting food up from the four borders from the county. The kids travel four borders a day to get to school. It’s effected everybody in the community.”
Joan Roberts has had to lay off nine of her 21 employees. Residents of Point Roberts who work in the US cities of Blaine and Bellingham are also having incredible difficulties. The PACE and CanPass lanes which offered express border crossings for commuters are closed indefinitely. In order to get to work, some people are parking their cars at the border, walking through the checkpoint and finding other means of transportation on the other side.
Steve Fowler is a dual citizen who lives in Point Roberts. He works for a software company in Blaine.
“Everyday usually I've been commuting to Point Roberts and Blaine and it was very easy with PACE. It wasn't a problem. Now it’s a big problem, border line ups of 2 hours. I'm in the process of relocating my business back to Point Roberts rather than having the hassle of trying to go through the main border.”
Fowler was at small gathering last weekend at the Point Roberts border to draw attention to the need for more staffing on the borders. He says the uncertainty of what’s going to happen makes it difficult for Point Roberts residents.
“Well I think it’s obviously been a necessary situation. There's a bigger issue here for protection. I think Canada and the US have got to come to some arrangement to make it easier to get the regular people across the border.”
Jennylynn Fraser’s twelve year old son Stephen attends school in Blaine. Last month she received a call from the school saying her son had injured his head.
Jennylynn: “I phoned and checked the border crossings. It was an hour to leave Point Roberts, a 35 minute drive over to Peace Arch and the Peace Arch border was a four hour lineup, so there was no way I could get to the school and I couldn't get a hold of him, so I was really, I wouldn't say panicking but I was getting quite uptight about it.”
Stephen: “Well I was worried, wondering if I should get on the activity bus or wait for my mom…”
Jennylynn: “Thankfully he phoned so I told him to come home on the sports bus, but he didn't get home until after 7 o’clock and his head had been bleeding and he had a huge egg on it and thankfully ice and just resting at home looked after it. But I was very concerned because basically I had no way of getting to the school to look after him.”
Several weeks ago there was a meeting between 40 residents and Washington Congressman Rick Larsen. People voiced their concerns and Larsen agreed to take steps to provide more funding for border crossings. Last week US customs opened one more lane at the Point Roberts crossing. Lineups into town are now shorter. But crossing the main border at Blaine still takes several hours. Ken Peck is the Port Director for US Customs.
“I really can't say how long its going to be before we're going to deploy more staff. We’re working people long shifts, 12 to 16 hour shifts, to provide more lanes. We will always be looking a different systems and perhaps we can use technology but for the near term, our focus is in providing security at the border and not in providing facilitation lanes.”
Jennylynn Fraser says her family is thinking of moving to Blaine if things don’t change soon.
“And for us it’s so restrictive that we feel, I feel and I've spoken to many people in the community, we feel that we're in a jail here. So we're just having to sit and wait to have the decision come down on the presidential level to determine how we live our lives day to day.”