Recurring CBSA system outages left trucks waiting hours to enter Canada

In April 2026, the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) called on federal Cabinet to pay for a permanent fix to the Canada Border Services Agency's (CBSA) ageing IT systems after weeks of recurring outages delayed trucks at major crossings in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba.

Carriers send cargo data to the CBSA electronically before arriving at the border. The CTA said clearance messages that normally take minutes were taking four to eight hours or more, with systems that looked stable in the morning slowing or failing under heavier afternoon commercial traffic. Some drivers waited in the United States for a whole shift before being cleared. Contingency and paper processes were available, but the alliance said they were slow and demanding for both carriers and border officers.

The cost

• The CTA estimated that about 11,000 commercial trucks enter Canada each day through Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba.
• Using delay costs of $300 per truck for four hours and $600 for eight hours, it put the daily cost to the supply chain at roughly $3.3 million to $6.6 million.
• Over a week, the alliance said, the added cost could top $30 million to $45 million.

Calls for investment

Lak Shoan, the CTA's director of policy and public affairs, said CBSA workarounds and IT updates showed the agency was committed to keeping trucks moving, but carriers feared the failures would continue until the system was replaced. He said the public safety minister had a modernization action plan, and Cabinet needed to give the minister the money to fix the system properly rather than keep patching it.

Mike Millian, president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, told trucknews.com the country's border crossing systems were antiquated and needed serious investment.