The United States isn’t the only country in the western hemisphere that’s worried about who’s coming across its southern border. Now Canada is enforcing regulations that apply to foreign visitors, including American tournament fishermen on boundary waters such as the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River and the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair at Detroit. It gets up close and personal for FLW Outdoors, because we’ve got Walmart Bass Fishing League and EverStart events scheduled for those locales.
On behalf of the anglers likely to fish its tournaments near the Canadian border, FLW Outdoors has made its concern known to authorities in both countries. Being required to show documentation and answer questions about the purpose of a visit to the Canadian side of a waterway is a bit off-putting to a tournament angler who’s in a hurry to get to the next fishing hole before the other guys.
Like the U.S., Canada has had various border-crossing rules in place for years and, also like the U.S., it hasn’t enforced some of them until lately. It all came to a head on May 30 when Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers apprehended Roy Andersen of Baldwinsville, N.Y., and a friend as they were fishing the Gananoque Narrows on the Ontario side of the Thousand Islands. Andersen, who hadn’t cleared it with the Canadians before he went fishing, was fined $1,000 on the spot. Andersen paid the fine then and there because he was told he would be arrested and his boat confiscated if he didn’t.
Again, Canadian customs law provides for such action, though authorities have tended to look the other way in years past. Perhaps the policy change is due to today’s political climate; maybe it came about because somebody in authority north of the border thought it was high time the country’s customs and immigration laws were enforced to the letter. Once the news of Andersen’s difficulties came to light, new York Congressman William Owens sent a letter to Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Garry Doer in which Owens asked Doer to express his strong concerns over the incident to the Canadian government. The congressman also made reference to an article in the Syracuse Post-Standard, which quoted a CBSA official who said “they [CBSA] don’t normally fine people, but is a requirement to report to Canadian customs under the Customs Act. All private boaters have to report.”
However, another CBSA spokesman, Chris Kealey, said that it was his understanding of Canadian law that boaters were required to report to a customs office in person only if they plan to anchor in Canadian waters or visit somebody in Ontario. Otherwise, they can report to a local Canadian customs office by telephone.
Rick Perry, who serves as a liaison between the FLW Outdoors tournament department and Plattsburgh, N.Y., is running interference for Yankee fishermen now with Canadian customs in that area and trying to nail down exactly what the rules are.
“My idea is to ask a Canadian customs official to come to a registration and pre-tournament meeting and be provided everybody’s information all at once and give them permits,” says Perry. “The worst possible scenario is that all the boaters in a tournament have to go over to a customs office in Canada, report, and get a permit number.
“I was told that the plan that I outlined sounded reasonable and that it would be forwarded to the proper [Canadian] federal authorities for review and, hopefully, implementation.”
We’ll see. When all is said and done, you really can’t fault Canadian authorities, because all they’re doing is what the average American citizen wants its government to do on our borders. Everybody is tense these days, nobody is trusted and we can’t even move around freely in our own homeland, much less in Canada.
Osama must be watching such developments from his special place in hell and smiling. All that he set in motion on September 11, 2001 is coming to pass, and much more besides.