Cross-Border Modernization Picks Up on Both Sides, but User Fees Creep Higher

The Canadian Trucking Alliance has thrown its weight behind the newly introduced Building Canada Strong Act (Bill C-39), which it says is aimed at "cutting cross-border red tape" and strengthening national freight corridors that handle over 80% of Canada-U.S. goods movement. This aligns with a separate federal push to chart trade and transportation routes beyond the United States, signalling new modal and infrastructure investment outside the traditional southbound corridor. On the importer side, the Canada Border Services Agency has launched an updated Guide to Importing Commercial Goods into Canada, giving importers a single online reference for duties, classification and release procedures.

On the U.S. side, Customs and Border Protection is recruiting carriers for a voluntary pilot of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Electronic Export Manifest for Truck Cargo. For trucking operators running northbound and southbound lanes, this is the procedural counterpart to CBSA's new guide and could compress dwell time at outbound ports if rolled out nationally. The modernization push on the U.S. side, however, also includes fee increases: the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will raise Agricultural Quarantine and Inspection (AQI) user fees on October 1, with additional annual increases scheduled to follow.

For most cross-border shippers, Bill C-39's red-tape reductions and the CBSA guide are unambiguous wins — faster border clearance and clearer compliance steps. The AQI fee increase is the offsetting cost, applied per conveyance, per shipment and per inspection activity, and will land first on producers, distributors and carriers moving fresh produce, plants, livestock and seed across the border. Canada's push to diversify beyond the U.S. is a longer-term structural shift that may eventually open Asia- and Europe-facing options, but it does not change routing decisions for the bulk of Canadian tonnage, which still moves south today.

What shippers should do: Download and circulate the new CBSA importer guide internally, then map your highest-volume HS codes against the updated procedures. Re-price October cross-border produce, nursery and seed shipments to absorb the USDA AQI fee increase, and confirm with your customs broker or carrier whether the fee is being passed through or absorbed. Watch Bill C-39's committee progress, and if you operate U.S.-bound trucks, ask your carrier whether it plans to enroll in CBP's ACE e-manifest pilot.