COLUMN: Carillon Flashback March 17, 1971 – Customs officers watching over border at Emerson

To most Canadian travellers, the Customs offices at Emerson are a minor inconvenience when crossing back into Canada after a trip to the United States. But, for others, that routine stop at the border may be an embarrassment, or worse, should they happen to be caught with undeclared goods purchased during their holiday.

Customs regulations and restrictions may be a nuisance to some tourists, but the Canadian government regards them as essential in not only controlling traffic into Canada, but also the thousands of freight shipments entering Canada daily from our neighbors to the south.

The customs offices at Emerson, the largest of all border offices in the prairie provinces, handles the largest volume of traffic and goods coming into Manitoba and employs 41 people at the Emerson and Tolstoi border points. Customs and Excise is Emerson’s largest employer.

Only a fraction of customs men at Emerson are involved in checking cars as they enter Canada and contrary to what many people may think, they are not all intent on “getting” anybody.

In fact, they will go out of their way to accommodate people in hundreds of situations. The inspectors checking travellers, who are called line officers, say the human element in customs work makes the job continually interesting.

Many travellers have often wondered how a customs man suspects one vehicle and inspects every piece of luggage, while he permits another vehicle to pass through customs almost at a mere glance.

It comes with experience and from dealing with people, according to one Emerson line officer.

“We have really no sure way of knowing beforehand whether a tourist is hiding something from us.”

In any event, the customs officers at Emerson are pretty sure people are not putting much over on them. Further testimony to the alertness of customs men are several tables of confiscated merchandise in one of the offices at Emerson, which veteran appraiser Bob Hopper explains, were seized from travellers who either tried to sneak the goods across undeclared or had under-valued their United States purchases.

The display included articles of clothing, toys, ornamental household items and even a motorcycle, which had been found in someone’s trunk.

“I don’t quite understand how people think they can smuggle a motorcycle across. It was in plain sight when we opened the trunk during a routine check.”

The reasons for people’s efforts at smuggling from the United States are obvious. Not only are most manufactured goods cheaper south of the border, but smugglers evade heavy duties and tax fees if they can import merchandise undetected.

“But, if they’re smart, people will declare their goods, because it costs them much more if we catch them trying to evade payment of duty and taxes.”

Hopper says that not everything about customs regulations is negative. Canadians have duty-free exemptions, once in each calendar quarter, provided they remain in the United States for at least 48 hours.

Goods, including tobacco and alcoholic beverages, may be imported, as long as they are for personal use and not for resale. Special importation regulations apply to tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. Duty free exemptions include up to 50 cigars, 200 cigarettes, two pounds of tobacco, 40 ounces of liquor or 24 pints of beer. The latter exemption was increased only last summer, Hopper said, to take into consideration that beer contained only a small percentage of alcohol.

Additional exemptions are in effect for persons who remain outside Canada for one year or more.

The same restrictions applying to tourists, who bring across a few individual household items, also apply to large importers who might import several truckloads daily from the United States and other countries.

– with files from Peter Dyck