Border Wait Times

(The Canadian Press)

Internal documents confirm what union officials have been saying for years – the wait times for travellers that Canada’s border agency posts on the Internet may not be reliable.

The agency claims it meets its target of “10 minutes or less” Monday through Thursday and “20 minutes” Friday through Sunday, at least 90% of the time. But an agency briefing note from April of this year acknowledges there is no standard measurement of wait times, which it says are based on personal judgment.

The document was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, and says methods of estimating wait times are specific to each of the 22 border stations, and involve only a visual inspection. The note adds the data cannot be used as a predictor of exactly what the real-time wait will be.

A 2004 check of wait times by front-line officers found widespread under-reporting – in some cases by as much as two hours.

A spokeswoman for Canada Border Services Agency says it has launched a project to find a way to produce more reliable numbers.