Border officials reopened two Nexus and Free and Secure Trade (FAST) enrolment centres in Ontario this week, but the MP for Windsor West wants more information.
Anyone looking to get Nexus approval can schedule interviews, by appointment only, at the enrolment centres at the Thousand Islands Bridge in Lansdowne and at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie.
The Nexus program has over 1.7 million members, and is designed to speed up the border clearance process for members while also freeing up more time for security agents on both sides of the border to tend to unknown or potentially higher-risk travellers and goods.
Brian Masse says information on when the Nexus centre near Windsor will re-open hasn't been communicated to him, something he says is another example of the need for a Safe Border Task Force.
He says there's an over 300,000-person backlog for Nexus alone.
"So I've been calling for re-instatement of the ones that are just out dated in the short term, making sure there's going to be some virtual elements. It is good that two have opened up, but we still have several that still have to be opened, 11 others in particular including the Windsor area. This is something we need to have better clarity about," he stated.
NEXUS allows commuters, workers, and travelers in the US and Canada to cross the border rapidly, something Masse says is essential to the trade between both our countries.
He says for businesses it's frustrating because they have to tell customers and operations people they don't know exactly what's going on.
"They have to spend time explaining the government's lack of communication, and then kind of just shrug as to what the next steps are, and that's not an effective professional way to deal with these things," he continued. "When it comes to tourism and the interaction between our American colleagues it really undermines the other strength of the relationship that we have."
Masse says border communities suffered disproportionately during the pandemic due to the closures, and a little communication on this file especially would go a long way.
"Clear communication with a proper process would be very helpful in itself. We could wait out a month or two months if that's what it's going to be, help plan things and get people organized. It's the same kind of non-sense we saw with the passports when it came to basically not looking at the numbers of when people are coming due, and then dealing with it through crisis."
Masse believes it's another example of ignoring border communities, citing the fact that the City of Windsor has yet to be reimbursed the nearly $6-million dollars in costs related to the Ambassador Bridge blockade as one example.